#berates me on every aspect of my personality

[straycalamities]

Hello, how are you

Why do you Like Entre and Swag?

i’ve been sick almost the entire past week but i think im getting better

do you mean as a relationship? ho boy. well, first of all, seeing as a lot of ships ive gotten into after it end up sharing a lot of similarities, i think its safe to say it became one of my favorite ship dynamics period

this got long fast

enemies/rivals-to-lovers isn’t anything new for me seeing as i dedicated, on-and-off, 8+ years to naruto and sasuke as one of my first hardcore ships that i still enjoy

and in general i just really like ships between characters who bicker and banter a lot (vash and wolfwood from trigun being a perfect example of this) but still being something more significant to each other than either of them truly realize until it sinks in either slowly or forcefully

and especially as i’ve grown older, i’ve gotten more and more and more interested in the intricacies and complications of having two very…hmmm damaged? i guess? personalities trying to find something that works because they need it to

which the other two ships have as well, but in a more “toxic yaoi” way, ya feel? LMAO like! hannibal and will graham from the hit show :) which that came after swagtre but it still stands as it got me to appreciate that aspect of their relationship even more than i did

swagtre is in no way synonymous to hannigram. hannigram is on a different level of delicious toxic yaoi, BUT it goes to show what ive opened up my ship palate to voraciously

even so, that’s moreso the early stage of their relationship, which is fun! but also not the whole story

i guess the main thing that initially drew me in was that i’ve always had a weakness for characters like swag. he’s so full of bravado, performative self-interest, defusing every little thing with a joke, and all the while coming off as a destructive idiotic selfish little brat. meanwhile the truth that resides is much deeper than that. that he does care, he just doesn’t know how, so he does his best which…is easily overlooked because he’s uncomfortable with being seen for being genuine in any way because it makes him feel vulnerable and blah blah this ain’t a swag study

but anyways truffula flu made me like him a normal amount! :)

then there’s entre who wears his heart on his sleeve moreso. he’s always been more honestly reactive, that’s why his mainverse it’s so fun to pick on him, and it didn’t get numbed by the apocalypse all that much. entres also a guy who takes things for face value at first. then there’s also the fact he used to have such a hero/senpai-crush on swag before the whole thing even happened and they’d even became pretty friendly acquaintances

and now he’s having to wrestle with the fact everyone who used to like him, hates him, except dave and bitter. and anyone else that might? probably dead. and of course! why wouldn’t they? his big mistake that cost the world

and swag is the loudest reminder of them all. forcibly inching and digging and clawing his way into entres psyche and mind until he finds himself using all of swags same words at himself during moments of self-hatred. self-hatred that’s been there all his life but now it has a burning world to reference. and swags voice mingling with his mother’s.

and entre may get defensive and bite back and try to turn things around on swag, but he can never truly say swags wrong. because he’s not! entre fucked up everyone else’s lives over a deeply selfish and shallowly thought-through decision. and even if swag is also a capitalist self-serving asshole, well he only destroyed his own environment, he didn’t end civilization as they know it

and that just makes it worse than the preachy “hippie” types that used to nag at him before. someone who’s in his same ilk is now berating him

and while entres never Not risen to rage-bait. he absolutely never took the phrase “don’t feed the trolls” to heart, he also has deeper reasons why with swag he always throws himself at the opportunity to try and defend or twist things, because it’s hitting him so much harder than everyone else (besides 72)

so yes, when swag keeps saying entres obsessed with him, he’s actually right! entre IS and has been since swag forced the jester hat on him and paraded him around camp as a spectacle. one that he can never truly deny that he deserves

i also think we should go back to entres pre-apocalypse feelings about swag because it’s important to note that entre wanted to Be swag. he looked at swag and saw the man he wanted to grow into. maybe less childish and gross, but the charisma behind it all, the way that even despite that, he had so many wrapped around his finger and every word

and the thing with early entre, is he always directly compared himself with other oncelers. sizing himself up against them and like…really it just makes sense right? to him, they were all iterations of himself, achieving and accomplishing or even failing different things. and even if at first the multiverse unnerved him, he started to use it to his advantage. i mean he got 72 to mentor him, he was lifting tips n tricks off others like swag, and he was directly taking notes on how Not to be off others (One, Bitter, Strangecase, Stone (sorry man ilu) and more bc this list is longer than the idol list LMAO)

so thats just more to really hammer in how intrinsic to entres identity swag became and it became more palpable in the worst way in truffula flu

this is all as an aside to the crushing guilt of his giant mistake itself but we all know how he feels abt that

and for swag, i mean don’t take my word here as word of god because i don’t THINK my theory here is confirmed to be canon, but im pretty sure he saw himself in entre as well. like it went both ways. and swag felt fear AND i guess relief? if that makes sense that it was entre instead of him. like this guy is very much Like him and any of them coulda done this, but it was entre, not swag. and that’s why swag is very insistent on not letting entre forget it, because deep down he’s terrified that it could’ve been him if entre hadn’t done it first

and so he looks down on him and beats him even further down as a way to kinda uhhh make himself feel better? except it doesnt. it never makes him feel better but it DOES make him feel not as worse as he could, or thinks he could if he just let the guy go after daring to make such a fool of himself in front of everyone

i think, as much as entre sees himself and how he wants himself to be in swag, swag sees himself in entre and what he doesn't want to be. and entre changes it to him seeing all the stuff he doesn't like about swag, the pieces of him he doesn't want to mimic because he refuses to continue to admit to himself that he still envies and looks up to the man swag is, because even at the end of the world, he's one of the few who seems to have something figured out that works for him. he actually seems to enjoy himself in this hell. he seems to feel free to find happiness and entre couldnt be more envious of that

but then as more and more people crowd into their camp, and they get to a baseline and learn the uhhh capabilities of their survival companions, they also learn to realize that they operate on the same wavelength the most even if neither of them admit it. obviously everyone wants out of this hell, but i dont think any of them tenaciously chase after that ambition as much as swag and entre do, for their own reasons

most of the rest of the camp has taken a sort of acceptance to the situation either in a pragmatic or pessimistic way. and of course nobody wants this to stay the way it is, but they don't have that sort of...all-encompassing fire to find a way to reverse their situations as much as swag and entre. i mean we did have bitter's optimism for a bit there, but he was doomed so like...what other option did he have other than believing in entre, but it was absolutely rooted in nothing. even entre knew that.entre especially knew that. bitter was deteriorating the fastest he'd ever seen it and if he hadn't been able to find a way to slow it down in the other ppl who took weeks to turn, then what was he going to do for the guy taking days?

so all bitter's optimism did was make entre feel sicker with guilt for everything and completely drove the little grip he had on hope into the ground. especially by making him take his first un-turned life. especially because, i think we have to address this here to fully understand why entre goes the way he does afterwards: bitter was never truly bitter to entre. bitter was himself. bitter was the likely future entre saw himself walking towards. out of every other onceler further ahead along from him, successful or aftermath or otherwise, bitter felt the most real for him

bitter was always his own failure even before it happened literally and live right before his eyes. that's always what he meant to entre even in mainverse/pre-truffula flu. that's why he made such a dedication to trying to butt his way into bitter's life. that's why he spoiled him and wormed his way into his heart, because he was trying to put that energy out there that one day, if this were to become literally his fate, someone would do this for him as well. or maybe he'd put enough good karma out there with doing this for bitter, that this wouldn't even become him at all!

that is exactly why entre was so stricken after his death. that's why it hurt and broke him so hard. he didn't know bitter long enough for his cries of "he's my best friend!" to fully be true. if anyone was entre's best friend at the time, it was 72, or dave, or his own mother. it was not bitter, bitter was his pet project. bitter was the poisoned dart that seared in striking him, and slowly ate at him after he was gone. bitter was him fully being unable to run from the consequences and culpability of his own actions. because now this was something that was clearly, unignorably, happening right in front of his eyes and now the blood was directly on his hands

bitter was his future self and his sealed demise that came with it. bitter was his destroyed future. bitter was his own mortality.

entre does come to realize something akin to this later on, but i guess i didn't make it understandable enough because i think a lot of people missed that this was the true narrative going on underneath the surface. which is my bad and on me, i could've done a better job, but ya. this was always my intention and it's a very key part in understanding why entre is the way he becomes and does what he does afterwards

which, back to swag, is his doing to entre. because swag does strong-arm him into and making him believe there was no alternative to entre killing bitter who swag DID, as anyone else did at the time, believe entre's statement that entre saw him as his best friend, but that also meant that was even more entre's problem to solve to him. and it's something entre finds hard to forgive swag for for a while after, even as his own guilt berates him for his own involvement in creating this fate for bitter, there's always that part of him that blames swag for forcing him to actually face the consequences of his actions. because, as most oncelers, entre doesnt like that very much LMAO

and yet despite it all, it still, in its own twisted way, makes him feel the most seen by swag. if that makes sense?? especially as 72 made it abundantly clear he was disappointed in him and didn't even seem to know who entre really was anymore. the survival needs and guilt had warped entre towards a vitriolic survivalist away from that bright eyed young man that he had taken in.

and then of course, nobody else really seemed to want to push a deeper connection with him at the time for this or that reason. so he had dave, who he personally saw as still just an employee so of course dave was with him and on his side, he had that employee loyalty. dave became his right hand, but that also meant that entre felt that he couldnt confide as much in dave because it's hard to explain but it's like...since dave was working FOR him, he didn't want to muddle it up with personal feelings to keep dave sharp. that's what entre thought at the time anyways

and so, for better or worse (mainly worse) who stuck around and kept nosing endlessly into entre's business and his life and burying himself in his side like a thorn he couldnt remove and absolutely couldnt forget. well that was swag.

