#because i do and i am incapable of not putting myself into my creations

[lordadmiralfarsight]

Economy lesson : Money Velocity

Greetings my dear little Tumblrans, it is I, that guy that keeps making vaguely meme-y economy posts ! Today with horrible news : I have decided to teach outside of work hours ! On the plus side, unlike my IRL students, YOU can block me if you don't want the lesson.

And today's topic will be Money Velocity. What is money velocity ? It's not a bike city populated by sentient cash, despite what some might believe, no. It is the speed at which money moves inside an economy. What's that got to do with anything ? A fucklot ! Let me explain.

Money velocity is, like I said, the speed at which money moves in an economy between actors. Like consumers, banks, the State, companies, NGOs, etc. The faster that money moves, the better, because it means that money is being used for economic activity, powering various parts of the system and thus creating wealth.

Or, in the wise words of one of the few monarchs I am not physically incapable of tolerating, King Julian : we like to move it move it (it being money).

To illustrate, allow me to introduce a character : a random €100 bill. Yes, euro, not dollar, I'm European, you can't stop me. That €100 bill, which we will call Billy going forward, is used to buy a load of groceries at the market, let's say veggies for a restaurant. Billy is now in the hands of a farmer, who uses it to buy fertilizer to keep his farm going. The producer of the fertilizer then uses Billy to pay a worker, who then uses billy to pay for a new piece of furniture, and then Billy is used to buy more lumber, then to pay for repairs on a chainsaw, then to buy spare parts, then to ... You get the idea, Billy is on a grand journey through the economy, how delightfull.

When he's doing that, Billy is keeping the economic waterwheel going, round and round, and that economic waterwheel then powers society. A waterwheel that goes vroom means that the economy is healthy, which means you can safely invest in a house, new tools, a car, whatever, and it's likely that the investment will go at least OK-ish. It means banks can feel safer about lending, which is kind of a central part of our current economic model and one of our primary tools of wealth creation.

Now, if you've read my other two economic posts, you're probably thinking I'm going to explain how everything's fucked and how we're all doomed, which is a gross exaggeration and I...

Why everything's fucked

I could apologize for that easy joke, but I asked myself if I should just because I could, and my answer is no.

So, in short : money move fast, is good. So logically, if money move slow, is bad, right ? Exactly. So the question then is : what makes money go slow ? Well, a bunch of stuff can.

For instance, a low amount of existing money, AKA the money supply. People like hoarding what's rare and what has value, so valuable rare stuff is prime hoarding material. Keeping in mind that TOO MUCH money can also be bad due to hyperinflation, something that causes shudders of horror in prudish teenagers prowling DeviantArt (no, I will not change my joke) and in Germans in general (I use "cahs wheelbarrow" in attack mode to trigger generational trauma).

Another factor would be how easy it is to pay for stuff. For instance, if you have to go to the bank to take money out of your account each time you need to pay for something, unexpected/impulse buying is far less likely, if only because of the hassle. If you can pay with a credit card (and even more so if you can check your account in real time), you're more likely to feel confident buying things, which in turn means you'll buy stuff, which keeps the money moving.

Last big factor we'll see is economic actor behaviour. "Can I start blaming billionaires now?" Patience my dear, I'm giving you a reason. So, how economic actors behave has an impact on the economy, amazing discovery, next, scientists claim ocean is made of water. But more seriously, if you're putting money aside you're reducing money velocity by creating, I guess you could call it an economic drainage lake which you fill with your savings.

Now, that money isn't entirely out of the system, since you're most likely shoving it into a savings account which can then serve as a backing for banks to loan money (how did you think interests were accrued?) so it's still going through the system, even if far slower than if you spend it.

Those bank loans can still be given to consummers buying big things (like houses) and to companies looking to develop, and that still keeps the economy running, right ? Normally, yes.

"Is it time to blame Capitalism and billionaires yet?" you ask, and yes, yes it is.

So, why do we blame them now ? Easy : there's a second economic circuit that's going perfectly fine, the financial one. If we look at the entire system, there's plenty of movement of money on the stock markets, even without taking speculation into account which ... is a whole other subject I may have to look at later. The main issue is that this financial economic circuit is not as connected as the traditional one as it perhaps should be, which means the money injected into that circuit has a worrying tendency to STAY in that circuit. How ? Well ...

Investors put cash into a company, then they expect dividents. Those dividends are used to put more cash in the company or in other companies, and since monkey brain like number big, investors ask for MORE dividends, which means you need to cut costs somewhere, like for instance employees. That money is still pushing economic activity, it's still creating wealth, but that wealth is focused in a rather small group and is based on the inherently unstable stock markets, which means that it can evaporate whenever investors have a collective tantrum. There's also the fact that, despite the large sums of money involved, that particular mass of money moves far slower than the money used by consummers.

Second big issue : the drainage great lakes. You're not the only one to have savings, the 1% have savings too, except theirs are proportional to how much cash they have. Now, to be clear, most of their wealth is in assets, not in cash, but they still DO have cash, and as you are no doubt aware, they aren't too thrilled when asked to pay taxes. Taxation is theft and all that bullshit spewed by people opposed to snake BDSM.

Like I pointed out, savings aren't inherently bad, they slow down the flow of money a bit, but do not stop it, and in fact allow for crucial investments that produce new wealth. No, the main issue is where those savings are. Tax havens, a well known term for places where money is put to stay hidden and, sometimes, to be laundered. Well, these puppies form, in effect, giant financial retention dams, where rivers of cash are poured in and trickles come out.

Most of the money put in tax havens don't return to the economy they come from. And, to be perfectly honest, they don't go into the tax haven's economy either. It just ... sits there. Hoardingly.

Proportionally, the tax havens have less of an impact than the parallel financial circuit, but they are visible and, most importantly, symptomatic of a way of thinking, of acting, of hoarding wealth and value.

So yeah, that's money velocity, or how fast money goes in the economy. Put simply, our system is currently obsessed with the stock market due to a systemic gambling addiction and has forgotten that the basis of a consumption economy is the consummer, which uh ... is generally in a less than ideal situation right now.

Now, when this topic was suggested to me, "trickle down" economics was mentionned, with the suggestion that I show how it's a scam. Well, I think it's already done fairly well with the above, as the system set up to "trickle down" was what spawned the financial circuit and allowed wealth monopilzation that spawned the tax haven problem on its current scale.

But I feel I should go further.

Is trickle down economics doomed to fail in all cases ? No, it can work actually ! It's just like unregulated Capitalism or Real Communism(tm), it can work if you just do this one simple, cheap, easy thing : replace all humans with robots bound by a strict programming.

Like many other economic or political ideas, "trickle down economics", in its stated goal and ideal functionning, is predicated and dependant on being populated purely and entirely by good faith actors. Adding any degree of human interference leads to the idealized system collapsing in one way or another.

This leaves two options :

Reagan and co were unerringly naive and incapable of considering the possibility humans could act selfishly or in a way that didn't match their vision.

They knew and were counting on it, and only sold the ideal as a sugar coating for the bullshit.

I'll let you pick which one is more likely.

[lotusmi]

Fearful Of Magnificence?

📚PART 10: Fearful Of Magnificence?

read more of my summaries | full post on reddit

⬸ [go to PART 9, "If I Am then I will Be" ]

How do we not fear the feeling that frees us? If you have been reading this series, you know this is about giving yourself exactly what you want IN YOUR MIND. We are granting all our wishes in ourselves. However, we should go beyond just granting wishes and start seeing ourselves highly in our minds. We should become absolutely grand and magnificent, for the sole purpose that we can and we want to.

However, at times we find ourselves imagining all wonderful things and then we go to feel what we want to, only fear it. There is this certain feeling of fear that restricts that glorious feeling from expanding within you. Questions and doubts arise and if we lend our ear to them, that glorious feeling becomes dimmer and dimmer. Then we may feel incapable of freedom, of our own salvation. We feel that fear and back we go into our own caves to dwell in. Our caves of desire, still wishing for freedom.

Who is going back to the cave? Who is resisting the feeling of freedom? Who is restricting the thoughts of glory and splendor? "Let the weak say "I AM strong." Are you not in desire within yourself? "Let the desiring say "I AM fulfilled," "May they come and drink and eat without a price," says the Mind. You do not have to have any qualifications to FEEL what you want to FEEL. Forget the past, or your worries about the future. There is NO PRICE TO PAY TO FEEL WHAT YOU WANT IN YOUR MIND. YOU ARE ALWAYS SAFE TO FEEL WHAT YOU WANT IN YOUR MIND.

When you go to feel that feeling you have been yearning for, and fear stops you, it is not a separate entity stopping you. Remember the "Monstrous Being" is your own creation, and you defeat it, NOT by fighting it but by not fearing it. You learn to stop fearing the wonderful feelings by seeing it is YOU who is holding yourself back. Taste the feeling just for a moment and see there is nothing to fear. Then the fear becomes smaller and smaller. Once you break through your own fear of wonderful feelings, you will see it was you all along. All fear are mental imaginings that you are creating within yourself. Knowing, you bring the power of CREATION BACK TO YOURSELF.

So for practical application, I like to call this the "For Once Meditation": (This is what helped me stop fearing beautiful feelings)

Lay down and just relax. The intention of this meditation is to FEEL FOR ONCE what you have been wanting to feel. That you will commit to freeing yourself from WITHIN FOR ONCE. This IS NOT about changing the world, but yourself FROM WITHIN.

Find something WITHIN YOU that you have ALWAYS been wanting to feel. Remove ALL ideas of trying to manipulate the world. Leave the world just as it is and remember to change self. We change self when we actually FEEL what we want to feel.

Once you start to feel it and that fear sparks up, DO NOT fear it. For this one time, do not fear that feeling.

Instead bring understanding to the Mind on why you should not fear it. Tell yourself something along the lines of, "I will allow myself to feel this wonderful feeling for once. I will free myself just for this moment. I am willing to put this fear that I always feel aside for a moment and I will accept this beautiful feeling. I am willing to free myself for once."

FOR ONCE just allow yourself the freedom to FEEL what you want. I promise you, if you just try it for once, all it takes is one time for you to FEEL this and you will not want to go back.

Example: I want become so confident and I want to see myself highly and I would like be praised beyond my wildest dreams.

I lay down to feel this.

I start seeing myself highly. I see myself as wonderful. I am walking places with confidence I did not know I had. I then see myself on a throne. Then I see myself as a glorious, beautiful being of light. I hear all these praises coming to me. ALL BECAUSE I WANT TO.

Then I go to FEEL this (This happens quickly, almost the same time, but I am only breaking it up for clarity). Then I start to FEAR this feeling. It does not seem real anymore. "What if nothing happens from this? What is the point of this?" Thoughts of the past when I was not confident or mistakes I made arise. Then that beautiful, freeing feeling starts to disappear. I start to feel stuck, not sure what I should do.

Then I bring understanding and the purpose back to my Mind. I come back and tell myself, "The whole purpose was to FEEL that beautiful feeling, not to fear it. I want to give my inner self, my mind what it wants and it wants to FEEL that amazing feeling of ecstasy. This changes SELF and that SELF is always reflected. I am creating the fear and I am the one stopping myself anyway. So FOR ONCE I will allow myself to FEEL this."

Then that feeling I want starts to come back up and it opens up my body. Anxiety is replaced with ease and me liking the feeling and the high I am being given (Lol) I want to intensify it. I want to FEEL this to my core because it feel so great. I want this to become my core feeling. Once it feel this wonderful feeling, I continue to ALLOW IT TO GROW. I do not force, there is not need to force. Just FEEL it grow and ALLOW it to free yourself.

Once I reach that state of ecstasy, I remind myself how much greater this feeling is than fear. How living my life in that low State of fear has brought nothing but undesirable outcomes. How ALLOWING myself FOR ONCE to FEEL this new beautiful feeling will and must reflect in my world because I AM CHANGING INNER SELF. And this life is INNER SELF, the only SELF, PUSHED OUT.

There is nothing or no one to change but self. If you start seeing yourself the way you want to see yourself within, that SELF will be reflected. CHANGING INNER SELF is the key.

Make a commitment that you will fulfill every desire you have within yourself, regardless if your outer you thinks its impossible.

To know if you did it correctly, the feeling will start to open your body up. Ease comes and from this you start to NATURALLY THINK-FROM that FEELING. We are always thinking-from FEELINGS, so it is our FEELINGS we must change.

"Understand DESIRE is a feeling that is held WITHIN and the inner you wants this to be fulfilled. It wants to change the feeling of desire to the feeling of fulfillment." - Edward Art

and.. as Neville says,

"A change in FEELING, is a change in DESTINY." - Neville

[go to PART 11, "Self Identification" ] ⤑

[misc-obeyme]

hi ur writing is literally amazing can i ask u some stuff regarding it/how you go about writing/advice? feel free to ignore this if its not something youre comfy with

were u ever nervous to post fic? i just posted my first one and am like. super embarrassed (i also have a Guilt Complex that influences that lmao). if so, did you find it easier as you kept writing?

also how the hell do you write endings/get the motivation for them? youre really good at tying things together nicely at the end (or the occasional Leave 'Em Wondering) and im curious about your process for it. i can pretty steadily get up to the scene i started the fic to write but after that brain and motivation go honk mimimi

anyways thank you for sharing your work with the internet! i love reading your stuff its always a highlight in my day :)

Hi there, anon!

So first of all, I absolutely LOVE questions about writing, so please always feel free to send me any you may have! I'm such a nerd, I really love talking about the process and I'm happy to discuss it or share advice and so on!

Secondly, omg you're so sweet! Thank you, I'm so glad you like my writing!

Now then, lemme answer your questions! I apologize in advance for the LENGTH of these answers, but I seem to be incapable of writing about this sort of thing without it turning into an entire essay.

Yes, absolutely, I was extremely nervous when I first starting posting my fics. Some of that may have been that I hadn't written fic in a while and I was nervous enough about sharing, but I was extra nervous about messing up characterization. I wasn't used to writing for characters that I didn't create myself. I got nervous again when I started posting smut, too lol.

The thing about this type of anxiety in general is that exposure therapy really is the cure. It's like that for a little bit at first, but the more you do it, the more you prove to yourself that it's no big deal. Nowadays, I have almost no anxiety when I'm posting something fluffy and even most smut pieces are easier for me to post, too.

Another piece of this is remembering that the reason you write fic is for your own enjoyment. You're putting it on the internet on the chance that someone else might like it, too. But really, you have to focus on the things that make you happy. It's easier to deal with posting anxiety if you keep your focus on the joy of creation rather than the adrenaline of sharing. It's hard to do, but it gets easier the more you do it!

Okay, so endings! Uh, here's a fun fact about me, endings are my weakness lol. I have a lot of practice starting things and then never ending them because I absolutely get bored at a certain point. So I know exactly what you mean by the brain going to honk mimimi land.

For me, the trick was to write short stuff. Most of my fics are just scene length. This allowed me to get some practice with writing more endings because I didn't get bored when I was pretty much just writing one scene. So I found a couple things that I like to do for endings specifically, but then I also discovered a way to sort of keep my brain engaged while writing longer stuff.

It kinda all comes down to what you want to leave the reader with. That final paragraph or sentence can really deliver an impactful emotion. So you kinda have to think about what the rest of the scene is about, what specific feeling do you want the reader to have when they get to the end? If you're not sure, you can also frame it as what kind of feeling do you want to have at the end?

One technique I like to use is tying everything back to the beginning. I've used it multiple times, but it's probably most obvious in this Barbatos drabble. The first and last sentences are the same, but you don't have to be that blatant about it lol. That was mostly a stylistic choice. But if you look at the third paragraph and the last paragraph, they are parallels of each other, but they're different. What they convey is that something has changed by the end. So by repeating pieces of the beginning at the end, I'm deliberately illustrating what changed in the middle.

It's like thinking of the ending as a sort of summary of everything that happened in the middle of the story. If you're writing something longer, you can apply this to individual scenes as needed. But you might end up with an entire scene at the beginning and an entire scene at the end that do the same thing (rather than a couple of paragraphs).

Another thing I like to do is leave an implication of further action that isn't included. Something like "You wouldn't leave his room until morning." or maybe "You had a feeling something like this would happen again soon." Like this isn't really the end, but the rest is up to your imagination!

This is more specifically about the last paragraphs/scene/sentence, though. It's good to think of a way to recall the entirety of the story you just told, leaving the reader with the overall feeling you were going for.

But when it comes to longer stories, if you're finding you make it to one scene and then stop, well, that might be the end of your story. For this kind of thing, it really helps me to think about what the end game of the story is. For instance, in my longest fic, The Threads That Bind, I knew it was a Barbatos x MC love story. So the "end" couldn't happen until they had confessed their feelings to each other. A lot of other stuff happened before that, but it all contributed to that final plot point. And there isn't much story after that. The final scene is their confession. (There is a spicy epilogue, but that was just a bonus lol.)

So if you can decide before you even start writing what the goal is, you can write to that goal, filling in a bunch of cool scenes along the way. It doesn't have to be that you know exactly what happens or what the final scene is. When I started writing Threads, I had no idea how the confession was going to go. I just knew that Barbatos and MC had to end up declaring their love somehow.

But I tied that into the rest of the story with the theme of the threads. It was a visual anchor as well as a metaphorical one - magic let them see threads binding them together, but the feeling of belonging to each other was kind of the point of it all. So I was able to take that concept that I'd already used and incorporate it into the final confession scene.

NOW THEN all of this might also be easier if you're an outline type of person, but I most definitely AM NOT. Other writers swear by an outline and you'll probably find a lot of information on how to use one if you Google it.

But outlining for me is like pulling teeth, so I never do it. I write my first draft in a fever dream, with the end goal and a handful of ideas about overall themes and a couple things that I just think would be cool or fun to write. I spend a lot of time daydreaming about the story first, too, but I don't write anything down until I'm writing that first draft.

I could probably write a whole book on my methods for writing, but my biggest piece of advice for this kind of thing is EXPERIMENT.

The best part about writing is that aside from the basic fundamentals (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc), there are NO RULES. So if you're finding you're always struggling with finishing, try out anything and everything that might help you with that. Try writing outlines, try not writing outlines, try ending your story with the scene you were working toward, try thinking of a new scene you want to write as the ending scene. If it works, great! If it doesn't work, no problem! Just chuck it and try something else.

Sometimes the best thing for me to do is to ask myself what would be the most fun to write next? And then just going for it. My opinion is that you can always edit things later!

Anyway, I hope some of that helps! I'm sorry I really rambled quite a bit, but like I said, I love talking about this kind of thing lol.

Good luck, anon, and I believe in you!

[dukeoftheblackstar]

I may take a bit to reply today or maybe not reply at all. I have the little silly dancers in their silly little dancing all up in my head today throwing molotov cocktails left and right and committing their pretty war crimes (arson mostly) all over while I just sit there waving a tiny white flag of surrender reading smut or poetry — or both at the same time, idgaf maybe idk. >:

So yeah, I'm not mad or ignoring anyone on purpose, I just am unable to do so today. Filling my head with comfort thots of bath-time with old man Plo and having his 18239128390128319083 babies — will also dabble so heavily on the creation of said babies , which is always a delight.

So if you're ever wondering if Plo's gonna be alright. No, he will not be alright. He will be on Duchii duty 24/7 beginning this hour. Will do things 100/10 to him frfr. He will be tired nd spent. But will be very much loved ♥♥♥ Send prayers LOL

Triggers be wild today again — getting a little bit more too handle with each day this week. Extra spicy. And I wonder if it was triggered by the text incident which happened again recently or it's because it just decided to.

It's the shittiest reason tbh. "it just decided to" — it's as if my brain suddenly just got bored and is all "Can't be happy all the time, babydoll. Why don't we make you extra neurotic today." And it does that silly dance that in spite of "it" — my brain, being a harbinger of bad news, I find the silly dance silly cute.

It's silly. It's the silly dancer. Just that little cute thing dancing while throwing molotov cocktails left and right in their little silly dance. I can't really hate them because they be so silly cute. But they're setting everything on fire and idk if I like that. I probably don't because then I have to do something about it. Actually do something about it.

I've cleaned though. I probably would again to extinguish the fire. Take out the meats from the fridge and clean the clean fridge. Put it back, stack them, and wait for god-knows how long before I do it again because oh my god, I seriously need a bigger fridge and it has to be done properly; always three — never more, never less.

And then the shower and bath conundrum on which takes precedence because I will do both. All inhibitions are out the door now, but I like it. I love water, you see? So bath and shower is like double the fun, double the fantasy maybe? Team Rocket from Pokemon but like, bath/shower maybe?

I wanna read though. Write too. Maybe watch. But it's there. The silly dancing silliness which makes me incapable of doing that. I'm just grateful they're kind enough to make me work when it's work time?

It's not a sad or pitiful thing in my opinion because it's me. They're little silly dancing silliness of me. I'm at peace with my shit, a condition I don't even know maybe? But I'm okay with it.

I'm okay with not seeing who's in the mirror. Like who's face is that because I love myself. I love wearing comfy clothing, love not wearing pants when I'm at home, love the marks on my body because I'm not exactly slender? Love my goddamn thighs that I'm afraid of scratching them? I'm okay with feeling like I'm on autopilot sometimes. I love watching my fingers shake sometimes because idk man, they're pretty gorgeous if you ask me.

I love them all. Love it more than I can and try to manage them no matter how many times they come back. Love it even when I cry because biiitch lemme tell you, I look cute AF when I cry. Real 'fuckmeupdaddy' face when I cry — I'm also equally unhinged all the time so. This is no surprise >:

I'm not vain or anything, but I've just come to terms with who I am and what can I offer. I don't shy away from compliments all the time because if you believe I'm that, I should always remember to have the moral compass to do the same. If you think I'm cute, then bitch yass. Because I owe it to myself for making it this far to put myself down.

So yes. Maybe I am gonna shower-bath at the same time. Remorsefully cut my nails for my own safety.

***

And here it is. I wrote all of that with the silly dancing molotov throwing arson committing silliness bebbis and they're just sat there all cute like 'awww did you burn me out off that wip I was actually enjoying, you cute little monster?" and they be so cute about like 'maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe'.

And now the wip and me is on fire and this cute little dancing silliness is just there silly dancing all cute and silly.

So now we're at an impasse and there's only one thing left to do.

Eat the little silly dancing silliness so they're back in their intricate little boxes. Cute little silly dancing shits they are, but I love them?

[russenoire]

does anyone have a healthy relationship with making art?・part 1

and if so, what does yours look like?

art is one special interest of mine... among a dozen or so. and most of them i engage with to various unhealthy degrees.

for example, my japanese self-study looked like this for a while: several hours a day per week, including all-nighters poring over my own translations and grammar resources and doing anki speedruns. i'd asked my friends for a 7-month-long time out and took a vow of silence unless it was in japanese. i said that i'd surrendered to the language at the time, and i meant it. while i don't regret it, exactly, i seem to be constitutionally incapable of pacing myself over things i love, and i can flame out pretty easily.

every piece of art i have finished over the last year? has involved at least five all-nighter sessions. multiple forgotten meals. dangerously sore wrists. migraines from eyestrain and dehydration. body aches.

an idea seizes me by the throat. i begin the process of making it real... and cannot stop. at all. it will colonize my brain, robbing enjoyment and headspace from other important things that need doing until i can call it done. i've literally put off buying food because that feels like a chore and i could be drawing. housekeeping gets done in something like resentment, if at all. and then i can't bring myself to art again for months. because this shit is exhausting and because i actually can't ignore the rest of my life without guilt or terrible consequences. it's why i'm not as prolific as i would like to be.

after a lifetime of semi-confidence in my lineart, i only started learning how to paint less than a year ago. i am aware, painfully aware, of how much i still have to learn, but i can look at things i've finished and see more than 'mistakes' or 'flaws' now.

coloring can still take me forever, because it involves a lot of decision-making and feeling things out and tweaking until things feel right to me. sometimes they never do. i shelve work in the hope that i'll feel differently about it at some point.

i actually like the work i've made public. i'm proud of it. i hate that i felt like i had to turn into a machine to produce it.

though i know i'm not alone (thanks, duchess celestia) i feel naked and a bit ashamed mentioning any of this. i can hear the negative self-judgment coming a mile off and it's really easy for my brain to paste strangers' heads onto that critical voice i hear.

i don't know how not to be like this. i want to build a better relationship with creation so i can make more art.

[jackednephi]

I'm gonna put this rambling under the cut but have the text messages I sent my mother earlier

I just saw the church policy updates last night. Why do they hate me? What did I ever do wrong? How is being me a sin? I'm not hurting anybody

[She asked for clarification]

The church has said that, even though children before 8 cannot sin, if the kid is transgender, they're sinful. Trans folks are no longer allowed around children, to receive the blessings of the priesthood, and a lot more. Even if it's just a social transition. Trans folks are being treated worse than convicted sexual offenders. What the hell did I ever do wrong for people who have never even met me to hate me?

I've done plenty wrong in other ways. I've trusted the wrong people and hurt others. But I've always apologized and done my best to purge the root urge from my heart. How much more repenting am I supposed to be doing? All for the way I exist? Does God also have the bird beg forgiveness for daring to sing? This isn't fair. Where does the love even begin? I thought we were to love and be loved. This is beyond painful and I don't even have dad to cry to

My conclusion is this: either god hates me and the way he made me and others or. The church is wrong. And considering it's been wrong in the past well

But yeah that's what I sent

I do think I have a point here about birds. God gave them voices so they sing. To pretend to be cishet would be so antithetical to my being that like. Could you imagine a songbird without song? How depressed the poor creature would be?

God gave us grapes but not wine and wheat but not bread. So we have to make those final steps ourselves. The way I see it, he gave us bodies and it's up to us to figure out the rest. Would the lord have a baker repent for turning wheat into bread? The vinter for transforming grapes to wine? The bird for twittering? The lion for its fangs? The rabbit for its ears?

Why then, must I apologize for being true to my spirit? Why must I cower and beg and plead and whittle myself down? Steal the fangs from my lion's mouth, shear the rabbit's ears, and cease my singing? Why am I tasked to cut something so fundamental from my core? It would be a grave sin to maul nature, to steal that which makes creation unique. And yet my brethren and I are tasked with killing ourselves. Of murdering our fundamental nature. And for what?

I feel so cast out and hated. The policy of exclusion had me bawling my eyes out on my bathroom floor years ago. And these new policies have me weeping yet again. How is a little child committing a sin greater than sexual predators by being honest? I thought we valued honesty. That little children were innocent and incapable of lies and inherently good and pure. What business does a toddler have saying "I feel wrong" or "I'm really a boy/girl"

I dont! Get it!

Our God is a God of love and peace and mercy. He is wrathful to the hateful and unjust. How is my love for my wife hateful? How is the light I see glitter in her eyes when she has a mouthful of mischief wrong? The way the corners of her mouth upturn before she unleashes a pun is breathtaking. But apparently because she's not cis either, we're both in the wrong

I've spoken before how unfairly polyamory is treated. How people find me loving more than one person a problem. That's nothing new. To them, love is to be jealously guarded and given sparingly. I am incapable of this. My heart is full of endless love. The few folks who understand the way my love overflows have been fellow queer folks

I don't know how to articulate where I'm going with all this. All I know is it hurts. It feels like my heart is wrapped in barbed wire. Like I'm a songbird forced into silence

All I know is it hurts

[steebart]

Art v AI

Here are some thoughts I've had recently. It's a lot so read it if you want to. I'd love to hear what you think.

---

The battle between artists and AI is one in a metaphorical and literal sense. Each side is driven by different ideologies. There are thought leaders among both who others look up to for advice. Many people in pursuit of their goal, their ideology, dismiss the wants and needs of those on the other side. They value one thing above all else. They think that the way they enjoy things is the only way. Or they think that the other side is somehow incapable of understanding it. So as a result, they don’t try to understand their enemy. They misinterpret what they’re saying in the worst way rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt and hearing them out. And it’s hard not to hear people out when it seems like all they’ve ever done is make is life worse. But if I never give them a chance to understand me because I've never tried to understand them, then that’ll keep happening. Learning and teaching are a two way street. We learn as much from our teachers as they do their students. Because learning is understanding the world around us. Why things are the way they are. If a student isn't comprehending something, it's on the teacher to figure out why. I can’t just accept things as they are if I don’t know if the perception I have is accurate. And none of us know the reasons for anything. That’s why we speculate about God and The Big Crunch, we want to know. And it’s because we want to know that we find the unknown scary. We find solace in thinking we know what the reason is when there is no reason. I’m trying to stop thinking I know why I’m doing things, because I don’t. I’m an animal of instinct, we all are, my thoughts and feelings are just how I manifest my instincts. And I’m not responsible for any of that, just as a dog or cat or plant isn’t responsible for their level of understanding. I was under the impression that animals don’t blame themselves for what they are, but that’s also just an assumption. Maybe some of them do. Just like humans. What I perceived as depression, what I suffered with, the lack of motivation to do what is healthy for myself, has been observed in flies when put in scenarios of high stress that they have no control over. I feel like it’s because they feel hopeless, like they aren’t in control. That’s how I’d react if I was in their situation anyway.  [1]

I’m learning to feel the most in control of my life if I unpack what I am genuinely in control of, which at this moment are my thoughts and body in certain ways. I don’t have total control of my body, because really my body isn’t me, it’s the universe. When it comes down to it, the only thing I can do is catch myself in the middle of a habit, something I do instinctually, and try to stop it if I don’t think it’s helping me. And it will fail, because habits are hard to break, but I just need to keep trying. That’s the hard part. But it does get easier. But I need to keep trying. I think it was Jogging Baboon who said that.

Back to AI, I think we all want to create things. Because when we create things we have control. So we prioritize the resources we need in order to create. I was prioritizing getting into the animation industry because I wanted to make great animated films like the ones I watched that inspired me as a kid. So I did what I thought I had to do to accomplish that. Go to college, take all the lessons, network. I hated all of that, because I was doing it so I could get to the position where I felt I could create things without realizing I could create what I want to create right now. I think people who are so eager to use generative AI do so because they see the effort that other people put into their work and feel intimidated, like they can’t do that. They’re comparing themselves and their work to the work they think is good, the person who they want to be. But really, everyone’s creations are the result of all of their experiences, and I’ll never be anyone but me so I’ve learned to stop comparing myself to others and their work. They’re doing their best with what they know just like I am. They’re following their instincts. And ultimately, they won’t get the same sense of accomplishment out of generating AI as they would if they did it in other ways that required more effort, that taught them more about themselves and what they like and why they like it, because at the end of the day my accomplishment is appreciating how far I've come, what I've learned, how I've changed as a person. They didn’t learn anything by typing in a few words. But I don’t need to shame them for that. We’ve all been there, at least I know I have. I pursued goals that weren’t actually for me, that didn’t make me happy, and then I got frustrated when I wasn’t happy, when I felt like the effort I was putting in wasn't comparable to the people around me, and so I slowly lost hope along the way. I blamed myself. I need to stop giving myself expectations. Whatever the outcome is is fine. Because I’ll be fine. And if I’m not fine, then I’ll probably have died and no longer feel anything, but that’s just my body. My essence, my ideas and memories and influences will live on in everyone I meet. That is my power, that’s my money, that’s my art. And I want to make the most of it.

---

[1] Emotional states: Sweet relief for depressed flies

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982222013677#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%20decade%2C%20the,a%20form%20of%20learned%20helplessness.

[noctiferous-fr]

Disabled Dragon Share

Talking about Marrow made me want to share more disabled dragons! Please feel free to reblog and add your own, I’d love to see more of them and their stories <3

Icarus was born with messed up wings, so he can’t really fly. He’s become an inventor that specializes in assistive devices - mostly prosthetics given the technological capabilities of Sornieth. All of his inventions are free to those who need it, and he’s financially supported both by selling other technologies and by the rulers of Sylvhurst and his Family. 

Telum works as a Gunner on The Grey Lady ( a pirate ship ). Before working there, he worked for the Admiralty and had an accident which took his arms. Because of his injury the Admiralty terminated his employment, but Telum was determined to go back out at sea. He found a spot at his current position and with his pay and his Captain’s support is able to keep his prosthetics working and upgraded every so often. He also has a bit of hearing loss due to his work but isn’t entirely deaf. 

[sexyandhedonistic]

Neville Goddard lecture summaries

⚜️⋮ Consciousness is the Only Reality

⚜️   God is man's consciousness, his awareness, his I AMness.

The definition of God’s name JODHEVAUHE:

JOD: the hand that builds within your world, what creates

HE: a window or an eye

VAU: a nail

HE: another window/eye

JOD is your I AMness, out of this awareness all states of awareness come. HE is your imagination and your ability to perceive. You imagine or perceive something which seems to be other than Self. VAU, your ability to feel yourself to be that which you desire to be, As you feel you are it, you become aware of being it

To walk as though you were what you want to be is to take your desire out of the imaginary world and put the VAU upon it. You have completed the drama of creation. I am aware of something. Then I become aware of actually being that of which I was aware.

Lastly, HE, another eye. This one represents the visible objective world which will only ever demonstrate to you that which you are conscious of being You do nothing about the objective world; it always molds itself in harmony with that which you are conscious of being.

I added this in because it’s like a little formula:

JOD + HE + VAU + HE = God

Your I AMness + your imagination + your ability to feel the fulfillment of your desire + your consciousness out pictured = the fruition of your manifestation

You are conscious of being, aren't you? Certainly you are. You are also conscious of something that is other than yourself: the room, the furniture, the people. You may become selective now. Maybe you do not want to be other than what you are, or to own what you see. But you have the capacity to feel what it would be like were you now other than what you are. As you assume that you are that which you want to be, you have completed the name of God or the JOD HE VAU HE. The final result, the objectification of your assumption, is not your concern. It will come into View automatically as you assume the consciousness of being it.

