#bc those were focusing more on feelings in specific and isolated points of time

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

man what do you mean i actually have to think about how the plot will progress. what do you mean i cant just wait for the author to figure it out and present it to me. (i am the author)

[shirogane-oushirou]

[cw mentions of ableism. talking / venting about the sharing vs non-sharing shit (i do not lean towards supporting one "side" over the other); starts out relatively neutral-toned but i start to sound frustrated part way through. i also have a more personal ramble at the very end that has a separate cw list. it's also long... don't feel obligated to read. i just needed to say things and be Done with it.]

man. i'm ready for all of the sharing vs non-sharing back and forths to stop.

to be clear: this isn't some "i'm above this argument" thing. on the contrary; i completely see where both "sides" are coming from! i simply mean it shouldn't be so difficult for a select few shit-stirrers to Get that selfshipping is a personal thing, and we should be able to ship in whatever way makes us most comfortable.

if someone is non-sharing, they should be allowed to create those boundaries without being harassed or called "immature" or "delusional" by sharing people. beyond how supremely ableist that is, nobody has the right to say they can't view their f/os in a certain way, no matter if other people don't understand those feelings.

if someone is sharing, they should be allowed to share their feelings for a character openly with other sharing people without being sent hate from non-sharing people who think they're "loose" or who want to be their f/o's "one and only". shaming people for being open to sharing is fucked from multiple "sexual / romantic purity" and "anti poly-[sexual / romantic / platonic] relationships" angles, and nobody has the right to claim sole and total ownership over a character they did not make.

and yet, every couple of weeks, we get posts from a vocal minority making a huge fuss over "the other side", when it's just a vocal minority FROM that other side ALSO making a fuss. and then those vague posts leave their intended orbit and cause more mis-worded posts and misunderstandings and off-the-cuff bigoted statements, and the cycle starts again.

we should theoretically be able to respect each other while focusing that energy on, oh i dunno, chasing harassers out of the community? getting selfshippers who aren't part of a specific marginalized group to help selfshippers from that group when they're harassed, maybe?? especially when the sharing vs non-sharing Thing very often coincides with bigotry; people who are harassing others tend to not just stop at being petty or mean, they make it personal.

and -- not as important but a nice little bonus -- i would think that working towards a community that's more safe for everyone in it would also "coincidentally" (/s) get rid of the shit-stirrers, whether because they were kicked out or because they realized what they were doing and grew as people.

---

[cw ableism, vague death ideation, non-physical self harm mention]

i was originally gonna put this bit in the tags, but i think i should put it under the cut bc it's a little personal + it got too long.

also, i try to stay in my lane and not discuss details about delusions or how to approach them -- i've only experienced them a couple of times, so i'm not going to claim to know much about them -- so if i've overstepped, PLEASE let me know and i'll edit or remove anything i've misspoken about.

but coming from someone who went too deep into selfshipping in the past and worries about the mental health of people who do: It's None Of Your Business!!

delusions aren't morally "bad" or "wrong". holding deep feelings abt a character isn't inherently delusion-based and also isn't morally "bad" or "wrong". and neither of those is the same as -- speaking from experience (above content warnings come into play here) -- being obsessed with a character to the point that you self-isolate and emotionally self harm because you wish so badly that the character was real and you believe there isn't a point to life if you'll never meet that character... and this is also not inherently delusion-based and ALSO not morally "bad" or "wrong".

these separate things -- delusions, deep feelings, and unhealthy obsession -- CAN intersect but just as often don't. none are immoral, and all are deserving of being approached with compassion and respect, in whatever way is most appropriate.

negative, harmful ACTIONS that some people take in these states are worth bringing up to them when it's safe to do so, depending on the details of their situation, but the states themselves don't have any moral weight. ie, if someone's harassing others for sharing their f/o because they're in a dark, obsessive place, that is a morally negative ACTION, not a morally negative mental state. they need to take responsibility for harm they've CAUSED, not for what they're experiencing internally.

but if you're calling people "immature" or "delusional" as an insult, something tells me you're not really considering that! whether through malice or just a lack of compassion, you don't see worth in how another person approaches this community.

you aren't better for thinking of a character a certain way, and neither is the person you're being ableist towards. if no harm is being done to you or others, you're just being a dick for the sake of being a dick. listen to other people, learn, and do better.

if you think someone is genuinely in a bad mental place because of selfshipping (wrt isolating and self harm), approach them as another human being. meet them where they're at. don't patronize them, don't call them "delusional", treat them like someone who has their own thoughts and values.

they may want help, or they may not, and you have to respect them for their choice no matter what YOU think is right. there is no truly right way to approach someone who's in a dark place, but you can at least avoid saying things that FOR SURE will make them feel talked down to, belittled, or shamed. if they aren't ready now, maybe they will be ready for help in the future, and shutting them down will make them less likely to seek that help.

(i was also going to put THIS in the tags but i should probably put it here: when i say 'learn and change' i mean it as a positive. people have the capacity to learn and grow and become better; if you've said something in all of this that can be read as harmful... consider why it's harmful and why you said it.

you aren't the same person you were a year ago. 5yrs ago. 10yrs ago. you have grown and you will continue to grow. but if you can be more aware of it and grow more purposefully and consciously? all the better.)

[unclefathersantateddy]

I think despite Linda's eccentric extraversion and confidence, over the years we have learned that Linda has also felt like a social outcast throughout her life!

In S10E21 Local She-Ro, Linda empathises with Tina's yearning for a different life in New York. She (Linda) discusses her teenage years, addressing her inability to appreciate her hometown/life, due to her focus on wanting to live like Madonna (in NYC iirc).

In S12E17 The Spider House Rules, Linda empathises with Louise's 'dangerous streak' (re: Louise wants to smash a mirror), explaining that she used to throw rocks at cars (to the extent that cars stopped going down her street, "because they knew Linda would get 'em").

Linda shows quite a lot of crossover with two Classic™ signs of ADHD (inattentiveness relating Linda with Tina & sensory/ thrill seeking relating Linda with Louise).

Starting w her teenage inability to appreciate her life or where she was, because of her hyperfocus on Madonna; In canon Linda even admits she couldn't "see" all the benefits/privileges of her life because of hOw focused on Madonna she was (she was Desperately Seeking Susan Madonna). The inability to be Present - if persistent, consistent, and frequent enough - can negatively impact every facet of one's life. It can deteriorate relationships, mental health, and in turn, cognitive function. Impaired cognitive function transfers into EVERYTHING. It prevents self-care, hygiene, health and fitness. All of these combined, can lead to depression. It's all an incredibly slippery slope for anyone, but especially for those who experience disproportionate adversity (i.e. the oppressed, minorities, women, poc, LGBT, NDs, etc. etc.).

As well as this, the several tidbits we've received about Linda's riskier side (throwing rocks at cars, S12E17; her willingness to fight anyone without any follow up questions, S13E9; their general pranks; standing up to bullies/Mean Girls, S7E19 & S13E13) to name a few, provides further insight on how Linda may have experienced social alienation or possibly isolation growing up. Risk taking behaviour is socially divisive, it attracts other risk-seekers/takers, and deters non-risk-seekers/takers. This is not always a Conscious™ divide (i.e. people don't always necessarily or inherently Choose to be attracted/deterred). 'Risk' as a concept/phenomenon is divisive due to its core loss/reward function; some people are simply less inclined to take a loss than others. (I was going to keep explaining Risk but I feel like I'm tangenting so I think I've explained it enough for what I'm talking about lol). Point being, people being deterred by risk is not always Active Judgment™, it can be biological apprehension (like how some people are biologically afraid of spiders bc their DNA remembers ancient™ times when spiders were way bigger and way more of a common threat - this is a massively simplified explanation but you get it). But regardless of whether or not those who are deterred have a Conscious apprehension, the experience of being a deterrent comes with rejection. In short: regardless of whether you judge someone, being deterred and rejection are two sides of the same coin. Does that make sense? There may be no judgment but deterrence is rejection, and for the aforementioned adversity-prone demographic (like ND people), that rejection can often be accompanied by Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). RSD is self-explanatory, it's a sense of Dysphoria caused by a cog/beh/soc hyper-sensitivity to rejection, primarily (if not exclusively) in neurodivergent individuals (not specifically exclusive to, but seemingly mostly reported in, ADHD - but that's a whole thing for another time). Therefore if Linda is ADHD-written, she's almost definitely experienced RSD.

Further, we've seen how both Tina and Louise struggle with their respective ND symptoms, so to know both the girls get these specific traits from their mom suggests that she (Linda) went through the same struggles as a ND teenager herself.

Because of Linda's confidence and extraversion as an adult, but knowing she went through the same struggles as a teen/young person that Tina/Louise do, I imagine that Linda's late teens/ early adult life was very chaotic and turbulent due to her being ND in that time's culture.

She was a neurodivergent woman who reached her youth's "peak" in the 90s (going off Linda's canon age being 43 when the show started in 2011), a VERY culturally turbulent transition era. With 1981-1995 (ish) being Millennials, and 1995-2010 (ish) being Zoomers/Gen Z, the 90s has informally been coined the era of the "Zillennials", a demographic that doesn't fully fit in with Millennials OR Zoomers, which I think is perfectly apt for the Belchers / the Burger show in general.

So contextually, Linda is/was;

A woman in a patriarchal society

A neurodivergent in a neurotypical society

In her "peak" (final brain development) during a HUGE cultural transition

All of which are contributing factors that help shape a person's fundamental sense of self and their relationship with/understanding of the world. With that in mind, I truly believe Linda has likely experienced the "feeling fundamentally different ... without knowing why" phenomenon from such an early stage of her life (pre bob, pre kids, etc) that it has caused her to become lively, extraverted, and confident as an adult. So she can help protect and guide her children, to navigate the world as neurodivergent people. Ensuring they always feel safe, endlessly supported and LOVED, with unconditional positive regard.

You see an upcoming surge of ND Parents™ on social media, showing how they are all-patient, all-understanding, and all-supportive of how their ND kids learn and interact with the world. I firmly believe Linda Belcher was the Early Wave™ (think, pre-mainstream social media) of this parenting trend. This woman has combatted alienation, isolation, rejection (just to name a few) and came out shining brighter than ever, so she can have a good life and provide one to her loved ones too!

She may be the embodiment of "live, laugh, love", but she's also the embodiment of "improvise, adapt, overcome". Linda Belcher has lived a life so her kids can live life!

i mean i think "feeling fundementally different from everyone around you and not knowing why" is something all the bob's burgers characters struggle w/ to some extent. except maybe linda she's pretty confident lmao

[howtosingit]

if ur ok with it can u break down the tarlos huggggg in the lst ep after tk tells evy1 abt his addiction? bc that gd huggggggg i wanna no every thing u think abt it i live for ur love for tarlos theyre just so so cuteeeee

IF I’M OKAY WITH IT?! Anon, I feel like I have been waiting my entire life for this ask. I could literally talk about this hug for the rest of my existence. I would talk about this hug every second of every day if I could and never get tired or bored. This hug has owned my entire heart from the moment that it happened and I can never get enough of it. Brace yourself for this essay, and remember that you asked for it...

Okay, so before I get to the actual hug, I want to talk for a minute about why I love it so much and also how fantastic the scene is that comes before it. I’ll try to keep both of those brief (LOL). If you want to skip to the hug breakdown, I’ll give the sections titles. 

Why I Love This Hug

So, why do I love this hug so much? Honestly, because I never in a million years thought we’d get something like it, and it was a big turning point for me.

I have not been quiet about how disappointing I think season 1 was. Too much Owen being Owen, too much Iris plot (which never interested me for even a single moment, unfortunately), not enough of the other characters - specifically the characters of color - and definitely not enough Tarlos.

Following episode 3, the show established a really frustrating pattern with Tarlos: they either never interacted with one another, or there was a moment of them at the end of an episode where they were in the same place physically but never spoke directly to one another. Frustration doesn’t even begin to describe the Tarlos talking drought between episodes 3 and 10 - and honestly? It’s bad writing. To focus on a ship for 3 episodes, giving them a lot of different nuances and conflict, and then do absolutely nothing with it? Stupid. So, going into the finale, my expectations were low. At that point, I was literally tuning in just to catch a glimpse of Carlos, with the expectation that that was all I would get. I really didn’t think I was going to watch the show after season 1. 

When the finale started with a Tarlos scene, I was honestly very surprised. But, then, of course, it was a “break up” scene, and I was like... well. So much for that. See, I fully expected, based on the trend throughout the later half of the season, that that would be the only Tarlos scene we would get, and that that is how they would end season 1. 

But when that camera cut to Carlos Reyes walking through the station door looking like a modern-day motherf*cking Prince Charming? I cried. I’m not ashamed to admit that. And then WHEN WE GOT THE HUG?! I can honestly still feel my heart pounding in my chest.

The finale didn’t fix everything for me; they still barely talk in their final two scenes. It’s not all perfect. But this hug, this small moment? THAT. IS. PERFECTION. (And I’m gonna go on and on about why in just a minute!)

Framing the Hug

I just want to take another moment here to chat about the entire fire station scene with TK and the team/Carlos because there’s a lot that informs why this hug is so freaking incredible. It has everything to do with the directing choices that were made - and boy were they good ones!

We all probably remember how the scene starts: extreme close-ups on TK as he sits waiting for the crew to come back. He’s anxious and possibly having a mild panic attack, and the camera is used to create that moment. Certain shots are out of focus, the shots that are focused are zoomed in to his mouth/hands/eyes, the sound is distorted, his breathing is isolated. It’s all super effective. 

So the observations that I make about this brief moment are: TK is stationary, the camera is basically attacking him. And TK is alone. Pretend for a moment that the camera is a character. The camera won’t leave him alone. No one is there to help him. His anxiety grows. 

(Even when the team joins him, the camera stays pretty close to him, except for one moment where it backs off but then approaches again. It continues to invade his personal space and his personal moments with his friends and his dad.)

Now, compare that to how the scene ends: TK walks away from the camera, the camera doesn’t follow him. It gives him space. His interaction with Carlos happens in the distance. If the camera is a character, TK defeated that character. He leaves it there, it no longer threatens him. I just really like that visual storytelling; that through the 4 minute scene, TK not only faces his demons, speaks his truth, and conquers his anxiety but he beats the camera and goes off to hug Carlos untethered. (He even bounces towards him, but we’ll get to that in a minute.) That doesn’t really have anything to do with the hug specifically, but I thought it was interesting anyway.

The other comparison that I want to make is a simple one, but it’s another reason why I love the hug: TK initiates it. He doesn’t initiate the group hug with his team (he actually almost says “we don’t have to do that” when Mateo moves towards him), though he obviously enjoys it. Owen initiates their hug, flinging himself at his son, and TK obviously appreciates it.

But the Carlos hug? TK approaches him, TK raises his arm to wrap around Carlos’s neck.

