#i understand the intention but this makes it impossible to navigate because you can't see what's in each slides

[yume-fanfare]

i joke a lot abt majoring in powerpoints but ive recently learned brand new very-skilled ways to fuck up a powerpoint

[angeart]

the last anon about mumbo RLLY got me thinking because. The situation with hmtb Mumbo and Grian is so so so similar to my ex best friend it's a bit eerie!!! So i'm going to drop my thoughts on it because hngfg brainrot

Like we were great friends for years, right. Everything is fine with these type of friends until it's not. Your life falls apart and you struggle to keep afloat and while they're your best friend and you know they love you... they just. Dont know how to help or handle you. They haven't experienced that type of trauma. It's not their fault but yet it hurts to feel so isolated from them.

So naturally when faced with your best friend unable to help or *understand* what's happening you start to drift towards that other person you met who is more similar. Maybe they've been through the same trauma- or maybe they just are less uncomfy dealing with yours. Whatever it is, you find yourself drawn closer to them through that experience as you learn to cope.

But that old best friend? It's not their fault per-say that they just didnt understand what was happening. It doesn't make them a bad person or an awful friend. But either way you watch in real time as you leave them behind time and time again and you know it will never be the same.

Such a compelling story arc, seriously. I didn't expect to see such a parallel to my own life here but I love it!!! Mumbo just can't fully grasp the experience because he hasn't lived it, so naturally Grian would go to Scar of course because they bonded over that. Such interesting characters xoxo

first of all, thank you for sharing your experiences! i think you put it into words very well.

and... yeah. yeah, yes. that's exactly how it is sometimes, and it reflects into the fic. relationships are complicated, and sometimes things go askew, and it isn't necessarily anyone's fault if neither side quite knows how to deal with the aftermath.

mumbo doesn't know how to deal with grian's trauma. hell, grian doesn't know how to deal with his own trauma. but mumbo needs guidance; he needs explanations upon explanations, and even then the comprehension would evade him. he doesn't know what grian's going through, and he never will.

the idea of trying to make mumbo understand is exhausting, the thought of putting all that pain into words before he's ready for any of them is soul-tearing, and besides, how to explain something like this? something made so much more of feelings than words?

grian can't provide that. so mumbo fumbles, he makes mistakes, he makes things worse with all of his good intentions, until everything hurts too much.

until grian decides to go for the path of less pain.

it's so much easier to lean into scar, who understands. scar, who is also damaged. scar, who knows how it feels to be scared and hurt in the same ways.

mumbo knows grian so well. but he doesn't know what to do with this. and grian needs someone who knows how to handle him right now.

mumbo isn't that person.

is that mumbo's fault? no.

is grian at fault for reaching out for what he needs elsewhere? also no.

it happens. it's painful and regret-riddled, but it happens.

it's just tragic and bittersweet, because neither of them wants it to be this way. they feel that distance slinking in, and they despise it, but are at a loss as to how to stop it. they miss each other, but being near just doesn't seem to work anymore.

it's so impossibly hard for them both to navigate this.

[burritosbymoonlight]

adrinette in season four

i love adrinette. beyond the hilarious scenes that stem from marinette's nervous ramblings and adrien's oblivion, the two also offer a sincere and sweet dynamic. they're always looking out for the other's well-being, even if the other doesn't know it (the scarf, the lost miraculous book, confronting lila, etc). however, as much as the two care for each other, neither will admit it.

this is adrinette's flaw.

burdened by her insecurities, marinette refuses to tell adrien the truth about her feelings for him. she's terrified of his rejection, so she settles and hides her feelings from him, which ends up hurting as she helps him navigate his feelings toward kagami. it doesn't stop there, though. because of her poor attempts to keep him at a distance, he has misinterpreted her intentions several times in the past. from adrien's perspective, he's not so sure marinette even likes him as a friend, let alone as a romantic love interest. her inability and refusal to tell him results in several awkward or painful situations for the two of them.

meanwhile, adrien does the exact opposite. sure, he always makes sure to tell marinette that he likes and values their friendship, both when and regardless of if she needs reassurance. he sprinkles thoughtful compliments into their conversations whenever appropriate. he gushes about her to plagg and his friends all the time—even to his father on more than one occasion. it's cute and endearing and oh so frustrating because his issue is that he does not seem to accept the extent of his feelings for marinette to himself. whether those feelings are romantic or not right now is not the point. we know that he will eventually fall in love with marinette, and he even hints at already having feelings for her in chat blanc ("i've always felt like you were more than a friend").

instead, adrien's problems are a direct result of his paradoxical behavior. unlike marinette, his strategy in avoiding his feelings for her is to get closer to her. if he can succeed in his constant attempts to deepen their friendship, he will prove to himself just how much of a friend she is to him—and nothing more. right? after all, she is just a friend. he says it so often. to so many people. with so much... hesitation.

if she is just a friend, why does he feel the need to prove it to himself?

while it may seem that he simply does want to get closer to her, there is one thing that separates marinette from his other friends and nearly every other civilian in paris: she reminds him of ladybug. he says so himself, and it reveals that he sees a potential in her to share with him the same dynamic he shares with her alter ego. the reason this is so important is that ladybug is not only the love of his life, but his best friend, too. if ladybug has rejected him so many times, how could he bear to withstand marinette's rejection as well if he did admit his feelings? he already worries that marinette doesn't like him at all.

