#i just think being stuck with this feeling that you don't have autonomy and that you ultimately aren't an equal person or a person at all..

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[theiasthesis]

Shifting can be escapism, and that's OK.

Im going to give you a valuable lesson, so stick to the post, dont skip because every word is important. Don't let that small attention span get to you baby, remember that knowledge is power.

My name is Willow! I'm a non-dualist reality shifter, shifting coach and subliminal creator who's a freak for the multiverse and knowledge. Everything I say on here is based on my own personal experiences and research.

This post can help you with:

Escapism, guilt for shifting, realising you're worthy of shifting.

The self determination theory (SDT) is a psychological theory of motivation. It focuses on the degree to which specific human behaviour is for the self ; self motivated and self determined

Basically, what exactly is it that a human being can do, that isn't manipulated by outside influence, but rather their own human nature?

According to the theory these are 3 self motivated human behaviours:

Autonomy

Having the freedom to decide your actions without outside influence.

Example: Being able to go out with your friends, without your parents restricting you.

Competence

The ability to do something effectively and be useful.

Example: You're a very useful employee at your company, this means you are competent for your job.

Relatedness

Being connected or related to someone, or something.

Example: Having a connection with family or friends

OK, so how does any of this apply to shifting and escapism?

When you lack one of any of these 3 behaviours or feelings, this is a disruption your human nature. Naturally by birth, you are within your birth right to recieve all of this.

Each of these behaviours, have extreme importance in your cognitive behaviour

- Cognitive behaviors are thoughts, ideas, and representations of yourself to others.

If you don't have the will or ability to control your actions independently, you are most likely going to feel stuck, and like everything is out of your control. Doing things that make you happy and activities you find meaningful, will become an issue due to your lack of autonomy.

If you don't feel competent in areas of your life, or people aren't competent when it comes to you, this can create low self esteem and a bad self concept, you may think of yourself as "worthless" "useless" or "incompetent"

You may feel less motivated to taking on new challenges and activities, as you feel like you're just going to fail, and mess everything up anyways.

Connection is what makes us human, love and empathy towards overs and receiving it, is what makes human life so special. Relatedness, is what you need to experience caring relationships, to be part of a community, and overall to feel love. Humans need love, that is a fact.

When these basic needs aren't met, a human being can lack the motivation to commit to any one of these factors, which take up a huge part in life.

Lacking these can make you feel, stressed, anxious, self loath and nihilistic.

When you don't have these 3 factors, this causes a lack of motivation to commit to them, which means you don't have them.

So you turn to something else, escapism.

"Escapism is the tendency to distract oneself from real-life problems. It can also be conceived as shutting meanings out of one's mind and freeing oneself from self-awareness for a while . Escapism has been identified as one of the key drivers behind online behaviors, in both adaptive and maladaptive ways"

- PubMed Central®

Link to study

Think of escapism like touching a hot stove. Imagine you place your hand upon a stove. At first its cold, and you're fine.

Then the temperature starts to slowly rise, its currently warm, its still fine you can deal with it. Now, it's getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter...

And you remove your hand.

Not on purpose, but by instinct.

By reflex, your hand immediately moved away from the stove once it got too hot.

Your nervous system felt the pain, which sent a signal to the brain, that something with your hand is wrong.

Biology isn't my strong suit I fear.

Another example.

You're in immediate danger, there's a tsunami coming your way, it's too big for you to face, if you stay where you are, you're going to get crushed by the water, and die on impact. So what do you do?

You run.

Naturally you escape from the dangerous situation, because who in their right mind would test their luck and try to survive a tsunami?

Are you getting it?

When human beings are faced with a situation that is uncomfortable, causes mental, or physical harm, or even death, their first response is to escape.

It is human nature to run, to escape, to not face the dangerous situation. Sometimes it can be a bad move, like ditching a daye you were nervous for, other times it could be skipping school because you constantly run into a group of serious bullies.

Repeat after me.

If you are in a situation where you do not feel loved, worthy, or free, you are allowed to escape.

You are allowed to escape.

Empathise on that baby, nobody is going to tell you off for it.

However, you must be weary of using shifting as escapism.

Shifting is a wonderful phenomenon, it is not something that determines whether you live or not. It doesn't determine your worth either, nor is it something that causes you psychological stress.

If you find yourself having suicidal or self harming thoughts, with shifting as a way to mend these thoughts, I beg of you to take a step back and evaluate these thoughts of yours.

Shifting is a journey, I preach that it's something that can be done on the first go, but that isn't the case for everybody.

It can be as short or as long as you make it, failure in shifting when using it as an escape from serious issues, is a one way road to psychological distress.

With that, I ask that you first deal with your mental health, before anything else.

Find something that makes you feel good and grounded, something you enjoy.

Please remember, that not everything is something you must be good at, if it came from you it's already perfect.

Meditation, painting, dancing, listening to music, writing, exercise. Anything and everything that makes you feel good, nothing is too silly, nobody is going to think you're weird or bad at doing something you love to do.

I found that talking out loud, writing in my journal, mediation and watching anime helped me a lot when I had "life impacting plans" connected to shifting.

LESSON SUMMARY

1. It is natural for human beings to run away when they are faced in a dangerous or uncomfortable situation

2. Shifting being used to run away from a bad situation, isn't negative. It only becomes negative once you prioritise it over your own health

3. Your mental and physical health always comes first before shifting

4. You deserve to be loved, to feel worthy, to not be let down, and to be free, whether that's through shifting or not!

[plumbobpaparazzi]

Peek into my Mods folder...

This is dedicated to @alltimefail-sims or anyone who needs a little help with lag!

I have several mods I refer to as "efficiency mods" that are little quality-of-life tweaks that make the game smoother for me, either by reducing lag or reducing immersion-breaking hiccups. As always, your mileage may vary, but hopefully this is helpful to someone. :) List of mods under cut to keep your dash clean.

No Intro - Whether you are trying to 50/50 your mods, testing new CC, or just need to shave time off your game loading... get rid of the cinematic intro.

Free Will Delay - Do your sims curbstomp their queue and proceed to fuck off to something unrelated? Yeah, me too, until I got this mod. From the mod description: "[E]very time you tell your sim to do something, they will be forced to listen! …For 5 minutes. Then they get free will back again. This is probably why controlling Sims in Sims 4 feels so bad! Because you lose control the second they start doing what they're told. Even if you queue up actions, the total time is STILL five minutes- because it goes from the last direction you give your sim. So you can tell them to do 3 hours worth of stuff while paused…and they'll get control back after 5 minutes. This mod changes this timeframe to an option of your choosing, to make controlling your sims feel more rigid."

Simulation Unclogger - This is an oldie-but-goodie mod from Turbodriver that helps interrupt when Sims get stuck in an endless action loop.

Evolve/Fertilize All Plants - Kind of weird how we can Harvest All but you can't Evolve or Fertilize All, right?

No Empty Venues When Arriving - Helps with the issue of going to a community lot and waiting around for Sims to show up. May cause increased lag if you are bottlenecked by RAM.

Food Autonomy Overhaul - Stops your stupid Sims from eating ingredients, AND allows Sims who hate cooking to autonomously grab quick meals. Didn't know they wouldn't do that? Yeah. That's a thing.

Don't Do That! Version 1 and Version 2 - Removes autonomy on annoying actions that can't be affected by MCCC tuner, like reactions and some trait idle animations.

Less Obsession - Lowers autonomy for certain things without disabling entirely. I still want my Sims to paint, but I don't want them to start a new figure painting any time they are left unsupervised.

Smarter Self-Care - Makes Sims prioritize their needs better before they are uncomfortable. I only use the packages for NPCs and Pets.

