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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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The different aspects of Miyako’s personality and character arc

Miyako is a character where there’s just a lot going on with her in general, and asking different people to summarize Miyako in one phrase could feasibly get you some very different answers -- “the computer nerd girl”, or “the one who keeps talking about boys”, or “the one who panics all of the time”, or whatnot. Given that there’s so much to unpack at once even from her base profile, ironing out the full extent of her character arc can get a bit tricky, and there’s a lot going on with it. So, given that: Who is Miyako, anyway?

Miyako’s background and personality

Miyako is a character that I think is best understood by understanding what kind of person she is, and the personality and mentality she goes into the story of 02 with.

An interesting background story behind Miyako’s creation is that she’s based off a real person -- more accurately, a certain assistant producer on the series (whose identity has remained undisclosed, presumably for privacy reasons) was used as a reference for her behavior and actions. Although Adventure and 02 have a philosophy of portraying realistic human behavior in general, this level of specificity is a unique designation to have, and series director Kakudou Hiroyuki has referred to this a few times over the years -- it seems she’s the only of the Tokyo Chosen Children to have such a concrete single-person reference, and it’s also the reason her blood type of AB and star sign Gemini were given in 02 episode 25 (the other kids don’t have mentioned birthdays or blood types to prevent personality restrictions via horoscoping, but a real person having Miyako’s personality, star sign, and blood type wouldn’t make that as much of an issue). Even Volcano Ota himself confirmed Miyako’s resemblance to her upon hearing it after the fact! Indeed, a lot of 02 fans (especially adults) have admitted that Miyako’s probably one of the most relatable people in the cast, namely because her gushing about things she likes and panicking at things that overwhelm her is...well, a bit too uncomfortably on-point at times.

(And especially since so much about Miyako’s character has to do with how happy she makes everyone around her, it’s not too hard to imagine that the staff was so fond of her real-life inspiration that they wanted to pay tribute to her in such a way...)

Still, Miyako is a fictional character, one with her own backstory and interactions in 02′s story, and said backstory is such: she comes from a family that runs a convenience store in Odaiba, and is the youngest of a family of four siblings. Running a convenience store on a small island means that Miyako has probably seen a lot of the island’s residents, and her family also has various levels of connections to the other kids’ families (her older sisters Momoe and Chizuru are friends of Daisuke’s sister Jun, and Chizuru is Yamato’s classmate). Moreover, she’s befriended her nine-year-old neighbor (one who otherwise has trouble socializing with his peers) to the point of regularly going over to do computer repairs for his family. She’s also worked in the computer club under Koushirou, and even before the series has started, she looks up to him and adores him in a way not entirely unlike how Daisuke looks up to Taichi -- and although it’s unclear whether or not she started after the beginning of 02, 02 episode 29 reveals that she helps Yamato with his band.

The pattern here is that Miyako is extremely sociable, and one who actively pokes her nose into nearly everything so she can help out. This makes her a very different sort of Mom Friend from Sora -- both of them are Crest of Love holders for good reason, but in Sora’s case, she was compulsively going out of her way to help other people to the point of exhaustion, and her character arc was about trying to find a way to detach herself from obligations and do something for herself. Miyako is the complete opposite -- she’s the kind of extrovert who actively enjoys poking her head into other people’s business, picking up a bunch of peripheral hobbies so she can do something useful for everyone and go I’M HELPING!! If you actually look closely at those hobbies of “computer programming and hacking”, “hardware tinkering”, and “sound engineering”, other than vaguely being related to computers, they are completely different skillsets, and every single one of them is one Miyako’s depicted employing in order to help someone else out. (Koushirou is never really depicted as having super amazingly high technical skill and most of his unique talent comes from being a thorough analyst, but in contrast, while Miyako is established as being good at even hacking in Diablomon Strikes Back, she doesn’t really seem to have a huge propensity for deep analytical thought.) It’s hard to tell if she has any personal preference for any of them as much as she basically turned herself into a jack-of-all-trades so she could do whatever job was necessary for someone else.

If we’re to believe the official 02 site, Miyako’s been a bit pampered by her family -- as the youngest of four siblings, she’s the “baby of the family”, who hasn’t had to live with a ton of responsibility for others. This means that, much like Mimi, she seems to have been raised surrounded by a ton of affection, which is why she herself is such an openly affectionate person who’s open-minded towards trying all sorts of things, and why she’s used to wanting to help others by actively throwing herself into situations -- but it also means that, being the youngest of a family who is now in the situation of being the oldest in a new group, she ends up in Jou’s situation of suddenly being faced with the pressure of the concept of proper responsibility for others.

As far as Miyako’s general personality goes, she is constantly overflowing with affection and cheer and a desire to dote on everyone -- but the flip side is that she’s also aggressive. She has zero sense of restraint. (If you ever get around to listening to the Japanese version of 02, Natsuki Rio’s performance is energetic and over-the-top in almost every way imaginable to the point that you get the impression of Miyako as someone who doesn’t easily run out of batteries -- at least, until things start getting really serious.) When she loves something, she’ll gush about it as if there were hearts floating around her (and, depending on the level of closeness, even jump in and physically hug them), and she has no qualms against physically manhandling if she feels she needs to, and if she dislikes something, she will make it very clear (including yelling very loudly about it). You could argue that she’s actually closer to the archetype of the brash shounen protagonist than Daisuke himself is!

In fact, Miyako and Daisuke have very similar temperaments -- pure-hearted, but also rough around the edges -- but can be distinguished by the fact that while Daisuke is actually deferential and somewhat lacking in assertion, Miyako is actually aggressive, and while Daisuke’s “honesty about his feelings” is mainly because he’s too simple-minded to be any good at hiding anything, Miyako’s honesty is because she has no brain-to-mouth filter, and everything she’s thinking comes out of her mouth before she can control it -- in other words, Miyako has a huge case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. She doesn’t want to be insensitive, but it keeps coming out of her mouth before she can control it -- and even worse, her emotions are prone to taking control of her, and she is very prone to getting overwhelmed and collapsing into a massive panic.

If you think about the two archetypes of “girl who takes care of everyone” and “aggressive action girl”, Miyako has a tendency towards both at once, and moreover there’s an extra nail in it -- most “action girls” in the latter category would be portrayed as badass, put-together characters with a cool personality, but Miyako is a mess. She’s prone to panicking, all over the place, and her tendency to get in-your-face is not exactly in the most dignified manner. And as a result, a huge part of her character arc (as we will be going more into detail about below) is that she’s aware of this and doesn’t like this about herself -- because she doesn’t want to be insensitive or rude, and in fact she wants to be someone who can better help and take care of others, but, in her mind, her own personality keeps getting in the way.

Miyako in 02

After fully becoming a Chosen Child in 02 episode 2, it only takes one more episode for Miyako to bring food for everyone, as if to say “Right! I’m going to be working with everyone now! All of you are now my new best friends!” (”Bringing food for people” is one of Miyako’s many ways of showing love, given that she returns from Kyoto in 02 episode 34 and immediately hands off souvenir yatsuhashi to Koushirou.) And with that, Miyako settles into the archetype of the group’s “mood maker” -- someone whose role is to keep everyone in emotionally high spirits by influencing everyone with cheer and energy. 02 episode 5 features the debut of her famous “Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let’s roll!” catchphrase -- this and her other famous “Bingo!” catchphrase establish her as the only of the Tokyo Chosen Children to have a catchphrase (at least, in the Japanese version). Because catchphrases are fun.

As much as everyone (especially Daisuke) is a bit blindsided by her behavior at first, they eventually come to embrace the positive effect she has on all of them -- Daisuke very genuinely asks her for “the usual cheer” in 02 episode 10, and, all the way in 02 episode 22, this is such an agreed-on and established role that they’ll still wait on her to do the honors even when they’re in a hurry. So in other words, it didn’t take long for Miyako to go out of her way to shower everyone with cheer, and it didn’t take long for everyone to answer to that cheer and appreciate her for it.

The flip side of this, however, is that Miyako doesn’t start off being very emotionally equipped to handle this -- right off the bat in 02 episode 2, she says that she’s not inclined for fighting, and in 02 episode 4, she refers to it as being “like an adventure game”. That is to say, she’s not at the point where she’s able to handle the full gravity of what she’s just involved herself with (Daisuke reminds her that she’d panicked earlier, but she just blows it off). She’s handling it so cheerfully now because the series is still in its early stages, when she can enter and exit the Digital World at will, and she’s capable of treating it like this.

So when the stakes do get higher, she’s the first one to take the stress hard. As mentioned before, she’s the youngest in her family, now recast as the oldest in this group -- but unlike Jou, who consciously knew this fact and took stress onto himself because of the responsibility this entailed, Miyako seems to repeatedly forget that she’s the oldest in this group, and the events of 02 episodes 9-10 (when Agumon is kidnapped) cause her to break down from stress and have to take a time-out. (Which everyone allows her to do, because this is not a series where people are pressured to fight if they’re not emotionally ready for it.) Miyako comes to terms with the fact that the stakes are going to keep escalating, and she can’t just gloss over everything with cheer -- and she does manage to pull herself enough to bring Yamato into the fray at the end of the episode, but this continues to be a recurring theme for the rest of her character arc.

While we’re discussing these early parts of the series, one thing I want to briefly address is the part where Miyako infamously calls a lot of people hot. (Although, not as many as the fanbase would love to make you think; it’s only four people in total.) This tends to get her pinned as some kind of flirt whose head is only filled with being hot for people, but while she’s certainly a bit on the shallow end at this point of the series -- dealing with that being what this character arc is about, after all -- this trait of hers tends to get exaggerated by a lot of people in the audience as if she’s completely lacking in common sense. Miyako’s ridiculous (and we love her for it), but she does have some degree of grip on herself! Context is important here -- she might show a crush on someone, but at no point in the series itself does Miyako show any indication of seriously thinking of full-on dating.

For Miyako, who’s accustomed to just blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, commenting on someone being hot is like commenting on the weather -- she means it as a compliment, but there’s no evidence she thinks she has a chance with any of them, let alone wanting to try dating. This is especially when you take into account her self-esteem issues that we learn about later in the series, and also...well, the fact she’s only twelve. (Remember: even Daisuke’s thing for Hikari comes out as a lot of unfocused affection, and it’s unlikely he’s seriously considered the concept of following that up with a serious relationship -- any serious prospects of romance or dating are not going to be on the table for these kids for a while.) Miyako has also been accused by some of being abysmally shallow for still complimenting Ken’s looks in 02 episode 9 (after it’s already apparent he’s the Kaiser), but although she certainly is a bit shallow at this point of the series, she’s not that lacking in common sense; Iori got in on it too in this scene, and both of them were doing it to tease Daisuke more than they seriously wanted to compliment the Kaiser all that much. So in essence, it’s just “Miyako has eyes” -- she still completely agrees he’s their enemy and she’s not going to judge him any better for his looks, but she also doesn’t see this as a reason to lie about the fact she thinks he’s visually good-looking, especially if it’s to tease Daisuke about it.

In any case, 02 episode 14 digs a lot more into Miyako’s stance on herself regarding others -- in 02 episode 6, Miyako met Mimi for the first time, and latched onto her for their similar dispositions and her looking up to Mimi for being beautiful, amazing, and cool (and she should, because she’s right). 02 episode 14 adds another layer to this, however, when Miyako spends the duration negatively comparing herself to Mimi. At first it starts off as simply just shallow jealousy for Michael giving Mimi more attention, but as the situation with Digitamamon escalates, Miyako spends a prolonged period of time trying to figure out Mimi’s behavior of pure-heartedly choosing to trust Digitamamon despite everything, against Miyako’s insistence that Digitamamon’s behavior proves that he was untrustworthy the whole time.

Mimi and Miyako’s stances are both on extremes here -- Mimi’s pacifistic tendencies are causing her to let her get beaten up by Digitamamon despite the fact that “appealing to people’s hearts” has never really been demonstrated as a good way to get Evil Rings off (to be fair, this is probably the first time they’ve made an attempt at this with a Digimon that can still talk coherently with it on), but Miyako’s acting as if this retroactively proves him to be untrustworthy even though she knows that the Evil Rings are tantamount to brainwashing. Nevertheless, Miyako acknowledges that her own stance was borne out of her being shallow and judgmental, especially since the discussion between Mimi and Digitamamon brings out a question about the meaning of the “true self”.

Miyako, at this point, is confronting everything that’s bad about herself -- that she’s shallow and not as much of a “good person” as Mimi is. But the Crest of Purity -- once meaning “lack of malice” back when it applied to Mimi in Adventure -- now has a secondary meaning of “not lying to oneself” (the dub translation of “Sincerity” is not actually that off in this sense), and it also means that Miyako is not going to get anywhere pretending or forcing herself to be someone she’s not. The secondary Digimental arc has a recurring theme of understanding that there are still things you need to learn and improve on in order to do better, and this is Miyako’s version of it -- she will have to acknowledge all of the bad parts of herself before she can get anywhere and become a kind person like Mimi is -- and, indeed, becoming less shallow and judgmental and not jumping to conclusions, and learning to reach out to more substantial cores of the problem, ends up becoming a major part of her character arc in the latter half of the series.

This episode also implies one more thing, even if she doesn’t realize it yet at this moment: the path to her becoming a less shallow and more considerate person is not going to involve trying to force herself to be like Mimi, but rather in a way that’s closer to her “true self”.

Miyako’s first major turning point is in 02 episode 18, an episode that’s said to have such a profound impact on her that even Natsuki Rio testified to having to alter her Miyako performance thereafter.

Back in 02 episode 10, Miyako first started to realize that this whole experience of fighting as a Chosen Child was a lot more stressful than it seemed at first, and reacted badly to it. Here, the ante gets upped even more -- the kids decide to make use of their summer break and organize a Digital World stakeout, and, eventually, Hikari accidentally becomes indirectly responsible for tipping Miyako over the deep end by making an implication that they need more “determination” to the point of refusing to leave until they’ve beaten the Kaiser. (Remember that Hikari can be terrifyingly assertive as long as it’s not something to do with herself.) For Miyako, who’s never had the same experience of being in the Digital World for a prolonged period of time the same way the Adventure group has, this is terrifying, and she tries to “get herself together” over the night -- only to completely overshoot it and go into the complete other extreme. As much as this ends up being one of Miyako’s peak hilarity moments, it’s most certainly representative of her being under a huge amount of pressure and stress, and it’s effectively her “peak worst” moment -- which results in Hawkmon ending up having to cover for her, and getting injured in the process, and Miyako immediately realizing how badly she’d messed up.

Miyako is thus forced to face a major consequence of her behavior: if she doesn’t manage to figure out a way to get herself under control, other people will be hurt, and as someone who wants to do her best for other people, that’s one of the worst possible outcomes for her.

In addition, it’s also important to point out Hikari’s role in this. The Jogress arcs have yet to set in, but the series still gives you a little preview of what’s to come eventually, such as the insight we get about Daisuke and Ken’s initial attitudes towards each other in 02 episode 8, and Iori later personally witnessing (and being very disturbed by) Takeru losing his composure in 02 episode 19. In this case, we see a bit of what Miyako and Hikari’s opposing personalities can offer for each other (especially since the later 02 episode 31 more heavily involves Miyako returning the favor in the other direction) -- Hikari correctly identifies exactly what it was that set Miyako off, takes responsibility for it, and even decides to make sure Miyako and Hawkmon get proper alone time so that they can figure things out. In general, everyone in the 02 team is understanding of Miyako’s antics and doesn’t hold any of it against her because she’s doing her best, but right now, Hikari may be the only person in this group who can actually proactively do something about it, because Daisuke’s not assertive enough to step in, Takeru has a tendency to dodge things whenever they get awkward, and Iori’s holding himself back too much for the sake of manners (especially in the presence of Miyako, who’s the oldest one in this group). But while Hikari does have an emotional repression problem, she’s perfectly capable of holding herself together and putting her foot down when it comes to other people, and because of this, she’s the one who’s able to understand what exactly is going on with Miyako, and how to adjust the situation around her to make things easier for her.

