#does this ramble make sense? I've never been able to tell anyone about this part of his character before

[the-cpu-system]

Glazing my own oc for a second cus I love him and I feel like no one gets that he's commentary on protestors and I actually like. Made him to be an actual NPC (when separated from his selfship alt storyline) that fits in perfectly to Borderlands 2

All my rambling is in the tags vvv

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

of course I've been following you for a while, and I think i asked something along these lines before, but maybe not to this extent? unsure, as I can't find the previous ask I sent.

I was raised within the Xtian culture (I'm agnostic, but still practice the Xtian cultures and traditions; namely Xmas and the January New Year) and follow a few Jewish tumblrs, but I never know - when you or they post in reference to or in celebration of Judaism - if I can reblog things as a form of "goyim support"? Because I always want to share posts from the people I follow, but I never want to inadvertently claim an identity, religion and/or culture as my own to people who don't know me (i.e. random people who follow me.)

Does this make any sense? No clue, sorry if it's mostly nonsense. Like, I know that tagging posts with something along the lines of "I'm not Jewish but [...]" can detract from the actual topic of the post and then I'm making my act of reblogging something about myself as opposed to actually being supportive? But then! I'm hesitant because during my internal debate I think "if I don't clarify that I am not Jewish, I will be inadvertently appropriating the identity of Jewish people."

I don't want to pretend to "be Jewish" without actually being Jewish, is I guess what I'm trying to communicate. (Am I? I don't very well know.) And to expect or request "Okay for goyim to reblog!" on anything/everything would be absolutely ridiculous, so I won't.

How I got from "I want to share this cool post about Judaism from a blog I follow" to fear of appropriation on my part is beyond me, but alas. ("It's not that serious" they call from the peanut gallery.)

Any advice on how one such as myself might tread these waters? If you don't want to or can't answer for any reason, I understand. This isn't the be-all and end-all of situations, just a question from one stranger on the internet to another. I just hope I've been able to convey this rambling comes from a place of respect and well-meaning curiousity.

Hi there!

I appreciate your sensitivity to this and desire to balance things - that tells me you are kind and want to be respectful. So, thank you for asking; it's a good question! Tumblr is kind of a weird format with the reblogs structured as they are.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I always lock reblogs on things I don't want reblogged and tag things as "goyim DNI" or similar if it is too much of a sensitive intra-Jewish issue or whatever. For positivity, I typically don't assume that everyone reblogging it is Jewish, and honestly appreciate when people who aren't Jewish want to spread positivity about us. That said, if you want to make a clear distinction, I think tagging it something like "reblog of support" would do the job without derailing.

Obviously two Jews, three opinions, but that's what I'd say for me at least. 😊

[hologramblue]

a lot of the parts of endwalker that i liked because they resonated with me were like. how do i put this. this is going to come out clumsy bc i have to go to work soon and i don't want to spend all my time on impulseposting about ffxiv

so, being a nonreligious atheist in the US, right. a lot of them are ex-christians. US christians are batshit nuts and culturally dominant. take these two things together and what you get is that a lot of the Story About Atheism is "still" a revolutionary, subversive, underdog thing; it's about attacking and overcoming the flaws of mainstream thought

i'm not ex-christian; i was raised nonreligious atheist, blissfully unaware for a shockingly long time that most christians actually took the stories more seriously than my books of greek mythology (which i was far more familiar with than even the big-name bible stories). that didn't erase the entire fucking...bush years experience, or like, going through my teen years arguing with fundies online about evolution, but atheism has never been as, like, revolutionary or liberatory for me as it was for my parents or for many of the loudest voices about it

which creates a ?cultural context? that's in a weird spot because like, there's things about being a white-mutt nonreligious atheist in the US that you can't really talk about for as long as atheism is still in a defensive, underdog position, because if you're like "you know i think about the meaning of life sometimes and it's kind of upsetting how most of my at-hand secular options for holidays/traditions/values are just rooted in settler colonial mythology instead" then fundies will start frothing about how it's evidence of the brokenness and degeneracy and soul-rot of atheism or whatever.

so like, games about killing god are very important and i will never argue that they aren't relevant in this day and age, because uh holy shit, but they don't resonate with me personally because there was never a god-by-that-name in my head to kill. endwalker (the parts i'm thinking of anyways) is one of the few pieces of media that does feel like it's talking directly to me on that axis, starting from the premise i was raised with and skipping over the defensiveness to talk directly about civic religion and nationalism and, like, the invention of god or god-like concepts from scratch by people who don't need to explain where the rain comes from but do crave reassurance that there's something bigger than their own flawed selves that can tell them they're doing alright, when they look down and realize how much power and how little control they really have over the world, and can't find anything to justify it. hermes hit hard and i don't think i've ever been able to fully explain to anyone why. dungeon meshi levels of going "oh shit other people know this feeling."

among other things i don't have the time or focus to ramble about. the whole venat and ancients thing.

i've seen people say endwalker is a pro-religious story and i heartily disagree, i think it's easy to hear it that way if you're used to people swinging around "you just need to believe in jesus/astrology/??? and that'll fix ya" as a weapon and that's the only time you hear people use the word faith, i definitely have that kneejerk reaction too, but endwalker doesn't feel like that to me. like, it's not coming from that place and trying to win me over, it knows where i'm standing way too well for that

if that makes sense.

[littlelambdrgnfly]

Ok since you reblogged that one post I hope you know I reread The Sum of Them for the 3rd time, maybe like a month ago, up until the last chapter and i never finished it cause i didnt want to experience it ending again (if that makes sense), i wish it never ended. I wish they could play baby games forever but its so important it does end because the ending is soo beautiful but so devastating, and it's beautiful because its so devastating, and my heart cant take experiencing that again :'-(

i already sent a message on here saying that your fic was the first fic to make me cry, possibly the first piece of LITERATURE in general to make me cry (i could be wrong but i cant remember any piece before that), and it made me cry 2 times when reading it for the first time. It is truly my favorite piece of McLennon fanfiction, but the only reason i dont fully consider it mine is that if someone were to ask me, it'd be too taboo/freaky to say but its truly one of the most heartfelt and complex ways ive ever seen anyone portray John and Paul while also feeling completely accurate and realistic. My god. And i love so many of your other fics too but The Sum of Them really means so much to me and I cant even say that enough. i wish you could just live as me and be inside my mind to fully grasp how much of an affect it had on me, I dont think i will ever be able to explain it sadly </3. But just know out of every McLennon fic ive ever read (and ive read many), THAT one is my very favorite out of like 100+. The way you characterize them is just so completely different from any other fic ive read and its so intimate and raw and holy shit i dont even have the words. Sorry i know im rambling at this point but I just think about it a lot! Also your fics are the only fics i enjoy anymore, (recent) beatles fics have gone down the drain in my opinion and yours are the only ones i can be satisfied with because, as far as im concerned, anything you write is automatically in-character for them after reading The Sum of Them lol x) thank you so SO much for writing cause it's truly exposed so many of my own desires and hidden , sensitive parts of myself that couldn't be excavated any other way without your work 💖

Dude... this is legitimately one of the best comments I've ever gotten. I wish I could memorize all of this and replay it for myself whenever I'm feeling blue. Thank you so so much, it means the world to me! I think all writers insert their own thoughts and emotions into their work, and I definitely do that in all of mine, but especially The Sum of Them. This fic is basically my wishlist of things I would do with a partner, as well as coming to better terms with my own kinks, so I'm glad it's been able to resonate with people. I'm also glad that I managed to keep John and Paul in character, even if John is crying every other paragraph lmao! I totally get what you're saying about wishing I could experience what you did, I wish I could too. Sometimes I reread my fics with the mindset of someone reading it for the first time, but it's just not the same. I'd give my left tit for more writers on my level or higher who wrote bottom!John or even ABDL fics, I swear. I don't read a lot of fics these days, but I'm usually disappointed whenever I check the Beatles tab. I'm also really really bad at remembering titles and author names, so I never remember what fics that I like! Thank God for bookmarks. I definitely understand not wanting to tell people that this is your favorite fic though, lol! I've been writing Beatles fics for a long time, but I created a new account on AO3 when I started writing these fics. I'm comfortable talking about this stuff, but only with the help of an alternate profile. I'm really really happy to help people explore this side of themselves though-- too often fics like mine are just really gross over-the-top and completely unrealistic portrayals in my opinion, and I guess I wanted to bring something sweeter and more realistic to the table. <3