The son of God’s name reads as JODHEVAUSHINAYIN

SHIN: a tooth. This tooth symbolizes consumption, or destruction. I must have within me the power to consume that which I now dislike. 

I, in my ignorance, brought to birth certain things I now dislike and would like to leave behind me. Were there not within me the flames that would consume it, I would be condemned forever to live in a world of all my mistakes. But there is a SHIN, or flame, within the name of the Son, which allows that Son to become detached from states He formerly expressed within the world.

To have the power of creation means to be able to conceive and then become that which you conceive. To have the power of destruction is to be able to eradicate what you no longer wish to be conscious of. Combined, you can bring forward the desirable and leave behind the undesirable. If you can create, you can also deteriorate.

Man is incapable of seeing other than the contents of his own consciousness. If I now become detached in consciousness from this room by turning my attention away from it, then, I am no longer conscious of it… It can only live within my objective world if I keep it alive within my consciousness… But I would not like to keep alive within my world all of my mistakes. So I, in my infinite mercy gave to myself, when I became man, the power to become detached from these things that I, in my ignorance, brought to birth in my world.

⚜️   When you pray believe that you have received, and you shall receive.

Praying = manifesting. Ask and you shall receive. If you assume it is yours, so shall be. Accept your desires as a fact and they will become a fact. Very straightforward! Once you believe that your prayer (intention to manifest) has been (will be) answered, you no longer covet your desires. In fact, they’re no longer your desires because to label something as a desire is to imply that you are conscious of the fact that it is not yet in your possession. 

When satisfaction is yours, you no longer hunger for it. If the hunger persists you did not explode the idea within you, you did not actually succeed in becoming conscious of being that which you wanted to be. There was still that thirst when you came out of the deep. If I can feel that I am that which but a few seconds ago I knew I was not, but desired to be, then I am no longer hungry to be it. I am no longer thirsty because I feel satisfied in that state. Then something shrinks within me, not physically but in my feeling, in my consciousness, for that is the creativeness of man… When a man prays successfully he believes that he is already that which he desired to be, therefore he cannot continue desiring to be that which he is already conscious of being. At the moment of satisfaction, physical and psychological, something goes out which in time bears witness to man's creative power.

Suppose I want security. I cannot get it by knowing people who have it. I cannot get it by pulling strings. I must become conscious of being secure. Let us say I want to be healthy. Pills will not do it. Diet or climate will not do it. I must become conscious of being healthy by assuming the feeling of being healthy.

⚜️   Make elsewhere here and then now imagine that your objective is so close that you can feel it.

Although you believe yourself to be confined to the evidence of your five senses, you can believe anything in regardless of time and space. You do not depend on sight, but rather you depend on your mind to materialize what it is that you want. If you dream of vacationing in Greece but your senses tell you that you are elsewhere, you shut them out by closing your eyes. Allow yourself to dwell in the thought of being in Greece right now until your mind is consumed with that thought. When you do, you’ll feel it so real at this very moment that when you open your eyes you’d be shocked to see that you aren’t there.

All of your senses bear witness to the fact that you are here in this room. Everything tells you that you are here, but perhaps you do not want to be here. You can apply this toward any objective. The room in which you are seated at any time -- the environment in which you are placed, this is your rough or sensibly known world… Simply remove your attention from the region of sensation which at this moment is the room round about you, and you concentrate your attention on that which you want to put in its place, that which you want to make real. In concentrating on your objective, the secret is to bring it here.

If your desire is to be beautiful, you do the same. Whoever it is that you want to be at this very moment, assume that that is you right now. Shut out the 3D and ponder the idea of being your ideal self until it feels real to you. After that, know that it is done.

Take the idea that you want to embody, and assume that you are already it. Lose yourself in feeling this assumption is solidly real. As you give it this sense of reality, you have given it the blessing which belongs to the objective world, and you do not have to aid its birth any more than you have to aid the birth of a child or a seed you plant in the ground… Your present environment vanishes, all the circumstances of life change and make way for the coming of that to which you have given your life. As you walk, knowing that you are what you wanted to be, you objectify it without the assistance of another.

You remain faithful to this subjective reality and you do not take back from it the power of birth. You gave it the right of birth and it is going to become objective within this world of yours.

⚜️   A complete transformation of consciousness rubs out all evidence that anything other than this ever existed in the world.

Neville speaks here about leaving the old story, your previous state of consciousness, behind. You completely forget about what you were once conscious of that it doesn't even occupy space in your mind. When you appropriate a new state of consciousness, you let go of everything you previously accepted matter-of-factly, since you are now conscious of otherwise. If your goal is to manifest wealth, you cannot even give credence to the idea of ever being poor.

You so completely rub out poverty in your mind's eye that there is nothing in this world you can point to and claim, that is where I left it.

⚜️   Everything comes from within, not from without.

It all starts with YOU. Circumstances do not matter. It doesn’t matter how difficult the predicament or how optimistic the goal. Whatever it is, you can achieve it. Your desire is symbolized as a mountain that you may believe to be challenging to climb, but when you begin to see yourself as someone who’s already at the summit (you change your conception of self), you know that you’re all you need to bring your desires into being. 

I can by simply feeling that I am what I want to be transform myself into the likeness of that which I am assuming I am; I know now that I am all that it takes to scale this mountain… When I feel that I am what I want to be I cannot suppress the joy that comes with that feeling. I must always contemplate my objective until I get the feeling of satisfaction.

Your conception of self, how you see yourself in relation to the world and how you see the world in relation to you, is the blueprint of your reality. How you carry yourself as well as the experiences that you have you will always be portrayed in correspondence to your self concept.

I do nothing to make it visible in my world;  men, women, children, the whole vast world round about me, come bearing witness. They come to testify that I am what I have assumed myself to be, and am sustaining within myself. When my world conforms to my assumption the prophecy is fulfilled. If I now know what I want to be, and assume that I am it, and walk as though I were, I become it and becoming it I so completely die to my former concept of self that I cannot point to any place in this world and say: that is where my former self is buried. I so completely died that I defy posterity to ever find where I buried my old self. 

⚜️   You cannot put new wine in old bottles or new patches on old garments.

Leave behind your old conception of self. Whoever you once thought you were, who you no longer want to be, let that person stay in the past. When you step into a newer version of you, do not bring along fragments of the old you. Let the dead bury the dead. Remain faithful to your new conception of self that you can’t even imagine ever being the old you. It does not matter if your reason or the world around you denies it. Don’t look back and don’t concern yourself with the how or the when. As far as you’re concerned, you are now the person that you desire to be, who possesses what you desire to possess and who does what you desire to do.

Knowing this law by which a man transforms himself, I assume that I am what I want to be and walk in the assumption that it is done. In becoming it, the old man dies and all that was related to that former concept of self dies with it. You cannot take any part of the old man into the new man. You must be a new being completely.

You have dominion if, as you walk the earth, you know that your consciousness is God, the one and only reality. You become aware of something you would like to express or possess. You have the ability to feel that you are and possess that which but a moment before was imaginary. The final result, the embodying of your assumption, is completely outside of the offices of a three-dimensional mind. It comes to birth in a way that no man knows.

[ellipsical-elle]

Why I Write Novellas

For most of my life I thought there was only ONE WAY to be a writer. You wrote a whole ass book, you edited it, you shopped it, and if someone else thought it was good enough, you were published. It was a process that took years and years. It required the manuscript to cure in a drawer for some time so that you would come back to it with fresh, critical eyes so that you could, presumably, beat it into better shape with whatever experience you had gained in the interim. I’m not saying there’s not wisdom in this approach. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work for some folks, maybe the majority of folks, but every time I have tried to follow the path I have failed spectacularly and it always resulted in me not writing and not being able to finish anything ever.

I’ve written since I was young. Being a writer is foundational to who I am. It is a core thread to my identity. And for a whole giant chunk of my life I didn’t do it because I thought there was only ONE WAY and unfortunately the ONE WAY didn’t work for me so that meant I couldn’t do the thing that brought me the most joy. 

I failed at it for lots of reasons. I lose momentum and motivation without the positive reinforcement of tiny accomplishments (I finished a chapter, a section, an arc!). The glower of perfectionism settles and I become paralyzed by doubt. My nervous system gets activated by the inherent vulnerability of putting the creation out into the world and the anticipated failure or judgment of others meant that I would go into freeze or flight and never finish a project. My life was also not conducive to a long creation timeline because I do not have long periods of time where I am alone to create (due to kids, full time job, school, dogs, etc.)

Fanfic was revolutionary for me because it showed me there was ANOTHER WAY to create. I could write for fun! I could post a chapter at a time! Completing big projects was finally something I was able to do because it became a matter of achievable component parts instead of scaling Doom Mountain Masterpiece Manuscript! I wasn’t incapable of it, as I had so long believed. I learned to battle perfectionism by accepting that this work was created and edited by the best of ME AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. Perfection was not attainable, my best in the moment was. I was enough! What I created was ENOUGH! From being in community with other fic writers I saw that it was ok for me to create in a way that worked for me and for my life. 

So now, as I try out self-publishing I’m trying to model something I wish I would have seen more of: ANOTHER WAY to do it. I’m publishing A Firm Hand in three novellas because I have learned to trust my creative process. I am successful* when I create in alignment with my nervous system and intuition. (*Fanfic also taught me that success can be whatever I define it as, which for me means I finish a work and share it. I cannot control other people’s reactions to it, so I cannot base the success of a project on how other people receive it, how popular it is, etc.) I don’t need to force myself to create the way others do. 

Anyways, this is a long way of saying that I hope this is a permission slip to anyone who feels similarly stymied by a ONE WAY approach to creating. I hope you learn to trust yourself and create in a way that works for you. 

As I dip my toe back into Tumblr since leaving Twitter I’m interested in connecting with people around creative process, writing, reading, etc. If that’s you I hope you’ll interact with me here <3 Would also love recommendations of blogs you follow who are talking about these things!