Miyako and Hawkmon have a proper heart-to-heart, and we see more of Miyako’s self-hating tendencies going on here -- she refers exactly to her problems with impulse control, and even labels herself a “bad partner” as a result. But Hawkmon reassures her that she’s fine the way she is, and it ties into how a larger theme of her character arc will involve her learning to find better ways to channel the qualities she already has, rather than trying to force herself to be someone she’s not.

Once the Kaiser is defeated, the second half of the series is where we start to see Miyako’s growth start to really kick in. In 02 episode 24, there’s a short blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene where Miyako suddenly takes Daisuke and puts him in charge of taking care of the Punimon. Why is this important? Because two episodes prior, Daisuke had been running around in circles like an idiot due to having been third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari, and the moment Daisuke started exhibiting similar signs this time, Miyako personally stepped in and gave him a job to do -- and her actions of keeping an eye on them and her conversation with Takeru and Hikari indicate that she did it exactly because she figured that he would like it. Or, in other words, Miyako correctly identified Daisuke’s need for validation and purpose, and became the first person to proactively do something to address it -- Hikari and Takeru had generally been dodging it awkwardly for the duration of the series, which had only really been making it worse, and, in the absence of another crisis to take care of or someone like Ken to fill the void in Daisuke’s life, Miyako was able to properly figure out exactly what he needed at the moment as a stopgap, and thus is starting to settle into her proper role of understanding what others need in terms of emotional support and actively working to address it.

Since the second half of 02 is dedicated to Ken slowly establishing his place in the group, 02 episode 25 is dedicated to Miyako tussling with her conflicted feelings on the situation -- she’s just as open-minded and pure-hearted as Daisuke is, but the one thing that’s bothering her is that she’s a little more doubtful than he is in regards to whether Ken’s heart is really in the right place with all of this. She says, outright, that she believes he’s learned his lesson -- in a way far more firm than Takeru, Hikari, and Iori are about it -- but that one thing about him having potentially killed Thunderballmon in cold blood doesn’t fit the optimistic image she’d like to have of him.

Daisuke is more practical-minded than she is and is more willing to accept that there might have been a good reason -- especially since he himself starts to consider in this very episode that killing an enemy may be necessary if it’s the only way to prevent more victims -- but Miyako is more emotionally oriented and just can’t accept the idea of doing this at all. Both the internal debate over accepting Ken and the internal debate over having to potentially do a kill tear her apart over the course of this episode, and Miyako finds herself constantly waffling back and forth between the two positions. It’s not just her expressing minor doubt; she actually agonizes over this for the duration of the night and the next day, to the point she even considers asking him about it (and eventually can’t bring herself to).

It’s also made a prominent point that Miyako’s prior attraction to Ken in 02 episode 8 was not the reason she wanted to be optimistic about him -- remember, back in 02 episode 14, she completely admitted that she judges people by appearances, but at this point she’s well past that! Miyako takes this entire issue of whether Ken should be considered a friend very seriously, and that’s why it torments her so much over the course of the episode.

Eventually, all is resolved (at least, for the time being) when it turns out that Ken has been dealing with non-sentient Dark Tower Digimon, and Miyako takes this as sufficient evidence that Ken has changed -- the morality debate about killing comes back in full force in 02 episode 43, and Ken himself ends up just as shaken about it, so the important part is that she understands that he’s trustworthy and wants to put faith in him. Attention is also given to Miyako deciding she’ll now call him by given name (”Ken-kun”) from now on -- even Daisuke himself won’t start calling him “Ken” regularly until 02 episode 39, but Miyako starts slowly inserting given-name basis for Ken into her vocabulary from this point on until she finally commits to it fully in 02 episode 30. This is a proactive and conscious act on Miyako’s part that she actively wants to get to know him better and consider him a close friend, and it’s because of this that she ends up one of the only people who never gets habituated into surname basis with him by the time everyone’s come to properly befriend him.

So, at this point: Within only one episode (and, in-universe, one day), Daisuke and Miyako landed on the same page with their ideological stance towards Ken. They’re both open-minded and forward-thinking, and have an interest in becoming his friend (the next person to show active and open goodwill towards him, Hikari, won’t do so for another 9 episodes). However, despite their surface temperaments being somewhat similar, they have some differences in their priorities and way of approaching things, and it means that each of them ends up reaching out to Ken in ways that the other isn’t as good at. Daisuke, being the very practical and simple-minded sort who doesn’t overthink things or get caught in arbitrary philosophy, is the one who most proactively reaches out to Ken and most famously connects with him the most due to Ken very badly needing guidance in how to move on forward and stop getting fixated on his past. Miyako, on the other hand, being very much the type to consciously think about things (to the point of sometimes thinking about too many things at once) and focus on “how do I most show my support for someone right now?”, puts her priorities on checking on Ken’s current emotional state and actively attempting to glean his feelings and position. 02 being a series about relationships and what people can provide for each other, this ends up reflecting on their roles in the group as a whole -- Daisuke becomes the person who can pull everyone forward in determining the best thing to do, whereas Miyako fills in the parts his rough-around-the-edges demeanor doesn’t quite cover in terms of supporting everyone emotionally and keeping them together.

And thus, Miyako resolves to “wait” until the day Ken will join them -- that is to say, she takes the stance that Ken deserves proper space and to come on his own terms. It’s an interesting inversion of the usual roles you’d expect from Daisuke and Miyako at this point -- and, again, since 02 is about relationships, “each character’s approach towards the new kid and how it impacts them” reflects a lot about their own characters. For Daisuke and Miyako, who were open-minded towards Ken early in the game, you can already see the impact on them -- the necessity of reaching out to Ken causes the normally deferential Daisuke to become more proactive and put his foot down, whereas the normally uncontrollably in-your-face Miyako comes to understand when something needs to be handled delicately and starts getting a better grasp on the concept of restraint.

Which means that Miyako’s actions regarding Ken in the following episodes are significantly more passive than Daisuke’s are, but it’s clear that she’s still supportive. Moreover, it’s also important to establish that she and Daisuke aren’t fighting about this or anything -- Miyako does want Ken to come around eventually, so she doesn’t stop the more proactive Daisuke from reaching out to Ken in an important way, but she instead exerts her position in ways such as joining in with the others reminding him that Ken might have gotten a bit emotionally overwhelmed by the Jogress (and thus that it’s understandable that he might need some time to parse this before pushing the issue further). The way Miyako words this statement so casually can easily be a distraction from the fact that she is completely correct -- as we see later, Ken did emotionally freak out the moment the incident was resolved and had to go home to think about this. Scatterbrained as Miyako may seem, as the series proceeds, it turns out that she has a natural propensity for empathy that means she’s capable of making perfectly correct readings of the situation, even without her thinking that hard about it.

Not that she’s correct all of the time, though. 02 episode 30 has her attempt to get Ken and Iori to hopefully be a little less tense around each other end in complete disaster (although to be fair to her, it’s not like she and Daisuke were particularly forceful about it, it’s just that their plan was so poorly set up that it was too easy to read the motive behind, and it’s ultimately thrown off because -- as Daisuke correctly points out -- the two are being really childish about it.) But in response, Miyako takes direct action and responsibility to fix the situation when Ken continues to refuse to help despite how badly the situation is escalating, and when she finally reaches him, she gets frustrated at the fact he’s being so stubborn, smacks him, and personally drags him back over. Miyako cared a lot about this, she had wanted Ken and Iori to get along for no reason of personal benefit to herself but more because she cared that much about the group’s dynamic and friendship, and she’d held herself back so much because she was worried about him, but here he’s taking all of that and still giving them all the cold shoulder when everyone is in grave danger, and all of that frustration causes her to break down at once.

And note Ken’s reaction -- he’d been holding off on the grounds that he was being a burden on everyone’s friendship, but he sees Miyako distraught and upset and calling him an idiot (i.e. his whole pretense of not hurting others has clearly not worked here), and his “idiot...?” comes out flustered and off-guard, and he shows no resentment towards her thereafter and comes quietly with no protest, even holding a hand to the place she’d smacked him as if mulling in agreement that he deserved that. So, again: Even when Miyako is coming to all of these conclusions in a haphazard manner, it doesn’t change the fact that her readings of these situations are often completely correct.

02 episode 31 is another landmark episode in which we get a lot of insight into Miyako’s current feelings regarding herself in comparison to others, and what she’s trying to achieve at this point in the series. Daisuke makes an offhand remark at the beginning of the episode about Hikari being more “kind” than Miyako (”kind” having a double meaning of “gentle” in Japanese, so Daisuke’s mainly referring to Miyako being such a rough and belligerent person). The way Miyako takes this statement indicates that Daisuke had accidentally just hit a very deep-seated complex within her -- Miyako had never liked the fact she was aggressive and belligerent and in-your-face (remember, back in 02 episode 14, she was constantly negatively comparing herself to Mimi for not being as good of a person as her, and now this has extended to Hikari, who “keeps so much inside”.). As the crisis in the episode escalates, Miyako continues to fall victim to her foot-in-mouth syndrome, saying things and instantly regretting it, because she sees herself as making the situation worse -- and especially when it comes to a situation also involving Ken, whom she’s actively trying to reach out to right now. Her frustration at the fact she can’t see what Ken and Hikari see is because, unable to understand what they’re talking about or what their feelings are, she’s basically a sitting duck who can’t do anything while things are getting worse for them.

Which ultimately results in Miyako completely losing her marbles and Hikari having to smack her out of it -- again, recall that in 02 episode 18, it was shown that Hikari is one of the few people who has enough assertiveness to be able to rein in Miyako’s behavior, and even outright admits that Miyako is a bit of a handful. Miyako, as it seems, had been carrying a complex that Hikari had been thinking of her badly for all of this -- but Hikari then proceeds to reveal the flip side of all of this: she’s also conversely jealous of Miyako for being able to express herself so clearly and easily, because she herself is the type who compulsively represses her own feelings about herself, which is why nobody had been able to properly reach out to her for the duration of Adventure and 02.

For someone who had spent so much time considering herself a “bad person” and a “worse person” in comparison to people like Mimi and Hikari, that someone considers her qualities outright enviable is a huge deal -- it’s not that Miyako’s an objectively worse person than all of the other people who aren’t as rough or in-your-face, but rather, that those qualities can bring out positive things in their own way. And, immediately after that, we see one of those things -- she makes Hikari laugh, thanks to her antics. Of course, it involves Miyako being a bit all over the place and making a lot of mistakes, but even she admits “I guess it is funny.”

And there’s another thing to this, too: Miyako continues to end up with foot-in-mouth as she casually refers to things like the Evil Ring and Ken being the Kaiser with zero fanfare, before realizing seconds after that she probably shouldn’t be doing that in front of him, but, once again, even without her realizing, her evaluation is not incorrect -- although the fact he’s extremely out of it doesn’t make that clear quite yet in this episode, Ken is not the kind of person who’s touchy about acknowledging that he was the Kaiser, and, by his own statement in 02 episode 23, his stance is that he wants to “accept everything about it”, take responsibility, and move on. So here we are with Miyako, who just casually tossed that statement out like it was no big deal, has accepted his past with no lingering grudge against him, and even made a casual evaluation about him presumably having the same resilience he had as the Kaiser, which, again, is completely accurate. All of this is exactly the kind of attitude that Ken needs to be surrounded by right now, and Miyako had just touched on this without even thinking that hard about it, and also is still making it clear she doesn’t want him to feel bad about it...

And so, the episode’s climax has Miyako finally attaining the solution to the question of reaching out to Hikari, the one that nobody had been able to successfully accomplish throughout Hikari’s childhood of never expressing herself properly and the majority of Adventure and 02: to get Hikari to stop being so passive and accepting her inevitable fate because she doesn’t want to burden others, someone as aggressive as her will need to reach her and yank her out, and hit all of the exact points about understanding that someone will be there for her and that she should not accept this defeatist mentality. Hikari is unusually, unhealthily passive, and Miyako, being outwardly aggressive and someone who never hesitates to be blunt about things, is the best person to yank her out of this; it was never a sign of her being a “bad person”, just something she needed to channel in the right direction.

At the end of the episode, we’re also reminded once again that this is a series about relationships, so this kind of growth is important to everyone’s relationships with others as well -- thanks to Miyako’s efforts, Hikari is finally able to speak honestly with Takeru in contrast to her way of leaving off in silence with him at the end of 02 episode 13, and Miyako herself is happy that she’s finally gotten to have a better understanding of both Hikari, whom she herself had been unsure about the position of earlier, and Ken, whom she’d been worried she hadn’t been reaching out to in the right way.

While Ken was out of it during said episode and unable to coherently respond, we do get confirmation that he himself has hopped on the train of respecting Miyako’s intent well enough that he doesn’t hold anything over her -- during 02 episode 33, a mere three episodes after she’d personally slapped him in the face and two episodes after he’d practically seen her at her emotional worst, he still takes it upon himself to personally deliver Poromon to Kyoto and trust her to handle the rest. This isn’t that particularly interesting by itself, but moreso in terms of the context this is in -- this is a point where Ken’s still at awkward arm’s length with a lot of the team (including even Daisuke, in some ways), and he’s seen Miyako do all of the above messy things only not too long ago, but he still is comfortable enough around her and trusting enough in her abilities that he’s okay with casually approaching her and saying “you got this.” So it’s working, all things considered!

We also learn that Miyako had trusted Koushirou with Poromon during her trip to Kyoto, which says a lot about the fact she trusts her senior that much -- and, on a meta level, seems there specifically to facilitate the existence of the above scene (it would have been very easy to save time by just having Poromon accompany Miyako from the get-go and ending Ken’s involvement in the episode at his conversation with Koushirou...).

The following episodes also meanwhile establish that Miyako’s relationship with Hikari has been improving a lot -- with Miyako now actually understanding what Hikari needs, she’s much more proactive in reaching out to Hikari, and it’s even said directly by Iori in 02 episode 36 that their relationship seems to have gotten much better now. And, once again, Miyako’s antics are depicted as making people laugh -- note her and Hawkmon’s over-the-top advertisement performance doing so for everyone in the vicinity.

Which is also reinforced, again, in 02 episode 38, when this even spreads to Ken himself, in a moment that’s said to be particularly unusual and portrayed as one of the first times Ken has been able to be truly carefree in a long time. Again, the point here is: Miyako’s “all-over-the-place” nature brings joy to other people, and that “she makes people laugh” is continually reinforced as a symbol of this over the course of the second half of the series.

Beyond that, the visit to Ken’s house kicks off with Miyako noticing the picture of Osamu and asking about it, to the point she’s shown leaning over and staring at it for quite a while -- Koushirou had allegedly informed her about it earlier, and a whole point is made that she’s the one very prominently wanting to understand more about Ken and his background.

Also, Miyako reminds us all that she still does think Ken is attractive, but it’s a huge contrast to her behavior from back in 02 episode 8, when she knew nothing about him except that he was some celebrity genius boy -- she got completely worked up about it, moped about it for a whole day, and even dragged the fixation into the next day when she started aggressively confronting Daisuke about it, but we’re here 30 episodes later with Miyako actually considering him an important friend that she respects the feelings of, and she simply casually tosses out the statement of him being cute in her usual “like it’s commenting on the weather” manner, with no extra weirdness about it.

We close up some of the threads of Miyako's character arcs when Miyako herself is forced to confront the possibility of fighting an enemy to the kill in 02 episode 44, and Silphymon is eventually forced to kill LadyDevimon to save Miyako's life. Miyako’s emotional reaction is given the most attention here, since she herself had fixated so much on the horror of potentially killing Golemon back in 02 episode 25 -- in fact, everything Miyako does in this episode is about her emotional empathy and empathy for others, in that she rails on LadyDevimon for being a “coward” who hurts other people. Eventually, it’s once again the assertive Hikari who’s able to get her back on her feet by putting it in a way she can understand -- they were not doing it out of a callous and cruel intent to kill, but to save the exact victims that Miyako herself wanted to prevent.

And, even to the very end of the series, Miyako continues to channel her proactivity into emotional awareness first and foremost -- 02 episode 46 has her take the lead in the Dark Seed roundtable, and it’s implied that she’s doing this mainly because she knows this is a very personal issue for Ken to have to witness. In contrast to the way she frantically started spitting out potentially insensitive things in front of Ken in 02 episode 31, here, she outright says that she doesn’t want to make him feel bad about this (and, fortunately, he understands perfectly well that she’s trying). Even all the way to the very end in 02 episode 50, she’s the one who first brings up the question of the issue, because of how emotionally invested she got into this and her high level of awareness as to how deeply this impacted Ken.

In 02 episode 49, BelialVamdemon presents everyone in the team with a potential deep-seated desire that none of them want to admit, and in the case of Miyako’s, it ends up being a rather tame thing in comparison to Iori and Takeru’s more severe family issues, Hikari’s desire for WORLD PEACE!!, and Ken’s complicated feelings about punishment and forgiveness. In Miyako’s dream world, she’s just eating cake, and it says a lot about the fact that were it not for the fact that she overthinks things and often gets easily stressed, she’s fundamentally fairly free of deep-seated issues in a way not entirely dissimilar to Daisuke’s simple and pure-hearted way of life.

The thing that causes Miyako’s issue is often misinterpreted to be about her selfishly wanting everything to herself, or the idea she’s fighting for attention with her siblings, but Hawkmon actually says what the real problem is in direct words: her crowded family is “noisy”. Or in other words -- Miyako, being the overly empathetic type and someone who easily succumbs to stress, is just really overwhelmed and stressed because of everything around her.

An interesting thing about Miyako’s “illusion” is that it’s the only one that in itself starts making its victim feel lonely and sad even before it’s taken away or dispelled -- Takeru and Iori had to have their happy images pulled away from them, Hikari had to have Tailmon clarify that everything is fake, and Ken had to have Wormmon personally chase the image of his brother away. But in the case of Miyako, all Hawkmon has to do is ask if she’s happy right now, and she’s quick to admit that she’s not. It’s just that everything was stressful and overwhelming and there was so much to deal with all of the time, and for once she wanted to be able to enjoy a little peace, but she loves her family and she loves everyone around her and she doesn’t want to be alone, and she’d rather have them back even if it’s stressful. Miyako’s love for others is so strong that even an illusion supposedly made to cater to her won’t make her happy if everyone’s gone.

Miyako also takes the moment to realize that for all Hawkmon’s been going out of his way to be steadfast and loyal to her, she hasn’t been doing enough to understand her own partner in turn, and there’s still a lot more she can do in terms of thinking of others.

Miyako after 02

As per Spring 2003, once Miyako graduates elementary school and moves to middle school, she continues trying to be helpful to her juniors -- she joins the computer club and once again ends up under Koushirou, and now outright makes music for Yamato’s band (some creative differences aside). It’s also interesting to note her attitude towards her other friends when she tries to recruit them into her music unit -- she snarks at everyone right up until she gets to Ken, who declines politely, and in exchange, she just can't bring herself to be mean to him and simply apologizes for asking too much. It’s ambiguous whether this is because she’s still trying to have a heightened level of consideration around him (this is still only four months after 02′s finish, after all), but it seems she’s still concerned about the idea of handling him overly roughly, and is able to exercise a proper level of restraint about him.

Which brings us all the way to Kizuna, a whole eight years later where we have to fill in a lot of blanks about what’s been happening in the meantime, but the official website establishes that she’s now pursuing a degree in computer programming at an engineering university, and is now on study abroad in Spain (implied to be Barcelona, given details in both the movie itself and the drama CD). Pretty ambitious stuff!...or at least that’s the first impression one would get, until it turns out that she’s getting her flighty personality enabled by the local culture. As we learn in the drama CD, she’s absolutely taking the time to milk this entire situation so she can play around -- and, in accordance with how she was established to be an important factor in bringing Hikari out of her shell, it’s rubbing off on Hikari, too.

In addition, Miyako is still working under Koushirou despite their educational careers having completely diverged, this time as his assistant in terms of managing the Chosen Child community. Interestingly, her specific job seems to be consultation, and people come to her for “advice and stuff” -- meaning that it’s very likely that a lot of new Chosen Children who are having a hard time adjusting to life with a partner are coming to her for practical and emotional advice, and she’s still continuing to channel her ability to be emotionally aware and supportive of others.

That is to say, until she gets a mysterious request from a certain Menoa Bellucci. We learn later that Menoa’s motive was to obtain the list of international Chosen Children, meaning that she most definitely was not approaching Miyako for emotional help, and with that, Miyako decides that she doesn’t want to do this and dumps it on her seniors...

...but then picks it back up with zero hesitation the moment her friends present her that exact same job, and not only is it just “zero hesitation”, Ken even comments on how “fast” she arrived to do so! (This was also before Iori came up with the plan to infiltrate Menoa’s office; there wasn’t any indication Miyako’s computer abilities would be particularly necessary at the time.) On top of that, the drama CD gives us full context as to why she was so willing to dump this on her seniors in the first place -- she had wanted to see her friends so badly that she practically invented D-3 gate exploitation so she could hang out with her friends despite technically being in another country, and even wanted to invite them to come visit her, and eventually they’d all made an organized plan to meet up in New York. In other words, her loyalty to her friends is still stronger than anything else -- remember, she’s the kind of person who was picking up tons of jobs specifically so she could help her friends in the first place.

On that note, Ken’s ability to be casual with everyone besides Daisuke has noticeably improved, and that’s especially prominent with Miyako, whom he proactively converses with in a way that wouldn’t have happened back in 02, and, likewise, in contrast to the sense of distance she’d still been maintaining with him back during the final arc of 02 and Spring 2003, she has no qualms about handling him as casually as she would anyone else.

Which eventually leads us to...

This is a recurring theme on this blog, but every so often I have to draw the distinction between creative concepts “in meta” (i.e. the way the audience will read it, in relation to franchise standards and other real-life factors) and said concepts “in-universe” (i.e. with audience factors completely removed, whether there’s a presumable logical reason for these events happening in-universe, and whether this is reasonable behavior to expect out of the characters). This blog is largely dedicated to the latter, but the reason why I have to keep drawing this distinction in the first place is that I get the impression that the staff behind Adventure and 02 really did not pay much mind to the former part as part of their dedication to the latter. And, I mean, part of the reason I respect the writing of Adventure and 02 so much is how uncompromising they were in terms of not really pandering to what a fanbase might expect, which allowed the story to retain a lot of creative integrity that it wouldn’t have otherwise.

But every so often you get something like this that makes me want to just bang my head on the table and scream, I swear, I get what you guys were going for, but I am begging you, please think a little harder about how people are going to read this!! In general, I do think there’s something that’s not very good about disregarding your audience completely, because if you’re trying to say important things and those things are going directly over your audience’s heads (this is a kids’ show, for goodness’s sake), you can’t call that good communication, and it’s not like you can blame the audience for getting blindsided or being upset, and this is before we get into what they just dropped on the global audience that was presumably full of young girls interested in STEM fields who were hoping to see them go all the way with that, or the feelings of those who are bothered that one character has to be singled out to be defined solely by her relationship to others, and I mean -- to be fair, with a character like Miyako and the tons of things going on with her, there was probably no outcome they could come up with that wouldn’t be reinforcing some negative stereotype (believe it or not, there are people who have conversely mentioned identifying deeply with Miyako’s personal story and the meaning of this ending to them, and have also expressed discomfort about some of the comments the fanbase has made over the years), but at the same time, holy hell, they really went for the one that immediately looks the worst on its face...

...That aside, I will reiterate that this is a blog and analysis meant for that latter category of “analyzing things in-universe”, and making good-faith assumptions that there was a reason for everything (and, I’ll be quite honest, reading everything the staff has said about the characters, including Miyako, there is no indication that they didn’t treat every single one of them with love and zero intention to curse any of them into a horrible fate). We can debate whether this was a good or bad choice in the context of real life, or how much they really should have thought this through more or considered alternative ways to do this, in another place and time (it’s been done by many other people, myself included, in the last 20 years, and it will most certainly continue after this, and probably should continue). It’s not like I’m necessarily giving my blessing to every single creative decision in Adventure or 02 in running this blog, it’s more of the attitude of “now that this decision was in the series, can we figure out what that was intended to mean?”, and that’s going to apply to this one too. And so, we’ll proceed with the analysis.

In any case, here’s the first thing to start with, which may surprise some people to learn: at no point in the epilogue is the word “housewife” ever used to refer to Miyako. The only words that Takeru uses to describe her are: that she is married to Ken and is a mother of three. Not only that, post-02 materials that have referred to the epilogue and Miyako’s part in it have also avoided using that word -- the Character Complete File and the Animation Chronicle only reiterate the same points of “married to Ken” and “mother of three children”, and practically go out of their way to avoid insinuating that being a stay-at-home housewife is the main focus of her life right now. It would have been so easy to say it outright if they’d wanted to, but they didn’t, and they consistently don’t, to the point the omission is almost suspicious. And, indeed, if you want to believe the Character Complete File, Miyako is not a full-time housewife and is simply not working at the time of the epilogue due to maternity leave because the third child had recently been born. So it’s completely within the realm of possibility that she’s still working! In that case, why is something that could easily be a big deal left ambiguous like this?

If you look at the way the epilogue presents its information, there’s a certain pattern: what information is emphasized and what information is given little attention or omitted has very little to do with “how curious the audience would be about it”, but rather “how relevant it is”; just because a certain piece of information is omitted doesn’t mean it necessarily isn’t true. For example, Sora; she’s married to Yamato, but despite how much the audience would probably consider that as vital information, it’s left for you to infer from the visuals and an oblique comment that Sora’s daughter is a “dependable older sister”, and even the question of whether Sora did succeed her mother in flower arrangement is left up in the air despite that also probably being a question the audience is curious about (and in fact, a few flower branches are clearly visible in the front, implying very heavily that, whatever happened, she’s at least still maintaining her roots with her family instead of violently cutting it all off). But we do learn about the fact that she went into fashion design, which is something that’s not an expectation that was placed by her family but rather something she presumably decided on herself. Hence, presumably why that’s the part emphasized, and moreso than her marriage to Yamato -- said marriage is of course an important part of her life, but it’s not as prominent as the fact that she has her own independent career, especially since her entire character arc was about doing things that she wanted for herself instead of doing things for others. That is to say, compared to their own individual ambitions, Sora and Yamato’s love life is “an important part, but not the important part.” This is especially when you add the context that Takeru is delivering abridged single-sentence “catch-up” descriptions of his friends on their behalf (possibly to the world, if this is part of his novel), and so, it begs the question: what would each of these characters want to be most remembered for accomplishing?

(And if you think I’m being tinfoil hat about this, remember that a constant theme with this blog I’m running is that “being annoyingly subtle and relying on ridiculously oblique messaging” like this permeates the entirety of 02 in general, and it’s definitely not the only time they’ve used this kind of technique to communicate details that are too consistent and on-the-nose to be passed off as coincidence. As far as assuming that this series follows rational storytelling logic goes, we are far past that point, and in ways that extend far beyond this epilogue.)

So we look back at Miyako, and the hobbies she’d indulged in and what purpose they were for, and her personality, and the fact that the main point of her character arc was about her complex that she would never be a good enough person who could properly emotionally reach out and take care of others -- in some ways, her arc was the opposite of Sora’s, in that while Sora’s was about not being as beholden to others, Miyako’s was about how to become someone who can better support others -- and once we apply the above question, there lies the answer to why the priority and emphasis given to her future in the epilogue is “Miyako is the kind of person who prioritizes taking care of and supporting her loved ones more than anything else.”

This is especially because (in an epilogue with not very many lines, so every bit of information becomes vital) the lines we see Miyako and her family exchange are representative of a lot of what that character arc was about. According to her son, Miyako is still her panicky and emotionally messy self, even when in the role of the matriarch of a large family who’s responsible for taking care of all of them. She did not ever become the ideal “gentle” and “mature” kind of person that she considered Mimi and Hikari to be and negatively compared herself to. However, her family responds by cheerfully laughing, which is -- most likely not coincidentally -- the same thing that was shown to be the positive flip side of Miyako’s over-the-top personality back in 02 episodes 31, 36, and 38, in that it brings joy and cheer to others.

If you do want to take the Character Complete File’s statement at face value, the fact that she’s on self-imposed maternity leave means that it’s very likely she wasn’t on a salaried job and was instead freelancing, or at least was involved with something that didn’t require constant commitment. Considering the fact she’s consistently portrayed as an impatient sort who gets bored easily, she probably would prefer something more flexible like freelancing or at least not being tied to a single thing; even looking back at her completely disparate hobbies back when she was a kid, when she was basically jack-of-all-trades-ing to fit whatever people needed her for, she never really came off as someone who could commit very easily to a single form of work, but what she did have commitment to was other people, especially her friends and family. If you (or, perhaps, Takeru) were to ask her during the time of the epilogue “what are you up to right now?”, it’s not really that hard to believe that gushing about her lovely family would come before everything else; not to say that everyone else here (especially her own husband) isn’t presumably devoted to their own families, but Miyako’s the type to have that much higher sense of pride in what she does for those she cares about than she would have particular attachment to any kind of work. Look at her behavior during Kizuna; she’s pursuing a degree in computer programming and thus is still aiming to be a busybody with a high level of skill, but when given a job by a stranger, she immediately dumps it off on her seniors so she can be with her friends, then happily accepts that same job again when the same friends present it back to her.

So, in other words, the conclusion is: the biggest priority and most important thing to Miyako in regards to her future is that she finally became someone who could properly support others around her, even in spite of her personality that would suggest otherwise.

In addition, the fact that she has three children might initially come off as a little in-your-face or overkill, but remember that Miyako came from a family with four siblings, and 02 episode 49 had her say outright that she does treasure that – or, in other words, being part of a big family surrounded by affection and love is something she considers to be a valuable part of her life (especially since the age gaps between the three children imply a reasonable likelihood of actual family planning, moreso than even Miyako’s own).

Incidentally, this is just a bit of a personal note, but one might notice that I’ve also never actually used the word “housewife” to refer to the epilogue’s depiction of Miyako in the course of writing for this blog, because of how little evidence we have that she is one – being on temporary maternity leave still being a very viable and, given the post-02 materials we now have, arguably heavily likely interpretation, it’s not like you’d necessarily call someone a housewife if their break from work is only temporary, even if they’re a freelancer. Given the above circumstances, perhaps something like “family matriarch” would be more accurate…

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #inoue miyako #miyako inoue #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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moons-and-stars-and-shit · 4 years ago

Note

It worked! Sorry to bug you with a message! But I'd like to request a cake now!