[havoc-warband]

(@commanderhorncleaver) I'm not curious... how did Vikarous react to/deal with dying during pof? During/after thoughts and perspective? How has it impacted him?

it has been 4 days since i got this ask and i have been THINKING ABOUT IT SO HARD because story wise i have no idea what happens after Mordremoth yet. but my dear mustelid friend has advised me! that i can just answer in hypotheticals. because i'm not even sure how/if this event is going to happen in what i've been calling My Canon! i'm gonna need something catchier for that. havocverse? anyway-

(note from after i regained control over my imagination & fingers - this got very rambly but it was really fun getting into Vikaros' head for this! thanks & apologies >:] )

if it DOES happen as in the story - he's alone, ambushed away from his allies, iirc - it would make so much sense that as a soul he's too traumatized to regain his memories entirely on his own. perhaps tybalt would guide him back. there is just so much stuff that would parallel claw island - separated from his warband, facing seemingly impossible odds, fighting an enemy that they don't know that much about yet, clearly on the road to losing after a drawn-out torturous battle - and if you've read the relevant writing thing on here you know that Vikaros did NOT handle that well at all: he went back, took his warband & quit the High Legions with all of them: surrounding himself with his family/friends and evacuating from the environment he perceived as Bad For Their Health.

so, back to the balthazar-corners-and-murders-us moment in PoF, when Vikaros eventually has his jesus moment and comes back to life, he's nearly catatonic - because let's not forget, at this point he's like, what, 25? and his whole life he's been a soldier and leader, and dying probably yanked his perspective on that upside fuckin down - and he does NOT respond to Anyone or Anything until his warband is brought to him, at which point he finally Breaks and just Refuses to let go of them, basically forces them into a multi-hour cuddle pit, very much confusing anyone who's only ever seen his Tough Commander exterior and even the rest of Havoc themselves who have Never seen him like this. he recovers to the point of being able to Speak after a few hours, and is a little bit embarrassed.

he would return to work shortly after, though, philosophy of "try and drown myself in work so i don't have to think about that", work consisting of fighting so it kind of fails at keeping him from Thinking About That, but at least he can burn off his rage and fear turning the forged hordes into dead porcupines from a distance. at night, he has nightmares, and wakes up screaming, but his warband is there for him, and they never let him go out without at least one of them and the entire warband if possible, an arrangement which will continue until balthazar's death, which does help him a little - the alone-ness after all was part of the horrors - and after balthazar's death, he does relax a little and the nightmares do relent a little, though they'll of course never go away fully

Thoughts-and-perspective wise, a LOT would change. Before, he's still on a high from a moderately successful campaign against Mordremoth with Trahearne only being able to participate from afar, so Vikaros *is* the highest officer in the jungle, and in his mind, he's this wildly successful soldier and commander, and it doesn't matter that he's never been anything else, because this is the thing he's so good at, and of course he can do a few other things too: he smiths daggers and axes and weaves baskets for the healers and suppliers and that's kind of fun - but that's not his primary purpose in life. And his primary purpose is what should bring him the highest joy, because he's a life-committed hero. (It doesn't matter that he didn't sign up for this, he tells himself, it doesn't)

Afterwards, he starts getting a lot more crises-of-faith, both of the "i'm not actually that good a fighter" kind and the "oh fuck i didn't realize i was throwing away so many chances to do other things in my life" variety. At this point he would still be Commander of the Pact, but he will start to consider resigning from that in order to pursue other things he wants to do personally. It's hard to conceptualize, though, because for so long, his work was his life, and now he has to separate them and also create a balance between them. And that's Hard, because sometimes he feels like he's letting every soldier and person on Tyria down by even thinking about it, and there's so much riding on it, but he's never felt this fucking Stuck before, before he realized that he was in fact Stuck. and again, recall the situation with the legions, he's not a fan of feeling Stuck somewhere he thinks will bring him his death one day.

[wolvesandpetals]

Loki x Sylvie Post-Finale Fanfiction (Angst, Rated Teen) Part 2 of 2

Part 1 is here:

She never knew it would hurt this much when the person she loves is right in front of her, but she can't reach out and touch him; when she is still her, he is still him, but everything else has changed, like an invisible lever in an old theatre changing the scenery in the background, bringing them both to the part of the play where they are hopelessly lost.

[[MORE]]

All it took was one single moment, one single decision, and everything feels irrevocably broken now. It makes her contemplate on the true nature of relationships, how fragile they are, and how easy it is to shatter them- and her.

The smoke is slowly clearing, and all that seems to be left is a man who is doing his best to keep his distance from her, physically and emotionally.

She can tell from the way he stands with his arms crossed, or his fists clenced when his hands are by his side, that he really doesn't want to hold her hand. How can something so simple as the touch of his fingers be so vital to her existence that it feels like something has been ripped out from inside her?

She wants to reach out and touch him, but she is scared that if he pulls away outright, any hope of reconciliation that she still has left will shatter into pieces.

And she really needs this hope. It's the only thing she still has left. It's the only thing that keeps her going.

---

He looks like a man with a mission.

They spent quite a long time together, running from the TVA, running towards the citadel at the end of time, hoping to achieve their goal of bringing down the one behind the curtains.

But that was her mission, and he was there for her. She was the one behind the wheels, he was the one keeping the sails afloat.

Now it's different. Now he has a defined goal, a glorious purpose.

She's seeing him in a whole new light now, and not just because he has switched to Asgardian leather and metal armors.

As far as she is concerned, she is better off doing it all alone. One woman army, nobody to get in her way, nobody to screw up her plans. Nobody to blame her if it all goes to shit.

Or so it was, until two months ago, when Mobius decided to enlist her help in fixing the multiversal madness.

She has never really worked with people before, and it's weird, to say the least. She never considered herself a team player, but she is finding herself hating the idea less and less lately.

And she swears it has nothing to do with him. Not the fact that they are working together, and seeing his face first thing in the morning brings her a sense of calm that she quite can't explain. Or the fact that their rooms are next to each other and it makes her feel secure enough to finally get some rest at nights. Or that this whole arrangement has kept them on talking terms, when they had gone their own separate ways otherwise.

Nothing to do with that at all.

---

Humans are stupid, and the biggest evidence of this is how they decided that two extremely powerful Gods skilled at magic, enchantment, and defeating an evil extra dimensional cloud that swallows everything it touches, should be delegated to the role of research. "You're clever. You're good at reading people. You can put yourselves in the shoes of the bad guys, no offense", they said, but really, what they meant was, "We can't trust you out in the field much." She knows it, he knows it. She just doesn't know why he's complying.

That's how they find themselves researching every single day.

She likes to think he's not the only reason why she's studying in the library instead of in the comfort of her room, but that'd be a lie.

At first, he chooses to sit at a separate table. But she keeps going over to his to "get his opinion" on something in the file she's reading, and finally, he gives in. Their current arrangement consists of him sitting in the chair in front of her, to the left, prim and proper, while she hoists her feet up on the table.

He falls asleep on the desk one night, face smacked against a file, the tiniest bit of drool forming at the corner of his mouth. It would be a hilarious sight, if her heart wasn't feeling what she can only describe as longing.