okay, but why does he handle ladybug's rejection so well?

the masks.

as chat noir, he is unwavering in his freedom and confidence. ladybug doesn't know his identity beneath the mask, and it gives him just enough anonymity to handle her dismissal. not only that, but he has nothing to lose with her. she loves having him as a partner, and he knows he means the world to her, even if she hides it under snarky comments and feigned indifference.

with marinette, he's baring his civilian self to her, and he has no escape toward another mask. he must be perfect because as adrien, he's vulnerable. one mistake and he might just crack. if he admits that she means more to him than he allows himself to believe, then he has to also accept that she's seen a side of him that both torments him and doesn't fully represent him. not that chat noir fully represents adrien, (he's the total combination of chat noir and adrien), but at least he feels more comfortable as a superhero.

and so he dated kagami for a while. marinette wasn't his third choice. she's likely his subconscious second to ladybug, but since she reminds him so much of ladybug who has rejected him before, he doesn't bother with trying to understand his feelings for her because he thinks he already knows how she will react. it won't matter because she'll decline him in the same exact way ladybug did. so he goes after kagami. and of course, that doesn't work out because she's not ladybug/marinette.

so what does he do? he forces himself to view marinette as just a friend. again, in a strange paradox, he hides his feelings by deepening their friendship. of course, it's an artificial depth that he calculates and measures and crafts, but he doesn't know that because he won't admit it. she's so much of a friend that she can't be anything else. hm.

so what now? their friendship is flawed. both are holding back, and neither wants to admit the extent of their feelings.

in an ironic twist, ladybug's new role as guardian of the miraculous is what will bring them closer to one another.

forced to give up on love because of her responsibilities, she will finally lose the nervousness that has interfered with their relationship for so long. she'll start treating him like an actual friend and in the process, she'll open herself up to him in a way that was impossible before. she can be vulnerable now because there is nothing for her to lose.

meanwhile, adrien will face something he didn't foresee: marinette actually growing closer to him. before this, he was comfortable disguising their friendship as deeper than it actually was to protect himself, but now, it's real, so now, he can't hide his feelings anymore. in knowing her, he will also unravel himself to her more.

as we've already seen in the trailers for the upcoming episodes, it seems marinette is able to manage her feelings around him much better than she has in the past. in addition to hinting at what i've already predicted above, it also shows that it allows for adrien and marinette to work together. and given lila's impending role, they must work together to be everyday heroes in their civilian lives.

just like ladybug and chat noir do against shadowmoth.

of course, until the reveal, it is impossible for the two of them to understand the weight of their dynamic and the extent of their love for each other. they are already partners, best friends, and the love of each other's lives. in time, their fates will twist into a single string. for now, adrinette will learn to develop a relationship that is not a replica of ladynoir, but a complement to it.

meanwhile i hope ladybug is unraveling with chat noir in the same way because oh god i'm such a ladynoir stan

[picturejasper20]

Animation and LGBT+ representantion

I need animation fans,specially western fans to read this, please it's very important.

Lately i have been seeing this a lot of misinformation about animation, one common trend is that the people who work on these shows "are lazy" and "don't want to write LGBT+ characters".

Here's the thing: writting LGBT characters in animated children's media it's very difficult and hard. There are many restrictions about what you can or can't write.

It's not that the people who work behind these shows are cowards or don't want to make real LGBT representation. Many want to, but it depends on the restrictions they are given by their superiors.

Examples:

Adventure time

Marceline and Bubblegum (video from 2014):

"In the video you can see Olsen also made a point to ask Ward if the couple would be visible on the show or in the upcoming book. Unfortunately, not so much."

Olson: "And I said, 'Are they going to do it on the show at all, or can we say anything about it in the book?" And he's like, 'I don't know about the book, but in some countries where the show airs, it's sort of illegal.' So that's why they're not putting it in the show."

Here's she explains they that they couldn't be very explicit about Marceline's and Bubblegum's relationship because of these restrictions (they latter could though).

Avatar: Legend of Korra

Korra and Asami (from one of the creators of the show)

"As we wrote Book 1, before the audience had ever laid eyes on Korra and Asami, it was an idea I would kick around the writers’ room. At first we didn’t give it much weight, not because we think same-sex relationships are a joke, but because we never assumed it was something we would ever get away with depicting on an animated show for a kids network in this day and age, or at least in 2010."

"The more Korra and Asami’s relationship progressed, the more the idea of a romance between them organically blossomed for us. However, we still operated under this notion, another “unwritten rule,” that we would not be allowed to depict that in our show."

"We approached the network and while they were supportive there was a limit to how far we could go with it, as just about every article I read accurately deduced."

Gravity falls

"Hirsch confirms that though he attempted to push for LGBT+ characters in Gravity Falls, Disney executives prevented him from including explicitly gay characters."