So, about me. I have an actual name but I don't think I've heard it in months😃, instead I have a bunch of nicknames! (Rion, ri, oreo, onion, o, etc), I'm actually nb so I chose that name, however I 100% consider naming myself Arson💀My pronouns are they/them and I'm about 5'5, I have short, fluffy brown hair that I usually dye the front blue. I'm Asian hispanic, but I really don't look like either- my favorite foods are either really spicy and salty or sweet. Not the overwhelming chemical sweet tho, like a natural sweet flavor. My personality type is infp, and ig when I first meet people I can be shy (that's an understatement, I was mute for the first week of school🕳🏃‍♂️) but once I get to know people I can be pretty chaotic (once again, arson). I'm not a 100% demon spawn though, I don't really like making scenes in public and I probably will cry if I do- but I still have fun lol. I'm also the person who copes with severe mental health issues using humor, to an alarming degree 😔 I'm the therapist friend when really I'm the one who needs therapy. I also have a social battery that can die at random times, so I really like/need friends who can handle random mood changes of me going from energetic to silent in seconds. Academically, I'm really book smart, I'm a tutor, but my grades don't reflect it. I tend to procrastinate a lot and avoid studying, usually I catch myself last minute or trust memory on tests, but every now and then there's something that tanks my grades. I'm not very athletic, but I still try to play sports. I enjoy the feeling when I do something right, but the rest of the time I usually beat myself up for messing up.

And now just random facts 😃👍

My favorite color is yellow, not the bright eye sore shade that makes you want to throw up, but the nice softer, light shade. And I like anything that comes with that color! (Sunflowers, flowy sundresses and flip flops, summer activities, burning concrete, warm rain, etc). Nobody knows my music taste, it changes weekly, however I usually come back to mitski/cavetown or summer themed songs a lot! I enjoy playing music, but I have the curse of being a fast learner so that usually leads to be being bored and learning a new instrument at any given chance. And my birthday is a weird date that fucks with zodiacs so I can be considered either a leo or cancer, my personality changes a bunch, so take your pick lol. (Though emotionally I tend to be cancerous, I just express it and show it in a way a leo would) And someday I wanna be a long term traveler, or a florist. Just a job that makes me happy :). And I guess if I had to classify my aesthetic it would be bloomcore or soft grunge. I like wearing big sweaters and if I could I would wear a bunch of butterfly clips in my hair and wear mom jeans. (I would also wear man crushers, I mean, platforms if I was confident)

Aaaannnnd that was really long sorry!

To sum up, I'm just a bipolar bitch with depression and anxiety 👍

Thanks a bunch for just taking the time to read this!

@oririon

Romantic Matchup

Bokuto Koutarou

How Y’all Met

IERJNDJS

I’m getting a classic summer love vibe from this matchup 👀

Ok so I just Hc that Bokuto LOVES flowers

So he would always just go to the local flower shop to look at them

Pls hes to precious I cant-

But anyways you we’re working a summer job at the flower shop

And you grew fond of our little owl boy

You would always talk to him whenever he visited

He just made your job that much more enjoyable :)

So one day you stopped him right before he left and told him he could pick a bouquet of flowers if he wanted

He BEAMED at you and picked a bouquet of flowers he always looked at whenever he came

But what shocked you was instead of walking out with them

He gave them to you!

He then went on talking about how he really liked you but didn’t know how to tell you

At this point he was just rambling

So you laughed and asked him if he would like to go to the ocean with you after your shift

He agreed and you swear you saw stars in his eyes

After your shift you met up with Bokuto and went to the beach

You guys literally spent ALL day there!

And even some of the night 👀

Being the gentleman he is offered to walk you home

And when you two got to your house he asked you to be his s/o

What They Love About You

Ok starting off with a strange one

He loves the fact that your favorite color is yellow 💛

He just thinks it fits you so well 😊

He loves that you have to ability to turn your trauma into humor

Now I’m ngl...

Ye found it extremely concerning at first 🥲

But once you explained it was like a coping mechanism for you

He was super supportive!

AAAAAAAA

He LOVES your aesthetic!

He thinks it’s so cute

And once again he thinks it fits you 👀

He appreciates the fact that your smart

If he doesn’t understand something in class

He’ll just go to you!

And honesty going over the material with him has helped your understanding as well 👀

Bokuto s grades:📈

Your grades: 📈

Favorite Things To Do Together

Oml he loves summers with you

Any summer activity

Beaches

Ice cream

Flower meadows 👀

Summer night drives

The whole shtick

But when it’s not summer

He loves doing classic seasonal activities

Examples:

Fall - Jumping in leaf piles, coffee dates, preparing for Halloween, etc

Winter - Snowball fights/Making Snowmen, Christmas movie marathons, hot cocoa/ baking, etc

Spring - Dancing in the rain, picnics, gardening etc

It’s a vibe year round with bf Bokuto

Random Hc

His favorite season is summer

And his second is winter

Ik...polar opposites

Oof

He TOTALLY gets your mood swings

Although they may not be the same as his

He still understands them and respects them

Every year on your anniversary he buys you the exact same bouquet he gave you at the flower shop

Speaking of the flower shop 👀

He got a job there with you the following summer

So you guys basically spent most of your days together

Bokuto is REALLY bad at dark humor

But for some reason he still tries 😭

It’s either TOO dark

Or not dark at all 💀

Astrology

(We’re gonna go with your cancer zodiac 😂)

When Cancer and Virgo make a love match, a strong, down-to-earth relationship with staying power is the happy result.

This is a relationship with great potential to get better and better over the passing years.

Both Cancer and Virgo are goal-oriented and disciplined.

They are sincere and devoted to one another and share a strong sense of purpose.

No lightweight love here: These two were not really built for flings!

Cancer and Virgo deeply admire one another: Virgo respects Cancer’s quiet strength and dedication while Cancer appreciates Virgo’s keen adaptability and intelligence.

These lovers may get off to a slow start, but over time, bonds will only grow stronger.

The Cancer-Virgo love match prides itself on common sense and strong principles over fluff and inconsequential or fleeting connections.

They enjoy the material comforts of life, but they will only feel good about their bounty if it has come as a result of honest hard work.

There could be tiffs if Virgo becomes too critical for Cancer’s easily bruised feelings; Cancer needs to understand that it’s just Virgo’s nature to point out what they observe, that it’s not a personal attack.

A Virgo may bristle at their Cancer mate’s stubborn streak, but it’s a trait that a patient and understanding love partner like Virgo could come to appreciate.

Also, Virgo’s urge to serve suits Cancer’s affectionate, nurturing nature well.

Their dedication to working toward the same goals.

Both partners in this love match enjoy a stable home life and nice things, and Virgo truly enjoys helping Cancer along the way to achieving their goals.

Their shared goals and desires make theirs a highly compatible love match.

Overall Aesthetic

Bloomcore 🌸

Bloom - Jesse

This Side of Paradise - Coyote Theory

Flaming Hot Cheetos - Claire

Mystery of Love - Sufjan Stevens

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu fandom #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu hcs #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu matchups #bokuto #bokuto koutarou #bokuto x y/n #bokuto x reader

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tarotresearchresidency · 4 years ago

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tarot reading 27-10-20

Page of Cups (reversed), The Star, Five of Pentacles (reversed)

This week’s tarot readings pertain to domestic life and space.

We start with a delicate flower - naive and emotionally vulnerable. The Page of Cups feels like being a teenager, where it’s the best of times and the worst of times. Life is dramatic and so are you. You’re drawn to creativity because you’re building yourself everyday. You can be easily crushed by anodyne words, and crush others in your awkward flailing.

Once you’ve been around the block a few times, you get to grips with these regular feelings. You realise you don’t have to panic everyday because you’re running late, because you can just set your life up so that you’ll be there on time. The Page of Cups hasn’t quite learned that yet.

They still believe in dramatic reveals, dreaming of being plucked from obscurity and becoming famous and adored. As Lady Gaga said repeatedly on her campaign trail for A Star Is Born: “There can be 100 people in a room and 99 of them don't believe in you, but all it takes is one.” The Page of Cups is, and sees themselves as, a creative ingenue, and we love them for it, as long as they don’t moon about too much when the chips are down.

When reversed, the Page of Cups suggests creative blocks. Maybe you’ve been keeping your dreams close to your chest, toiling away in secret for fear someone might sneak a peek at your work and disparage it, and by extension, you. Maybe you haven’t been able work at all, because you were terrified of what creating might mean. As regards home life and space, it suggests that you wanted to change, create something new, but you were afraid that other people wouldn’t approve. And that feeling of having your creative expression blocked was getting you down even further.

Take strength from yesterday’s High Priestess in knowing your interior world is a valuable source of knowledge. Can you take the emotions out of the situation, for once in your life? (I say this with a gentle smile). Does a minor setback have to be added into the grand unified theory of how tragic your life is? Do those people really disapprove of you spreading your wings? Or is it just that they’re not offering you praise and encouragement and validation?

Wherever you are, this isn’t the end of your story. You’re actually only at the beginning of your creative quest. Play into that idea you’re rather taken with, the one where you’re an undiscovered creative ingenue. Be kooky, and talk to the other unlikely characters you meet by chance along the way.

After all, hope is shining brightly. As you travel through the dark of the night, the stars point the way and lead you to what you are searching for. The Star kneels naked by the water, with no bulky armour or courtly robes holding her back. She has left behind old things, relics of past lives which weighed her down, kept her tethered. Leave behind the adolescent mood swings of the Page of Cups, and instead use your feelings to nourish your hope, like The Star does to her environment, as she pours from the jugs in her hands. How can you act truly? How can you nourish hope in your life and the lives of others?

In the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck, which I’m using above, the card strongly recalls Temperance; a similar shore with mountains rising behind. We can draw connections here to Temperance’s message of moderation and simplicity. Like Temperance, the Star has one foot in the water, one on land, balancing feeling with the material world. She pours a great torrent of water into the lake, speaking to depth. But she also trickles a tiny stream that snakes away in different directions - tentative feelers outwards signalling many different possibilities. Big changes or little changes are all useful. Throw away the holey socks, practice that habit, talk to the people you live with about what you want. The Star says, ‘Do it.’ The Star has faith in you.

From this burst of proactivity comes the Five of Pentacles reversed: the only card of our reading to pertain specifically to the material world. This is one of the few cards in the tarot deck that is better reversed than it is upright. Upright, the Five of Pentacles speaks of penury and exclusion. In it, we see two figures dressed in rags, one crippled, trudging in the snow outside a church whose fine stained glass windows suggest wealth and dignity that these two cannot access. Reversed, those hardships are inverted - a lessening of or an end to financial trouble and isolation. Perhaps the figures go to the door and seek refuge in the warmth of a congregation. Perhaps the priest opens the door of their own accord, and invites them in from the cold. At any rate, we’re seeing a move away from isolation and material scarcity. This could be a new income stream, or something new for your home that has made a world of difference. This might look like a more concrete support network. Through reaching out to others, you realise you’re not alone (and it helps you put your own plight into perspective).

We carry so many emotions around in our homes and our home lives. We spend so much of our time there now that it would be hard not to. Forgive yourself for being overdramatic about creative blocks. We’re living through a pandemic: it’s understandable that you’re not operating like you would have been a year ago. Choose openness and connection to bring you out of your slump. Hope is opening. It is also constant: the stars are always there even if you can’t see them. Emotional maturity and hope will take you out of scarcity. In a time where emotional maturity and hope themselves are scarce, create them ex nihilo. Wealth begets wealth, as we know. You can have things too.

#tarot #tarot reading #tarot cards #page of cups #the star #five of pentacles #domestic #home #home life

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sanoiro · 5 years ago

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in 4x03 is one of the best scenes on the series. Lauren had never played so wonderfully, her face shattered between the love she used to feel for this man, the fear he now inspires her and the guilt she feels for how it hurts him, Tom looking like he's dying inside is awesome too. It's the first time that Lucifer and Chloe are fully true with each other without any secret left, and this truth instead of uniting them split them up.

Eps 4x03 is actually my favourite in S4 and second comes 4x06. For some, it might seem weird as there are so many great episodes but it’s partly for the reason you gave.

The actors were indeed specular in that episode but for the first time in the series, Lucifer is genuinely experiencing Chloe’s betrayal. I’m a mood for a bit of a meta post so I apologise in advance here.

In S1 he was searching for a sign that she was an instrument that would be used against him. In 1x11 he searched for wings for any deception going on, he was paranoid and it was justified in his opinion especially when you deal with Dad.

In S2 he finally finds proof that she is special that she can destroy him physically and in 2x12 he storms in but is confronted with the bitter truth - not really - that her betrayal is due to her lack of free will and therefore is innocent albeit a pawn.

In S3 he has finally made some peace with Chloe’s nature so he looks around for other obstructions imposed by his father only to find none and that is what leads us to S4. No, not just his admission to Linda that he was kidding himself over believing that Dad was responsible for everything but because he is unexpectedly struck by proof that Chloe is set against him.

The scene in the car is equally important to the penthouse scene as Lucifer does not lash out, he stays passive thinking, wondering how far this goes and this time he knows one thing although he does not admit it just yet. His father is not responsible for this but Chloe herself. She is not a pawn, that’s her own free will. Chloe in his opinion as Lucifer is unaware of Father Kinley’s real depth of interference is plottingagainst him and he cannot bring himself to harm her.

Let’s note how different Lucifer is in 4x03 in comparison to 4x07. His love for her is a big factor but Lucifer in 4x03 takes time to think he gives her space and even gives her a second chance to come clean. He believes that if they have an honest talk like they did in 4x01 - well almost honest - she will come around.

So in 4x03 we see Lucifer’s progression throughout the series. His doubt is well deep instilled in him but instead of pushing things this time he waits, he gives Chloe every possible chance to stay with any capacity she can even the one of a probability.

“But could you?”

He does not use any kind of certainty that one day she will accept him and in his desperation, he is ready to accept a possibility that may never be realised. At that point, Lucifer basically begs her to lie. He needs her to lie because he is not ready to part from her but Chloe’s refusal to give a concrete answer is what eventually has him forfeit from demanding anything else and here is when we have the ultimate betrayal in my opinion.

She runs again, she leaves, she does not put up a fight she does not try to change his mind, she does not insist that a part of their relationship could be salvaged and so 4x01′s song becomes the foreshadowing of her running out again.

PS Note Ellis giving a twitch on Lucifer’s lip like a tiny snarl but due to the character being emotionally drained that’s the only thing that can be managed…

We can, of course, meta that he was almost ready to same something more in a pathetic way, say that he was okay as long as she stayed but that wouldn’t be true in my opinion still it can be considered.

Now may I continue with Chloe?

Let’s take Chloe throughout the seasons. She has fought her attraction over and over and the greatest excuse to not give in or to explain why Lucifer is who he is, comes in 3x06 and then in 3x07. But what has solidified her relationship with him is a very simply thing. Trust and she knows she has broken that and now she knows why so many times he has broken hers or at least she thought he had.

In 3x06 she is convinced she will never know everything about Lucifer and her trust just keeps her going while her words in 3x23 were true at the end of the day he was not the Devil for her at least not as an entity that does evil but as a person who originated from a very different place than her, someone who once again she couldn’t reach but for very different reasons.

As I have said many times her breaking point is the fact that she does not feel she can accept him, not because she cannot but she fears she is too little too inadequate as a being to do so and her presence in all of this is insignificant.