NPC Relationship Autonomy Fix - Stops random Sims from breaking into your house to ask to be your BFF (and tunes the requirements so they actually have to be your friend first.)

Buy More Upgrade Parts - Allows you to buy a package of 50 upgrade parts for when you are grinding out handiness or robotics.

The following mods are all by Bienchen and don't have a direct page for each package. You can search by name pretty easily on their website. I recommend flipping through and grabbing anything you find useful - I have a total of 368 of their mods installed. Here are some highlights:

novisibleecoeffects - The aurora will nuke your framerate. I know it's pretty, but oh my god.

noautonomousbakewhitecake - Does what it says on the tin, keeps your house from being overrun by cakes.

harvestnogroupinteraction - Stops club members from autonomously harvesting plants. Those are MY death flowers!

lessemotionidles - Reduces unnecessary idle animations from emotions, great for preventing your Sims from looking flirty at inappropriate times...

lesspreferenceidles - Stops your sims from thinking about how much they like fishing/fitness/etc. when they should be doing things.

happytoddleridledisabled - Stops the idling from the Happy Toddler trait. SUPER useful for family gameplay.

laundry_buffsandsoloidlesfix - Stops or reduces idles related to laundry. It's just clothes, bro

eldertweak - Reduces elder animation idles.

hastopeewalkstyleforchildonly - Helps get your Sims to the toilet in a reasonable amount of time.

tinyhousebuffhider - I know I'm in a Tiny Home, I don't need a moodlet.

lottraiteffectshider - Hides the little floating lightbulbs around Sims heads from lot traits.

notraitnotifications - I know my geek likes video games, I don't need the pop-up every time I play.

noholidayoutcomenotification - Please don't rub my nose in the fact I forgot to celebrate.

nofestivalnotifications and nofestivalnotificationsound - Helpful when a pack is new, but years later... no thanks.

noenrollmentandscholarshipinfo - No more info screen about the two universities. I think most of us know it all by now.

nouprootplant - Never cry because of a misclick again

simschangeoutfitwhenhotorcold - Should have already been autonomous, but alas.

novisualpoliteintroeffects - I don't know if I am the only one, but the glowing really bothers me.

restaurantsittweak - Sit down and eat your dang food! No more wandering Sims.

longerprom - Takes 6 hours instead of 4 so you can actually do something.

I probably have other QoL mods that could be helpful, but these are my recommendations to start with. Love to all the modders that keep this game playable <3

[afurtivecake]

One thing I've been wondering is how much did Riko really see Kevin as a brother and how much did he see him as a possession? (And is there really a distinction between the two in Riko's eyes?) Because, I don't think Kevin was ever meant to be Riko's brother or Riko's equal on the court. I think Tetsuji took Kevin in as an investment, nothing more:

"Tetsuji never formally adopted Kevin. Do you know why? Moriyamas don't believe in outsiders or equals. Tetsuji took Kevin in and took over his training, but he also gave Kevin to Riko—literally. Kevin isn't human to them. He's a project. He's a pet, and it's Riko's name on his leash. Sakavic, Nora. The Foxhole Court (All for the Game Book 1) (p. 88).

To the outside world, Tetsuji taking custody over both Riko and Kevin would have looked like him adopting them and making them brothers, but "Moriyamas don't believe in outsiders or equals" so what reason would he have had to lead Riko to believe that Kevin would be his brother? A brother implies a level of equality. He probably thought this will be a learning experience for Riko: give him something to be responsible for, something that he has to learn to control because he's a Moriyama and it's about time he learned how dominate lesser beings. He probably imagined Kevin to be something like Jean was: an obedient servant who can take being beaten within and inch of his life semi-regularly, no sense of autonomy, blindly submissive, and still able to be one of the top players in his position. A valuable right-hand man perhaps, but nothing worth kicking up a fuss over.

I think (and this might just be me wanting a good story) that the whole "brothers" thing came from Riko. A neglected kid with nothing and no one to call him 'family' receives a boy, who doesn't have anyone to call him family either, and is told, "This is yours now. This is yours to mind. Do whatever you want with him but make sure he knows his place and knows how to obey the right people." To a kid who's longing for something to call his own and someone to recognize him as family, that could easily have sounded like, "This is yours now, your person, to be by your side always. Yours to tend, yours to keep, yours." I think Tetsuji said "possession" and Riko heard, "brother". And if that's not what a brother actually is, well, who's going to tell him that? It's not as if there's a single example of a normal family relationship to be found among the Ravens.

I think Riko made Kevin his brother because he wanted something more than a possession. He wanted an ally, someone who always has his back and would never leave him. Riko making Kevin his brother instead of just a pet as was intended, gave Kevin a degree a freedom that Tetsuji probably wouldn't have allowed otherwise: travelling outside of the country with Riko, not always being stuck inside Evermore, studying what he wanted...he even got to have interests and to enjoy exy even when he wasn't playing (being a Trojans fan) and he managed to have friends outside of Evermore (Jeremy). Ravens don't have family or an identity outside of being a Raven, but Riko made Kevin his brother and gave him the chance to become his own person.

If Riko considers Kevin a brother, how can he turn around and hurt Kevin like he's nothing more than a possession, you ask? Well, I'm not sure he sees any conflict between the two. To Riko, beating Kevin up isn't outside of what Riko understands as "family" and doting on Kevin as a brother doesn't go against what Riko sees as ownership. To Tetsuji, ownership might only include being able to treat a person like shit without consequence. But for Riko, allowing Kevin freedom and indulging his "whims" probably feels as much like ownership as hurting Kevin without recourse does.

It seems impossible and stupid for their relationship to be anything other than toxic and deeply fucked up, but I think Riko selfishly believed that so long as he kept things in check, so long as Kevin stayed exactly where he was, he'd get to keep him. Even when Riko starts suspecting that other people are starting to see that Kevin might be better than him, even when being brothers is no longer useful to him if he wants to prove that he's really a Moriyama, Riko can't let go of their brotherhood. He doesn't give Kevin up until the very end. He can't. No matter how angry he gets at Kevin, no matter how much he comes to enjoy seeing Kevin hurt and sorry, there are lines he can't quite bring himself to cross. Because Kevin is still his brother. Because for better or for worse, he made Kevin mean something more to him than a possession when he made him his brother.

I don't think Tetsuji expected Riko to cling on to Kevin as though Kevin was actually important. He didn't think that by partnering the two, by giving them a common goal and a common enemy, that it would create a bond between them. But they did and maybe, in some ways, their dysfunctional relationship both saved them and doomed them.

[yandere-romanticaa]

I've had a very fun and fruitful conversation with @allfearstofallto and she had some very strong reactions for a story about yandere Diluc and Tartaglia that has been marinating in my mind for a while now. I'll just give you a brief version of my idea.

You and the 11th Fatui Harbinger are to be wed. With your freedom stripped away from you and with your wedding date fast approaching, you are working tirelessly to escape the Harbinger's grasp.

However, even with your freedom stripped away, even if you have no autonomy on your own, there's an inkling in your heart in which you cannot hate your captor. He is far too kind and gentle towards you, the way in which he treats you makes your heart swell with a plethora of emotions.

But enough is enough.

You need to leave. Fast.

One evening, you act sweeter, more submissive than usual. Your fiancee eats it up and is delighted by this change in attitude. His happiness is evident because now things can proceed without a hitch. Don't worry darling, you won't be anywhere near his work. He'll keep you safe, fed and loved.

All he asks in return is to be in your heart. Love him. Love him, please. It's a hard request, a selfish one even, he knows this.

He can make it up to you. He can and he will.

He promises.

