#but there are just some unbridgeable gaps

[gods-perfect-idiots]

Okay bear with me folks, I have some ~thoughts~ about the Vanessa/Wade relationship (or frankly lack thereof) in Deadpool & Wolverine. I should start by saying that I am analyzing this with the (likely erroneous) assumption that everything on screen is 100% intentional and mindfully written to deepen the characters and inform their arcs. For the record, I don't necessarily believe that's true - there is certainly room for mistakes, lazy writing, confusing plot elements, or in this case, sidelining a potentially strong and important character for nebulous reasons (I'm guessing scheduling conflicts + run time concerns + actor's strike complications but idk for sure). (Also thanks to @gossippool and @kendyroy for encouraging me to post my thoughts instead of just rambling in the tags in the first place, y'all are the realest)

Long rambly post below the cut fyi

Now, granted, it has been a while since I watched the original Deadpool so I am not as well-versed in their early relationship as I am in the handful of scenes Morena Baccarin has in dp3, but I do think it is pretty canon that Wade generally struggles to express his deeper worries and feelings (without filtering it heavily through crude humor, sex, and pop culture references of course), especially after the events of dp1 and the physical and mental damage he sustains, and Vanessa is frankly no exception despite how much he cares for her. The entire first movie hinges on the fact that he doesn't really believe she could love him in his post-Francis mangled state, which is pretty contrived imo given that the film has established already how bonded they are, and she doesn't strike me as being written to be so shallow as to reject him based on a physical deformity. I mean iirc she wanted to stick around through chemo despite him being literally riddled with inoperable cancer, so she clearly is in it for the long haul (at least in dp1), messiness and all.

Now, in dp2, obviously she is shot and killed early in the film, and Wade spends much of the rest of the film wallowing in his very profound grief, trauma, and guilt over losing her due directly to his violent lifestyle. He goes to prison, he basically gives up on life and seems very resigned to dying once he has the power suppressant collar on, even excited to do so so he can be reunited with her. She is mostly sidelined as a Fuzzy Dead Wife trope basically, but the important thing here is that he spends weeks if not months in the throes of despair over losing the love of his life just as they were trying to start a family, and trying to reach across the boundaries of death to be with her.

Now, my first couple times watching dp3 I was frustrated by the trite narrative presented in the interview scene towards the beginning - specifically Wade's whole "my girl is getting tired of my shtick and I need to show her I matter". It felt contrived and disingenuous, and I just brushed it off as iffy writing, a means to an end, but the more I reflect upon it the more I think it is based in an emotional reality that is just handled with a very light touch by the film in favor of fanservice and Poolverine content (NOT that I'm complaining in the slightest - I think this movie is a masterpiece in many ways, albeit a flawed one but that's beside the point here), which for the record I am not against because I think it lends it an air of realism. This is Wade's story after all, Vanessa is a part of it but it is ultimately about him and his journey.

Basically, I think the combination of what happened to him in dp1 (the brain damage, the trauma, the awareness of the fourth wall, etc) followed by the events of dp2 (Vanessa's death, his grief and the associated guilt and trauma of being the direct cause of her death) led to an unbridgeable emotional gap between the two of them that ultimately leads to their breakup.

It's important to note that I don't think Vanessa has any recollection of her own death, given that Wade goes back and saves her before she can take the bullet, and so of course she can never fully fathom what Wade went through grieving her and their life together and their potential family, for however long he spent between her death and bringing her back with Cable's device. She can try (and she clearly does in the one scene I'll talk about next) but I fear she accepts, maybe even in that scene, that she can never succeed. He is beyond her reach by this point, and vice versa, his experiences having fundamentally changed him.

The one scene we really see from their relationship between dp2 and dp3 is the one where Cassandra mind-gropes Wade in the Void and we see Vanessa struggling to reach Wade across this aforementioned gap - she wants him to open up, she wants him to share what he's going through, she wants him to be the person she initially fell in love with (not even selfishly - to her nothing has changed really, because to her no time has passed). But not only does he not understand what she's really asking for but he responds in such a way that makes me think he has unprocessed issues that are only tangentially related to what she's saying - ie the stuff about mattering, about asking her if she even wants to be with him, etc. And he's not the Wade Wilson she met back in dp1 anymore. He watched her die and grieved her and brought her back, believing it would make everything go back to normal and they could resume their life together as if nothing had changed, but he has been fundamentally changed in a way that she can't grasp, even if he WAS good at externally processing his trauma openly without the artifice of wry jokes. She didn't "come back wrong" - instead, she came back exactly the same as before, but HE'S different now. Not wrong, per se. But changed.