Now in 3x07 when she replied what Lucifer was getting back from working with the Police she eventually mirrored her experience with his.

Chloe: Um I think, a long time ago, somebody wronged Lucifer. I think he avoided dealing with it, and he hides behind the partying and the women and the drinking, and who knows what else. And with the LAPD, working on each case, it gives him an opportunity to right those wrongs, to fight back.

So when Chloe loses that focal point she believes she shared with Lucifer she can no longer see him as part of her life because his whole entity is so much bigger than hers and her life. So It was never about whether she could accept the Devil but if Lucifer could fit in her tiny perception of the universe whilst her being enough when Lucifer knew what was outside of that. Hence why she walks away and why in 4x10 she offers us her own breakthrough. What scared her was not face but the reality that offered her, one that she was unaware of so far.

Chloe: I wasn’t afraid of you. I was afraid of losing you. That all this will take over, you’ll forget about this place and- And that you’d forget about me.

In short, she gave up on him before she could lose him but the understanding of why she did it came much later as she is as clueless as Lucifer. Again she was so scared of how large Lucifer became all of sudden that she saw herself as a forgettable, fleeting moment in his life…

So yes that is why 4x03 is so important it connects all the previous seasons to the epic S4 finale but also brings forward questions that will come up in S5 and gives us a glimpse on how Chloe might deal with her miracle status.

#lucifer season 4 #lucifer speculation #lucifer meta

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katsmonsterblog · 5 years ago

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Lost and Found

So!! This is a story I wrote with mine and @serenitydusk‘s characters a while back now. I wanted to post it because it was really good, something I’m proud of. ^w^

WARNINGS!!!! - blood, angst, torture(mild)

my character’s : Balthazar, Chevelle, Andras, Sydney, Nicholas, Arcturus (Arc), Warrick

@serenitydusk‘s characters: Dusk, Ash, Roan

Tagging: @no-need-to-apply @thejellyflux @sunrisehoneybee @junepop45

Four months. It had been four months and still… nothing. Arc was still gone. Four months ago when he had vanished, it had been a normal day. Kian and Wren had come to visit, all for the world newly in love and it was infectious, everyone had been in the best mood and Annwn.. was normal.

It wasn't until the evening fell and everyone in their ever growing family gathered at Dusk's home for a meal that.. something felt wrong. Roan kept rubbing his chest, it ached and he naturally looked to Arc who.. wasn't there? In fact it had been hours since he had decided to go train and Roan excused himself to head out after his male. As if sensing that he was worried, Ash headed out with him. He tried to tell himself that the hot headed flame wielder that stole his heart had once again just.. lost track of time. But his footsteps spurred on faster.

The training ground was a bit secluded.. and usually close enough to the house to warrant being safe.. but what Ash and Roan found there was a warzone. There were bits of charred earth, trees and grass. The discarded weapons and clothes said that Arc had been here but.. one guard was dead near the path, having most likely been keeping an eye on the male. Ash claimed that it had been an ambush.. the guard taken out first then… whoever it was fought.. and took Arc. They must have excelled at concealing magic for no one to have sensed it.