in this sort of fucked up whirlwind...swag became the most emotionally significant person in entre's life. especially as swag started to show that he DID gave at least half a shit. and after their shouting matches that got swag to admit this little tip of the iceberg or that. entre did get to wondering what else there was going on underneath that. it became something he wanted to dig at to find out.

despite how they bickered and butted heads, entre always felt more comfy telling swag things he wouldnt or would no longer tell anyone else. swag's little bits of sympathy or lightheartedness became little crumbs of something that entre subsisted off of to keep going, because, despite everything, he still looked up to him. he still admired him and what he was capable of and what he could do. and how he didnt seem to let anything that was going on bring him down. he kept his shine.

and for swag (again not word of god here) i think he liked that entre DID butt against him. obviously he had fun with rocky and one. but (and this IS word of god/confirmed canon) they weren't as much his friends as he touted they were. swag struggles creating (and especially maintaining) close relationships. they make him vulnerable and they come with stakes and things to lose. so swag always kept his relationships fair-weathered and shallow. (aside from just not knowing how to be genuinely real and vulnerable with people in a way that COULD cultivate a close relationship) he sure did say and shallowly BELIEVED they were deeper than what they were, but deep down...he had an idea that were push come to shove...he wouldnt mourn anyone as much as your normal guy would mourn his true friends and he felt that it was mutual.

so as much as he ran away from it, swag felt very alone. swag always has issues with loneliness and that's why he throws himself from person to person and has to be the loudest and brightest and funniest in the room. and hey even if you hate what youre hearing and seeing, he's still got your attention. and that can be good enough when it comes down to it. (end of word of god/confirmed canon swag stuff)

but yeah i think that...not that rocky or one were yes-men or anything, but i mean they kinda just worked with his antics and like okay yeah here we go, swag stuff again yay(or nay) but entre always was fighting it. he didnt just accept swag entirely for this way or that, he was always critiquing, always challenging, always prodding back as strongly as swag prodded him. and i think that change of pace is what kept swag coming back over and over beyond the other stuff i said earlier

and like...as the guy at the center of it all, i think even swag said it himself at some point, if anyone knew how to get them back out of this mess it was him. and as swag said: he saw entre as a way better leader than him. even if it personally irked and annoyed him, himself when it happened to him. entre clearly had figured out his stuff and what he'd say had merit (just not with swag who always knew better for himself)

so if entre saw swag as the better leader for his charisma and weird optimism, then swag saw entre as the better one for his pragmatism and his knack for staying rational most of the time. i think that's also why entre's slip in lucidity bothered swag a whole lot because...if entre couldn't be the rational one, they were screwed. he'd gotten used to entre being a kinda...logical pillar to bounce off of, so if he was losing his touch with reality, that was going to doom the lot of them (even him). it's also with (word of god) swag's deep deep fear of abandonment so...if entre abandons his own senses, he's abandoning Swag and that Cannot Happen

this is a whole lot but its really hard for me to explain the why FULLY without dragging out all the nuances and complexities to their relationship because THAT'S WHY!!! it's SOOO complex and there's so many layers and nuances to everything that had to keep working in a certain way to go in a positive direction or else it all fell apart, as we saw, over and over

they both have so many issues that hold them back in ways and then theyre both so damn stubborn that it ended up making them even getting along as FRIENDS a damn slow-burn (and i am, always, a sucker for a slow-burn. one of my main weaknesses in a ship)

you can see they both end up wanting that, even if neither of them would admit it. but they both, as businessmen, saw their cooperation as fruitful for the success of themselves and the camp. it was just all this other baggage going on making it hard

so then we get the hospital. where rocky gets his harsh taste of the reality of their situation and he gets HIS humble pie of his own mortality, pushing him away from swag who remains reckless. and then entre, feeling ostracized from literally everyone and even having a hard conversation with 72 in the elevator, when it all comes down to it, and they seem doomed. he lets himself be weak and falls a bit into swag. and this is where it changes a lot of things for entre. this moment of weakness he was pushed into by fearing it was this or never.

because obviously they get saved and then it's swag losing his foot or getting left behind for zombie-chow and OBVIOUSLY the latter isnt an option so...entre makes that call and then cant go through with it because swag's fear is shaking him to his core in a way he never thought would happen. like he let himself get weak and it's immediately striking him in a soft spot that changes him for the rest of the story

i think it's here where he gets that kinda "oh..." deep deep down. that wow. yeah. swag is much more significant to him than previously believed. that leads into the hardware store where slowly and surely, swag becomes his precious possession. swag's the only one that believes in him. swag's the only one that understands him. swag's the only one he wants to be around. nobody can touch or harm swag but him. swag is his responsibility. swag is his, his, his.

and this is very very poisoned by entre's deteriorating state of mind and emotional health. the man is a long-coming disaster finally starting to collapse on himself. and the centerpin of it all is keeping swag safe and to himself because swag's the only good he sees right now in this hell of a world. swag's words become law in his mind. if swag says he has to be more of a leader, more assertive, he'll take that and run marathons with it. anything to make swag proud of him

because that's another thing is entre has just...always chased someone being proud of him or happy with him. or that he was doing good or whatever. a common onceler problem with the way that Once-ler Mama just Is but yes...it's always been a big deal for entre. he's terrified of failure. and he's terrified of disappointing people who mean something to him. so he'll do whatever it takes to make swag proud and it's not like the rest of thee camp know better than Him what's the Greater Good for them, of course. he's the leader. he's the one who created all this. this is his world and he knows everything about it better than anyone.

meanwhile swag's too fucked up on having his wings finally clipped after leaving off the high of true and total freedom for so long. that he has to stew with no escapism and let the reality of his life as it is now sink in. old ghosts start to catch up to him and new horrors start to sink in. that and the pain meds of course, but through it all, he's still operating on that trust he's placed in entre. entre's a weirdo, but he always takes care of him and spoils him as much as he can. and it makes swag not wanna question, not that he has a leg to stand on (ha) currently anyways when it comes to that. he doesnt know anything going on outside his door. and to be honest, i think that's the part of this shitty situation that he likes. he's clearly tired and been tired of feeling responsible for other people, but he also cant help himself because of his deep need to try and keep as many people in his life as possible because that means the ones that leave have a lot more replacements

but yeah obviously when he gets out and suddenly everyone is his responsibility again and it's up to him to be the hero (in his perspective) he puts entre in his place in the only way he knows how, but at this point...he's reached an understanding of entre and entre HAS become more significant to him than just a business partner. and he's starting to act on the parts of entre he can see in himself and so despite entre fucking up (yet again) he sees it as entre just trying to do what he was guided to in the best way he could manage and swag has little issue just being like ok you fucked up but who cares about that anymore

he has a better understanding on how entre thinks and what he wants (not a great one but a better one) and i think he knows that to endlessly punish entre and leave him alone would just make him way worse and so he decides to stick with him himself (i also think this is also swag's abandonment issues)

i don't think has very recognizable romantic feelings for entre at this point, but entre very much does for swag. so this keeps entre on his feet as much as it can despite the whole spectacle of it being something that'd drive him, any other time, to a long walk off a short pier. but it had to be a spectacle for swag because he had to show to everyone that hey hes here and hes the one fixing things! youre welcome!

but it's still a harrowing experience that strip entre down to the bone and he might be at his lowest he's been since bitter. maybe even lower, but then the prisma event happens and, if entre's event stripped entre to the bone, swag's stripped swag to the marrow

and if there's one thing about entre, it's fixing problems that aren't his own is one of the best ways to keep him moving. even if to anyone else, what swag's been doing this entire time for entre is the Absolute Bare Minimum, in entre's persective, with what he knows and observes from swag, it's worlds and worlds. so when the tables turn, entre feels like it's his turn to give back. and maybe the tables didnt entirely turn on their own, but entre pushed them to. he spun it.

swag was already knocked down a peg by losing his foot, but losing his emotional stability, his comfort, his optimism in this hopeless world. being abandoned by someone that was more dear to him than the others. that slammed him rockbottom. he stopped caring about if people liked him or not because why bother? they're all going to die or leave anyways. i think he knew sooner than we think that rocky was infected, and one was always him being purposefully obtuse. he knew what his fate was. everyone was going to leave him now. and he refused to care about it anymore

shoving everyone away and hermitting in himself. the same careful practices he berated and mocked entre for are things he'd come up with on his own. he was there to be useful now in a direct way. with practical ideas, survivalism, and physical labor. if there was no more joy or optimism, whatever. they were alive. and his joy didn't get to smile anymore so no one deserved to

i think it was the one-two combo of prisma and rocky that really did swag in because, even if i said he doesnt get Actually close to people, he still considered them his. like those are his people and he's going to lose them all. they're all going to leave him behind on this earth that he's been knew for a while fucking sucked shit, but as long as he got to have fun it hadn't mattered, but now he can't

and entre kinda...accidentally did the best thing he could've for swag at this time. he also felt alone, discarded, from the queen piece on the board to a pawn. and so he clung to the only thing he'd found reliability in over and over for better or worse: swag

in general, in this arc, i was working on him taking this giant blow to his ego as a humbling moment to have him kinda try to make amends and create meaningful relationships (or repair the existing ones) with the others in the camp, but being that he thought none of them wanted anything to do with him, his main focus was always swag. swag was the only one besides dave that he thought without a doubt, wanted him around in some capacity beyond being useful