You kiss him in bed, telling him that you understand. Your eyes shift towards the hidden suitcase in the corner as you feel the drugs start to kick in. Tartaglia is fast asleep, and you finally taste the sweetness of freedom.

The man wakes up the next morning in a daze. The bed is empty and cold.

His heart shatters into a million pieces. He roars out your name like a wounded animal, his throat sore and bleeding from the pain.

He must find you.

Meanwhile, you made your way towards the City of Freedom.

You settle in, find a job, a place to live in. It's hard but you manage.

You ignore the lingering presence that you feel behind you when you're alone at night. You're making it all up, you keep telling yourself.

No one is following you.

One evening, you enter a cozy tavern. You order a drink and it is prepared by a handsome, albeit stoic bartender. You manage to get him to open up. He introduces himself as Diluc, the owner of the fine establishment in which you sat in.

How neat.

Due to various different factors, after a short while Diluc takes you in. He is patient and strict. It's an improvement.

You don't know about his ever growing obsession with you. You don't know about the endless sea of portraits he has of you. He keeps it all hidden well under wraps.

Regardless, Diluc is still only human. It's only natural that his jealousy would bubble up and rear in its ugly head from time to time.

Dawn Winery is in a way, forced to attend a massive social gathering. Diplomats from the North are everywhere and, of course, Tartaglia spots you in the crowd.

Even if his eyes were to be plucked out, he would always manage to recognize you.

Tensions rise and the danger of bloodlust reeks in the air. Much to his chagrin, Childe cannot simply just kill Diluc and be done with it.

He is being forced to play Mr Nice Diplomat.

Oh the horror, being stuck between these two.

Now, since this has the potential to be long as fuck, I was thinking of making it into a multiple part story. The best name I could come up with it so far was "A Song of Ice and Fire". I'm open to title names, if someone has better ideas. An important note to add would be that this would be a serious commitment for me as I haven't done a story like this in years. Chapter updates would probably take me a long time due to my job and potential lack of energy, but this idea has been in my brain for years now, which is a clear sign that I'm passionate about it. And, my question is - would you like for me to make this story come to life?

[metamatar]

hope it's okay to ask, but do you have any advice for like. internalizing that self harm and suicide aren't really helpful

obvs this is all personal, so depending on your personal beliefs and the dimensions of depression it may not apply. im sure some of this can make it worse for you personally. reader beware etc. im sure this is terribly revealing of what my problems are. but i can't ignore you.

for self harm my advice here is more harm reduction bc i think the internalisation of that not being useful to you is way more specific to why you harm and needs like. work.

for suicide, because i think fighting both takes different tactics and some of these are things that work temporarily:

relief from anguish is a feeling. you have to be alive to experience a feeling. even if you don't remember that feeling and don't feel capable of it what if you stuck around to see it? it would be transcendent.

you want out from something. think about drastic decisions you can take before killing yourself that can change things that fuck you up. drop out of school? quit your job? start living on a friends couch? break up with your partner? trans your gender?

suicide closes off any other possibility. it is a very loud scream of autonomy but it will be the last time you get to make a decision. is that truly enough autonomy for you?

you have wanted to die before. you have not wanted to die before. your feelings are complicated and contradictory. you cannot entrust your whole life to them.

be curious about your future. im serious. i've changed so much by now from the limiting self i was when i was 15 and couldn't imagine being 18 and now im beyond 25 and im curious what i'd be like at 35. bargain. to see those years. i mean maybe you'll be cured which is a fun fantasy but i don't really believe that. maybe you'll be worse. but which? and how? the wikipedia summary of your life is not the life experience. the texture of your anguish changes too.

consider survival more valuable to your self worth. it matters. you had to do it anyway but you did it so it still matters. yeah you cracked a bit but you can be proud of being alive.

now, more controversially before you kill yourself, consider making it worse. indulge self destruction some other way. do something inadvisable that's less permanent.

and now, after endorsing self harm as a means of avoiding suicide and making everyone mad. stuff i've internalised to do less self harm:

i am the only person in the world responsible for me. choose less harm. the doctors won't choose less but i will.

same stuff about making one drastic change.

just one thing make it safer? then do it safer. you can look this stuff up on forums.

pick a replacement behaviour that you think is slightly better. do it. fail it. do it again. force yourself to over indulge in it while the haze passes.

you kind of have to sit with the things that hurt you that the self harm soothes and try to change them. sorry. do it slowly and do it excessively and keep trying.

i am not the only person in the world who does this. read about it talk about it and keep it held in your heart that this is something about yourself that you feel the need to change. i like art about it.

fighting it a little is giving you a fresher newer self back. do you like them? don't you want to meet them?

relief is not contentment. wouldn't contentment be even more transcendent?

[amostimprobabledream]

You know, I know people like to meme on Homelander like "bro is beefing with a baby haha", but with S4 Ep4 revealing more context to his backstory, it's really not surprising and adds an extra tragic layer. (Note this isn't excusing him, it's just a little analysis.)

We already know early on that Homelander's childhood is a public fabrication and that he was raised as a lab rat, with Vogelbaum being his primary father figure. Despite raising John from birth, though, Vogelbaum has never seen him as a son or even a child - he's a product, an experiment that needs to be managed. Every day, Vogelbaum would go to work, do experiments on Homelander with his team of scientists, Stan Edgar, Barbara, and then go home and play happy families. Billy Butcher manages to get Vogelbaum to give him intel on Homelander specifically by threatening to hurt Vogelbaum's daughter if he doesn't comply. Once again, Vogelbaum puts his biological child over the one he spent most of his time with, and doesn't bother warning him or Madelyn of what's coming.

We also know now that the scientists who tortured him also had families - Frank is forced to go in the oven because Homelander overtly threatens to burn them too if he doesn't. We don't know about Marty or Barbara but it's easy to assume they do too. But none of them thought anything of sticking a little boy in an oven or testing nuclear weapons on him.

Then you have Madelyn. And we don't know exactly how long they've known each other, but it seems like it must be a long time for Madelyn to be in the position she is in Vought and by how well she knows Homelander. She's the closest thing to a mother figure he's ever had, and his unofficial handler/mentor. Whatever Madelyn thinks of him, Homelander is close to her.

And then Madelyn gets pregnant.

Something that always stuck out to me in Season One was when Homelander comments that Madelyn's baby is just a prop to make her feel like a good person. This always seemed like a really astute and oddly specific, personal observation, because mostly Homelander seemed pretty selective with Madelyn's unsavoury qualities until she lies about something too major for him to ignore anymore. But it does seem, to me, that he was right - whether Madelyn felt genuine love for Teddy or not, it does seem like these scientists and other people who work at Vought use their loved ones to convince themselves that they aren't really bad people - look, they have a good relationship with their kids! They're happily married! Yes, they experimented on a child, but that was just a job. It's what he was made for. But that's not who they really are, right? In particular, Madelyn's determination to make Teddy breastfeed from her seemed less because it was what's best for him, health-wise, and more because she saw it as something she was failing at as a mother so early on, and because she wasn't happy about her motherhood plans being derailed by her baby's refusal to comply with them. I feel like down the line, Madelyn would have probably ended up being emotionally abusive or at least extremely manipulative as a mother - loving your child and being a controlling parent aren't mutually exclusive, after all.

Vogelbaum's affection for his daughter doesn't change what an awful person he is. Stan Edgar adopting and grooming Victoria into being, well, Victoria, doesn't mean he isn't a sociopath - he's fond of Victoria because she's a successful project he raised. He still fucked her up and turned her into a serial killer and Victoria has now demonstrated she's willing to violate Zoe's bodily autonomy if she thinks it's necessary (or rather, convinces herself it is.) Frank was a family man 'just doing his job', but that didn't save him from Homelander's wrath. Did their families know about the atrocities they were committing? If they didn't, would they be able to look at them the same way?