It's an interesting scene because it's obviously a memory, and a crucial one at that, but you can see how Wade is misunderstanding what she's saying, viewing it through the prism of his own lack of self-worth and his own hopelessness - he takes away that she thinks he doesn't matter (even though like he says she didn't actually say that, but I don't think Cassandra invented that wholecloth - I think she pulled it out of his psyche because that's what he believes deep down, hence why his fixation on mattering even though she never said those words exactly), he takes away that she doesn't want to be with him, that she thinks he's nothing. Which would be frustrating as an audience member to witness as a pretty simple misunderstanding which could potentially be solved with one conversation, but it feels believable to me that these two people who have shared a great love would be fundamentally separated by unimaginable, cosmic trauma, and the on conversation they would need to have to rectify the misunderstanding is one that is impossible for Wade to verbalize and equally impossible for Vanessa to conceive of. It was one thing when they had shared trauma like violence and SA in dp1, but what Wade has gone through in dp1 and dp2, humor aside, is unfathomably traumatic, brain-breakingly so even, and that's not even factoring in the possible mental illnesses he now struggles with (I've seen folks suggest schizophrenia, DID, depression, etc. but I won't get into armchair diagnosing a fictional character here - suffice it to say he is canonically unwell as a result of what has happened to him, and yes it manifests as quirky fourth wall breaks and cheeky one-liners, but within the universe of the movies he is undeniably profoundly mentally ill, and that includes this humorous alter ego he created to cope with his trauma).

I think off-screen Vanessa probably really tried to reach him, maybe for years (the six year gap implies to me that they didn't break up immediately, that they tried for a while to stay together), trying to get her Wade back, but that Wade is gone. He struggled to express that to her until eventually he started to feel rejected because he couldn't express his trauma or how much he has changed, because even he can't fully conceive of the gulf that has formed between them. The truth is, he WANTS to be that Wade again, for her and for himself, but that Wade died when she died. Or maybe he had already started dying when Francis got a hold of him in dp1.

Anyway, all this is to say, I think Morena Baccarin WAS criminally underutilized in dp2 and dp3, but I think there is a strong argument to be made for the believability of their breakup regardless. I think even relationships built on enormous love can crumble due to trauma, and what Wade suffers over these movies is mind-bogglingly enormous trauma. It's especially heartbreaking that he blames himself for their relationship ending, talks like she just got tired of him, thought he didn't matter, whatever. But it is a credit to him that he never seems to feel anger towards her about it. He doesn't seem to feel entitled to her, though he longs for her and what they had and what she represented (hope, love, a future, a family), but ultimately she becomes more of a symbol of what he lost when he gained his powers, because let's be super fr right now - even if they had succeeded in having a baby, not only would they have lived in fear of her or the kid getting killed, but ultimately Wade would likely outlive both of them even if they managed to die natural deaths. The moment he gained his powers he was already destined to lose her, which is heartbreaking because she was the only reason he opted for the treatment in the first place - so he could stay with her.

I think a big part of Deadpool & Wolverine is watching Wade continue to process his own motivations (vis-a-vis Vanessa but also his other friends) and how he does eventually let go of the idea of "mattering" in favor of just saving the people he cares about (*cough* and being saved right back *cough* by Wolvie, as the final line and shot implies). And in the process he finds someone new who cares about him, who thinks he matters, who tries to sacrifice himself for him and his friends after mere days of knowing him, who comes home with him at the end of the story, who breaks his own centuries-old patterns, who has also experienced unimaginable grief and trauma, who has struggled with wanting to die and being unable to, who not only matches his crazy but matches his FREAK and also not only won't die on him but CAN'T die on him - and more importantly cannot be randomly killed by a stray bullet.

Idk if any of this makes much sense but I do think if you read between the lines and consider the potency of trauma and grief, guilt and emotional damage at play here, Vanessa and Wade's off-screen breakup is actually pretty realistic, and really heart-breaking to boot.

You can tell she still cares about him in so many ways - she shows up for his birthday party, she shows up to his welcome home party at the end, she finds excuses for physical contact multiple times, her eyes get soft when she looks at him, but there is a distance there that Morena Baccarin does an incredible job of portraying. She cares about him deeply, she has mourned the loss of their potential life together, she has let him go and accepted that the Wade she fell in love with is gone, but she wants him in her life even though she's moving on because she realizes he's gone somewhere she can't follow (literally and figuratively). And she wants him to be happy which is why I fully believe she would immediately clock the Poolverine of it all and not-so-subtly encourage them to make it official.

Anyway. Poolverine forever. Nothing against Vanessa at all - I think she delivers a nuanced and beautiful performance, I think their relationship is sweet and heart-wrenching in large part due to her acting chops, especially given how little she is given to work with - but I think their relationship was sadly doomed from almost the very start, because Wade becomes this traumatized superhuman and Vanessa would always be at risk in his orbit, but also would always on the outside of his multiverse superhero experiences. I think it's weirdly beautiful, even if I am filling in a lot of gaps and giving the writers maybe undue credit.

Anyway... thoughts? Please DM me or write in the tags, I am feral about this movie and just want to talk about it with anyone haha. If you have further insight into these characters too I'd love to hear it - I am by no means an expert in these movies or characters!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Q: You call them The Great Demotions, all of these thoughts which we have so cherished. Well, guess what? The universe doesn't revolve around the Earth. And guess what? The Earth isn't the only world out there. Are we still clinging to any conceits? Such as those which led to the Great Demotions over the past centuries?

Carl Sagan: Well, you would think we should be over it. But we still are battling, at least in the United States, the conceit that humans are separate from the rest of nature. That an unbridgeable gap separates humans from the other plants and animals. That we are the particular beneficiaries of the concern of the creator of the universe, more than any of the 10 million other species of plants and animals on the Earth. When, in fact, all of our vaunted uniqueness turns out to be shared. with other animals, especially with chimpanzees, our closest relatives with whom we share 99.6% of our hereditary material.