and it's not that entre is a stranger to only being seen for his usefulness, so he bared down into that otherwise, but having tasted the high life...that's why he stuck to swag. he was back to eating those crumbs like addictive delicacies and they tasted even sweeter this time. they end up becoming very, very codependent on each other. they were before a bit too but here, especially so,

but with entre's tanked self-esteem (and it was already pretty bad before) and his sense of duty and taking responsibility, he takes to his role like a duck to water. but it's kinda...funny bc they both become both roles in a codependent relationship??? so it's like...codependency in its most truest realized form lmao

it's starts especially one way but then entre gets sick and it flips the other way, but entre's still trying to maintain the original set-up. this is also where their relationship becomes physical. from affections kept away from others' eyes, to deeper kinds of intimacy. i think with all that they've lost and are doomed to lose, they find their old coping mechanisms (which were never healthy or actually worked either tbqh lmao) just weren't cutting it anymore so then they turned to other things

with like...needing a more direct and physical and raw way to show each other they're still alive, still here, still significant to each other. swag initiates it more, i think, because while they're both on the asexual spectrum. swag's is demi. so this goes to show just how emotionally important entre's become to him, but also i think it's because of yknow...how he was raised. and for him it's more comfortable to do bedroom stuff with entre than kiss him or rub his shoulders. that stuff's "for girls" (too emotionally vulnerable)

and swag starts to show his care as more of...like a direct invasive thing. where he's not going to let entre abandon him too. he's going to somehow make him better and keep him here as long as he can. and entre's taken to rolling over for nearly everyone because he doesnt feel like he's allowed to stand up for himself and this includes swag because it's clear he's doing it because he cares so it's fine right?

and that's kinda where everyone's idea of them leaves off because we never got to go past that. so i get where people, especially those who aren't a fan of toxicity in their ships, would be confused why people like swagtre so much and even for me, as much as i love a good conflict in my ships, i think if this is all it was, i wouldn't be quite as obsessed as i am. because i'll be honest!! it made me sad quite a lot LMAO but i always did it for the bit (story) above all else. because while i wanted entre to say the magic words or do the magic thing or have the magic realization that would fix it all, that's not a good story

but it really is for the later story that i've gotten so caught up. even before we confirmed the Continued story i was always caught up and daydreaming of where this could go

and i just really really love the growth they've had with each other and how many like...jumps in their characters and stuff they've made with and because of each other. entre would not be who he is today in any iteration without some of the realizations i've made through swagtre and same with swag i know with good authority

and it's just like...it takes so long to get even where we ended it. and they have all these weird labyrinthine bullshit things to work through and against and with to get anywhere. and it goes back and forth. forward and two steps backwards so much. but it's just very interesting to study and even reread or reminisce on. and even think about ways it coulda gone differently idk...i just like ships that give me multiple multiple things to chew on and think about. i like to have a full course meal. no shade to people who like other stuff but yea..that's what i personally enjoy. the more complicated, the more difficulty and personal baggage and issues they have to work through to make it work, the better

and i can't say too much on where it's confirmed to go, because that's yet to be seen (smile emoji) but yes...it gets better and idfk i just eat up to people becoming super significant to each other in an apocalypse especially if they started off hating each other?? damn

and it's addictive seeing swag start to come more and more out of his shell. i say his moments of being genuine, vulnerable, real, and raw and caring were addictive crumbs for entre BUT BITCH ME TOO TF!!!

it drives me NUTS (SLASH HUGE POSITIVE!!!!) i love being a driving force to get to see aspects of a character we wouldnt see otherwise. knowing i had a hand in swag learning things about himself and revealing things about himself he would never in other situations...yum...that's the good shit

but yes so concludes my novel on why i like swagtre including i guess an impromptu summary of their relationship

if you made it all the way to the end god damn man...love ya

[nebuladreamerrr]

The art of colours| Kylian Mbappé x Fem Reader

Summary: After four hard years of study, you are finally graduating which means you must hand in your final thesis which Kylian is very proud of until he finds out who you have dedicated this thesis to.

Warnings: English is not my first language, and I am not studying anything related to psychology so there may be mistakes in this field.

As you gazed into the mirror, a smile of pride spread across your face, admiring how the satin suit hugged your frame flawlessly. This moment marked more than just the end of your studies and training. It signified your official entry into the realm of psychology, liberating you from the confines of your office.

The past four years have been undeniably challenging, particularly within the realm of psychology, a field so crucial to our daily lives. In an ever-evolving landscape of knowledge, students were required to continuously engage in various training courses to stay abreast of the latest therapies and discoveries. Yet, the most demanding aspect lay in the field placements. Let me tell you, those placements were the epitome of your career's purity, where the true essence of your calling came to light. However, they also exacted an emotional toll. Witnessing the anguish of young children, whose concerns should have revolved around playtime rather than dinner schedules, was profoundly draining. It was in those moments that the weight of the responsibility you carried truly settled upon you.

Finding the perfect balance between personal life and studies proved challenging on a personal level. Kylian's schedule was packed with games, advertising campaigns, conferences, and interviews ever since he announced his departure from the French club, not to mention the upcoming Olympics that summer. Nevertheless, both of you managed to find a way to organize yourselves. Despite the chaos, two days belonged entirely to you: Mondays and Sundays. On these days, you caught up on the little everyday occurrences, from Dembélé's new car to contemplating a vase for your living room. You cherished these conversations, reveling in their innocence and spontaneity. To you, they were a tangible expression of the love you shared, something you made a conscious effort to prioritize. Even though you lived together, daily life often kept you apart more than you'd like.

On the flip side, amidst the stressful situations and disparaging comments your partner endured throughout the year, you made a concerted effort to establish one-on-one sessions on Sundays. In these sessions, you provided a safe space for him to open up and confront the negative thoughts tormenting him, aiming to help him channel these emotions and find solutions to his overwhelming feelings. This task was far from easy. Kylian, being naturally closed off, often attempted to postpone these sessions, fearing vulnerability. Over time, however, they became more manageable. Occasionally, they concluded with Kylian seeking solace in your embrace, tears flowing freely as he grappled with feelings of failure in his endeavors to satisfy French fans, whether due to online criticisms or harsh comparisons with other players.

Kylian marveled at your knack for reframing his thoughts and showing him the silver linings in every situation. He tended to dwell on lost games, mentally berating himself for missed opportunities and what-ifs. However, since meeting you, you consistently helped him find something positive in each of those moments. It was easy for him to forget that his career was a journey of constant growth and learning. Even when a loss felt like the end of the world, you reminded him that it could have been worse—like being sidelined with an injury for the rest of the season. Your perspective not only shifted his mindset but also helped him appreciate the invaluable lessons hidden within every setback.

He was in awe of your ability to infuse brightness into even the darkest moments, whether they were everyday occurrences or major events. Despite his busy schedule, he made every effort to support you in any way he could. Whether it was giving you a massage during long hours at the computer or preparing your favorite breakfast of coffee with almond milk and avocado toast topped with a grated egg, he sought to motivate you on days when you barely had time to eat.

So, when you shared the news that you had finally completed that assignment, he couldn't contain his joy. He enveloped you in a tight hug, overflowing with pride. Without hesitation, he swiftly arranged an elegant dinner by the beach to celebrate the culmination of all the time you spent locked away in your office. Excitedly, he accompanied you as you opened the package containing your five printed papers—four of which would be submitted for your final year dissertation examination, while one would remain in your home as a cherished keepsake.

This morning, he made a concerted effort to motivate you, ensuring to planted a gentle kiss before you departed for your lecture. However, he also wanted you to come home to a space where you could unwind and relax. He mentioned that he would subtly start tidying up his house—perhaps clearing away the breakfast dishes that still lingered or straightening up the living room, which had become a bit disheveled from the movie you only managed to get halfway through before drifting off into sleep.

As he tidied up the living room, his gaze inevitably fell upon your photocopied final-year project, eliciting a smile. His eyes traced the meticulous attention to detail evident in the neatness of the photograph, which sought to visually summarize your thesis. The title, "The Art of Infant Psychology," was adorned with vibrant shades, each color imbuing significance. The accompanying picture, with its play of reverse colors, mirrored the essence of your thesis—exploring how colors could influence children's cognition and how educators, parents, or legal guardians could discern potential concerns through the colors or drawings their children presented.

Subtly, he lifted the book, intending to leaf through its pages at a leisurely pace. While he didn't expect to grasp the technicalities you had employed as he didn't think he could understand the technicalities you had used as you often tried to share them with him and, not understanding them, he would simply kiss you back as he admired you saying, "My girl is the smartest". However, his intention was diverted when a particular page quickly seized his attention: "Acknowledgements."

"Firstly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my tutor, Chloe, for her guidance, support, and dedication throughout the process of writing this dissertation. Her comments and suggestions have been fundamental to improving my work and carrying it out in her rigorous way.

I would also like to thank the teaching staff of the Psychology degree for providing me with quality training and encouraging my interest in research and innovation in this field.

Furthermore, I am grateful to my friends and family, especially my parents, for their emotional support and understanding throughout the process. Their words of encouragement and motivation have been a great boost to keep going and overcome the obstacles.

Lastly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my partner, Kylian, who has been my unwavering support through the darkest days. He has been my greatest inspiration for pursuing this end-of-degree project, as he embodies the essence of the art of colors. To me, Kylian is more than just a footballer; when I look at him, I see the vibrant hues of the rainbow, and for all these reasons, I consider him my source of vitality.