Okay, now to finally answer the original ask...

LET’S HUG IT OUT: THE BREAKDOWN THAT WAS ASKED FOR

First, can I just say from his first appearance to the end of this scene, Carlos is there for 20 seconds total and I am about to write a whole-ass essay about those 20 seconds?! I’m literal trash.

Okay, so Carlos appears looking like a fucking snack. He’s changed since the bus accident, looking like someone’s hot date, and I think we know whose... Owen is basically like “well this is unexpected” and honestly, same sir. TK is adorable and noncommittal, but clearly not surprised to see Carlos there. We’ve missed a moment between them since TK was sent to the hospital and Carlos called him impressive, that’s for sure. 

So when TK starts to walk towards him, the camera refocuses on Carlos and we see this adorable freaking look on his face that clearly says “how did it go?” or “all went well?” or something to that effect. I think Carlos knew what TK was doing at the station and he knew that it was a big deal for him, and I love that even before they are next to each other, he’s checking in to see how it went. He’s invested in TK’s well-being - as always - and he’s there to support him, both physically and emotionally. I COULD SCREAM.

In response to Carlos’s silent questioning, TK throws his head back and sighs. Like I said before, he seems to bounce towards Carlos, his body is pretty loose - his arms are swinging back and forth. This is a guy who just took a load off, and he’s relieved about having done so. The smile that Carlos gives him in answer says that he’s relieved too - that it went so well, that TK seems lighter. He might even be relieved that TK is being so much more open with him, clearly showing him his emotions. Their body language for this entire moment is very open, neither of them seem closed off. It truly does feel like, for the first time, they are meeting each other on equal footing, with all of their cards on the table before them. It’s such a different moment for them, certainly different than their body language during the boba date earlier in the episode.

I would be an absolute idiot if I did not pause and remark here how INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT IT IS that TK is the one that approaches Carlos. I’m not the first person to notice and say this, but Carlos “I hate being the one doing the chasing” Reyes stops just inside the door. He lets TK walk towards him. It’s such an interesting, nonverbal conversation between them. In this action, Carlos is saying “I’m here, but I’m still not going to force anything. You said you wanted space, so I’m giving it to you.” Sure, he comes to the station - but I would pay good money to bet that TK invited him there following some kind of conversation about what he was doing there - but he stays at the door. He’s cautious, but open. He wants something more with TK, but he’s not going to throw himself into it just to get hurt again. So, he waits. AND TK COMES TO HIM. TK leaves his own space and enters his. TK takes the final step. TK closes the gap. TK makes the big move, and they’re finally both right in front of each other, on the same wavelength. The find that solid ground from which they’ll build their relationship together. ISN’T IT JUST BEAUTIFUL?!

Seriously, kudos to��Bradley Buecker for directing this episode with multiple levels of storytelling at play. It’s really great stuff.

OKAY, there’s a little Owen and Michelle moment, but then the camera finds Tarlos again. 

TK is standing in front of Carlos, they’re completely fixated on one another, their body language is just so fucking casual and comfortable I cannot stand it. See, the other hugs were all pretty intense: the team piles on top of TK, burying him, and Owen practically throws himself at TK, it’s a fairly hard hug for a man with an injured shoulder. But this hug? NOPE.

It’s so soft. It’s so gentle. TK raises his arm like he just can’t not wrap it around Carlos’s neck, like it’s the only way to be as close as possible to him and being as close as possible to him is all he wants in that moment.

What I really love about this hug is that it feels like two people who hug not because the moment is demanding it, not because they’re reuniting after a long time apart, not because they’re in a heightened state of emotion. 

These two hug like it’s just what they do, what they always want to be doing, like they don’t know how not to do it. The whole thing reads like “Hi, I’m TK and my arms belong around Carlos” and “Hi, I’m Carlos, and my arms belong around TK, what else would I be doing with them?” (It’s also the vibe I get from the club scene where they wrap their arms around each other.)

IT’S INTIMACY, Y’ALL.

Look, to be a Tarlos fan, I think you have to be willing to look at the relationship on two different levels, right? One is what they verbalize to each other, which is admittedly very little (season 2, come through). The other is the story that they tell through their body language. These two have seemingly always been on the same page physically. It just comes naturally to them, from the minute they first dance to their obviously very pleasing sex scene to the way they flirt in the bar to the club to Carlos at TK’s bedside. 

Their chemistry is made clear through how they physically relate to each other, and never is that more clear than in this hug that LITERALLY LASTS 2 SECONDS BUT CONTAINS MULTITUDES.

Okay, back to it... so TK strolls towards Carlos, Carlos waits for him - they symbolism is making me scream - TK raises his arm, it’s all super casual...

And then he just kind of literally falls into Carlos’s body, and Carlos basically just catches him. HOW BEAUTIFUL IS THAT.

They don’t even speak but because they’ve had a nonverbal conversation with just those looks that I talked about, there’s just this understanding that TK needs to just collapse a little bit and he never for one second doubts that Carlos will hold him up. THAT’S JUST WHAT THEY DO.

OKAY OKAY OKAY now we’re going to break this down from head to toe.

Like, the way that their heads just rest against each other, TK pressing close - I can almost imagine that he breathes in the scent of Carlos’s shampoo, his nose is pressed right there in his curls. AND JUST IMAGINE HIS SMILE, I BET IT’S BLINDING.

I love that their heads kind of curve around each other kind of, perfectly Yin and Yang - like, from above they would totally look like that symbol.

MY FAVORITE PART OF THE ENTIRE THING: CARLOS FREAKING REYES NUZZLING INTO TYLER KENNEDY STRAND’S NECK, LIKE HE JUST SHOVES HIS FACE RIGHT IN THERE

THE NECK KISS MADE ME SCREAM SO FUCKING LOUD THE FIRST TIME I SAW IT I COULD NOT HANDLE IT

First, it’s our first kiss since episode 2. 

Second, THE INTIMACY OF PRESSING A KISS TO SOMEONE’S NECK - LIKE THAT IS SUCH A SOFT PART OF YOUR BODY, THERE ARE TENDONS THERE, YOU CAN FEEL SOMEONE’S PULSE THERE - LIKE OH MY GOD

Nothing screams “I want to know every part of this man on a deep, committed level” than a fucking neck kiss, and Carlos Reyes just... he fucking does it. 

Okay but he really does bury his whole face in there like he wants to keep it there forever, I have truly never seen something so soft in my entire life. 

I’m so in love with them I could puke.

But like, that’s why this moment means so much to me, because I really do think that it’s a solidifying moment for both of them. 

For TK, it’s a “It’s okay if I stumble or fall because this man will catch me or help me up” thing

For Carlos, it’s “he wants me, he wants this, he’s taking literal steps towards this thing between us, and he encourages me to sink into him, he wants me to do that, he really wants this”

Like, fuck. 

Moving down... we gotta appreciate Carlos being mindful of TK’s shoulder, unlike literally everyone else who has hugged him. Like, he doesn’t even go anywhere near those stitches because there’s no fucking way he’s going to watch TK bleed out for the third time, nope.

And the way that Carlos just slides his arms around TK’s waist, pressing his palms into his lower back?! 

I think there’s a whole like, thing, where when a person’s hands are flat and open they’re like, open and vulnerable. So there’s just something about the way that Carlos presses both of his open palms against TK’s back that feels so open and vulnerable and honest to me.

Also, the way that he literally covers as much of TK’s back with his hands as possible? He doesn’t place his hands on top of one another, he stacks them along TK’s spine - he completely covers the entirety of his lower back. That’s a really vulnerable part of the human body, and Carlos instinctively protects it. AND TK LET’S HIM.

Okay, finally, down to their feet: TK really does collapse against Carlos, throwing himself on top of him and trusting that Carlos will keep him upright. All of his weight shifts to that forward momentum, he even goes up on the toes of his right foot. Carlos plants his feet, and as TK sways into him, he wraps him in his arms and gently centers them so that they don’t tip over to the ground.

He literally re-balances them. The two of them together find a balance with one another during this TWO-SECOND HUG. They shift, they steady themselves, they sink into one another.

It’s literally symbolic of them both being completely, 100%, without question, ready for the next phase of their relationship together.

They keep each other standing, and that’s fucking true love, y’all.

I honestly cannot wait for season 2. This hug and the final scene on the hood of Carlos’s car - with TK again making the move to embrace their relationship by physically reaching into Carlos’s space for his hand and dragging it into his own space, firmly opening the door to his heart to let him inside, while also settling Carlos’s hand between his own to let him know that he’s willing to protect him and his heart too - makes me believe that we are in for some truly wonderful romance with these boys. 

My heart will not stop screaming about it.

[crispy-ghee]

Forgive my absolute novice question, but those environment studies are BEAUTIFUL! I've never done them but I want to try, since it's good practice. What's your process, do you have any advice?

Thank you! No reason to apologize either. I can give a glimpse into my process, but fair warning it’s quite messy (I did this one quickly after work as an example) and I might not have the besssst explanations for everything. 

Everything under the cut!

I do these off of photos I find on google images, since i’m not using them for profit or anything like that. I kind of decide what i wanna try and study (tropical scenes, forests, mountains, whatever) and then just look for an image that strikes me. 

Something to note when you’re going into this is to have some idea of what you want to try and focus on. If there’s a specific thing you want to work on or capture when you do this. For me, it was trying to get better at seeing and picking colors, plus maybe fiddling w/ how mountains and rocks work haha

Having a specific goal makes doing studies easier because you don’t feel like you have to focus on basically everything when you’re painting. When the end goal is just ‘get better,’ that’s a lot of stuff you have to try and get right or pay attention to! Doing things one at a time is good.

So anything like...Wanting to understand color, wanting to understand shadows, wanting to understand light, wanting to know how trees work, or even something like ‘i saw this photo and i like how the light hits this one particular spot and i wanna capture how that spot feels’--just give yourself something to focus on!

Anyhoo, I picked this one. wanted to try a desert scene. My focus, again, is trying to understand color a lil better (kinda gave myself a rule, which was ‘no colorpicking’)

I work on a really tiny canvas btw like... 3 inches by 2 inches, and with a kinda fat chalk brush with pressure opacity on. This makes sure i can’t get fiddly on it. 

Usually start with a really basic composition sketch that is definitely gonna be inaccurate, but that’s okay since that’s not what i’m doing this for lol

a lil more ‘detail’ pulling out the forms of biggest interest. sometimes this includes the a shape of a large shadow, like at the bottom! just the big important sections of the composition that you see. 

I start laying in the colors really messily, again going for BIG at first. Right now the focus is establishing those big spaces in the composition. Right now this also includes some of the stronger shadows, since those are important to the form of things. The colors I choose to lay down vary, but usually go for the sort of ‘mid tone’ that i can suss out, maybe a a bright hilight, and then a deep shadow. 

lol okay this is definitely a jump forward. But you can see i focused on the mountains. I ended up painting over that tree because it wasn’t in the right place anyway.

Anyway, TIPS on how I approached this: 

TRY NOT TO GIVE A SHIT OVER WHETHER SOMETHING IS SUPER ACCURATE. Just make sure that it reads!

Focused first on laying in the darkest shadows, bc those really inform a lot about the shape of the thing. 

A lot of squinting and stepping back, and also making the reference picture zoomed out small. This really makes the small detail disappear and helps keep you from getting caught up and confused by it. Sometimes you can eliminate certain details, or combine them with nearby details. 

I added some new colors here and there, but nothing too strong. I avoided introducing too many different colors though, and most of what i had was a result of mixing the colors I already. If you add a very different color, that creates an area of high contrast. Which can be great, if that’s the focus and you want to hilight the area, tho! 

Tried not to draw outlines. In fact, I made sure most of my strokes were downwards or sideways to make sure that I had to focus on things as blocks of color. 

How do you do manage the shape w/out outlines? One thing to remember! You perceive form through contrast! Basically, in an area, how does the shadow butt up against the light? Look for those edges/places where they meet, and then think about how different those areas look to each other. Are the colors really different from each other? Are they similar? Is the edge hard, or is it more gradual? Look for those places where things meet!

Keeping in mind that color is relative. When you’re trying to figure out what color something is, peer at the color itself and try to isolate it. For instance a color may seem grey to you, but maybe it’s blue, and it looks much more desaturated bc you have it up against a really warm, bright color. Maybe what you think is a green is actually a red or a brown. SOME TIPS: 

If you’re not focused on color as your study, feel free to colorpick off the photo! You’ll see the difference between what you perceived and what the true color was, and you’ll learn from that!

I’ve gotten good enough to be able to peer at colors and separate them in my brain from the rest of the picture. If you can’t do that, then you can mask it out physically in photoshop so that it’s literally isolated! You’ll get way better at picking up on color differences this way, and then can work towards doing it without having to physically mask things. 

Questions to ask yourself when trying to figure out a color: Does it feel warmer or cooler? What hue is it (does it look purple or purple or red to you)? How saturated does it look?

Shadows usually gradiate. Shadows are made bc they block out light. So they’re darker when it’s harder for light to get into a space. So the further away from an edge or a crease, the lighter the shadow becomes.

Be wary about your colors getting too muddy, bc that happens when you’re mixing colors. Step back now and again, and if they look like they’re getting too grey or brown, feel free to paint some saturated color back into it.

Anyway, I added the trees (spent less time on them bc they’re unimportant to me lol) and cleaned up a couple other things...

And the last step is just creating a clean border around the painting to make it look clean! 

And there’s my study. 

ALSO

Also

the most most most important step

is to close the fucking Reference you were working off of and not look at it after that, because you’re gonna like what you did way better as its own thing when you’re not comparing it to the real deal lol

Anyway...I think that’s all i have to say? Idk. If something’s not clear, feel free to ask, but that’s what I got. This painting was pretty rushed so it’s not the *best* representation of everything, but hopefully it got most of the point across. 

[commanderfloppy]

have 🖊🖊🖊 for floppy, damia and link perhaps? i don't know much about any of them other than floppy and am eager to learn :D @kerra-and-company

Thanks @kerra-and-company! I definitely have a bit I can say about them!

(Under the cut bc this is long)

Floppy:

So one fun fact about Floppy is that she actually has a bit of an accent.

It’s masked because of years of making sure to enunciate and speak in that very traditionally asuran way, but if she is really tired, or inebriated in some way, it will start to come out.

The accent is a strange mix of the more country accent that nearby humans had, and then some of the city accent from Lion’s Arch (from lionguards). I’m not sure exactly what that sounds like, I imagine something between someone from the American Rural South and like...a Pirate.

Speaking of Lionguards, her home in the swamps was fairly close to the lion road (that while game lore doesn’t really cover it, I assume it had to be rebuilt as Lion’s Arch was only recently re-established), and a trading post sprung up there. When she was a kid she’d go over there and talk with all the trader’s and guards.

I think she definitely ended up with some kind of mentor/parental figure in one of the lead Lionguards there, they’re who taught her how to fight in a more physical/dirty way. They’re also definitely the one who taught her pirate swears/slang and how to down the strongest of grogs.

Damia:

With playing LWS2 and revisiting some of HoT, It really got me thinking how messed up she’d be during HoT.

Damia is part of the pact at this point, because her Wyld Hunt was focused on Orr (like Traherne’s) and it kind of got turned into ‘you go help Traherne or...something idk’, so since Traherne leads the pact she’s in it.

Anyways cut to the start of HoT when they go to the jungle and Mordey starts breaking into everyone’s minds. Damia was definitely very quickly and suddenly affected. I feel like she might have had some weird negging voice in the back of her mind during LWS2, but it was nothing new for her so she ignored it. But once they get close enough to Mordremoth for his call to truly be heard, it’s overpowering.

Damia is incredibly mentally sound and strong (she has to be), but her mind is also literally made for wandering ghosts to be able to easily break into, so Mordremoth is having no problem consuming most of her regular thoughts.

So HoT starts like this for Damia: she’s on an airship, everything seems to be fine.. The tiny voice in her head suddenly starts to get louder and louder, she rushes over to Traherne to tell him something is wrong but it’s too late. Vines spring up from the ground and the ship breaks into pieces, the voice becomes overpowering and she falls to the ground.

She can tell the ship is falling apart around her, and that there’s fighting, people are dying. But she can’t get up, she can hardly think with this loud voice yelling in her ear.

So with a bit of her strength, she reaches out and grabs a spirit from one of the first killed pact soldiers and gives them control of her body, essentially possessing herself.

The pact soldier (young and not at all ready to die) is confused and disoriented, but takes this chance to fight back and live for a bit more.

The rest of HoT is spent like this, Damia fighting for control of her mind from Mordremoth, and occasionally giving tips or information to the random pact soldier now controlling her body.

And of course, when Mordremoth is finally silenced and Damia comes back enough to know what is going on around her. It’s just in time to see her older brother(the person closest to her) Trahearne in a horrible state and dying. And while it was painful for her, I think she was the one to end him. Floppy was in a bit of a state and hesitant, but Trahearne was begging for death, so she stepped up and offered to deal the final blow.

After HoT she had a lot of emotions she needed to process, and was pretty broken. I think she returned to Orr (essentially isolating herself) and started work on clearing the leftover corruption from Zhitan.

Link:

I think I’ve said this before but Link was a bit ‘overcooked’ when he emerged from his pod.

His pod had actually been damaged during a nightmare court attack, this delayed his birth. Both these factors affected him in some different ways.

Because his birth was quite delayed (or maybe because the damage to the pod did something to the connection), he doesn’t remember his dream at all, he still has all the basic information of the world, and is actually a bit more emotionally mature than most sylvari (probably because his brain had a bit more time to develop), but he remembers nothing of his dream and doesn’t feel much of a connection to it.

While he was born with improved mental skills and maturity, his physical and motor skills were really underdeveloped (again a mix between pod damage and being in there too long), so he had to go through a bit of physical therapy to regain those skills.

Along with the physical therapy, he was also being checked up on by mender’s a lot since he was born a bit sickly, and I think does have a weaker constitution.

Another thing about him is that he has scoliosis (not too big of a curve in his back but enough that he does sometimes move a bit lopsidedly), and some form of chronic pain. I don’t have a specific label or diagnosis for it, but it’s the type of pain that is always vaguely there and will have bad flare ups from time to time (I think a bit of the pain is also concentrated in his back).

All of this is why he’s been stuck in the Grove for over a year, a mix of ‘your condition is too unstable for you to safely leave’ and also I think just fear of the fact that he has almost no connection to the dream. It makes sense why he eventually got fed up with being there and basically ‘broke out’ of the Grove.

[fairycosmos]

Sorry for bothering you angel but I have noone else to talk to.I really dont know what to do anymore. I'm so suicidal that I don't know how i'm still alive,how i'm able to breath it just doesn't feel right being alive.My mind keeps telling me to do something to end it all and I'm just numb.The worst thing is that even the closest person in my life doesn't know how bad it is bc i'm always the one to help them with their depression and im so drained.I'm just here to help other no matter how broken

hey love, i’m so sorry to hear you’re going through such a difficult time right now  😞 but you’re not bothering me at all, so don’t worry about that. firstly i really hope you’re currently in a safe environment and that you remain there, above all else. you were able to send this and reach out for some form of support even anonymously and that’s a really good sign. i’m proud of you for being here and for making it to this point, and i want to thank u for being so open with me because i know it’s not easy. secondly i really want to stress that you can’t believe anything your mind is telling you right now, seriously. one of the biggest illusions of mental illness is that it convinces you to think in black and white, to believe that everything negative is permanent and that there’s no way forward. but that’s never the case in reality. there is so much that can be done to change your habitual thinking patterns, your sense of self worth and just the general situation you’re in right now. in fact, change is inevitable if you stick around long enough to see it. it’s happening constantly, even when you don’t realise it. and so is healing and growth, even when you’re in pain too. it is entirely possible to recuperate, for happiness and peace to become a consistent theme in your future. yes, you. i know it’s probably impossible to believe in this moment but i hope you can still accept the sentiment anyway, because it’s true. and what’s more than that, you deserve it. you’re able to give your time and energy to others who are dealing with what you’re also dealing with, and that’s wonderful, but you are COMPLETELY worthy of receiving that same energy and love. i promise. if you need to take some time to focus on your own mental health rather than on those around you, then that’s perfectly fine and there’s no shame in that. it can be hard to internalize everyone else’s grief, and quite emotionally exhausting at times, so don’t let your mind make you feel bad for needing some space. it’s the most natural, human thing in the world. and i’m sure those that care for you want to hear what you’re going through too, i’m sure they want the chance to return the favour and to be there for you. you can give them that by opening up. no matter how hard it is to actually reach out, please please know that the option is always there and that you are never as alone as your mind wants you to believe. another tactic of depression is that it wants you to isolate yourself so you don’t feel the comfort of other people and their perspective, so the only thing you can believe is your own bad thoughts - but you CAN choose to subvert that urge, to talk to those around you about whats going on in your head. it’s okay. if not them, there are a lot of suicide/mental health hotlines available 24/7, and there’s also the option of talking to your doctor/a therapist/a support group to see if they can help you implement a treatment plan (if you haven’t done so already.) even if you have to force the words out, just tell them what you told me. it doesn’t have to make sense, you just have to let it out. sometimes mental illness is just as serious as physical illness and it needs real medical attention in order to overcome, and that’s alright. it’s something a lot of people go through, and it looks different for everyone. but just picking up the phone and making that appointment or talking to a loved one can make a massive difference. there is so much that can be done in terms of therapy - identifying the root causes of why you feel the way you do, giving you the tools to fight the episodes in a healthy way when they do arise - but at the end of it you CAN learn to live a happy and full life despite those days where you just want to give up. it’s a matter of time, finding the balance that suits you and getting through each day long enough to see the results of your progress.

i know it all feels like too much effort, and i’m not saying you have to do any of this right now. or that talking to someone will solve everything. and i’m very very familiar with that debilitating brand of numbness you’re describing - it makes everything genuinely feel beyond hopeless and so far away, it is so so heavy and i don’t blame you for being exhausted. but it’s also so possible for the feeling and the presence to return back to your life, one area at a time. i often think of it like my souls got pins and needles and i need to massage the numbness away with care and patience. you said you don’t know how you’re still alive - it’s because you’re supposed to be. it’s because some part of you, no matter how tired of all this shit you are, recognizes that there is a lot worth holding onto. even if your brain isn’t allowing you to see it in this moment. i hate to be cliche, but when it really comes down to it nothing would be the same without you. you exist and see this world through your unique perspective and love in your own specific way because you’re here. and no one else is you and that is more than good enough. there is so much waiting for you, man. recovery is possible in so many forms, and i’m not just saying that at all. i would fucking hate to think of you acting on your temporary emotions and only regretting it when it’s far too late to go back, and unfortunately i think that occurrence is very common in people who suffer through this sort of thing. as a person and as someone who has been given the chance to experience this world for a fraction of a moment in human history, i hope more than anything you can simply allow yourself to do that. and that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have bad days, or to hate this world sometimes because i absolutely do too. it can be hellish, and we have a right to be in pain. but that doesn’t mean we’re beyond hope and help. it doesn’t mean there aren’t a million different ways to make this all feel more manageable, one step at a time. some days getting through one minute at a time counts as a great victory, and you’ve done it a million times before. so please, if you feel like you’re in danger, please just call someone. don’t listen to your mind anymore, don’t feed into it. just get yourself to safety even if you have to act on autopilot. it’s going to be so worth it so much sooner than you think, im serious. you need some rest, maybe to practice some mindfulness and to focus your brain on some low energy positive coping mechanisms, and to let someone know how you’re doing if possible - all of this will allow you to stop spiraling inwards and start focusing on whats going on around you. i’ll leave a few links that may be of some service to you. please know that i care and that so many people do, that your life is so much more than this moment/what you’ve been through so far. if you need a friend or if you want to talk about this properly, please let me know. i’m here and i understand a lot of us do. sending so much, please stay safe above all else love. that’s all you gotta focus on right now x

https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/global-suicide-hotline-resources/

https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/suicidal.htm

https://www.healthquality.va.gov/guidelines/MH/srb/OvercomingSuicidalThoughtsandFeelingsFINAL.pdf

https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/depression.htm

https://www.mind.org.uk/media-a/2960/suicidal-feelings-2016.pdf

[gayregis]

ok also. i don't think geralt's into pet names BUT he's really just like. thoroughly physically affectionate. like he's not good with words but he knows very well just how and where his bf wants to be kissed and touched and what makes him feel good and what makes him feel appreciated both in terms of sex and in just in general and in turn jaskier is very vocal abt how good geralt makes him feel or abt how much he really appreciates him and his company and how he loves him bc They Know Each Other

in a little sacrifice when geralt begins tripping over his words around dandelion and essi... he was shortcircuiting from the pressure of having to speak in front of two poets. ... the thing is that geralt has the capability to be incredibly eloquent, but it’s only when he’s not thinking about it, and also usually when it’s about something he scorns, or a hateful situation (the nature of humanity, impending doom, the dangers and woes that ciri is facing...) ... when he has to speak about good things and love, he kind of becomes reduced to “you make me feel good in my heart :)” 

i know that this isn’t the ship on the table right now, but, i mean, it took geralt four books and like what, 10 years, to tell yennefer he loved her... i feel like with dandelion, there was less, ahem, drama in their relationship (they don’t really on again/off again, it’s more of a mutual everlasting thing) so it could have gotten to that point sooner between them, but it also has to be considered when exactly it turns romantic or geralt Realizes that he’s not only capable of love but legitimately loves dandelion ... not just in a friend way... 

(personally i understand the appeal of a ship that has love at first sight, but i really like the “love at second sight” dynamic in which they realize they’re important to each other right off the bat but only really realize their feelings later... also i think falling in love / realizing that you have fallen in love with your best friend is a common gay/bi experience...)

so i like to put the estimate of when geralt Realizes actually exactly at the point where dudu changes into dandelion in eternal flame. because at that moment geralt realizes that all he wanted to do when faced with dandelion is hold him, talk with him, be with him somewhere quiet, peaceful, and safe... that he loves him, even if he is wearing that stupid gaudy blue kaftan... that all he ever feels towards dandelion is this desire to be with him, spend time with him, protect him from anything that may come their way... dudu and geralt in this moment both were expecting geralt to raise his sword, geralt was already reluctant and never wants to harm innocents, but after dudu shifted form into dandelion, any kind of drive he possibly could have had for unsheathing his blade in an act of violence just got knocked out of him, blew away like the wind. (also worth noting that right before dudu shifted into dandelion’s form, he was in geralt’s form, and that only made geralt actually more OK with using violence than he was with dudu in any other form... geralt’s self-loathing knows. only a few bounds.)

the reason why i bring it back to this time geralt realizes he’s in love is because of that moment where all he wants is to just sheathe his sword, rush forward, and hold dandelion in his arms... feeling horror at the fact that his sword is glistening in his hand. he doesn’t know what to say, actually, in this moment. the dialogue becomes a monologue as dudu continues speaking in dandelion’s voice and form, and where geralt is supposed to repond, it just says: “geralt nodded reluctantly.” “the witcher said nothing.” “the witcher said nothing.” i interpret this scene as him basically being paralyzed with feelings, especially after a shard of ice where he and istredd went toe-to-toe and was told he can’t experience love because it’s a biological impossibility. he’s still thinking about this question throughout eternal flame, and it comes to a head in this scene, because what else, other than love, stayed his blade, paralyzed him?

geralt’s situation relating to his feelings and love are intensely complex. it’s not the simple “oh i have feelings for you but i’m too abashed to say them uwu,” but rather “i was born to be emotionless so i could fill a societal role and specific caste laid out for me but your presence in my life has changed everything and now i think i might be able to feel love, and i feel love for you” ... so yeah he has difficulty verbalizing all of that. especially when he hasn’t had a traditional upbringing with the presence of fairy tales and stories of love told to him since childhood, he’s missed out on a lot of “normal” societal things like this so he does not have a framework to understand his feelings through! no one told geralt that when you want to spend night and day with someone, sleep in the same bed, talk to them endlessly, and you feel like you can be completely honest and truly yourself and seen for who you really are around somebody... that’s love! 

before dandelion’s presence in geralt’s life, the idea of pleasant touch was really foreign to geralt. from contracts, he felt claws and teeth and maybe the sewing of a wound afterwards. from other contact with other humans, he felt nothing except the ocassional contemptous spitting or throwing of stones (legit what it says in the last wish). the witchers in KM seem to go for that masc shit (he and eskel hug for an imperceptable moment, blink and you’ll miss it) and i can imagine witchers roughhouse for fun and stuff like that, but in the outside world, with no one who could ever understand who he is, what he is, what role he was meant to play... it’s a very isolating life. 

i’m stealing an entire paragraph from this other post i wrote a while ago: “tbh there was probably an entire first week of their friendship where geralt flinched or became immediately alert when dandelion got close to him to speak, touch his arm in jest or gentle motion, or grabbed onto his hand, forearm, or sleeve in anxiety, because geralt just…. wasn’t used to anyone touching him, even in a passing or platonic manner.” geralt wasn’t used to kind touch, but he has highly trained mind-body coordination. i think in one part of tower of the swallow in a chapter prelude, witchers are called a “caste of warrior-priests” which just makes me think of the monk class in D&D... which can be a good analogy. geralt is NOT just a sellsword. his profession goes entirely much deeper, it’s literally what he was genetically altered to perform. this is why he has such a difficult time separating himself from his work, because it almost cannot be done. witchers do undergo extensive training, and especially individuals like geralt who are focused on ethics and morality take time to reconcile the physical and mental effects on their body. it’s not really just “guy with sword feels things physically bc that’s just how he’s wired,” but geralt has really tuned his soul and body together as a result of both his profession and coping with being forced into his profession.

