#it doesn't work!!! there is too much to try and control! and too much thereby going un-done

[laventadorn]

i am trying a thing where i just write stuff and don't worry too much about it. i tend to fiddle with something to death, which is one reason why i'm (checks calendar) 12 years and counting on a single story ahahaaaa. "everything has to sound Exactly Right!" says the little foreman of perfectionism in my head. can i fire that guy? or give him a different job?

[ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral]

Hello everyone! I wasn't planning on posting a new au idea so soon (since I'm trying to finish up the next chapter of "What to do when an Eldritch God Decides That You're Friend-Shaped" 😅), but this au idea formed while I was watching "The Nightmare Begins" (the season 2 ep where Morgana first discovers her magic and goes to the druids, only to see them slaughtered) and it decided to derail my writing schedule. With some encouragement from the amazing artist and writer @guiltyscarlet, this au was born! I hope you all enjoy!

In this au, Merlin tells Morgana about his own magic during "The Nightmare Begins", so Merlin doesn't send her to the druids for help. He offers to help her learn about her own magic and control it, and she's just so relieved to have someone who understands. Morgana is heartbreakingly scared throughout the entire episode, so having Merlin there to fully support her and offer her genuine help with hiding her powers is life-changing for her. She essentially gets the same wisdom from Merlin as she would have from the druids: that magic is beautiful and not something to fear.

Merlin and Morgana spend the next few months growing closer (much to Arthur's horror, as he interprets it as them being romantically involved). Morgana swiftly gains control over her own powers, and she practices spells with Merlin. Both of them are just so happy to have someone who understands, a friend that they don't have to hide from or fear! They essentially become each other's comfort person.

But despite Merlin's insistence that things will become better once Arthur is king, that they just have to wait and have patience and everything will turn out fine, Morgana isn't so sure. Merlin is her dear friend, but she cannot buy into his "hope for the future and work from the background" mentality. No, Morgana knows that change will only come from action, action that Merlin is too kind, too caring to take. Morgana would never begrudge Merlin for his own kind heart, it is what makes him who he is after all, but she simply cannot show mercy to Uther as Merlin has done.

However, after a few months, Morgause comes to town. While Morgana's nightmares had become much more manageable with Merlin's help, they still hadn't ceased entirely. So, when Morgause gave her the healing bracelet that made them stop completely, Morgana believed that she had found another person like Merlin: someone who understood her and could support her!

So when Morgause sent her a message to meet in the woods, Morgana of course accepted. Now she could have two people to share her gifts with! And even better, Morgause wants to take action against Uther! They can work together to bring about Uther's downfall, and kind, caring magic users like Merlin all over Camelot will be safe from his cruelty and madness! It's perfect... up until the part where Morgause tries to take Camelot by force with a sleeping spell and the knights of Medhir, prepared to kill anyone who stands against her, magic user or not. This, this was not the grand liberation of Camelot that Morgana had been promised!

In the end, Merlin convinces Morgana herself to stand against Morgause and force her to lift the sleeping spell, but when Morgause still begs Morgana to come with her, Morgana tearfully tells Merlin that she appreciates all that he's done for her, but she needs to get away from Camelot, away from Uther. To Morgana, going with Morgause is the only way to save Camelot from Uther, as she could learn from Morgause and focus her attacks on Uther, thereby saving all of the magic users in Camelot, including Merlin himself.

Merlin had risked his life to save her, now she was going to return the favor. This was the only way.

Merlin begs her to reconsider, to at least not go with Morgause of all people, but Morgana won't listen. She has to do this, for all of their sakes. She takes Morgause's hand, and they both disappear.

From there, Morgana and Morgause spend a year travelling around while Morgause trains her in the ways of the Priestesses of the Old Religion. Morgana makes quick progress, and her magic becomes formidable in no time. After a year, Morgana plants herself in the woods to be "discovered" by the knights of Camelot and makes her grand homecoming to Camelot. In contrast to canon, this time when Morgana returns to Camelot, she's genuinely glad to see Merlin again.

After her return, she quickly pulls Merlin aside and, after they spend the evening catching up and expressing how glad they both are that the other is alright after a year apart, Morgana tells Merlin of her plans with Morgause and Cenred, as she doesn't want him to get hurt in the crossfire. Merlin is horrified at the plan, even though Morgana emphasizes that Cenred's soldiers are under strict orders not to harm civilians and to prioritize killing Uther. Merlin, of course, protests her plans, but Morgana shuts him down. Despite their now slightly tense situation, Merlin reiterates his vow that, no matter what, he will never tell a soul about Morgana's magic, and Morgana swears the same to him.