Roan didn't really remember much about what happened after that. He had been so enraged, so filled with panic and pain and anger that Arc was in danger and maybe hurt that.. he blacked out for a moment… It was raining when he came too. Ash calmed him down gently and told him that he had to be strong.

~~~

That was four months ago… and they had pulled all they had, every resource, every single favor.. to find him. Roan was exhausted.. mentally, physically, and emotionally drained.. they even went to his father which proved in vain as well. It wore on everyone, Ash and Kian widened their search to cover every inch of Annwn though.. if Arc was there then Dusk should have sensed him but there were always blind spots. Nic and Andras were putting out favors and calling in more, checking with all they knew in the human world to see if any leads turned up. How the hell anyone got into Annwn and took out a member of the royal guard and then left without a word of it… was a mystery that had royally pissed off Ash and Dusk. They had done… all they could...

It was exhausting..

Roan was sure he looked as shit as he felt when he sat at the kitchen table, too early to be fully awake -not that he slept much, if at all- but also too late to even try heading back to bed. Hair a mess, his normally bright blue gaze dulled to an almost angry black color, and he was pale. The dark circles under his eyes didn’t add to help any of that. He cradled a cup of coffee, watching the steam and not caring that it didn’t have an ounce of sugar or creamer. He had been so zoned that it almost startled him to have Dusk pad barefoot into the room, or heard that she had spoken to him.

“I’m fine.” Was that even his own voice? Did it matter? He had to contact Sydney.. See if she had found a proper locating spell and-

“Roan.” Dusk stood in his way as he stood and abandoned his coffee. “You need to rest. You do no good to him if you push yourself too far.” Her voice was a gentle scolding and full of concern and.. Anger bubbled up.

“I said I’m fine.” He didn’t need to be coddled, but he could see the stubbornness in her face.

“...Roan.. I know..-”

‘I SAID I’M FINE!” He roared, the coffee in his cup and the water in the kettle blasting out in a hot scalding spray that both of them were taken off guard with but Dusk had manages to freeze the spray before it hit them. There was silence… Roan’s shoulders hunching in as he realized.. He’d just yelled at Dusk… “...I’m… Gods.. Dusk.. I’m sorry…” He choked and then she was holding him as he buckled and sobbed. She held him as he broke and when he was done, he was half in her lap on the floor of the kitchen as she stroked his hair. He and Dusk were close and often with them, touch was comfort.

“There is no need to apologize Roan.. We’re all here for you and none of us will stop looking for him… but you need rest..” There was no arguing that tone and he was too tired to do so. Another presence filled the kitchen and Chevelle appeared from shadow and darkness, curling around them. He nuzzled Dusk and then scooped Roan up like he was no more than a doll. A part of him wished he had the strength to protest but instead he curled into the soft black fur and felt himself being carried away. He was asleep before he made it to his bed.

It was… strange. To realize you were most definitely dreaming but.. Not really knowing how or why you know it. Roan stood in the middle of a long hall. It was it ...somehow and there were doors for as long as he could see down either direction. He didn’t really know if he should pick a way to go or not but before he could, a familiar black beast rose up, white skull materializing to stare at him. Ah. That’s how he knew he was dreaming.

“Chev..? Why are we in the dreamscape?” He asked, moving closer. Chev hunched so that he could be closer to the siren.

“You needed rest… and I… need to show you.” He spoke low and gravely. Show him? Show him what? Even in the dream he seemed to feel tired but Chev motioned for him to follow down the hall and the world around them changed. It was colder here… darker. Chev stopped and Roan looked around the area. He couldn’t see anythi-

He froze, heart thudding as he saw the male. At first.. He had thought it was Arc.. but the stubble and the bulky shoulders….

“Warrik?” He gasped and the ghost flickered, a tired smile crossing his face. Arc’s older brother was faded, nothing like how he had appeared before and it sent dread through him.

“We don’t have much time….” Chevelle said, causing more panic to fill him. A soothing warmth wrapped around him as the beast hugged him. “It took… far too long.. This place.. the in-between.. The space between dream… and death…” The words did nothing to reassure Roan but Warrick flickered again and spoke up.

“Roan… They’re killing him.. Slowly..” He said, his voice faint and it was all Roan could do to hold onto Chevelle as he shook.

“Who? Tell me where he is!” Roan’s voice was hoarse. “My clan.. Like the beast said, we don’t have much time. I will show you where it is.. I can give you the knowledge but you must hurry.. He’s… he’s weak.” Warrik reached out and with an icy cold touch, images and knowledge filled his brain. In an instant, images and thoughts that weren’t his own filled his head. He knew how to get to Arc and… oh gods.. Oh fuckin gods what had they done to him...? The next instant, Warrik pulled back, eyes clearly weak and filled with sorrow. “I wish… I could have kept you from seeing that.. But he won’t last much longer.” Chevelle pulled on Roan and the world began to fade.

“Warrik! Tell Arc! I’ll find him...” and like that, Roan was gasping awake in his bed, Chevelle perched like some great cat at the foot, watching him. A million things wracked his brain as he tore from the bed to get Dressed. Chevelle’s voice made him pause.

“I am sorry… that it took so long… to find him.” A sad smile graced Roan’s features.

“But you found him Chev. Thank you.” He said, pushing past to find Dusk and realizing he’d slept through the whole day.. Though it had seemed like only minutes….

Finding where the hidden village was cloaked was fairly easy, the tip of northern Ireland and blanketed with a field of magic so thick that they had all but skipped it twice. Once they found it however… the hard part was getting in. Roan explained to Nic, Balthazar, Andras, Ash, Dusk and Kian that they needed blood from the clan to open the gate. They didn’t have time to weed out one of the followers that could be.. literally anywhere… but they luckily didn’t have to.

“Nic.. what do you remember of your father..?” Roan stared at the vampire lord and Nic frowned.. But quickly caught on.

“To be honest.. I don’t really. But My mother said my use of magic came from him...Are you saying my bloodline is tied to that clan? Will it work if I’m.. a vampire? From what I hear they hunt our kind.” He mused, one hand smoothing over Dusk’s almost as if it were compulsion. The stress in the room was high.

“We can only hope. What choice do we have..?” Balthazar answered but Roan clenched his fist.

“I won’t lose him.” Roan said, his voice held no argument, the ache in his chest an almost permanent fixture. Silence was his answer, a steel resolve set among them.

Chaos.. Utter chaos. The humans were.. Well equipped. They wielded magic and weapons, the air stunk of death and iron and blood and… worse. However well equipped they were, none of them could have prepared for the onslaught of the fae, vampire, and demon alike that paved the way for Roan and Dusk. They made it, the underground bunker area that smelled like a furnace and felt like hell lay behind the doors. And when they finally came into the dank blackness….

Neither of them recognized the man chained to the concrete and steel. “Arc….” that broken whisper left Roan’s lips. If Warrik hadn’t shown him this image… he’d have sworn that man wasn’t his mate… but it was and his heart knew it.

On his knees in the middle of an Iron contraption, they had pierced his hands and bolted him to a concrete block. There were chains connected to a collar around his neck that also served as a muzzle over his mouth and nose… and his hair shaved off to reveal dead eyes that didn’t even blink when they entered. The worst… was the machines they had hooked to him as he took labored breaths, skin ablaze and the heat was… suffocating. Dusk could feel how weak he was and.. Gods if they didn’t get him out now he wouldn’t make it another night. She wasn’t in Annwn… and she was surrounded by metal that clogged her throat but she pushed it away and stepped forward. She called earth to her the land that was Ireland… and it answered, rolling and cracking the stones, she reached out to Ash so he could aide in quelling the fire that Arc wielded.

Arc… couldn’t remember how to think.. All he felt was pain.. All he knew.. No… he knew he had to stay alive.. He had.. He had to stay strong.. For Roan… Roan. he heard voices, felt more pain surge through him as he was moved, his body protested and he screamed, fire pushing out only to be quenched.. Stilled. It felt.. Oh it felt familiar.

“Arc! Baby.. stay with me.. Listen to me.. Breathe..” Oh.. oh that voice. He tried to move, to fight, He had to get to..

Everything went black.

Days flew by… six to be exact, since they got him out of there. He was.. Roan hung his head,, swallowing harshly. He was still asleep, washed up and mostly… mostly healed. Four months he’d been in their hands and the damage… looking back up, his first reaction to make sure Arc was still breathing...but what caught his eye was a pair of pale ones staring back.

Arc was sure that he’d died this time.. Roan.. Roan was there so close. His vision blurred and he tried to move, to wipe his eyes but he was so slow, so sluggish. And it didn’t matter because in a heartbeat, his love was on him, cupping his face and rubbing the tears away.

“Mo chridhe. Arc..” he sighed, clinging to him carefully, as if he might shatter like a dream. Arc could only tremble, grasping weakly at him.

“Roan…” He whispered, voice hoarse and rough and deeper than the last he’d remembered. “Am.. am I in heaven…?” he asked. There was a second where he watched pain and joy streak across Roan’s face, tears falling and his love probably didn’t even notice. Those words had been the first thing Arc had said when Roan found him washed ashore.

“No.. No mo chridhe, you’re alive..” Roan moved Arc’s scarred hand to his chest, feeling the weight and the thump of his heart. “See?” his voice broke and then he was sobbing into his boyfriend’s arms, Arc holding him as tight as he could.

“I’m sorry… I’m so.. I never..” Arc shushed him, his own body trembling as he cried silently. He didn’t have the voice right now to tell him that the only thing that had kept him alive that whole time was the thought of him, the ache in his chest that let him know Roan was looking for him. The two ended up in the same bed, touching each other and pressing kisses to every inch of skin. Roan helped him drink water and Dusk had cried when she came to check on him. Now Roan ran a hand over the fuzz that covered his head instead of the wild mane of golden hair.

“.....I’ll grow it back…” Arc’s voice was soft. It was timid and Roan knew that tone… it would take a while to heal from what was done to him but the first thing he wanted to remedy.

“You’re beautiful Arc..” He lifted his chin so he could see those pale eyes. He could see the disbelief there. “You are beautiful to me.. Always… and mine.. I won’t let you go again.

#my writing #angst #my ocs #my friend'socs #original work

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gg-astrology · 6 years ago

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I was wondering what you could tell me about sagittarius sun with an aries moon? Love your blog btw !!

Hey there!! 💜💜💜 Ahh thank you so much!! 💜💜 I’m so sorry you have to wait so long skdjnf but here YOU GO 💜

[Below Cut: Sagittarius Sun - Aries Moon 💃]

They’re cats

Jump on your lap and doesn’t care what you’re doing, if they need something they’ll scream/swat at you until you wake up

When they want something you give it to them. If you want to pick them up? Good luck buddy maybe for like 5 seconds before they’re off again.

Will swat things off the table, if they’re feeling playful they will bite your ankles.

Honestly? The way I treat my cat is with absolutely patience. But if you want to exorcise the demon out of them, spray them with water or try to restrict them (hold them) and they’ll wriggle out immediately.

sknfdjknksnk anyways I just thought I should share!

I think most people underestimate the standing power of Sagittarius/Aries honestly

Like sure they’re impulsive, moves fast, irritation flares easily, alone time is relax time.

They’re never pretentious about their feelings/how they’re doing right now (you can See that they’re tired or if their mood is down) --- but underneath all that they also determined, very self-directed and self-assertive as well

See they might often project this aura of an adventurous spirit (kinda cautious sometimes/awkward) come across as wise/understanding and of being philosophically profound.

But underneath all that they’re outspoken and blunt. They’re concentrated and concrete. Aries grounds the Sagittarius placement, they face things heads on.

These people are critical, sometimes cynics but through that-- they understand the importance of projecting positive energy onto the atmosphere.

Like all fire signs, especially with Sagittarius-- not liking to be touched unexpectedly because they’re unused to it (Aries) -- so the thing they do is that they project/raise energy in the room.

In order to cheer others up, motivate people or just--- put themselves in a better environment/condition to work from/in.

Fire signs are responsive, so making sure they get responses from others. Or projecting/engaging or enabling that kind of energy in an otherwise stifled/stagnant atmosphere is important for them (mutable/cardinal)

Sagittarius/Aries hesitance sometimes, mostly comes from Aries’s grounded nature, they don’t know what is ‘too much/not enough’-- how others respond. Just because they know themselves, doesn’t know they can easily predict or make others respond a certain way.

That uncertainty of ‘are they responsive?’ is what causes Sagittarius/Aries to be slightly awkward with people. They like routine, or rather something stable they can ‘fall back’ on with people more than they’d admit. They’re always thinking they’re better off on their own (individual) rather than think they’re a sociable person.

Social setting isn’t a place of ease, they pushed/worked hard and actually have to use energy/effort in order to be successful/overcome their own awkwardness socially.

Still-- within that, the independent streak that they have often causes them to feel isolated/alone sometimes. While they may relish those times where they need it (away from people) -- sometimes it makes them feel like their hardships are all on them, that it’s because of them, or because they have a hard time being/sharing vulnerabilities in general (Sagittarius/Aries deflects attention away from that into humor too)

Prone to satirical or witty humor, their energy is devilish and mercurial and they may strive on surprising others, actively showing a different ‘side’ in order to enact different ‘responses’ from people (fire signs)

They like being unexpected and surprising-- they’re enterprising people, but within that they like to tie informality/casual-ness with sharp, intuitive intelligence.

The kind of person who thrives on having a defense mechanism (or just a mechanism) of pointing out things others are avoiding/ignoring. Things people don’t like to confront. They may act ‘bratty’ at times, because they can also be hypocritical sometimes (they’re emotional, but understanding that emotionality/thinking about it frustrates them if it goes on for too long)

These Sagittarius/Aries people are the type to act casual/normal and then suddenly jabs someone with a pointed comment. They’re blunt, forth-right and direct.

Most of the time-- because they don’t understand the deeper currents of their own emotions (doesn’t like self-analyzing themselves to that point, thus they’re only aware of it when demonstrated. Like letting it flare up/provoke them constantly) --they’re unable to provide support for other’s emotions/beliefs.

They may be tactless when they lash out, thoughtless in their comments because they really don’t ‘get’ why other people are ‘hurt’.

It has to do with seeing within themselves the things that may hurt others, and thus they’ll know when to avoid it.

Try learning how to be more thoughtful/contemplative, before you say things out loud try to think if it’s respecting other’s emotionality. Will it hurt them? Is it necessary?

Sagittarius/Aries has a mindset that if it’s practical, constructive, then others should hear it regardless of emotional ties to it.

It can make them lose/hurt those around them, and no matter how charming they are they’ll eventually have to learn how to be more connected/intune with their emotionality too.

There’s a belief that ‘it doesn’t matter what others think’ as long as they voice their thoughts/feelings/perspective out earnestly/truthfully-- and because that’s how they treat themselves>others, that’s how others get treated as well.

Oof onto happier stuff maybe?

As much as they like adventures and experiencing something new, they also need time to recover/be away. I think most of us forget that-- Sagittarius as the oldest fire sign combined with Aries as the youngest, makes for a personality who would often need to be alone in order to recover/recuperate from projecting energy sometimes.

Another thing is also their astuteness, Aries is efficient, practical and sharp. Combined that with Sagittarius perception, self-expression. You have someone who can pick a part a bad plan/intentions from a mile away.

Although sometimes they can be naive in their younger years, they learn largely from their experience, hardship and mistakes. The more and more I talk about this placement I keep thinking of Capricorn or Aquarius.

With your love of drama, of showing yourself off a little (despite your awkwardness). You may sometimes enjoy wry deep-thinker/people, yet at the same time you need autonomy away from controlling/socially-able people as well (remind you of what you’re bad at and you don’t like to be reminded)

Sagittarius/Aries assert themselves socially through honesty and weighing themselves, they let themselves express their honest thoughts/intentions/feelings (but still hides/avoids showing vulnerabilities to people).

Sagittarius/Aries are also largely adaptable and very assertive when they’re on their own. When they have their own space/control to be in a position of helping/commandeering someone else, when they aren’t under someone’s rule or in a position of power-- these people are decisive, influenced a lot by their gut feelings/hunches. But often make brave choices (although they may often sacrifice a lot of their niceties and hurt others feeling while doing so)

The head and the legs -- Aries and Sagittarius, once your head says/comes to a conclusion about something you don’t waste time working/getting on it. You’re a fast thinker, sometimes very responsive.

Combining Sagittarius generous nature with Aries assertiveness, you have someone who can often time feel ‘alone’ or pull themselves away from others. Autonomy is important to them, it’s always crucial to search for the ‘thrill/feeling’ that every second matters, that everything is alive.

I wouldn’t call it competitiveness, but rather a survivalist at their core?

It’s that ‘thrill-seeking’ element again, like if something gets you running faster, gets you moving at a rapid pace. You ride that wave you know?

While that may be true, they’re very disciplined and let themselves go for things that ‘don’t matter as much’. These people often think the way they act/behave towards things that ‘dont matter’ is just fun and games. But again, it tends to upset/impose or hurt others unexpectedly.

Learn how to be more emotionally sensitive and less defensive towards others around you offering advice. You may sometimes be so self-defensive you hurt others you care about and isolate yourself even more because of it.

Alrighty! 💓 THanks for asking I did my Best!! 💓💓

#sagittarius #aries #sagittarius sun #aries moon #uGH #this took me so long #sagittarius-aries #anon #asks

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kingofthewilderwest · 7 years ago

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FMA 2003 Anime First Runthrough Thoughts

So people saw, in the last few weeks, me liveblogging my first runthrough of the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime. I still have yet to finish the story by watching Conqueror of Shamballa, but before I do so and before I forget to do so, I’m going to post some of my thoughts - more coherently - about the 2003 series.

There are lots of angles I could look at, both pros and cons, and certainly all have points to talk about in length. I’m not going to go into everything now, though. What I’m writing here are some of the biggest first impressions I take from the 2003. Here I’ll mainly write a list of analytical qualifications of how FMA 2003′s storytelling structure differs from Arakawa’s - and consequently how the 2003 anime comes across (to me) as less effective. None of this is in disrespectful criticism of the 2003, which I did end up enjoying enough I’ll potentially do a rewatch (and some episodes I adore so much I actively recommend them to others, too). This is just for me to reflect, in fascination, at how 2003′s different writing choices create some different results and effects.

My response would be better nuanced and FAR more accurate with a second watch through, of course. So don’t take everything I say as a concrete, flawless handling of the topic. We don’t catch everything structurally and informationally the first time watching something, and a story feels different the second time through. However, these are points I take from a first run through regarding (what I feel to be) the odd, limited efficacy of the 2003:

FMA 2003 has an overall grimmer take on reality and achievement. How events unfold and how characters respond in the 2003 show a different level of cynicism versus motivational optimism than in FMAB / the manga. What moral lessons are expounded upon and taken away from has a huge effect on mood. Furthermore, to what extent characters achieve their goals, and feel satisfied with that, and how much characters receive a happy ending... plays into this overall mood difference between 2003 and 2009 / the manga.

FMA 2003′s pacing doesn’t have as much drive. This is due to several factors, like how much time is spent focusing on equivalent materials (ex: one versus two episodes in Liore with Father Cornello), how many filler episodes there are, and how pacing is weighted. FMA 2003 and FMAB have opposite pacing weights. The 2003 anime has a slow start and a faster end, whereas FMAB has a fast jump start but is climax heavy at the end. All of this results in FMAB having a much smoother flow and exciting build, whereas FMA struggles with momentum.

Arakawa is extremely solid for logical clarity, explanations, and follow-through - be it in why events happen in the story, or how clear the story feels to us audience members. Explanations, clarity, and follow-through of various points is more convoluted and inconsistent in the 2003.

So, to talk about it in more detail:

I have downright adored Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist storyline for almost a decade now and believe she has captured one of the most brilliant stories ever told. With the 2003 anime, it’s interesting to see creators take material just from the start of her writing and attempt to finish that story separately from her. There are some cool elements to it - the idea of the homunculi being created from failed human transmutation experiments is rather clever, for instance. But there are also some things which make the anime’s story less clean, directed, and powerful as what Arakawa does.

The writers don’t handle explanations and follow-through as well in FMA 2003. By “follow-through” I mean continuing storyline elements forward or using details from past episodes to build material in future episodes. So, if someone completely forgets to follow through on information, then plot threads are left hanging. FMA 2003 doesn’t usually leave threads hanging, but it’s like the story neglects to braid threads together evenly. This results in story threads feeling like a machine spurting on and off, material being less explained, story arcs being awkwardly handled, and the plot as a whole containing more logic holes.

It’s easy to talk about this with some examples. For instance:

Mustang assassinated the Fuhrer in an overt enough manner to be accused, and even if he and Hawkeye had managed to kill all nearby security, reports would have made it to other military personnel. In fact, reports of the event were how Archer got onto the scene to try to halt Mustang. At the LEAST, Roy would be obviously suspected of killing Bradley due to heavy lacerations across his body (plus wouldn’t an ambulance show up at Bradley’s location to take him to the hospital, showing where Mustang was at the time of the event??). And there would be other manners in which Mustang could be put in a position to be incriminated.

Edward said that Mustang could never be a leader again because he couldn’t get people behind him. Bradley himself said Mustang could never again hold a leadership position after assassination. And yet not only does Mustang have no seen dirt on him at the end of the anime, but he retains his high military rank - not even a demotion for disobeying orders, subverting northern troops, and killing the nation’s leader.

(Note: I know he drops in rank in Shamballa, but I hear that’s due to choice, not repercussions of the assassination - by the end of 2003 when he’s recovering, he’s still got his high rank. He gets off clean for literally murdering the country’s most powerful individual).

In fact, you have to wonder how everyone gets off the hook. It’s not like I’d expect them to pin down Havoc specifically impersonated Mustang, but higher-ranking officers like Alex Armstrong led troops to attack Central and that can’t be denied. Why is Alex stepping off free? For all this story focuses on the concept of equivalent exchange and unpleasant consequences, this story sometimes drops odd logic holes on the responsibility front.

Did you even notice Ed accepts Hohenheim as his father at the end... without obviously emotionally working through all the grits of Hohenheim’s backstory and information regarding Philosopher’s Stone creation? There might have been something here to explore the consequences of. It’s like Ed almost accepts his father more effortlessly in London after hearing Hohenheim’s worst side and past... than he does at the start of the story reuniting with Hohenheim.

The truth is that follow-through throughout the anime is uneven. The strangeness of the Elric brothers’ missing father gets hit hard in the starting episodes, gets dropped completely off the radar, then at once cumbersomely, in full force, is relevant again. That plot thread is neither paced nor juggled well. There’s a difference between hitting key moments to progress and build a plotline throughout, versus jumping in and out of the concept to the point it feels sporadically addressed. Many things get turned on and off like light switches. Mustang’s trauma with the past is something that gets hit heavy, dropped, and feels like it’s an on-off light switch several times... until the end where they retroactively discuss some (though not all) of the issue. Even things as major as the Ishvalans’ plight just disappear after Liore. What happens to the Liore refugees upon escaping? With Amestris still being an aggressive military power in a state of widespread racial discrimination, who decides to reverse Ishvalan policies? Why? There is no development, explanation, resolution - just a quick, vague comment at the end of the anime giving an unexplained positive nationwide social turn.

And these sorts of starts and stops and off-balanced jugglings of plots happen all too frequently in 2003. Interweaving of ideas doesn’t feel well-braided... more like a braid with uneven strands, some thin, some fat, some loosely pulled together, some clumps forgotten, some tightly cinched together. Things are connected in FMA 2003, yes, and sometimes in cool ways, but the presentation can be imbalanced.

This sense of uneven content distribution and execution ties into plot pacing.

FMAB starts with unashamed alacrity - not rushed, but nevertheless boldly throwing viewers into the fray. It has a quicker start but focuses on a longass, heavy, high-intensity climax lasting many episodes. Materials build up from the start into increasing stakes for an amazing end. Furthermore, the distribution of episodes in FMAB cleanly follow Arakawa’s three act structure - the East and Central, the North, and the Promised Day arc.

I don’t get the same sense of cleanliness in 2003. Maybe with a rewatch I’ll get the scaffolding, but in a first watch... not so clean. Opposite to FMAB, there is a very slow start, with beginning adventures feeling almost like small, segmented, episodic, low-stakes quests rather than some tension-building gestalt. And the climax, instead of being drawn out and grand for full effect, is proportionally short to the anime - with no time spread for a full denouement either.

So what’s the result? A complete contrast to FMAB. FMAB starts fast and draws out the climax, while FMA 2003 starts slow and shortly squeezes in a climax... which is a great way to stagnate momentum.

And as for the middling section... well. In 2003, there don’t feel to be as cleanly demarcated arcs proportionally. I feel like there is a lot of stop-go motion in the middle, too. Nothing builds to its full capacity and the other events don’t piggyback off well enough to keep momentum flowing throughout. There are a fair number of fillers. The excitement doesn’t vamp up near as much, nor feel as long sustained, nor make one event pull you grippingly into the next as well. Now, it’s true I could feel differently with a second rewatch and catch more of the flow. But I think it’s undeniable that there are different effects between how 2003 and 2009 are scaffolded - and goes to show how 2009 makes the much cleaner, more momentum-building plot building choices.

The 2003 series might also have felt more intense if they had created a greater range of character dynamics. More emotional range is effective, but 2003 doesn’t give us near as full a range as 2009. FMAB both gives us higher, more thrilling heroics... and worse pits of vulnerability.

In 2003 we talk more conceptually about Mustang’s grief over Hughes than show it; he is stable mentally even when he takes his boldest move on that front, assassinating Bradley. And in that scene, we never quite get the feeling “This is for Hughes.” Earlier, when Mustang works to rise his rank (and we barely see any of that), we don’t get much sense “This is for Hughes” either. Frankly, if people didn’t directly say it in dialogue, you almost wouldn’t have known.

Contrast this with Arakawa’s manga and the 2009 anime, in which something so small as Roy taking initiative (to ask every homunculi if they were Maes’ killer) gives us ongoing, lasting understanding Roy hurts. Then, once Flame of Vengeance and Beyond the Inferno happen, Mustang’s reaction is far, far, far more emotional and vulnerable. He goes to emotional levels 2003 doesn’t give him. We see Roy not just cry at a funeral one time, but here completely break down into a vengeful monster. Arakawa pulls Roy into downright VULNERABILITY and HUGE emotional failings, and because of that, we audience members take away so much more about his care for Hughes. We take away so much more emotion-wise ourselves!

So. We see Mustang at a far more extreme emotional low in 2009. (He breaks down three times in three distinct ways during the Promised Day arc!) AND. We also see him at more extreme moments of greatness. Fighting Bradley is undoubtedly Roy’s best, most dramatic moment in 2003, and while I enjoyed it immensely, there’s something to be said that Roy’s easily more badass in FMAB by episode nineteen. Death of the Undying is a powerful, jaw-dropping, eye-widening, fist-pumping, ultimate badass moment for Roy... and he hasn’t even hit his greatest OP strides. FMAB builds the heroes up to greater, longer, more intense battles that make you root for them and shout. There’s rarely even a single shout out “Yyyeees!!!” moment for our main characters in the 2003. It’s literally not until the last episode I felt any thrill for Roy fighting.

You know how much more emotional and amazing stories are when you give us these greater highs and lows???

And that’s just ONE example. List any character, and you’ll see the same pattern. Which feels more momentous? Ed punching Envy in 2003, or Ed whaling on Father in 2009? Sure, Ed might defeat more homunculi in 2003, but don’t the fights feel so much more epic and victorious in the manga? And which Riza makes you cry more: the woman who makes one (admittedly rather agonizing!) scream for Roy, or the woman who flips out in a gun firing spree when she thinks Roy is dead, guides a blinded Mustang after getting her throat slit, and declares at one point she’ll commit suicide after executing her commanding officer? Riza’s got many more cracks, depth, vulnerability, and badass heroicism in 2009.

Our big moments are bigger in 2009. Our low moments are lower in 2009. Our casualties hurt greater. Our successes feel more monumental. This range of emotion is critical to making story dynamic. Many ideas in 2003 don’t dig out their full potential because they restrict dynamic range. We NEED our characters to be vulnerable. We feel AMAZING when they’re big damn heroes. You walk away with so much more then.

Now, part of the 2003 not having anyone be big damn heroes is because of the grimmer take. Both FMA and FMAB tackle extremely serious topics with depth. But their takeaways are different. 2003 is a lot more about how life has problems; 2009 is a lot more about how life has solutions. Both stories have problems and rewards, but there’s a skewing in how the animes handle each.

For instance, FMA 2003 digs in deep with the Ishvalan people. There is a great amount of content and interesting, nuanced material showing a minority people suffering at the hands of an unsympathetic military state. I appreciate that significantly. The story does a great job calling out the military and questioning the state for their wrong actions. The story does a great job showing what injustices a people group can undergo, and how emotionally they are going to respond to such injustices. In another part of my liveblog, I described the sense of this plot arc as, “The military is shit. They destroyed us. We have the right to be angry. You can argue we have the right to fight back.”

There’s a lot of truth to what 2003 says. It’s a grim concept but quite true in the workings of the world. However, while 2009 also shows us how horrifying Ishval is and how terrible the workings of the world can be, it doesn’t stop at this grim perspective. FMAB also calls out the Amestrians for baselessly killing Ishvalans; Riza points out that even if upper command gave orders and Envy started the war, she and her fellow Amestrians carried out the bloodshed with their own hands. But. FMA 2003 says, “This is bad shit and people can be shit.” FMAB 2009 says, “This is bad shit. We should fix it.”

2009′s message states, “The military is shit. They destroyed us. We have the right to be angry. But that DOESN’T mean we have the right fight back. What we need to do is work to fix the horrors of this work.”

That wraps into one of Arakawa’s biggest, most widespread message throughout all of her manga, from start to end: All humans are important. All souls deserve to be treated with the utmost respect as human beings. It doesn’t matter if you’re a suit in armor. It doesn’t matter if you’re a pig chimera. It doesn’t matter what your race is. It doesn’t matter who started the bloodshed… you should be the one to end it. You are a human, human is good, and the best thing we can do is help each other. FMAB is about breaking out of the cycle of “an eye for an eye.” In 2003, Scar dies carrying out acts against the military. He doesn’t break the cycle. We understand why he responds the way he does, but it’s in 2009 that Scar and his brother become the damndest heroes in FMAB. Scar goes from someone with vengeful purpose for what the military has done to him… to trying to be the better person, the HERO, who fights back and gives back when no one else would before.

In the end, 2009 gives the Ishvalans new hope, too. It’s a lot more balanced in coming, especially as we see characters like Scar work through themselves... changing from a man taking vengeance for Ishval’s destruction, to someone working to rebuild Ishval. The Ishvalans’ return to their homeland is built up with good reason, hope, and moral messages. 2003 shows attention to the grimmer realities in how Scar’s life ends. 2009 gives us the greater perspective of growth and solutions in how Scar’s life moves forward.

How most characters’ goals are met - or not met - is another series of instances in which 2003 comes out less optimistically. Edward Elric and Roy Mustang have an entire conversation near the end of the 2003 anime about how both of them cannot achieve their goals in the way they initially intended. Mustang planned to rise to Fuhrer by distinguishing himself in military leadership. Ed planned to find his body by working as a State Alchemist. Both of these characters abandon their plans, Mustang commenting, “Both of us are like children, trying to be faithful in living out our dreams.” There’s a good lesson to be learned in this - don’t swallow evil into your plans, but purge it, even if it means stepping away from that initial dream - but it’s also got a lot more of the less pleasant grits of reality to it, than does FMAB in its messages.

For in the end of 2003, Roy Mustang never becomes Fuhrer, is not brought up any further up in military command to seem he could achieve that goal in the future, and is in fact set further behind his goal’s progression because of his injury. He wanted to become Fuhrer “for Hughes,” decided instead to kill Bradley “for Hughes” - but the result is a battle he barely wins, an encounter with Archer that makes him lose an eye, and a scenario in which he collapses unconscious in pools of blood from his injuries. Conqueror of Shamballa may of course change this state, but currently, by the end of FMA 2003, Roy Mustang’s life position is no great momentum forward. There are some good things about what’s become of his choices. He seems to be thankful to have Riza Hawkeye around him as he’s recovering. Still. It’s a more grim reality with grim results.

FMAB and the manga show a more positive future for Mustang. It’s also not ideal, but it’s a more optimistic angle. He’s going to regain his vision - the big injury he sustained during his final encounters with the enemy. Mustang is promoted to Brigadier General fairly quickly after the Promised Day arc. Only a few years down the road from that, he’s the second most powerful man in the country. The final photograph of him at the end of Chapter 108 shows us an esteemed General Mustang. And the way Grumman talks suggests he’ll be giving the Fuhrership to Roy down the road. Instead of Roy throwing away his goal’s hard work because it was imperfect, and instead of finding himself no noticeably further in life by the end of the story, Arakawa gives us a much brighter ending for Mustang.

Even if Conqueror of Shamballa may give Mustang a little bit more of a step forward, how Edward and Al regain their bodies still hits my point hard that how characters achieve their goals, and to what extent, is grittier in the 2003. It’s more imperfect in how life goes down. Al actually uses the Philosopher’s Stone inside him in the 2003; he and Ed sacrifice their well-being for each other to try to help one another; Al returns as a ten-year-old boy with lost memories; he and Ed find themselves in different worlds; and on and on. There are a ton of unideal angles in how Ed and Al return to their initial bodies in the 2003. You’re not celebrating a great, hard-earned victory. It’s CERTAINLYy not the same sort of exciting, fist-pumping achievement we get in FMAB when Ed finds a way to outsmart Truth and carry his brother home, arms wrapped around one another’s shoulders.

The way I like to phrase the end of FMAB is that most characters achieve 85% of their goal. There are some things that aren’t going to be ideal, and Arakawa acknowledges life isn’t ideal. Al gets Ed’s arm back but Ed will always have an automail leg. Edward Elric has to give up his alchemical abilities to return Al home. Roy Mustang has more years of work ahead of him before he can reach his goal. Ling Yao becomes Emperor, but doesn’t carry home with him an exactly immortal body. Mei Chang doesn’t become Empress, though she earns what she most wished to accomplish: secure the well-being of her clan. Winry, Ed, Al, and Mei all have wonderful relationships to grow through, too. Even though they don’t get every aspect of their goal achieved, that’s okay! It’s still the case that these characters earn through very hard work their own happy endings. These endings are more satisfying, and feel like a greater sense of accomplishment and resolution to their original goals.

2003 moreso undercuts what the characters want. What they achieve and how they achieve it is much less a sense of accomplishment, and focuses even more on the imperfections of the world around them. Ed and Al getting their bodies back isn’t a time to celebrate. It’s just another point in their long journey of trying to figure out how to make their life okay.

And we can continue looking at many more instances to see the pattern 2003 has a less optimistic spin on events. Both stories show imperfections in life, but 2003 hits that sense of imperfection harder and with less payoff to characters. Equivalent exchange and the suffering we endure in life - that’s definitely more positively spun in Arakawa’s tale than the first anime.

Even the ending words of the two anime, while both being similar in their idea, give a sense of the differing levels of focus between imperfection and inspiration:

FMA 2003: Man must pay an equal price in order to obtain anything. That is the Law of Equivalent Exchange. At the time, we believed that to be the true way of the world. But the real world is imperfect, and there was no law that could explain everything. It’s the same with the Law of Equivalent Exchange. Even so, we believe that man cannot obtain anything without paying a price. The pain that we received must have been the price we paid to obtain something. And, by paying the price of effort, everyone will certainly be able to obtain something. Equivalent Exchange is not the law of the world. That’s the promise Brother and I made to each other until the day we meet again.

FMA 2009: There’s no point to lessons that don’t bring with them pain. People can’t gain anything without sacrificing something, after all. But once you’ve successfully endured that pain, you gain a heart that is stout enough not to become overcome by anything. Yeah, a heart made of fullmetal.

Both of these endings acknowledge that we gain something when we go through pain. But in 2003, Al says that the world is imperfect and what he and his brother believed about equivalent exchange was imperfect. Al also is trying to say that he wants to step beyond the imperfect and incomplete Law of Equivalent Exchange and through that find a way to reunite with his brother. There’s a lot more focus on imperfection and the fact that life continues to bring imperfection to him. In the 2009, stating that we gain something through pain is given a more positive spin: once you do that, you can overcome everything. It’s not just that paying the price of pain will gain you a mediocre “something” - it’s that it will turn you into someone with a steel-strong heart that can overcome anything. Mentioning the Law of Equivalent Exchange in FMAB isn’t to talk about how the world is imperfect, but here it’s to say that the experiences we undergo give us a great end result. Hardcomings build our character and give us a happy ending.

There’s certainly a difference in mood between these two closing monologues, similar as they are in conceptual content. FMAB is far more inspirational.

Now. Don’t let this long analysis suggest that I think FMA lacks good quality. There are some extremely cool topics that FMA 2003 discusses in depth, especially regarding our responsibilities in war. And typically I tend to enjoy stories that acknowledge the imperfections of our experiences, and how situations never resolve in the glittery manner we imagine. However, in the case of FMA versus FMAB, I have to say that Arakawa’s story is by far more successfully emotional, satisfying, and inspirational. There has to be some payoff for characters to undergo their challenges. The way FMA 2003 is written, there is less payoff and less inspiration.

These are just some of my thoughts about how FMA 2003 is framed, and how that makes it feel in comparison to FMAB. I’ve had a hoard of fun watching the older series, and I could certainly talk about its positive sides, too. However, I think that’s enough yakking for now. These were my biggest impressions of the series before heading off to Conqueror of Shamballa.

#long post #non-dragons #fma #Fullmetal Alchemist #Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood #FMAB #Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood #analysis #my analysis

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brainyparenting · 4 years ago

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The Secret of Making a New Year's Resolution You Can Keep

"The moment one commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred...Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Begin it now." - Goethe

Did you make a New Years Resolution to be more patient, or to stop yelling? Surveys show those are the #1 resolutions for parents.

If you're like most of us, you've had the experience of making resolutions only to give up in frustration and self-disgust within a few weeks. You may feel like giving up already, and it's only January 4!

The truth is, most New Year's resolutions fail. Not because we're not good enough, or we don't try hard enough. But because what we're trying to do is HARD. If it were easy, it wouldn't take a New Years Resolution!

The second reason we don't make progress on our resolutions is that most resolutions are a wish, not a plan. To accomplish anything hard, we need to break it into small chunks--a step-by-step plan--and support ourselves to accomplish each step. Then, we need to keep revising our plan to accommodate reality when we hit a wall.

The third reason that resolutions wither without bearing fruit is that we don't give ourselves enough support. We don't ask for help. We never really commit ourselves aloud and in public, which means our resolution never gets the chance to grow roots, much less flower.

So the bad news is that resolutions are not enough. Intention is only the first step. But that doesn't mean we should just give up and treat the whole idea of New Years Resolutions as a bad joke. While we can create change at any time, there's something about the symbolic fresh start of the new year that does give us a little extra momentum.

The good news is that there are a few lucky folks who actually make their New Year's resolutions come true. What can we learn from them?

1. Start by supporting yourself.

Seeds don't germinate on concrete. Flowers bloom when we support their growth by cultivating the soil. So for instance if your plan is to stop yelling, your first steps might be getting enough sleep, monitoring your own moods, and cutting out some of the stress in your life. Notice how your child acts better when he gets his needs met? You're the same way. Intention will only take you so far. You have to address the needs and feelings that drive your behavior.

2. Pick one thing.

So you want to stop yelling at your kids, get more fit, and and do more self-care? That's wonderful! But you can't do everything at once. Pick one change that feels do-able and commit to that as Step One. Maybe something like better self-care, which will help you stay better regulated emotionally, so you'll be more emotionally generous in all your relationships. Make a specific self-care goal with a step by step plan, and hold yourself accountable to do it. Then put your other goals on your calendar as next steps to review in a month.

3. Hone your desire.

Why do you want this goal? What will be different in your life once you achieve it? Picture what your life will look like, to whet your appetite and program your subconscious. Fierce desire + Intention = the Seed of your Resolution. Without that seed, nothing grows.

4. Commit yourself – on paper, and in public.