[junkworldusa]

on comics

[tl;dr i was worried for most of my life about being a ‘good artist’ but now i just make comics and you should too]

i spent april, may, and half of june 2020 rendering geometric objects in soft charcoal. i threw myself into what’s colloquially known on /ic/ as grinding fundies-- perspective exercises, bargue plates, and figure drawing. my intent was to git gud and finally launch a narrative webcomic-- something visually pleasing, digital, and well-written. i had finished scripts, thumbnails, character designs, etc. i had to take advantage of all this sudden free time from losing my job! this was my chance!

then last month i realized abruptly that i was not that kind of artist, i had never been that kind of artist, and i would never be that kind of artist. i could not go SCRIPT->THUMBNAILS->PENCILS->INK because it would kill me. i had to accept i could not “finish” anything that way. if i thought too much about the work i lost interest; if it took too long i got bored. even now, every comic is a race against my own attention span.

i think there are a couple factors at play here. one is my own brain. but another is a deeper problem inherent to the medium: i believe “writing” a script or words ahead of time sucks the life out of the work. (will eisner talks about this in “Comics and Sequential Art.” ideally the writer and artist should be the same person and it should be done at the same time; if they cannot be the same person, then the artist must have liberty to change the script as they see fit to better suit the pacing/visual storytelling.) comics are the interplay of words and image. the words feed the image, the image feeds the words. the fragmented process of, say, a typical DC comic-- script/pencils/ink/color all done by separate people hundreds of miles apart-- is antithetical to the medium and also why these comics are mostly bad. to go even further, the words and images should be done with the same tool. if i put the brush down to switch to a pen the words are not the same, and the disparate style is jarring on some level. the simultaneous creation of words and images is essential. there’s immediately life. your hands come up with things you didnt expect. what i very recently learned is that i have to work like a rollercoaster: start to finish, without looking back, and without stopping. thinking is not necessary-- “skill” is not necessary. (i still struggle with this last point but the mild popularity of a few of my left-handed comics prove it to me: people will respond to a shaky scribble as long as the scribble is alive.)

i got this practice from lynda barry. who else? when i first read that she just sits down and draws a comic from start to finish, i was horrified and jealous. she writes the words for a panel, draws the image, then moves on to the next. that’s it. it seems straightforward but it haunted me. i thought i was incapable of this and that anything done like this would be TRASH! (unless lynda barry did it, of course.) but that is how i am trying to work now.

it’s not easy. self-consciousness, self-criticism, and the years of thinking art must look a certain way are all against us. it gets easier, though. i think it got easier once i realized how fun it can be. i use crayons, cheap paper, collage, non-dominant hand drawing, anything to help me realize it’s not that serious. the tactile and permanent aspect of traditional art is another aid. some of my favorite cartoonists and inkers work digitally but my brain doesnt grok it-- on some level it doesnt think it’s real.

working this way, i am not making the type of comics i wanted to make. i am not making comics that a lot of people will like to look at or read. but i am making comics, and before this i was not.

everyone can and most importantly SHOULD make comics. i tell everyone i know that they should draw more, that they should make comics. the usual protests: “i can’t do that, i can’t think of anything, i can’t draw.” how do you know? i think the same things and these thoughts are the death of art. everyone has something to say-- if you draw a comic and show it to me i will love it because it’s something new.

i have nothing further to say about art that hasn’t been said by lynda barry, GOAT, whose books on writing and drawing i recommend to everyone. (”What It Is,” “Picture This” and, appropriately, “Making Comics”. i feel like these should be mandatory reading for humanity.) tom hart, one of the greatest living cartoonists in my opinion, has a big free [!] e-book available about cartooning and creativity with lots of exercises-- http://www.tomhart.net/how-to-say-everything.html

finally:

ok thanks for reading my manifesto xxx

[frostahesmegabite]

The Judgement of Carrion

@daily-writing-challenge - Day 4 - Accomplish/Macabre [ Content warning: Blood, Guts, Gore, Bits of Torture, That sort of stuff. While there aren't pages and pages of it, it is present in this short story. I tried to find a balance of detail and keeping things light without going into ‘Hostel’ territory. ]

Human forts were a dime a dozen, easily found and half of them forgotten or falling to ruin due to the numerous war fronts that were constantly moving across the face of Azeroth to fight one force or another. Some lost to time, others to ruin, some to marauding forces and others simply abandoned because they were no longer needed. It was one of these Forts that Megahes had put to use for himself and probably his most comprehensive and long lasting pastime.

Clever little devices put into play to keep things looking abandoned and misused, neglected and falling to ruin. The place had not only been repaired but also reinforced with Magical and Mechanical Goblin ingenuity that was built upon with knowledge gained over the past several decades.

Inside of this fort, despite the fact it was never intended to receive an actual willful audience, was decorative furniture made of fine dark woods embroidered with rich velvets, soft silks and the finest wools and cottons coin could acquire. Tables stretching about with plates and goldware that no man or woman other than Megahes would ever see sat to present an atmosphere of riches on display. Trophy cases and stands line the walls with numerous weapons of both magical and mundane descent that perch over Armor Stands holding protective metal layers meant not just for Goblins, but all races.

If any ever came to somehow find the place and took the time to inspect any of it, they’d find that all of these items weren’t as ‘pristine’ as they may appear at a distance. Damage came to them all at some point or another. Blunted blades, shattered axe heads assembled to look presentable. Armor with gashes, pierced helmets or chest pieces, greaves with shorn metal by the thighs that most likely led to bleed outs.

The more one could look, the more they’d note that all of the gear was like walking through a museum of deathly wounds. All that stood or hung from the walls had a story of defeat and loss and probably before then, great triumphs, valor and victory… just to have their stories end here.

Megahes pays no mind to these things now though as he walks with his back rigid and straight, his arms back behind him with hands clasping the other arms elbow in some overly formal glide across the stone floor. His bright white and gold attire is a stark beacon amongst the dark colors and atmosphere of the room that one should have found comforting, but for some reason, only brought worry and dread with it as he moves about his untold business.

[ Artwork by the Magnificent Fishadee. No Fire or Light Shards floating about in this scene, purely put for clothing example. https://twitter.com/fishadee ] He stops, not worrying to look around for any watchers, for he knows there are none as he stops at a small wall just behind a staircase. “Rehorur decno Kudex.” A series of flashes occur around our Goblin and once completed a small stone panel slides off to the side and Megahes puts his hand into the slot. A sudden sharp ‘shing!’ sound is head and Mega’s neck tenses but for a moment before his hand is withdrawn. A mechanical but feminine voice perks up from the slot. “Welcome back.” “Hmm.” The only sound Megahes makes before he takes a step back and then to the left. The stone wall jars forward at an alarming speed, spikes erupting from her stone crevices meant to impale and kill any would-be intruders while giving Megahes the solitary moment that was needed to pass behind the crude defense into the wall beyond. Whether by measured practice or perhaps sensors, the trap quickly retreats and returns to normal, giving off no telltale signs of a hidden door or of Mega’s earlier passing.

The reason for all this secrecy? Hidden at the end of the staircase Mega was already descending. Humans had their specialties sure, jacks of all trades those people. But the one thing they never fail to make well?

Jail Cells and Prisons.

It was this singular reason that Megahes took over this once ramshackle Fort for himself. Though there weren’t many cells, there was no need. Three of them sat in a row at the bottom of the stairs, each outfitted with custom Arcano-tech that allowed for the arrival of a singular occupant that was soon set to magical and electrical suppression to keep them docile and incapable of action while time slowly allowed them to become dehydrated and starved to where strength or speed was no longer an issue either.

The work put into this place was one of Mega’s hidden creations of pride and in the past, its use went towards a sorted pastime of torturing whoever was unfortunate enough to get caught by one of his traps. Times change however and with Mega’s newfound religion, came the need to change how and why he did things while applying them to old hobbies. Today’s hobby however, only involved one other person beyond himself and Mega comes to stand right before him as electricity pulses through his frail, nearly starved frame.

“Brother Abacus.” A stupid name, false to be sure, but one that Megahes didn’t really care about either way. “I realize you don’t know who I am and that’s quite alright.” He leans in, voice dialing down as he speaks through the bars just as another tide of electricity bombards the ‘Brother’, causing him to whimper and whine in pain. “You have been found guilty of being a member of a Twilight Cult, one in fact, that was run by Dinthoqaf the Defiler.”

The cultist looks up, arms shaking in heavy tremors as he tries to look his would-be captor in the eye. They give out however, causing him to hit the ground with an exhale. His cracked and bleeding lips wobble, trying to say something, but the lack of strength made their efforts near useless. It was sad really, or at least it would be if Megahes cared about the man's condition in the slightest.

Megah glides over to a control panel on the wall and proceeds to flip a series of switches and dials which cause several mechanical tendrils to tear from the wall in Abacus’ cell that soon lash him to the same wall they originated from. His body was quickly drawn into an ‘X’ shape with limbs pulled tight and to their limits.

“You see. Your former… Employer? Boss? Leader.” Megahes hands lift and tumble in slow methodical circles as he tries to find the right word, but leaves it be. “Him and I don’t get along very well and thanks to his efforts, I find myself needing to improvise my tactics a bit. While I know he’s dead, face turned to slag and glass, I wanna make sure I get the job done correctly, meaning none of his followers try to take up his mantle. I’m sure you understand.”

He turns around and heads into the cell, worry of electrocution now gone thanks to the current state of affairs. “You see. I have this…” He pauses. “...Macabre little ritual I have to do every so often and believe me.” The Goblin laughs while looking up at the man while proceeding to straighten up his clothes, as if it mattered. “As much as people might want me to say I hate doing this… I don’t. I’ve been doing this to people way before you all found me and now. Now I get to put my hobbies to better use.”

Megahes’ hand comes up, his index finger pressing to his lips to tell Brother Abacus to be silent. His smile fades with the gesture and he reaches up, pressing his black and gold painted claw against the clothing of this man's thigh. Downward, slowly, it runs. Fabric quickly turns from a peasant-y brown to a heavy red and brown as flesh below seems to split before the clothing itself can.

Magic? Possibly. Insanely sharp claws? Not likely. But whatever it was, the man's thigh split open as if by scalpel and despite his starvation, he thrashes weakly in an effort to pull away. The machines holding his wrists tighten and continue to do so until the sound of bone is heard crunching.

This process continues on not just for mere moments but stretches of hours, lines drawn across flesh like sand. Megahes had nothing else to say and so, despite the protests and pleading, begging to let him go and he’d tell no one, Mega continued.

Soon, details were carved away, facial features, scalp and its rooted hair, ears. Nearly anything that could be taken and removed without outright killing this poor cultist was taken in some macabre movie of silence and torture and finally, when the man was nearest his end, Megahes opens his own shirt.

The metal embedded into his Chest that shines with the Light like a beacon in this squalor, practically vibrates as Mega runs his blood coated hands across its surface. Red blood made semi-translucent by the sheer shine, soon was baked and cooked black, all Vitae devoured, leaving Megahes to sigh in relief.

“I would ask you to tell the Defiler thank you for giving me this. But… we both know you’re never going to have that opportunity.”

Megahes runs his hand up from Brother Abacus' groin clear up to his collarbone, shearing clean through flesh and muscle alike. What came next was a grotesque shower of innards that began to fall and slop to the floor, leaving our would-be cultist inanimate and lifeless.

“Now to clean up and go home. Tonight’s my date night and I have so many things to accomplish before She gets home…” Soon, the jail cells were left dark and eventually the slow trickling of blood and various other liquids came to silence in the dark, waiting to be cleaned up and for a new subject to be taken.

[umbralstars]

Sothis, the Church of Seiros and Byleth: A Pagan Reading

Due to L!Byleth and the minor hyperfixation he caused I decided to make a whole discussion on how I personally view Sothis, the Church of Seiros as a whole, and examine Byleth's role in the story.

So just some ground rules before I begin:

This is just how I personally viewed the story as I played it, and my own perspective on the plot and meaning behind certain things. I am open to discussion in the comments and reblogs, and if you disagree with my opinion that's perfectly fine. Also so much of this is going to read like headcanons/assumptions loosely supported by canon's thin red strings and I am ok with that.

If any in-game quotes are used they will mostly come from the Church Library since it's easy to check but I'll paraphrase important scenes that I can remember.

Also after compiling a timeline of events best I can understand it I have made a few assumptions: worship of Sothis existed before the Church of Seiros (perhaps even going as far back as pre-Calamity times) and thus Church doctrine and beliefs is largely based upon previously established beliefs about the Goddess. This doesn't have too much to do with the analysis itself, but I just wanted to say it as I quote The Book of Seiros parts a few times and the writings in those books I hold to have a basis in that pre-Church faith.

With those in place, allow me to begin.

The Sothis/Church of Seiros Meta:

While there have been many metas comparing Sothis and the Church to medieval Christianity, I have always looked at them both through a distinctly non-Christian, Pagan lense. 

I myself am a syncretic polytheist who has a complicated history with Southern Baptists. These two core aspects of my spiritual life does color my perceptions of the religion presented in this game and I am fully aware of that. Three Houses came at a time in my life where I was finally seperating myself from my latent Christianity, and exercising my Pagan goggles on this was a major step I took towards that. My intention here isn't to say that Christian coding doesn't exist, but to simply give my ideas and perspective on the religion presented in this game.

First, allow me to give the define the Gods through the lense of a Pagan as it's important to the framing of my ideas:

"The Gods are real, sentient, disembodied minds with awesome greatness and powers beyond what we humans can currently explain with science."

This is the simplest, shortest definition of the Gods I can give and Sothis, beyond a shadow of a doubt, hits all of the criteria as she is presented in the game. The Pagan conception of the Gods does not require any pretense of tri-omnism, and I believe it's best to look at Sothis, and many other FE Gods, through this lense. Sothis, when she was alive and even when she is "dead," is capable of amazing feats such as creating life, turning back time in a limited capacity, and restoring entire continents to life after calamity. While she is not tri-omni, she does not need to be so to be a Goddess and one worthy of worship and reverence.  

Church doctrine itself also exhibits other fundamental aspects of Pagan practice and belief that are important to me and many others: animism and the reciprocity cycle. As stated by The Book of Seiros, Part 1,

"The Revelation.The Goddess is all things. She is heaven above and the land below. She is eternity incarnate. She is the present, the past, and the future. Her eyes see all. Her ears hear all. Her hands receive all."

Obvious allusions to omnipresence aside, another reading of this passage is a far more esoteric, and hard to put into words, aspect of Pagan belief about the Gods. In a sense , the Gods are not limited by the physical constraints of the world and their bodies are inherently an aspect of the very universe itself. They are not omnipresent at all times, but they can be wherever they wish to be especially wherever their presence and power is strongest. That is actually the purpose of idols, alters, and temples. The Gods are not idols or are bound by them, those things are simply repositories to allow us humans to connect with and worship them. 

The natural world as well can be the "body" of a God. Places where their spirits decide to dwell. Natural phenomenon one can feel their presence in. They are not limited to these places, but upkeep of them is necessary to maintain their power and spirit. In this way that passage can be read as Fodlan and the Blue Sea Star being the places where Sothis' spirit chooses to reside along with her actual remains needing to be maintained to keep her spirit maintained. Her sacred body likely extends across all of Fodlan and her spirit resides most strongly as the Blue Sea Star.

Gods in FE also, more often than not, have a physical body that is important for their connection to the physical world. FE Gods are not incapable of interacting with or watching over the physical world from the spiritual, but have much more free reign when their physical body is alive. The places where their bodies are buried are where their power is most heavily felt, and their spirits the strongest, as evidenced by the Mila Tree and the Good Ending of Future Past in Awakening. This what I believe the true purpose of the Sealed Forest to be. Given how protective Rhea is of the place, the strange alter and Crest of Flames that is just there, and that being where Byleth awakens and Sothis remembers, either parts or the entire rest of Sothis' physical body must be buried there and not actually in the Holy Tomb.

As an aside, the remains of the Nabateans can also be seen through this lense but to a lesser degree. It's obvious that parts of their souls and power remain with their bodies, and thus, maintaining the Relics, Crestsones, and the other Nabatean remains not fashioned into weapons would be of utmost importance to Rhea. Because, if they were to be lost or damaged her kin's spirits may forever be lost to the physical world. 

Fodlan being the sacred body of Sothis is also why I believe the Church of Seiros to be an ethnic religion and a henotheistic one to the people of Fodlan. The Goddess is only ever credited in the creation story and a lot of other Church doctrines as having created and choosing Fodlan as her sacred ground. The people of Fodlan likewise are seen as her sacred people. Nothing in Church doctrine says that Sothis is the only God to exist and I truly cannot remember a single instance where anyone says other religions outside the Church are false ones. Hence why I say Fodlanders are henotheistic, where they do not deny the existence of other Gods, but Sothis is the most important and only one worshipped by them. To the people of Fodlan as long as foreigners do not deny her existence and those of Fodlandic descent worship her as they should there is no cause for an uproar.

This is not to say other religions can be practiced freely on Sothis' sacred ground, as evidenced by the women in Abyss who says she worships there "because Abyss is where it is allowed." Along with Atheism among Fodlanders to be a taboo in their societies. Whilst I don't see the Church to be a beacon of religious tolerance (or that Fodlanders don't believe their religion to be the best), I also do not believe them to be proselytizers to places outside of Fodlan. 

The reciprocity cycle also has a place within Church doctrine. The Book of Seiros, Part V describes the various commandments Sothis gave to her people and how if they abide by them the Goddess pays the people back with blessings and gifts. Textbook reciprocity is doing something for the Gods, such as sacrifice or ritual, and gaining something back in return or the Gods do something for you and you give back to them in turn. Reciprocity can be as simple as giving thanks for the blessings the Gods give or complex as full ritual, sacrifice, and or prayer to gain a blessing/aid or give thanks for one. The best case of reciprocity I see in game is the restoration quest for the Saint Statues. Whilst the Saints are complicated in how I believe their divinity is handled there is no doubt the player receives blessings from them for restoring their icons. 

(While I would like to devote an entire section to them and the Nabateans in general like 80 - 90% of my ideas are headcanon that I'm still not sure of. I don't think the Nabateans are Gods like Sothis is however immortal or long-lived they may be. I also still don't know whether the Saints would be worshiped or venerated in the Church, as I still don't understand the distinction of those two things myself, so I don't want to make a judgement call).

What about Byleth?

Byleth...is tricky. Now, I must preface, that all of this is my opinion. Some of it may not be supported by the game, but this is how I personally write him and his status regarding everything we see in game.

Byleth is, for all intents and purposes, the 13th potential vessel for Sothis to return to the world as they were given Sothis' Creststone on the request of Sitri. Here's the thing. I personally do not believe that Sothis is truly dead or that Byleth manifested her consciousness on happenstance.  It has been my personal belief ever since playing the game for the first time that Sothis' spirit does indeed reside in the heavens and that the piece of Sothis that resides in Byleth until his awakening is only a fragment. Along with that I believe that Sothis' consciousness and power manifested in Byleth specifically because Sothis wished for it to be so.

My ideas are centered around a few aspects of the game that have always stood out to me as rather strange if kept in line with the larger context.

Why after all this time and Rhea's many attempts did Sothis manifest in a stillborn child?

How was Sothis able to speak to Byleth and wake him after his 5 year coma?

Why does Byleth loose the Goddess' power at the end of Crimson Flower?

How was Sothis able to speak to Byleth if you choose to S-Support her?

How exactly was Byleth able to dream about something that happened long after Sothis' death even if he can access her memories?

These sticking points have always struck as odd given everything that Sothis says before Byleth's awakening. Sothis should not be able to speak to Byleth at all, but still does so only a few chapters later and comments on the war that Byleth was only privy to the very beginning of.

Hence my belief that Sothis' spirit as the Goddess of Fodlan does reside in the heavens, watching over the continent, and only able to interact with it and its people in subtle ways. Some of her spirit and power laid within her Creststone as it passed from vessel to vessel. One way or another, she was able to foresee the coming war that would change Fodlan fundamentally forever and chose to manifest that piece of her consciousness when the opportunity presented itself. It's why Byleth can dream of a battle that happened long after Sothis' death because he's remembering something experienced by the Creststone and knowledge given by the Goddess soul who resides in heaven.

I also believe that Byleth and Sothis as we saw them during the game was a mistake in some way. Byleth as his own entity was likely not supposed to be and the piece of Sothis' soul that was supposed to manifest wasn't supposed to be amnesiatic or at the very least not separate from Byleth. There were a few times pre-time skip where Sothis would be talking and Byleth's model would be moving and his facial expression changing. Almost like their thoughts were so intertwined that they were practically the same even before the awakening. It's very likely to me that Byleth's memory issues, lack of ability to properly express emotions, and other aspects of their character to be directly connected to the fact that Sothis' soul manifested incorrectly.

The Sothis he hears before waking from his coma and the one he speaks to during his S support is likely the full spirit of the Goddess communicating with him through great effort and only able to because he's her avatar. She knows of the pain Fodlan is experiencing because she can see it and feel it even as Byleth slumbers. Same thing for why Byleth would lose her power and soul piece on Crimson Flower, as Sothis may have interpreted siding with Edelgard as a rejection of being her avatar and simply deciding to be human instead (I don't wish to speak too long on a route I don't particularly like, but I felt that strange ending should be addressed).

My experience as someone who follows a Kemetic path leads me to not see Sothis' soul being split in this way as strange. In this particular religion, as I understand it, the soul is encompassed as multiple different parts all combining to make a singular being. Both Gods and humans have multiple parts to their souls, so one residing in the Creststone, later manifesting in Byleth, and another part residing in the heavens is plausible to me. Also if I wanted to compare Byleth to another FE character, his situation reminds me most of Nagi from FE 11 & 12 who is an amnesiac and likely an incarnation of Naga to aid Marth on his quest. Nagi doesn't get much characterization in those games, but it does show that incarnations/avatar of Gods, who aren't the confusing mess of Robin and Grima for instance, isn't a new concept in series for Byleth.

In terms of what happens after Byleth awakens I do believe that Byleth himself becomes a God or at the very least a demi-god in his own right. As it was Byleth absorbing the piece of Sothis' soul into his own, the Goddess' power was inherited by him alone. The inner turmoil caused by two souls sharing one body finally ceased and Byleth was fundamentally changed becoming, well, an Enlightened One. As the game doesn't really explore Sothis and Byleth much post-Time Skip, due to the war taking precedence and Byleth's unfortunate existence as a silent protag, how exactly he changes is up to personal interpretation. I personally believe he gained not only Sothis' power but some of Sothis' memories and insight that the Creststone soul piece had. He also gained greater control and range of emotional expression and probably took on some of the characteristics Sothis had. 

Byleth is both an avatar of the Goddess and his own person at the same time. He is and is not Sothis.

[satorugojjo]

I find it difficult sometimes to reconcile the role of billionaires/companies/consumers/governments in the late stage capitalistic world that we live in.

On one hand, I “understand” the capital and manpower restraints of publicly funded social reform, climate change policy and business law but on the other hand, I find it totally irreconcilable with the way the world has been structured over the last 150 years, but especially so in the last 25 years.

Consumers are constantly and unendingly fed a barrage of marketing and product pushes that are designed specifically for us to spend the little we make in our paycheques on the latest trend. The latest trends these days are the fastest possible fixes for clothing, delivery, food, furniture, media, content, everything we can possibly think of, and this was never our outright choice. It was a steady stream of supply that catered to where our needs might evolve into that morphed our choices and our way of interacting with the world. While I understand the fundamental capitalistic nature of supply and demand and the bittersweet relationship we have as consumers with companies, I can’t help but feel the futility of existence when I look at the wealth gap of billionaires/companies versus the common people.