Alex confirming this on his twitter:

https://mobile.twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1292328558921003009?s=20

"Back when I made GF Disney FORBADE me from any explicit LGBTQ+ rep. Apparently “happiest place on earth” meant “straightest”"

In 2012 the Disney censor note on this image (refering to The owl house) would have been: “inappropriate for channel, please revise, call to discuss” (to avoid a paper trail)

The owl house

Luz and Amity

Dana Terrace talking about how it was difficult for her to write LGBT characters in her show:

"In dev I was very open about my intention to put queer kids in the main cast. I'm a horrible liar so sneaking it in would've been hard haha. When we were greenlit I was told by certain Disney leadership that I could NOT represent any form of bi or gay relationship on the Channel."

I'm bi! I want to write a bi character, dammit! Luckily my stubbornness paid off and now I am VERY supported by current Disney leadership.

Steven universe

Ruby and Sapphire (talking about the LGTB+ wedding in Reunited):

That took years of work because of sensitivities around LGBT+ content in programs aimed at children, which often have to work for a global market, said Sugar, 32, who is bisexual.

"We are held to standards of extremely bigoted countries. It took several years of fighting internally to get the wedding to happen," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

"So much bigotry is based on the idea that (LGBT+ content) is something inherently adult, which is entirely false."

"Sugar recalled the frustration of not being able to be open about her personal experiences in the early years of her career before she made her sexuality public."

“As I’m writing about this, as I’m pitching this, I’m also getting a lot of pushback,” Sugar said. “This was not considered acceptable material for children at the time. … [But] who is speaking to a generation of children about why they deserve to exist? About how they deserve to exist? I wanted to be able to do that.”

"While working on “Jail Break” in 2014, “it became clear to the network that I was incorporating LGBTQIA+ characters and themes into the show,” Sugar said. She was told that there was a chance the show could be canceled if authorities in conservative countries noticed and objected to those themes."

"Sugar tells EW it has been “extremely difficult” for her to earn this kind of visibility on Steven Universe, but acknowledges that large strides have been made. “When we started doing this in 2011, it was impossible and it has become possible over the last many years of working really hard to do this,” she explains."

"Yeah. Every time we would cover this ground, it would be a conversation. I think part of the challenge is that this show was an international show. We would be getting notes not just from the US but also from Europe, from around the world about what we could and couldn’t show, and they would be different notes from different countries."

"There was a point at which it was brought to my attention that the studio… I was brought up to a meeting where they [the studio] said, “We know that you’re doing this, and we support that you’re doing this… We don’t want to be giving notes on this, but we have to give notes on this” and it was all very difficult to navigate. Ultimately, I said, “If this is going to cost me my show that’s fine because this is a huge injustice and I need to be able to represent myself and my team through this show and anything less would be unfair to my audience.”

I could add tons of examples about this... but here's my point and it's something a lot of people need to understand: It's difficult to put LGTB+ characters in animated children media. There are certain limitations, restrictions, many times the creators cannot be very explicit about it for many reasons.

So next time you want call creators who want to write LGTB+ characters in their shows "lazy" or "queerbaiting" reconsider the fact that they are actually taking a risk by writing LGTB+ characters and they don't have all the control in their show. They can't always make their characters say "I'm gay" or "I'm bisexual" because of these restrictions. Of course, some are given more freedom than others.

If you don't like how the characters are written or a show.. that's completely fine. But reconsider that corporations have control over the creators on what they can and can't do and that it only ends up hurting their cartoons.

I would really like for people to know about this, since there's this misconception going around that animators don't really care about this. But in reality they do. And i think this it's very important thing to know when it comes to talking about animation.

[curseofconsciousness]

Quasi-Dead/Quasi-God

Everyone "claims" to be Witchy or an Empath, but a lot or what they say/teach is either benign or overly mysterious for no reason which is basically code switch for, "I have no fuckin idea". As you can see from my blog, I've studied the Left Hand Path extensively, gotten pretty close, if not mastered the Tree of Qlippoth. When you fuck up, this one sucks physically. It creates fear, anxiety, adversity, and basically heckles you when you cant judge the proper use of instinct vs logic.

I've had demons attached to me, I've seen something so physically impossible that all it could be described as is a being that was in constant metamorphosis. It was mania in it's pure form. But I rose, and was ready to throw down with the entity lol. I watch shadows move everywhere, day or night, I hear the whispers of...everything beyond the veil thats beyond the veil. But at this point, you're still half-ignorant so they can't really "touch" you, just speak and do scary shit.

Onward we go to the Tree of Life. Now this is where shit starts to suck. Because unlike the "So Below", where every action is deemed okay if equivalent or sensible, here, neither of those matter. You end up having to be mad at shit, and being able to do nothing about it but walk away. Smile in the face of situations where you'd rather punch someone in the face. Be responsible in times you want to do nut shit.

And you're like fuck, is there anything fun I can do? Yet once you start doing thru those gates, you realize why it's important to understand instinct, logic, AND ego. Without good instinct and logic, you'll succumb to the superego and that's not Godly.

It teaches you through most odds, to be kind and you become blessed. But again, this is where being irresponsible has way worse than physical recourse. At this point I can see energy transfer thru objects. I can tell you why an ant is going a certain direction, why the wind is blowing, what birds are singing about etc etc.

I can literally see the vibrations that create things and people. I can feel peoples intent thru words alone, text or words. The truth from a lie. I understand body language because I've LITERALLY seen the entity that embodies the negative or positive emotion.