They should probably talk about it, like mature adults, but neither of them know how to do that.

All she can do right now is gather the courage to run her fingers through his hair. The touch is hesitant at first, as if one wrong move would make him wake up and push her back to square one. Slowly, she relaxes, letting her fingers dance on his scalp.

He stirs in his sleep. "Please Sif. I'm sorry. Don't cut off my glorious locks, please."

Now this is a story she must hear when things are better.

If things are better.

---

Doctor Strange joins them very briefly, very rarely, but the tension between him and Loki is hard to miss. It's worse than the current situation with her, and that's saying something.

"You don't really like Stephen, do you?"

Something inside him seems to shift, but he masks it behind a non-chalant look immediately and just arches an eyebrow at her. "He's Stephen now, is he?"

"Well, that is his name." She shrugs. "What do you call him?"

"Strange", he spits the word out with an amount of irritation that indicates there definitely is a story there. "That is his name", he mimics.

She can't help the smirk that spreads across her lips. "What did he do to you?"

"Nothing", he lies, ignoring the horrifying flashbacks of thirty minutes of endless falling. Not a single soul must ever know a mere human got the best of him. "What can he do to me? I'm a God among those mortals. He just irks me because he is so pompous, and arrogant, and he ceaselessly uses magic to toy with others."

She pretends to think deeply. "Now where have I seen that before?"

He scoffs. "You mock me, but I am nothing like him. For one, I am not rude."

"He seems fine to me", she declares decisively.

It's the first time in months that he gives her a cheeky grin. "That's because you're rude too."

---

They are still just containing the threats to their world, instead of finding a way to fortify the barriers between worlds and stop the threats from coming.

"Shouldn't we have a plan to seal off the other worlds from ours?" She asks him one day.

"They are working on it." He tells her, and then with a look of worry, adds, "I hope."

There are debates on what to do at the Avengers tower and at the TVA. Nobody seems to agree on what the best course of action is, but everyone seems to be following the general instructions of Doctor Strange.

During one such meeting, a Minuteman makes the mistake of voicing out loud how she wondered if things would be better if they were running according to their old boss's plans.

Sylvie feels the guilt wash over her once more.

"No", Loki tells them all firmly. The determination in his voice takes her completely by surprise. "Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred." She catches him steal a glance at her direction. "We couldn't have left a dictator in charge just because it's convenient. Listen, I'm the bad guy. I've done horrible, unspeakable things. I thought humans needed to be ruled. I wanted to rule. But even I know that it's not right to take away a person's life completely. These are innocent people. You are innocent people. You have families back home, parents, children", a pause and a softening of his features, "-love. A whole past, a whole future. That man had no right to take it away from you."

His powers of persuasion are foreign to her, and it's mesmerizing to watch. Her enchantments cannot hold a candle to how he is able to just talk people into doing what he wants, thinking what he thinks, seeing what he sees.

"He who remains had a plan. One, singular plan, from one, singular man." There is absolute conviction in his voice. "It's not the only way. We'll find another way. A better way."

She has never known what it is like to have someone see you for who you are- broken and flawed, and defend you- even your well-intentioned actions that yielded different results than what you expected and hurt them in the process. She suspects it has been the same for him, a lifetime of not having anyone have his back.

The warm feeling inside her is brand new. What is the name of this? Comfort? Relief?

Happiness?

---

This will be their first time out in the field in a long time, and she feels a little sick to the stomach.

He notices. "Are you alright?"

The concern in his voice tugs at her heartstrings. She nods. She has faced way worse, she shouldn't be so nervous about this, but she is. "I've never done this before."

"We can always just kill him and blame it on the Chitauris", he suggests with a serious face.

"I heard that", Peter yells from the other room, where he is doing whatever it is that teenagers do to prepare for battle.

She shakes her head in disbelief. "I can't believe we're babysitting."

"I've done this before", he assures her, and it surprises her to picture him being entrusted with such a serious task. "The trick is to conjure up illusions that keep them distracted enough to not cry."

She laughs. "You're thinking of infants. This one is a little older."

"I'm over a thousand years old, Sylvie. They're all infants to me."

Peter joins them, mask covering his face so that he doesn't reveal his identity. "So what do I call you? Loki and Loki? That's confusing. How about Loki and Lady Loki? Or is that offensive? I'm not suggesting women are inferior, because they're absolutely not..."

"Does he come with an off switch?" She whispers in horror as Peter rambles on.

Loki grins. With one wave of his hand and a flash of green, Peter's own webbing shoots out and seals his mouth shut.

---

Things are fine but not fine at the same time. He's right there beside her, but not there at all. They have their banters, they have their stolen glances, but they haven't had a meaningful conversation since that first day when she got back. She's been putting it off for a long time, but she knows they really do need to have the talk.

She corners him in his room one evening while he's tinkering with a temporal collar. She takes a seat in the chair next to his bed and rests her hand on the table, leaning her head against her palm, before switching position and crossing her arms and legs. Everything about her posture screams uneasiness. If he notices- he probably does- he doesn't say anything.

"You defended me that day."

He briefly looks up from the task at hand and gives her a soft smile. "Of course."

She blinks. "I don't understand." Her hands involuntary rise up to rub her temples. "If you can justify my actions to them, then how can you still be mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you", he says without missing a beat.

"Rubbish", her words come out angrier than she intended. This frustration is the result of the months of status quo they have had. She has to know now, one way or the other. "You're distant. You're guarded", she accuses. Then her voice breaks, as she feels a part of her break all over again with her next words. "You don't hold my hand. Why? Tell me."

He abandons the collar and focuses his full attention on her. Staring straight into her eyes, he answers her. "You know why."

"I wouldn't be asking if I did. Look, if it's because I chose the mission over you-"

"-Of course it's not that." He says decisively. Then a sad smile clouds his face. It's the same look he had when she accused him of conning her to gain the throne. "Do you think I'm the type of man who would want a woman to abandon her life-long ambitions just because she has met someone?"

She knows he isn't. But it still doesn't answer why he is so cross with her. "What is it then?"

He pauses for a moment, trying to decide whether he wants to bare his soul out to her once more or not. There are two ways he can go from here- choose to not let her in again and save himself from the hurt, or trust her again and open himself up to potential pain.

Who is he kidding? Pushing her away- keeping her away- doesn't hurt any less.

There were a thousand things that had to go wrong to bring two Lokis from two universes together. A connection like that, it doesn't just happen.

And it doesn't just go away. The pain is constant, it's a part of him, pounding like a second heart every second he has to stop himself from reaching out for her hand.

This has to come to an end.

He takes in a deep breath, bracing himself. "You didn't have to send me away, Sylvie. I wanted to stop you from making the same mistakes I did. But in the end, I didn't care what you chose. I just wanted us to do it together."

She never even imagined this could be the reason for his hurt. All these months spent thinking he hates her for her choices, and now it turns out he is hurt simply because she chose to do it alone? "I'm sorry." She says sincerely. "I just wanted you to be safe."

"And I just wanted to be there with you till the end." He confesses. His eyes shimmer with the emotions he has kept bottled in for so long. "You go, I go."

She doesn't know what to say to that. She has never been good at articulating her feelings. Tears stream down her cheeks at the realisation that even after everything, he is still there for her.

She didn't cry even back at Lamentis when they thought they were going to die. She doesn't let anyone see her cry when she is sad or scared. That's all she has known her whole life. She's used to it by now.

This is new. These are tears of relief. Comfort.

Happiness.

Tentatively, she crosses over to the bed and sits by his side.

It's quiet for a few minutes. But unlike the months of tension so thick she could cut it into splices with her daggers, this is comfortable silence. The kind they had before it all went wrong.

"Did you even miss me?" He whispers.

"What kind of silly question is that? Of course I did." Her shaking hands grab his, and oh how she missed this.