While it's said that no one color is superior to another, I believe that a blend of colors is far more captivating than a single shade. We witness this in a painting, where the variety of colors chosen by the artist leaves us in awe.

Well, that's what Kylian means to me. He embodies the color red, symbolizing vitality and passion, as he tirelessly pursues his dreams and supports those of his loved ones, including mine, even when we feel exhausted.

Moreover, Kylian is like the color orange, representing healing. He has been a source of profound healing for me, especially mentally, arriving at a time when I felt I could barely stand, yet he fearlessly stood by my side, offering unwavering support and reminding me that we're in this together.

Similarly, he radiates the warmth and brightness of the color yellow, bringing joy and optimism into my life. His presence is infectious, spreading happiness like sunlight, simply hearing his voice lifts my spirits.

Indeed, we cannot overlook the significance of the color green, representing nature's enduring presence. Just as Kylian embodies this natural beauty, he also mirrors its essence in his unwavering support and understanding. Much like the everyday rhythms of nature that we often take for granted, Kylian's steadfast encouragement has been a constant in my life. His support has never hindered my academic pursuits or demanded more time than I could give, flowing as naturally as the gentle swaying of tree branches in the wind. For this, I am deeply grateful to him.

Kylian also embodies the tranquility and calmness of the color blue. Despite the pressures he faces, he maintains a serene demeanor, navigating through challenges with grace and composure, much like the gentle sway of tree branches in the wind.

And then there's the color purple, symbolizing magic and spirituality. Kylian's spirit is truly enchanting, inspiring not only me but also those around him. He's deeply influenced by the motivations of his loved ones, infusing his actions with purpose and meaning.

In essence, Kylian has profoundly changed my life since the day we met, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

In summary, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the people who have contributed in any way to the realization of this work. Your contributions have been essential to achieving the objectives set and bringing this project to a successful conclusion.

Kylian couldn't help but feel confused and surprised, but above all very happy. From that moment on, his face lit up, as now more than ever he allowed himself to make that night unique to show you how proud and grateful he was that you were part of his life.

[cantareincminor]

New fic - Air (and a tribute to a friend)

In 2023, after reading the mole arc, an idea for a fic struck me hard out of nowhere and wouldn't get out of my head. This hadn't happened in years. I hadn't written anything in years. Every time I sat down to try, I chickened out or wrote a little bit and promptly berated myself as a failure.

The idea was that Yuri would be critically injured or even die in Shellbury by WISE's hand, and Twilight would be torn apart by guilt as he hid the truth from Yor until it could no longer be contained.

For months I sat on the idea and did nothing. Didn't even outline it. Then, on a whim I messaged @whateversawesome on tumblr and asked for her advice on this idea. I was a big fan of her well-known fic The Last Days of Operation Strix and knew her to be very friendly and welcoming to fellow fans. She encouraged me to start writing, and I did. Along the way when I needed advice on crucial plot points and understanding the characters, she helped too. I'll never forget how she pointed out a key aspect of Twilight's personality I hadn't thought about before.

I asked her if it would be believable for Twilight to kill Yuri. And she reminded me that in the bomb dog arc, he didn't even kill the German shepherd that was directly attacking him. He had mercy on a dog even though it would have been easier to shoot it and get it out of the way. How much more would he have mercy on a human, let alone his "fake" brother-in-law? At heart, Twilight is a kind person.

Whateversawesome has brought a lot of SxF creators together and encouraged them in their art and writing and their personal lives. I truly appreciate the effort and heart she puts into enriching the fandom not only with her writing but with her welcoming attitude. Without her I would not have written Orpheus or the other works that followed.

So as a small token of appreciation, I wrote this one-shot, Air. My first AU in this fandom and my take on the "Twilight and Thorn Princess meet on the job" trope. Thank you again Whateversawesome for being...awesome :)

[afurtivecake]

with the sunshine court i liked the insight into the ravens and them individually + as a very fucked up whole

any opinions/comments about the ravens, nest, and tetsuji and all of that?

ooh yes i very much enjoyed the bits about the ravens in tsc as well.

and god yes. the thoughts i have on the ravens are...many.

my main comment is that we can't underestimate how much the whole collective punishment thing fucks people up and how much resentment it breeds. being made responsible for the actions and behaviours of someone else, for example, child being made responsible for their siblings, is something we know can mess people up. and the ravens basically take that concept and built it into their institution. the ravens are set up in a way that mimics a familial power structure. you have the coaches at the top as the 'parents', the ravens as the children. also keep in mind that raven pairs consist of an older raven and a younger one, which mimics a older sibling/younger sibling dynamic. (it reminds me of how yakuza hierarchies are built around familial structures using terms like parent/child to describe boss/subordinate relationships and brothers/sisters to describe a relationship that's on an equal footing. but that's perhaps a different discussion for another time)

so what you have is an older raven being made responsible for the actions and behaviours of a younger student and a younger raven who is reliant on the older student to teach them how the nest works and how to survive being a raven.

this would mean that the older raven would be suffering punishments they know they don't deserve because their younger partner is just not going to be as good yet. it would be on their shoulders to correct their partner so that when they get in front of the coaches, they're not going to be a shit-show. can you imagine the resentment that creates?

i can easily picture a situation where they both get a scolding for something the younger raven messed up on and then once they're alone, the older raven berates their younger partner again for getting them into that mess. like, don't they want a place on the lineup? don't they want to succeed? then stop being lazy and start get their fucking shit together because they both know which of them really deserved to be called 'worthless' by the coach back there. and the younger raven can't do anything about it because they know they're not as good. they know they have to do better so that this one person who's been helping them through every confusing aspect of raven doesn't get punished for things they don't deserve. but neither of them will blame the coaches even if they know in the back of their minds that it's really the coaches' fault.

by the time the older raven graduates, the younger raven would be in a position to receive a newbie as a partner and guess what? the tough love that trained them up to that point worked for them so that's how they would treat their new partner.

of course, this is just one possible form a raven dynamic can take, but like, isn't that so incredibly fucked up?

of course, it's not all bad. raven partners clearly do look out for each other and probably comfort each other when they can. but just because they care for each other, doesn't mean they're any less violently angry with each other for the roles they've been forced into. there's so many more nuances to this than i can talk about all in one go.

and the thing is, they don't even need to be violent towards each other for this sort of thing to take a psychological toll. and like, having grown up being made responsible for a younger siblings' behaviour, i know it's all about the feeling that no matter what you do, you're not going to be good enough. it's like, if you're not better than your sibling (raven partner), you're a failure and will be treated like you're lower on the hierarchy. but if you are better, then you're still a failure because that would mean you let your sibling (raven partner) be worse. like i spent a lot of time resenting my siblings for being the reason i got shouted at and also for not coming to my aid when i needed help or comfort, even though i know they couldn't have done anything and it wasn't their role to have done anything anyways. i even spent a long time feeling bad for how hard i was on my siblings and feeling guilty that i wasn't as kind as i ought to have been. that i should have comforted them more. and the real kick in the teeth was them telling me that they were grateful for what i had done for them. that my hard attitude had gotten them through a lot and helped them get their shit together. and fuck, that made feel even more guilty. i wanted to shake them and be like, 'no! don't you get it? i should have been kinder! you should have felt supported no matter what you did!"

and i think about this a lot in relation to riko and kevin. i think about how being made responsible for each's success and failure might have tainted their relationship as brothers, how it might have introduced an element of anger and resentment to what could have been a supportive, caring relationship.

(as for tetsuji, well. i just picture him as the amalgamation of every hardass asian father i've ever known, turned up to 100. and uh... ha.ha. it's unpleasant, is all i'm going to say to that. )

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

the whole point of this, "ask me for an opinion and i'll tell you why i have it," exercise is to examine how my personal biases and background impact how i view this work. which parts of the work do i pick up on and relate to due to my own experiences? and i think this question about how i see the ravens exemplifies what i've been trying to do here. i'm not saying that my interpretation is any more correct that anyone else's. i'm saying that we all read things a certain way for personal reasons and that it doesn't matter what our opinion is, it's all part of interacting with and enjoying a piece of media!

so if anyone has opinions they want to hear from me, please ask! or go forth and share your own opinions!

[worlds-leading-gnome-expert]

I had to explain to someone today why I don't really like holidays after they were being genuinely mean about me not being a Christmas fan. I'm not someone who minds if other people enjoy it and love the whole season, it's just really not my thing and I don't want a lot to do with it which they said was me being a killjoy and how absolutely sad of a person I was for it and how they can't understand how I don't like it.

So when I said "I was abused a child and holidays were an incredibly difficult time for me since the abuse I experienced was amplified then. So I don't really have a lot of positive emotions associated with Christmas." They looked at me as if I was trying to bring them down with me.

They sat there shocked for a second and then quietly just went "I never thought about that. Did you really have to say that?"

I understand not thinking about every single aspect of everyone's life all the time. But if someone is awkwardly going "ehh im not really a Christmas person haha. Not my thing" while you are constantly berating them for disliking it, maybe they have a reason? I'm sorry if I made it awkward for that person but it was just so hurtful. My mother told me multiple times as a child that I ruined Christmas for her. That I was a killjoy as a child and constantly told me how I could never behave well enough to make Christmas magical for her (on top of everything else that I won't get into). So when a random person I work with and don't know very well says the same it is very difficult not to feel all those emotions well up.