Another area in which the demotion is being fought is the idea that there are no other planets beyond those in our own solar system. But in the last 15 years, the most marvelous set of findings has occurred in which it now appears that planets are an ordinary, probably inevitable accompaniment of star formation, and that almost every young star, like the Sun in the early stages of formation, is surrounded by this flat disc of gas and dust over which the planets were formed. And we now have the first bona fide real planetary system around a very unlikely object, a particular pulsar called 1257 plus 12. And the technology is just about to reach out and find whatever planetary systems there are nearby.

[ Note: As of September 2023, there are 5514 confirmed exoplanets in 4107 planetary systems. ]

And a third one is the idea that even if there are an enormous number of planets, only ours has life and intelligence. And there the story is open. We send spacecraft to other planets like Mars to see if there are any simple forms of life. We use radio telescopes to see if messages are being sent to us by civilizations on planets of other stars. So far, although there've been some very curious, tantalizing findings in both of those approaches, we have found nothing definitive, unambiguous evidence for extraterrestrial life. And the debate is still open.

In our ignorance, the geocentrists still find hope.

==

When their methods are so unreliable, hope is all they have.

[quietwings-fics]

the forecast calls for

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: N/A Fandom: Torchwood Ship: Gen (Gwen & Ianto) Additional Tags: Rain, Humor, Gwen Cooper & Ianto Jones Friendship, No Plot/Plotless Wordcount: 500 Summary:

Gwen and Ianto get stuck in a rainstorm.

"There's no way we're getting inside without getting soaked," Gwen says, as if she isn't already dripping. Her hair is leaving damp patches on her jacket, no matter how she's tried to wring it out.

"No," Ianto agrees, gazing out across the unbridgeable gap between themselves and the entrance to the Hub. The cement is being pounded into an even darker grey by the rain, sheets and sheets of it coming down without so much as a warning. (Besides, of course, Rhys warning Gwen that the forecast was calling for rain today, and the heavy clouds waiting ominously above them when she and Ianto had stepped out for lunch, and the drizzle that had started only a minute after they'd begun walking back. None of which, Gwen asserted, had been enough to prepare them for the downpour they were now sitting through.)

Gwen glances behind them. They've taken refuge under a nearby awning, but when she peers in through the glass doors to the interior, the woman behind the information desk is glaring at them. Her mouth is pinched in a way that Gwen guesses is a very thin restraint against getting the building's security to move them along, probably mostly held together by the rumble of thunder reminding her of some human decency. Not enough for Gwen to want to rely on it. "We're going to be run off for loitering," she tells Ianto. He hums. She looks back at him.

He's tilting his head back, looking up at the sky. It responds by snapping lightning across the bottom of the clouds.

"I don't think you can stare a storm down," Gwen tells him.

Ianto blinks, starts to say something which ends up as two words twisted together and completely unintelligible, and when she gives him a moment, he finally collects himself enough to say, "Well. It was worth a try."

"Do you think we have any weather controlling devices?"

"I'm not calling Jack and asking."

"Oh, come on, he'd cave if you did," she says. Their prospects as they are don't look very dry. It might be worth a shot.

"As if he wouldn't for you," Ianto replies.

"He'd tell me to walk back in the rain just to see me in wet clothes."

"He'd use it as an excuse to get me in his clothes once mine were ruined," Ianto says, affecting a forlorn tone like they're commiserating over a real tragedy. Gwen only manages to hold her laugh in for a few seconds. She ducks her head and bumps her shoulder into Ianto's side. He grins.

"We could make a run for it." The rain isn't going to stop any time soon. Gwen's resigned to her fate.

"I'm willing if you are." Ianto extends his hand, and Gwen takes it. She squeezes it. With that, they fly off, skidding on wet cement.

By the time they're back in the Hub, there's not a dry inch of them or a spare breath in which they aren't laughing.

(Enjoyed it? Any interaction is welcomed. You can even support me on Ko-Fi <3)

[stromuprisahat]

Siege and Storm- Chapter 17

Oh wow, weird! You dumped them all as soon as you got a chance to run off with your blade boy, haven't thought about them until Nikolai dragged you back to Ravka, and now you're offended they didn't fling their arms around your neck as soon as they saw you?!

They did just that before you abandoned them and disappeared without a trace:

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 20

We’d never been truly close... Because you weren't willing to let them- judgemental and avoiding spending time with them most of your time in Little Palace!

... now our difference in status felt like an unbridgeable gap. To whom? You? Relationships require work and effort from both sides. Of course other Grisha are cautious around Alina- she appeared during turbulent time with strange entourage, appointment from the King (for a position she lacks qualification for) and turned the remains of their lives upside down by force, while keeping them at arm's length... Alina's the one, who created and keeps widening the gap!

Yeah Alina, it sucks to lose that one relationship, where the other side does all the work. Don't forget you're the wronged one here...

Sorry, but I don't have an ounce of sympathy for Alina, when Genya's concerned.

Exactly as mommy intends it to.