So no wonder Homelander hates Madelyn's baby - he finally had a parental figure in his life who didn't have a family taking away what he saw as the love and attention he deserved like Vogelbaum did, and then she goes and has a baby anyway, and once again, someone else is receiving all the affection and care that Homelander has never, ever been given by anyone.

tl;dr: Homelander hating Madelyn's baby makes perfect sense and makes me sad. EDIT: If I've made a some mistakes in this post it's because I haven't watched S1 & 2 in a while so my recollection is a bit fuzzy, excuse me for that lol.

[is-this-yuri]

have you been doomscrolling? feeling awful about it? do you feel out of control? does it seem your autonomy has been swallowed by the ever present beast that is the internet?

we live in the most overwhelmingly stimulating age of humanity ever seen, and it's only getting worse. our brains are sponges, soaking up whatever we smear them across, and it seems more and more difficult to find a clean surface to rest on. i'm no expert or professional, but ive been born and raised into the internet, and i'd like to hand out some wisdom regarding this.

the main issue: brain poison

since the brain absorbs whatever it's exposed to, media consumption is unsurprisingly going to effect it. the type of media, the amount of media, and the frequency of the media all play a factor.

it's not the internet itself that's bad here. it's the media on the internet, and the platforms designed to suck in our attention and keep it there until we're rotting inside our skulls.

we're never going to escape the internet. it's just a fact of life now, and a tool that can be used for wonderful things. so how do we learn to live with the internet and take advantage of its potential?

treat it like a dietary balance

staying aware of what goes in your brain is just as important as being aware of what you're eating. if you eat carelessly, don't listen to how your body feels after you eat certain things, and ignore any sickness that might result from rotten food, you're going to have a bad time and wreck your guts. the same goes for the brain.

you want to have a good mix of various types of media in the right amounts, or approximately so. if things are feeling bland, maybe diversify. if things are feeling stupid, try something more intellectual. if it's feeling too much, cut back on all of it

the following are three things you can do to maintain a sense of control and awareness over your media diet. this isnt a step by step and is in no particular order, theyre just ideas to carry forward in general any time it could be helpful.

1. digest

this is the process of thinking about and remembering what youve done throughout your time on the internet. it could apply to any period of time. so you might think, 'man, i've done nothing but watch tiktok all day.' or 'i've been scrolling twitter a lot more this past week.'

i feel like most people already do this to some extent, but it manifests as a fleeting sense of anxiety or shame that doesn't lead anywhere. analyze that feeling, and ask if it's really true or helpful.

ask if your media consumption is making you feel less focused, distracted, putting you into a brain fog, making you fall asleep when you don't want to, making you irritable and angry, drawing you into arguments, keeping you awake at night, or upsetting/disrupting you in any way.

digestion also means appreciating the good stuff and recognizing the good feelings you get too. so also ask if it's enriching you, helping you learn something new, giving you a new perspective, exposing you to something beautiful, passing the time, relaxing you, honing your focus, or generally lifting your mood.

2. cut

cut certain types of content from your life once you've decided they're not good for your media diet. block people. move on. tell youtube to stop reccomending that channel. block them. unfollow people. unfollow tags. block the tags. blacklist things. do it. forget the awful things that make your brain hurty. click the block button. uninstall the app. you know you want to

consider removing yourself entirely from websites that are designed to be attention predators. if you consistently feel like youre 'stuck' on a site and cant leave, it's probably best to just delete your account and get out of there. tiktok is NOTORIOUS for this.

i also tend to keep my following or subscribed count low. keeping the stream of content short forces me to find other things to do with my time. this goes hand in hand with things like turning off infinite scroll. it provides an 'end point' where the repetitive action of scrolling down stops bearing fruit, breaking the doomscrolling cycle. the internet is almost an infinite place, and its up to you to build walls around yourself so you arent lost in it forever.

its also important to get off the internet in general sometimes. i know this is obvious, but literally touch grass on occasion. doing anything with your physical body away from the screen will be more enriching than sitting there scrolling for hours. whether it's just a 5 minute walk around your house to stretch your legs or a 6 hour hike every weekend, part of cutting media will mean replacing it with real life. looking at some plants, doing a pushup, or working on a knitting project can be like rinsing your brain sponge under some cold, clean water.

3. curate

the flip side of cutting is curating. you'll want to be looking for media that makes you happy and feels productive or meaningful in some way. anything that not only doesnt make you feel like you wasted your time, but specifically makes you feel like you spent your time well, is a green flag.

keep in mind entertainment just for entertainment's sake is good for you too. you don't have to be watching university lectures and tutorials and stuff all day. finding high quality entertainment, such as personalities you enjoy, good production values, and inventive ideas can be really difficult. find the people who dont make you feel like a cocomelon baby and stick with them. from there you should be able to find similar content.

what's good for your soul is going to depend very much on you as an individual. this is also going to be an ongoing process as not only you but the internet both change and evolve. the important thing about this step is that you Make Decisions about what to consume. even bad decisions! it's all part of the process, and it's all about reclaiming your autonomy.

4. eat your junk food

this isn't a military drill or an exact science. i'm just a guy on tumblr with an intimate connection to his own brain and a LOT of time on the internet. that's my only credential. sometimes i want to turn that brain off and just mindlessly consume without putting any thought into what dirty dishwater is soaking into my sponge. sometimes adhd brain wants me to watch a shitty B movie in recap form so i dont have to commit to a full movie. sometimes i get stuck in the youtube shorts for like 3 hours.

that's fine. the most important part of any kind of self care is that a little bit is better than nothing. even just being aware that youre consuming something bad for you and knowing you arent ready to stop just yet is better than nothing.

thats it!!

now you should be prepared to take back some control over your media consumption. be gentle with yourself and take your time. eventually this stuff will become second nature, and you'll be effortlessly digesting, curating, and cutting media like it's just part of your personality. remember YOU have control over what the internet thinks you want to see. dont let it force feed you nasty slop anymore. let it be a reflection of your mind, not the other way around.

and good luck!

[what-even-is-thiss]

Hi roman. I know this is very weird, but i've seen you give some life advice to other people, so i thought i could give it a try too. Don't answer if you don't want to. Anyway

Do you have any advice/tips for a 15 y/o who thinks they just have no control over their life? Like, my concentration is dog shit, i think my grades are slipping. My executive dysfunction so bad and i think i'm disappointing a lot of people. I have no idea how to handle anything in my life. I can't force myself to do the things i need to (not that that'd be any good, i'll immediately cry lol). I just, don't fucking know how i could make things better for myself. And i can't really talk to adults about it, they'll repeat the stuff i already know, and i am the worst person to put their feelings into words, so they'll prob never understand. Not in the edgy way.

Yeah so sorry for half venting into your ask box. Thank you in advance if you'll answer it, if it's too weird and you don't want to do that for whatever reason, that's ok. Peace and love <3

Dude, you’re unfortunately suffering from being 15. And possibly a learning disorder. Godspeed to you.

And I don’t say that to belittle your problems. In many ways as a teenager you don’t have control over a lot of things. You’re still under the control of your parents, you’re still learning how to deal with adult level emotions and ideas. A lot is expected of you and a lot of things are made to seem more important than they are. It’s hard to tell what’s actually important and what’s just adults blowing things out of proportion. It sucks and it’s frustrating!

If you can, you might want to talk to a counselor. If your parents or guardians are anti-counseling you might try to talk to someone at your school like a teacher or administrator or school nurse about the possibility of getting counseling without your parents knowing. Some schools have programs like that.