Season three goes much the same way, except Morgana never targets Arthur or Gwen and Merlin never tries to kill Morgana on Kilgharrah's orders. Morgana instead trips on her own, leading to a head injury that Merlin heals with a spell that he forced from Kilgharrah, and the whole "Uther is Morgana's father reveal" happens the same way. This time, Morgana also knows that Merlin went out of his way to save her life with his magic, which only reinforces her belief that Merlin is too kind to do what needs to be done and will get himself killed if Uther is allowed to live.

During Morgana's takeover of Camelot with Morgause's immortal army in the season 3 finale, Morgana doesn't kill civilians and also tries to get Merlin on her side. Her recruitment pitch to Merlin was essentially was something along the lines of "hey, now that I'm in charge, nice magic users like you can be protected! Your kindness inspired me to do this so you and others like you don't have to be afraid anymore! Join me and you can spend the rest of your life using your magic to make flowers bloom and heal people, all of the things you said magic should be used for! :D You just need to ditch Arthur."

And that doesn't reassure Merlin, who's been sold on Arthur's eventual golden reign for years now, one bit. If anything, Merlin feels guilty, as Morgana had taken over Camelot by force and become this hardened version of herself in part because of him.

When Merlin tries to point out how Morgana's takeover and her methods of ruling were scaring people rather than making them feel safer, Morgana used that argument against him, telling Merlin how he could use his kind heart to advise her on ways to make the people of Camelot feel safer and more accepting of magic if he only joined her. Morgana wanted him as one of her chief advisors, right next to Morgause. Morgana already had Morgause to tell her when she needed to be harsher, and now she could have Merlin to tell her when she needed to be softer.

Merlin, however, still rejects her offer, but Morgana isn't surprised. She knows that Merlin's ultimate loyalty lies with Arthur, and once again, she will not begrudge him for that. From there, Merlin manages to escape and meets back up with Arthur, and the round table is formed as per usual. But, before Merlin escaped, Morgana asked him if, after all of this, they could still be friends. Merlin replied that yes, they could.

In this au, Morgause wasn't injured when Merlin struck the cup of life, so Morgana and a healthy Morgause escape together to plot more ways to conquer Camelot, and Merlin still tries to stop them at every turn. While he infuriates Morgause, he and Morgana almost start to see it as a friendly rivalry between the two of them.

I'd imagine that this au has a pretty happy ending, with Arthur and Morgana being able to have a reconciliation or perhaps even bonding over wanting to protect Merlin! Or maybe they have a sibling rivalry to see who can be the better friend to Merlin lol!

And that's all for this au for now! Let me know if you'd like a to see a continuation of this au! A big thank you again to @guiltyscarlet for your support! I'd encourage everyone to go check out their Merlin art!

And, as always, thank you for reading through my ramblings! :D

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

Yanno something I don't think is explored nearly enough? Ambrosius's relationship with the Director, and I'm referring to both versions here because they're both interesting in both similar and different ways

For the movie version (I will talk about the comic version on this post too, don't you worry) first of all my pal @walrus150915 wrote an incredible fic exploring this for the NBB please go read it right fucking now, but moving on from that, Ambrosius arguably saw the Director as his mom, or at least a stand-in for his mom.

She was (or seemed to be) a nurturing but authoritative adult who guided him in the role he was supposed to fill. A lot of people like to write her as an overtly nasty bitch in pre-canon fics, and while I completely get that, let's not forget that Ballister, at the beginning of the movie, found it potentially believable that he was her favorite student. He was dumbfounded and devastated to see she had been the one to frame him, he couldn't believe it and never suspected her for a second. I'll talk more about Ballister's relationship with her in another post, but the point is this is an Oscar-winning actress, people!

Ambrosius had every reason to look up to her and believe she cared about him. And she went from (in his perspective) treating him with patience, kindness, sympathy and respect, to trying to MURDER HIM.

You don't just get over a parental figure doing something like that to you (then oh yeah, promptly fucking d y i n g). The pain, the loss of realizing someone you loved and trusted was never who you thought they were (after he'd been battling those same feelings about Ballister) and never really cared about you as a person, it would be devastatingly traumatic. Like poor guy what the fuck. He had to cope with that WHILST trying to repair his broken relationship Jesus Christ

And that's not even getting INTO the comic version, which I will be getting into now. There's a big difference between the two and I think that's in no small part due to the timeframe. C! Ambro has been under the Director's thumb a full 15 years longer than his counterpart. This gave her time to exert more control over him, and also gave him time to grow more aware of her behavior. M!Ambro and the Director have the relationship of a person and their (non-sexual) groomer, while C!Ambro's relationship with her is more overtly that of a person and their abuser.*

She's regularly seen threatening him, threatening to have his loved one (Ballister) killed if he doesn't obey her thereby forcing him to do things against his will (like murder a child), insulting him, and showing him absolutely zero sympathy or kindness, even when he's seriously harmed. I think Ambrosius would, by this point, know that the Director isn't a good person and that she doesn't love him, but she's had much more time to sink her claws into him.