so i think when dandelion introduces this concept of good touch to him in addition to the idea that he can be loved / deserves companionship, it’s natural for geralt as he becomes more in-tune with his emotions to feel them more physically. i ask whomstever is reading to take their mind out of the gutter bc this part at least is a nonsexual context, because they can put it straight back into the gutter later, since this post does involve dandelion.geralt’s emotions are practically on the same level of chronic pain as his shattered leg later on in the series. you know when you feel despair and grief in your chest, the tingling sensation of love in your arms and shoulders, the bristling anger on the back of your neck... it’s along those lines. 

so when he’s feeling emotions very heavily, and can’t begin to craft the statement beginning with, “so, i’m not supposed to feel emotions, but...” he just acts with his body. this can actually be seen in all the times he saves dandelion, saves yennefer (debatable b/c she’s pretty badass; it’s more like he helped her), and when he just runs to ciri without even needing to say anything in something more. 

in his worst times, geralt’s a man of philosophy and surmising and indecisiveness... like in baptism of fire, regis says that the cardinal directions have no meaning to him, as long as he is going somewhere... he paces around, and also like in baptism of fire, the song about the ornery wolf... look how the wolf dances in the holt / teeth bared, tail waving, leaping like a colt (...) look how the wolf is dragging his paws / head drooping, tail hanging, clenching his jaws (...)” ... but in his best times, he’s a man of action. he acts when it’s most important.

ok time to put your head back into the gutter now! i’ll put the nsfw stuff under a cut to save all of your eyes

this part can be treated like an add-on to the post. wow, all this writing just to say geralt doesn’t suck at sex... ok. 

well in terms of geralt x dandelion i think that after their first time together, dandelion accuses him of lying about how many people he’s fucked, because ‘it can’t possibly be that small of a number’ because geralt wasn’t awkward. he was very emotional as to be expected, but also we know he doesn’t tend to show emotions on his face, so the intense rippling feeling of love & desire he feels when dandelion pushes his hair back behind his ear flew under the radar. which is good in geralt’s perspective, because he strongly feels that it would be embarassing if dandelion knew how much he’s affected by him. honestly similarly, dandelion who’s not embarassed by much is at first apprehensive to think about his and geralt’s relationship, because usually he can just leave whenever he feels like it... but with geralt, it became different, geralt was no fling, and realizing this very early on in their relationship was alarming until dandelion did what he usually does and just drops it and remains happy. 

honestly you could make the argument (not outright STATING it... i’m not being h*rny on sideblog...) but you could argue, that geralt and dandelion have bomb ass sex because both of them are canonically good in bed, weirdly enough. geralt is pretty giving and loving in his sex scenes, even when it’s not even romantic and rather a crazed passion, like with fringilla. it’s canon that he’s a proponent of oral sex b/c he defends the concept in discussion with regis and also gives it canonically, so idk what to really say here except geralt’s a real one and sapkowski had a vision i guess for his main character. 

another important thing mentioned in geralt’s sex scenes is that he’s pretty intuitive with pacing. in the last wish, he and yennefer take their time and have quite a soft and loving experience, and in lady of the lake, he and fringilla experience this more sort of intense scenario. but i think these differences are meant to speak to the differences in love and relationships between the pairings... while geralt and yennefer experience an all-consuming love of mind and body, geralt and fringilla had more of a ... bad decision. this makes us have to headcanon for what the pairing of geralt and dandelion would be like, i’m inclined to say it would be a lot like geralt and yennefer because the thing about geralt and yennefer is that they find intimacy in each other that they’ve yearned for their entire lives, and geralt and dandelion have a lot of that similar energy of finding something in another that you’ve always longed for. 

especially towards the beginning of their relationship, i feel like just their abilities to be vulnerable are what drives them. of course, having emotional sex is a fireworks-type event for geralt, while for dandelion it’s more just like, 3 PM on a tuesday afternoon, so that affects their dynamic a lot, again especially in the beginning of their relationship before geralt met yennefer and villentretenmerth, because geralt really was just not sure of himself. dandelion’s very sure of himself so he kind of doesn’t realize that it’s the beginning of an Emotional Journey for geralt and not just something casual like eating brunch together. geralt becomes more confident over time though and that’s good but he still gets just regular pangs of gay love that stops your heart momentarily, from being ... in love... 

as for actual dynamic during i think it would be funny and good to keep them both in-character and interacting as they normally do. cue humorous arguments with no vitriol or consequence: “stop moaning in musical scales, it’s ruining my concentration” “no— fa so!” 

[burr-ell]

Babe pls go off about TTG vs TT I would love it

caps is referring to this post i made a week ago; i made sure bc i’m kind of an illiterate dumdum who’s bad at math. @zitkaplushie and @aaawunder have also decided to endorse my absolute worst impulses on the matter of cartoons vs comics SO

what’s been on my mind lately is…not really a Big Discourse, it’s mostly just a pet peeve. and as a disclaimer i’d like to say that i firmly believe in interacting with fandom any way you want. i’m not the fandom police; that job sounds heinous.

but i gotta tell ya, it can get pretty frustrating trying to find good teen titans animated content that actually feels like it’s about teen titans animated. and so much of that comes down to people who insist on shoehorning comics canon into the show—especially the people who don’t like it that none of the characters refer to each other by “real name”, and think it’s a problem that they need to fix in their fanworks.

i vaguely referenced this type of thing briefly here, but people not treating the animated series as a completely different ‘verse with a completely different structure and continuity from any comics or previous animated shows is…baffling, to me. it takes me out of the enjoyment of a lot of fan content that people produce and then file under the animated show in the archives. and i wish it didn’t because i like enjoying things, surprisingly! but it does, and i think i know why.

uninhibited gushing about teen titans under the cut:

the cartoon makes for an excellent gateway series to the lesser-known aspects of the dc universe, but it also stands really well on its own. and part of the reason for that is that you don’t need to know any comics canon to enjoy the show—you don’t even need to be familiar with batman at all in order to understand and empathize with robin as a character. and i think one element of that is the fact that nobody refers to anyone by their “real names”, because as far as the show is concerned, their superhero names are their real names. being a superhero is their full-time job, and their hero lives and personal lives are one and the same.

so it kinda grinds my gears to read fanfic tagged specifically under the animated series where characters frequently refer to each other as ‘dick’, ‘gar’, ‘vic,’ and ‘kory’—and in some cases ‘rachel’ too—and consistently reference their backstories as a part of the expanded dc universe. do they do that in the comics and the animated movies and the live-action show? sure! and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. but i’ve always liked the fact that they make a point of avoiding that in the cartoon, and to me it’s one of the things that sets the show apart. no one has a civilian identity—they’re teenagers, they look and talk and act like teenagers, but they fight villains full-time. that’s all. and it’s great!

while the cartoon is primarily focused on action, it still manages to communicate a lot of the mature aspects of the comics’ stories and characters without having to give them civilian identities. our understanding of cyborg, for example, isn’t made better by knowing that his birth name is ‘victor stone’. his struggle to accept himself for who he is, both the human and the machine, is still core to his character arc, and it shines through whether you know the backstory or not.

disabled kids watch cyborg and they don’t need to know about silas stone and STAR Labs; they’re looking at his cybernetics as prosthetic limbs and saying “hey! he’s just like me!”. that’s the kind of thing that really matters, and that’s part of what makes the show so special to me.

on a practical level, there’s a reason starfire and raven don’t go by their “real names”—because starfire and raven are their real names. in kory’s pre-crisis comics debut, “starfire” was a code name originally born out of the effects of her energy bolts (she didn’t actually do the language kiss until about a week after they rescued her from the gordanians, so they needed to call her something). but in the cartoon, starfire is to koriand’r as john is to giovanni—it’s the english translation of her name. and raven is a half demon raised in an alternate dimension populated by monks; “rachel roth” has only ever been a pseudonym she uses to get around when she has to. it’s only robin, cyborg, and beast boy that even have secret identities to begin with in the cartoon, and it’s not that much of a reach to argue that they’re choosing to eschew those old names to better reflect who they’ve chosen to be.

and i think that last bit especially is why it bugs me that people have argued that “they’re supposed to be friends but they don’t trust each other enough to tell each other their backstories!”. because to me, it’s a lot more compelling that they trust each other enough to not need to know that information. “she’s our friend,” robin says about raven. “what more do we need to know?”. what they’re acknowledging there, to me, is that it doesn’t really matter where you’ve been or what you were born to do; it’s about who you choose to be now. and i love that, the respect of choice. having the characters refer to each other by birth name just because it’s their birth name, as if a birth name is inherently more valid and intimate, kind of undermines that to me.

teen titans works as well as it does, and still holds up almost two decades later, because it is, at its core, a show about teenage superheroes as found family that just happens to be a dc property. i’m so much more interested in fan content that plays by those rules—treating the comics canon as isolated wink-and-nudge kind of stuff, because it’s more interested in how the characters have chosen to present themselves than in making them abide by Comics Rules. again, i’m not out to be the Content Police to tell you how to enjoy a kids’ show, but it would be nice if content tagged under the animated show was actually about the animated show instead of cramming in comics canon when there are already communities and tags for comics canon. just let the cartoon be the cartoon.

[kae-karo]

marianas trench: phantoms

the absurd album overanalysis, commentary, and ranking nobody asked for

first, my personal ranking (don’t get me wrong tho i love the entire damn album):

1. wish you were here 1. don’t miss me 1. the death of me 2. your ghost 2. the killing kind 3. only the lonely survive 3. echoes of you 4. glimmer 4. i knew you when 4. eleonora

the album as a whole: oh such an awesome story and so awesomely inspired by the horror genres?? i think some of the non-singles hit the horror mark better but like oh my god it’s such a cool vibe the whole entire thing???? i know the concept was like,,,,,,descent into madness but you can totally feel this struggle with it and with the idea of a doomed/dead relationship, it’s just so so well done??? my one complaint is that i’m not musically inclined enough to recognize where all the references are bc unlike in no place like home and dearly departed, there aren’t really as many lyric references to other albums/songs, it’s more the music. and i know it well enough to go ‘oh that’s familiar, for sure’ but i can’t for the life of me figure out where from (in most cases)

eleonora: i mean the title is based on the short story by edgar allan poe (x) true to theme from the beginning, which (long story short) is about a woman the narrator falls in love with (well, his cousin) but she’s ill and will die, blah blah blah she does and the narrator vows never to marry anyone else but later he does and his first love comes back from beyond the grave to give her blessing for the new marriage - already basically i’m getting vibes of like,,,,,,a genuine desire to move on? which is great imo and like a step forward from previous albums? plus the whole acapella delivery is super reminiscent of so it goes (x) and the layered voices reminiscent of the intro to end of an era (x). plus we have the direct ref to the raven (x) by poe with ‘midnight dreary’. also the idea of ‘don’t hush’ which is later touched on as ‘just hush’ in the killing kind? oof interesting v v interesting

only the lonely survive: a bop a massive bop but! also! just a very intriguing take (at least to me) on a doomed-to-fail relationship, the idea that you can actively acknowledge a relationship is hurting both parties but...choose to stay. i also like the idea (which i might just be extrapolating) that to truly live, to have a really poignant relationship, you have to sort of give yourself over to it? ‘only the lonely survive’ - only those who isolate themselves truly ‘get out alive’ if you will but like, that’s the beauty of putting yourself out there? is like, you truly feel everything, i guess. ‘it hurts like hell to love this well’ sort of touches on that same idea for me. anyway the whole thing goes hard as hell and i love it. ‘he’ll never know you / not the way that i knew you’ we love intra-album references !!!

echoes of you: okay didn’t love this at first bc it felt repetitive (and it was coming on the heels of only the lonely survive which i adored) but it also felt really unique and a little different? when the released it as a single, it’s the first time i thought of this album as truly horror-inspired and totally picked up on the tell-tale heart vibe (x) which was just so interesting, i love how stories like that have turned into these really fresh songs that still call back to these kinds of madness-inspiring stories - that a love can inspire that kind of madness, even when it’s gone. i also wonder if the idea of ‘can’t stop myself from falling now’ has less to do with falling in love (which is, for me, the immediate connotation) and more to do with ‘falling into madness’. the verses and the tempo are so well-paced as well, like this frantic feeling? then the chorus comes in with this suspenseful set of chords? and the theremin in the background!!!! the best way to give a truly Spooky™ vibe. the idea of tell-tale heart, the story, too, is that the narrator is trying to sound completely sane, and explain the murder they’ve committed and why it was justified - that goes along with the theme of this album, too, where there’s this undercurrent of trying to insist that the doomed relationship is somehow justifiable

don’t miss me?: oh i adore this and the idea of ‘oh hah yeah no i don’t miss you like at all,,,,,,,,,,,,,do you ‘not miss me’ too?’ and like this,,,,,,not obsession but the idea of trying to actively move past missing someone? but just constantly getting caught up on it? unrelated to the meaning but oh my god the little background vocals, adore it. ‘some people try to raise the dead / some people try to live instead’ is like. that’s one of those things that i lowkey would love to get tattooed on my body or something. just really good words, because that’s what it’s like moving on from a rough relationship - and it’s hard to like, see that when you’re in the thick of it? bc like imagine losing a loved one and trying to bring them back to life - we’ve all heard the story, it’s never what’s expected, it’s never quite right and the same goes for relationships. and so, the idea of living instead, of moving on. also the vocal run up to the high note toward the end (x - look idk Music Words) reminds me of something but i can’t quite place it. also ‘i don’t remember why we stayed’ and then in wish you were here, we get ‘i don’t recall now why we’re buried’ which is a fun contradiction

wish you were here: that middle-of-the-night madness that goes alongside one love (x) like,,,,,if you took it one step on the other side of madness and entertained the idea of reviving a relationship that should be dead. except it’s such a bop unlike one love, like it sounds a lot like it could be on astoria, and it’s got that back beat matching this means war (x) in fact, it feels like the exact polar opposite of this means war (like...instead of ‘lmao i’m totally awesome without you’ it’s like ‘i’m,,,,,maybe not doing so great without you, shit i really wish you were here, wish we were together’)? but with the same sort of vibe in terms of the music itself? and the outro (x) reminds me hardcore of something else i can’t quite place

your ghost: this one also reminds me a lot of the general vibe of astoria with hints of like. modern touches? this one reminds me a lot of wildfire actually? (x) but a bit more upbeat? like that guitar style i think is what does it. it feels a lot like there’s this...almost unwilling pull toward the idea of ‘madness’ that they’re focused on, like....a sort of awareness of the descent? also the softer bit toward the end where it’s just josh and the guitar (x) reminds me a lot of something that i once again cannot place for the life of me

glimmer: oh no,,,,,,,,,okay first this (it’s just audio but tumblr won’t let me add audio on its own in a post like this):

so my first and most important comment is that all i can think about when i hear this song is ‘halo by beyonce halo by beyonce halo by beyonce halo by beyonce’ and it tends to run over everything else lmao. but! i think conceptually it’s more of that descent into madness, into seeing some sort of trace of a relationship, like some sort of residual glimmer that sticks to things, to people. ‘it’s funny what you find when you go without’, like the idea of....probably hallucinating in a sense, but starting to see the relationship/the other person everywhere, on everything, when you’re missing them? even to the point that, when the person comes back, maybe the memories of that relationship stick around too - ‘you’ve changed but it’s not enough / and doubt is insidious / creeps up on you softly / i can’t get it off me, i can’t get it off me now’ like this idea that even though it’s something wanted, to come back together (no matter how bad it might end up), memories and the past can’t really be forgotten - ‘you’ve changed but it’s not enough’ - very reminiscent of wildfire (x - ‘so now you show up when you’re alone again / but we haven’t changed, but now you’re interested) ngl too the overall feeling of the song reminds me of one love? (x)

i knew you when: so this song sorta came out of nowhere to me, like it felt weird and off-kilter like...i knew you when? when what? but like. now it makes a lot more sense, in this sort of...well, twisted way. it feels like things have been twisted around. it comes off the back of glimmer, too, and i think that’s like - oh, these memories are here, lingering, and this is almost a deep-dive into them? it tells a bit of a story and i think it’s less abstract, but it definitely harps hard on the idea that ‘i’ve been loving, loving you too long to just sudden-suddenly move on from this’ that sort of encompasses the entire album really cleanly. it’s interesting, actually, it almost feels like a very sincere moment of clarity and specificity amidst a mess of this drifting toward ‘madness’, but still hinting at that little bit of ‘okay but if you want to....i’ll know you then’, this like concession to that madness, an indulgence in it? 