She’d made no reply. Of course not. Why would she want to join some dust brats, when she can keep screwing over her unruly son, ensuring Alina doesn't have time to think for herself...

[dustorange]

Genuinely seriously asking what is the secret sauce u it into dick grayson characterization because it is so seriously brilliant and enchanting and addictive. Like what is your secret)? /srs <3

scream thank u so muchly this is like the biggest honor u r sooo darlinggg 😭i think my main deal is that

I have a lot of common personal icks that i try rly hard to STAY AWAY FROM (i Haaaaaaaaaate characters having broken noses/nosebleeds, contemporary memetalk, italicized standalone onamoteopias, etc) bc they totally put me on edge and i think a lot of people share the same sensisibilities so its like a lowstress reading environment

i dont rly write introspection i just write the actions and emotions happening so ppl can put in dicks head whatever they want

ive gotten to be around people who srsly have a Soul that u can just sense and i write dick with those experiences in mind. Like everybody yes everybody does have a soul but like 80% or 90% of the time irl u can talk to someone and they can be having the most intense emotional response or wicked intelligent or crushingly kind but it’s still like WHY ISNT THERE A SPARK HERE why isnt there anything in your eyes there’s some missingquality there’s a gap a space unbridged like idk how to describe it but there’s a soulquality or soul presence that u can sense, but maybe only ever sense, not measure or diagnose, in some people. and bad mean stupid people can have the soul or great kind intelligent people can have the soul or anyone in between there isnt really a set of characteristics but you know it when you see it and it’s just like a wild magic and i think dick is one of those people and so i try to write it with this sense that he’s hyperalive and has that soulthing this sounds sooooo dumb woowoo crunchymom but its what i feel so strongly

[quietwingsinthesky]

Sending hugs always!

In the Rain/Thunderstorms Outside

Please and thank you!

torchwood mood tonight apparently lol :D thank u for prompt

"There's no way we're getting inside without getting soaked," Gwen says, as if she isn't already dripping. Her hair is leaving damp patches on her jacket, no matter how she's tried to wring it out.

"No," Ianto agrees, gazing out across the unbridgeable gap between themselves and the entrance to the Hub. The cement is being pounded into an even darker grey by the rain, sheets and sheets of it coming down without so much as a warning. (Besides, of course, Rhys warning Gwen that the forecast was calling for rain today, and the heavy clouds waiting ominously above them when she and Ianto had stepped out for lunch, and the drizzle that had started only a minute after they'd begun walking back. None of which, Gwen asserted, had been enough to prepare them for the downpour they were now sitting through.)

Gwen glances behind them. They've taken refuge under a nearby awning, but when she peers in through the glass doors to the interior, the woman behind the information desk is glaring at them. Her mouth is pinched in a way that Gwen guesses is a very thin restraint against getting the building's security to move them along, probably mostly held together by the rumble of thunder reminding her of some human decency. Not enough for Gwen to want to rely on it. "We're going to be run off for loitering," she tells Ianto. He hums. She looks back at him.

He's tilting his head back, looking up at the sky. It responds by snapping lightning across the bottom of the clouds.

"I don't think you can stare a storm down," Gwen tells him.

Ianto blinks, starts to say something which ends up as two words twisted together and completely unintelligible, and when she gives him a moment, he finally collects himself enough to say, "Well. It was worth a try."

"Do you think we have any weather controlling devices?"

"I'm not calling Jack and asking."

"Oh, come on, he'd cave if you did," she says. Their prospects as they are don't look very dry. It might be worth a shot.

"As if he wouldn't for you," Ianto replies.

"He'd tell me to walk back in the rain just to see me in wet clothes."

"He'd use it as an excuse to get me in his clothes once mine were ruined," Ianto says, affecting a forlorn tone like they're commiserating over a real tragedy. Gwen only manages to hold her laugh in for a few seconds. She ducks her head and bumps her shoulder into Ianto's side. He grins.

"We could make a run for it." The rain isn't going to stop any time soon. Gwen's resigned to her fate.

"I'm willing if you are." Ianto extends his hand, and Gwen takes it. She squeezes it. With that, they fly off, skidding on wet cement.

By the time they're back in the Hub, there's not a dry inch of them or a spare breath in which they aren't laughing.

[gloom-sprite]

Okay so I don't mean this in a depressing way but more in an exploration of the way that I feel but like... The idea that someone could ever truly want me and pick me over every other option is such an alien concept to me?? And not even like 'im wallowing in self pity' i genuinely feel alright and everything is fine but like, I genuinely can't imagine a world where someone would pick me if they have options i guess

I've just always been an option to everyone I've ever been involved with, never the first choice. Everyone historically has split things off to pursue something with someone that they wanted more than me. There just always feels like there is some unbridgeable gap between me and other people that no matter how hard I work to bridge I can't. I guess its probably at least in part the feeling of alienation that comes with being autistic?? but i dont even know tbh

[the-beard-writes]

Hi! Can you tell me a little bit about the setting in your story and the magic and lore? From what I've heard so far it sounds a bit like urban fantasy but I want to know more!