The adults closest to you might not understand but if you keep looking you’ll eventually find someone who remembers what it’s like to be in your shoes.

And I remember fully feeling like I’d never get control over anything. The end goal of life was graduation from high school and god only knows if I keep existing after that. But the thing is, you do! You keep existing and you figure a lot of stuff out. Wisdom does come with time, it turns out. And legally and practically you end up getting a lot more autonomy as time goes on.

And I know hearing things like this might not feel comforting. When you’re stuck, you’re stuck and no matter how much you logically know it’ll get better right now it sucks.

Just find ways to keep going. And try asking for help sometimes. If your family won’t listen, find someone who will. Take the time to write down your problems and how you feel if you can’t come up with explanations of what’s going on. Or find a friend to talk it out with so you can practice explaining yourself.

If there’s one thing I can promise you, when you’re a couple years into adulthood all of the problems from your teenage years start to feel small. At the time they were big and important though. And that’s what you’re going through right now. And a lot of adults forget about that. Hang in there, and when all of this is behind you, remember how hard it was and maybe someday you can help someone like you.

I’m sorry if all that wasn’t helpful. I don’t know too much about your individual situation. But ask for help when you can. Someone out there understands. You’ll find them.

[neverpathia]

fuck this shit

have my voice of the broken

and please ignore how elementary my art looks

it's not the full design unfortunately, but a little guy is a little guy, I hope. + the original pencil-and-paper lineart.

now I was gonna go by a specific order, like starting from voice of the hero and all, but broken just resonated with me too much and I thought we could make a pretty neat design out of him so there we have it.

okay I have quite a bit to say about him

come on, the fact that he's the most like me out of all the stp voices surely says something. tower route isn't exactly how my very first playthrough went, true, but once she beat the ever loving crud out of me and the rest of the route unfolded

I had to do a double take he's so real wtf

everything Broken says is something that has definitely passed through my mind at some point or another, especially when it came to a few relationships of mine. the way he just defaults to surrendering. taking the easy way out, the ONLY way out, which is in fact only digging yourself deeper into the problem. somewhere in your subconscious, maybe you know this. but what other choice do you have? she's above you in every way possible. don't you want to please her? isn't this how it's all supposed to go? and, besides, you don't want to taste the alternative.

defiance can't be an option anymore. it's a path fraught with danger and fear and the Broken is blindly submissive because it's the only thing he can be. he can't let himself think like a person or feel like a person or even be a person anymore if it's all just going to get taken away from him.

maybe he's bitter. maybe he hates the world. maybe he wants to let himself feel something that's not simply her, and her, and her.

but it's too risky, too dangerous. and it's so much 'easier' to just...not. just do what she asks, because there's a course of action put before you, and you won't be hurt if you do what she says. and you don't want to be hurt. and everything she's already doing to hurt you is so much better than everything she CAN do if you defy her.

and she loves you. in this twisted, unbalanced, unfair way of hers, she loves you. call it love because you don't want to know what else it can be.

you hate this love. it suffocates you. it drowns you. it seeks out the cracks in your soul. it enters them. it expands them. but it's the only thing left in there anymore.

it may look like a choice when you reciprocate it in the same unjust way. it's turned against you and you're just blocking off your escape, that's what they see. but what does the Broken see? safety. protection. an escape from whatever she can and has thrown upon you if you don't.

you can have "whatever you want" at the cost of a "you."

I feel so bad for him, but I can't help but feel that I...am him. Just 'choosing' to submit and keel over and accept your comfortable little prison is kind of real. It's 'choosing' safety and sloth at the cost of my autonomy, but since when had it even been a choice? external circumstances nudge you towards a corner. your own willpower, or rather lack thereof, backs you further into that corner. the Broken is too familiar.

and yet the way he always makes it a point to hear others out. he empathizes. he soothes. because he doesn't want them to be Broken like he is, or rather, he's the only other one who's just as Broken and he knows how much it sucks. to be at war with yourself all the time yet you yourself are stuck and stagnant and unmoving in everything you know you hate as much as you try to pretend you love. everything you do, every second you live, as wrong as it always feels. he wishes for a choice where he has never had one himself and he can, in a way, live that choice through others.

maybe I'm just projecting idk

fyi there's a reason I gave him that particular hairstyle. it's tied together and weighed down with two teardrop-shaped ornaments. like how he's so restricted and it's heavy, it's so heavy, being sad all the time is a bitch and you can only be tired. yet the braids are still ornate. still straight and silky smooth, still beautiful. but what then? and what if a few strands threaten to escape? it means nothing, it's still what it is. helplessly fixed in place, but who would think about it.

[batsplat]

you might have already talked abt this but I’m interested if you have any thoughts on the similarities & differences in Casey & Valentino’s early childhoods and families……I don’t know much abt Casey’s upbringing & the little I know about Valentino’s all makes me go “huh ok I kinda get it now” lol. Idk like I found out Jorge’s whole deal w his dad and I was like “OH OK you make perfect sense to me now” but I’m not there yet w the other two, yk?

so okay,, I do have an ask from forever back about marc and valentino's childhoods that I got extremely stuck at answering, and also an ask about jorge's father that I haven't even touched because like. sometimes you just do not feel up for that lol. and well it's just an area where I do generally try and be quite careful in how I discuss it... BUT this is casey stoner hot take round™ so I will give a reasonably succinct answer to this and not overthink it too much. basically: yeah, I do have thoughts, because casey's childhood does undeniably do a lot of the work in the 'oh okay that makes sense now' department. a lot of his career narrative, his struggles, his disillusionment with the sport... and yes, the way the valentino rivalry unfolded - a lot of it can be traced back quite a long way, to grievances he's been carrying around with him for years and years. I talked in this post about that podcast interview casey did this year, which included... well, a bit of a reckoning. talking as openly as he ever has about how being a rider wasn't ever really his dream - it's something that was decided for him. and that's our starting point... casey's eternally ambivalent relationship with being a rider, one that feels so violently different from valentino's

the big, big contrast between casey and valentino's respective journeys is pretty simple to sum up: it's the joy. valentino was having fun. casey wasn't. now, look - valentino as a child very obviously did not have perfect autonomy in making the choice to be a rider. it's always going to be more complicated than that; his father did obviously push him in that direction. but at the end of the day, it's not too controversial to say that valentino always enjoyed riding and always had fun racing. it's a joy he carried with him on his way to becoming a rider, one that remained a part of his competitive dna throughout his professional career. it's a joy that kept him racing for as long as he did. a childlike joy, in a way - valentino's lack of 'adult' seriousness, how it's been remarked upon that this brutal sport has never quite managed to wear him down. his peter pan persona, how he's the boy who won't ever grow up. and, y'know... valentino had the chance to actually be a kid. he got to have something vaguely resembling a proper childhood. makes sense, right - if you want to be a kid forever, it helps to have been one in the first place

there's a quote of his from 2009 I posted recently:

which, in the context of that interview - this question refers back to an earlier exchange about how casey wasn't a 'romantic' rider (still think that's an objectively pretty funny thing to say about your rival but that's neither here nor there). and, well, valentino's correct! sports has become considerably more professionalised over time. children are less and less likely to be able to afford any sort of life outside of it. which isn't just about reducing passion, right - it's also about not really giving these kids the chance to properly grow up, to become more rounded human beings who don't have to be the perfect little athlete 100% of the time. it's also a correct diagnosis of casey specifically, who certainly could never afford to see racing as a game. I'd recommend reading this autobiography excerpt, where casey tells you exactly that: racing wasn't about having fun for casey. he'd moved to the uk with his parents at fourteen years of age, at which point he essentially became his family's sole provider. his family depended on him not failing - and every opportunity threatened to be his last, his racing future and financial situation always desperately precarious. he was constantly fearful all of his family's sacrifices might have been for nothing. it's immense pressure to put any teenager under, regardless of how much you want to convince them that it's their dream rather than your own. if casey wasn't already an overly self-critical perfectionist before those years, he certainly was by the time he made it to motogp. he couldn't afford to be anything less than perfect. remember: the shape his anxiety took was by making him curl up in his motorhome, terrified of letting everyone down. wonder where that came from

is it any surprise, then, that while valentino feels like kids today take racing too seriously, casey thinks they don't take it seriously enough?