the death of me: oh catch me melting over the transition between songs, utterly seamless. love it. this one is another one that like....feels like a breath of clarity in awareness? like this acknowledgment that there’s something off, this lingering desire for someone from the past, that there’s an emptiness, that this new thing isn’t right, even if it’s something wanted. because other wanted things (or people) make it impossible. i think it’s also the first time in a while where another party (ie not them nor the person they’ve got this tangled relationship with throughout the album so far) is mentioned which is v interesting. i think this track does an excellent job of bringing a ghostly vibe to it, the echoing vocals and background sounds, they almost elicit this feeling of like. the person is drifting away from the person they’re trying to make a new start with, like literally drifting? almost being pulled in by the ‘madness’? and it’s a heartbreaking song, too, bc there’s this emanating desperation to like...move on? and make things work? but this acknowledgement that...maybe that’s not happening? maybe it’s not possible? maybe there’s too much baggage, in a sense? there’s also that very long outro that starts off a little intriguing, adventurous almost, and then descends into this frightening crescendo (x - that also has a hint of something else in it) before these voices come in, crescendoeing again into this sudden stop and then you’ve got josh saying ‘save me from myself’ which i feel like is a reference?????? also cannot believe they made me download that and reverse it so i could figure that out lmao

the killing kind: it wouldn’t be a mt album without a song that’s all over the place and somehow still cohesive and intriguing, huh? oh big mood for the intro, with the very great imagery of wandering a haunted house at night, staring into the shadows, and then ‘the killing kind’ - i think the whole thing is a super interesting concept, again, this acceptance of some of the fault in a failed relationship? ‘but you’ve been haunted too’ and yet not all of it, i think a lot of media represents things as black and white, with all the blame on one person, when that’s rarely the case? anyway, it’s interesting it’s addressed. ‘nevermore’ of course being another edgar allan poe reference (disclaimer there may be other references i’m missing since i’m not massively well-read in the horror genre) i’m also intrigued by ‘can’t get out / from under it / nevermore to leave here’, is that a lover dearest (x) reference? bc that’s what came to mind, honestly. again, excellent with the background vocals giving that eerie vibe. and then the stephen king ‘it’ reference with ‘we all float down here’. ngl that one feels a little forced but again, i’m like. not well-read in the horror genre so there may be more layers to that one than i know. ‘it gazes back / sings to me / i know my love can be the killing kind’ - i think this is interesting that it sings back, that feels very much like a callback that maybe their own previous songs are hinting at the love being ‘the killing kind’. also ‘you should never be here’ makes me think of something (x) the hard guitar/violins in the background during ‘here and now / this is it’ etc remind me of something else. and then ofc we have the astoria run/vocals (x) and then the ref to echoes of you (although it sounds like the slightest pitch lower than in echoes of you?) and then the whole bit with ‘don’t love the bottle’ i swear on my life it sounds like it comes from somewhere? same with the background melody? but i have no idea where, it just sounds like a reference. and then we have the background little melody (x) after he says ‘a hidden melody’ so it’s like reinforced that it’s a reference but idk where from rip lmao. edit: ty to the lovely anon who mentioned it’s from masterpiece theater!!!!! and once again a++++ use of a theremin in the background for max spooky vibes. also ‘evermore’ is totally a reference to ever after (x) along with the little lift after that (i assume) and then the whole acapella bit calls back to eleonora and the ‘now’ bit to something (x) plus the ‘hear me now’ from something wow i’m great at this game lmao as well as the ‘don’t you hear me’ part. ‘we could be together here / forever we’re together bound in madness’ i think again a lover dearest and then ofc we have the vocal runs from something (x) and then the strong background violin from another thing (yeah yeah i know they’re all references i just don’t know what from) and then he says ‘just hush eleonora’ which, as previously mentioned, is a very intriguing development from ‘don’t hush’ like this,,,,,,acceptance of the madness? and then ofc he says ‘eleonoria’ in ref to astoria. edit: also the whole ending is so so similar to the ending of ever after

[itshomobirb]

ive seen the argument a lot about the harm that merely hosting content will supposedly cause but i have to ask: what specific harm are you talking about? too often i feel like people focus on hypothetical harms, and there's not really anything concrete they can point to. if you're talking specifically about grooming, well, moot point bc groomers will use anything and everything to further their purpose. for example: my little pony. lollipops. children's toys. it's not about the existence of these items but intent -- which the people who create those things don't have control over. yeah you can add a blanket "don't use this content to groom someone" but that feels as useless as a "DNI racists." and just because some people misuse things doesnt mean those things should be banned. a knife is a dangerous weapon that could kill someone... and it's a very functional tool required in cooking. should knives be banned because some people misuse them? no, of course not.

im very much of the opinion that those who are accessing the archive are mature enough to self-evaluate on whether they want to read tagged stories. and if they're not... well, frankly, i have to say (a) then they're not mature enough for the internet in general and (b) need someone like a parent to help curate their experience. not to mention, i feel like it's a very misguided take to say, "we should prevent people from using these things to groom others" instead of going, "okay, what factors make someone more susceptible to being groomed?" and, "how can we educate people to recognize signs of grooming?" etc. plus...how can you exactly groom someone just by writing a story? grooming is a sustained effort over time. i could see it if you were trying to argue "oh someone is writing ongoing stories in order to groom someone" but even then that can't happen entirely on ao3. groomers establish rapport by specifically isolating their victims--it's not exactly something that can easily happen in more public venues (of which ao3 is, considering any messaging must be made in the form of comments and there's no option to share things on there with only one person -- you either share it with everyone, or share it with everyone logged in). and honestly, even if they were using the content nefariously outside of the ao3 platform... they still have a right to post it (unless it's plagiarized or harassment as defined by ao3's harassment policy: https://archiveofourown.org/tos#IV.G.)

re: your question about what precautions ao3 can take to address this supposed problem: honestly? i dont think it has any obligation to, and they already do plenty enough with just their harassment policy. the archive itself was created in response to writers being deleted without warning from other platforms (see strikethrough and boldthrough) and it is first and foremost for writers...not for people consuming the content. yes, there's options to engage with content, but the control entirely lies with the writer. they can choose to moderate comments, or to have no comments at all, or to only be visible to logged in users, etc. all control lies with the writer, as it should. besides, any sort of attempts at grooming on ao3 are default made to be public -- any comments are highly visible. why not then ask what twitter, and tumblr, and discord are all doing to stop grooming on their sites? after all, they all have private messaging capabilities, while ao3 doesn't. the archive was never meant to be a hub for fandom. it's only an archive. not a social media platform. just like how online databases for scientific journal access don't have any sort of public messages about to recognize ethic violations or what each of the variables within statistical analysis mean--it's not their purpose to educate, it's their purpose to host papers. and that's it.

i get that your intents are harm prevention and protecting vulnerable people... but any solution that focuses on "these people are using xyz to groom" will ultimately only hurt the very people you're trying to protect.

AO3 discourse discussion under the cut, I would really like to hear others thoughts on this

cw for mention of inc*st and grooming

I wanna preface this by saying; I like ao3, and whatever questions or concerns i have i do think are ultimately outweighed by the value of having this archive.

With that out of the way, something I see often is proship people responding to arguments about what the possible repercussions for hosting certain content on a site may be with "don't like don't read." And i have a lot of issues with this!

They obviously weren't going to read it, they aren't (in this instance, not saying this doesnt happen) upset that they read something they didn't like, they're addressing something completely different: that hosting this content can lead to harm (i.e in the form of grooming).

And i understand this is a very nuanced subject, and I recognize the variety of perspectives, intents, etc. that art or fiction on these topic can embody. I don't think including incest in a story means you support incest or that it's written in a romanticized way, for example. I also don't think that, just because it makes me uncomfortable or even disgusted that someone may write about it in positive way that it shouldn't exist, or doesn't deserve to be archived.

But i still have that question about what the harm it can cause. And I really don't know the answer. I think it's naive to suggest that nobody who creates this content ever would have nefarious intentions, and that by allowing people like that (specifically those with bad intentions, not everyone who creates that content) to congregate and find eachother and validate those intentions, are you creating an environment where they are more likely to hurt someone vulnerable? How do we address this as a community? What precautions can a website like ao3 take in order to address this problem?

I don't know the answer to these questions, i don't know if it should even be ao3's responsibility, I'm open to hearing what people have to say.

Like i said ultimately I think ao3 is a net positive and I think there is far more nuance to these subjects that makes a blanket ban unfair to those who wish to explore darker themes and ultimately defeat the purpose of an archive.

[hunkkeiths-blog]

So I just scrolled 20000 years back on your blog like the creep I am and I saw you mention schizophrenic Keith headcanons but never actually saw schizo Keith headcanons and I'm 👀👀👀

once again thank you so much for sending this! i really really love this au but i never talk about it bc i feel like no one cares and this makes me sooo happy!

also sorry again for answering late i just wanted to be able to type everything relatively quickly and use a readmore

(i added links that lead to wiki pages to explain what certain stuff is, you don’t need to click them or anything)

ok so here goes

[Food mentions and slight emeto for this part]

Keith has a lot of trouble with food, both bc of sensory issues and paranoia

when its sensory, its mostly if the texture is too different to whats hes used to, or if theres too much taste and theres anything else (a sound, some lights flashing, whatever) hell get overwhelmed really easily. so he tries to stick to relatively tasteless stuff

Keith also gets a lot of persecutory delusions and some of the most recurring ones is that his food has been poisoned, having relatively tasteless food helps with not being as convinced of that

On good days (well as good a day as you can have when you think your food has been poisoned anyway), he can sort of just power through it and eat enough to not be starving.

On bad days, he either doesn’t eat at all, or if he only realises it after having eaten he becomes sick/makes himself sick.

Back on Earth, especially during his year alone, he had 3-4 “trusted foods/brands” and he almost exclusively only ate those

Once on the ship, things get very complicated, because from the start, he doesn’t trust the altean food goo (he still doesn’t if he’s entirely honest, but they’ve all been eating it and none of them are dead yet so if it is poisoned its slow acting enough) so he mostly only eats when hes absolutely starving for the first month or so before he slowly starts to eat more of the altean meals

He does however trust what Hunk cooks partly because he trusts Hunk, partly because Hunk eats it too, and (taste+texture of the food goo aside) hes always more comfortable when Hunk cooks.

[Warning ended]

While developing and after when he had it (which was 2 or 3 years before he entered the Garrison), Keith ended up almost entirely isolated from people, in part because he would willingly withdraw from others, in part because the people who took care of him after his father left/died (foster families i guess? i dont really know how the system works and i cant imagine how much worse it must be for a schizophrenic kid so) didn’t really know what to do with him because he had really bad emotional blunting

Because he was mostly left alone, he started focusing alot on the delusions he had at the time, the main one of which was that he just wasnt human (which yes turned out to be somewhat true, but it’s still a delusion). that led him to thinking of going to space because of a feeling that something would happen there. which led him to the garrison which is how he ended up there.

At the Garrison, he was amazing at flying and mediocre at best in all his other classes.

This is partly because outside of doing stuff that could actually directly get him to space, he wasnt able to get any motivation to do anything else. (even if he gets kicked out, he can just steal a rocket or something right?)

he also didnt really have any friends because he didnt approach anyone and more or less actively avoided anyone trying to get close to him.

the way he just was; never showing any emotion, barely speaking, the weird things he sometimes did, etc; sort of drove ppl away on its own

(this is also sort of the reason he didnt remember him and lances “rivalry” in s1ep1. he never actually noticed lance thought of him as a rival, he just thought lance was sort of loud)

Shiro ended up like being a mentor or something to Keith, and Keith wasnt able to really avoid him

They start off sort of rocky, because Keith hates interacting with other people, due to paranoid thoughts (”he can read my mind”, “he wants to hurt me”, and so on) that, while they werent nearly as bad as off meds, were still present even with medication.

Slowly though, Keith warms up to Shiro and starts trusting him (though shiro is never really sure because Keith doesnt show it at all)

Keith starts doing better in all his classes, because he’s interpreted that shiro will be extremely disappointed in him if he ends up getting kicked out because of poor grades, and hes terrified of disappointing literally the only person in the world he trusts

It also leads to Keith putting a minimum of effort into becoming at least somewhat expressive 

When the kerberos mission fails, keith is destroyed. all his grades almost instantly drop and he barely shows up to class because losing the only person he trusts essentially makes him totally apathetic, and go back to having alot of paranoid thoughts/delusions (mostly surrounding the garrison staging the entire thing, sort of fake moon landing style but with actual murder to make people back off on exploring space because of Something), and feeling like he’s being stalked by people (not entirely untrue tbh), and deal with anhedonia. and thats how he gets kicked out/how he drops out 

Living entirely alone (as in without any supervision) was hell for Keith.