He intertwines their fingers. His eyes draw closed. Bliss. That's the only word for this feeling.

He opens his eyes again and studies her. She's staring back at him, teary-eyed, but with a hopeful smile. "Really? Because you have a really unique way of showing it. You didn't even come looking for me."

"I didn't know how to face you", she tells him honestly. No tricks, no enchantment, no treachery. Not with him. "I didn't know if you even wanted to see me." Her voice grows quieter, dropping to a timbre that perfectly encapsulates her deepest fear. "I thought you hated me."

"Hate you?" He is shocked that she thinks that is even possible, specially after seeing him these last few months. "Sylvie, I'm working with the Avengers. The Avengers. Do you know how much I hate them? They are my nemesis. They're self-righteous, condescending, and so completely dull. Every second with them makes me want to rip their hearts out. Why do you think I'm here with them?"

She thinks she knows. But she needs to hear it anyway.

"It's because of you." He lays it all out on the table. All cards on deck, win or lose. "You've been running away. I have been the one who has been here, trying to hold down the fort, working to fix everything. Because that is what one does when one loves-"

Shit. The word slips out before he realises it.

Their eyes go wide in unison.

"Sylvie, I-"

"-Don't you dare take it back now." She warns him. "I-" She doesn't know how to say it either. They make such a great pair, both equally daft at saying how they feel, like they are teenagers, not Gods who have lived for centuries. "I've been running because I didn't think I could bear the burden of knowing I found you and then I lost you. I don't want to lose you. Not now, not ever."

He kisses the back of her hand, before letting it go. He cups her face, gently caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. "I don't want to lose you either."

She leans in closer, until their foreheads touch. She can feel his breath on her face, warm and soft. That is exactly how she feels inside. "You won't", she promises. "You go, I go."

---

(Quote on Lesser Evil from The Witcher. Thanks for reading!!)

[touyasdoll]

Hmmm, I'm going to ask 1, 16 and 43!

thank you for asking! I rambled, of course lmao.

1. How did you two meet?

I have so many scenarios, actually lol, but I'll share my two favs.

As a civilian: I was on my way home one evening after a night out when I saw him staggering around. At first, I thought that maybe he was just drunk, but when I spotted the blood and the burns on his arm, I went to offer him help, which he categorically refused. Despite everything I've learned from all the true crime media that I have consumed, I refused to just leave him injured on the side of the road and convinced/annoyed him into coming home with me, since he also refused to let me call him an ambulance or take him to an emergency room. I patched him up, Jedi mind-tricked him into an actual conversation, and made him laugh once or twice. He begrudgingly let me feed him a hot meal and fell asleep on my couch shortly after. He was gone the next morning, but he left his phone number behind. Big mistake on his part. Hasn't been able to get rid of me since.

As a villain: When I joined the League, I assumed he was a jackass. I wasn't entirely wrong. He did act that way. Not exactly the most welcoming dude around, but I didn't exactly expect that from someone associated with a villain organization. I was on one that day and I could sense he doubted my abilities, so I asked him to literally set me on fire. He was skeptical, rightfully so, but everyone was watching and I was being a bit of a bitch, so he did it, but he's the one who caught fire. He was confused until I explained how my quirk worked, which is that anything that physically happened to me, I could redirect to anyone I was looking at. After that, we slowly but surely warmed up to one another, having been paired up together often, since our quirks worked so well with one another's. He could light me on fire and I could incapacitate enemies from much further distances than he could with his quirk alone.

16. What’s your love language? What’s theirs?

My love language is quality time, but physical touch is a close second. For Touya, it's the inverse. Physical touch is his love language, but quality time isn't far behind, so we understand each other well without having to ever say too much, which works just perfectly for us <3

43. Have you picked up any of their interests? Have they picked up any of yours?

Does smoking count as an interest?? I used to smoke socially, but I quit doing even that much. When I met Touya, who smokes like a chimney, I picked it back up. I can take it or leave it, but if feels like I've had too many too often, he'll transform into the world's biggest hypocrite and tell me that I shouldn't be smoking so much.

He’s never really understood sitting down to just relax and play video games for an extended period of time. He used to just watch me play while scrolling on his phone and occasionally he’d try to distract me by pulling me into his lap. Now, he’ll get invested into the story of the RPGs I play, asking questions about the game while he holds me in his lap, content to get sucked into story. He’ll even try it himself and he always grabs a controller to join me if it’s a multiplayer game that he understands, online or otherwise. Our favorite games to play together are the Halo Reach co-op campaign, Overcooked, & Human Fall Flat. Even if Overcooked makes him spontaneously combust sometimes <3

V-Day Self Ship Asks

[retphienix]

Alright, this is gonna be tough because I desperately want to say so much for the game's sake and my own, but it's just so much.

At least the playthrough as a whole exists to show a lot of those things, and there's no shame in some of the impacts the game had for myself going unsaid :)

LONG POST INCOMING, NO 'READ MORE' BECAUSE IT'S RELEVANT TO THE POST AND NOT AN AFTER-THOUGHT

CLICK 'J' ON YOUR KEYBOARD TO SKIP. (Sorry mobile users)

8:48 - Do you have any idea how good a step forward it felt to smash the repressing bulb?

9:50 - So I'll get ahead of myself because this fight shows a lot of the visuals that play into this: Something being the manifestation of guilt for Mari is so incredibly visualized.

Between the base 'Something' being extremely close to the shadow she cast and including the one visible eye that bore down on Sunny and Basil after the hanging, to the stairs incorporating into the design.

The seaweed and spider are more general anxieties though they do circle back to Mari since she saved Sunny, but those two forms don't feel as directly related as the stairs (heights) and base 'Something' forms and what they represent for his repressed guilt.

Could be wrong ;) Tell me what you saw in the forms of 'Something' if you'd like to expand on them :)

12:39 - Just to prove the point before you get to fully see the truth- Something morphs into the figure of Mari hanging. It doesn't fully demonstrate the "eye" aspect yet, but still I just wanted to say kudos on the way 'Something' is shown visually. Formless for a reason, and that form becomes more defined as you understand what it is, exceptional damn thing.

15:43 - Basil's part in all of this makes me so damn sad. Plenty to say later (obviously), but he harbors so much guilt, wants forgiveness so much, and is so (not shown yet) desperate to believe in Sunny's innocence while knowing but not comprehending the truth. The fact he harbors his own 'Something' due to the guilt of all this is heartbreaking, these kids endured a hell no one should. Losing someone so important to you and harboring the guilt and fault of it when nothing of the sort was intended. A childish fight with raised emotions got out of hand and all this came of it.

Hell.

16:30 - I absolutely adore how the photo album is used for this reveal.

Absolutely incredible execution that's specific to this story and its characters and makes piecing (literally) this together tense and grim.

22:27 - I NEVER SPOKE TO OR INTERACTED WITH THE THING IN THE CENTER OF THIS ROOM AND I'M A NORMAL AMOUNT OF UPSET ABOUT THAT >:( lol

29:41 - Okay.

So this reveal as a whole is so unbelievably well paced and incredibly hard hitting.

All game long there's a weight of having lost Mari. Repeatedly it's told that she killed herself and no one can understand why and everyone (MYSELF THE PLAYER INCLUDED) is looking for meaning in little moments, seeking out hints that maybe she was suffering or depressed or this or that.

And while that has gone on FOR THE ENTIRE GAME there has also been this uneasy weight surrounding Sunny/Omori. Visions of Mari twisted and deformed into phantoms of horror.

For the most part I assumed it was just him coping with having lost his sister and maybe a dialogue on how when she was alive he was in her shadow (in his mind) and now that she's gone he remains there?

That was the best I could figure, more or less. But it continued to seem more and more malicious in design and MUCH more 'heavy' in how it's presented as a shadow behind Omori/Sunny throughout his adventure and life.

The weight and 'overshadowed' looks of the scenes felt more and more foreboding and less like a simpler "I'm living in her shadow" story, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Then these pictures come out and piece things together.

The final result:

Sunny and Mari fighting. (Context appears to be his growing disdain towards playing. It's stated he loved playing, but it's also shown that he begins to dislike how much Mari is dragged away for classes and the like up to and including playing. So my read was that Sunny was upset that their fleeting time together was dedicated to the recital and broke his violin in an emotional blur and the fight occurred.

Alternatively it was accidentally broken and both of their emotions were running high as it happened)

Mari falling to her death.

Sunny and Basil carrying her upstairs and tending to her.

Sunny breaking down as it sinks in.

The visions having Basil say "It's going to be okay" by the bedside. (I perceive that as a memory of what Basil was saying as he tried to manage his emotions during the event)

Sunny and Basil carrying her back downstairs and to the backyard.

The makeshift noose.

And finally the sight that burned itself into Sunny's eyes of her hanging after it was all said and done.

Just holy shit to it all in how it's revealed and handled.

Stories have twists all the time, and I ain't gonna make some bold claim like "Most unpredictable!" "Best twist!" "What a twist!" or whatever, though that'd be funny.

I just want to say this twist worked BEFORE the reveal as a foreboding sense of unease and curiosity- it lent itself to intentionally vague and easily misconstrued explanations, basically- instead of it outright misleading you beyond the characters that believe the lie repeating the lie, it allowed you to mislead yourself.

It did the twist the right way! And well! YOU trick YOURSELF! The people repeating the lie are being lied to or have motivation to repeat the lie! The GAME isn't lying (as so many twists handle it) the game is giving the world reason to mislead and allowing you to be mislead!

Now am I yelling affirmations for the way things SHOULD ALWAYS BE! YES! BUT THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S NOT AS NORMAL AS IT SHOULD BE! lol

31:40 - All the "You will really miss them"s hurt :(

33:25 - Right out the gate, a spoiler for what isn't here:

I looked up the alternate endings of the neutral route and my heart hurts to know Sunny doesn't stick around and Basil dies :(

34:00 - BASIL BEING OVERWHELMED WITH DENIAL AND GUILT AS HE ATTEMPTS TO MENTALLY PROTECT HIS VIEW OF WHO HIS FRIEND IS BY INVENTING A SECOND PARTY THAT DID THIS IS SO FUCKING REAL AND AMAZINGLY DONE.

And it explains the name behind the 'Something'.

'Something' behind you did it. There's 'Something' behind you, isn't there.

'Something' all around us, that potentially being the truth comin' in.

When 'Something' ruined my photos, Basil repressing protecting Sunny by destroying the proof.

Just expertly done.

'Something' being repression of the memory and impending guilt. Dannnng.

36:26 - It's 24 hours after I beat the game as I type all this so here's a gag.

Here's the part where Basil beats some sense into his friend, because after this Sunny gets knocked out and wakes up 200% improved and ready to save Basil from his own guilt by releasing them both from the secret.

So basically Kel dragged us out of bed, then a couple days later Basil beats us up, and that's how Sunny gets better :^) Game Over.

38:46 - This fight made me feel utterly terrible, a highlight being the energy bar saying "Everything is going to be okay".

or at 40:17 - when Basil pokes out Sunny's eye and the screen does this? That's an underutilized but always awesome visual.

41:12 - I THOUGHT I WAS DEAD AT THIS POINT :)

Because just before entering Basil's home on this night you see his Grandma's ghost here. So seeing Sunny here told me "WELL. YOU FUCKED UP!"

42:25 - Like I said, beat some sense into Sunny.

Here's the mental side of things where Basil's beatin' told Sunny to go remember the good times and confront his inner self and I'm being partially facetious because there's plenty to say about what's coming up.

43:15 - Goosebumps every time due to the sincerity and hope of this.

43:40 - Hug for anyone needing that.

51:11 - I could cry again and I just might before this post is done being put together.

This accident was never meant to be.

55:09 - Timestamp is arbitrary, I won't go over every flashback but I do want to say what a beautiful way to use these photos. To relive the memories? To find the strength to overcome and all that? After all these years of suppressing memories? DANNNG I love this game.

1:04:09 - I stepped in poop.

1:04:15 - Barefooted.

1:04:22 - I embraced my failure.

1:12:00 - The violin.

1:13:00 - "The anxious feeling-" "They believed in you" "No matter what you didn't want to disappoint them" I'm filled with love and gonna cry about it.

1:14:00 - So an important theme in the game, as if it has just one, is Sunny suppressing emotions and demonizing himself.

Obviously the ending shows him breaking free from both but I think it's important as hell to look at how he builds up to being able to.

After all the dark moments show him as a bloodied monster, demonstrate a perceived lack of remorse for what he's done (as in he sees himself so poorly that he says "I must not have felt bad about it, I'm a monster", not that he actually doesn't feel bad about it, that he thinks he shouldn't because he's bad), have him stab dream Basil to protect his repression of the memory, the build up to breaking free from that is him remembering the good in him through the lens of his friends.

Both in the real world and in revisiting the memories within the photos.

He hears about the good in himself that he has pretended isn't there and finds the power to overcome this deadened shell he's made.

He learns how to forgive himself by finally remembering he's worthy of forgiveness and is more than his mistake, that even the person he grievously harmed would want him to forgive himself and would understand the mistake didn't define him.

1:15:15 - Just because you did something bad doesn't make you bad, to put it more eloquently than my rambles. He had to learn that.

1:19:20 - I've done this fight 4 times.

You may be wondering why 4 times, it ain't like I replayed the game a ton or anything.

The short of it is:

1) For the good ending :)

2) To see what happens if you go "up" in the hospital- it's a dead end- I assumed it'd be a bad ending. So I got the good ending again :)

3) For the bad ending.

4) FOR THE GOOD ENDING TO WIPE THE HORRIBLE FEELING IN THE PIT OF MY STOMACH AWAY FROM THE BAD ENDING :)

In doing so I did get one layer deeper on the BG of Omori in the fight, here it is:

And I learned on the fourth run that the fight is simpler than I gave it credit lol, Cherish refills your juice, so there is no reason to use Encore. You can get to the end (and deeper more easily) by just using the triple attack and Cherish and Calm down when necessary.

1:29:00 - A summary of the fight is that it's extremely impactful emotionally, but very obviously isn't a "Fun fight". It's great mechanically and story wise for what it's trying to do :)

I'll just say it here: I'm surprised there wasn't an end-game "Omori" fight, you know, in dream world? Because combat is SO good in this. I am lead to believe that the Omori route where you never go outside in the real world has more bosses and zones and would fill what I just implied I wanted- but you're also railroaded into the Neutral endings which are both sad :(

And honestly? That makes sense and I applaud the decision :) Embracing the fantasy world for more 'fights' isn't exactly the path to recovery. Also and I know someone will be bothered I say this because *I'm* bothered I'm saying this- it makes sense since a big predecessor did the same thing lol.

Undertale Genocide has new bosses and a harder end game challenge (Sans) while being the worse ending, while the good ending has a flashy and story/emotionally impactful final fight that isn't as challenging because challenge isn't the point of the morals being explored.

I just bring it up because it's interesting, has a parallel, and after fighting Omori 4 times I really REALLY wanted to do an end-game fight in Dream World.

1:30:00 - forgive me as I cry again. goosebumps and more.

OH NO~!

DRAT!

So I use a cheap video editor and I use the free format of it which limits to 720p and I didn't think twice of it.

I recorded at max, but downgraded after editing.

At 720p you can't see the detail that made me break down crying!

At 1:31:55 Sunny's eyes go wider as he sees Mari as they finally get to experience the duet in this dream state (White Egret Orchid, this is real and happening, I'm taking this to my grave :'( ) he sees her smile and that smile made me break down, but in the 720 it's blurry :(

That's on me, I could have posted the scene raw in HQ but I didn't know it'd compress just enough to be invisible :(

still. that duet scene can make me cry on command. just because of that alone, but also the entire thing.

1:33:42 - Sunny breaks from his shell and feels his emotions again.

1:37:07 - I wish every game would end with a mirror to see yourself.

The 'Despite everything, it's still you' vibe just cements all the growth and experiences that have happened as so much more real when that happens. Bonus points because mirrors in Omori are a time bomb where you can be reminded of the guilt following you- and this one is safe. This one is pure and clean. You did it.

1:37:50 - As I said earlier, going up does nothing. Dead end.

1:39:00 - I have to tell you something.

Simple ending. And yet slams me like two trucks. I'm so proud.

1:41:00 - Post credits scene.

This is so heartwarming and their smiles are the purest thing in the entire world.

1:42:50 - BAD ENDING RECORDING.

All I'll say on that is the bad ending made me feel terrible inside. Give up, live in your bubble, and subconsciously end it all so you never have to confront reality again.

My gut felt heavy to be honest.

And the fact that THAT is when Bo En Time is played is INCREDIBLE.

Having the sky shift like that gave goosebumps and cemented my dread.

Just seeing it now has me feeling very poorly.

Okay. Video done.

Now for general thoughts.

First off this White Space cycle has been going on for YEARS with Sunny only getting worse as he suppresses things more and more and the reason he found the strength to overcome is because of his friends and I'm gonna yell about it.

THE REASON SUNNY IS BREAKING FREE CAN BE DIRECTLY POINTED AT KEL THINKING "FUCK IT, I'M ABOUT TO LOSE A FRIEND, AND I DON'T WANT TO"

And I just think that is sweet as hell. The strength was inside himself, but the problem itself caused Sunny to demonize and not trust himself- he needed someone to break him free and help convince him that he's not irredeemable. And boom.

The way this game handles Denial and even gives it physical form with the 'Something's that both Sunny and Basil harbor is just awesome.

I touched on it but combat in Omori is very, very good.

I've said it here and there as I played and I feel like going at length in the finale post is pointless because this isn't a review but to put it concisely.

Types changing mid-combat, the character archetypes being so well defined, the follow up system, combat in Omori is some top notch turn based RPG stuff.

Like up there with the greats, the timeless masterpieces. This is GOOD fighting. So it was surprising the good ending didn't emphasize it- I explained why that makes sense, but even still! It'd probably be lesser for it (as explained previously) but it's interesting they practiced that restraint for the message they wanted to send.

Repeatin' that Mari's smile in the recital made me cry. Burned in my brain.

I'm still surprised I got the post credits scene because I DID water the plants a lot but when the game showed me them all dead I assumed that was the fail condition.

I genuinely do want to try the Omori route some time down the road. I hope I get around to it.

I am slightly dissuaded just because the Omori route only gets the neutral endings which are not Good To Be Blunt :(

But I want to see what dream content there is and I hear there are other bosses!

Other small bits from my notes:

Replacing denial (the black bulb) with hope (the white bulb) was good as heck.

The imagery of the 'Something' is so top notch- using the shadow of her body combined with the piercing gaze of her single eye- MY GOD.

The fragility of life being so present- between memories of near death experiences, to the way in which Mari dies, to the ease at which either Basil or Sunny can end the game. It's tense and heart-wrenching.

The way the 'Something' behind Sunny almost always shadows over him like an ever present weight.

Tearful, hopeful, pure, kids enduring a guilt metric tons heavier than their bodies could ever handle and finally, finally moving beyond it.

I said more in a personal post, and I'll reblog that.

Honestly, just timestamping through the video took it out of me and got the point across.

Omori is a wonderful game.

It's definitely a favorite for me, high up there on my list.

Between the themes, the gameplay, the humor, the ending.

This is a good one.

And now I get to end having experienced all the care and love in this title, that's such a sweet thing.

Now I know this finale post is a mess, illegible even. I have gotten sloppier as I've begun embracing just 'experiencing and rambling' and perhaps my formatting with change yet again until I find something more easily shared.

Despite that. I want to thank any who popped in on this playthrough.

This was a good one, a highlight of the blog for sure- and I'm always happy when I see some people enjoying the absolute mess I toss online when I do one of these :P

So thank you for your time, and thank you to any ridiculous enough to read my nonsense here.

Have a good one :)

And just as expected I feel I've said nothing and barely touched the surface as the post-game-head of mine does a poor job lol. Even still :P

[thoradvice]

hey thor, idk how to word this but lately I've been feeling that "I don't fit in" or I'm simply far away from everything. I feel like I don't know where I belong. I don't feel like I fit with my own friends. I never bring it up with anyone because it doesn't really make sense from an exterior point of view, you know? It doesn't look like I have any reasons to feel like this, but it won't go away. any advice on how to deal with this? thank you.

hi, anon. i’m sorry you’re dealing with this. i used to feel like this constantly, and it really is awful.

i want you to know that your feelings are valid and that they do make sense. but also they don’t have to make sense to be real. it’s absolutely okay to feel things that you don’t understand; it doesn’t make them wrong or bad. please know that this feeling will pass. everything negative you’re experiencing right now truly isn’t forever, as cliche as that sounds. you will find people that you know are yours, and you’ll be so loved that you’ll forget you ever felt like this. as far away as it seems now, i promise that it’ll happen. 

as i said, i felt like this a lot, for most of my life. i didn’t really make a friend until i was 11, and then we went to different schools at the end of the year, so i was alone again. it got a lot worse between 12-14 because i developed several mental illnesses too and i tended to have bad friends, rather than no friends. it took me a really long time to get over this - fifteen years, basically, to even start. it’s only recently (i’m seventeen at the end of this year) that i do genuinely feel loved and like i belong. i have wonderful friends & a lovely girlfriend, and it’s mostly thanks to them (+ some growth on my part) that i have gotten over this.

my point is that it’s not going to be easy and it will take a lot of effort, but it will be worth it. i’d recommend looking into cognitive-behavioural therapy, if you haven’t already. it’s most effective with a therapist, but it is possible to perform it on yourself. you basically train yourself and your brain to think differently and therefore eventually move past these negative thoughts. i had therapy before ms rona for anxiety from my school (real therapists are very hard to access for teenagers where i live, but my school is thankfully very good wrt mental health + has helped me a lot w/ accessing what i can) and we touched on this. i was able to apply this to this kind of thinking. it does take a long time to work through, and i’m definitely not “cured” of this way of thinking, but i do genuinely feel a lot different.

i’d also suggest taking a step back and looking at your friendgroup. do these people make you feel good? do they go too far with jokes? do you feel like you can talk to these people? i’ve had quite a few bad friends in my life, and it’s surprising how much of a difference the people you’re around makes to your mental state, especially with feeling things like this. it can be more subtle than you think. my ex girlfriend (+ she was my best friend for a while before we dated too) would usually be fairly nice / pleasant, but a lot of the time she’d be the opposite. she had moments where she’d completely ridicule my interests, where she’d talk about how cute another girl was (this is a trigger for my eating disorder, which she absolutely knew), or where she’d guilt me for various things, usually into staying with her. i didn’t think too much of it, because she was nice most of the time, right? what i’m trying to say is a lot of our friends’ behaviours that make us feel bad can also be very subtle. my ex would also be the kind of person to completely tear into a person - usually me - and wouldn’t know when to stop. she’d blow it off with “oh, that’s just my sense of humour!”. but if there isn’t a clear line / boundary, then it’s not joking - it’s straight up bullying. one of my best friends now has this kind of humour. but the difference is that i know she’s joking. she’s asked me a handful of times to tell her when it actually hurts me, what she can and cannot joke about. that’s the difference, in this type of friendship.

it can be really hard to know where friends / partners become abusive, and it’s only recently that i’ve realised the things my ex said / did was actually abusive. minor abuse, but still screwed up with my perception of healthy relationships. what i’m meaning by this entire wall of text is that your friends could be hurting you without you actually realising it, causing you to feel this way. i’d really recommend trying to keep track of your mood around when you interact with friends - how you feel before, during and after. and keeping track of how they talk to you. do they care about what you’re saying? do their jokes make you uncomfortable? do they let you talk? do they care about your problem(s)?genuine friends will truly care about you and how they treat you. it’ll quickly become more apparent to if they’re being good friends to you or not. 

if you feel like they’re not treating you right, it’s absolutely okay and valid to stop being friends with them. it can be hard and make you feel guilty, but putting yourself first is never a bad idea in these situations. it doesn’t make you selfish or cruel, no matter what you say. i feel that it’s better to have no/few friends than bad friends. i have a small circle of about 4-5 people right now, and they’re absolutely the best friends i could ever ask for. there’s no way i’d trade them for the world, let alone just a bigger group of friends, y’know? 

this is a feeling that’s really hard to get over. i have really struggled with feeling like i fit in for so long, but you can get over it. if you need proof, i can be that. it’s not something i’m fully over, but i do genuinely feel loved and cared about for the first time pretty much ever. you will be able to feel like this too, i promise. i’m proud of you for reaching out about this issue, i know it isn’t easy to talk about. i hope that my rambling will offer you some kind of comfort / help, and i’m always here if you need to talk about this again. <3

[silentfcknhill]

hey I've seen you reblog stuff about drugs and stuff and I just wanted to ask what narcatics were you into? random and blunt question but just curous. I'm having a hard time lately... drinking but I'm trying to quit with with it now and just started weed. I just feel like it's neve gonna be better, you know? shit I so okay for so long and then it all goes to fucking hell again. I'm sorry for unloading like this....

It’s okay, I hope you don’t mind if I ramble a long-ass answer. I was mainly addicted to drugs that were not traditionally considered addictive physically, just psychologically. My main drugs of choice were weed, acid, mushrooms and occasionally molly. I never had a huge problem with alcohol, as in I didn’t drink often but when I did I went way overboard and would often mix drugs that would make me very ill. Weed was okay for me at first before I went overboard and was spending hundreds a month, and I am not completely anti-weed like some people in NA, but I think there are people who can and can’t handle it mentally. I can’t. If you have mental health issues, especially anxiety (though I’ve seen some people it can help their anxiety), paranoia, dissociation, derealization or hallucinations/problems with reality to begin with, it is like playing with fire. I’m not saying you should panic, everyone has different reactions, but I could never smoke again after the bad acid trips and ego deaths I’ve had. Too many flashbacks. And I got serotonin syndrome a lot. I quit using 17 months ago and I’m still dealing with effects like visual fractals, a new worldview and mood problems. 

For about a year I was suicidal and having panic attacks every day, and I had to work double shifts while crying and vomiting (quiting was not an option because we are too poor and I did not want to be homeless again, especially in that condition). It takes a while for your brain to recover and learn to produce it’s own serotonin after smoking weed every day for two years, so there is a major depression that occurs when you get clean. I lost my appetite for a couple months, and also couldn’t sleep on my own. Drugs were basically my go-to for every minor inconvenience, so learning to be a person again and deal with problems directly was difficult. I became extremely paranoid while detoxing. I also lost all interest in everything, I experienced no joy and only dread, terror and depression. My obsessions such as movies and music were no longer enough to enjoy, I needed to experience them on absurd amounts of psychedelics and meditate on them and see them from weird perspectives to appreciate them. I have started gaining back my appreciation for the little things in life again by now. 

The hardest part for me was coming to terms with the fact that I will never be the same as I was before ever again, and now I just have to adjust. It sucks that I was a teenager while this was happening, and my brain was still developing, so now it became a part of my youth and shaped my personality a lot. But I try to think of it positively, because now I have a new chance to become a better person, I have a fresh start and not many people can have a second chance after fucking up and having no common sense. I am lucky to have not gotten into any legal trouble, though a lot of relationships were destroyed, I really deserved it. I am not trying to self-pity, but it is a fact that I have suffered beyond words and been to hell (I’m not religious but to me hell is a psychological state of torment and existential darkness and lack of reality), but I have also grown as a person and become exponentially more self-aware, empathetic, introspective and accepting of my defects. 

I know exactly what you mean when you say you feel it will never get better. When you’re in darkness it effects your whole perception and sense of reality and colors every area of life. We lose our memory of anything good ever. Kind of like a Dementor from harry Potter has sucked out our soul, which Dementors incidentally were written by JK Rowling as an analogy of her depression (Sorry for random reference, I am a fan of Harry Potter). But we are both still young, well I am and I assume you are as well as I don’t know many elderly people on Tumblr, and time changes things. Time doesn’t heal, but it does give you the opportunity to heal and grow. Nothing will ever magically heal, we will always be addicts, but you will have good days, and some very good days and memories, and those are worth riding through the bad to get to. It is very difficult to keep perspective, but I spent a couple years of my life on drugs. I have 70 years left ahead of me, best case scenario. This is not the end at all. 

I have seen people successfully drink and smoke and not become upset or addicted, but I have Asperger’s and BPD and I was foolish to ignore the sensitivities and chances I was taking and I put my trust into the wrong influences and people. I have developed my own coping mechanisms throughout my life, because addiction was obviously not the first and only trauma I’ve been through, I’ve been having issues since being a toddler basically including emotional violent abuse from the time I was born, sexual assault, personal deaths, bullying, self-harm and mental illness, having parents who are mentally ill and unstable and dealing with their suicide threats as a child, divorce, homelessness, murderers in the family, robbery, knife attacks, being a therapist to my mother, trying to stay objective as she described to me her post-partum depression involving demons telling her to throw me off a balcony and molest me, multiple suicide attempts of my own including a horrendous overdose, multiple hospitalizations, medications, dating a man in his 40’s as a young teen, being cheated on twice, coming to grips with my LGBT identity, and much more. I grew up in a fantasy world, always acting and playing pretend even to this day, I live my life through the eyes of my favorite characters, even while alone. AT this point it is very easy for me to detach from my emotions and reality and observe my own suffering as though I was a character in a movie or something. This is also why I have a decent tolerance to pain. I just view it as an experience, a memory. Time is really an illusion, so when I am hurt, I just remember that in a few hours it will be like nothing ever happened. 

Also, the one most important message I took from NA is probably the simplest, and most people don’t give it a second thought because it’s just a cliche to them, but when you really meditate on it and practice it, you realize how incredibly true and helpful it is: “One day at a time.” And that motto is a principle, not have to take it literally. I know for a lot of people, myself included, it can be more like one minute at a time, but you really gotta try to keep priorities in sight and self-care when need be. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to help yourself but go to sleep all day. It is fine to do that. I have trained myself to fall asleep relatively quickly using deep, controlled stomach breathing and and stims and mental focus patterns such as waterfalls, space travel, etc, movement that stays constant and is relaxing. Music helps too, but only without lyrics. There are a lot of sound pieces on youtube and stuff made for relaxing, like the sound of rain, or nature like the ocean or amazon. Whatever suits you. It is handy to have an off button like a computer sometimes. You just shut down and reboot. 

I’m not saying it is healthy to be avoidant, and I definitely have shut down and become very robotic as of late, but it is highly preferable to the alternative for me until when/if I learn better skills. You will hopefully feel better when you wake up, whether it was physical anxiety or mental or both. Plus, scientifically, sleep and dreaming is when our brains process information and memories, so we may come to familiarize ourselves with unknown fears or stresses while we sleep and wake up more able to deal with them rationally without the fight or flight. One day at a time ties in to a concept we call “the triangle of self-obsession”, and it relates to how living in the past causes resentments, focusing on negatives in the present causes anger, and fear stems from living in the future. One day at a time, take shit as it comes and don’t cross bridges before you get to them. of course, planning still is good but we must be flexible and not place our whole mental state on something that hasn’t happened yet. Anger roots back to fear, fear roots back to lack of control, and once we accept that we really cannot control everything and be omnipresent and all-knowing puppetmasters, we become more humble. 

I myself have come to terms with the fact that I am very narcissistic. I never thought I was, due to low self-esteem, but it only recently occurred to me that being narcissism is usually just a symptom of low self-esteem anyways, and it is just expressed differently. Some people build massive egos and brag. For me, my narcissism forms through being self-centered and selfishly focused on my own problems. Some people focus daily on distinguishing whether they are living and acting on their own will or their higher power’s will, and adjusting their behavior accordingly, because living on our own will is what got us in this position in the first place. I don’t really have a higher power in the traditional sense at this point, but it is still good to be mindful that I am not the center of everything, and that even though I claim to be open-minded, I am still just as judgmental and hypocritical as anyone else, I just express and experience it in different ways. Anyways, long tangent, no one cares, I will shut up now. I am kind of a basketcase, but if you need to talk, you can message or dm me anytime.

[explodingcrenelation]

I've never seen this discussed, but I was thinking about how the Winter Soldier is a legend and a ghost, always concealed. Yet they sent him after the Starks unmasked. I guess they knew Howard would recognize him and they wanted that, but it still seems a weird thing to do. With Steve it's obvious, they knew it gave WS the advantage because Cap didn't want to kill him, but the Starks hardly seemed a threat. Sure it was psychological, but what was the point if they die fast? Got meta?

Okay, so, I really need to organize my meta. Because I swear I’ve read at least one meta post that talks about the mask and the inconsistency of its use throughout the movies. But I have almost forty pages of meta on my blog and I can’t seem to find it. I may not have reblogged it, in which case I fear it’s lost to the depths of Tumblr. (Can anyone help with this?)

For lack of resources to point you to, anon, let me ramble a bit and see if anything comes out of it.

From a storytelling standpoint, the mask is primarily for us, the viewers, so that we can have a dramatic identity reveal in Winter Soldier.

Or, really, I should say the mask is primarily for Steve because I think pretty much everyone in the audience knew the Winter Soldier was Bucky all along. Losing the mask simply confirmed it. However, the audience wants to see Steve have the revelation for himself, the moment of recognition. (And to this day that moment remains one of my favorite scenes in the entirety of the MCU. It was beautifully staged, and perfectly acted. Chris Evans emoted so much fear/hope/disbelief in one whispered, “Bucky?” and then Sebastian Stan contrasted that painfully with his flat reply, “Who the hell is Bucky?” I could go on about that exchange for ages.)After that, the mask isn’t really needed. It served its purpose for the dramatic reveal and the story kind of… forgets it. 

Wouldn’t it have been great to have Steve in Civil War realize, “Oh! That guy who bombed the UN? He isn’t wearing a mask and Bucky definitely knew to wear a mask to hide his identity when he was dismantling governments and destroying world order, so that’s probably not him.” 

Give your old pal some credit, Steve. Sheesh. He was a professional sniper and knew how to be sneaky even before Hydra caught him. There’s a reason you haven’t been able to find him for the last two years. 

But I digress. 

Ostensibly the reason Bucky doesn’t have the mask for Civil War is again for the sake of storytelling. We need Howard to recognize him and say his name and for the Winter Soldier to look straight into the security feed so there’s no doubt whatsoever that James Buchanan Barnes, Steve Rogers’ best friend, killed Tony’s parents. That makes it possible for Tony to react immediately, without having to pause to question whether or not it’s actually Bucky (it thus prevents Tony from thinking things through and reacting with a clearer head). It serves the heat of the storytelling more than it serves a common sense, fully developed backstory for the use of the mask. 

I mean, we could say that Howard’s death is the inciting incident that makes the mask necessary. The Winter Soldier was both recognized and caught on camera on the night of December 16, 1991. It was apparently a big enough deal that detailed Hydra records led Zemo to seek out that specific tape, sight unseen, knowing without a doubt the rift it would cause between Steve and Tony. 

I wonder how much trouble the Winter Soldier’s handlers had to go through to get that security tape into their hands? (Because please imagine them freaking out about Peggy Carter finding out Bucky was still alive and a brainwashed captive of Hydra. She may have been getting on in years, but I have no doubt Hydra operatives were still actively terrified of her. She was there when Steve vowed revenge for Bucky. Steve died to avenge Bucky. There’s no way she wouldn’t take it personally if she found out Bucky was still alive. Same goes for the rest of the Howling Commandos.)

That being said, it seems kind of silly for Hydra to make that realization so late into the game. Even petty thieves know well enough to obscure their identities. 

So, we could say Howard’s death is the inciting incident, but it doesn’t make much sense if it was. Because that leaves about forty-odd years where the Winter Soldier was operating without a mask. And the chance he’d be recognized by former friends and family was a lot higher earlier on in his “career.”

At one point in the past—there’s no way to know if it was before or after Howard’s death—the Winter Soldier was photographed with his mask on. In Winter Solider, computer-incarnated Zola shuffles through a series of historical images, including this one. 

It’s hard to tell for sure, but the Winter Soldier seems to be wearing the mask here. Of course, the irony is that the arm and the star make him 100% identifiable. The difference being the arm identifies him as a weapon and an agent of Hydra, not as a person with a name and a history of his own. It doesn’t particularly matter if anyone sees the arm and, in fact, adds to the chilling mythos of the ghost story. Regular men don’t have metal arms. Monsters without faces have metal arms.

The mask obscures Bucky’s identity and it dehumanizes him. (It’s also an inverse of Captain America’s helmet, which I think is simply brilliant costuming.) Not only does it serve a practical purpose in keeping anyone from knowing who he is, it furthers Hydra’s subtle fear tactics by making the arm the Winter Solider’s identifying mark. Hydra had every reason to want to use the mask from the very beginning. 

If we try to make sense of the use of the mask in the context of the marvel universe, without breaking the fourth wall, and setting aside its presence (or lack thereof) as an obvious function of targeted storytelling goals, I think we’re only left with two options: Either Hydra deliberately sent the Winter Soldier after the Starks without a mask, or Bucky took the mask off himself. 

Bucky’s not really giving us any clues here, so…

Reasons Hydra might want to unmask the Winter Soldier, knowing he’d be recognized: 1.) To throw Howard off, just in case he was armed. The man built weapons for a living. It’s not unreasonable to assume he might be armed with something that could kill a super soldier. But if that super soldier was a former friend and ally? He might be less likely to defend himself and less likely to attack, thus giving the Winter Soldier room to maneuver. 2.) Sheer pettiness. Wanting to gloat. Letting Howard know with his dying breath that Hydra was still alive and well and that his obsessive work on duplicating the super soldier serum wasn’t going to create another Captain America, but something much worse. 

Reasons Bucky might have taken the mask off: Depending on how long he was out of cryo, his memories could have been coming back. Some part of him could have remembered the name of his target and he might have wanted to be identified—either to be saved or punished. But the programming was still enough in control that he couldn’t stop himself from completing the mission. 

Those are my best guesses, at least. I doubt Marvel’s creative team has given it much thought (though I would be delighted to be proven wrong in subsequent films). Does anyone out there remember any other meta posts about Bucky’s mask? Or have anything more to contribute for this anon? Please reply or reblog with your own thoughts/theories/headcanons! :)