I am trying so hard to enjoy it the best I can. But for me, and a lot of people, this is a really tough time of year for so many reasons

[merlincersei]

Merlin BBC UK TV Show - Opinion Piece Part 18 - Who's The Boss - Arthur Or Merlin ?

One of my favorite episode of TV series Community is the one where Abed takes a class on Who's The Boss?.

I thought it would make an excellent topic for Merlin because the dynamic Angela and Tony share is quite similar to Arthur and Merlin.

For those unfamiliar with Who's The Boss, here is a brief synopsis:

Tony takes a job as a live-in housekeeper for Angela Bower and her young son and moves in with his daughter. The title of the show refers to the role reversal of Tony and Angela. Angela is the breadwinner of the home, and Tony (although he is not her husband) stays at home and takes care of the household and provides guidance and support to the children. While there is banter and many hints of their feelings for each other, Tony and Angela do their best to avoid facing this aspect of their developing relationship. In the meantime, however, they learn to rely on each other frequently for emotional support. Despite Angela being the employer of Tony, the series always questions, who is really in charge of the household.

Power dynamics within the Merlin BBC TV Show:

Arthur is a royal and Merlin is his manservant. Considering the show is set in a medieval fantasy world where the social hierarchy is strictly defined, the question Who's The Boss should be a moot point.

However we see Merlin constantly banter with, berate, humiliate, interfere with, refuse, make demand of, advise, comfort, defy and mock Arthur.

These are actions, that are quite unbecoming of a mere servant and forces us to critically evaluate the power balance of their relationship.

______________________________________________________________

Lets implement the Professor's Episode - Conclusion Domination Index Plot model from the Community episode.

The basis of this model is simple. It states that a person gets the upper-hand by having the last word edge wise during the conclusion of every episode.

The basis of verification is as follows:

Season 1 Episode 1 : Concludes with Arthur expressing his displeasure of having Merlin be his manservant. Merlin is then summoned by Arthur to carry out a task. Arthur ends up getting the better of Merlin here.

Season 1 Episode 2 : Concludes with Arthur admitting his mistake to Merlin and rehiring him. Following which he promptly delegates Merlin a series of tasks to do. According to me, Arthur ends up getting the better of Merlin here again.

I have listed A for Arthur and M for Merlin in the table below.

In Season 1: Merlin gets the upper hand in 7 of 13 episodes i.e. 54%

In Season 2: Merlin gets the upper hand in 8 of 13 episodes i.e. 62%

In Season 3: Merlin gets the upper hand in 9 of 13 episodes i.e. 69%

In Season 4: Merlin gets the upper hand in 9 of 13 episodes i.e. 69%

In Season 5: Merlin gets the upper hand in 7 of 13 episodes i.e. 54%

In the Entire Series: Merlin gets the upper hand in 40 of 65 episodes i.e. 62 %

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

So the answer to the eternal question Who's The Boss in the Merlin TV Show is..............................................................................................

ARTHUR PENDRAGON

This is due to the fact that the Professor's model fails to take into account defining plot points that occur in a series.

The entire model presented above is refuted by this one single scene between Arthur and Merlin.

Merlin despite being a powerful sorcerer agrees to becomes Arthur's servant ( reluctantly at first but devoutly by the end of the series)

Since Merlin is the main titular protagonist, we the audience are conditioned to see Merlin subvert traditional class roles and get the upper hand.

When that fails and Arthur gets the upper hand, there is a sense of subconscious discomfort. It would also explain why certain people in the fandom feel Merlin was mistreated by Arthur and that is true to a certain extent as Arthur in Season 5 Episode 13 apologizes to Merlin as to how he has treated him.

However Merlin gives it to Arthur as good as he gets and despite being in a position to leave anytime, continues to serve Arthur.

The underlying reason to their "codependent relationship" is better explored in my other post here:

BUT THE SIMPLEST ANSWER TO THE QUESTION RAISED IN THIS POST IS THAT ARTHUR IS THE BOSS AND THEREFORE LIKE ALL BOSSES HE IS A...

Mention in the replies below, who do you think was the boss?

[meraki-yao]

Last post for tonight, a bit of a personal reflection, and a big thank you.

I talked to @luainthewild about this before: this is my first proper fandom, and something I'm finding really interesting and somewhat comforting is that I'm kind of young in this fandom.

To be clear, I'm an adult, I turn 20 in July, but the thing is that in my real life, I always fill up the "oldest" roles: I'm the first daughter/child, the older sister, and the oldest granddaughter. I'm always the mentor, role model and guidance figure to the younger kids, my sister and her friends, and always the "responsible one" to the adults who has to shoulder responsibilities, to mediate between them, to meet their expectations (am now realizing that's really fucking unhealthy for me and stopped doing the latter stuff)

So I developed "oldest child syndrome" in every aspect of my life: even with my peers, I'm acting as the older one. And because the age gap with my peers is just a few months, I either feel like the older one, or the exact same age.

And it's hard to be the oldest child: there's such a demand for me to be a "grown-up" when in truth I feel like a fucking kid who doesn't know anything, and when I'm berated for not knowing shit or doing something wrong or whatever because I don't know now, I'm 19, and it's hard, yet the answer is demanded from me

So when I'm making friends here who are adults with more experiences and insights, but the same love and passion as I do towards rwrb, treats me as an equal without demeaning, it's... really nice. To not be belittled, nor demanded more than I have. @rockingtheorange calls me 妹妹, little sister, when in most of my life I have been the 姐姐 older sister. My heart bursted in joy the first time they did so.

I don't know if this is making sense at all or is this just ramble, but yeah.

Thank you guys for earlier in the day, and every time I sought solace here. You guys keep me living, honestly.

Love you all ❣️

[the-stardust-shard]

What's it really like? How are the people in there? If you wanna answer I've always been curious cause Ive been told I should be in there

Honestly, it depends on your local laws / culture / country / region, but i’m in france so i’ll focus on my experience related to how it works here (incl. laws and such).

For reference, as of now i’ve done 2 stays, both of which were done in a private hospital and not a public one (which makes the experience itself vastly better by default, but still), and before my first stay in a private ward i’ve spent a bit of time in a local public one for single appointments (so no full-time admission but same grounds).

> What's it really like?

Boring. Mind-numbingly boring.

Your entire time schedule is strictly programmed so you spend most of your time stuck to it, waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. i included below a photo of the schedule for here to show how much stuff there is inside.

A way i follow it to make it less grating is by noting down the “closing time” for each of those items, so i know when to come to arrive at the last minute when there’s little to no one left waiting, so i have the rest of my time free for myself or activities or whatever, but even then you’ll still have a nurse coming to check on you every so often and coming to berate you if you’re a bit late, so you’re always stuck to this stupid timetable.

time becomes so abstract that if you don’t have a personal watch / personal schedule for yourself, you always lose track of time or of the day. when on my first stay, i actually didn’t come with a watch (because my watch needs to be charged regularly and that’s done with a long power cable which is always confiscated) and until a friend brought one i spent my worst time completely lost and disconnected; i started noting down the day it was and how many days i was in on my hand to keep track of that.

that boredom always brings the worst, aka addictions to cope with that. cigarettes, soda, other binge snacking, and worse. if you’re in a group of people, you’ll often hear someone prompt for a smoke break. i didn’t smoke thanks to my husband bringing me my nicotine-free vape so i can have something to stim with, but i still drank around 100 cans (i have the number due to having collected all the caps) in less than 3 months.

a good thing is that it’s places with easy access to lots of other medical tools, so i’ve been able to see a few therapists, social workers, sports coaches, and that’s overall cool because it’s usually covered by the hospital where it would’ve been paid if i went to meet them outside.

A lot less waiting time and paperwork too, it’s handled for you, so it makes things less annoying to get going, especially if like me you struggle with paperwork and administrative bullshit.

as for the downtime between appointments / activities, it was filled with reading, listening to music, drawing, trading goods and services with other patients (yes, it’s one of the core components of psych ward), and once i felt safe enough to bring my laptop and such, watching series, playing games with other patients, etc.

my first stay gradually became better before the breakdown, but my second stay has been very isolated due to not finding anyone or any activity, so i’ve spent my entire stay reading books and listening to music in my room after having traded some snacks with some people who were going outside for the day.

the worst aspect for me was the food (an issue common with every stay tbf). as a vegan/vegetarian with allergies, i always got the most shitty and bland food possible (idk why in france they put meat in literally everything at every meal of the day), and that was actually what allowed me to leave the ward from my first stay; in less than 3 months i’ve lost 16kgs~ even with the snacking and the sport i did every day and i’ve been in tears at more than one meal due to how bad it was >> at this point i got used to not eating but it’s horribly bad and kinda scary for a medical site.

> how are the people here?

If i’m talking about other patients, the experience will be overall better imho. especially if you can find yourself a group of people in your age range or with similar experiences as you. it just feels.. a lot less judgemental and pressuring than outside. everyone’s fucked up in some way and nobody cares, we’re just here for the same reason and so we just hang out together and support each other when we can/want but even not doing that will not bring any judgement on you.

Staff is more awkward and uncomfortable, especially doctors and such (aka the ones with legal power over you) or administrative staff (aka the ones with power over the doctors and everyone else, but they’re so far up their asses in their comfy desk that they’re all always completely disconnected from reality, which makes their rare appearances very awkward and uncomfortable). On my first ward, i did find a few nurses that were pretty cool and with whom i’ve been able to have interesting or fun talk, but in the current ward i found no one, so the divide between them and us is really uncomfortable to handle.

in the public ward i went a few times for appointments (which was structured like an underground prison, full bars and all) though the med. staff was openly insulting of patients and such… i did witness and fight some shitty staff in the first ward too.

overall the staff is the most grating group, the one who can easily make the stay hellish and traumatize you even more if you’re not lucky.

still, among other patients i’ve been able to meet great friends with whom i’ve been able to spend a lot of good time even after my stay (one of those friends regularly comes to watch movies which we started on our stay, and the other is practicing tattooing with me, some others i’m still chatting with but don’t see as often though. these two specific people were pillars of mutual support during my stay)

you’ll note on the timetable below that it doesn’t even contain everything we need to keep track of in a day..

[addictedtowords16]

Okay a quick note.

Over the last year I got really into Neil Gaiman's writing, specifically Good Omens and Sandman. Within the few months I was actively reading his stuff, they had a tremendous impact on the literary side of my brain. And I can't discount that.

Howeverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I also definitely feel the need to acknowledge the sexual assault allegations earlier this month. Me sharing words from projects he was a key part of is not me dismissing those allegations.

I am tagging his name in the posts with quotes from Sandman and Good Omens, so feel free to block that of course, if you are choosing to distance yourself from his writing. I am considering the quotes from those projects to be nods to Terry Pratchett and the array of artists who worked on Sandman, instead of Neil.

There are also plenty works of literature that people read and love that are written by not-great people, and those are still revered as great works of writing. I'm not saying Neil is guilty of the allegations, but we have no strong reason right now to say that they are baseless and I'll always believe people when they come forward saying they've been subject to abuse. But he's still a great writer. And I am personally choosing to distance the writer from the writing in this case, as I have with many things before. And honestly, my respect for him as a writer has made my abrupt lack of respect for him as a person all the sharper.

I personally think that the need in internet culture to make moral judgements on every person who has ever even remotely been in the spotlight is... not great. It's just not sustainable, and you can't vet every creator of every piece of media you'll ever consume. And if you do make those moral judgements, guess you're never going to read another classic novel ever again.

The world is complex, people are complex, and the things we put into the world are complex. It's okay to read a book and recognize the nuance of "this person did some not great things but me reading this book is not a reflection of my own morals." It's also okay to take a step back.

Just don't berate people for their choices.

That's my reasoning for still including those quotes, just wanted to mention it before they start showing up over the following weeks.

Edit: Dear lord please stop commenting on the Neil Gaiman quotes. It's only happened a few times but come on. I'm blocking you and deleting your comments as soon as I can. I'm very familiar with both sides of this argument and you're not going to change my mind, especially when you tell me that this random post with five notes is being actively detrimental. This is how I feel about the situation. Deal with it. Block me if you want to. Block the Neil Gaiman tag. But commenting will literally do nothing except make me angry about the whole moral judgement aspect of internet culture.

This blog is not going to be a vessel for the discourse around the whole separation of the art and artist thing. I'm just sharing cool quotes that a small handful of people see.

[gatheringbones]

[“Stage 3: When Defeat Feels Normal

As with your entry into Stage 2, your transition into Stage 3 may pass imperceptibly. Indeed, one of the greatest dangers of Stage 3 is your increased loss of perspective. Feeling defeated, hopeless, and joyless may now come to seem so normal that you can’t quite remember your life ever was any other way. Even if you have some distant notion that things have changed, you may want to resist memories of another, better time, which only make you feel worse about how things are now. Likewise, you may want to avoid the people and relationships that could “bring you back to life.” It may seem too painful to open up, even temporarily, when staying in your gaslighting relationship demands that you remain shut down.

Stage 3 gaslighting is truly soul-destroying. Some of my patients describe a listlessness that spreads through almost every area of their lives—food no longer tastes good, they no longer enjoy time with their friends, a lovely walk in the countryside leaves them unaffected—until finally, all of life has lost its savor. Other patients talk about a growing inability to make even the smallest decisions: where they’d like to eat lunch, what movie they’d prefer, which clothes they want to wear that morning. Still others describe a lack of connectedness; they feel as though some other person were living their lives, going through the motions while they are hiding deep within themselves, trying not to be found.

To me, the worst aspect of Stage 3 is the hopelessness. Like all gaslightees, you have idealized your gaslighter and wish desperately for his approval. But by Stage 3, you’ve pretty much given up on believing that you’ll ever get it. As a result, you think the worst of yourself. Melanie, for example, the Stage 3 gaslightee whose husband, Jordan, berated her so angrily over not getting the right salmon for his dinner party, spent the worst part of her marriage feeling confused, overwhelmed, preoccupied, and numb. As we explored these feelings together, she came to see that, to a large extent, they were the result of emotional and physical exhaustion. “Every time I even think about disagreeing with Jordan, I stop myself,” she told me. “I know he’ll just hit me with all those questions—battering me with his words and his insults and his reasons and his logic—and I just don’t have the energy to keep fighting any more. I know he’s going to win—he always does—so what’s the point? It’s easier to give in, and it’s easier still to try to keep the fight from ever happening by trying to figure out what he wants and then just doing it.”

I asked Melanie how she felt about being in a relationship where she saw herself as so unable to affect the other person. “I don’t know,” she said listlessly. “What difference does it make how I feel? This is just the way it is.”]

robin stern, the gaslight effect

[mollysunder]

Potential Complications of Ekko's Time Shenanigans

There's a lot about Ekko that makes me nervous for him next season. Besides the fact that the Firelights tree house could easily get firebombed, because it's a literal hole in the ground with no cover. We'll ignore that most of the exits are above ground-level or sealed with a heavy door, and that some of the small metal fixtures on the treehouse look like human skulls. There's this larger, but more understated threat that Ekko's going to lose his mind after using the Z-Drive too many times.

When Vi berated herself for how she should have been there to protect Ekko, she wished that she could change the past, Ekko said, "That's a good way to drive yourself crazy". I thought that answer was pretty ironic, because wanting to change the past is his whole thing. At first I thought it could be a one off thing to tease Ekko's future ability. Then I remembered that Ekko has a joke voiceline that makes light of the effects of time travel on his mind. Sometimes Ekko would say, "Time scramble doesn't travel my brain.".

The dangers of the Z-Drive became more plausible the more I thought about Ekko's place in Zaun. Of the three most prominent minds in Arcane's Zaun (Singed doesn't count, he's from Piltover), two of them, Jinx and Viktor, deal with debilitating mental illnesses brought on by their respective work. For Jinx, her bombs killed her brothers, worsening her paranoia and fear of abandonement. While Viktor's work with the Hexcore has only further isolated him from his already small circle of friends, which will only make his future depressive spiral worse once the Hexcore causes him to be exiled in disgrace from Piltover. In both their cases, their work has lead them to be partially alienated within their communities, usually by their notoriety alone.

Ekko is supposed to be the exception to the rule for most Zaunite champions, but in Arcane he's not. Ekko builds technology to sabotage Silco's Shimmer supply chain, putting a target on himself and anyone associated with him. Ekko and the Firelights have to live clandestinely from the greater Zaun. Their fight against Silco has caused them to be less connected or just present in Zaun than someone like Jinx is. And on top of that isolation you have Ekko being placed in a de facto leadership position for his group for who knows how long, everyone there either looks the same-ish age as him, or are literal children. All the while he's responsible for the raids they carry out that were shown to carry a high fatality rate, at least one of the raid members looks younger than Jinx did in Act 1. Ekko may live in a nice tree, but he isn't doing well.

Then there's Heimerdinger, who is sure to be a pivotal influence on Ekko's story next season. Every mentor-student relationship in Arcane has shown that the students (Jinx, Vi, Viktor) inevitably internalized the lessons of their teachers (Silco, Vander, Singed). But more importantly, these pairs tend to share parallel experiences with one another, though it's more general than 1-to-1. And based on Hemierdinger's VA, Mick Wingert, the most defining aspect of Heimerdinger's characters was the suffering he experienced at the loss of his home, Bandle City, from the Rune Wars. Wingert stated that the closest frame of reference for the loss Heimerdinger experienced was similar to a Holocaust survivor. If the director and writers found Wingert's interpretation appropriate enough to play Heimerdinger, then part of that is likely to come through more in the next season.

Ekko's perspective is bound to change once he works with a person who will tell him that everything that can go wrong, in fact has gone wrong before. And the weight of Heimerdinger's words will probably carry considerable weight on Ekko's opinion next season. Heimerdinger's character is likely to fulfill the role of (grand)parental figure that Ekko has long needed. I can only see Heimerdinger heightening Ekko's fears and anxieties on the potential future disaster that will destroy his community and his responsibility in preventing it.

For next season, Ekko will probably believe he is at least partially responsible for Zaun and Piltover's war because he couldn't stop Silco or Jinx in time. When he finally creates the Z-Drive, he'll have the opportunity to rewrite every new potential mistake he could have made, even if it's only by 2-seconds. Ekko will either keep rewinding until he gets trapped in his own timeloop and breaksdown when he realizes his efforts are futile, or the instability of the Z-Drive creates too much attention and some outside party intervenes and pulls him out.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

What is your favorite thing about SGE series and why?

I have multiple favorite things, so you can expect me to elaborate for a while.

One of my favorite things from the series is Soman’s novel concept of "psyche travel," and for christening it with an actual name.

I’ve only seen this concept in a few other, more science-fiction or speculative type of stories, like the Divergent series, The Giver quartet, "The Veldt," a fascinating short story by Ray Bradbury (which TOTSMOV41 is very much inspired by) and the Artemis Fowl series, which involves time manipulation that wasn't strictly time travel (which is far more commonly seen in fiction). And I love Soman's more fantastical spin on psyche travel! To me, the concept was previously called "mental landscapes" or simply "simulations" of reality. "Psyche travel" as a term is just far broader and more versatile, and I feel like you could do more with it, experimentally.

In fact, I would've loved it if Soman could've left more room in his tight plots to explore human consciousness and "the cauldron of the unconscious" more in TCY, so I will be doing exactly that with the themes in my longfic TOTSMOV41. If anyone wants to know more about TOTSMOV41, I'll redirect you to this table of contents/introductory post.

My fic's entire premise reflects how much I loved that one scene in ACOT. It was absolutely brilliant, especially with the edited views of what reality once was, how subjective memory could be. Plus, in that moment, ACOT managed to combine a few of my major interests: psychology and how generally error-prone the human mind and memory are, surreal imagery in literature, and delving further into SGE’s soft, irrational/nebulous, thematically-relevant magic system. (The way I see it, problems are more often unintentionally created than intentionally solved with magic, and we understand little of it, what goes on magically, really, and can't logically extrapolate what the characters could possibly do said magic. So, the magic is framed as unstable and flexible, even while it does reflect the state of the world and the important relationships in the tales. Thus, that's how I might classify the SGE system. You're welcome to disagree on which type of magic system it is though!)

The following points are probably more obvious:

First, Soman’s prose and images overall are enthralling, and his use of VERBS, especially, rivals few authors that write for a younger demographic, at least in my opinion. It’s often just so well done. It's the little things, like using "scalded" or "pinked" instead of "blushed" that I love. Soman's use of language is so inventive at times, and I love trying to imitate it. Verbs can make or break a piece of writing in my mind.

Also, I love the extravagance and length and readability of this particular book one sentence that I think is underrated for the sheer exasperation embedded in it:

“After chastising her for slipping in the Ever ranks, explaining every assignment thrice, and berating her to cover her mouth when she coughed, Pollux finally left in a circus of hops and falls.”

It’s fabulously sweeping and exhaustive.

In addition, the third person omniscient pov is less common nowadays, I think. So much of middle grade and YA is in first person these days, so it may be a trend, for its immediacy. Though, I tend to prefer third person, even if my preference also generally depends on how well the work was executed.

I love SGE for its basis in fairy tales since I loved reading the classic Grimms' fairy tales before I discovered SGE—they were probably my favorites for a while (and still sort of are, alongside SGE). And they inhabited my storytelling before I ever discovered more subversive things existed. Thus, it's the overall darkness and the dramatics I find compelling about Soman's work.

The cleverness in the writing, when it’s well-executed, is phenomenal. And this applies to two aspects: first, Rafal, obviously, and second, the plot structure itself.

When I say Rafal, I mean specifically during the moments in which he shows off his conniving craftiness, his prowess at outfoxing others. And I love any instances of scenes in which he tricks or outwits people and systems.

Someday, I’ll have to remember to discuss the Fala-shoe-fairy-kiss scene from Fall, one of my favorites ever, in a future post. Those particular thoughts must be somewhere in my scads of drafts... I’ll have to look for them. For now, I will give you any thoughts I have now:

I'm referring to the scene in which Fala lures a fairy with a golden kiss and traps it in his shoe without a single word of verbal explanation, and he expects everyone to intuitively follow his genius thought process, the solution to their dilemma. Then, everyone, except Aladdin, manages to catch on, when they watch his demonstration.

Here's an (exaggerated?) approximation of how I'd imagine his internal monologue could've gone:

Watch and learn, youths. I’m better than you. In innumerable ways, and this is one. But fear not! I will lead you to success. No one else is capable of doing it. Yes, I will take on this burden myself. Give me all the credit. But don’t even bask in my cleverness, even if it deserves your attention. My actions speak for themselves. Just get the task done. Now. We don’t have all day to dilly-dally like inane cowards.

I will redirect you to this post, if you would like to read more about how I happen to interpret Rafal's "trickery," or rather, absence of trickery, perhaps.

And for my second spiel on the series' cleverness, elaborating on its predictable unpredictability, on a structural level, even if I only saw it in hindsight:

I love any kind of legerdemain or sleights of hand, or twisting of plots, except the devastating Fall one, I suppose. And there is something very characteristic of SGE I've observed: there are often, very, exceedingly late third act turning-points. These points are likely hallmarks of the series, to the extent that I've come to expect them by now, especially after Rise, and sometimes, I'm probably actively on the lookout for them when I read other books. Besides, Soman likes to lull readers into a false sense of security, that much we can probably confirm.

Furthermore, these turning-points seem to take two forms and you can literally only expect one of two things to happen.

It's either: 1) the characters reach a point of what should be a settled peaceable resolution, that is then rapidly negated, or 2) the characters reach a darkest-night-of-the-soul moment, the prospect of temptation in the story, often for an individual, and wishes are granted (often in subversive, unfulfilling ways to almost everyone's dismay).

Examples:

1) In Rise and TLEA: you think you are safe, that you're out of the dark Woods (which often represent the darkness of the soul or the human psyche as a symbol) but you're not. There is no built-in "warmth" to the narration, as Soman puts it in one of his interviews. This all is literally the narrative's "liar's tell" or "slip" in the third act, a revisiting of conflict, the reopening of the tale. You know there is more disaster to come. The ride is not over yet, however much you may think or desire it to be so.

In AWWP, characters say and believe the wrong things, are misled, and narrowly miss a possible "happy" ending because Sophie felt alienated enough to choose Rafal, who chose her.

In TLEA, we think everything is resolved, but all of a sudden, we get one more little impact, a jolt, that not all is well or completely restored, the moment Aric kills Lady Lesso.

In Rise, when Rafal is revived and reclaims the Schools from Vulcan, setting everything back into their original, proper forms, back to order, we think we've averted all crises, and have reverted back to the status quo. But, that resolution, again, is only momentary. Supposedly, Rhian's Evil, his rot, was awakened, and the moment Rafal considers leaving again and does, to seek out a new replacement student, is when the plot begins to race downhill again. When Rafal leaves, he leaves a gap for Rhian's poor judgement to bleed through, and Rhian hires Hook, effectively setting off the second wave of awful plot events in Fall. Rhian sort of resurrected old conflicts, and breathed new life into them.

2) Before the Great War in TLEA and the climax, we get tonal signposting that nearly "all is lost," that we're approaching, marching towards our imminent demise. There's an ever-present fog of "Abandon all hope, ye who enter" because if there's anything Rafal's good at, it's cultivating an air of stifling oppression. Hence, we have the narrow aversion of the darkest moment:

Agatha (unlike prequel Rafal with Evil Rhian) doesn't use the wrong emotional appeal. She gets through to Sophie, she and Tedros aren't executed, and Sophie destroys the ring, killing Rafal. Despite everything that said otherwise, that said Good would lose.

Lastly, a few other bits I appreciate are the roles the Seers play in the series, the meta aspects of the Storian (or Lionsmane) and the tales in general, and the names of a lot of the proper nouns such as the kingdoms—I don't know why I love some of them. The alliteration is oftentimes fun, and the names feel right and plausible.

[mrsonychinus]

my thoughts on Netflix's ATLA live action

As an adult who watched this show growing up and was there for the countdown to the comet (iykyk!!) I have thoughts!

Best: Zuko. angsty, teenage boy depression, father issues, determined to a self-destructive degree. The actor is great at capturing all these facets of Zuko's conflicting, complex character. Really great with the choreography/martial arts too. Its not easy to pull off Zuko's mostly shaven but with a ponytail haircut, but this actor manages it. And yes, the opening scene with him seeing the beam of light from the iceberg and saying, "Finally." did give me some chills. Honestly the actor just captures Zuko really well. Great casting.

Worst: Katara. has the personality of an elegant yet unassuming well watered house plant. Its more because of the writing than the actress… she's doing her best with this depressing egg whites version of Katara she's had thrusted upon her. It's not going to be convincing when Toph comes along next season and calls her sugar queen.

Aang: never has any fun. spends every episode staring into the distance being sorrowful and melancholic. *teardrop rolls down cheek* he is a depressed 40 year old in the body of a 12 year old. He has no fun side to him anymore- an important side for a 12 year old kid to have! Also spends the entirety of season one (you know, titled "water"!) and doesn't learn a lick of waterbending, not even from Katara, who spends a lot of it learning from the waterbending scroll!! Why??? However the actor is doing a great job and I think he captures Aang's essence really well. He is young and I think next season he will improve a lot.

Sokka: I almost forgot to write thoughts down for him, which I think says more than anything else. He's essentially been boiled down to the same old overprotective big brother, but now he comes complete with daddy issues. It's a little hilarious that Katara's worst memory is watching her mom get burned alive by a firebender soldier while Sokka's is hearing his dad say he's disappointed with him. Kind of ruins the moment tbh. They really took all the fun aspects of the main Gaang and dulled them down completely, its sad. At least he's cute though- and imo, the chemistry with Suki's actress was there.

The previous avatars: every single one meets Aang just to berate & yell at him and tell him he shouldn't have friends and where has he been for the past 100 years without giving him a second to speak. What?? Sadly it seems any dignity, grace, or wisdom the previous avatars had in the original, has been completely wiped out in this live action. Also, this idea of them telling Aang about things that are going to happen makes no sense. Did no previous avatar tell Roku his friend was going to betray him, let him die on the island, and start a 100 year long war? Also the idea of Aang being able to communicate ONLY if he's in one of their temples is stupid. What is the point of the avatar state, then? Will Roku be able to teach him anything at all?

Princess Yue: yes I wrote an entire paragraph about her lol. She is one of my favorite minor characters. I think they wanted her to look so accurate to her original counterpart that she just looks too much like a cosplayer, with such a stiff and lifeless looking wig. This is the one and only time I will concede I prefer M. Night's version of Yue as far as costuming goes, though both funnily enough forget her eyebrows shouldn't be dark. The actress was fine. But this version of Yue is quite a different person from og Yue, I can't really compare. Plus, it feels like we see her for a good 10 minutes before she dies for the moon spirit. I couldn't buy into her and Sokka having feelings for each other because it felt like they knew each other for a good 2 hours at most. Ideally, I think these two versions kind of fused together would be perfect.

Azula/Mai/Ty Lee: Grouping them together because. Azula is the most unconvincing out of the characters for me. I don't buy that this girl is supposed to be the princess Azula for a second. I'm neither intrigued nor intimidated, and that's pretty bad as Azula was one of my top favorite characters from the original. The costume is fine, the wig feels cheap, her dialogue is horrendous, the actress can't convince me. Azula isn't smart or cunning, sharp, or collected, and her "working with Zhao" just made her look dumb when the entire plan flopped. She is a whiny, petulant little girl stamping her feet in every other scene. It's not for me. Also, the way her relationship with Ozai is depicted here makes Ozai look like a loser, too. It's like they want us to not be afraid of either of them.

As for Mai and Ty Lee. Ty Lee is fine. She looks okay, the actress is fine for how little we see her. On Mai, the wig is just so bad I don't get what happened. It's like they're struggling on the line of being realistic with the styling, or leaning completely in cartoon-character-came-to-life. I don't think the actress for Mai here was a good choice.

Dialogue: the worst part of this show. When they're not completely quoting word for word from the original, it's.. just bad. Everything is always exposition and thats not good. The few moments that aren't are just... idk.

CGI: not bad. I was expecting worse. Fire, earth, and air all look great. Water feels a little slow, mostly when its just water and not ice but that can be improved I assume. Koh was pretty cool, as was Wan Shi Tong.

Settings: Beautiful!! Omashu looked great. South and North water tribes looked great. Ozai's throne room looked incredible and I was annoyed every time we see it, he is just standing around and not sitting on his throne. It just reminded me how amazing the buildup to Ozai and Azula's reveals were in og season 1.

Costume: Its either a hit or a miss. There's strangley not much in between. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko, Iroh, June, Ozai, Jet, Suki, the Kyoshi warriors, all look pretty great. Then you have characters like Azula, Mai, or Yue, who just look like half decent cosplayers. It kind of takes you out of the moment when it looks like the person is a cartoon character, rather than just a normal person. For example, compare how Katara looks compared to Azula.

Music: of course it was fantastic. A lot of it (I think most) was from the original show, which has one of the greatest soundtracks an animated show has ever had imo.

Final thoughts: Ultimately, it was kind of what I was expecting. You can't condense 20+ episodes worth of development into 8 and expect it all to flow perfectly. However, there are also a lot of changes that really don't make sense to me. I am very curious to know how on earth they will do seasons 2 and 3, as season 1 is the slowest in pace compared to the next two seasons. The original's finale was split into four episodes! Unless they add more episodes for next season, it's going to be a big jumbled mess of lore being shoved into our faces. I am also concerned about Toph. The Gaang so far has been stripped of their fun/unique personality traits. Is Toph going to be the same?

[gavisuntiedboot]

of course a bunch of fatties are sending you requests for a fat reader fics. y’all are never going to have a bf like gavi or anyone for that matter stop reading fics and staying in ur delusion to feel better and actually go exercise 😭

TW: stupidity

I never imagined myself responding to a nasty anonymous message on the internet because I’m a grown adult and I don’t condone bullying. However,

You’ve pissed me off and now I want you to feel like shit for saying this.

Struggling with weight and body image is one of the hardest things you can go through, and it affects young people a lot more severely because of social media. A lot of aspects of weight that people struggle with are not in their control, like genetics, what kind of food and environment they have access to, their facilities to cook, and many many other factors. Making it seem like they’re people who have just decided to gain wait makes you seem ignorant and uninformed and bitter.

Further, the fic never mentioned what size the reader was. It just said she wasn’t a size small. I know for a fact you wouldn’t berate a girl who wears a size medium to go to exercise. Body image is ugly and difficult to deal with. In high school, I was 55kg (125 lbs) and every day I looked in the mirror telling myself I was grossly fat. I would read one direction fanfiction about curvy girls because I believed that’s what I looked like. I wanted to understand that I could be loved in spite of what I thought about my own body.

So for you to come to my inbox and say things like this, that there is no possible way Gavi (who is in fact just a normal human being) could never love a girl who isn’t a size small shows that you have some deep insecurity that you need to deal with. Best of luck with that, but not on my page and not with this nasty tone.

To everyone else reading, body image is hard. It’s hard to get over comparing yourself to others and being happy with the way you look. And you won’t be happy about it sometimes and that’s ok. But remember there is more to you than what your brain tells you. You are much more than your looks, and the way you look never ever ever makes you more or less deserving of love.

I’m not a peace and love type of person. Send stupid shit to my ask box and I will respond. Fair warning. Love y’all ❤️‍🔥

Update: the block button is the best invention since the automobile

[dreadfutures]

there's something here ok

my mom used to be a bigot. she was abusive and alcoholic and had self esteem issues that she self medicated and took out on the world. she hated homeless people, hippies, liberals, anti gun activists, didn't believe in climate change.

in 15 years she has changed a lot. She carries a bag around full of food and blankets and water to give to the unhoused. She always has cash in her wallet to give to people on the street. She believes in climate change and votes green. She changed her mind about guns.

I can talk to her without worrying I'm going to be judged just for being antiwar. Her biggest priority isn't whether or not I'm going to church but whether I'm helping people and being kind.

I feel like I can tell her about (some) things about my childhood, and my relationships, and I'll be heard and respected. That is more than before, where I felt like I had to lie about every aspect of my life to avoid a berating and harassment.

She apologized to me once three years ago for my childhood and I don't care. It means more to me that she was at a place personally where she could apologize, than anything else.

Nothing makes up for how I was made to feel growing up. But I never needed her to be a part of my healing. It happened, and I deal with it in my own way, divorced from her. I don't need anything from her except the answer to my ONE WISH growing up: I wished she'd grow up, and be kinder, and be more secure. Even then, when I hated her, I knew that what would be good for ME would be to get away and become the person I wanted to be; what would be good for her, my family, the world, would be for her to BE BETTER. I was so angry because to me, I KNEW she could just BE BETTER, KINDER, than this, but it felt like she refused to do the work. It made me SO ANGRY. And so hopeless.

It took almost two decades. It was not a pleasant 15 years for her I'm sure. But she did it.

She is a different person than the one who hurt me; the person who hurt me is the same person who always had the potential to be better.

There's something here.

My old therapist and I talked about compartmentalization and how it's boxing things up and shoving them under the bed. We discussed how that's not what I'm doing with this approach. When I say the person my mom is now deserves to be treated independently of the person she was. I think it's the only way to have a community. We have to meet people where they're at, and if they want to and are able to engage with community the way the community engages, then. we should.

I had cut off my family almost completely when I moved away for college. They just continued to prove that they weren't going to engage with me in a healthy way, and they weren't people I wanted in my personal community. I told them why I didn't want to be around them.

And I was fine; I found my community, identified my needs and found ways to meet them with the resources and people I wanted in my life. There are unique pains in that, too, but they're just different pains than the agony of dealing with family like that. Fixing them wasn't my responsibility; getting out of a situation where I was suffering, was something in my power.

If my mom hadn't genuinely changed, I wouldn't engage the way I am now. But she could, and she did. The rest of my family is also better but for reasons I still hold them at a distance. There's something to that, too. and all of it just. really validates an important part of my world view that needed strengthening. Hope without evidence of possibility feels like a vain exercise. But this one example solidified something in me. There's something there.

[bringthekaos]

" Fight this fight another way…" oh, but that´s the thing. Jayce doesn´t know how to pick his fights

GOD you’re so right. Bro goes in swingin every time. It’s actually a cute aspect of his personality, to me. When the people he loves are hurting, he ditches rational thought and goes to bat for them. Often at self-effacing levels. And obviously he needs to work on that, cuz uhhhhhhh that’s how he ended up accidentally killing a child.

But I do think he is always trying to learn from his mistakes, to be better. It’s just that, as such a visible public figure, he’s under a microscope every second of every day, his every action is judged and scrutinized. He doesn’t really get the opportunities to learn and grow without first being berated for it, which kinda… changes a person’s motivations. That pressure is always there, and instead of being able to rationally consider how to react to certain problems, his first thought is “oh gods, what will they all think of me.”

Like… something I saw mentioned a while ago over on the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter was that during the scene on the bridge with Viktor, someone in the crowd is holding up a “Man of Progress” poster with the eyes scratched out and a noose around his neck. Like… no, I am not at all trying to excuse his xenophobic comment to Viktor (that’s another thing he definitely needs to work on), but uhhh… yeah, I’d probably be a little freaked out too, looking at someone not subtly suggesting they’d like to gouge my eyes out and hang me.

All this to say… one day. One day he will learn to think before he speaks, to pause and consider before leaping into battle. But it is not this day.