Moving to the shack after dropping out messed with his entire routine, and without a relatively strict routine, he ends up forgetting his meds

Off medication, he had really really really horrible episodes that almost always ended with him getting hurt in some way

Off-meds, he starts his garrison/shiro conspiracy wall

He also found the blue lions cave during an episode

After a while (keith never tries to find out how much time he spent without his meds because he forgot about them), he ends up taking his antipsychotics again, and almost destroys the wall, except theres a feeling he still has that he rememebers he had during an episode.

He ends up going to the cave again, and “Holy shit that was real??” so he restarts his wall while being a bit more down to Earth.

The day shiro crashes on earth is one of the best days of his life bc, well, shiro, but also because he was actually right for once.

Overall, Keith’s pretty good at organising his thoughts and not speaking incoherently, but if hes at all stressed, hell go through a lot of thought blocking

It’s really annoying because Keith hates not being understood and not finishing his points, but often, even if the person hes talking to reminds him what he was talking about, he cant remember what he was going to say after

He also used to think that the thought blocking was aliens and/or the government stealing away all his thoughts to study humans (or, before the garrison: not entirely human entities)

His thoughts are alot more disorganised than his speech shows (under normal circumstances, there are occasions where he does get mostly incoherent). He’s learned to think of what hes going to say step by step before saying it

What he says often still comes off as not entirely thought out, rude, etc because thinking about what order words are going to come out of his mouth doesnt fix not understanding how to interact with others

And here’s a bunch of stuff i couldn’t really make long enough to warrant a separate section:

Keith stims mostly when hes nervous or bored, and he stims by scratching his nails against things, because he likes the sounds it makes.

[self harm (sort of)] at some point, the team notices that when theres nothing for him to scratch (like a wall or something), hell scratch at his own skin, because scratching fabric feels/sounds horrible, often until he scratches part of it off. so they make him these little squares of material to scratch at

Keith does a lot of magical thinking (i cant find an easy link for this but in this case its like seeing signs in things that are seemingly unrelated if that makes sense) where he’ll see a ‘sign’ and feel like he has to do something (what something is varies from something very specific to just “something”)

since he obviously cant always do what hes supposed to do after seeing the signs, hes started writing down everything so he can do it later (lance’s idea). it helps a lot.

Keith hates places with background noises that arent constant (like they stop and start, stop and start), even if they arent particularly loud, because he loses his entire train of thought whenever it stops or starts

Ok! that’s all I can think of right now, I hope this answered what you were looking for! 

I lost my entire train of thought at least 5 times while typing this so I’ll probably add more things in my tag later on when I think of them again!

I’m also writing an actual story with this, it should come out around the end of June if you’re interested!

[nyxelestia]

Hi! I'm on anon bc I mainly worry about that sort of thing, heh. Besides this, I'm asking about, specifically, Sterek - in the sense that I don't really ship it myself, and I wanted to say that regardless of this, and that you do - your blog is brilliant. In general, your posts on the TW fandom and the various ships within are perfect and I agree 100%. Mainly, I'm asking about the sterek, or more specifically Stiles/Derek from actual canon tw, because I could never see anything other than (1/?)

Derek being physically aggressive towards the younger and weaker (in the sense of physical strength) human - a person in a position of power over another abusing that power. In a sense. Since, whenever I watch the show I can't help but see that, I was hoping you could either explain in that great way you usually do that makes things make sense, or at least point me in the direction of posts that have already done so, how exactly their friendship developed(because, yes, I don't think I could(2/?)

ever ship it romantically). Mainly I'd just like to see another's less biased point of view/take on their dynamic, so as not to alienate a serious amount of my fanfic readers despite the fact that it's probably gonna end up as Stalia(oh the horror, that gets like 0 reads ever)I don't want to sideline any characters that are important, such as Derek, and when I watch the show I can never get his character and his dynamic with Stiles down in my head because it's screaming at me not to like him 3/?

And I hate that, because I never like to despise a character without good reason to; I don't want to misrepresent the dynamic, I have to repeat, when I get to later seasons. It'll also help me understand him more, I think, and I hope you don't mind this ridiculously long anon ask, oops. I'm on anon mainly bc of a worry of this being received negatively, as I've seen this sort of query being done in the past for related topics. Ehrm, that's it, thanks for reading this even if you don't answer.4/4

Derek is pretty violent with everyone, including Stiles, in the first two seasons. Fandom has taken this violence and projected sexual tension onto it to justify the ship, but if we're going to count every instance of violence as belligerent sexual tension, then everyone on this show has foe-yay with everyone else.

The thing is, Derek was trying to do the right thing - he just didn't really consider things like collateral damage or value of life in the process. When Scott was Bitten, Derek did try to help Scott learn to control his wolf...it's just that he also lied to Scott about a potential cure for lycanthropy in order to manipulate Scott into helping him. Neither of these somehow negate or undermine the other.

Similarly, in Season 2, Derek felt responsible for the kanima, and thus wanted to kill it before it could kill anyone else. The problem is that he wasn't considering the life of the human who was the kanima without knowing, and he was jumping to conclusions and nearly killed the wrong person (Lydia) because she might be the kanima. Derek wanted to build a pack, and ended up dragging three new teenagers into the mess, two of whom would still be alive if he hadn't. But, they were also extremely isolated before they were in a pack, and never seemed to resent Derek for turning them, even when (in the case of Boyd, at least) it got them killed.

Derek tries all the time, and tries really damn hard. He also fails all the time, and fails really damn hard. Most of that failure all traces back to tunnel vision - he gets so focused on one problem or factor, he never really thought about anything else. Isaac called him out on this in Season 3A - Derek was wallowing about Cora's life and Jennifer's betrayal, which meant he was forgetting about all the other stuff going on that needed to be dealt with.

Derek also tended to presume to know best in the first two seasons and diving head first into problems. A lot of his development in Seasons 3 and 4 was taking a step back to think through the circumstances, and/or taking guidance from those around him. Whether he was the alpha and taking guidance from his betas (i.e. following Boyd's plan against the alpha pack, listening to Isaac calling him out, etc.), or when he was a beta again but following others' leads (following Scott as an alpha, taking proverbial marching orders from Allison in 3B, following the Sheriff's lead and Braeden's lead in Season 4, etc.), Derek always did better working with someone else instead of trying to lead on his own.

To put it another way: Derek really sucks at being King Arthur, but he makes for a fantastic Merlin.

Derek was a wonderfully supportive and empathic individual. Because he struggled with being an alpha, he was a confidante for Scott when he struggled to be a (true) alpha. Derek went from tunnel vision, brooding, and wallowing in the first few seasons, to learning how to use "human" self-defense mechanisms in Season 4 when he realized he wasn't healing and seemed to be losing his lycanthropy (and his strength and senses with it). IIRC, he never just sat down and listened to someone pour their heart out on him in the first two seasons, yet Season 3 opens with him doing exactly that, and this is something he continues to do throughout the rest of his time on the show.

I've said before that "quiet" =/= shy or introverted. Derek is never the kind to talk a lot in the show. In the first two seasons, this manifested as him doing things without really telling anyone or talking to anyone about it. Later, this manifested as him listening to people. He didn't have to change this part of who he is, he just learned to be more empathetic and productive about it.

Derek's story also plays into one of the central themes of the show. The werewolf symbol of revenge is the spiral, but here's the thing about spirals: if they aren't stopped, then they'll go on forever. Derek could've kept pursuing vengeance for his family, but chose not to, and came out better for it. This is highlighted by the nogitsune in 3B, when Derek is infected by one of the flies. Yes, Kate was already dead, but Kate was one person and his family was way more than that. He could've kept going, he could've murdered Allison and Chris just because they were Kate's family (the same way his family died just for being werewolves/in a werewolf pack), and the nogitsune nearly pushed him to do that. But instead, Derek ended the spiral of vengeance, recognizing that Allison and Chris had nothing to do with Kate's murder, and how different they were from Kate (regretting their own participation in Hunter psychosis, trying to change the family motto and M.O., etc.)

Derek's story is very much one of someone grieving tremendously and suffering from horrific trauma. But, it's also one that shows that one's own trauma can end up hurting those around them (the fact that Derek was traumatized and suffering for the first two seasons doesn't change the fact he engaged in a lot of manipulative and abusive behavior at the time). And, Derek's story is the process of recovering from grief and trauma, and learning to let go of anger in pursuit of one's own well-being.

How this relates to Sterek in particular, I've written about here and here, and feel free to ask if you have any more questions on it. :)

And here are some fics which capture Derek's character really well:

See You on the Other Side - Derek doesn't swoop in and save the day - but he does help Stiles, and he learns to share with Stiles and take help from others.

The Nightmare of My Choice - Long-distance relationship FTW.

Starts with "F", Ends With "U" - Fantastic way of Derek using his own experiences to help Stiles with his current abuse, and a great exploration of Derek's trauma that doesn't tokenize it or reduce his abuse to stereoptyes of what abuse actually entails.

[rontra]

Hey Rontra. Sorry is this is too personal, but I was recently diagnosed with autism (high functioning) and even though it didn't tell me anything new per se, I've been trying to wrap my mind around it. Do you have any tips for getting through the transition period?

Hi there friend!Omg yeah getting th diagnosis can be super weird even if it’s not necessarily new information, I totally get what you mean lmao

Even tho it’s personal I don’t rly mind talking about it at all; just remember that this is a suuuuper individual experience and you might not relate to my thoughts on it at all–and that’s okay! I’m happy that you decided to ask for advice, but if mine doesn’t apply to you, that’s okay–and I’m sure there’s other posts out there that can add to this you might relate to more (but I’m on mobile so sadly can’t help much there djfhshs sorry). This kind of advice is hard because everyone’s so different xD ahhhhSpoilers: my tips are very mushy and sentimental ;9

But this DID get long so I’m gonna cut the post fbdbdhdhhs I’m very chatty ;v;

So for context’s sake: I was also diagnosed with autism relatively recently–at 20 years old (am 21 now). While I don’t know how old you are, I’ll assume that you’re an adult or close to it as well–which to me made the diagnosis feel really weird and time-displaced! Like I wasn’t “supposed” to be diagnosed so late, bc it’s “supposed” to be noticed in childhood and thus I’m somehow not “allowed” to relate with other autistic people (obviously, that’s not a correct line of thinking). I felt like, even though it totally makes sense and it’s def the appropriate diagnosis for me, it was weird–definitely difficult to sort of keep up and get my head around it. Everything in hindsight of my life makes 100% sense through this lens, and yet, it felt surreal. Not WRONG; but it was complex.

I think a lot of that stemmed from those two decades of suppressing the traits associated with my autism; things like downplaying or ignoring hypo- and hypersensitive sensory experiences, actively suppressing stims, and expending 90% of my day-to-day energy on just trying to slip “under the radar” in social interaction(let alone do well at it, God forbid). It wasn’t something I did out of conscious self loathing or anything like that; I actually assumed everyone grew up this way, and the world was just supposed to be a fuckin incomprehensible mess of unpleasant sounds and obscure subliminal social cues that people drop just for fun and sometimes things just swirl together into a big mess and you can’t focus and you can’t talk and this is just how the world IS. That we all grow up feeling like aliens and we’re all just pretending. That specific feeling wore off as I grew older and more prone to feeling directly isolated (so now IM the only alien), but the idea that “the world just Is Like This” stuck. It was HUGE to me when I realized that neurotypical people don’t usually relate to that mess. And, more importantly, that all this time-and-energy-consuming self-discipline was suddenly unnecessary, because those things had a reason and they had a meaning and they were mine. That’s weird. It’s good but it’s weird. To take in that those things have patterns and explanations and other people feel them too is overwhelming and beautiful and weird.

It’s weird as hell to feel like some kind of spy in a foreign country trying to blend in with a culture you don’t understand for 20 years, or some kinda alien, an animal in a cage doing tricks for a faceless crowd, only to have that moment where–it’s OKAY and things MAKE SENSE. It’s mine and it’s good and i don’t have to work so hard to be “like them” because I’m not. I can’t be.

I can’t be! Even when people call me (and you) things like “high functioning” it’s measuring my ability to be “like them”–which is something I can’t be. It’s measuring how I function compared to a neurotypical person, and it feels moot, because I’m NOT. It’s a measure of how good I am at pretending to be neurotypical. And guess what: after 20 years, I’m pretty damn good at it! :p

It makes sense, but it’s scary. Because I can finally get to know me, the autistic person–the person I’ve been subconsciously smothering for 20 years. That’s scary, and exciting, and comforting, all at once.

So after all that rambling, here’s one tip: lean into that. Hard. Indulge in something that makes you go “wow, this is pretty autistic” (whatever that might entail for YOU; I get really into obnoxiously elaborate organization systems for my hobby supplies, as one example) and just…let yourself enjoy it. Try a bunch of stim toys if you haven’t had the chance. Find a friend who has an hour or five to spare and tell them about your special interest, if you have one. Explore how you feel when you’re treating yourself to this kind of thing. Feel it all the way through. Take your time to get to know it.

I didn’t really go out and do research and look up more than I already knew–I focused way more on what I was feeling and how this new set of facts interwove with that, that it all made sense and for the first time I was in control of that and could indulge it consciously in a very pleasant way. I am more at peace than I have been in a long time because I’m expending less energy suppressing myself, while simultaneously spending more time being gentle to myself and indulging those autistic traits to bring an overall soothing. I think reviewing your own history and figuring out what makes your autism tick is super helpful in making you comfortable with it–finding what things appeal to you and utilizing those tools fully with the “armor” of your diagnosis. Before, I was often worried because “other people don’t do this” or “doing that is weird”–now, I do these things (stimming, accommodating for my sensory needs, etc) without feeling as bashful about it, because I know now that this is part of my experience with autism. I have that word, I have this diagnosis, and I can use that as my shield against those 20 years of pressure and shame. And if someone thinks my stim or my avoidance of certain touch IS weird–well, that’s their problem, lmfao. I spent 20 years suffering; I’m going to take full advantage of this new flourishing beauty.

To me, this experience isn’t about learning something new (as you said; it’s not new information)–but leaning into it and embracing what was there from the start. If you’re like me and have spent most of your life suppressing these things, indulging them may help you transition through the “whoa” into the “this is good” :p leaning into it HARD was def one of the best things I did hahahaha

another thing I did a lot was just reflection–I’ve spent a lot of time going over my own behaviors, reflecting on the past through this new lens, that kind of thing. I’ve been exploring my own mindset and how my brain works all over again, and connecting the dots to my diagnosis like some huge constellation chart, and it’s one of the most soothing things I’ve ever done. Maybe it’s because I’m big on organization :p Just kind of training myself to apply this new sexy word to it was important to me. To be able to say “oh, I do this thing because autism” or “hey I’m autistic too” and use these terms in a real way helped make the diagnosis and how it applies to me “real” to me as well.