I've been to the place before space and time, a place cold, dark where you're conscious, but can't taste, can't feel, cant touch, can't smell, only hear and think. You cant touch, but everything that is ageless, timeless, and have never touched light before, can touch your conscious.

I've felt the cold scaly "hands" of pure mania, the warm yet suffocating embrace of anxiety, the punishing eyes of hate in it's pure embodiment. You want to talk fear, then you haven't been scared until you've been in a cosmic trashcan with beings that exist outside or time and space and they're just angry they never get to experience death, life, or time.

Seconds seem like eons, it is the grasp of infinity. Something no "man" is supposed to understand until he's dead. Which leads me to the thought that at this point, I'm quasi-dead and quasi-God. I can feel my own existence in layers, and it's odd, yes, manageable totally.

I can navigate the Abyss, and bring people out of it. Stopping their impending death and reconnecting the soul to their body. However afterwards I tend to sleep the day away, because it takes a lot of energy to being your own soul back to its body when nobody around you can navigate that place.

But I've also had the luxury to sit in Kether and speak to God from her throne. I've had the luxury of making pact with Ishtar. I've had the luxury if making pact with Anubis (get the whole Quasi-dead/Quasi-God thing yet?)

My biggest issue now is grounding. I'm so spiritually and mentally aware, that it's hard to think and live in the present. Because its hard to express things with no expression, and so I'm forced to use the words given to me.

I can breakdown every reason why a conversation is baseless and pointless on a universal scale and how the effect will in turn cause whatever to occur. But no one wants to hear that shit lol. I've lost connection with being "human", it's more like being a spiritual supercomputer wrapped in human skin.

Every time I'm selfish, I can see the consequence playing out, I can see my accountability in everything and how the pieces come together. I've died so many times that I've become intuitively adaptive to physical shit. I know things about things that I've never even tinkered with or read about, and its accurate.

So with all this said, I'm going to start a group to teach others how to reach this point. No sigils, no "spells", no dolls, etc etc. Just Manifestation from the Zero. Creating something out or nothing. All of those other things manipulate energy in existence...I'll teach you how to create energy...because that's what Gods do, create.

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTE: HAPPY FROZEN II DEBUT! Enjoy the last chapter for a bit! We promise, you'll have part 3 (the final arc of this continual storyline) soon as we can get it edited properly! Until then, see ya and enjoy the new movie!

Jessica X and Fruipit

                                              CHAPTER 11

After dinner, they tried to just hang out and be comfortable with each other again, and they did succeed. To a degree. It wasn't completely the same, but at least they could talk and laugh, enjoy each other's company. That was the most important thing.

Still… something was missing, and it couldn't be denied. Anna knew, deep in her heart, that it was the Elsa-Tori component to their relationship. They had tried ignoring it, and it almost worked; they were able to share small moments, talk about their days. And that part was great! But that desire always rose to the surface again at some point.

Elsa might have been older, but this version of her was glamorous and attractive. Anna had never had a 'thing' for older women, either; this was completely new territory. In fact, she didn't develop crushes beyond simply thinking someone was cute on a regular basis. Apparently, it had to be giving her own mother a simple massage that forced her to admit her feelings.

Then there was Punz. How would she feel about this? That she still had these feelings, that they weren't all left behind in the 80s? What a minefield she had stumbled into!

When bedtime came close, she waited for Elsa to announce that she was going. Then Anna followed her into the bedroom. She was silent as she watched Elsa unbutton her shirt. Then, as she was unzipping the side of her skirt, she turned… and saw her there.

"Yes?" she asked as mildly as she could. When Anna only shrugged, she said, "I really don't know if it's very smart for you to stand there while I change."

But Anna didn't reply. After a few seconds, Elsa opened her mouth as if to speak further. But instead, she closed it again and finished unzipping the pencil skirt, letting it drop to around her ankles.

Anna had to swallow a couple of times. Sure, Elsa's body wasn't 17 years old, and there were signs of it. Subtle stretch marks and cellulite was present – perhaps Elsa thought the sight would run Anna off. Make her realise that she was thirty years older and Anna wasn't interested.

If that was her intention, it had the opposite effect.

Talking would have ruined it, Anna felt, so she said nothing as she stepped forward. Elsa had crossed her legs where she stood, and she didn't keep going. Waiting for a reaction. Still, she seemed mildly surprised when Anna bent down to pick the skirt up. Elsa had to move so she was no longer standing in it, and while she kept her eyes trained on her daughter, Anna actually kept hers lowered. She didn't want to see what was on her mother's face. Not yet. So she picked the skirt up and set it on the duchess.

Then, she approached her mother. Before Elsa had a chance to back away further, Anna's nimble fingers were at the hem of her blouse, fingers slowly undoing the bottom buttons. There was a gasp, but no complaint.

When she slid the shirt back and off, Elsa began to whisper, "Listen… Anna, I don't think you realise what-"

"No," Anna whispered, raising a single finger to rest against her lips. Her mother's eyes widened a fraction of an inch. "Not 'Anna' tonight."

"We can't. Please, I don't want…" But Anna was fixing her with a pointed stare. And for the first time since she had arrived in this alternate present, Elsa looked just as scared and confused as the Elsa she had left behind in the past. "Tori, I don't know if I could live with myself afterward. And you know why."

At least she respected Anna's wish. That deserved Anna respecting one of hers in return. "I know. And I get that, but… I don't know if I can handle dancing around it."

"What dancing?" Her lips quivered, and she raised a hand to cup Anna's cheek… and she felt gooseflesh burst out all over her arms and legs. "I know what I want. But I can't have it. Don't you understand that? We have a hard time resisting this pull, but I can't… I still don't want to hurt my little girl!"

The tears were coming. Trying to head them off, she whispered, "I'm not a little girl anymore. Maybe I'm your daughter, but I'm no child. We are both old enough to know what we want – and we are both crazy about each other. What else matters?"

"Only everything!" As the moisture collected at the corners of her eyes, Elsa chanced a weak little smile. "Crazy about me, huh?"

"Yeah. I don't really get it, either; I mean, I still like Punz just as much as I did before, but you are so…" Her words ran out, so instead she only pressed a hand into the one cupping her cheek, holding it there while she let her eyes fall closed. Basking in this closeness that they could only so rarely enjoy.

"I may have exaggerated how over Tori… over you, I was," Elsa admitted, and it was clear to Anna that it had been a struggle for her to say. Still, progress, she thought. "I still want you. But I don't know if I can handle the repercussions."

"I know I could." Anna slipped into a sitting position on the bed, pulling Elsa around to face her, burying her nose in her stomach, planting feather light kisses on her abdomen.

Elsa exhaled sharply, the sheer eroticism of the moment not lost on her. "Wait. Stop." Anna complied, although she looked mildly hurt. "I don't want to do this to you," she started before Anna cut her off.

"Do what, Elsa? I'm an adult, I can make my own decisions and I'm telling you I want this!"

"You want to cheat on Jennifer?" Elsa shot back, a brief flash of anger in her voice. "You want to become some kind of heart breaking monster? With your own mother, is that what you want?"

The guilt hit Anna like a freight train and she felt herself coming apart a little. Elsa pulled her close, the hug turning more platonic as her voice turned gentler again.

"You want to do this, Tori? Lets do it right, or not at all. Heaven knows I'm going to struggle with this madness enough as it is." Elsa stroked Anna's hair as she reflected that never before in her life had getting something she wanted hurt so very, very much.

"Elsa…" She let that much slip. Just enough, the amount needed to show that she still saw her that way. Then she hugged back harder. "Okay. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be so pushy… just… wh-when I want you so much…"

She could feel her mother nodding. "You haven't had thirty years to figure out your feelings like I have. Everything's so fresh and new, especially sexuality… I tried to tell you that was the difference. Why I'm trying to navigate this for both of us. Not because it's impossible for you, but because it's… harder without as much experience. That's all."

"I know, Mom. I know. Maybe at first I thought you were kind of… treating me like a kid, and you still kinda are, but I know you're not doing it to be mean! God!"

"Of course not. I love you so much… I never would want to hurt you, even the slightest amount!"

Drawing back, Anna kissed her lips very briefly, and she felt Elsa's shock. But she drew back right after. "You wouldn't be. And if I thought you really don't want to… be with me like that, I'd back off. But between you waking me up like that, and that foot massage… and how good you look right now…"

"I look old," Elsa tried to correct her, cupping her cheek. "And I am. You should be with someone your own age. Even if it wasn't Jennifer, someone a little closer…"

But Anna couldn't focus on the latter part of that. She could only focus on the former. "You think you look 'old'? And that's it, not 'good for your age', or 'DAMN what a hot mom'? Bullshit. You're amazing."

"Anna, that's not… normal," she said, cheeks turning darker. "You shouldn't be attr- like older women. You shouldn't want to be with… me…"

"But I want to!" Anna cried. And yeah she really felt like crying because Elsa was half-naked next to her and she was craving. So. Bad. The peaks of Elsa's nipples still stood out against her chest, though not so much as before. Good. That was for the best. It reminded Anna of that moment on Doc's couch, testing the waters with Elsa. Testing herself, too.

She knew how upset Punz would be about this development. And it wasn't one of those 'too-late-to-turn-back-now' kinds of things. They absolutely could recover from this; choices were involved. Deliberate choices.

Closing her eyes, Anna surged forward, pressing her lips solidly against Elsa's. They stayed there, kneading softly, before she backed away. Swallowing her tears, she stood from the bed. Elsa looked exactly how she felt: flushed, aroused. Sad. But she at least still managed a soft smile, gentle even though it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"I think… it's time for bed, Anna."

"I'm sorry, Mom… I'm really, really sorry."

"Goodnight," she croaked. Anna just nodded and retreated to her room.

It took a very long time to fall asleep that night.

                                                         ~ o ~

The next few days were awkward. Anna hadn't had a chance to talk to Punz, and each moment that passed just made it hard to bring up what was on her mind. Jennifer, bless her soul, didn't pry, even though she knew something was up.

And Anna didn't push her mother any further. The morning after, she woke up horrified to remember how forward she was. With all they had discussed before that! She knew that she was right about how strong their attraction was, but at the same time… Elsa was right, too. They couldn't be together. No one would ever accept a mother and daughter dating; not a biological pair like they were. Between that and the part where they also still wanted that mother-daughter relationship at the same time, it was a huge problem all around. Telling herself that didn't help as much as it should, though.