AAAAA HELLO THERE

VERY EXCITED

okay so. Timing wise it’s in the present

**here is where i saved this as a draft and decided to come back to it on my computer for ease of typing then forgot for a day**

disclaimer, this exists solely in my mind (and also very vague character notes in a word doc) so forgive me if this makes no sense

sobbing violently because a few months ago i went to that doc once after not having checked it in a while and it just said "notes in notebook" so i had to update it ⤵︎

ig technically i did write part of one scene and threw it on ao3

ANYWAY

it's set at this place called West Love School for the Mythical and Magical

i had a dumb idea that it's called west love because something something gods were arguing over who would be the patron and zephyrus and aphrodite and hecate all ended up joint patrons (it's a dumb idea if for no other reason than would the gods really share)

but yeah so kids come from all around the world to go to this school (not sure yet where the school is. at first i was thinking wales but idk why)

not including the ghost children there are about 8 main characters which is part of why this wouldnt make sense

in this world, magic is sort of a willpower thing but not exactly. also "witch" is a gender neutral term as it was intended to be

so if at least one of your parents was a witch then you definitely are one, but you can be a witch without a parent being one too. this is where im a little interested to understand how it works. I think that what it is is that everyone has the capacity to be a witch, but most people arent.

maybe the non-witches do have some small magical abilities. meaning that they could have something so small and unnoticeable that they don't realize it's magic and it could change from person to person. like a person who always manages to wake up feeling well rested no matter how little sleep they get! they assume it's just normal or they're just lucky but turns out its magic! not that they'd ever realize it though

and some people without witch parents are born with such a high capacity for magic that they are a witch

children of the gods are also witches, as are mythical creatures

everyone is allowed to go to this school except for shapeshifters

they have different class levels based on placement, though. so if you weren't born to witches or you weren't raised by them then you're placed in classes to help you learn the basics that other kids who were raised by witches or taught to practice their magic as a kid would go to the school knowing

i still need to work out the logistics of how it would work so that there isnt always just an unbridgeable gap between those raised by witches and those who weren't im thinking there would be extra aid available for those who weren't raised by witches and also those who mightve been but still had a hard time learning so that they could have instructors who know how to teach this stuff in such a way that they'll be able to quickly and easily catch up to their peers i don't think their peers would be too far advanced, though because, although children are allowed to practice magic before they get to school, it's not as though they would all be experts. **here is where i saved this as a draft again and left my house for a few hours** i imagine it's like with children irl. they're taught some basics at home but the rest is left for actual school to teach them and some kids might be super far advanced but not that many (and at that point those few kids wouldn't have their own separate courses but rather be placed with the highest level of the other kids)(because there's so few of them and also what if they learned improper technique idk) **here is where i did the thing again and went to go make dinner then forgot about it**

okay actually i think this might be enough for one post

OH vampires have an open invitation to West Love when they are younger (eh. yknow what i mean. like, kids in the vampire sense) vampires can reproduce bc why wouldnt they be able to there is a vampire royal family but they're relatively chill

OH AND THIS ENTIRE THING IS EXTREMELY QUEER

also final thing, just so i can explain the tag, is they call themselves the Nobodies. (the witches) im not sure just yet if its just these main characters or all witches but this is because they have no chosen one, no prophecy, no beef with "dark" creatures (except that whole thing with shapeshifters which could be a focus point) they're just. Nobody. so they call themselves the Nobodies

[reachexceedinggrasp]

So when I've been complaining about even fanfiction not being romantic enough, part of what I mean by that is that people take huge, gothic characters in pairings with gigantic, dramatic stakes full of titanic emotions and then make them feel small and mundane. Stripping the very romanicism from the bones of the romance.

There are many things that are deeply appealing to me about B&tB pairings or 'unlikely' pairings or Gothic romance in general, but something that is less structural while still being absolutely key is that it's not an easy relationship to get the characters into. It's not something that would happen under ordinary circumstances for either person. It's not a bond that can be forged without some form of pressure preventing these people from continuing in their regular patterns.

If you're writing an E/C fic where you start from scratch, the moment they so much as touch for the first time should be absolutely show-stoppingly prodigious. It can never be casual, not between these two, the idea of a touch being allowed should be an Event. The reader's heart should be thundering in their chest, the suspense should be palpable, the consummation divine. A single touch is a consummation for them, there should be that much tension. If they hold hands and I'm not holding my breath, you have done it wrong. The first kiss should feel like an atom bomb going off, the world should shift on its axis, a line is being crossed which has left both characters forever altered.

And people will instead write them like a standard romance novel couple who make standard pervy comments in the narration, get a bit flirty, casually hook up and then weigh pros and cons about whether dating fits into their life plans or not. All of this being totally without weight, without feeling like any kind of Rubicon has been crossed or that it's significant for the characters to have entered into something which must foundationally alter their worldview.

Reylo brushing fingers across the galaxy and it being the turning point of the entire narrative, given the same majesty and mystical significance as Luke's vision in the cave or Yoda lifting the X-Wing is the exact correct amount of emphasis for them reaching towards each other in tenderness. You have a character defined by abandonment and loneliness and a character who is surrounded by people but never touched, both unseen by anyone else, both aching for connection, both never having felt anything like this before, both aware of the galaxy-spanning consequences of what they're feeling. Them touching is le big deal.