People (neurotypical people, that is) talk to me about “acceptance” and “coming to terms with” and such–and they’re saying the right words but they don’t mean the right thing. They say it like I feel bad about autism. They’re saying it like autism is bad. It’s not. This wasn’t a difficult diagnosis to get–its not really one i struggled to cope with receiving. But they’re right that it is about acceptance, and it is about coming to terms–it’s just a far gentler thing with a different emotional starting point. I was learning from scratch how to take care of myself, with a whole new box of tools and terms to help me; it was flourishing, it was thriving. It was not a scary new disease or some threatening Autism $peaks rhetoric; it was merely understanding, and accepting, and giving myself positive things I’ve been keeping away for too many years.

Step 1 to managing my difficulties is understanding them. Step 2 is being kind.

Upon receiving this diagnosis, things may simply seem to make a lot of sense. Maybe you don’t really feel like it’s a “big deal” the way people around you seem to. It might just be that perfect moment when a puzzle piece clicks into place and it was always meant to be there. That dissonance between other people’s behavior and how you feel might be confusing too (I had this!).

Now, you probably understand things in a new light. It’s a good thing to become closer with yourself. Be nice to yourself and explore your experience of the world with a new light–you don’t necessarily have to do anything huge with that new info, but acknowledging it and naming its root and learning to use it to be kind to yourself in the future is cool. Don’t pretend like it isn’t there; name it, in your head, when you notice a trait in yourself that stems from it. Let yourself know what those things are and what they come from, and make adjustments where necessary to accommodate them. Be kind to yourself and don’t worry.

It’s good. You are good. You have always been good. Thank you.

[heiligenscheiss]

POWER OF THE SHAMAN:

--------------------

Where Does It Come From, How Does It Work?

"I do not deny that White Light Shields are protective. I simply maintain that Shamans channel what I call heavy voltage. Ordinary people may NOT have the power to draw upon sufficient 'voltage' to produce the desired effect." (source)

PRESENTED BY

the Wanderling

PROLOGUE:

In the fall of 1991, in the remote part of an ancient mountain range, high above the tree line, a group of modern day hikers stumbled across the body of a man frozen to death in the snow, fully dressed in clothes of a tribal nature, his body nearly intact and almost perfectly preserved. Incredibly, tests showed the man had been frozen 5000 years years before, sometime between 3350-3140 BC. After a rather intensive investigation over a period of years by a team of scientific experts from a variety of fields, it was concluded that the man appeared to have been a Shaman, presumably dying of exposure when caught out in the open during a mystical retreat on the side of the treacherous mountain.

Several associated facts presented themselves for such speculation. Like many shamans from many cultures the body was tattooed; his weapons, consisting of a roughly-hewn bow made of yew, several unfinished arrows, and an all wood dagger, resembled dummy weapons associated with shamans in other cultures; he carried a medicine bag containing, among other things, a leather thong on which was threaded two pieces of a common birch fungus Piptoporus betulinus which contains polyporic acid C, an effective antibody, especially against stomach microbacteria, which would indicate, if not a specific knowledge of herbs and natural ingredients, at least a general acceptance of their use. A similar fungus, also closely associated with the birch, Amanita muscaria, is not only hallucinogenic but has been used by various shamans cultures as an aid to ecstasy before the dawn of history. It is possible that, if not authentically hallucinogenic, the ones the frozen iceman carried, could at least have been believed to be so; he also carried with him, and unusually so, a copper-headed axe. A very rare object for the time, and because it was metal, for the most part quite valuable in those days, marking him as an individual of high status. Last, an item not discussed at any length in the numerous reports on the frozen man was a net he carried, an object not typically found in hunting as much as used to trap spirits and seen in various forms as a dream catcher and such. Taken together, the fact that he carried only what HE needed and not a variety for wider shamanistic use, again underscores his mountain sojourn as having a more "mystical retreat" aspect to it.

And finally, while it is true the frozen man's location was somewhat close to ancient trade routes and trails which ran through passes nearby, he was NOT actually on one. Aerial photographs of the area show that the site he was found is not in easily accessible terrain, thus it is thought unreasonable he simply strayed there from one of the passes. The body was well above known trails, high in the mountains above the 10,400 foot level, and alone it seems, suggesting the possibility that he had traveled there to be closer to the gods.

The problem most people had with the situation was not that the man might have been a Shaman, because a preponderance of the evidence seemed to implicate nothing other than that, but where he was found. Not in the tundra of Siberia or the ancient ice path of the Rocky Mountains in North America, but the Oetzaler Alps between Austria and Italy, a location that eventually became modern day Europe, an area NEVER thought of in the present era for any sort of a background in things Shaman or even of tribal people. Yet there he was, a 5000 year old frozen Shaman right in the heart of Europe.[1]

INTRODUCTION:

Shamanism is truly an ancient cross cultural world-wide phenomenon, albeit sometimes lost to those of the modern era in the murky reaches of time, as the above story on the Iceman might attest. For many of us though, there remains a thread, however slight or however tenuous, whether it is linked to Early European Tribes, Native American Tribes, African Tribes, or elsewhere, that ties us to that past. As things have unfolded in my life the viability of that thread has been made clear, not just by me on my own, but by those who have never lost touch with their specific cultures or beliefs. In my adult years my practicing backround in things Shaman is primarily based on Obeah, the Shamanistic beliefs found in some of the countries in and around the Caribbean. However, in earlier years, as a very young boy, I traveled, as will be mentioned below, somewhat intensively with my Uncle in similar "circles" throughout various indigenious cultures of the desert southwest. It is admitted I am unable to speak specifically to or of Shamanistic beliefs of ALL Shaman related cultures. I can however, because of my background of having been apprenticed to a Jamaican man of spells called an Obeahman for many years, speak of where the power of the Shaman he exhibited, and from which I learned, is drawn. From that same experience I can speak as well of the results of what happens when that "power" is used, misused, or implemented, and where I learned, regardless of what culture a Shaman resides, the "power" of the Shaman "comes from."

For the most part and for those most truly involved, in the end Shamanism is a calling. How does one know if they have a "calling?" It is not so much YOU that determines such a thing, but the "selection out" that occurs from or by another Shaman that senses an innate ability that is somehow radiated or felt. You yourself may not even know per se' although your whole life you may have had "this feeling." It just needs to be focused and that is what another Shaman can do. That is what happened in my case and to countless others like me throughout the centuries.[2]

ANIMAL TOTEMS: Your Selection or Their Selection?

My Father's brother, my Uncle, spent nearly sixty of his eighty-four years in the desert southwest, having moved to the Taos, Santa Fe, New Mexico area sometime in his twentys. I was quite young when my mother died and when my Father remarried my new mother, or Stepmother as the case may be, brought my Uncle in to "oversee" me. My Uncle had been married at one time as well, but, although he maintained a loosly related association with his wife, he was for all practical purposes, divorced. The woman he was separated from was a Native American of the Little Shell Plains Ojibwe and a fourth level Midewiwin, a secret Ojibwe Medicine Society. She was a very powerful curandera that I had met only in passing, and initally, for the most part, she never payed much attention to me one way or the other, although I sensed something very extraordinary or "different" about her. She reminded me of a lightning or thunderstorm raging in the distant mountains. You only felt safe because you weren't there, although you knew if you were, the storm had the power to wash you away or destroy you by the might of it all.

One day, when I was around ten years old or so, I went for a hike deep into the desert unescorted. When my Uncle discovered I was gone he went looking for me. During my walk I happened across the carcass of a dead rabbit and was fascinated by it for some reason. When my Uncle found me after cresting a small hill he saw me squatted down with the carcass. Joining me quite comfortably in a circle with the rabbit were three what were, because of this incident, to eventually become my Totem Animal --- VULTURES. From what he was able to discern from his initial vantage point I was neither afraid of them nor were they remotely afraid of me. As well, and he swore this to be true --- although I have absolutely no recollection of it and construe it as a possible total misinterpretation of facts --- that the vultures and I were sharing meat from the carcass between us.

When my Uncle told his estranged wife about the incident she suddenly was very interested in me. You see, for some reason, in today's neo-Shaman environment there has been a stress placed on finding one's "power animal." The contemporary neo-Shaman workshops blind people to the fact that real animals are also spirit and power, and every bit as important, or even more so, than than a spirit guide that appears in some vision. The medicine woman knew that.

Where there is carrion lying on the ground, meat-eating birds circle and descend. Life and Death, seemingly two, become one. The living attack the dead, to their own profit. The dead lose nothing by it. They gain as well, by being disposed of. Or they seem to, IF you must think in terms of gain and loss.

--Adapted from "Zen and the Birds of Appetite"

During those years my Uncle spent a lot of time traveling in and about some very isolated sections of the desert and interacting with the indigenous populations thereof because of various, as he called them, "art" related ties he had with them. During many of those travels I went along. It was on one of those trips, at the suggestion of his wife, as a very young boy, I was introduced to things Shaman:

We were on one of our excursions deep into a remote part of the southern New Mexico desert to visit a very strange man my Uncle was somehow associated with. After arrival the two sat together in the shade outside the man's shack and talked for a good part of the day while I either played with the dogs or sat in the cab of the truck fiddling with the radio.

Just as we were leaving the man came up to me and handed me a huge long black with white feather, the biggest, longest feather I had ever seen.

It was nearly as wide as the span of my hand and it's length was as long as I, a ten year old boy, was tall. Tied to the quill shaft, which was much, much bigger around than any piece of schoolroom chalk, was a small, double strand of leather string with ten colored beads attached, one for each of my years he said.

He told me the feather once belonged to a very magnificent bird that was very important to his culture and the desert's well being, but now it belonged to me.

Soon my Uncle and I were on the long dusty road back, and, as kids are wont to do on occasion, I was leaning out the window, flowing the feather in the wind as we sped along. Suddenly the feather was whipped out of my hand and I watched it as it blew high into the sky, caught first in the turbulance from the truck, then by the desert breeze itself, only to disappear from sight altogether. True, it was only a feather, but for some reason it's loss affected me in a deep, sad sort of way.

The next morning my Uncle and I got up and went out to the truck to do a few errands. Laying alone in middle of the pick-up bed near the back of the cab in a very fine smooth layer of dust was a long black with white feather, with a small, double strand leather string with ten colored beads tied to it's quill. Left in the dust also, were what appeared to be several very large, clear footprints of a huge bird along with scratches and talon marks on the tailgate as though, if even for a short time, a giant avian had roosted or landed there. (see)

(click image)

What is trying to made apparent in the above is that I did not select the feather. It was given to me after I had been selected out. The feather was a very rare and important symbol, a giant feather as long as I was tall, of which I immediately lost. However, and this is the point I wish to make clear, I saw the feather fly high into the sky to be gone I thought, forever to the desert winds, only to somehow, mystically, reappear overnight placed carefully in the back of the pickup truck where it would be sure to be found by either myself or my Uncle the next morning. If you follow the links regarding my Uncle and the Obeah you will see later both the original feather and a present day heir to that feather, my Totem Animal, played very important roles in my experiences of things Shaman. [3]

A couple of quick comments regarding the giant feather, estimated to have been nearly as large as a wing feather from the twenty-five foot wingspan Teratorn type bird Argentavis Magnificens, with a feather length of 1.5 meters (60 inches...that is, FIVE FEET) and a width of 20 centimeters (8 inches). When the feather was first given to me, even though it was of a huge size, I, as a young ten-year old boy with a vivid imagination, did not fully grasp the ramifications of it all. For me at the time, it did not seem impossible that a bird could not be of any size, so a feather as long as I was tall did not seem at all that improbable. It was only into high school and beyond that it came to me that I had been in the presence of something truly remarkable. I never saw the bird the feather came from, nor have I ever seen a second or other feathers of such large size, but for a bird to have required such an enormous feather in the first place, it would have to had been truly a giant creature. For the Shaman to have imparted something so rare, meaningful, and valuable to me, a mere ten year old boy with then no history or background, speaks volumes. To learn the fate of the feather, that is, what happened to it, please visit Meditation Along Meteor Crater Rim. See also the home of the ancient ones of the desert southwest, Pendejo Cave, and tales of the sacred Native American site The Sun Dagger.

For those who would question the validity of the existance of a feather of such size in the first place, as stated in the closing sentence of the Legend of the Giant Bird:

The loss of the Buffalo would have a devastating effect on the migratory habits of birds of such size. Not everybody makes the connection, but it is pretty simple stuff, without the herds, migration became very difficult and many of the young birds as well as some of the adults died on their way south. We are talking twenty-five foot wingspan Teratorn type birds, animals so huge they couldn't hunt in woodlands or heavy foilage. They needed large open area suchs as the Great Plains or the Argentine Pampas to navigate and hunt.[4]

In any case, by the time I was old enough for high school my Father had divorced and remarried and my Uncle had long ago gone back to the Taos, Santa Fe, New Mexico desert he loved. It was during those high school years I met a person that had studied under a venerated Maharshi in India, and he, like his teacher before him, was Enlightened. It was he who introduced me to things Zen. Years later I was to travel to and live in Jamaica where through a series of events I met a Shaman man of spells called an Obeah. It was under the auspices of the relationship between the Obeah and myself, after he looked deeply into my eyes and saw that the Shadow of Death had brushed across my soul, that I truly learned of Shamanistic "power," what that power could do and where that power "came from."

The Wanderling's Journey

(click image)

THE SHAMAN'S POWER: From Whence Does It Come?

"An Ally is a power a man can bring into his life to help him, advise him, and give him the strength necessary to perform acts, whether big or small, right or wrong. This ally is necessary to enhance a man's life, guide his acts, and further his knowledge. In fact, an ally is the indispensable aid to knowing."

Carlos Castaneda, "THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way to Knowledge."

"I do not deny that White Light Shields are protective. I simply maintain that Shamans channel what I call heavy voltage. Ordinary people may NOT have the power to draw upon sufficient "voltage" to produce the desired effect."

Gloria Feman Orenstein, "Toward an Ecofeminist Ethic of Shamanism and the Sacred."

Again, continuing to refer to White Light Shields Orenstein writes, only this time in The Woman Shaman and Shamanism:

"Moreover, it is to trivialize the spirit world, to demean and negate its authenticity, to think that if you concentrate on manifesting a White Light Shield, that what you get will be beneficent. This is so naive as to be sheer folly. You must have enough power to call upon enough White Light to protect you."

Gloria Feman Orenstein, "The Woman Shaman and Shamanism."

WHITE LIGHT SHIELDS

Carlos Castaneda apprenticed under a Yaqui Indian Shaman named Don Juan Matus that Castandeda refers to interchangeably as a sorcerer and man of knowledge. In lineage his teacher's teacher was a Shaman-sorcerer known as a Diablero, an occult spell-master with evil powers said to have the ability to shape shift. There is some controversy if Don Juan Matus was a real person or a composite of several different people, but one or several, most agree Castaneda's observations regarding Shamans and Shamanism still remain valid. In his works Castaneda writes that a sorcerer's power, that is, a Shaman's power, is "unimaginable." He goes on to say in a copyrighted interview in Time Magazine (March 5, 1973):

"The full use of power can only be acquired with the help of an 'ally,' a spirit entity which attaches itself to the student as a guide. The ally challenges the apprentice when he learns to 'see,' as Castaneda did in the earlier books. The apprentice may duck this battle. For if he wrestles with the ally - like Jacob with the Angel - and loses, he will, in Don Juan's slightly enigmatic terms, 'be snuffed out.' But if he wins, his reward is 'true power the final acquisition of sorcery membership, when all interpretation ceases.'"

However, Castaneda had written previously in his first book THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge (1968):

The idea that a man of knowledge has an ally is the most important of the seven component themes, for it is the only one that is indispensable to explaining what a man of knowledge is. In my classificatory scheme a man of knowledge has an ally, whereas the average man does not, and having an ally is what makes him different from ordinary men.

An ally is A POWER capable of transporting a man beyond the boundaries of himself; that is to say, an ally is a power which allows one to transcend the realm of ordinary reality. Consequently, TO HAVE AN ALLY IMPLIES HAVING POWER; and the fact that a man of knowledge has an ally is by itself proof that the operational goal of the teaching is being fulfilled.

In reality, the "full use of power can only be acquired with the help of an 'ally'", that Castaneda speaks of, like the use of medicinal plants, drugs, or herbs (Aushadhis) --- which he used intially, but denied the necessary use of later --- is a second level of use between the Shaman and the actual power source, the same source the "ally" would draw upon for power. The key here is, in relation to the 1973 interview, and what most people miss when they start discussing an "ally" is "a spirit entity which attaches itself to the student." A STUDENT, not a full fledged Sorcerer or Shaman. While what Castaneda is trying to impart from his first book rings true "... a man of knowledge has an ally, whereas the average man does not, and having an ally is what makes him different from ordinary men," the "having an ally" should really read "having power." People think that an ally is an entity of some sort, when in reality it is an euphemism --- a euphemism for the POWER of THE POWER OF THE SHAMAN. Castaneda actually says so when he presents in his first book that "An ally is a power" and "...to have an ally IMPLIES having power." However, and this is the clinker, either you have it or you don't, it is NOT implied or garnered from another. The true Power of the Shaman is not divisible, the power and the Shaman are ONE. It is not held and shared with or by an ally then metered out in some fashion.

However, ally or no, Sorcerers and Shamans using powers to call up answers, predict the future, facilitate or induce spells, or garner assist or knowledge from planes other than the conventional were thought to have a spiritual servant, a "familiar spirit," in obeisance from other realms. The word "familiar" is from the Latin familiaris, meaning a "household servant," and was intended to express the idea that Sorcerers and Shamans had spirits as their servants, ready to obey their commands. Having a "familiar" as a servant is a far cry from a ally as outlined above. Just the same, the punchline is Sorcerers and Shamans "were thought to have familiars." That doesn't mean they HAVE one, only thought to have one. Basically what you have here is a word-based description shaped around the phenomenon. It is a verbal explanation by the layperson to make sense of how any unexplained form of the Power of the Shaman manifests itself. (see)

(please click image)

In the essay Star Wars, Castaneda, and the Force, discussing the Shaman and any potential allies they may or may not have, meet, or battle, the author writes:

"Tests and trials are commonplace in the quest for knowledge: a pre-requisite in fact. One such trial occurs when the aspirant sorcerer (shaman) has accumulated enough personal power to meet the entity referred to as the ally. This encounter cannot be avoided - it is a mandatory, transitional event. Allies are essentially shapeless and featureless forms - all differing and quite terrifying. The aspirant must confront the ally, grab onto and overcome it."

Star Wars, Castaneda, and the Force

Any of you that are familiar with the massive trials and tribulations faced by the Buddha as he reached toward Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree battling the three Daughters of Mara and a host of other demons will recognize the same elements in the statement above. Once defeated, as done so by the Buddha, they no longer are, although the power remains, albeit as it were, inherited.

Jose Maria Poveda in his rather extensive book on shamanism, citing another, offers in his very first chapter something similar to the following:

"Don't allow yourself to be directed by an identity that calls itself your guide. Why? Because invoking infinity is much larger, much more satisfying, more valid for the experience of the soul than being directed by an external entity."

"Because invoking INFINITY is much larger, much more satisfying, more valid for the experience of the soul than being directed by an external entity." By 1998 and Castaneda's last book allies are beginning to take a back seat and he goes on to write in The Active Side of Infinty speaking of INFINITY and the importance of INFINITY:

Infinity is everything that surrounds us: the spirit, the dark sea of awareness. It is something that exists out there and rules our lives.

My steps and yours are guided by infinity. The circumstances that seem to be ruled by chance are in essence ruled by the active side of infinity: intent. What put you and me together was the intent of infinity. It is impossible to determine what this intent of infinity is, yet it is there, as palpable as you and I are.

Of course the infinity of which Castaneda speaks is synonymous with the "emptiness" refered to in ancient texts as Sunyata, and it is not just "out there" as Castaneda implies. Sunyata is the WHOLE, encompassing, encompassed and THE encompassing.

The majority of the people reading this will probably be familiar with the meaning of the word limousine. A limousine is usually considered something like a large luxurious automobile usually driven by a chauffeur. The word limousine is a french word and there is really no english equivalent. That is, if you call it anything else, a town car or whatever, it is either a limousine or it isn't. In the same sense, for those of us who speak english there is no single, specific word that encompasses the full the meaning of the power of the Shaman. There is a Japanese word, like many words that have come to us through other cultures such as patio, tomato, karma, carburetor, and kayak, which have no other real specific english equivalent, that has become assimulated into our language. The word of which I speak is Joriki. Joriki roughly translates into: the power or strength which arises when the mind has been unified and brought to one-pointedness. This is more than the ability to concentrate in the usual sense of the word. It is a dynamic power which, once mobilized, enables us even in the most sudden and unexpected situations to act instantly, without pausing to collect our wits, and in a manner wholly appropriate to the circumstances. One who has developed Joriki is no longer a slave to his passions, neither is he at the mercy of his environment. Always in command of both himself and the circumstances of his life, he is able to move with perfect freedom and equanimity. The cultivation of certain supranormal powers is also made possible by Joriki, as is the state in which the mind becomes like clear, still water.

There is another word, Siddhis, from the truly ancient, ancient language Sanskrit that hasn't fallen into the everyday lexicon that carries with it a similar meaning. There are differences, however. If you have ever focused the sun to a pinpoint on your skin using a magnifying glass and felt how quickly and powerful the burning sensation is, that is more like Joriki. Siddhi is more like the power of ocean waves. You may be able to stand against a mild wave or two, but even giant mountains are eventually turned to nothing but sand or even less by their power. In the end the Power of the Shaman is akin to a longer reach or extension of the Shaman, focused through his own abilities or level of expertise. That level of expertise can vary from being very minuscule and tiny to beyond scope --- with the results depending on the abilities, will, and intent of the individual. Jeffery Ellis, a Buddhist-Shaman of some reknown and co-founder of The Toltec Mystery School in Boulder, Colorado, writes in his book DreamingAwake:

"Power is one of the first barriers the warrior (Shaman) must pass in becoming a Man of Knowledge. Power is intoxicating. Magic and Siddhi create a drunkenness that is very tricky to sidestep. What you wish for comes true, like Aladdin and the Genie."

THE "POWER"

There is an axiom that goes:

This being present, that arises; without this, that does not occur.

Which is elaborated on from very ancient texts:

Acts do not perish, even after hundreds and thousands of years. On meeting the right combination of conditions and time, they bear fruit.

Vasubandhu the great Indian Abhidharma master wrote:

Material and mental elements uniterruptedly succeed one another in a series, a procession that has action as originating cause

He continues to write, and this is the punchline:

The successive moments of this procession are different; therefore there is an evolution or transformation of the series.

The successive moments are different, that is they are not the same. If they were the same they would not be different. On a fine grain level the differences are practically imperceptible. On a coarse grain level the differences manifest themselves more readily. Take those differences and place them into their operating field of conditions and the evolution or transformation compounds itself. Conditions? The word conditions is an english word used in context from the Sutras for the Sanskrit word Pratyaya which means (roughly): "the pre-existing conditions that allow primary causes to function." Which basically means if the conditions are absent, then the causes are prevented. Conditions are the milieu, stage set, or playing field where acts or impulses unfold. They can be increased by other conditions, decreased by other conditions, or replaced by other conditions to accelerate or postpone results in the stream of events. Which means that conditions can, but not necessarily DO modify. They arise primarily on a broader scale from causes in the distant past. When conditions do manifest themselves they are for the most part not defined, that is, they are undefined or spent, meaning they cannot create or impact figuratively further downstream responses. However, even though they are spent, they are still extremely powerful in how they impose themselves on the immediate circumstances in which they are operating. To wit:

Any shift in any fashion in the conditions up or down or across the stream relative to the cause will impact the resultant outcome of that cause.

It is IN those areas of conditions that the Shaman operates, where small yet powerful well aimed Shaman directed impluses ever so slightly nudge the conditions which inturn modify the outcome.

Sometimes the flow from the past is so strong that little can be done except to stand fast, but there are also times when the flow CAN be diverted in almost any direction. (source)

And that is true, sometimes the flow IS strong or stronger relative to the Shaman, but that is where the knowledge of the Shaman comes in. Often they must bide their time and wait, other times their abilities and power can overcome the "flow." Remember, from the quote above:

ANY shift (that is ANY shift no matter how large, small, or imperceptable), in any fashion in the conditions up or down or across the stream relative to the cause will impact the resultant outcome of that cause.

It should be noted that on the scientifc side of things, no matter how complex any system may be or appear to be AND, even though it may not be able to be determined or known, they rely upon an underlying order. To that extent very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events. This latter idea is known as Sensitive Dependence On Initial Conditions, a circumstance discovered in the early 1960s by Edward Lorenz the scientist usually credited with the discovery of the Butterfly Effect --- making reference to the fact that small, almost imperceptible happenstances or events, over time, can have huge and momentous consequences.

Shamans and others of the same propensities or ilk develop the abilities needed to use the key that allows them to interact with conditions, thus allowing a change that would otherwise NOT transpire or occur in the normal flow of events if they had not interceded. However, Karma-wise, the resultant outflow from that or any change does not fall on the back of the Shaman IF he is acting in the stead of another person. It is as though the Shaman does not exist and is in effect merely an extension or limb of the person perpetrating the change. The person wanting the change or perpetrating the change catches all the resultant outcomes from that change. See: Good and Evil In Zen Enlightenment and attendant links.

Some people would argue quite stringently that Buddhism and Shamanism are for the most part nowhere related and to draw an anology would be creating a thin line. However, the coincidence of characteristics and striking similarities between Buddhist adepts and ShamansShamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy. For example, the abilities of the Arhat relating to the sixfold knowledge of the worthy ones that includes not only the ability similar to the Cloud Shaman to appear and disappear at will, but also the oft cited case in Buddhism and Zen by the Venerable Pindola Bharadvaja where the venerable Arhat was adomished by the Buddha for flying and performing miraculous acts infront of the faithful.

Somewhat interesting is the fact that the word shaman, used internationally, has its origin in manch-tangu and has reached the ethnologic vocabulary through Russian. The word originated from saman (xaman), derived from the verb scha-, "to know", so shaman means someone who knows, is wise, a sage. Further ethnologic investigations shows that the true origin for the word Shaman can be tracked from the Sanskrit initially, then through Chinese-Buddhist mediation to the manch-tangu, indicating a much deeper but now overlooked connection between early Buddhism and Shamanism generally. In Pali it is schamana, in Sanskrit Sramana translated to something like "buddhist monk, ascetic". The intermediate Chinese term is scha-men. (source)

A few years out of high school and traveling in Mexico with a high school friend of mine we had made our way south through almost the whole county when we decided to turn east toward the Yucatan to see the ancient Maya temple ruin complex of Chichen Itza. In the process of our travels we went to Oxkintok, one of, at least in those days and may even be so today, most unheard of and seldom visited Mayan ruins. Having done so, unbeknownst to either of us we crossed over the then unknown and yet to be discovered asteroid-caused 65 million year old 112 mile diameter outer rim of the Chicxulub crater, given credit now for the total extinction and demise of the dinosaurs.

On the first night inside the boundary of the impact's dry land portions outer ring onto what would be the crater floor, I had for some reason, become so uneasy and uncomfortable I wasn't able to sleep. We were planning to go to the Maya ruins of Dzibilchaltun, famous now for the Temple of the Seven Dolls and it's importance to the equinox, none of which either my buddy or I knew about at the time, the next day. Thinking I would be up most of the night I unpacked my telescope and set it up primarily to look at the Andromeda galaxy, spending most of my time trying to stay with the spiral's relative movement caused by the Earth's rotation without jiggling the scope so much I couldn't see it. Concentrating all my efforts on doing so, especially after installing a Barlow lens that doubled the scope's power, I completely lost track of time and place. Suddenly a chilling breeze or what was not quite a full wind caused from afar came up out of nowhere snapping me back to reality. Standing up to straighten my back and get the crick out of my neck as well as relax my eyes for a second, just as suddenly right in front of me and just as much out of nowhere as though she had been swept in by the sudden burst of wind, was an old woman. Short in stature with straight, pulled-back, nearly pure white hair and appearing to be of Maya extraction, she carried a gunnysack-like shoulder bag slung across her chest and back and under her arm filled with sticks as though she had been out collecting kindling wood or something. We just stood there looking at each other for what seemed the longest time.

Although what happened next between me, an unworldly just 20 year old boy-man not long out of high school and a little old Maya woman wielding unknown spiritual powers, ended in startling results --- only to repeat themselves again, albeit even harsher in my adult years. See:

ALTUN HA'S SACRIFICIAL ALTAR AND THE CHICXULUB IMPACT

(please click image)

TRAVELS IN THE YUCATAN

ASTEROIDS, SHAMANS, AND THE HIDDEN MAGIC OF MAYA TEMPLES

MAYA SHAMAN AND CHICXULUB

THE NINE MAIN SIDDHIS

INCIDENT AT SUPAI

A SHAMANIC JOURNEY OUTSIDE THE TRADITION

WE DO NOT HAVE SHAMANS

The Case Against "Shamans" In the

North American Indigenous Cultures

THE BEST OF

CARLOS CASTANEDA

<<< PREV ---- LIST ---- NEXT >>>

SEE ALSO:

ENLIGHTENMENT AND KARMA

FLYING OINTMENTS

VORTEXES

E-MAIL

THE WANDERLING

(please click)

RETURN TO:

OBEAH

DREAM

CATCHER

SITE