But in a world where no one, not even “rich” people like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé earns enough to compete with the Richest of the Rich, it makes me really question how much a consumer can do without being given alternatives that don’t compromise how we fit in with the modern pace of the world.

Like, we constantly police each other and say that consumers can stop using fossil fuels and plastic and save energy and start recycling and all that, but I firmly and strongly believe that consumers can only do that with financial privilege, time and the opportunity of choice. That choice needs to be created by the perpetrators of the problem (e.g. packaging companies should do recycling initiatives that are easy, energy companies offering comparable clean alternatives, tech companies taking accountability on moderation and filtering options) and the choices have to be recognized, advocated for and implemented by governing bodies. The problem with late-stage capitalism and the way a few companies own so much of what we eat and use and see is that it grew unchecked due to the economic benefits and it moves at a pace that government and policy either is incapable or unwilling to keep up with.

I work for an energy company (oil etc) and I work on sustainability initiatives and am “doing my part”, but mostly I am also earning a normal person salary. With climate change, I can really rag on XR or Greenpeace for not understanding that climate change reform will take time and the pace will never be as fast as they want but actually, my main beef is with the unchecked expansion of fossils in the first place that make fixing the issue so difficult and convoluted. “Fixing” it outright strips away a lot of the advantages western economies had when there were no regulations that allowed them to skyrocket to first-world development from developing and third-world nations who need the cheap options western economies had. My bigger beef is with the system that allows oil companies to destroy the environment with one hand and then be the saviours in their own narrative because there is literally no one else to do it, and no one can or will develop the expertise in time to change the world. Companies do evolve of course, but governments do not move fast enough to recognize and do anything about policies such as these. Meanwhile we spend 100s of billions on the military in razor quick decisions.

Billionaires, and especially someone like Jeff Bezos who is a trillion-aire benefit from the creation of monolith organizations that have literally obliterated small businesses and don’t do anything actively or materially enough to help or give back. (Charity contributions are also tax free and none of them pay taxes enough to give back to local governments who struggle to build affordable housing or schooling). It’s not just the employees of Amazon who struggle, it’s the businesses who are forced to drop their prices to compete, it’s the demands on cheap and unsafe raw materials, it’s packaging and delivery and contract business and aviation and city pollution from drivers and the institution that has allowed capitalism to thrive.

So many issues are at play here and smarter people than me have talked endlessly on this. Billionaires especially benefit from a system that allows them to amass that kind of wealth on the backs of ordinary workers who in a worst case scenario have so much institutional debt, are fighting the constraints of social and political restrictions like race/class/gender and are probably juggling multiple jobs to make ends meet. I consider myself privileged as I don’t have debt and I can save at least 10% of my paycheque and even then, I may never be able to stop working to retire comfortably and I may never earn enough to own a house as big as the Boomer Gen.

And yet, I as a consumer am PLAGUED by guilt in what I can possibly do to help and while I agree we should do what we can to be comfortable with, I don’t agree that the burden should shift to consumers solely to solve the world. This was a world that was created by governments in conjunction with monolithic organizations, and we should recognize our privilege but also exercise our rights to demand accountability from organizations that have created the system we live in. Accountability starts with ourselves but it absolutely does NOT end with us.

So, when we say “Eat the Rich”, it means “down with the system that puts 99.9% of the world at a disadvantage living in a world that is owned and ruled by the 0.1%”. And I think that’s a very valid thing to say.

[whitherliliesbloom]

your voice will save me

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #23 - soul ]

[ alphinaud/wol ] ★ [ 2,416 words ]  ★ [ post-5.3 ]

a sequel to a fill i did from last year’s ffxivwrite. i had the idea for this fic for a whole year but never got to write it. aka, it took one year for me to finally give alphinaud closure.

soul- the spiritual part of a person that some people believe continues to exist in some form after their body has died

it’s a long time coming, but alphinaud thinks he should finally tell the warrior of light the words his soul has been yearning to say for thousands of years

Revenant’s Toll feels particularly cold with the nightly breeze, and it sends chills down Alphinaud’s spine as he casts his glance outwards to look upon Silvertear falls, watching as the sky, now free from miasma, is glimmering with a sea of swaying stars that casts distant reflections of light upon the lake where the wings of a great wyrm once stood vigil.

He shivers, grasping at his gloved hand to steady himself, counting his own breaths as he looks upon the tower of crystals with a pang of hurt that leaves his throat dry. The sight of the tower alone reminds him of skyscrapers and the sound of distant rain, and memories that were not his own flash, albeit briefly, through his head like a bolt that strikes at his very heart. 

The boy barely manages to compose himself, steel himself with the resolve and cool that a distant, untarnished version of himself had once possessed. Even in the midst of falling stars, a rain of fire and rivers of blood that ran the streets, that man..... himself from an ancient time, Alphinaud acknowledges bitterly with bit lips, he would not allow his emotions to sway him so.

And yet when he hears a familiar voice call out to him from behind, call out to his very soul that has been aching since the beginning of time, he knew that the him of the present was incapable of being as cold and unfeeling as he had once been.

“Alphinaud?” his flower whispers a name into the night, his name. The name of his current form, one that he can barely hang on to as yet another brief flash of a blazing meteor shower tears through his focus. “You called for me?”

“Yes.” He holds his breath, turns around and gazes down at her with a muddied, dishonest smile upon his face. “I....I wanted to talk to you.” there’s hesitation as he speaks, pain laced in his tone, but Illya makes no remark on it as she moves to stand next to the man, crystal violet eyes cast skywards at the dead of the night. “I’m not bothering you am I?”

“You never bother me.” Illya responds swiftly, her fingers resting upon the stone railing and shivering a tad as she finds the surface cool to the touch.

He swallows the lump in his throat, eyes averting her own and body fidgety, restless as he attempts to find the words in him to even begin speaking - because heaven knows there are so many he wants to say to her.

Previous countless mental rehearsals are now forgotten, replaced with only the raw emotions of a flickering, barely visible light within him. 

“I.... I just wanted... To call you out here to... Well... clarify some things... and... and to apologize for others...”

His voice is sheepish, timid, completely unlike the assured confidence of her beloved scholar who had been so eager and ready, eyes blazing with confidence during his fight against the specters of light, his magicks woven from his passion like bursts of fire and gusts of summer wind.

But her smile is still patient and kind as she watches him carelessly stumble upon his words, a hand raising up to tuck a long fluttering strand of hair behind her ear as it blew effortlessly in the lake breeze.

“I never did apologize... Well, there are a lot of things I have to apologize for but-” Alphinaud frowns, “I-I.. I could not well carry on without first trying to apologize to you for all of my transgressions.” Inhaling sharply, the elezen clenches his fist and casts his gaze down upon the stone under his feet. “I’m sorry for worrying you so much all the time, especially when my soul had been pulled to the first. I’m sorry for not being there for you when you struggled with yourself... I’m sorry for putting you through such heinous betrayal because of my incompetence as a commander of the Crystal Braves. I’m sorry for all the times I used you, doubted you, hurt you...”

His voice shakes with the sorrow worth many years of regret, of the guilt he’s pent up and swore to himself he’d make amends for. His heart is aching, the agony of his own past sins coming back to haunt a more mature, wiser, older form of himself now. But he knows it is nothing compared to what he has put her through.

“When we first arrived in Ishgard, I promised you that I would do better - be better for the sake of the others and you who I have wronged. I don’t know if I’ve gotten far enough yet to say I’ve fulfilled that promise... And for that too, I am truly sorry.”

lllya parts her lips to speak, but her voice is hushed, watching as what little shred of dignity has drained from Alphinaud’s navy blue eyes with a sea of cyan sadness washing through her own. And when she takes a step towards him, he holds his hand up and she swallows back her protests reluctantly, intent to listen to his heart until the end even if it killed her to do so.

“And... and also... I’m sorry for pushing you away.” 

That statement applies to himself from six summers ago, but the distant glaze in his eyes as he attempts to recall memories of a long forgotten city tells the girl that he was referring to otherwise, and she casts him a confused tilt of her head before he finally speaks again.

“In a time long past... in a city of creation and innovation... That man, Apollo...” Alphinaud shakes his head. Saying another name that was not his own would be deflecting the blame, “the unsundered form of myself sought to reach distant heights that I believed not even the convocation could dream to match. And in my vain, egotistical pursuit for ideals that I wasn’t worthy of I...” He chokes back a sob, the thought of his sins against her too much for even himself to even recount. “I hurt you. I told you such blatant, awful lies. I let my jealousy and my own incompetence sweep me away. I-”

“Alphinaud.”

Her voice calls out his name. His name. The name of his current form - his present form. It is the only name Illya knows and will ever acknowledge. 

And though her expression is stern, eyebrows furrowed and peach pink lips pressed into a tight line, she still says his name like melted caramel, unbearably sweet and warm in its tone. 

“I can accept your apology for everything else. I forgive you. But you’re beginning to apologize for mistakes that aren’t your own.”

“But I am- I mean... it... is me.” 

In a way, he acknowledges... Not fully, of course... but the revelations of what had been his past life is proof enough that he, even if a fourteenth fraction of what had once been the man named Apollo, he still must bear part of the responsibility. 

He’s lucky enough as he is to have been granted a second chance, just as Apollo had begged and prayed to the heavens for. He cannot even fathom a world where he had not met Illya anymore.

His beloved smiles, hand raised up to press against her beating heart, as if to feel the essence of her twice rejoined soul. She searches for whispers of herself - of the perfection version of the woman she once was, feeling the bright amethyst constellation stone that bore the insignia of the blistering sun warm in her pocket. She hears no words, only a wave of emotions that cascade through her and almost sweeps her away - she has after all ever been the most sensitive with the voices of unseen beings. 

But even with the two shards of a whole soul shone brightly within her, and she can almost envision the visage of a dusty, quiet library in her mind, there is not a trace of anger or hurt in her heart. 

“I am Illya Skawi. And you are Alphinaud Leveilleur.” Her gentle tone belies the weak little tremble in her voice as her eyes swirl with an ocean of unfiltered emotions. “I am nowhere near as perfect as Chloris, I know I can never be.” Her hands clasp together tightly, held close to her chest as if to guard her heart. “I may inherit her will... but I will never be her.”

Where Chloris had bright, flawless sanguine pink eyes that morphed in hue to reflect her thoughts, Illya inherited a pair of more timid orbs of lavender twilight. Where Chloris had unmarred skin of a porcelain doll, Illya’s skin was covered with a map of the galaxy - the speckle of stars from bullet holes upon her thighs, the milky way that cut across her collar bone and the auroras taking the form of teeth marks all over her abdomen. 

And where Chloris had an unparalleled talent for optimism, charisma and hope, what remained in Illya was only the painful, unreciprocated love she had for the world that would be the very bane of her mental stability for as long as she can remember. 

Even with her soul reunited with Ardbert’s, she knows she is but a husk of what had once been the fourteenth member of the convocation - of azem... Emet-Selch at least wasn’t mistaken in spelling that fact out. 

“And the woman that Apollo loved is not me - not this ugly, fragmented, weak little shard as I am.”

That’s absolute nonsense, Alphinaud wants to retort. Illya is anything but. It may not who Chloris had once been - but it is who the woman he loves is. Whole, beautiful and divine, her hair is woven from moonlight and her eyes are pressed from a bouquet blossomed flowers. Her voice a melody of a songbird, her skin a distant and unexplored, yet welcoming cosmos. She is a ray of hope, not just for him, but practically everyone else he knows... and he could think of no better personification of perfection than her. 