The system has changed: when you put too much pressure on a 20-year-old, he can react by closing up and becoming serious and sad. // Nowadays I see too many kids coming through behaving too relaxed, and too happy with what they have achieved already. I don’t want them to be miserable but they have to understand what’s at stake.

doesn't this make you want to scream. a little

and, look, there are similarities between valentino and casey in ways that will be true of many child prodigy athletes. valentino has spoken about how his father would not do anything with him that didn't involve motorcycle racing, casey likewise has more recently in that podcast said he doesn't think he was allowed to pursue any other interest. we can talk plenty about how the parents of athletes like to use their children to fulfil their own dreams - how their child's athletic performance seems to become the only aspect of their child they have any interest in. how so much of that parental relationship becomes distorted by the ceaseless quest to achieve results. it's there in both of their stories... and obviously they are hardly unique in that respect. there's perhaps a little bit of a divide - to what extent kids are aware of this dynamic and are uncomfortable with it, especially publicly. both casey and valentino are united in being somewhat openly critical of their parents without being completely estranged from them. casey got his parents to move back to australia when he was arguing with his father too frequently as a young rider; valentino has seemingly kept his father at a bit of a distance for years. they've never cut themselves off entirely - but there's a certain undeniable wariness there. a lack of conviction that their parents acted as parents should that they've been willing to hint at publicly, here and there

Our communication is mostly about motorbikes. He wasn't a good father, I mean... When I was with him, playing always meant riding motorbikes for him. // To be honest, I don’t know if I was allowed to have any other attraction to be honest. I think it was, you know, you’re going to be a bike rider from when I was a very very young age - and I’m not the only one to think that.

still, it does come back to the joy of it all. casey justifies his belief that racing isn't fun by talking about how he'd always known how high the stakes were... whereas for valentino, fun is an integral part of the experience. it's what he's there for. and beyond the racing itself, valentino always found his life as a rider considerably more joyous than casey did. which leads us to the other difference between the pair of them: casey's loneliness. valentino has spoken frequently about the importance of his childhood friend group, about having them travel with him and ground him and be there with him throughout - people who knew him before he became the valentino rossi, people he feels that he can fully rely on. he grew up as part of a community and has a strong sense of identification with not just his country but also his town... he's got deep ties to his place of origin and the people who live there, built up over a lot of time, and he draws a lot of strength from that. by contrast, casey grew up moving around a fair bit, unhappy at school and the victim of bullying - his only real friends, he says, were from the dirt track, since they were the only people he 'had anything in common with'. even those friendships don't feel particularly substantial, especially given how often he frames his childhood racing experiences around the hostility of his competitors (and especially their parents) in response to his peerless talent. his parents eventually home schooled him, inevitably further isolating him. then, as a teenager, he moved to the uk where he knew nobody, before moving to spain where he didn't even speak the language. he continued to have a strong sense of connection to australia, fuelled at least in part by homesickness - but it's also a connection to a country he hadn't lived in since age fourteen, a sense of belonging that's fundamentally less stable, less comforting. one that exists primarily in contrasting himself to all the europeans he surrounds with, as a way of making sense of his feelings of cultural alienation - which in truth are sometimes just plain alienation. the paddock cannot function as a home for casey either, and he is unwilling or unable to form substantial connections in that environment. in 2009, ten odd years after moving away from australia, he said his only friend in the paddock was his wife

and yes, it plays into that rivalry - inevitably so. casey and valentino are both somewhat alien to each other, fundamentally unknowable... and it does come back to how at odds they were in their approaches, in how they motivated themselves. casey finds the europeans and their flamboyant celebrations baffling. valentino cannot relate to casey's lack of romantic affection for the sport. casey is there to do a job. valentino is there to put on a show. casey does not think racing should be about having fun. valentino believe the fun is non-negotiable. casey loves almost nothing about being a rider, whereas valentino loves almost all of it

another thing. when I was writing this post about the similarities between casey and valentino, one aspect I talked about was how they can both be.... uh. suspicious characters, shall we say. paranoid, some might call them. conspiratorial, even. now, again, to some extent they do share this with a lot of other athletes, it's kind of part of the game. but, y'know, they do take it quite far - and there's quite a pleasing parallel between the pair of them where they've both come up with a conspiracy theory about one of valentino's lost titles. which leads us to quite a nice distinction between these two theories. not to brag, but I kinda feel I nailed one of the most important elements of their dynamic:

now, look. I deliberately did not do this,, but obviously if you really wanted to, you can do some pop psychology on valentino's approach to interpersonal attachment and relate that back to his relationship with his parents. I am not interested in doing that for various reasons, most of which the cia would not get out of me, but I'm aware it's an approach you can take. in any case, I do still think you can make quite a straightforward case for this distinction: one of them believes the world is fundamentally out to get them, one of them doesn't. one of them is waiting for the system to fuck them over, the other is wary of individuals who have gotten a little too close. both of them at times are exceedingly ready to read malice into the words and actions of those around them - and both of them can react rather dramatically to such a provocation. the shape their suspicion takes is a little bit different and a little bit the same... but it's central to understanding both of them, in a way that does set them apart from their competitors. they're the two aliens who are the most likely to read an agenda into anything and everything. they're the ones who are most likely to take note of slights, to accumulate grievances. the most likely to not forget when they have been wronged - and to take great pleasure in getting back at whoever has done them ill

in the end, it all comes back to just what an excellent foil for casey you have in valentino. in all the ways casey defines himself against valentino, in all the ways valentino challenges casey, in all the ways casey's issues with the sport are inextricably interwoven with the character of valentino rossi. casey hates so much of the sport in ways that are tied so closely to valentino; he hates a system that invariably would like nothing more than to see valentino succeed. but valentino also represents what casey cannot be - not just an entertainer, but someone completely at ease with their life as a rider. someone who finds joy in that life, who did not step away from it until he absolutely had to. valentino is there long before casey arrives and he is there long after casey leaves. valentino is an idol, an enemy, a mystery. more so than any other rider, valentino embodies an emotion that casey believed he simply could not afford to feel. valentino is the sport's joy - and casey was never there to have fun

[sasukeless]

please don't kill me but genuine question about sns (disclaimer that i've only seen the anime, not read the manga, shameful ik): in shippuden, naruto's attachment to sasuke felt sooo forced to me at first because it looked extremely one-sided and i resented naruto a lot because he acted like sasuke was the same as he was before he left and was projecting/in denial rather than seeing sasuke as his own person with agency and who had different ideals/methods. Obviously things were put in a different light when we eventually learn about the indra and ashura, and the reincarnation/soulmate thingy but idk it never erased that first impression for me, despite sns connection being obvious at the end i still disliked naruto as a character. So would really appreciate your perspective on this!

lol i won’t kill you, it’s fine.

tbh i just think this all to me seems like you got stuck in early shippuden naruto characterization and like i cant remember how it’s in the anime (thankfully) but in the manga is pretty clear that.Yes, naruto attachment to sasuke looks one sided then and it is intentional!! kishimoto wrote that on purpose. same with naruto not being able to see that sasuke is different. i always joke a lot how at the beginning of part 2 naruto has deluded himself to believe sasuke leaving for orochimaru was almost like a kidnapping where he’s convinced he has to save sasuke like a damsel in distress from the tower he was locked in. which ofc while orochimaru basically groomed sasuke to seek him, sasuke still is not being held captive (and actually he’s planning to kill orochimaru and take his autonomy back). but the point is that Naruto starts to realizes he’s never gonna get sasuke back like that and after jiraiya’s death he understands a little more why sasuke would choose revenge too. idk why you mean by forced tho because to me naruto’s obsession w sasuke is one of the most natural thing to come from him. traumatizing kid latching himself to the first person that showed him love and refusing to let go it’s pretty realistic. imo this obsession also it’s what humanizes naruto the most. he wants to save sasuke because he doesn’t want sasuke to suffer but he also Needs to save sasuke because he’s pretty codependent on him emotionally and needs him by his side for his own goals and life to have meaning. it’s a pretty selfless and selfish trap he’s in.

back to the whole one sided thing. once again this is pretty intentional. kishimoto hides sasuke’s feelings for naruto, most of his arc in part 2 he only leaves small pieces here and there but nothing as grand because he wanted to make the big reveal at vote 2 where we finally get to know that sasuke had developed a similar attachment to naruto since childhood but deals with it completely different (since they have complete different perceptions of love). the whole point of this is that it should recontextualizes their entire dynamic again because now you’re aware the same feelings of yearning and love naruto had for sasuke that lead him to chase him for years and become unhealthy obsessed were mirrored by sasuke and because his different view of love this is why sasuke kept running away.

anyway idk if this will help or not but yeah i still recommend the manga

[themushroomgoesyeet]

For the first installment of this series, let's start with something easy!

Arcana characters as Disney princesses/princes

Julian - Flynn Rider/Eugene

These two are so similar istg

Dashing, dramatic, swashbuckling rogues with dry humor and a secret, insecure soft side?

The only difference between them is one is ginger with an eye patch and the other isn't

Honestly Eugene would probably be a good pick for a voice hc tbh

Oh hey they're both orphans with big brother vibes too look at that

Asra - Elsa

White hair? Check. Water-related magic? Check. orphans? Check. Unconditional fashion style that doesn't really match everyone else but still looks drop-dead gorgeous regardless? Check

Both of them also have familial abandonment issues and feel the need to isolate themselves from the people they love instead of confronting the problem smh

I will admit their romantic interests are a bit different, with Asra being bisexual and Elsa either being a lesbian or aro/ace at best

Both of them have also been described to have seductive singing voices 👀

Nadia - Princess Jasmine

We👏stan👏 headstrong 👏 independent 👏 middle eastern- inspired👏queens👏here👏

Ngl Jasmine is one of my favorite Disney princesses & she & Nadia would definitely hit it off

Both feel stuck in their respective lives while also wanting to rule, and try to take action for themselves whenever they can

Also both of them would look absolutely stunning in an outfit swap

Muriel - Hercules

Honey you mean HUNK-ules

I know Hercules isn't technically a Disney prince but he fits Muriel too well

Big and strong but shy and genuine at heart? Hell yeah

Their reactions to fame are a little bit different but they are the same when it comes to falling in love; both are so gentle and genuinely caring, and can't stop gushing about their partner

Also amazing idols for how men are supposed to treat women - a.k.a with respect

Both have a heathy amount of respect for their partners modesty (even when said partner is trying to seduce them on purpose), as well as their partners autonomy to make their own decisions

Not to mention they both have estranged families that they didn't know about, and a supportive animal companion

Portia - Rapunzel

I know some of you might be thinking "why not Merida? They look so alike with their frizzy mop of ginger hair!" Well, dear chat, let me explain

While they may look similar, Portia and Merida do not act similar. Merida is rebellious, headstrong, and airheaded, fighting her loved ones on everything and doing what she wants regardless of the consequences until said consequences come back to bite her in the butt. Portia on the other hand, while also headstrong, is spunky, kind, and takes others feelings and opinions into account instead of doing the first daring thing that comes into her head

Which brings me to Rapunzel. Admittedly, Rapunzel is a lot more sheltered and inexperienced about the world than Portia was but they are still kindred spirits. Curious, spunky, headstrong, kind, compassionate, and unafraid to fight for themselves.

They're ready to take on the world even if they don't know enough about it

Both also have evil and manipulative family members (ik Mother Gothel isn't Rapunzel's family; she was still the one who raised Rapunzel & Rapunzel considered her family long enough for it to count in this situation)

Both also meet love interests who guide them through the part of the world that's unknown to them, be it magic for Portia or the world as a whole for Rapunzel

Lucio - Merida

remember all those traits I listed for Merida? Yeah Lucio fits those

Merida and Lucio may be hella good warriors, but boy are they stupid sometimes

Both also have mommy issues™

Both are also wildly inexperienced with magic and should really be more cautious about it

Both just go "oopsies" and expect everything to be fine because of their status when it's never fine

Can you tell yet that these two bother me lol

Both were brought up in a Scottish-sounding culture and you can't change my mind

[necrotic-nephilim]

i recently remembered DickTim Week 2024 is happening very soon and i looked at the prompts again to see if i could get anything out for it and. the Hades & Persephone AU prompt for day 1 has got me really thinking so here's a vague concept i plan to write.

i've been pretty burnt out on modern Hades & Persephone retellings because of how they always seem to fall into the same generic "innocent wide-eyed girl runs from her evil mean mother into the arms of a dark mysterious man because actually she went willingly and chose to marry him" which has gotten repetitive for my tastes. (for clarity i don't care if this retelling is your cup of tea personally, so long as you're not actively trying to rewrite the original myth and claim untrue things about it, if this is your favorite flavor i sincerely hope you enjoy the buffet i just have little interest in it since it feels overdone for me and exhausted of it's supposed commentary atp)

but? but. biblically accurate Hades & Persephone AU has me all kinds of interested. because wait listen so hear me out right. Hades!Dick and Persephone!Tim, obviously. i feel it'd be more loosely inspired by with themes and imagery (though playing with death and nature powers could be interesting, i haven't decided) rather than explicitly making them gods and all. but. something dark and fucked up where Dick and Bruce are especially estranged. maybe to do with Jason's return, maybe to do with them just clashing and having their usual explosive arguments. and Bruce knows the peace needs to be kept, if he and Dick are at odds then everyone starts to pick sides and things just fracture so he needs a peace offering.

and the peace offering is Tim.

Bruce (the stand-in for Zeus) offers up Tim. agrees to have Tim move to Bludhaven and be Dick's... whatever Dick wants him to be. knowing that with the implication comes the likelihood of Dick grooming Tim. and Tim has no real say and is hesitant to put up a real fight. he doesn't want this, he knows what this is going to imply Dick will do to him, but he also knows if he says no things have the possibility to just... fall apart. so he's the unwilling bride, dragged off to the metaphorical underworld (Bludhaven) with Dick, away from his family, his friends, the life he built.

and on the flip side, i think weirdly enough, your best pick for the Demeter stand-in is *Jason*. just, hear me out on that. not necessarily on the side of it being motherly, but on Jason being just estranged enough from the Batfamily to be the one willing to call it out for being bad and wrong and raising bloody hell to get Tim back. maybe it's because Jason wants Tim for himself, maybe it's truly out of a concern for Tim to have autonomy, i'm toying with the idea of it primarily being Tim's POV and him genuinely not knowing which of these is true. (and the truth possibly ends up being a complicated middle ground) and because i like Helena, i think you can use her as the Hekate stand in, the one who strikes a tentative alliance with Jason and tries to go find Tim and bring him back. Tim stuck with Dick, getting groomed and hyperaware of it, possibly even getting fucked the whole time as well, knowing he can't go back without causing massive issues for Dick and Bruce because well, Bruce did promise him to Dick. so he has to adjust his whole life, try to figure out being a vigilante in this new city with Dick breathing down his neck the whole time.

and then much like the ending of the myth, a sort of compromise is struck that's a shaky deal for everyone involved. Tim is put on an essential timeshare, going back and forth between Gotham, where he has friends and family and a support system, then getting dragged right back to Bludhaven with Dick in this brutal cycle that he slowly gets used to and stockholm'd into even liking it. Dick isn't so bad, once he gets used to the quirks of their unbalanced 'relationship'. the sex is even something he can adjust to as well. not quite a happy ending but one that sits in this realistic grey area that becomes Tim's life.

i will write this, eventually, but i don't know if i'll get to it before DickTim Week ends so by posting the idea i'm essentially putting it out into the world so the peer pressure holds me accountable. i just. really like the potential of making Hades/Persephone AUs as fucked up as they can be simply by adhering to the source material and making it a raw story of being stolen away and forced to like this new home you didn't ask for.

also a less fleshed-out aspect of this idea i have ties into Persephone becoming the Queen of the Underworld when she's taken and how the transition from Kore to Persephone could be reflected in Tim. how he makes the best of the worst situation and becomes something far more dangerous and dark when he's in Bludhaven, possibly takes on a new vigilante name/identity and leans into the worst quirks of his personality he tries to tamper because there's no point in not going full tilt Obsessively Weird if he has no choice anyway and it being one small way he takes back his autonomy, and that inevitably making Dick *more* into him, because he gets to see Tim finally just. let loose.

[bibibbon]

I'd like to imagine a scenario for Geten after the war ends where he's visited by Rei in the jail, being told to his surprise that he and Rei are family. Maybe closer than they actually think (I like aunt Rei for Geten don't judge me).

So anyways, Rei being a compassionate person by nature probably would feel sympathy for Geten. After all he's very young (I hear some japanese fans even pointed he's referred as "shonen") and he doesn't seem to have any close blood relatives other than her.

Rei would take Geten under her wing after keep visiting him on a regular basis, something he appreciates even if he's a bit ashamed to admit it, considering he never had a mother like figure in his life.

If in some years Geten can leave the prison on a parole with the help of a good lawyer, I like to think Rei would became his legal tutor while he starts a new life as a normal civilian.

Partly because she feels empathy for his young relative (nephew) and **maybe** she internally sees Touya reflected on Geten, so Rei would promise to herself being there for this boy after failed to her own son.

At least one ex villain could be saved at the end.

Hi @nyc3 👋

Honestly this is a really good scenario!!

I feel like horiko has simply forgotten about the characters that he already put in prison like genten and compress.

Also this definitely adds to the himura family in general. Personally, when horikoshi revealed that genten was a himura it seemed like he did it and then forgot what he was gonna do with the fact that he just made genten related to Rei and partially related to the todorokis in general.

Also I do like the fact that you have genten serve his time in prison and then slowly with the help of Rei they both heal and get a better life.

This also gives justice to Rei as she isn't stuck being enjis caretaker but is actually finding more about her family and living her own life. This literally gives her character agency and autonomy something hori didn't do with her ending.

Also I feel like we were just robbed of Rei and genten as a duo so this definitely does them justice. However, it makes me question how genten would even fit in with the whole family if he met fuyumi, shoto and natsou. I do feel like they maybe a bit defensive since genten did attack natsou after all.

[memorysuace]

Mouthwashing characters and who I think kind of are like them them in Persona 2.... guys hear meow-t

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR P2 AND MOUTHWASHING!!!! THIS IS ALSO ALL JUST MY OPINION AND MY KNOWLEDGE ON THE CHARACTERS FROM P2 IS A BIT RUSTY IF IM BEING HONEST! (i love the game to death but i have issues with remembering things and its been a while so PLEEEEEASE cut me some slack if im wrong or leave somethjng out (although do tell me so i can fix it...) THANK U!)

Anya

I feel like Anya and Tatsuya are very similar. They both feel trapped by their circumstances and tend to be unable to feel their feelings properly. Anya is stuck on a spaceship with her abuser, the one who ripped her autonomy from her, and has no means to really fight back, in the end killing herself because she couldn't properly express what he did, nor talk about it to anyone without risking the consequences. Tatsuya's situation is very similar to this, being isolated from the people he tried so hard to cling to after finally finding a place to fit in, only for Nyarlathotep to take that happiness from him by ending the world and forcing him to live in a reality that is basically his own hellscape. Tatsuya can't reach out to anyone about whats going on out of fear of what will happen, and has to suffer silently because of it. He has nobody to go to, just like Anya, and it's implied that Tatsuya has had many thoughts of taking his own life during the events of Eternal Punishment.

Swansea

When I think of Swansea, I think of Baofu. They both have made made bad mistakes in their past and have attempted to reconcile and move on. They act harsher than they let on at points as well, but in the end they are able to show they genuinely care for the people they are close with. (I honestly dont remember much about Baofu, but i can feel it in my BONES that these two overlap somehow.... I need to re-research some of these characters man..... baofu is really cool.....)

Daisuke

Daisuke also kinda reminds me of (Innocent Sin)Tatsuya, but Maya as well. Daisuke not really knowing what he wants to be, or do with his life, reminds me of Tatsuya, but the cheerful and more optimistic parts of his personality also remind me of Maya. I want to touch on Daisuke's relationship with his parents and compare it to Tatsuya's, but it's a bit difficult for me to comprehend media, and honestly I really do not want to be wrong about this, so for my own sake this is pure theory (😝). I think Daisuke's relationship with his parents could possibly be a bit strained. Not an intense amount, but when I think about him and how he thinks about his mom, wondering if she's disappointed in him, I feel that. It makes me wonder if maybe Daisuke isn't as close with his parents as it seems? That maybe they struggle to communicate their feelings toward him healthily? If Daisuke feels like a disappointment, that's caused by something. Maybe his parents had said something similar to him. Now that I'm thinking about it, his relationship with them reminds me of Katsuya as well. He took the internship because of his parents, Daisuke did all of this to appease them, which with Katsuya, isn't exactly what he did, but their motivations both root from something to do with their parents.

Jimmy

Nyarlathotep. the connection is that i dont like him 😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿

Actually though, they are both irredemable villains, characters so complex and well written that they make you so angry you want to rip your hair out, yet you want to know so much more about them. I don't hate Jimmy as a character. He is a horrible person, but so well written. You as the player feel no sympathy for the person you play as most of the time, you hate him. You view Jimmy the way he views Anya. Everything that happened to him was his own fault, he deserved what was coming to him. this actually wasnt really comparison it was just a rant about jimmy im sorry

Curly

Curly really, really reminds me of Philemon. Very neutral. In Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Philemon and Nyarlathotep make a bet about the will of human life. Knowing the consequences of losing the bet, Philemon still accepted it, causing all of these awful events to take place when he could have attempted to prevent it. That doesn't immediately mean Philemon is a horrible person. He is meant to be neutral. His actions palallel how curly acts, trying to stay in the middle of everything instead of taking a side. Sure, he wasn't the exact reason Jimmy crashed the ship, but he didn't do anything to make sure he didn't either. Just like how Philemon wasn't the reason Maya died, that was a choice Nyarlathotep made, to have her killed, but he also did nothing to prevent that.

someone match my freak and discuss this with me the hyperfixations are all coming together and its driving me crazy