Once we set an intention, the universe lines up to support us. We marshal resources we never even suspected we had available, from both inside and out. So be brave and go public--tell your family your intention.

It also helps to write your intention down and put it in your pocket: "I am more and more able to regulate my own emotions." Really! Research shows that thoughts we write down and "carry with us" are more likely to blossom.

Have something you want to get rid of? The same research shows that when you write something down ("Yelling and threats!") and throw it in the garbage, you lessen its hold on you.

5. Make a plan.

The only way anyone ever met a goal was by breaking it into little pieces and completing one day at a time. How will you support yourself to accomplish your resolution? What will you actually do to achieve your goal? Write it down. If your plan is to stop yelling, for instance, how can you give yourself daily support to stay on track? What will you do in the moment when you start to lose it? How will you measure your success?

(Want more support? My Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course gives you intensive daily support to regulate your emotions, connect with your child, and set limits without yelling, threats, bribes or punishment.)

6. Take one small step every day.

Assign yourself a very reasonable task for each day, with one day every week free, for catch-up or time off. It might be the same task every day: “When you notice you're getting irritated, STOP, DROP (your agenda) and BREATHE!" or>"Get up ten minutes earlier to listen to a meditation audio.”

Or maybe you need to begin with something even more foundational: "Go to bed half an hour earlier every night."

Put your daily tasks on your calendar. Make a chart to check off your daily progress, and put it up in a public place. Let your kids give you a gold star on those days you don't yell. Every day you stick to your plan, you make the next day easier.

7. Take it one day at a time.

One year equals 365 opportunities to get yourself back on track! Every day when you wake up, you'll need to re-commit yourself. Big changes are daunting. If change were easy, you'd already be doing it.

So focus on today, right now. You have a choice between love and something else -- fear, or being right, or indulging in a tantrum. Choose love. Then, repeat. Over and over again, all day long.

It's really hard, but it gets easier. You can do anything for an hour. From there, it isn't such a big stretch to go a whole afternoon. Before you know it, you've clocked a day, and then a week, of your new life.

8. Make it a habit

Most resolutions get derailed because they aren’t sustained for long enough to create a new habit. Habits need to be repeated daily for at least 30 days to become entrenched. If you want to rewire your brain to stop yelling, it usually takes about three months. Check in every day and take a positive action towards your goal. Think of this as watering your Resolution. Don’t lose heart if your Resolution isn’t flowering during the first month. You should be able to see those shoots poking up, and maybe some buds forming. In other words, celebrate every bit of progress in the right direction.

9. What about those days when you blow it?

Of course those days will happen! Forgive yourself in advance. Make a plan now so you can get back on track in those tough moments. Remember that if you learn from those times when you fall short, it's not a total loss. In fact, if it keeps you on track in the future, it's a win.

So instead of beating yourself up, use those moments as an opportunity to ask yourself two questions:

What would have helped me today to keep my resolution?How can I give myself that support from now on?

For instance, if your intention is to stop yelling at your child, and you notice you're always impatient at bedtime, then rethink your evening routine. This is creating the nourishing conditions that your resolution needs to blossom.

10. Review and Revise.

Revise your plan as necessary. For instance, if you're trying to stop yelling, you'll find that most of the time you're already yelling before you even notice. For now, maybe your goal could be to shut your mouth as soon as you realize you're yelling. Over time, you'll be able to notice sooner and close your mouth faster. Then, you'll become aware of your anger mounting before you open your mouth, and maybe even as you start building up an attitude of annoyance.

Check your plan every single day. Give yourself lavish positive reinforcement for every day that you take a step forward – which should be often, since you're tackling just one small task each day. Cheer yourself on at every step.

Not working? Maybe you need some sunshine and fertilizer (in other words, self love!). Remember, your behavior is driven by your own needs and feelings. Address them and you'll see your behavior change. Self-care is essential to positive parenting. Find whatever support you need to help you make your intention a reality.

There's no deadline. The important thing is that you're headed in the right direction. Even two steps forward, one step back will get you where you’re going. Any goal worth achieving takes time and hard work. Sometimes the impossible just takes a little longer. I'll be here cheering you on every step of the way.

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Want to support yourself for real change? You still have time to register for the Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course that begins soon. Gift your whole family a better new year. Take a look at the raves from parents who've taken it to see if this self-paced course might be a good fit for you.

For more information about a great and effective course that thousands of parents have used it how to teach a child to read on an early age please visit my blog here: www.brainyparenting.com.

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Title: The Secret of Making a New Year's Resolution You Can Keep Sourced From: www.ahaparenting.com/RSSRetrieve.aspx?ID=13126&A=Link&ObjectID=469693&ObjectType=56&O=http%253a%252f%252fwww.ahaparenting.com%252fblog%252fSecret_of_Making_a_New_Years_Resolution_You_Can_Keep Published Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2021 19:48:00 GMT Read More

#cildrenreading #childrenlearning #learningreading #childrenlearningreading #reading #learning #children

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fcntasmas-archive · 8 years ago

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hi babe!!! so i could have given you my old boring generic answer, but there is no one who feels stronger about gryffindor!even than @ravenclawisak so i asked her to give you the run-down because no one will ever make a more convincing argument. so, to quote her exactly, here are the reasons why even is a gryffindor, according to the beautiful and talented rachel (remember these are literally direct quotes so the “me” being referenced here is actually her):

the things that made it a gut instinct have to do mostly with certain, select moments where i was just like. floored watching

like when he showed up at isak’s place at the end of 3.07 literally two minutes after isak sent that text

he had no idea what mood he’d find isak in–all signs actually pointed to isak being in a bad/closed off mood, given the content and tone of his messages

but even still was like “shit this is my last chance” and jumped to take it

and that’s part of a pattern of bold behavior for him, at least when it comes to his pursuit of isak throughout the first half of s3

like consistently, once he started getting opportunities and signs that maybe isak could be interested in him too, he jumped right on those and pressed ahead and ahead to see what they could become

so a lot of the major steps taken in building their relationship–the flirting, the hanging out, the almost kiss in the kitchen, the kiss in the pool, the convo about becoming bfs–those are taken consistently by even

which isn’t to say that like, isak isn’t brave or bold or is cowardly for not being as forward, bc obvs he’s in a different place with himself and his experience with relationships and knowing his sexual attractions than even is, and that factors into why he’s kind of playing wait-and-see for a lot of the beginning

but i think it’s also an arguable difference in how they approach and solve problems: isak waits to gather more information and weigh what he wants to do before he makes a choice, but even is more inclined to take risks, make leaps once he gets that slightest sign to go, even if there’s no accompanying sign that there will be steady ground for him to land on

and sometimes that burns him really bad, but it doesn’t stop him from doing it

and that feels v gryffindor to me

and then okay this next part is going to get less concrete in the sense of things we’ve seen him do canonically and more abstract in the sense of how do i interpret and extrapolate things about even from what we’re shown

but gryffindor to me is the most Romantic house, or at least the house full of the biggest Romantics, in that they still believe in romanticized and idealized notions of like, a ruling moral code, grand gestures of good faith, the core principles of chivalry, the idea that what is good and right will ultimately win out bc it is good and right

and for even we defs see him as a romantic, like with baz being his fave director and what that suggests about the kinds of stories he emotionally connects to the most, and then with the ways (consciously or sub) he tried to work those narrative cues into the foundation of his and isak’s relationship, as if that would help elevate whatever they built between them to those same sweeping, lofty, epic proportions

he’s not what i’d call a hopeless romantic bc he doesn’t seem to believe that like, love will always win out in the end–actually the opposite. but even if he seems more inclined to believe that reality won’t work out like a movie, he still also has this conflicting hope that he’ll be proved wrong about that, by himself or the course of his own life or someone else sweeping in or whatever

it’s a v conflicted and self-doubting kind of romanticism, but it’s still a romanticism that roots itself in the bold actions of individuals: someone takes action and fate/circumstance overpowers them and makes them into a beautifully tragic figure, or someone takes action and overpowers fate/circumstance and makes themself into an optimistic, *comedic (in the aristotelian sense) figure

but either way it comes down to someone taking action, someone doing something bc they have a passion and that drives them forward, for better or for worse

and i think that informs a lot of how even understands his own actions, and his actions as part of the story of his life, and his life as part of the story of others’ lives, and others’ lives as part of the story of his own, and so on. sometimes you just have to act bc actions are what make life happen, good or bad, and idk that again just feels v gryffindor to me

#gryiffindor!even #skam #askybison #answered #even bech næsheim

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crownofbeautyalina · 4 years ago

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Taking Good Care Of Yourself

Now that you've made the decision to begin your journey to recovery, below are some tools to aid you in the process. Identifying tools and developing plans will help you be more prepared and empowered to take action when it comes to your recovery. Here are healthy steps to take:

Working Toward Goals

People in recovery offer the following suggestions:

Focus on your strengths.

Focus on solving problems.

Focus on the future instead of reviewing hurts from the past.

Focus on your life instead of your illness.

As you work on your recovery, you might want to write down some of your main goals. These goals can be short-term and easily achievable, or you can start identifying bigger, more long-term goals that you want to work your way towards. It's helpful to think of small steps to take toward them over a certain amount of time, like a week or a month. Remember to congratulate yourself for any successes. Achieving goals - even small ones - is a sign of hope and accomplishment.

Developing goals for recovery can be tricky, especially if you aren't sure what it is that you want to accomplish. Consider your interests, things that bring you joy and things that keep you motivated. Also, think about the things you want, like where you want your life to go or what you would do more of if you could. Having a deep investment in the goals that you set will increase the chances of completing them.

Once you have set goals for yourself, you need to figure out what things are necessary to accomplish those goals. Be clear about why you set this goal and how your life will be different once this goal is achieved. You should also consider the strengths and skills that you possess that will help you achieve your goal. Try to involve necessary support systems and resources that can help you through the process if and when you need it. Finally, remember to stay focused on the goal and not on the difficulties you might be having. Keep an open mind, and know that you may hit barriers along the way. Recovery is no easy task, and focusing on the negative experiences will only make things harder.

Create a journal or scrapbook with pictures and clippings to help maintain your goals. Keeping a journal or scrapbook is a good way to track your goals and remind you of the things you've accomplished and the things you still plan to accomplish. Continue to add new goals as they come up. Recovery is a constant process and continuing to set goals for yourself will keep you motivated to reach and maintain wellness.

Care For Yourself

Taking good care of yourself is paramount to the success of your recovery process. People in recovery find that their physical, spiritual, and emotional health are all connected, and that supporting one supports the others. Taking care of all aspects of you will increase the likelihood that you stay well.

To help support you in your recovery, you can access a three-minute screening tool and progress monitor for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and PTSD. Click here to take the screener or mark your progress.

Some tips for self-care include:

Live Healthy, eat healthy foods, get enough sleep, exercise regularly, and avoid drugs and alcohol. Manage stress and go for regular medical check-ups.

Practice good hygiene. Good hygiene is important for social, medical, and psychological reasons in that it not only reduces the risk of illness, but it also improves the way others view you and how you view yourself.

See friends to build your sense of belonging. Consider joining a support group to make new friends.

Try to do something you enjoy every day. That might mean dancing, watching a favorite TV show, working in the garden, painting or reading.

Find ways to relax, like meditation, yoga, getting a massage, taking a bath or walking in the woods.

The National Institute of Wellness has created an online "wellness" screener that allows you to keep track of your own recovery journey. Visit the NIW's website at http://www.testwell.org/twfree.htm to obtain your wellness score.

You can also visit LiveYourLifeWell.info to learn more about the 10 Tools to Live Your Life Well.

Strengthen Your Connections

The importance of incorporating joy, spirit, and relaxation in your life has many implications in developing resiliency (the ability to recover from an illness) and staying healthy. The four C's to joy, spirit, and relaxation are: connect with yourself, connect with others, connect to your community, and create joy and satisfaction. As you use these four C's remember to continue trying to push your comfort levels and do things you may not have done before.

Connect With Yourself

It is important that you check in with yourself periodically. If you do not then you may not realize that things are changing or getting out of control. Checking in with yourself allows you the opportunity to evaluate where you are in your recovery. You may find that you need to readjust what step of your action plan you are on or try different coping tools.

If you have had low times in the past you understand how hard it can be to get out of those places. Learning all that you can about your mental health condition will help let you know that your hard times are not your fault. Making a list of accomplishments that you have achieved is a good resource to turn back to when you are feeling low.

Another tool that may help you is to journal about your experiences. Keeping a journal is a great way to learn about yourself. Being completely honest in your journal is important; in your journal, you should feel free to let your guard down. This will help you discover how you really feel and vent your stress in a non-threatening manner.

Another method of connecting with yourself is to become an advocate and share your story. There has been a lot of research that explores the power of storytelling as a form of therapy. Sharing your own experiences through writing or talking is an important stage of recovery. Just as you are supported by reading the thoughts and experiences of others you can also be the person that helps lift another.

Connect With Others

Spending time with positive, loving people you care about and trust can ease stress, help your mood and improve the way you feel overall. They may be family members, close friends, members of a support group or a peer counselor at the local drop-in center. Many communities even have warmlines (free hotlines run by people with mental health conditions) that you can call to talk to someone and receive peer support.

Research points to the benefits of social connection:

Increased happiness. In one compelling study, a key difference between very happy people and less happy people was good relationships.

Better health. Loneliness was associated with a higher risk of high blood pressure in a recent study of older people.

A longer life. People with strong social and community ties were two or three times less likely to die during a 9-year study.

Connection happens when you get:

Concrete help, such as having a friend pick your kids up from school;

Emotional support, like hearing someone say, "I'm really sorry you're having such a tough time";

Perspective, like being reminded that even the moodiest teenagers grow up;

Advice, such as a suggestion to plan a weekly date with your spouse;

Validation, like learning that other folks love reading train schedules too.

Do you have enough support? Ask yourself if you have at least a few friends or family members who:

You feel comfortable to be with;

Give you a sense that you could tell them anything;

Can help you solve problems;

Make you feel valued;

Take your concerns seriously.

Connect To Your Community

A great way to feel emotionally strong and resilient in times of stress is to feel connected to a broad community. Think about the things you like to do. You can expand your social network by looking into a community organization that brings people together who share the same interests. For instance, many communities have local biking, hiking, or walking groups. Is there something you've always wanted to do like learn a new language? Take a class, or join a local group. You also may find the support you need through local support groups for a specific issue like parenting, dealing with a health problem, or caring for a loved one who's ill.

Or consider volunteering with a community organization that helps fill a need. Here are some tips to make sure your volunteer experience works for you, and does not become an additional source of stress:

Get the right match. Think about what kind of work you like to do, based on your interests, skills and availability. Consider making this a list for easier readability. Do you like to read, write, build things, repair things, or sort and organize? Do you have a special field of knowledge that you could teach to struggling students as a tutor or coach? Are you especially concerned about homelessness or pollution? Do you love to garden or work in an office? Do you speak another language? Do you need to be at home, and bring your volunteer work home with you? Whatever your situation and your interests, there is probably a volunteer opportunity to make a great contribution in your community. Volunteering will help you build strong connections with others - a proven way to protect your mental health.

Make it count. You want your volunteer time to make a difference, so ask questions to make sure the organization uses volunteers efficiently and productively. Ask what volunteers do, where and when they do it, and whether an employee is available with information and guidance when needed.

Find a connection. To find a volunteer position that's right for you, contact your volunteer center. Look in the Yellow Pages under "Volunteer Clearinghouse" or "Volunteer Center," or find options online at http://www.volunteermatch.org/. Your local Mental Health America affiliate office also may be looking for volunteers. You can also contact your city or county information line to ask for a referral to a volunteer coordinator service in your area.

Create Joy And Satisfaction

Living with a mental health condition can be taxing emotionally, physically, and mentally. Experts have found that good feelings can boost your ability to deal with stress, solve problems, think flexibly, and even fight disease. Taking care of your body emotionally, physically, and mentally through creating joy and satisfaction is an important part of living with or without a mental health condition.

Studies show that:

Laughing decreases pain, may help your heart and lungs, promotes muscle relaxation, and can reduce anxiety.

Positive emotions can decrease stress hormones and build emotional strength.

Leisure activities offer a distraction from problems, a sense of competence and many other benefits. For example, in one study observing twins, the one who participated in leisure activities was less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or dementia than their fellow twin.

Some tips to enjoy life and relax:

Do something you loved to do as a kid. Run through the sprinklers, hang from the monkey bars, or make a mess with finger paints.

Do something you've always wanted to do. Bake a soufflé, build a tree house, or learn to knit. If you're not sure how, take a class or look for a local group dedicated to the activity.

Watch or listen to comedy. Via video, podcast, or website. Or get a laugh the old-fashioned way - through the comics section.

Therapeutic massage. A massage can relieve muscle tension, stimulate the body's natural painkillers and boost your immune system. It can also help you feel less anxious and more relaxed.

A nature break. A blue sky, lush bushes, a scenic lake. Walking in - or even just looking at - nature calms our nerves and relieves mental fatigue. In one study, workers with views of nature were happier with their jobs than workers with similar jobs but no nature view.

Meditate

Research shows that meditation offers not only calm, but also helps with anxiety and depression, cancer, chronic pain, asthma, heart disease and high blood pressure.

To get started, all you need is a few minutes each day. Later you may want to work up to 10, 20, or 30 minutes. You can find one of many meditation options in a book or CD, online, or in a class. Or you can try some suggestions below. If one doesn't work, stay calm...and try another.

Types of Meditation:

Deep breathing. Sit or lie down comfortably. Rest your hands on your stomach. Slowly count to four while inhaling through your nose. Feel your stomach rise. Hold your breath for a second. Slowly count to four while you exhale, preferably through pursed lips to control the breath. Your stomach will fall slowly. Repeat a few times.

Mindfulness Meditation. Focus on your breath. Notice anything that passes through your awareness without judgment. If your mind starts to tackle your to-do list, just return to focusing on your breath.

Visualization. Close your eyes, relax and imagine a peaceful place, like a forest. Engage all your senses: Hear the crunching leaves, smell the damp soil, feel the breeze.

Repeating a mantra. Sit quietly and pick any meaningful or soothing word, phrase, or sound. You can repeat the mantra aloud or silently. Experts say the repetition creates a physical relaxation response.

Participate in a meditative form of exercise. Try tai chi or qi gong, which use soothing, flowing motions.

https://www.mhanational.org/taking-good-care-yourself

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