The world may disagree, the ancients may cry in protest and the whole, unbroken version of him may think to question his judgement. 

But Alphinaud knows, even if he is wrong about everything else and will continue to be as imperfect and sinfully tainted as he is, that he isn’t wrong about her.

“You’re not- You are not....ugly...” the words die at his throat, he’s lacking in the strength to debate as fervently as he is usually capable of doing. “Or weak for that matter. You’re...” 

“I’m not Chloris. And you’re not Apollo, either. Perhaps we were once upon a time, but not now, not here.”

The breeze picks up and howls in his ears, carrying the chill of his doubts and guilt away into the night. And as the bearer of hopes and miracles flashes him a radiant smile, he feels his chest clenching with a warmth that he can barely contain.

Illya turns to look back over Silvertear falls, the light from the moon and the fields of crystals casting a halo over her hair as it fluttered like a veil in the wind. Her skin glows with color, warm against the backdrop of grey stone and dark blue sky. 

“I did ponder over the circumstances of our meeting... If it was pure coincidence or a mechanism of fate bringing their souls... our souls together again.” Illya hums, fiddling with her fingers as she contemplates out loud. “And I wonder... if the other shards of Chloris and Apollo are so tightly wound together that they’d meet again in other worlds too...” 

“They will.” He answers on impulse, as if his entire being already knew the answer. “I believe they will.” 

It’s a naive and an impossibly idealistic wish... one with a hint of selfishness and ego too, perhaps... but those are the core of who he is- who his soul is. And if Apollo loved Chloris even half as much as he loved Illya, then he knows, is certain with all his heart that the thread that keeps their fourteen souls tied together for eternity will not be so easily severed. 

There’s a quiet that looms over them, with only the sounds of the wind and the chirping of the crickets ringing in the air. Illya doesn’t turn to look back at him for a minute, lost in her own thought and drowning in a pool of her own emotions - thousands of years worth of them.

“That’s good. I’m glad...”

When the girl turns around, her violet eyes are wet with crystal clear tears, they catch the rays of moonlight and reflect off her face as they roll down her cheeks past upturned lips. 

“Because Chloris loved Apollo, you know? She loved him very very much.”

Alphinaud hadn’t noticed when he’d started crying either, quiet sobs breaking out of him as he lets out a choked laugh, raising a gloved hand to feebly wipe away his tears.

“He did too. He loved her so much that it killed him.” 

His heart is so full to the brim, spilling with unbearable adoration and devotion. When Illya spreads her arms out wordlessly, sniffling back her own trickling, glistening tears, he picks her up and wraps his arms tightly around her, feeling the beating of his heart match in tandem with her own. 

In their warm, tender embrace, he hears the echoes of a distant past - yet another vision of a splitting star flashes in his mind. But he doesn’t flinch this time as he holds his entire world in his arms, afraid and determined to never let go. 

“I love you. I love you.” Her declaration is all he hears, along with quiet whispers of his name. His real name. 

Alphinaud. Alphinaud. Alphinaud. Alphinaud.

This love was hers to bear, and no one else’s - not Chloris, not Ardbert, not the twelve other flickering star blossoms that are out there, undoubtedly fighting with their entire being to reunite with their own other half. And no cry of ancient beings, no fracturing of worlds or falling of the moon or stars will stop her from loving him. Even until the sun sets, even until the end of times. 

And though their souls may have been set adrift, he knew that his soul would always be destined to love hers in return.

“I love you too, Illya.” 

[missvifdor]

Alright, I share a quick thought like this, but imagine Bucky having the DID (be careful, I want to make it clear that I'm not an expert and any mistakes on my part are unintentional and I'm sorry for being so stupid The DID is not a joke, it is a real trouble and I would never allow myself to laugh or joke about it).

So I was saying, Bucky having DID:

Thinking back to all the traumatic moments in his life, it would be easy enough to think that he could have had it. Imagine that at one point his brain and mind say "STOP" and no longer able to cope with all these events, decide that in order to survive, he must create a "shield" (I don't know if I am speaking correctly, sorry if that doesn't make sense).

Because if I'm not saying bullshit, that's what the host's DID is for, to protect it and that's where the Alters come in. The basis of the DID is that the host not supposed to know he has it.

But all the time, there will be signs: amnesia, dissociative disorder, depersonalization, derealization,. Imagine, one day, everything is going well, you get ready to go to sleep and then when you wake up, the date, the time have completely changed, you are now dressed and you have no memory of having lived this. that happened after you last remembered.

Now imagine Bucky going through the same thing, he'd be pretty scared I think.

Bucky would have these symptoms, but not just that. For example, he might feel like he has feelings, thoughts, moods, or anything else that is not ... his but belongs to someone else. Or he would hear voices talking to him (Wait, this has nothing to do with schizophrenia, the voices heard cannot be suppressed with medication and to the host this is really heard as a person's voice real voice or an interlocutor. These are real voices).

You know when we think and hear a voice but it is that of our subconscious, and well that is still different.

(I won't procrastinate any longer, but if you are interested, I advise you to inform yourself to find out more. For example, there is a youtube channel that talks about it because the designer has DID, she and other affected people talk about it here: https://youtu.be/ek7JK6pattE ).

Back to our Super Soldier:

Bucky, like anyone with DID will have both good and bad triggers.

The good ones would be: Music from the 40s, his favorite food, something that reminds him of his sister or mother, etc.

The bad ones: Something or someone who could bring back bad memories, maybe the language Russian, the pain linked to his metal arm, the situations where he cannot feel comfortable or very anxious, a dangerous mission that has gone off the rails a bit.

Let's talk about his Alters: The Winter Soldier will have taken a big place in his life and I think he probably never left him because he is part of him.

So I would lean towards the fact that Winter (let's call him that) has become one of his Alters. It would have become this:

Alter Trauma Holder and Persecutor: some of his tasks are to hold traumatic memories ... especially so that other Alters are not not disturbed by these memories and that the system works more or less. And often, well, trauma holders do not voluntarily choose this role, they are there because the brain did it like that and it can seem very unfair!

It is common that in addition to h: And, even when they do, sometimes they just aren't able to pass it on to the rest of the system and, unfortunately, to the outside either. This is one of the reasons why it is very difficult for a system to find and manage trauma or to talk to a therapist, for example. This is one of the reasons why it is very difficult for a system to find and manage trauma or to talk to a therapist, for example.

Trauma holders are also It called “Secret Keepers / Secret Holders”.

Her Part Persecutor: To put it mildly, the "Persecutor" is an alter who is hostile to the system or the outside world . Well, obviously, it’s nowhere near that simple.

In general, persecutors are alters who have internalized hatred or rejection, either towards themselves, towards other members of the system, or towards the outside world. It is a traumatic response that follows physical abuse, toxic relationships and assaults experienced by the system. Like the protectors, the persecutors seek to prevent further attacks, attack in defense or suffer for the rest of the system. But they ... don't always do it the right way.

There are different kinds of persecutors, some tend to reject any outside person, others may have internal words and feelings of worthlessness, still others may sabotage a possible therapy for fear of the medical profession, then of others can re-experience their traumas, injure themselves, etc… They are very often hyperviligant and easily activated.

They are sometimes very withdrawn and influenced by feelings causing for example a strong anxiety or suicidal thoughts. But they can also be authoritarian and seek to impose behavior on the rest of the system, considering that the others are incapable of protecting themselves and are responsible for the abuses suffered. Finally, some persecutors are a representation of aggressors and persecute the system like these. The persecutors are above all persecuted by trauma and in particular they need to be secure. It is very common that, once appeased, they become essential protectors of the system.

Here's another Alter, James: It would be quite similar to the Bucky of the 40s but different at the same time.

He would be an Alter Internal Self Helper: The "Internal Self Helper" is an alter that helps the system internally. It is not uncommon for ISHs to serve as some sort of mediator to the rest of the system, as if they were "the voice of reason."

They often have a good knowledge of Alters and how the system works (but this does not mean that they easily share this information). They are also often discreet, facing little or not at all or only side by side with another alter.

Internal self helpers are often associated with the creation and management of the innerworld, especially when it was conceived unconsciously.

ISH is a frequent supporting role among gatekeepers, protectors and sometimes among trauma holders.

And Bucky would be the host: Host "refers to the alter who fronts most of the time ... when all is well. And this nuance is important!

Indeed, the “Host” is a bit like the basic Alter, the one who is there when there is no need for any other Alter, no triggers, and no Alter is needed wanted to face. In principle, he manages the day-to-day life, so you would think that it is indeed the alter that uses the body most often, yes. But no.

A system is frequently affected by all the little things in life, whether or not it requires the presence of another Alter at the front. And, especially when it is not conscious, it can be common for another alter (social or protective, for example) to be more present than the host. It all depends on the environment of the system and the awareness of its multiplicity as well as the choices and possibilities of each of its members.

For this reason, there are systems without a host (or with a sleeping host) as well as systems with multiple hosts (which are then called co-hosts), which handle different aspects of the day-to-day. good. Of course, the hosts can also have another role, such as caretaker or alter social.e for example. It may also happen that a new host appears and the system changes hosts.

The host is a role that can be difficult to take in at times, as it is often the first alter to become consciously aware (yes, consciously aware) of his multiplicity. And it's already not easy to realize that we "are not alone in your head", but it is also difficult to realize that you have shared your whole life with "these others people in his head ”. It is very common for the host to doubt his legitimacy, to be afraid of lying, etc. They are often influenced by the feelings, thoughts and feelings of other Alters.

On the other hand, the host can usually be an alter who allows for better communication, as he or she serves as a bit of a mediator, conciliatory and benevolent towards the system and the outside world, while being held to it 'deviation from the consequences (emotional for example) of traumas. A stable host is an important basis for functional multiplicity.

Be careful, it must be said: the host is not the original! Many systems don't have an original, and while you might think the host is some kind of original, it isn't. Of course, if there is an original in the system, it can be a host. But, whether host and / or original, all Alters should be considered equally. (Really, for this to work, it's important to understand this)

Otherwise, a person with DID may have other Alters, the number can vary and they are all different!

Now, how would it be if Bucky had a Y / N ? Would other people in the system agree with that? Would Y / N manage and understand this situation? That is the whole question.

But let's imagine that in the best-case scenario, Winter and James are ok with this relationship and even have feelings for Y / N, it will still be a job all the time.

The best would be someone who can differentiate the three and act with the three as if they were three different individuals (Who they are and this is very important because each Alter deserves to be recognized).

Being in a relationship with Bucky is a bit like being with a big teddy bear who could easily shoot you in the head with near-deadly precision. And a gentleman under all circumstances, of course.

Being with Winter is complicated enough, but not impossible. You just have to know how to do it and above all succeed in interpreting his looks, his silences. The man is not the biggest talker but know that he would be ready to kill for you and protect you.

As for James his Fronts are very rare but when he will be there, believe me when I tell you that he will not leave you alone with his affections! He is surely the one who is the most sociable of the three and who will take the greatest pleasure in teasing you or improvising a dance with you in the middle of your living room.

Well I have finished! Do not hesitate to tell me what you think of it in the comments, or if you want a part two to find out more in general or to know more about the romantic relationship side + ... SNFW.