The kiss for the B&tB pairing, the EtL pairing, any Gothic pairing has to feel out of reach, a chasm that cannot be crossed- until it happens, impossible yet inevitable. Something the characters could never have conceived of taking place at the beginning of the story, an infinite abyss of which they have somehow found themselves on the other side. You have to do the work to get them there, you have to build that bridge stone by stone, and it should be a sublime agony of seeing the path take shape while it still feels like the gap is just unbridgable, that no matter how close you come, it will never be complete, they can never get all the way across. Until they do.

If you write characters who have (or should have) that kind of vast gulf separating them as just kind of falling into an intimacy which isn't earned and thus means nothing, I just have no idea why we're here. Why buy a giant gothic castle of romanticism and then bulldoze it to build a minimalist condo? Everything about the pairing that makes it that pairing is stripped away. If these were people who could just meet at a party and end up in bed, they would be completely different people.

[tides-of-truth]

David Bohm theoretical physicist and philosopher said "That which we experience as mind... will, in a natural way, ultimately reach the level of the wave function and of the 'dance' of the particles. There is no unbridgeable gap or barrier between any of these levels.,.... in some sense, a rudimentary consciousness is present even at the level of particle physics"

from

quantumawareness.net

To this day we do not understand where or how consciousness arises and the role the brain plays in its formation if it plays a role at all. It could be just a receiver or radio, receiving information on several channels of perception that we would call our senses.

Panpsychism skips this need to discover the relationship between the brain and the rise of conscious awareness completely, its simplicity is simply pro-found. No matter how shocking or strange panpsy-chism sounds I am reminded at what Sherlock Holmes said, that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Can science accept this deduction and if not how do we prove that which we have not been able to prove, other than keep trying even though the truth is already in front of us?

from:

quantumawareness.net

[staringdownabarrel]

One of the things I really liked about Picard's second season was the storyline about Picard's mother having a mental illness.

Part of this is just because of my own experiences with mental illness in my own family. This isn't something I enjoy talking about and this is probably going to be one of the very few times I ever talk about on here, so don't take this as permission to message me about this. It isn't.

My mother is also mentally ill. When I was young, she had multiple schizophrenic episodes that often required her to stay in a psychiatric ward. A lot of this was because they hadn't yet found a medication that would work for her. They've since done this and it is working for now--the last time she was in that hospital was in 2015, and the time before that, 2001. So my experiences with mental illness in the family hasn't been as dramatic as some other people's have been, but they still happened.

But for a long time, it wouldn't be unusual for her to be hospitalised a few times a year. When you're a young child, this is a very confusing thing and you don't have the life experience or the vocabulary to fully process what's happening. Years later when you do understand it, it's a difficult thing to talk about because very few people outside of your immediate family will fully grasp your experiences. Even inside the family, it can often lead to recriminations about one family member having a better relationship or another not being around for this episode or whatever, so it's often something that's just never spoken about.

So on a deep intuitive level, this storyline resonated with me. That Picard still struggles with processing these experiences decades later makes a lot of sense to me, because that's been my experience as well.

I think it also helps to explain why he's such a private person later on when he's commanding the Enterprise. When this kind of thing is a part of your early life experience, especially in such a dramatic fashion, there can be a fear that anyone else you let get close to you will leave you in that dramatic way as well. There's also the fear that your own perspective on life is so different, so heavily tinted by these experiences, that the gap between you and another person is unbridgeable.

It also explains why he allows Troi to have a position on the bridge, even though every other captain introduced in the series so far hasn't had a counselor on the bridge. Someone who's had these experiences early on that end in suicide really would realise that sometimes you don't notice these things until it's too late, especially if you aren't trained to see the signs.

While this is likely just me reading too much into things, I think it does broadly fit with how Picard has traditionally been portrayed. It made sense that he was like that naturally of course, but having it be a result of some level of childhood trauma makes sense as well.

The other reason I liked this plotline is because I think it is a good concept in general. When you have a society like the Federation where a person has strong legal protections for their individual liberties, at what point can the state intervene in your private life?

In real life, a person is often only forcibly sectioned if they can be proven to be a danger to themselves or the people around them. This is why there's that ongoing issue with therapy averse people in general forcing every new friend they make to be their unpaid therapist. Most of the time, you can't actually prove they're an imminent threat to themselves, so even if you do call in a welfare check on them, they often won't be carted off to the hospital afterwards.

This even applies in some very extreme situations at times. It's why someone like Gail Chord Schuler, who demonstrably needs psychiatric help, to start taking her medication, and maybe stay off the internet for a little while can go around doing whatever it is she's up to now instead. While mentally unwell, she's also not really a threat to anyone, so the state can't force her to get help.

Of course, in real life, part of the problem is that a lot of health services in general, and mental health services in particular, are wildly underfunded, and there's often a cost barrier for people. In the Federation, this wouldn't be an issue. They're so keen on people being able to receive medical help that they'll give it to people openly rebelling against a close ally (TNG: The Mind's Eye). Money is a foreign concept for a lot of its citizens. There's no way they wouldn't have the resources to provide help for Yvette Picard if she wanted it.

The only thing preventing it form happening is that Yvette doesn't want it. A government like the Federation wouldn't want to force it on her, and probably legally couldn't. What would happen as a result is that in the utopian Federation, someone could just refuse help because they don't want it.

Something like that is an interesting look at the limits of Federation utopia. In a lot of ways, it's a much more interesting look at it than the "What if there was a major war and they had to decide whether or not to do this otherwise unthinkable thing?" angle that the franchise usually approaches this issue from. Instead of it being a limit that's brought on by the onset of a once-in-a-century level major war, it's the kind of small scale limit that would affect the average citizen on a personal level.

To me, that's a much more interesting look at the limits. In extreme situations, there'll always be extreme reactions, but mental illness is a common enough thing that it happens all the time. It's the kind of story that I think Star Trek as a whole is conceptually well suited for.

That isn't to say there aren't issues with this storyline, but I don't think they're any worse than any of Star Trek's previous issues with portraying mental health issues on screen. A lot of the issues also tie into Picard's overall pacing issue, which is something that's been an ongoing issue for the Kurtzman era in general.

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 2/5

Book Blurb: Packed with voice, Shannon C.F. Rogers' I'd Rather Burn than Bloom is a powerful YA novel about a Filipina-American teen who tries to figure out who she really is in the wake of her mother's death. Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol Martin? She could never relate. She and her mom were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. Clothes, church, boys, no matter the topic, Marisol always felt like there was an unbridgeable gap between them that they were perpetually shouting across, one that she longed to close. But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say. Her dad seems completely lost, and worse, baffled by Marisol's attempts to connect with her mother's memory through her Filipino culture. Her brother Bernie is retreating further and further into himself. And when Marisol sleeps with her best friend's boyfriend - and then punches said best friend in the face - she's left alone, with nothing but a burning anger, and nowhere for it to go. And Marisol is determined to stay angry, after all, there’s a lot to be angry about– her father, her mother, the world. But as a new friendship begins to develop with someone who just might understand, Marisol reluctantly starts to open up to her, and to the possibility there’s something else on the other side of that anger– something more to who she is, and who she could be.

Review:

In the wake of her mother’s death a teen is struggling to deal with her grief and where her life is going. Marisol Martin has had a difficult relationship with her mother, they could never really understand one another, constantly arguing and fighting. Marisol might constantly argue with her mom but she never expects to lose her mom so soon and now she is reeling from every fight she’s ever had with her mom. Marisol is dealing with not only the guilt from fighting with her mother, but the fall out of her friendships, the secrets that her brother has, and just her feeling of being lost. Marisol is a mess, she’s angry, she’s lost, and she feels disconnected. She wants to reconnect with her mother’s culture, she wants to reconnect with her friends, and find a way to reconnect with her family but being a teen isn’t easy and making mistakes is all part of the growing process. Can she finally find peace with her grief or will the loss of her mother make her spiral down a path that will only break her? Marisol is going through a lot, she’s dealing with not only the grief of losing her mother but haunted by the guilt from all their fights and from the fact that her mother’s death could be her fault. She spirals into poor decision making from drinking daily, hooking up with her best friend’s boyfriend, lying to her dad, and so much more because she doesn’t know how to deal with her grief, But when everything seems like its going downhill, she finds that she has made a new friend and that maybe this is her chance to start over. Overall this was a story about a girl growing and dealing with grief, did I find her unlikable? yes. Did I not really enjoy this one? Yes. But, I will say that it is a realistic story about how dealing with grief can cause you to do things you’d never thought and how painful it is to lose someone so close to you. Marisol is a teen. she’s dealing with pain and loss and trying to find an outlet for it all.  If you enjoy stories about grief and growing then give this one a go.

*Thanks Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Feiwel & Friends for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[reviewsthatburn]

THE LIGHT BETWEEN WORLDS is a Narnia A.U. in which three children were magically plucked from a WWII backyard bomb shelter and spend several years in the Woodlands, where they grew up, faced dangers, went through a different kind of war, then returned home when the older two were ready. Except Evelyn didn't want to go back to England, and spends her time cycling between hope and misery as she tries to return to the Woodlands, the only home her heart knows. It captures the way that, sometimes, to them, each person's grief feels so specific and terrible that there's no way anyone could ever understand what happened or what they're still going through. Instead, each attempt at understanding through clichés, parallels, or personal stories only makes clear some enormous and unbridgeable gap. Every difference becoming an insurmountable barrier which makes it harder and harder to feel like anyone could ever understand.

Full Review at Link.

[dots3a]

I reach for words all the time only to find they are not where I am sure that I left them. There I am, wandering around my own brain opening drawers getting so distracted by the audacity of the misplacement that I forget what I am looking for, come to my senses, and jerry-rig some this-will-have-to-do almost synonym.

To the people I am speaking to I am sure I just look like a fish, opening and closing my mouth seeming having access to only peripheral vision.

Then the wave crashes and conversation moves forward, usually without me. So strange to feel adrift on a little life raft with miles between myself and other people, between myself and land. All while within touching distance of people who are inconceivably far away across an unbridgeable gap.