He's not going to leave her. This life, being the Champion, working for her, it's all he knows, and it's all he has. Where is he going to go, back to Ballister? Ballister hates him (because the Director took measures to isolate Ambrosius from him) and he's worked for the Institution his whole life. He knows the Director is bad, but he still trusts her. This is the devil he knows, at least, so by the time the story takes place he at least feels confident that they have a mutual understanding.

I imagine it took time to get to this point. He saw her as a mentor and spent most of his life desperate for her approval. After the joust, I can only imagine this got worse. She was all he had, and he'd do anything to prove himself worthy of the championship title he knows deep down that he stole. He probably saw her as a real friend for a long time, no matter how obvious she made it that the feeling wasn't mutual, and that he'd have to try ever harder to earn her praise.

What I'm saying is this man spent fifteen years under the boot of his abuser, then after fifteen years of grooming and psychological abuse she threw him in the trash, stripped him of his title and everything he'd worked for, tried to have his lover executed, then fucking died. And NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IT??? HELLOO?????

*this is not to say that M! Ambro's relationship with the Director was not abusive, it was, or that C! Ambro wasn't groomed, he was. Simply that for him, the grooming had more time to develop into overt, recognizable abuse.

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

s/o works as a hacker. one evening, s/o and skelly decided to watch the news and after a short time, the news says that some anonymous hacker was able to defuse terrorist bombs scattered around the city in crowded places, thereby saving the entire city, and that they could give a reward in the form of a huge amount of money (for example, 1,000,000 or so) but hacker refused, because they didn’t want their identity to be declassified. after a short pause, s/o says "you know, we could be millionaires now or something" and then switches the news channel to a children's cartoon channel and continues to watch with a straight face. how would the main 10 react?

Undertale Sans - He blinks, then looks at you, then at the TV, then at you again. You're the hacker???? He's not sure how he's supposed to take the news. Sure, you're a hero, but you probably have ennemies who wants you dead now??? How can you be ok with that??? He's speechless, not even able to be mad at you. He just doesn't know what to say.

Undertale Papyrus - "OH I KNOW, BUT IT'S BETTER TO KEEP YOUR IDENTITY A SECRET SO THE GOVERNMENT OR THE TERRORISTS DON'T FIND YOU." "... What the hell since when do you know?" "IT WAS VERY OBVIOUS." "But it was not?" "IF YOU SAY SO." You're having an existential crisis. If Papyrus knows, who else knows? And why did he tell nothing?

Underswap Sans - His mind goes blank. He very slowly turns towards you. "IT'S YOU?" You nod, not even looking at him. "YOU KNOW I THE ONE WHO PROPOSED TO FIND YOU TO GIVE YOU A REWARD, RIGHT?" You nod and add you also know he's doing it so he can control your activities better and that's ok because he could never crack your computer anyway. And that you love him. Blue is not too sure about what he's supposed to do. He needs the night to think about that.

Underswap Papyrus - "Really? How?" He's confused, as he already forgot what was on TV two minutes ago. When you facepalm, he concentrates really hard and then suddenly jerks up. "WAIT YOU'RE THE HACKER?!" He's so excited, he has so much questions! He is also dying inside because it's really dangerous and you could die, but that's fine.

Underfell Sans - "as long as we have enough to pay for the groceries at the end of the month you do the heck you want of your free time." He doesn't mind. It's not even that impressive. That's just a few bombs. He's not jealous or anything. He's so not jealous he's not going to pout in his room.

Underfell Papyrus - He looks at you like you just grow a second head. "YOU'RE JOKING RIGHT? I'M NOT VERY GOOD WITH HUMOR." You just smile innocently at him. He freezes. Nah, you have to be joking. He's the one protecting you. There's no way you're some hero who just save the entire town. He would know that. He won't get fool by your weird shenanigans. ... But you were joking, right?

Horrortale Sans - Hum... He can feel something is off, but he's not sure what. He's not very attentive either and doesn't know what you're talking about as he kinda fell asleep during the news, hugging you. He can feel you got tense though. Weird. You can feel his big red eyes on your back, suspicious. Are you hiding something from him? Maybe it's best if he doesn't know.

Horrortale Papyrus - "WITH ALL DUE RESPECT WHAT THE FUCK." Both for the hacker thingy and the reward by the way. Willow is quite shocked you just defuse BOMBS and then refused 1 MILLION gold. He understands, but still. That's a lot of money.

Swapfell Sans - "YOU REFUSED 1 MILLION GOLD?!" Omg! He can't believe it! Who cares about the bombs, you could have been rich and you said no! He's so mad! