#black singlet theory

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Ummmm so it would appear Eddie and Buck are gonna be dressed similarly at the basketball game 👀👀👀👀

And Eddie back in a black singlet 👀👀👀👀👀 interesting emotional place- hello I’m here for it

[heck-theo]

Okokokokok- ignore how rough and messy some of these redraws/sketches are - but it's apparently also dinosaur month?? (WHY did no one ever tell me it's Jurassic June? I love dinosaurs) And like. What if Rise but dinosaurs?!

I don't often post such loose sketches but I wanted to show these off cause I really like some of this.

Design choices and dino species + the reasons I picked them bellow (looking for potential Donnie dino suggestions):

Clothes: Without the shell they really need clothes. They'd all have pretty much the same pants to keep some unity, except maybe Mikey (I decided they should all have the same pants after I finished the Mikey sketches, not sure if I'll keep the shorts or change to pants). Accessories are a mix of pre and post finale.

Raph - I think would keep it simple and practical but would also wear nice jackets and stuff when in casual situations. I need to work on giving him an alternative outfit and tweak his accessories a bit.

Donnie - An oversized pull-over hoodie cause we already know he loves that shit. We see him wearing it all the time. Easy enough. He wears a comfortable singlet underneath so the straps of his battle sail don't rub. Nice soft fabric, tight fit so it doesn't move around, tucks it into his pants, etc. When he wears the battle sail he won't overheat so he can wear hoodies basically all year round.

Leo - He's in one of those shirts with obnoxiously large arm holes and make it cropped cause 1. I think he would 2. I want it to be different from Raph and Donnie's singlets. He usually wears the shoulder strap off his shoulder but pulls it up when he needs to. He has some of the black bandages over his mid drift atm but I might just make his pants super high waisted in the final version. He'd probably wear a bomber jacket (also cropped?) over the top for cool weather, but doesn't like to hide his feathers.

Mikey - I think he'd mostly wear hand me downs when he's younger. He definitely goes through a stage of rebelling and wanting to pick his own and would find a middle ground of appreciating sharing some of his brother's clothes and modifying them, as long as he has the choice of his own available. Not sure if that would be before or after this design. At the moment he's got Raph's old shorts (from a loooong time ago), Leo's old shirt, and Donnie's old zip up hoodie. He does have his own accessories though, including pins instead of stickers.

Dinosaurs: I kept them all as non-avian dinosaurs, AKA not including animals that are colloquially considered dinos but aren't (like pterosaurs). I wanted to keep an even split of herbivore vs carnivore just so one wasn't the odd one out. I wanted to keep most of their body structure, colours and distinguishing features the same as canon. Obviously I added tails cause, yeah, of course haha. I did want them to be recognisable as different species of dino using distinct characteristics that their species is known for. I did ignore a lot of differences though, like size and bipedal vs quadruped (although the quadrupeds might be more likely to go to all fours, especially when fighting or afraid). Leo and Donnie are carnivores so have sharper teeth and claws.

Raph - Some kind of Ceratopsian (likely Triceratops or something very similar) and he was the first idea I had for this and I'm really happy with it. I think it just suits him. Trike Raph just came to me in an unprecedented moment of genius. His spikey frill replicates his spikey shell. His sturdiness, protectiveness and willingness to kick ass when needed, all scream trike to me.

Donnie - Spinosaurus but looking for other species recommendations. More details below: So I wanted to figure out a way for him to have tech with a similar function to his battle shell (in the sense that it's something that helped him in day to day life) and so I went with spino cause one possible theory about a function of spinosaurus' sail is temperature regulation. So his battle sail has heating/cooling systems as well as other tech. A spino's sail was probably not fragile but the battle sail would also help protect it from being targeted during fights or crushed during extreme impacts. It was also thought to be used for display, and what's more of a display than a battle sail? The only problem I have with this is that it's lacking part of what makes Donnie's battle shell so great, which is that it is essentially a prosthetic. Not quite the same as how prosthetics are used in people of course, just in the sense that it is replicating the functionality of a body part that he doesn't have (I can't think of a better word). Well he does have a shell but it doesn't function in the same way that his brothers shells do, which leaves him with less defense than they have, hence a big reason for the battle shell (I hope I explained this well, it was hard to try and word properly). I can't think of a good way to do this with dinos. I was thinking of a carno or something with tiny arms, then Donnie could have tech enhanced arms but I'm pretty much ignoring body structure in the others so it would be weird to have just Donnie be affected by a difference in limb structure/functionality. I was thinking prosthetic tail but every non avian dinosaur had a pretty substantial tail. Except therizinosaurus but even they hade pretty obvious tails. I'm open to suggestions for this one if anyone has ideas. It does have to be an extinct non-avian dinosaur (anything not in Avialae), preferably carnivore but if someone suggests a really good herbivore or omnivore then I can try and swap Mikey for a carnivore. I want there to be an even split. I also wanted to give him something different on his face, like his brothers, and that could only be a little spino crest and it crowds the top of his head but I can't put it anywhere else...

Leo - A type of Dromaeosaur. I was tossing up between this and a dilophosaur where his red stripes were part of the dilo's crest, cause I wasn't sure about giving him feathers. But dilo Leo was so plain compared to the rest and the crests were hard to get looking right so I went back to raptor Leo. I can definitely imagine him literally and metaphorically preening his feathers too. You can't really see it but he does also have that big raptor claw. Raptors were smart, tactical and worked in packs so I think that suits him. I wasn't specifically referencing how some artists draw Leo's stripes coming off his face (I was just trying to replicate his stripes somehow, even though it doesn't make a huge amount of sense) but I realised afterwards that it kinda looks like that and might have been subconsciously inspired by it.

Mikey - Is an Ankylosaur. I'm pretty happy with the species but I need to work out the design of his armour plating so that it looks interesting, cool and protective but isn't too chunky, too pointy or super lumpy looking. I went with an anky cause Mikey is often hiding in his shell and he can't do the same here but he could curl up in a defensive ball. Plus I could imagine him using his tail club in his razzmatazz fighting style. A little like his kusari-fundo or nunchacku/nunchucks (not sure on proper wording).

[hero-the-meep]

Colour theory. The 60th Specials have this gorgeous colour palette of reds and blues and greens throughout. But what do they all mean?

Donna spends much of the specials drenched in red – her fiery copper hair, her pink and red jumper, the warmth of her house as the Doctor looks in from the cold, blue night, of the vortex, and of flames.

In many scenes, she's in fact the only source of warmth in frame.

The Doctor's palette is, of course, blue, and he starts his journey very blue prior to stripping off his long, solid overcoat to reveal brown and blue tartan (a mixture of both the Doctor's he's been) and white (a carte blanche that can throw to any colour).

Red and blue, the Doctor and Donna. These are our two primary colours for the Doctor and Donna as individuals. But it doesn't stop there.

Donna often throws red to the Doctor.

Or they share a frame of equal parts red and blue.

But more often than not, the Doctor casts Donna a sickly blue green – not in the moments of peril Donna chooses, like her choice to remember the mind of a Time Lord to save her daughter, but the moments of peril that truly make Donna afraid.

Staring out into the black nothingness of space without stars at the edge of the universe, so far from her family. Being confronted with herself. Half-remembering the Doctor with her daughter in danger, because of her (perceived) failure.

At her most afraid, like when the Doctor is genuinely angry at her, encroaching in her space, she wraps her body in her dark green jacket, a futile attempt to self-soothe. On an RGB colour wheel, green is our third primary colour.

Whereas the Doctor, at his lowest points, is drenched blue.

But where do they end up?

In glorious lavender purple and natural green with flickers of red and brown and yellow and blue.

Purple is a secondary colour, an additive of red and blue. Purple complements green. Green and red add to yellow; add a bit more red than green and you get brown. Yellow complements blue. Red and blue and green are triadic colours – high contrast, bold and vibrant, spaced evenly on the wheel.

Because their ark is not just for Donna to take on part of the Doctor, but for the Doctor to take on part of Donna as well. They are the Doctor and Donna, human and Time Lord, man and woman, travelling and at home – all these things and both and more, binary not-binary, a circle, complete.

Compare and contrast to season three and four.

Donna's colours are deep, jewel-toned reds and purples and blues, analogous colours. She's a bright, discordant blot in a sterile office. She's resplendently human in Pompeii. But by the end, she's adopted a long, brown coat, with just a hint of purple peaking out from a singlet top under all those layers. During Turn Left, never meeting the Doctor slowly sucks her colour to grey almost (but not) completely.

And when the Doctor takes her memories he returns her sans-jacket. Deep jewelled purple again.

The Doctor splits into a Doctor brown and a Doctor blue. One home, with a family. One travelling, alone. A bittersweet – not a happy – ending.

Now is their happy ending.

[karume-selfshipper]

My Hero OC: Circa; The Performance Hero

More info under the cut

She is All Might's adult daughter (age 27 at the start of the plot). She spent her childhood in America under her Mother's care until she was 17-18 when All Might helped her move to Japan and assisted her in getting her Hero license. This all happened at the same time Sir Nighteye just managed to become All Might's sidekick.

He was jealous about this but kept making excuses thinking Circa (haven't come up with her real name yet) was All Might's cousin/niece, or that she's only here for the same way All Might studied abroad. Though when Circa revealed she was his daughter, Nighteye didn't believe her (until he overheard All Might talking about it with David). He then had to come to terms with the fact that he had a crush on All Might's daughter (as well as All Might...). The two eventually become friends and start dating which becomes a massive point of contention between All Might and Nighteye since All Might is a little overprotective.

All Might being protective is from knowing that her Mother was neglectful. Yet he went in the opposite direction in trying to support her (things like covering her rent and utilities though she never asked and he still pays her for being his sidekick). She has been raised to be hyper-independent and was uncomfortable with All Might doing this. Nighteye helped convince her to say something (helping her break other toxic mentalities in the process) which All Might thought was a form of manipulation or that Nighteye was holding something over Circa. But he calmed down when she put her foot down.

She wasn't around for the main event when Nighteye and All Might yelled at each other. Though she did listen to both sides of the story and got reasonably upset over different parts of their story/actions. Neither man apologized to each other, but also never cut ties (besides occasionally communicating through Circa to keep up to date with new phone numbers and such).

Yet Circa has had a little petty revenge fun in bullying All Might with kindness (taking care of him to an excessive degree from his diet to cleaning his whole apartment when he's not home). He doesn't know how to bring up stopping her because he is a workaholic who does appreciate the thought and effort and would end up not doing the chores nearly as well as he needs to.

Her Hero costume is based on various stage performers. Dark red, steel-toe ballet slippers that wrap up to her knees, a large, black exterior, dark red velvet interior, trench coat-tail coat hybrid with mid-thigh splits on the side and tail bone split in the back, a black and navy blue waistcoat, lighter navy blue trapeze singlet with white tiger stripes on her thighs, and a mostly useless wand. Though the wand/baton is similar to a police baton and is registered as a tool/weapon.

She doesn't have All Might's signature "M" bangs, but she does have prominent bangs that she styles upward. Not to mimic All Might, but to mimic Star and Stripe. Since she grew up in America and all... Though her hairstyle is a short bob with longer sides than back, similar to a 1920s flapper girl/magician's assistant.

Her main Quirk Glyph is highly versatile and powerful. Partly because All Might is her father (theory that OfA can have residual effects on user's children) but the quirk comes from her Mother's side of the family. There are four types of Glyphs: white, blue, black, and yellow. White is a simple platform, when placed on a wall it acts like a rock climbing handle, when in open air it acts like stable ground. Black is a trapping platform, slight gravity distortion that can keep anything in place if it touches the platform. Blue is a summoning platform, as long as Circa knows what the animal does/how it moves/what it looks like, the glyph morphs into the animal and is capable of attacking sorta free from Circa's input. Yellow creates an area of effect for time dilation, both speeding up and slowing down time for the being/area inside the glyph. All of these depend on Circa's ability to focus.

Premonition is more a passive quirk that Circa doesn't ever realize is a thing. She only ever takes notice of it when she's tired or stressed, never connecting the dots even when she is in the middle of the situation she's seen. Though she is constantly messing with the outcome of her premonitions. She has single-handedly overturned 98% of her premonitions because of this without ever realizing what was happening. (Stubbornness runs in her family lol).

Her hero name is a play on circus and the word circa (meaning approximately i.e. circa 1987). The tag "The Performance Hero" works whether before or after her hero name. She plays around with this when she enters the scene constantly, being very over-the-top whenever she can.

She is rather popular, usually sitting between 20-30 in the overall Hero ranking.

[smiley-positivity-potato]

WELCOME TO MY SAFE MENTAL HEALTH, TRANSMASCULINITY SPACE FOR ADULTS WITH:

"D.I.D, AUTISM, ADHD, CPTSD, BPD, MAJOR DEPRESSION, AGORAPHOBIA, INSOMNIA, PSYCHOSIS, ANXIETY, SCHIZOAFFECTIVE BIPOLAR, Gender Dysphoria, Body Dysphoria AND/ OR ED RECOVERY."

INTRODUCTIONS:

Hello, this is a page dedicated to the life experiences our system have seen (and lived through) as we grew older. I'm new to my official D.I.D diagnosis but it's been quite a life changer over time without my knowledge. As we walk alongside our paths of mental health, gender discovery and body health navigation, we wish to help other systems and singlets, new and old, feel less alone. As we learn what it means to fully recognize ourselves in a more positive light, we see that we aren't just a hopeless cause. We can learn a lot from one another inside and out, so we don't mind opening up and sharing our life growth experiences with others as we change even more with time.

PLEASE RESPECT THAT MY SYSTEM IS NOT LOOKING FOR NEW FRIENDS. WE JUST CAN'T HANDLE MAKING THOSE TYPE OF NEW CONNECTIONS OR ANY TYPE OF COMMITMENTS LIKE THAT RIGHT NOW. WE STRUGGLE WITH THAT IN REALITY (IN PERSON) AS WELL, ALONGSIDE COMMUNICATION. WE EMOTIONALLY CAN'T HANDLE MORE PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES. IT'S OVERWHELMING. PLEASE RESPECT THIS. WE REALIZED THIS WHEN WE CRIED IN OUR MENTAL HEALTH GROUP OVER THE IDEA OF GETTING MORE POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS AND FRIENDS IN OUR LIFE. WE DO NOT WANT IT. WE WILL CRY IF YOU TRY OR DELETE THIS PAGE OUT OF FEAR.

Host:

Rue/Maverick - pronouns: he/they, transmasc non-binary, age: 26 - 35

Alts:

Sammi - pronouns: he/it/they, nonbinary, age: 21 - 30

The Hoard - pronouns: it/they, unlabelled gender, age: unknown, group of 7 - 8 entities

Kiki - pronouns: she/her, cis, age: 8 - 18

Host Interests:

Rue/Maverick: likes rap, pop, country, likes button up shirts and a nice pair of jeans, likes pastel green, brown or black and white clothes, likes Jamaican, Hispanic and Southern food, likes vet facts, likes watching dramas, actions and adult animations, likes cooking and baking, likes thrifting sometimes, likes going out with friends, likes tea and sweet coffee, likes beanies, likes light eyeliner, likes body mods, likes philosophy, likes coming up with theories, likes being kind and understanding, likes helping, likes cleaning, likes self care, likes necklaces and bracelets, likes peaceful nature, likes having hair cut

Alts Interests:

Sammi: aggressive rap, screamo, metal, bars, smoking, spontaneous adventures, social drinking, chokers, gothic and alt clothes/style, wigs, likes makeup, likes dates, coffee on the darker side, sex, cussing, Griselda show, The Wrong Side Of The Tracks, likes Spanish, likes shaving their head, likes acrylic nails, likes false eyelashes, likes platform boots and heels, likes breaking things, likes kink, likes drugs

The Hoard: listens to Sammi ONLY, likes silence, likes being alone, likes light tasting foods like yogurt, soup, applesauce (recovered ED foods needed), likes SH and SH ideation, likes wearing hoodies and cozy big clothes, likes sitting in a dim or dark room, likes body mods for pain and reality, enjoys being able to write, likes reading, loves animals, likes repetition, likes sneakers and crocs, likes daydreaming, likes journaling, likes fake tattoos, likes racoons, possums, rats, mice and guinea pigs

Kiki: likes pastel pink, blue, and yellow, loves pitbulls (Staffordshire terriers), loves stuffies, loves having soft and lots of fleece blankets, likes having lots of pillows, likes crocheting and art, likes Bob's Burgers, Duncanville, SpongeBob, MLP, The Loud House, Daria, Ghibli movies, 90s cartoons, fanmade animations, stickers, buying art supplies, thrifting with guardians, likes cheese and ice cream (but knows we can't and shouldn't have caesin), likes long skirts, shorts, likes clothes that don't show our figure, likes painting toes, likes cute socks, likes petting animals, likes stimming and talking a LOT, likes small treasures like buttons, acorns, leafs, cute rocks and etc., likes indie music, likes Build A Bear, likes bookstores, likes gemstones, likes cute dresses, likes Crocs, chunky sneakers and flats

Page RTs:

Positivity posts, quotes, memes, stim boards, animals, intersex positivity, trans positivity, makeup positivity, art positivity, transmasc hobby ideas, transmasc history, lesbian history, mental health history, informative D.I.D/system light "discourse" or discussions, transmasculinity, transmasc inclusive feminism, self harm recovery

No Content On:

nsfw, blood, unnecessary discourse, animal abuse, scat, and anything we have to add later.

This is my first time doing an introduction for Tumblr so we're sorry if it's a little scattered. We're just very nervous since we don't usually all introduce ourselves. We hope we can discover more about ourselves in the transmasc and D.I.D communities!

Note: Please don't send our system serious asks about the world. We don't believe the world we wake up to is real. Our dreams are and we can not understand or comprehend reality. This is not our world and this life is not ours. So we do not know how to react to serious asks about the world or life. Nothing makes sense and what people label "dreams" are our reality.

Thank you so much for the warm welcome everyone! Just know Rue or Maverick are usually in charge of this page!! Don't be afraid to send in Asks and we'll read through them happily and try to answer as best as we can! Thank you all so much for your care and support!!🪻🪻🪻🪻✨✨✨✨

This page is 18+ for some mature or serious discussions and images. Please respect this!!

[dearmahiru-archive]

cinnamon!! got any predictions for mikoto and kotokos trial 2 cover songs?

so embarrassing that i was like "aw i wish i could think of something else to post for today" and then i shot up like a bullet going "OH NO WAIT I RECIEVED AN ASK!!!"

um uhm well. hmm. my track record for this has been 1/3 so far so i'd like to see how wrong i am! i don't think these two could get robbed out of any specific cover.

there's tons of different mikoto options i've seen and i want them all tbh. horrid that we're only allowed three when he could easily do so many more... in my perfect reality he protected mahiru from the yandere allegations and covered psychogram himself.

although, funny story with mikoto is that i was discussing potential covers with gunslingr and they said "i fear mikoto will have a chimera cover" right before i said i hope he gets one. my face literally beat red it was soooo embarrassing!!!!

even if i'm still horrified over the memory, i'll still stick to my guns and say i'd like a chimera cover. is it deserving over other songs? absolutely not! but it feels right to me. the cover art depicting miku with three sets of one's—one yanking her hair, one grasping her shoulders, and one praying—really struck me as rgbkoto. especially with the different color palettes bathing one part of her in warm colors while the other is colder (there's a similar mikoto artwork i believe?) there's also the song's name "chimera" which relates to mikoto being made up of multiple identities stitched together instead of a singlet.

the song's theme of reinventing yourself for the sake of attention and hating it also really strikes me as mikotocore. i'm not too familiar with his story just yet but from what i've gathered he struggles with maintaining this easy-going facade in order to blend in with society.

off-tapic but i'm not sure if he works for a black company but... yes, it doesn't justify murdering an innocent bystander (yet) but i will be very upset on his behalf if that turns out to be true. the industry culture of stressing your artists out, making them work overtime, drinking themselves to death, paying them pennies, and then forcing them to maintain this happy-go-lucky attitude—it drives me insane! treat your workers better asshole!!!!!

sorry had to get that off my chest >< but back to the chimera cover! if the black company theory is true then it reads to me like mikoto urging himself to wear this sweet facade whilst loathing everything around him. as an extension of monopoisoner it also has the same "you" themeing and sexual undertones.

Don’t be greedy or you'll drown in poison -> hehe monopoisoner reference

Your face looks like you're trying to suppress your EGO But watch your mouth, love how unsatisfied you are And be sure to swallow any uncouth words

Aw, I just don't know who I am I'm cute Chimera who's changed ←new??That blotchy pattern was a message I'm a pretty little Chimera made to be desired ←♡♡♡

kotoko's a bit harder because my thought process is ❤️❤️❤️ she's so cool! she'll get a cool song! and that's kind-of it.

unfortunately my knowledge of deco is mostly locked into the mvs on his main channel and utaite rachie's cover so uhm. i'm sure there's older songs perfect for her as an extension of anti-beat but dear lord i do not know them. so uh, just going to off of "kotoko would sound so wonderful singing this!!"

I KNOW!! I KNOW!! TWO BORING ANSWERS BACK-TO-BACK LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!

i'm honestly not a fan of reversible campaign so i'd genuinely prefer if she got 118 or another high-energy song. but hm... it once again simply feels right to me. i feel like kotoko is powerful enough to grab me by the throat and force me to like the song through sheer instrumental change and vocals. rather than mikoto where i can connect him to the entire song, it's really only these two lyrics which strike me as kotokocore:

Using my worthless ego as a pretext I just want to waver between black and white

she insists she doesn't need to be traumatized in order to act this way... she hates herself like everyone else does in the prison. even as she tasks herself as judge, jury, and executioner, i highly suspect its because no one else fought for her. the world she's in is divided between the weak and strong, nothing else. the lashing out in anti-beat slowly dies down into reversible campaign as she considers her feelings. or uh, something like that?

apart from that my absolutely copium cover desires would be theory of negativity, undead alice, ane ghost rule. i feel like those are deffo going to my/haruka/shidou but. but she'd totally slay them. god bless. alternatively for her t3 cover i hope she covers undercover it'd be iconic.

once again kotoko sits in a strange place for me because everything she does will be perfect to me. she's just so cool...!

[strangertheory]

Over the last three years, I've gone back and forth on my assessment regarding whether or not my discussion of my theories might be appreciated and appropriate, given that I am a singlet who has simply started to notice patterns and details within Stranger Things which (to me) appear to support the possibility that the creators are intending to tell a story about worlds that exist within the human mind and characters that are all connected to one another within a system. (Whether or not they are writing this concept in an accurate and appropriate way being a very important but separate question that will surely be talked about after season 5 if my suspicions are correct.)

My interest in doing my best to learn more about DID and the experiences of systems and alters didn't actually begin with Stranger Things (that's another longer story), but my passion and appreciation for the wonderful characters in the show and their well-written journeys and my desire to understand the bigger picture and what the rules of the Stranger Things universe are intended to be certainly strengthened it.

Can those outside of a community respectfully and beneficially learn about experiences that aren't their own, and attempt to discuss them and do so and continue to grow and learn when these experiences are perceived as relevant to characters in popular media? This is a hotly debated issue that stretches beyond this specific topic and into conversations about representation of many different lived experiences in all media. And I don't think there's necessarily a clear-cut answer that is applicable to every scenario. I think we should all hold each other accountable and educate each other. I am very grateful for anyone who has reached out to me to correct me and provide me with a better understanding of others. Generally, I'm wary of advocating that only those in the lgbtqa+ community can discuss lgbtqa+ characters. I'm wary of advocating that only those in the Black community can talk about Black characters. How can we each learn about each other and live in the world together if we don't exchange ideas and seek to understand each other's lived experiences as best we can? How do we improve representation and storytelling if we don't seek to learn about experiences that aren't our own? To me, communication and sharing of ideas is very important. But I recognize that there will be situations in which this should not be done, and cannot perhaps be done in a way that is sure to avoid causing harm, and it's within that cautious wariness that I'm going to take a break from discussing my theories.

I'm glad that some of my ideas over the last few years resonated with a few alters who reached out to me and shared their ideas, knowledge and experiences with being part of a system. In truth, I would prefer to read your analyses and ideas about what might be happening within Stranger Things over sharing my own. Over the last few years I've linked some Asks in my pinned post that some of you messaged me so that hopefully your insight and personal experiences with DID will be read by others interested in this theory before any of my own ideas.

However, given the sensitivity of the topic and the risk that I might not offer ideas and conversation that is constructive, and being unsure of my place in this broader conversation and not wanting to cause any harm, I'm going to take a hiatus from all theory discussion until after Stranger Things 5.

I hope that if my theories regarding the writers' intentions are correct, that the Stranger Things team has been consulting with those who have DID and are doing everything they can to create a popular show that represents DID respectfully. If we can all agree on something in spite of our differences, I hope that we can all agree that the world doesn't need more popular fictional narratives demonizing multiplicity.

[hinagamoizaf]

Watching DA:LEK during another trip around the Sun

Focus on colour

Earlier this week I turned a year older & pretty much since my time in Ports, I have a mini tradition of watching my favourite films on my birthday. It’s also more accurate to say that they’re coming-of-age films, I re-watched Last Evolution Kizuna (2020). Out of the way, LEK is genuinely drop dead gorgeous. Yeah it was a theatrical release, but this is legit the best DA has looked imo, even better than the reboot.The art direction, the lighting, I’m not even touching on the animation; it all belongs in a gallery. Something that has always intrigued me is the use of colours in the film. Whenever I visualised LEK in my mind, blue & a variation of summer hues are the most prominent palettes that are ingrained into my memory. Obviously, Taichi & Yamato’s colour schemes are orange & blue; there’s that association that’s been around for the past 2 decades with these characters. Initially I was thinking of writing a piece that analyses the use of colours scene by scene. Yeah so um, I’m just busy straight up. But I still want to shed light on what stuck out to me the most. 

Colour choices

There’s the colour scheme of the characters with their crests / Digimon partners, and also the colour scheme of their clothes. The Crest of Courage & Agumon are orange (sometimes yellow for the latter), Gabumon & the Crest of Friendship are blue : basic Taichi & Yamato colours as discussed before.

Taichi As seen with Taichi’s signature clothes all the way from DA (1999), he usually wears blue clothing items. We see this in 02, Tri he had a mixture, & typically in all the scenes of LEK, Taichi is wearing variations of blue with his attire. Yamato has always had his ugly green singlet. In 02 what we do see of his casual clothes it’s actually black, from Tri my most prominent memory is his rocker black hoodie & the green jacket when they fought Alphamon. Coming close to his hipster brother, Yamato is arguably the best dressed male Chosen Child & during LEK, it’s a mixture of green & black clothing items. (Yes there are scenes for both where this colour choice isn’t always the same, likewise in promotional art. I’m just pointing out the most obvious ones.) Orange is a secondary colour from a combination of passionate red & optimistic yellow, it’s naturally a warm colour; these attributes fit Taichi. You’ll also see it associated with the autumn season & Halloween, all that stuff. *Incoming personal take, not related to colour theory or symbolism. Literally just my own opinion, it may change* Despite how loud orange is, I don’t see it standing on its own. It’s an in between colour for me; I see it, I think ‘that's just a mixture of red & yellow’. Yeah it’s associated with warmth, joy & enthusiasm, but again you get that more with yellow & red; it’s a colour that’s part of a package. Paradoxically, I personally think the same can be said for Taichi. Sure, he’s the main goggle-head leader & poster boy for DA. But when you think of a leader, you also think of his team members. *Your chance to walk away from LEK spoilers* Aside from the main message of growing up, Taichi’s goodbye with Agumon also represented his ‘in between dynamic’ with his partner. At the start of the film, he had his thesis which he wasn’t that sure what to write about. Similarly being a Chosen Child, of course Taich cares about Agumon & his duty, but he just manages the bare minimum amount of time to spend on this aspect of his life. Taichi’s in between worlds, and in either one, he’s not a 100% there - but cares & takes these things to heart. Tri gets plenty of criticism as it is, but the plotpoint of Taichi being melancholic & considering the impact of the Digimon fights in the real world, there’s some merit to it.

Interestingly enough in LEK, Taichi’s not the one taking charge, it’s Yamato. Taichi’s backseat approach reminds me of Sora not including herself during the first Diaboromon fight; and how she spends her last few moments with Piyomon just spending time with her. Taichi does the same with Agumon once they find out about the rings, it felt like spending your last few moments with a pet that has to be put down. But Agumon’s not a pet, he’s Taichi’s Digimon partner.

Yamato In recent years, I've seen people online vouch that Yamato is the one DA cast member who's unapologetically himself & will wear his heart on his sleeve. Taichi's a loud person, but he has a hard time confessing his feelings & confronting them. A foil to Yamato who by all accounts appears as a reserved individual, he's the boy who literally cries & he doesn't hide his emotions. Emotionally constipated maybe, but if he has something to say, he'll definitely show it.

This is apparent during the course of LEK. Whereas Taichi spent his final days with Agumon eating & taking him to his uni apartment, Yamato took charge of the investigation of the new adult characters they were dealing with. We could see at times while Gabumon was there, Yamato did keep his distance (my boy's character arc is learning to embrace his friends & not putting it all on himself). In some regards, Yamato’s the ‘blue oni’ to Taichi’s ‘red oni’ (or rather orange). Yamato is also part of that other half dynamic with Taichi, you usually think about him while  thinking about Taichi. There’s the ‘blues’ part of Yama’s colour scheme, his passion for music & moody character. Blue is a cool colour, it can invoke a feeling of calmness, loyalty in other situations. Then with the whole werewolf theme of Gabumon, there are blue elements there & the debatable ice/blue fire attacks he has.

Blue DA:LEK’s usage of blue covers both the joyous aspects and melancholic parts of not only the film, but is a mirror to the characters’ internal struggles. Butterflies have always been a huge motif in DA & Menoa has this butterfly hair clip that is a stunning, electrifying blue. But transferring that blue to Never-Land, it’s still electrifying, but for the worse. It feels hypnotic & eerie, the colour blue loses its calm connotation & diverts toward a sea of depression. For months after leaving the theatre, the Never-Land scenes were stuck in my head. The film has a message of ‘don’t get too caught up in nostalgia / your childhood’ & they hit it right over the ballpark with the Never-Land setting / conclusion of the film. Adult Menoa was trying to hold onto a childhood that her child self was previously trying to rush growing up from (??), it’s a cracked mirror to how Tai & Yama were also struggling to hold onto their beloved childhood while navigating the abrupt transition to adulthood. This mixed explosion of emotions & realisations, character growth & inner battles is reflected back in what I’m calling the ‘twilight colours’.

Twilight Menoa’s crystals have this purple-blue-pink thing going on. Her goodbye flashback with Morphomon is a daunting hellscape. Taiyama’s final goodbye with Agu & Gabu is a softer hue of that purple-like colour; literally getting darker & welcoming the night once they’re gone.

I’m really going on a limb here, but this reminds me of the ‘twilight hour’. *Could totally be pulling out of my ass - During my uni dissertation, I focused on Kimi no Na wa (2016). The film explored the ‘twilight hour’ & it had a more romantic connotation there. But there’s the rough translation of this period of time being a transition from our world to the other or supernatural world; that tiny bridge where we cross paths. In LEK during those twilight goodbyes, it’s Taichi, Yamato & Menoa having to say goodbye to not only their childhood, their Digimon partners, but also a part of themselves - that child part. That child in the blink of an eye is thrown into the same confusing world, but now debuting as a young adult with all its responsibilities.

[*22nd April, my brain deadass stopped thinking.May revisit & edit this in the coming weeks]

[wweassets]

So I’ve been working on my fantasy “sexy Halloween costume contest” for the guys like they used to do with the Divas lol... Here are the entrants! You need to pick 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. Everybody play along and submit your responses!

Roman Reigns as Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat: skull helmet, shoulder pads, tiny gladiator briefs below.

LA Knight in red devil ears, pitchfork, and red jockstrap.

Johnny Gargano as Tom Cruise in “Risky Business” with his white underwear briefs and button-down shirt

Bron Breakker body-painted as Thing from Fantastic Four, in denim booty-cut shorts

Adam Cole as HBK from his Playgirl magazine cover, wet and naked in a towel strategically lowered

Hangman Page in cowboy hat, leather vest and chaps, in a thong

Drew McIntyre comes out in his kilt, but once he gets into the ring he quickly flashes the audience his bare ass to reveal that he’s not wearing anything underneath

Austin Theory painted silver and dressed like Colossus from X-Men in red briefs

Seth Rollins as Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake from the 80’s, with his see-through tights

MJF walks to the ring cutting a heel promo saying he’s too good to be a part of such a stupid contest, so instead he’s just gonna be himself, completely naked except he’s covering his dick with his Burberry scarf, his fat ass out and bouncing as he walks down the ramp.

Jinder Mahal body-painted as a tiger, wearing briefs that match his stripes

Angel Garza dressed as an angel, with a halo, wings, and white jockstrap

The Creed Brothers wearing their singlets but with the asses cut out. Chad Gable comes out immediately after with the same costume and his ass out too, and after they argue, they brawl to the back.

Bobby Lashley as Jax from Mortal Kombat, his arms painted silver and wearing purple briefs

Dolph Ziggler as a Baywatch lifeguard in a red speedo

Johnny Drip Drip comes into the ring in white boxer briefs, then asks referee Jessika Carr to spray him with the Drip Stick. She gets him soaked, and he’s proudly showing off his dick and ass in his wet underwear that’s now basically see-through

Madcap/Riddick Moss in his suspenders and tiny little khaki shorts, but his ass can barely fit in them so he ends up ripping them at one of the seams when he gets into the ring

Ilja Dragunov as a sexy vampire, black cape and black jockstrap

Mace and T-Bar dressed and painted as Demolition, with black leather jockstraps and spikes

Mustafa Ali recreates his pharaoh look from Crown Jewel, only this time in a gold briefs

Randy Orton body-painted as a viper, snake contact lenses and wearing black briefs

Bobby Roode comes out in his old blue sequin Glorious robe and when he gets in the ring, opens it to reveal a blue sequin jockstrap

Rick Boogs in his suspenders but wearing nothing underneath, loose, unbuttoned and baggy enough to reveal the upper half of his ass

Ricochet comes out to Sable’s old music and wearing a robe. When he gets into the ring, he takes it off to reveal a black jockstrap, and turns around to show black sequin handprints painted on both of his butt cheeks just like Sable did with her tits

Not to be outdone, Finn Balor comes to the ring in a black robe, and reveals that he’s only wearing bubble wrap around his waste like the Kat did in the Royal Rumble bikini contest

With all the contestants in the ring, the camera pans across to show all of the costumes again, with guys playing to the crowd to get the most applause.

Who are your 3 winners?

WAIT CUZ YOU PUT IN THE DETAILS?? omfg this is THOUGHT OUT and amazing and wow UMMm

literally they're all so FUCKING HOT IDK HOW TO PICK UMMMM

but my top 3 rn would beeeeeeee

adam cole, ricochet and mustafa (the winner yup yup)

but dear LORD theese are all so hot omfg so many choices...

JOIN US everyone x

[victoria-penelope-clover]

Please use paragraph breaks next time.

i just dont like the black-and-white dogmatic structure of the plural community.

You seeing everything in black and white is the real problem here, as I'll get into later. Yes, both sides funnel toward the more extreme positions, but this happens with literally every two-sided argument on the internet. This does not mean the positions between don't exist.

but some pro endos have also said DID and osdd can develop without trauma if the person is just naturally dissociative enough and that DID and osdd develop from being naturally highly dissociative instead of trauma (when really DID and osdd develop from disorganized attachment/emotional trauma accordion to the theory of structural dissociation.)

Scientific theory isn't fact set in stone, especially in a soft science like psychology. Trauma would obviously make someone highly dissociative, so with so many people claiming to have not developed OSDDID from trauma, this is a fine hypothesis to test.

ive been downvoted and called out for saying DID and osdd can only develop from trauma.

I would be interested in seeing some of those callouts for the arguments used against you.

and i usually dont fakeclaim people but sometimes peoples alters are just cringe

How hard your ass cheeks are pressing together is not a good basis for determining whether someone is faking.

i saw a system have an alter that was supposed to cutesey up autism even more, a tbh creature alter with aw/tism pronouns

Can't say much without more context, don't know what tbh is, and pronouns are a whole different thing I'll get to in a minute.

Fair criticism of antiendos' extreme positions, and then...

do you think its okay to create tulpas/willogenic systems to cope with trauma and call it traumagenic when its endogenic?

Yes. Their system would not have existed without the trauma, so it's absolutely fair for them to call themselves traumagenic even if their plurality was achieved through typically endogenic/parogenic means. Traumagenic is not a synonym for disordered (though I imagine a tulpa system that formed in conscious response to trauma could get shaken up similarly to a system that formed as an unconscious response to trauma).

do you have an alter that uses pronouns offensive to people with trauma (ive seen someone use rape/rapeself as pronouns)

This is not an endo problem. This appears in young DID systems and singlets, which is an indication that this has nothing to do with plurality. Yes, more pro-endos will go along with it because they're more open in general, but two people who are respectively very much supportive of this and very much against this would be equally pro-endo because this has nothing to do with plurality.

This take is inherited from my host, but neopronouns are stupid. Pronouns are not a mandatory part of the language to begin with. If the short word I'm using to call you instead of your name is unique to you anyway, I can just use your name or a shortened version of it. A caveat to this is that I don't like "they", a typically plural word that we as a plural system especially need, being used as the default enby pronoun. Obviously there are reasons the language has ended up like this but if there is a local agreed-upon alternative like xe, I'm happy to use that.

In an ideal world I would like only gender-neutral singular and plural pronouns but at this point that's at least a century away. Maybe more realistic within my lifetime is abolishing pronouns entirely, because again, they are not mandatory.

Anyway, pronoun rant over, back to syscourse (and back to front).

pro endos are too lenient, theyre too scared to call out misinformation

What are you talking about? Anti-endos spew misinformation left and right to justify their attacks against suspected

fakers

The vast majority of the time, only fakers know they're faking. Sure, there are a lot more than most endos would like to think -- an implosion on r/tulpas a few years ago implies they may be as high as 10-15% of the community -- but it's impossible to be certain from the outside, and why take the risk calling someone out when a false positive could have such awful consequences?

Also, as you already wrote previously, most people, especially anti-endos, don't actually know what's normal for systems, so you just end up in a recursive feedback loop of increasingly restrictive guidelines becoming furtherly detached from reality. The entire reason this divide exists in the first place is because anti-endos incorrectly believe that endos cannot exist because endogenic plurality works differently than theirs. (Assuming somewhat charitably here that anti-endos are mostly systems, which they are. If you're an anti-endo singlet, you have zero personal reasons for discrediting endogenic systems, so fuck you.)

pro endos support anything and think people have the right to identify however they feel no matter how disrespectful it is to other people (like the "i created my system consciously so it didnt develop from trauma but because i created it to deal with trauma im traumagenic!" thing)

At "disrespectful to other people" I expected you to go back to the alters with stupid pronouns, but instead you went to the perfectly reasonable definition of traumagenic‽ No one is getting hurt by a system that formed because of trauma identifying as having been formed because of trauma.

The definition of traumagenic does not include any reference to conscious effects.

From the APA Dictionary of Psychology:

adj. describing or relating to the dynamics by which a traumatic event (e.g., childhood sexual abuse) may have long-term negative consequences, including the development of a mental disorder

From Pluralpedia:

Traumagenic refers to a system whose creation / origin is the result of one or more traumatic events.

So yes, they are fine to use the traumagenic label.

im definitely not anti endo, but i also dont like what most of the pro endos ive seen support or let happen. basically the whole online plural community is exhausting and confusing. and it makes me wish i never knew i was plural.

Easy solutions here:

Avoid syscourse when possible

Don't go along with pro-endos if you think they're being overly inclusive -- but hear them out first.

I think I'm supposed to write a nice little conclusion here, but we were supposed to be counting the ratios of safe space violation in the pro endo and anti endo tags respectively, so I'll let host get back to that and end this here.

the plural community is so toxic. its also very confusing. its stressful, its mentally draining. (note:this rant is not anti endo, even though it seems like it. i just dont like the black-and-white dogmatic structure of the plural community.)

i dont like how the plural community is so divided. and how theres so many stereotypes in it encouraged and/or created by the plural community itself. the anti endo side is all about negativity and gatekeeping. they dont like when systems love their alters, would miss their alters, are friends with some of their alters, do activities in the innerworld or real world with their alters, have shenanigans with their alters, have plenty of fictives or celeb or friend factives, dont have abuser factives, dont dissociate severely all the time, or anything seen as "cringe" especially according to systemscringe. then you have the pro endos and endos themselves who spread positivity, are for systems loving and being friends with their alters, and realize not every system has dissociation all the time and some DID systems dont even dissociate more than half of the time. but some pro endos have also said DID and osdd can develop without trauma if the person is just naturally dissociative enough and that DID and osdd develop from being naturally highly dissociative instead of trauma (when really DID and osdd develop from disorganized attachment/emotional trauma accordion to the theory of structural dissociation.) ive been downvoted and called out for saying DID and osdd can only develop from trauma. and i usually dont fakeclaim people but sometimes peoples alters are just cringe I wonder if they're faking and usually its bc of the anti endo standard but i saw a system have an alter that was supposed to cutesey up autism even more, a tbh creature alter with aw/tism pronouns. i got the ick. they are endos btw. i hate how anti endos make it seem like if youre a "real" DID system you dissociate all the time severely. when the average DID system has a DES score of 48 (ill send the link) meaning the average DID system only dissociates a little less than half of the time. sure some dissociate a little more or a lot more than that, but anti endos are openly exaggerating symptoms and making an exclusionist environment based on what makes them feel valid. pro endos, meanwhile, literally go for anything. do you think DID and osdd develop without trauma? most pro endos seem okay with that. do you think its okay to create tulpas/willogenic systems to cope with trauma and call it traumagenic when its endogenic? pro endos are okay with that. do you have an alter that uses pronouns offensive to people with trauma (ive seen someone use rape/rapeself as pronouns in the endo community and murder victims and their families ive seen kill used as pronouns or disabilities like the aw/tism or wtv thing i saw? theyre ok with that too. pro endos are too lenient, theyre too scared to call out misinformation or even fakers because it might make the endogenic community as a whole look bad, when im ngl it already does. because of the whole "anti endo vs pro endo" the plural community looks like a joke or some dumb trend. both sides are toxic. anti endos spread hate and make unrealistic standards, but pro endos support anything and think people have the right to identify however they feel no matter how disrespectful it is to other people (like the "i created my system consciously so it didnt develop from trauma but because i created it to deal with trauma im traumagenic!" thing) im definitely not anti endo, but i also dont like what most of the pro endos ive seen support or let happen. basically the whole online plural community is exhausting and confusing. and it makes me wish i never knew i was plural.

[ogeeitsme]

Hi! I'm new to the blog and was wondering uhm... how did you make your "headspace" sorry I'm a system but at the moment it's just me and one more and we just have a black room. (Saw u talking about old and new rooms and houses and stuff)

Heya! It’s alright, hope you enjoy your stay! Uhhh we didn’t make it more than we discovered it! It’s kind of a long story, but from what I remember, we didn’t have one before, but Jamie started meditating and went through a door and found our meadow. And that kind of.... expanded since then? It used to be just a meadow.

We used to have- or well, we have a theory where everyone kind of has a headspace- singlets to systems- everyone. And how to get your headspace is to find/discover it or make it. First step is to meditate- i mean, it’s not that you have to, but it’s a suggestion on how to connect inspace more. Uhhhh imagination is the key, too. Its not going to work for every system, but the headspace is a really powerful place once you get the hang of it. For us, we cant really manipulate the headspace very well- or permanently at least. So far the only people who can are Jaiden and Crowley. Jamie can just a bit, but it’s not usually permanent or it’s quick and small things. And sometimes the headspace just??? Adds a new place. For example, we don’t know how Toriel has a cottage, she just....... has one after she split?

Some other systems though, with enough practice, can change their headspace, even if it’s little by little! Besides meditation and imagination (by that, i mean constantly imagining until it’s permanent- though again this can take a long time, or weeks. It depends, and you shouldn’t be harsh on yourself if it doesn’t work out), try building games! As in, literally building games. If you have the sims, and you have house-related things you want to build into the headspace, try building houses in games or simulators first, it might help you visualize. The mind’s a weird place.. so whatever works for you, you have to find via trial and error and some experimentation.

If the post you’re talking about is on us moving into the mansion, yeah we’re working on it! Well, Jaiden and Crowley is. Oh and fun fact, we have a black room too. It’s what we call our fronting room, “The Black Room”. It’s just a giant feathered out cinema screen with a single couch we have to share haha. Fronters don’t need to sit on the couch though

I hope you’re able to get a headspace you’re more comfortable with or “bigger” than what you have if it feels claustrophobic. It can take a while, and it might be pretty hard, so don’t feel bad if it’s pretty tricky. For our system, we didn’t do much on purpose since Jaiden could already manipulate the headspace. We know and have heard of systems just living in a void in the headspace or black rooms just like how you describe. I’m sorry i dont have much advice, but it’s really a varied topic, since the rules of how your system may work can be different from ours, so a lot of what I’m saying is based on our experiences and what we’ve seen from other systems too. Hope it kind of helps though?? - Sal

[chiropteran-hellfire]

Questioning

I have recently entered a state of questioning another possible fictotype and/or other possible relation, this post will be used to organise and write down some thoughts relating to this.

I really didn’t want this to happen, and if we were to start to talk about it here beyond this post it’d alter the theme of the blog rather tremendously, so we may end up making another blog in the near future just to keep everything organised. I suppose it’s my habit of respecting that most people who follow these blogs are fandom based rather than fictionkin. Regardless, I just enjoy keeping things neat.

Who is this possible consideration? Well, they share my name, and rather a lot of other aspects. The following will contain mild spoilers for the source, Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V.

Akaba Reiji, with a strong leaning towards the world events within the manga rather than the anime.

Already developing some theories as to why this may be, because one of the most important aspects is only within the anime, being the presence of Reira. We will be calling Reiji ‘Akaba’ throughout this to differentiate between this and myself within DiaLovers.

Reira is the adopted younger brother to Akaba, and honestly when we saw just how he interacts with Akaba we (That is to mean, both myself and Alexander) noticed just how identical the parallels are. In fact it’s a little ridiculous how similar the dynamic is. Reira is practically a carbon copy of Alexander, right down to having a wide eyed stare and very lightly coloured hair with a slight blue hue.

If you don’t know who Alexander is, that’s certainly a post for another day, but the first time he was mentioned on this blog was Here. He also has his own personal blog but for his protection and anonymity it won’t be shared here.

To summarise, Akaba and Reira’s relations parallel my own with Alexander to a T. Akaba acts as Reira’s protector, mentor, guiding force and generally gives Reira the desire to do anything. Reira relies on orders a lot of the time due to having no will of his own. For our system, this is the same. Alexander considers himself ‘dead’ or ‘non-existent’, and to function in the world entirely relies on my own instruction, will and desire. He does have some of his own, but it’s entirely devoted to my own, which makes the result of us functioning together barely indistinguishable from singlets.

This isn’t the only parallel to be displayed, though I do find it one of considerable note.

Considerations:

Obviously there’s the fact we share the same name, ‘Reiji’.

His full name is the same as this life's initials, ‘A.R’.

We consider meganes and being a megane an important aspect towards our identity.

Akaba’s first theme felt incredibly familiar, though there are additional ones as well so it will take some time to narrow down this sensation.

Depictions of Akaba as a child strike a strong similarity to myself as a child within DL.

Akaba’s voice felt 'right’ instantly, upon further research we discovered he shares a VA with one of our synpaths, X-Eins which may be why but there is some doubt towards this explanation.

His deck utilises demons and demonic themes with a focus on D/D cards.

One of his signature cards is called Alexander (Gust King Alexander specifically) - This card is wind type - They are white, black and light blue colour themed - They are listed as a D/D/D - 'Different Dimension Demon' - Aka, A demon from another dimension. They're an alien demon, as are most of his cards. These are all aspects my Alexander shares, excluding the demon aspect, that would be more to do with myself.

Akaba’s personality is a less refined version of my personality within DL, which is prompting theories on a timeline of events where what transpired within ARC-V is set before DL.

The world events that transpire within the manga set of sensations of ‘familiarity’ and “I remember seeing this.” that we haven’t experienced since we were questioning being from DL.

The following will contain major spoilers for the ARC-V anime AND manga.

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

Current theory for this unusual split of resonance between the anime and manga is that in the anime, after Reira (+Ray) reset the dimensions and sacrifice themself to in-taking Zark, it doesn’t continue onto the final few anime episodes, but it instead does a full reset, resulting in the start of the manga’s universe. I have a feeling there may have been a communication between Reira and Ray where as Reira sacrificed themself for the worlds, Ray offered Reira a push in the direction they wanted as ‘thanks’ for the sacrifice. This, logically speaking would be answered with the one part of Reira’s will that there was at all, a desire to be with Akaba.

This would result in Reira being connected to Akaba through the mind & body, a headmate if you will. Which is why you don’t see Reira in the manga, but Akaba’s actions are slightly more emotionally expressive from Reira’s mild influence. An aspect that’s only grown over time. Where did Zark go? Well we have a theory on that as well, being considering it may be our other headmate, Sordis. However proposing this to him resulted in rather annoyed retorts, so we may have to work with him on that.

In DL this was again rather a minor influence, but it was enough to show that there were emotions under the layers which were slowly being allowed to the surface. Then of course, this life, where it was flipped around. Alexander was the one who was born first and I was instead the more dormant aspect, which however due to unfortunate circumstances was reversed regardless.

This is a possible explanation that despite having such a pull to Reira who isn’t in the manga it could be a subconscious memory from our bond before the reset along with the fact they have bound themself to me. This would also explain why the world events feel more familiar in the manga as my memory would have been wiped and that would have been the more ‘recent’ version of my life events, so to speak.

Of course, this is all just one theory, and it will likely take time before an answer is found that resonates with all of us to a degree that it is so decided to be ‘truth’. I’m not willing to go along with the first consideration so easily, this will take some time.

[sciencespies]

What The Heaviest, Smallest White Dwarf Ever Found Means For Science

https://sciencespies.com/news/what-the-heaviest-smallest-white-dwarf-ever-found-means-for-science/

What The Heaviest, Smallest White Dwarf Ever Found Means For Science

Someday, even our own Sun will eventually run out of hydrogen fuel in its core, bringing a tremendous set of changes to our Solar System. Its core will contract and heat up while its outer layers expand and slowly get expelled, signifying our transition into a red giant. When the helium in the core is exhausted, the core will contract further, becoming a carbon/oxygen white dwarf, while the remainder of our star gets blown back into interstellar space in a spectacular planetary nebula. For practically every star born with 40% to 800% of our Sun’s mass, the same fate awaits them all.

The white dwarf that we’re left with is always much less massive than the star it originated from, and never more massive than about 1.4 solar masses. Above this mass limit — known as the Chandrasekhar mass — a spontaneous thermonuclear reaction will occur: a type Ia supernova, destroying the white dwarf entirely. Driven by a series of curious observations, a team of scientists just discovered the most massive white dwarf ever robustly measured: between 1.327 and 1.365 solar masses, and it’s only 2,140 kilometers in radius, or barely larger than the Moon. It’s a fascinating find, but what it teaches us is truly phenomenal.

Normally, a planetary nebula will appear similar to the Cat’s Eye Nebula, shown here. A central core … [+] of expanding gas is lit up brightly by the central white dwarf, while the diffuse outer regions continue to expand, illuminated far more faintly. The white dwarf at the center contracts but remains very hot, with some white dwarfs reaching temperatures of 60,000 K or more at the extremes.

Nordic Optical Telescope and Romano Corradi / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

While we might look at our Solar System and our Sun as a “typical” example of what’s out there, it’s important to recognize that we’re only a sample size of 1, and that nature comes in all sorts of varieties. 95% of the stars in our galaxy are less massive than our Sun, but that remaining 5% means that approximately 20 billion stars in the Milky Way are more massive than we are. Additionally, about half of all the stars we know of are part of a system with two or more stars in them; singlet systems like our own are extremely common, but binaries, trinaries, and other multi-star configurations are quite common as well.

The reason this matters is that many binary systems are born with stars of similar masses, and hence they have similar fates. If one star in a binary system becomes a white dwarf, the other one likely won’t be far behind. The brightest star in our night sky, Sirius, has a white dwarf and a star more massive than the Sun orbiting one another; come back in about a billion years, and you’re almost certain to find two white dwarfs orbiting one another instead.

Sirius A and B, a normal (Sun-like) star and a white dwarf star in a binary system. Many such … [+] systems like this are known to exist, as approximately ~50% of all the stars in the Universe are members of a binary, trinary, or larger multi-star system. The highest-mass stars, so long as they don’t go supernova, will become white dwarfs first, while the lower-mass stars will get there eventually.

NASA, ESA and G. Bacon (STScI)

But that’s the beginning of the story, not the end. Just as binary black holes and neutron stars are known to inspiral and merge, so, too, will white dwarfs in binary systems. When they do, if their combined mass exceeds the Chandrasekhar limit, you’ll get a stellar cataclysm: a type Ia supernova, which can briefly shine as bright as some ~10 billion Suns.

But if their combined mass remains below that critical threshold instead — and keep in mind that some white dwarfs can be incredibly low in mass, with the lowest-mass one coming in at just ~17% the mass of the Sun — they’ll simply lead to the formation of another white dwarf. This new white dwarf should have some particular properties that set it apart from white dwarfs that form from single stars, so even if we only find a white dwarf post-merger, we should still be able to identify its origin. In particular, we expect:

a rapid rotation, from the conservation of angular momentum of inspiraling and merging stellar remnants,

a high mass, since two typical white dwarfs (of 1 solar mass or less) will combine to either lead to a supernova or a white dwarf of mass potentially comparable to the Chandrasekhar limit,

and a strong magnetic field at its surface, just like any rapidly rotating star or stellar remnant is anticipated to have.

The globular cluster Messier 4 has not only stars inside, but a large number of white dwarfs: … [+] stellar remnants, circled in white on the right in the inset Hubble image. White dwarfs are incredibly faint and small, but they can be measured and identified with modern observatories. Characterizing them, even nearby, pushes our equipment to its absolute limits.

Harvey Richer (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada), M. Bolte (University of California, Santa Cruz) and NASA/ESA

All of that, however, is purely theoretical. Theoretical studies can be incredibly useful, particularly when those theories are informed by robust observations that paint a consistent picture. But it’s when we find new objects that push the limits of what’s possible that the biggest scientific advances — the ones that take us beyond what’s already been established — can often occur. Astronomically, one of the newest frontiers occurs in what we call time-domain astronomy: signals from the Universe that vary, in some fashion, on very short timescales.

One of the best tools we have to study these short-time changes is known as ZTF: the Zwicky Transient Facility. By monitoring a portion of the sky with excellent precision over a period of time, you can become sensitive to small, periodic changes in an object’s brightness. (This is something you automatically lose if you take a time-average of your data, and one of the greatest science losses that mega-constellations of satellites threaten to inflict on the field of astronomy.)

When looking at the ZTF data, astronomer Kevin Barnes noticed something unusual. One object in the sky — a faint, relatively nearby point of light — appeared to fainten and brighten periodically by about ~3% every 7 minutes: an incredibly short timescale for such a large variation. Even though ZTF scans the sky on much longer timescales, about every 48 hours, Barnes was able to pull this rapid, short-period signal out of the cumulative data.

Artist’s impression of a pair of orbiting white dwarfs, called ZTF J1530+5027. Two years ago, … [+] scientists (including Kevin Barnes) used ZTF data to reveal a pair of binary white dwarfs that eclipsed one another, with an orbital period of just ~7 minutes. In 2021, ZTF data revealed a rotating white dwarf that rotates on its axis once every 7 minutes. This system, illustrated here, may be the progenitor system for these rapidly spinning white dwarfs.

Caltech/IPAC/R. Hurt

Whenever you see something that’s unlike the other things you’ve seen before, even if you’re only first seeing it because of a technological advance, your instinct ought to be to try and understand precisely what’s happening. The way we do that, astronomically, is to attempt to determine as many properties of this object as possible, and the way we achieve that is by taking as many information-rich, complementary observations as possible.

The first hint of this object’s nature came by adding in the data from the ESA’s Gaia satellite. From its perch up above Earth’s atmosphere, Gaia can accurately measure the properties of stars, including their position and brightness, over long periods of time, like months and years. As the stars move through the galaxy and the Earth orbits the Sun, this enables us to infer the three-dimensional positions and proper motions of hundreds of millions, and perhaps even billions, of stars within our own galaxy.

When we traced this light source back to its identification in the Gaia data, we found that it was only ~130 light-years (about 40 parsecs) away. From its brightness, color, and distance, we can infer that it must be a white dwarf. And with such a large, periodic variation on merely ~7 minute timescales, that tells us something else: this white dwarf must be rotating incredibly quickly.

An accurate size/color comparison of a white dwarf (L), Earth reflecting our Sun’s light (middle), … [+] and a black dwarf (R). When white dwarfs finally radiate the last of their energy away, they will all eventually become black dwarfs. The degeneracy pressure between the electrons within the white/black dwarf, however, will always be great enough, so long as it doesn’t accrue too much mass, to prevent it from collapsing further. Our Sun, when it becomes a white dwarf, will be bigger than Earth presently is, but the most massive white dwarfs can be significantly smaller.

BBC / GCSE (L) / SunflowerCosmos (R)

White dwarfs, you see, are typically about the size of rocky planets, even though their masses are comparable to that of a star. If you imagined, for example, cranking up the mass of the Earth until it was about 300,000 times as dense and massive as it is today, raised its temperature to somewhere around 10,000 K, but maintained its current size, you’d have something like a white dwarf. Only, for this particular white dwarf, it rotates a full 360° about its axis not in 24 hours, but every 7 minutes: 200 times as fast as the Earth. If you were to measure the speed of this white dwarf at its equator, you’d find it’s traveling at about 95 kilometers-per-second, or 340,000 kilometers-per-hour.

Why is a white dwarf so dense, and why does it spin so fast?

One reason is that you have so much mass together in one place, but no nuclear fusion to produce radiation. Without that extreme power output to “push back” against the force of gravity, the matter inside has no other option but to contract until something can counteract the pull of gravity. The only candidate left is the integrity of matter itself, and quantum rules like the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which prevent two identical subatomic (fermionic) particles from occupying the same quantum state. That’s where the Chandrasekhar mass limit comes from; go above a certain threshold, and even this quantum rule won’t be sufficient to stop you from collapsing. Once your total mass rises above that critical value, you’ll either trigger a set of runaway fusion reactions, or — if you’re already something like a neutron star — you’ll collapse completely: into a black hole.

When a star destined for a supernova has a dense binary companion, that companion can steal enough … [+] mass to prevent that supernova from occurring. This mass siphoning by the denser star can lead to the eventual creation of white dwarfs dominated by heavier elements than the typical carbon-and-oxygen. However, the white dwarf can also accrete enough mass to exceed the Chandrasekhar mass limit, which results in a Type Ia, rather than a core-collapse, supernova.

NASA/ESA, A. Feild (STScI)

One of the interesting things that happen to white dwarfs as they gain mass and approach this limit is that their physical size actually shrinks the more and more matter you add. The space between individual particles decreases, due to the gravitational force, by a greater amount than the cumulative addition of extra particles adds to the overall volume. As a result, the more massive your white dwarf gets — the closer in mass it gets to the Chandrasekhar limit — the smaller and smaller it gets. A white dwarf that’s less than half as massive as the Sun might be up to twice as big as the Earth, but white dwarfs that approach this mass limit can be smaller than even Mars.

When you see a heavy white dwarf, one close to this mass limit, there are a couple of ways it could have formed. You could either make one from a massive star that was just slightly below the mass limit needed for a supernova, or you could make it from the merger of two smaller, lower mass white dwarfs whose combined mass still didn’t quite reach that limit. Spins this fast — completing a full rotation in ~7 minutes — aren’t expected to arise from isolated, singlet stars that evolve into white dwarfs. It should have come from a merger, as its rotation period is comparable to that of the fastest-spinning white dwarf: 5 minutes, 17 seconds.

But, if it did arise that way, there’s another clue that we should be able to go out and look for: it should also have a strong magnetic field. Neither ZTF nor Gaia could provide that information, but follow up observations with other sophisticated instruments could.

The newfound white dwarf, ZTF J1901+1458, is roughly the size of Earth’s moon, with a diameter of … [+] about 4,300 kilometers. The moon, for comparison, is 3,500 kilometers across. The white dwarf is depicted above the moon in this artistic representation; in reality, the white dwarf lies 130 light-years away in the constellation of Aquila.

Giuseppe Parisi

That was where Ilaria Caiazzo, Caltech astronomer and lead author of this new study, came in. She spearheaded a slew of follow-up observations, including:

using the Keck I Telescope to perform spectroscopy on this object, breaking its light up into various individual wavelengths,

using the Swift observatory to obtain ultraviolet photometric data,

and using the Pan-STARRS survey data to obtain optical photometric data.

Combined with the ZTF (short-period brightening/faintening) and Gaia (parallax) data, the scientific team working on this project was able to extract an enormous amount of information about this object. What the observations indicated was that this white dwarf does possess a strong magnetic field: 800,000,000 Gauss (about one billion times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field), with variations of around ~25% over the surface of the white dwarf. The temperature of the white dwarf is very hot: 46,000 K, making it one of the hottest white dwarfs on record (possibly also indicating its youth), and also extremely small, with a radius of just 2,140 km.

This makes it the smallest white dwarf known, beating the prior record holders which came in around ~2,500 km. If we were to compare this white dwarf to objects in our Solar System, it would be smaller than even Mercury, and in between the sizes of Jupiter’s moons Callisto and Io: the 3rd and 4th largest moons in the Solar System. (Earth’s moon is 5th, if you’re curious.)

When you rank all the moons, small planets, and dwarf planets in our Solar System, you can see that … [+] many of the largest non-planetary objects are moons, with a few being Kuiper belt objects. If the smallest white dwarf ever discovered were placed onto this chart, it would be in between the sizes of Callisto, the 3rd largest moon in the Solar System,, and Io, which is the 4th.

MONTAGE BY EMILY LAKDAWALLA. DATA FROM NASA / JPL, JHUAPL/SWRI, SSI, AND UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA, PROCESSED BY GORDAN UGARKOVIC, TED STRYK, BJORN JONSSON, ROMAN TKACHENKO, AND EMILY LAKDAWALLA

This new white dwarf — officially known as ZTFJ1901+1458 — has the smallest radius, the heaviest mass, and one of the shortest periods ever measured for this class of objects. Its large magnetic field points to an origin based in the merger of prior white dwarfs.

That does not, however, mean that white dwarfs like this are rare. Nor does it mean that white dwarfs don’t get heavier than this; estimates of the Chandrasekhar mass vary slightly based on rotation and composition: between 1.38 and 1.45 solar masses.

This white dwarf, whose mass is estimated to be between 1.327 and 1.365 solar masses, is certainly on the high end of the spectrum, but there ought to be white dwarfs that are really pushing this limit. In fact, one of them — a white dwarf orbiting a red giant in the T Coronae Borealis system — could very well be our galaxy’s next supernova. The white dwarf there is estimated to have a higher mass: 1.37 solar masses, but its uncertainties are also greater, as we cannot presently obtain a good radius measurement for it.

In fact, if ZTFJ1901+1458 were just two or three times farther away, we would not be able to make these precise measurements with our current set of observatories. For white dwarfs, it sets remarkable new records for size, mass, and magnetic field strength, but we also need to remind ourselves that we’re probing less than 0.001% of the white dwarfs in our galaxy at present.

When lower-mass, Sun-like stars run out of fuel, they blow off their outer layers in a planetary … [+] nebula, but the center contracts down to form a white dwarf, which takes a very long time to fade to darkness. White dwarfs can be even more massive than our Sun: up to about 1.4 solar masses, with the more massive white dwarfs having smaller radii. It’s only the nearest white dwarfs, however, that our current instrumentation is currently capable of measuring radii for.

Mark Garlick / University of Warwick

In the future, however, the next generation of observatories, including the Vera Rubin Observatory, will be able to make these types of measurements over volumes more than a hundred times greater than our current set of observatories can probe. Moreover, new and upgraded neutrino observatories might even be able to start measuring the neutrinos produced by the electron capture process acting on various elements supposedly within the white dwarf. The presence or absence of elements like neon, sodium, or magnesium could all affect not only the neutrino spectrum produced, but the fate, evolution, and possibly even the death of these massive white dwarfs.

This is the smallest white dwarf ever found, and in theory they may be able to actually get as small as Earth’s moon, which has a radius that’s only about 20% smaller than this new record-holder of a white dwarf. Because of its fast rotation, its high temperature, and its strong magnetic field, it’s very likely that this white dwarf formed from the merger of two progenitor white dwarfs, and that the object we’re seeing now is no more than ~100 million years old: a blip in the lifetime of the Universe.

This discovery not only helps us understand the ultimate fate and the cosmic extremes of the remnants of all Sun-like stars, but showcases the power of time-domain astronomy. If we can monitor objects sufficiently well to detect small changes on very short timescales, we’ll have the potential to uncover phenomena that we’d never see any other way. But if we modify the night sky too severely to make that task physically impossible — as our growing mega-constellations are currently in the process of doing — this information will likely remain elusive for years, decades, or even generations to come.

#News

[mobiuspsychics100]

OKAY i found it but i didn't expand a lot on it, so i'm gonna try to do that a little here. long post ahead, and spoilers for the climax of this current arc in point 4!

1. mob and shigeo are alters who split/solidified during childhood (traumagenic system).

the earliest instance of ???% that we likely have is from when mob and ritsu encountered those bullies. it isn't explicitly stated that ???% appeared during that time, but a) the appearance of mob's powers that ritsu saw that day mimics ???%'s typical appearance (black/void energy), and b) when watching the incident with teru's school on tv, ritsu claims "that wasn't my brother," indicating that both the presence who met teru and the presence during the time of the childhood bullying incident were the same entity.

i've read recently that the most current theory for personality development in children is that as a child grows into their early teens, they're less likely to have their personality "split" morseo than their personalities integrate together. so ideally, a healthy child will integrate their personalities together by the time they're a teen, and they'll progress through life as a singlet, while a child who experiences trauma won't have their personalities integrate and will proceed into their teens with multiple personalities. with respect to mob, it's very likely that the trauma mob (and shigeo) experienced during childhood (likely not even limited to the bullying incident! mob's ostracization from others socially could have absolutely contributed to his development of DID) caused shigeo/???% and himself to remain separate as personalities.

2. ???% always appears when mob is unconscious and mob often experiences some form of amnesia.

this one is kind of self-explanatory; for systems with DID specifically (rather than OSDD), alters will often have amnesia and won't remember events when they aren't fronting. when ???% takes over, we have multiple instances of mob explicitly saying that he doesn't know what happened (such as when he talks to ritsu about the childhood bullying incident, he asks ritsu what exactly happened).

the only instance of ???% *apparently* not coming out when mob isn't unconscious is in season 2 when he sees the dummies of his family in the fire. HOWEVER, in the manga, this was NOT labeled as ???%. hence i am ignoring this. i do not see it 😑

3. ???% seems to manifest mob's more subconscious desires.

this one will take some explaining. many systems (mine included) have alters whose actions can differ wildly from one another, but whose alters may pull from more subconscious thoughts that other alters may not be privy to.

mob repressed himself, his emotions, and his desires for years. ???% acts in much of the opposite way: he isn't afraid to stand up for himself, to crush threats, and to pursue strong desires (such as going to confess to tsubomi). mob is very good at conscious action but is often oblivious to his subconscience, while ???% is extremely knowledgeable about mob's inward desires and often acts almost on the primal instinct of self preservation.

this is why mob and ???% existed in tandem for so long, and why they didn't integrate: they're two sides of the same coin. mob's repression is acknowledged by ???%, and ???% makes up for the repression by acting without it. and neither of them left flexibility to adopt the other's views: mob fears ???% (and his powers), and ???% refuses to back down for the sake of others in the same way that mob does due to the level of hurt that mob has endured because of his repression.

speaking as a system myself, this is what happened to me, too; until i reached adulthood, because of the trauma i had to continuously endure, i repressed myself to an extreme degree. my alter acted on my subconscious desires, and that terrified me.

it's very common for alters to exist for a specific reason or purpose: ???% existed and continued to exist to both protect mob and to push them towards their goals. mob's repression fed into ???%'s reason for existing, and ???%'s crass actions fed into mob's repression of himself, causing a fierce feedback loop.

4. the conclusion of the final arc (SPOILERS BELOW for anime-only viewers)

the conclusion of the final arc is very much applicable to any sort of neurodivergent subtext you can garner from the text, not necessarily DID, but the DID perspective provides something a little extra to it.

the conclusion is mob accepting ???% as a part of himself, as well as the other way around. in terms of being a system, accepting your alters and finding ways to live with them is so, so important, and it isn't until you're able to do this that you'll be a healthy system.

mob accepting ???% as being a part of himself allowed himself to begin viewing himself as a more whole person. and, as stated earlier, since ???%'s purpose has been to act on mob's more subconscious thoughts and needs, mob is now starting to recognize and accept his more personal needs. it's fairly apparent that this is what ???% has wanted for mob (and always has), and so... what will become of ???% if mob is handling things himself now?

since mp100 wraps up fairly quickly after the climax of this arc, we don't get much insight on it, but i think mob and ???% begin to work towards finally integrating (becoming a singlet instead of a system). integration is not always the end goal for a system, but in mob's case, i think there's a good basis for that being the end result of mob beginning to finally accept ???%.

that just about wraps up my Ted talk on why i love viewing mob and shigeo/???% as a system, thank u for listening

so ???% stands for a lot of things in the show and is very good at representing specific aspects of neurodivergency in general, but my favorite interpretation is and always will be that mob has DID

[neurotribe]

Scenes from a funeral

Today's post is addressed to a specific audience.

One of the areas in which I have taught over the years is the subject of spiritual formation. In this discipline I cover the effects that family of origin has upon the shape of our spirituality. I find the best way to teach is grounding the theory in my own experience. It seems to me that this is the most helpful approach. Seeing what it looks like grounded in another person's life, students can then easily do the necessary translation. Consequently, I have shared my experiences of growing up in a home marred by domestic violence. It was always a difficult prospect because I live in a web of relationships. Not only was the perpetrator still alive, but I was still in relationship with him and there were other people involved in my story. Trying to know how best to manage the telling of my own story whilst being bound up in the stories of others is complicated.

As I shared my experiences in teaching contexts, I have been profoundly moved as students hearing me tell my story find their own voice and in turn the courage to share their story with others, often with me. In many instances I have then been utterly honoured and humbled when some time later I would be contacted by former students who would share their own formative stories of attempts at transformation, reconciliation and some kind of resolution.

I have connected with many ex students and people who have heard me speak via social media. If that is you, reading this post now, you are my audience today.

Two weeks ago, my father fell and sustained a massive brain injury. After about two weeks in ICU and then a palliative care ward, he died because of this injury and from complications associated with it.

Towards the end of his life, I spent close to three days, two of those alone, with him. During that time, I wrote. Some of the writing included some of the stories that I have shared in my teaching work. I thought that what I had written was going to be dad’s eulogy. After writing it, and then reading it to him, alone, holding his hand as he lay dying, I felt the writing had done what it needed to do for both of us. I felt that when it came time for his funeral, I no longer needed to say anything. I felt that what needed to be done was done.

As it turned out, the Catholic priest who has been a long time friend of the family had the occasion to read what I had written. After having some time to digest it, he called me the day before dad’s funeral and asked me to give dad’s eulogy. On Friday, the immediate family gathered for dad's funeral where I gave the eulogy.

For those who have found some help or hope in my story and my attempts to reconcile a difficult past, I post dad’s eulogy. May you find it helpful and hopeful.

(Please be advised that the following includes a description of family violence. If you are or have suffered family violence and are seeking help, in Victoria please contact Safe Steps Victoria at https://www.safesteps.org.au/ or 1800015188 or seek relevant local help.)

What I am going to read here is a shorter version of something I wrote as I have reflected upon my relationship with dad over the years. I actually read the longer version to dad, as I sat by his bedside, holding his hand, about a day before he died. I shared my writing and experience with Fr Vic. He encouraged me to share this shorter version on this occasion. This version is as a result of his guidance. Thankyou Fr Vic not just for your support today, but for being a gift to our family over many years. Inħobbok ħafna sabiħ.

I want to tell three stories about Charlie. The first story took place at our family home in St Albans one hot summer Saturday morning. I was probably seven or eight years of age. This morning, as was often the case in our house, dad exploded in a fit of rage. As a young child, I was terrified by the sounds, his actions, about the prospect of one of us being hurt, because in previous situations like this, and subsequent ones, getting hurt was not uncommon. I remember mum shepherding us children out of the house and onto the driveway, where we stood around the car, hesitating. It took me a few moments before I realised the reason mum was hesitating was because we had nowhere to go. Eventually mum packed us three kids into the car, and we drove around the streets of St Albans for about an hour or so, before heading back home, hoping that Charlie's rage had run its course.

I’ve come to learn that one of the most important experiences in a child's life is an experience, a knowing that they belong. If a child is to have any chance of moving into some kind of healthy adulthood, it is a vital experience. In that moment, standing on the driveway, feeling like there was nowhere I belonged, and that there was no safe place for me, a traumatic wound was inflicted upon a young child, a wound that I have carried with me through my childhood and teenage years, into adulthood, into the present.

The second story I want to tell about Charlie occurred a couple of years later. We were at home and one of mum's sisters called on the phone, obviously in significant distress. I remember dad angrily, but quietly springing into action, heading out the door, returning a little later with my three terrified cousins, all covered in the paint that was a result of the shenanigans that had reduced my aunty to tears. Dad ordered them into the bathroom and cleaned them all up. Later, we had dinner together, where my sisters and I joked about what we thought was an hilarious incident. Not long into our meal, our cousins thought so too. I vividly, distinctly remember all of us, mum, dad, my sisters and my cousins, all sitting around that same kitchen table together, sharing a meal, laughing, being together.

The final story involved my distinctive red BMX, as well as some other details that I have never shared with my wider family until today. As a 13 year old, one Saturday morning a friend and I took off on one of our epic bike riding adventures. We met two girls at a park. We started talking to them. I was pretty obnoxious and rude so the conversation ended rather quickly. My friend and I thought nothing of it and we continued on our way.

Later that afternoon, my sister and I, accompanied by one of our cousins headed on down to the local milk bar, they on foot and I on my distinctive red BMX. Whilst my sister and my cousin went inside, the weekly Saturday night Greek Orthodox church service had just finished. About a dozen well dressed Greek boys emerged from the church building. When they saw me, they raced toward me and surrounded me, trapping me against the milk bar window.

I quickly realised that these boys were friends of the two girls we had met earlier that day. The girls had told them of my appalling behaviour. That’s the bit I haven’t shared with anyone else until this day. This was all my fault. The boys recognized me by my distinctive red BMX. 

The leader of the pack, frustrated by his inability to provoke me in throwing the first punch, hit my left eye with a chunky ring, damaging my vision for a few days as well as giving me the biggest black eye of my life. I desperately willed myself not to move. It was like I was frozen in time.

And then I saw one of the most beautiful things in my life to this day. I saw Charlie's yellow Land Rover four wheel drive, dangerously screaming through the busy intersection and then bouncing wildly into the car park, horn blaring. Before the car came to a halt, dad flew out of the cabin, barefoot, dressed only in his singlet and unbuttoned shorts. He was swinging this packing hook, a brutal metal and wood hook used by dock workers on Melbourne’s waterfront. Like a terrifying bat out of hell he flew at the boys who fled the scene in abject terror. I can still see the looks of fear on some of their faces. After they had scattered, I collapsed onto the ground shaking, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

What had happened was that my sister could see the scene unfolding from the inside of the milk bar. As soon as she realised what was happening she phoned dad. Within seconds, dad was there. My dad, most likely, had literally saved my life. My father's anger rescued me.

Each of these stories have left a significant mark, a significant legacy in my life.

The first story tells of Charlie's lasting legacy of anger, and the violent ways in which he expressed it and the wounds that it inflicted, leaving scars upon my body, and my soul that I carry this day, and for the rest of my days.

The second story also leaves an enduring mark upon the shape of my life. For most of our married life, Lisa and I welcomed young people, often at risk young people, into our home. We have tried to live our lives in such a way as to give people that critical experience, an experience of what it is like to have a home, to belong.

The course that my life has charted, seemingly without any intent on my behalf, this significant part of who I am, whether I like it or not, whether it makes sense or not, is because of an unskilled, overworked, underpaid, migrant shift worker, struggling to make some kind of life. On his one day off from a gruelling job on Melbourne’s waterfront, on a day where he by rights should have been trying to simply catch his breath and catch a break, he instead opens his meagre home to his wife's children, without thought, without hesitation. Yes dad was angry, at them, at the situation, at the circumstances. His anger led him to what he concluded was simply the only appropriate response. This angry act, that led to hospitality, as dysfunctionally as it played out, has also powerfully shaped the course of my life. Because of what dad did in that moment, to me every problem looks like a problem of belonging, and I feel like the only possible response is one of hospitality and welcome. I feel like I have to be this way, not because someone told me this is what we do, or because I feel guilty or obligated, it’s because it feels right. It is because someone, my father, showed me what to do.

Over the years, I have discovered, not from dad mind you, but from others, that dad quietly invited people into their home on several occasions.

The third story is perhaps the most difficult for me. For the first time in my life, I felt his anger, aggression and power not as something to fear or flee from, but something that could make me safe. This part of who Charlie was has also powerfully shaped the man I am today. There are many who have confided in me that my commitment to them, my commitment to their safety, the lengths I am prepared to go to in order to protect them, keep them safe, the ways in which I help shepherd them through the moments where they have had to deal with the consequences of their unwise choices; these people have told me that they have been transformed as they have witnessed my anger at their injustice and my acting on their behalf.

When I hear people speak of me in this way, I know, without any doubt, that this part of who I am is due once again, not to what dad told me I should be, rather it is because of who, and how he was in this world. This kind of life is not a consequence of following his advice, it is as a result of my instinctively following his irresistible example.

Countless times, it feels like I have come close to losing my mind when I try to reconcile these three stories, these three parts of who Charlie was, and what each part represents. How can a man in one moment terrify his young son, yet in another be such a breathtaking example of care and concern? How do I reconcile these three seemingly irreconcilable stories? To say that Charlie was a collection of contradictions would be the understatement of my life.

There were times in my relationship with my father, where I was able to move beyond my own anger and bitterness and move towards him. There were moments where I actively tried to understand. I tried to ask him to tell me stories about his childhood, about what it was like in Malta, what it was like to migrate to the other side of the world, what it was like being a foreigner, trying to find work, facing the prejudice of race and class, trying to make a life?

I don’t feel as though we were ever able to connect. I don’t know if I understood him. I don’t know if he understood that I was trying to understand, that I cared.

My relationship with Charlie was a constant up and down. When I no longer feared him, his contradictions brought us into conflict for the majority of my adult life. There have been stretches where I have chosen not to be in his life, because it was simply too painful. The last time we spoke prior to his brain injury was another one of our arguments.

But I am noticing something. I’m aware that the confused look that must have adorned my face when trying to figure out my father's contradictions is mirrored back to me in the faces of those around me. I see the look upon the faces of my partner, my children, when they see me in one moment acting with great courage and nobility, and in the next when I act with selfishness and cruelty. I realise that as I move between being a beautiful human being and a terrible one, often with a speed that can be deeply disorienting to those around me, I realise something. I realise that I too am a man of contradictions. I realise that I am my father's son.

When I become aware, often too late, that I have made choices and decisions that hurt those around me, and I crave nothing more than their understanding and their forgiveness, I realise, I am my father's son. I realise, if people are ever going to accept the contradictions that exist in me, perhaps I need to accept the contradictions that existed in Charlie.

Hear me carefully, I am not saying that domestic violence is ever acceptable or excusable. Domestic violence is unacceptable, it is inexcusable. Period.

The Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl, said:

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Viktor E. Frankl

The task at hand, my task, is to find that space between stimulus and response, to reflect in that moment, and in that moment, to make a decision to choose not to be the worst parts of Charlie, but to choose the best parts of Charlie. My task is, in that moment between stimulus and response, is to realise that one of the greatest gifts my father has bequeathed to me, is a righteous anger that, if harnessed, can be a gift to the world.

My task is not to try and reconcile the contradictions. My task, which is not too different to Charlie's task, when he made his way to Australia as a teenager with nothing and attempted to make a life, my task is to take the hand I have been dealt, and to do my best.

Dad, for the ways in which you have wounded and broken me, I forgive you.

Dad, for your examples, for the great and beautiful gifts that you have bequeathed me, I am forever indebted, and I am forever grateful.

Rest in peace dad.

[tran5rightsos]

Red-Tinted Waves

Summary: The boys have a bad time on a cruise

Genre: Survival horror, sci-fi

Relationships: Clemmings, Cashton

Word count: 1408

Warnings: blood and gore

Leave kudos?

Michael chugged from the water bottle Ashton had given him in exchange for a bottle of vodka. His trip to the upstairs lounge had taken longer than he’d expected and he hadn’t been able to get the taps at the bar working.

“Luke’s been gone too long,” Calum commented, eyeing the clock on the wall.

“Maybe he found something interesting.” Ashton didn’t sound convinced by his own theory.

Michael pushed himself off his and Luke’s bed. “I’ll see if I can find him.”

Calum stood too, grabbing his kitchen knife, backpack and box of sliced onion. “I’ll come.”

“Can you check the bridge on the way?” Ashton requested, “For peace of mind?”

“Sure.”

“Hey.” Ashton held his hands out to Calum.

Calum took them and pulled him to his feet for a kiss.

“If you guys don’t come back, I’ll fuck you both up,” Ashton told them.

Michael gave a half hearted smile, taking out a slice of onion each for he and Calum.

Before opening the door, they broke the strips under their noses, inhaling and letting fresh tears spill over. It made it hard to see, but it was the best they had, the only protection they knew worked.

They hadn’t been to the infirmary before, but it was close enough to the kitchens that they didn’t need the maps on their brochures to find it. Hopefully it hadn’t been completely looted yet.

“Dumb cunt probably got lost,” Michael quietly joked as they came to the bridge.

“Probably,” Calum mumbled, peeking in, “All clear.”  

The monitors showed that the ship was still on course, its autopilot taking them home, an automatic emergency protocol that kicked in after most of the crew were killed and stopped clocking in for shifts.

“One week,” Michael read from the slightly blood-spattered display he was looking at.

“Even if we run out of food, we’ll make it,” Calum noted, heading back out, “It’ll be good to stop having to leave our room for supplies.”

When they reached the deck below them, Michael sighed. At least two inches of water covered the floor.

“That’s new,” Calum commented quietly.

“It’ll hear us splashing around in this.”

“If it’s close enough to, we’ll hear it too,” Calum pointed out, taking out another slice of onion and breaking it, before bending down to scoop up some water and taste it.

“Salty?”

Calum shook his head.

“Must be why I couldn’t get the taps upstairs working.”

At least they weren’t sinking.

Michael twisted a piece of onion under his nose, breathing deeply and trying not to theorise about what had been keeping Luke. He needed to cry, not fall apart. As he stepped into the water, he frowned and bent down to get a closer look, hoping he was imagining the red tint.

“Michael,” Calum whispered, lightly smacking his shoulder.

Michael looked where he was pointing, his stomach turning. Halfway down the corridor, a mangled body lay on the floor, dark blood mingling with the water and fanning out towards them.

“It’s not Luke,” Calum assured him.

As much as he wanted to have Calum’s optimism, Michael couldn’t help the dread that crept in. The body hadn’t even begun to smell yet.

“It’s fresh. It’s been here.”

“Do you hear that?” Calum asked.

Michael listened. Somewhere ahead of them, something was faintly splashing in the water.

Careful not to let their feet slosh too much, Michael and Calum approached the body. There wasn’t much left aside from bloody bones, but Luke’s pack wasn’t anywhere to be seen and the shreds of clothing floating around it didn’t match what he’d been wearing this morning. Michael chose to take that as a good sign.

More noises became discernible as they got closer to the kitchens. Michael tried not to think too much about how they were clearly the sounds of tearing flesh beyond letting a few more tears spill over. They clung to the wall opposite the open doors to the kitchens, Calum leaning to peer in as they passed. He gave Michael a look and shook his head before moving on.

Michael tried not to give in to the instinct telling him to just run as he reached the doors. The beast had its scaled back to them, its attention on the body it was devouring. Calum was right, it wasn’t Luke. Just a passenger Michael had met at the pool a week ago. James. As he watched, the beast dug its claws under James’ ribs to scoop out more meat, swishing its tail in sick enjoyment and stirring up the bloody water around it.

The infirmary wasn’t far now. The sounds of the beast slowly faded, eventually being replaced by the unmistakeable sound of Luke’s laboured breathing.

Michael didn’t notice how loud and hurried his footsteps had gotten until Calum grabbed his arm hard and glared at him. They stopped and listened, but the corridor was quiet. Even Luke’s breathing had stopped, hopefully because he was listening too.

Calum approached the door to the infirmary. “Luke?”

“Cal?” Luke replied, his voice strained. They heard him grunt as something scraped against the floor. “Door’s open.”

Michael pushed past Calum to get in, barely glancing at the bloody bed at the other end of the room before his eyes found Luke on the floor, panting as he clutched his waist. Through the rips in his black singlet, bloody white material was visible.

Luke gave a tired grin. "Mikey."

“What happened?” Michael asked, falling to his knees beside him and gently pulling his blood-stained hand away to lift the hem of his singlet.

“Met some people in the kitchens,” Luke panted, “They wanted my laser pistol and we got loud. Beastie heard us.” He whined as Michael lifted away the white rag to examine the wounds, two deep, sickening gashes. “It nicked me, but one of the others stabbed it and I ran while it was busy with them.”

“We found a body on the way,” Calum told him, rummaging around for bandages, “And the beast was eating someone else in the kitchen last we saw.” He crouched beside them with a tray of bandages and supplies.

“That’ll be them.”

Luke pressed a hand to his mouth to mask his moans as Michael and Calum dressed his wounds, not doing the best job of sitting still but Michael couldn’t really fault him for that.

“We should get the supplies while we’re here,” Calum suggested when they were done, stuffing the leftover bandages in his pack.

Michael neatened the collar of Luke’s floral button-up. “Think you can walk?” he asked softly.

Luke nodded. Hopefully his pallor was more a result of stress than the pink water they were sitting in. “You should kiss me better, though,” he suggested.

Michael grinned. “Dumbass.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to Luke’s.

With a weak hand, Luke pulled Michael closer to sit next to him, resting his head on his shoulder.

As they’d agreed early on, Calum only took what they needed, leaving plenty of supplies in case other survivors needed it. If there were others. Michael gave Luke a piece of onion as Calum slung his pack on, making sure there were plenty of fresh tears on their faces before helping Luke to his feet, his arms around their shoulders. Although he was shaky, they managed to get out the door before freezing where they stood.

The beast stared at them, no more than a few meters away and well within mauling distance. It stepped closer, snuffling at Michael’s face. Crying wasn’t hard now, not when all it had to do to get Michael’s head between its teeth was open its mouth and lean forward. Not when it was examining him with those terrifyingly dead eyes. Not when two of his best friends were right here with him and the beast had proven willing and capable of eating non-stop for hours.

Luke’s head slumped forward, his legs going slack, but Michael didn’t try to shake him into consciousness. If this was it, he’d be lucky to not be aware while it happened. The beast sniffed Calum’s face, huffed disgustedly, and pushed past them to investigate the infirmary. Michael and Calum stumbled back, jostling Luke awake. They didn’t wait for the tip of the beast’s tail to disappear inside before hurrying back towards the kitchens, Michael quietly crying in relief.

One week. They only had to do this for one more week.