Finally, she did break down and tell Jennifer on their way home from school Thursday. And she was upset, and did try to reprimand Anna a few times, but with all the sobbing Anna was doing she eventually gave it up as useless. Not to mention adding insult to injury.

"Guess it was too much to hope that you could just say 'the past is in the past' and the feelings would go away," she finally whispered into Anna's hair after twenty minutes of gross feelings being expunged.

"I'm sorry!" she growled into Punz's jacket lapel. "I tried, I really did, I thought I could do it, but she's just… I can't forget, I can't!"

Hands caressed up and down her back for a few seconds. "You don't have to forget. You just have to move on. That is possible, you know. So… maybe it's time to really think about… seeing someone. Professionally."

Anna nodded pathetically. "I know," she said softly. "It's… been mentioned…"

Punz made a soft noise, her hands gently scratching through Anna's hair. She was silent for a moment, but at least this silence wasn't judgmental at all. When finally she did speak, it was to say something so entirely unexpected that, had Anna still been crying, it would have been enough to shut her up.

"What if… we went to see Doc Pabbie?"

"Um…" Anna began as she stared at her. The idea was so ludicrous that at first she had no idea what to say. "Punz…you know he's not like… that kind of doctor, don't you?"

Punz nodded, a quick jerky movement that had her looking more excited than anything. "I know, but he's a genius!" she said, leaning back enough so she could see Anna proper. "He's got a time machine. He's probably been to the future! Why don't we just ask him for some… y'know… help?"

"Well…" Anna didn't know what to follow that up with. "Well, I… guess it couldn't hurt. But I still don't know what you think he could do for us."

"Has to be better than feeling like a weird mother-lover all the time." Patting her knee, she nodded at the steering wheel. "Come on. Let's go see what he has to say."

                                                        ~ o ~

"Great Scott."

Sighing, Anna flopped back into the couch. That had been about what she expected from him: a muttered oath of surprise and no true answers. "Yeah."

"Hmm. For some reason, I had not suspected it would continue to grow more wildly out of control in such a fashion, especially once you had been returned to your original time period… but apparently, this inexorable pull of yours can't be held back with a few choice words."

"It's kind of freaking me out by this point. Like, we both have been actually trying to just be… family, and then this. And I do love Punz!" Here, she picked up Jennifer's hand and squeezed it, and got a squeeze in return. Not an enthusiastic one, but she was there, being supportive. It counted for a lot. "So… is there anything you know from the future that could help me figure this out?"

"Oh, no no no, my dear girl," he said with a nervous chuckle as he went back to sketching something on his writing desk. It was some kind of design that looked like a train, but Anna was too preoccupied to take a closer look. "No relevant information to mother-daughter relations, I'm afraid."

Jennifer leaned in a little. "What about something to block unwanted thoughts? Like, for both of them. Some kind of future technology?"

Again, he shook his head. "Do you know the side effects should anyone uncover future technology here?" he asked. "It would be disastrous!" When both Anna and Punz just cocked an eyebrow and looked at the DeLorean, he relented. "Well, fine, it does exist. It was ruled unconscionable by the International Human Rights Services – very dangerous, and it could permanently hinder your ability to learn new information. Imagine being stuck with only your current knowledge from 2015 and before for the rest of your lives! Sorry girls, you're going to have to do this the hard way."

Anna could have cried. Why was this so impossible? She felt Punz squeeze her hand again, this one far more sympathetic than before. Looked like a ridgy-didge mind-doctor was the only way to go. Surely the confidentiality clause meant they wouldn't go to the cops for incestuous liaisons – or time travel. Hopefully they also wouldn't share stories at yearly Shrink Festivals or anything like that, either.

"Also, tell your mother the same thing. She's likely forgotten if she didn't tell you."

Wait, what? Anna turned to Punz, only to find her girlfriend already looking at her. Okay, so she didn't misunderstand that.

"Doctor Pabbie…" Punz hedged, "Are you… are you saying that Mrs McFly has come to see you?"

He just looked at the two of them. "Why, of course she has! Where else would she have gone when she realised?"

"Literally anywhere else but here!" Anna cried. "What did she want?"

Suddenly, for the very first time since she'd met him, Doc looked quite unsure of himself. "I think… perhaps… you should talk to your mother…"

"That's not very easy right now, Doc! Haven't you been listening? I'm going out of my head here, I…"

"Talk to her. Just… sit down, keep your hands, feet, and objects to yourselves, and speak to each other with unflinching honesty. There's always a way forward if you keep looking for it. Do you know who taught me that?"

Sighing, she rubbed her forehead, not ready for some history lesson. "Who?"

"You."

"HUH?"

Gesturing to his desk, he smiled over at her. "Coming to me from the future, telling me that my efforts would pay off? It gave me a glimpse of a brighter path. Evidently, one that I didn't need or I would never have invented the time machine in the first place, which would cause a chain reac-"

"Yeah, yeah, paradox thing." Then she allowed herself a slight smile. "Some good things did come out of me fucking everything up, I guess."

"You didn't ruin the future, Anna. Don't worry."