[pomeraniandancer]

This is something that *SUPER* worries me when it comes to intersectionality issues. I am deaf and an ADHDer, and possibly also autistic (we're waiting to see how my ADHD medication works out before evaluating me for ASD). I am also, and this is relevant, white. On multiple occasions, I have found myself in *very* difficult conversations where I missed a social or linguistic cue, and got myself into very hot water without me having any clear idea of how or what I did to land myself there. Luckily, on the times this has happened, the POC friend/acquaintance who's upset with me knows me well enough that even though they're upset with me for not catching onto what they had been saying, they also recognize that my missing the social cue or (accidentally) crossing a boundary is not a reflection on the entire me as a person.

Nevertheless, when those interactions happen (and they occur about once or twice a year), are quite emotionally traumatic and scarring, and leave me uncertain about just how stable a footing I am on with the person I accidentally clashed with.

I have seen enough rants on social media by people angry at someone they don't know, someone who crossed a serious boundary when asking about feminist theory, intersectionality, racism, etc., and when the OP gets angry with the asker, the asker tells them that they have ASD or some other similar disorder, and that they didn't understand or recognize that they were stepping on a metaphorical land mine with their question.

Inevitably, the angry person accuses the asker of using their diagnosis as an excuse, a "get out of jail free" card for their invasive, rude, or poorly reasoned questions.

Because of those reactions and accusations of using their diagnosis as an excuse, I have never once reminded the persons who have gotten angry with me that I am deaf, that deaf culture has a very different social and communication code from hearing culture, or that I also have ADHD.

On occasion, after we've given each other some space, they will come back and give me some advice about how to more successfully and correctly interpret statements or remarks they or other POC/intersectional/minority people have made. Inevitably, that guidance has demanded more social and communication effort on my end on top of what I already have to do as a deafie and an ADHDer.

At the same time, they, as a marginalized person, are also going out of their way to put more work into communicating and interacting with me as a white person who inevitably doesn't recognize all the privileges I have until they are pointed out to me.

It's as if there's a perpetual gap between me (and other people like me) and other marginalized groups, particularly POC and similarly intersectional groups. And asking either one of us to take the step to bridge that gap is unfailingly going to mean asking one or both of us to put more work and effort into communicating with each other above and beyond the work we are already putting in as a matter of course. Asking either of us to put even more work in would be a wholly unreasonable demand in any other situation where we might be interacting with someone who has the privileges that neither I nor the marginalized person I'm interacting with, have.

So that's the crux of the problem I often find myself wondering about. A white person like myself with invisible disabilities that affect their ability to read and correctly interpret social circumstances, and another marginalized person who does not have those disabilities, who has privileges that I do not, but also has challenges and barriers that I don't have. And therefore there is this seemingly unbridgeable gap in communication structures between us. How can we get two such communities to effectively and productively communicate together? I'm hesitant to suggest putting disabled POC in a mediating position unless they volunteer for it, since they by definition are battling twice the number of barriers that either I or an able-bodied POC is living with. And all of this is setting aside the fact that disabled people are rarely wholly disabled -- most of us are able-bodied in some respects, and disabled in others. This is how and why many disabled people live with internalized ableism towards some other groups of disabled peoples, without having that same sense of ableism towards others. Just because we're disabled doesn't mean that we universally recognize and understand the disabled experience in every circumstance.

So how do we bridge that gap? Surely some people have managed it successfully? Who and where are they? What can we learn from their experiences and observations to build a more comprehensive framework for bridging those gaps in situations where everyone is justified in objecting to adding more communication and emotional labor on their already heavily burdened backs?

As an autistic person, the implications of "if they really cared I wouldn't have to say it" culture are really scary. Because I want to know what hurts your feelings, what crosses your boundaries, where the line between teasing and being mean is at for you, what you need, and how to make you feel loved. And the implication that if my disability makes me unable to figure out these things through intuition alone, then I'm just not worth having around, is genuinely heartbreaking

[anaalnathrakhs]

god i've seen a reel today and it was like, a woman hyping up her male friends, dressed to the nines for a wedding, like omg they look out of booktok, and the whole comments were dogpiling them like "booktok changed" and "discord mod meetup" and whatnot and it's. wow.

i think i'm kinda starting to understand why misogyny is still a prevailing problem in countries & cities & communities where women's rights by law are pretty good overall. like you have to accept at some point that sexism is not fed by men hating women, but by the upholding of some kind of unbridgeable gap between men and women, by the animosity and the "silly" fighting about who's better, and by judging people first and foremost over their gender. of course we're all in this cycle and it's up to each individual to learn to stop at any time they can, and it's not to blame misogyny as a whole on women as a whole being mean bitches or something, but also you can understand that if you're just collectively huge assholes to random men who've done nothing to you, especially by using things you tend to agree are nasty when done to women (mocking looks, interests, etc), you're just being misandrist and perpetuating the cycle.

i don't agree w this kind of whole gender-scaled talion law that some people try to argue is right, that women can abuse, hurt, etc, men, and it's only justice served (esp if it's literally just because it's abt a man, that didn't do anything particularly misogynistic), but also if you agree with it WHY are you surprised men do the same. why is it wrong, if it's cool for women to do it?

have we learned nothing from the hatfields and mccoys? from the capulets and the montagues? there's a goddamn my little pony episode to teach young children that revenge only perpetuates and escalates the conflict, maybe that's the level of kindness and critical thinking you should start back at.