As she got up and Punz went along with her, she paused by the door to look over her shoulder. The old man looked like he had a thousand things on his mind. "You know… even though I had to go back in time and hit on Elsa to get the mother I always wanted, weirdness or no weirdness… I didn't have to do that to find a good dad." And that was as direct as she felt like she could be with him.

                                                        ~ o ~

Punz offered to stick around for the talk, but Anna wouldn't hear of it. This wasn't her fight, and it wasn't the kind of potential ugliness she wanted her girlfriend to have to deal with. Not when the whole reason behind it rested squarely on her own shoulders. So they left each other on the front doorstop, Punz giving Anna a sound, yet chaste, kiss on her lips.

"Good luck," she whispered. Anna appreciated the sentiment more than she could say. So, she simply offered a smile, and hung about on the step until Punz had returned to her car and driven out of sight. She needed the extra time to mentally prepare herself, anyway.

Time for some answers, she supposed. Taking a breath, she unlocked the door and stepped through.

"Mom…?"

No answer. A quick glance at her phone told Anna that it was peak 'mom should be home' time, so where was she? Great, all of Anna's mental preparation, wasted.

Sighing, she stepped into the kitchen. Pulling the milk from the fridge, she didn't bother to grab a glass, instead uncapping the bottle and drinking straight from it. All the while, she was thinking, running a list through her mind of all the places Elsa might be. It was entirely possible that she jumped right on ahead and found a shrink. Especially after the previous night. But even if she had, and if she wanted Anna to go – either individually or together – Doc's words still rang in her ears.

Honesty. Perhaps it was a good thing that Elsa wasn't here because she still needed to get her thoughts in order. She needed to be honest with Elsa. Truthful. Even if… even if the truth was painful and her mother didn't want to hear it, she had to.

But Elsa never returned that night. Anna tried to busy herself, actually cleaning up her room, doing homework. Puttering. But never did her mother poke her head back in.

Someone else did, however…

"Hey, girls!" Kristoff called out when he got in the door. "Sorry I didn't wait, honey, but you didn't reply to my text so I just got an Uber. Anybody home?"

"DAD!" Anna called out, flying at him from the living room. He dropped his shoulderbag and quickly caught her up in a hug, one that threatened to melt away all of her unease. It didn't quite accomplish that, but it made a good attempt.

"Booger!" He pet over her hair and back for a moment, but when she didn't let go, he drew concerned and pushed her backward slightly. "Hey, hey… what's the matter?"

"Mom's gone! I don't know… she won't answer her phone, and I think I really fucked up!"

Frowning at her, she could really see the lines in his face now, slight as they were compared with the ones of her old father. Again, this was more like the Kristoff she had met in the 80s, only aged a bit, instead of the totally different person her old father had been.

"What's wrong?"

She told him. Over the course of an hour, she told her father everything, and he listened with far more patience than anyone else would have, sitting with her and eventually giving her a beer from the fridge.

"But I'm not old enough," she blubbered.

"I won't tell if you won't. Besides, I think this counts as a special emergency." Twisting off the cap, he set it down in front of her then plopped down at the kitchen table. "I'm so sorry, honey… I thought the best plan was to continue my tour and give you two time to do… whatever it was you would do. Should have known Elsa wouldn't be able to let go of her hangups that easily."

"You don't care that your daughter wants to bang your wife?"

"Of course I care. Like with that beer, this isn't the average situation; time travel is involved. You two met when you were both the same age, and both more or less strangers to each other. Even if you knew who Elsa was, you didn't know her the way you knew her in the present day, right?"

Anna was stunned. How did he understand everything so well? "I… what… y-yeah, that's it. That's it exactly. And my old present-mom was way different from this present-mom, too. This one's just the one from back then grown up. The mom I lost… she was a whole other person. That's Mom, and this is Elsa."

"Right. So even though it does make me a little uneasy, not nearly as much as if it were Wendy, or another family member who never time travelled. You just have to think about these things fourth-dimensionally; strange attractors theories. Imagining that you exchanged your actual mother for an alternate reality version really takes away from the yuck factor. Almost could write a story about it, if it wouldn't bring too much light on our family."

"Guess I forgot what you do for a living," she laughed weakly. His chuckle was a lot heartier, and he reached over to clap her on the shoulder. "So… do you think maybe Mom checked into a hotel or something? Just to get away from the situation?"

"Probably all it is, Anna." With a shrug, he took the beer from her once he saw she wasn't going to touch it and took a swig. "But I've been able to tell that she wasn't over you as much as she thought. There were plenty of signs along the way. Just… wouldn't have done much good to take that security blanket away from her, when all she would do is fight with me about that."

"You two still fight, huh?"

"Only about that. And financial things, but those are more like 'stern discussions'." Anna smiled slightly. "Nothing major, and we try to never go to bed angry. Hash it out first and get to a solution."

"Okay, good. So…" Stretching, she stood up and rubbed her face. "I… want to try to go find Mom, but I also don't want to crowd her. Should I wait until tomorrow?"

Her father nodded, setting the bottle down. "Probably for the best. Considering how clear you made your feelings, I'd say time to think it over is a bare minimum."

"Thanks, Dad. I… I think I'll just…" She had been about to say 'go to my room', but thought better of it. "Do you want some help unpacking?"

His smile was a lot wider than she would have expected. "Sure, kiddo. We have plenty of time."

                                                        ~ o ~

So they did. And he spent the rest of the night hanging out with his daughter, getting to know her a little better. It was a completely different experience from getting to know Elsa again, since Kristoff really was just a father to her. The love was actually not all that different from her old father, who had always clearly been able to show it, even if mostly just with words rather than actions since he had been too spineless to discipline her, or do much of anything else.

But Anna couldn't stop thinking about her mother the entire time. Wanting to be with her, even if she turned down her advances. She tried to be satisfied with her father, and Wendy and John when they got home, and texting Jennifer to keep her informed. But beneath those surface comforts, all she wanted was her mommy.

Elsa didn't return that night. Nor did she return the next morning. Eventually, Anna did go to school with Punz, but she really began to worry. Where the hell was she?

Or perhaps the question she should have asked…

When the hell was she?

                                                        NOT THE END!

                                                        TO BE CONCLUDED… IN PART III

[sagebodisattva]

Expectations of OUTCOME

So, if we drop expectations, we won't have to suffer their ultimate inevitable failure. And some of you may say:

“Sage, how can I function without expectations? Isn't this impractical and not in accordance with how things work in the mundane reality? How can I do anything, or achieve any goal, without some kind of utilization of expectations?”

Well, first off, this might not be realistically employable to many of the participants in the rat race. If you what you seek is inner peace, and to discover the truth of your non being, and to live a new life that is in accord with the truth of this new description of reality, you might have to give up on the rat race, walk away from that whole way of life; when you finally reach the point where you are ready to discard the falsity of that old description of reality. And I say this because it is much more difficult to stay in the rat race and not have expectations that are tied up in outcome. Indeed, the expectation of outcome serves as some of the ground rules in the rat race, as even being a rat in the race is built on the premise that we must strive, perform, grab, and horde to be considered a successful winner, and this is completely at odds with the blueprint of the empty self. Not to say it is completely impossible, but doing so would require a new navigational default.

Indeed, there are some manifestations of the empty self that succeed at many goals, acquire much wealth and property, and have racked up many achievements in the halls of human record keeping, and they are doing so without expectation, and do not tie the inner peace of the empty self into being conditional to specific outcome. This means following a path of commitment to positive self reliance, unconditional to circumstance. This means that the path itself is enough, and any outcome of efforts along the path do not become deciding factors to the inner peace of the one who walks it.

So we may delegate tasks to others, but we do not become emotionally wounded when they do not work out. Instead, we pay attention to what exactly happened and make adjustments accordingly. We may set goals, but do not become devastated by failure or setbacks. If we can act without being motivated by a desired outcome, and instead just focus our intent and willpower on the endeavor at hand, more times then not, we will not be disappointed. Pure action without investment is much more potent then action motivated by investment. In much the same way as creativity being more pure and engaging when it was inspired by the pure spontaneity of imagination rather then the motivation of greed and profit. Pure action of a clear mind performs with much more clarity and impeccability, then the fickle clouded navigation of the one who is preoccupied with an investment.

In other words, if you can be at peace, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, with success or failure, or with approval or rejection, and will not be moved from this peace, regardless of how the appearances arrange themselves, you will have reached the pinnacle state of the empty self. There is no greater abundance then of the man who wants nothing. There is no greater success then of the man who has accepted himself as he is, unconditionally. There is no greater peace then of the man who has let go, surrendered everything, and has embraced the empty self, as it is, without having the need to label it with anything. This may seem like a great struggle to establish, but it only seems that way because it doesn't involve adding anything, which is what we are used to. We are used to filling ourselves up with beliefs and knowledge, and after so much time of doing this, we assume that this is the only way to pursue the truth, not realizing that it only increases delusion, and pushes us further and further away from the clarity of our true selves. If we were to see through this debilitating tendency, we would come to understand that the truth isn't a matter of knowledge or beliefs, and that, contrary to what we used to think, these things really only serve as anchors, or shackles, that weigh us down, and take away our freedom. Once we can clearly understand this for ourselves, and know why it is, empirically, then we will know that the remedy to this is an effortless effort. That is, there's nothing to fight against. It's only a matter of releasing our tight grip.

Like, if we equate it to the metaphor of finding ourselves in the middle of a mighty river, the only thing we must do is to relax and float downstream, letting the currents of the water to do the work, as opposed to kicking screaming and struggling. The struggling is actually what eventually brings us down to die at the bottom of the mighty river. The currents of the waters are forever moving, forever changing, forever fluxing. To seek to try and control this process is a futile pursuit. And believing that we CAN control it is a perfect example of a belief, or knowledge, becoming a heavy burden. We must unlearn all these restricting limitations, for all they do is serve as tools of our disempowerment.

“But wait Sage, it's impossible to unlearn, right? We can't un-see, or unlearn things, unless our brains are deteriorating. What we learn remains in our brains. We can't un-know it or erase it.”

Yes, i know that this is what many of you believe. And so, this is the first thing you need to unlearn: the belief that unlearning is impossible. Once you have dismantled this initial blockade, you will be ready to proceed deeper down the rabbit hole.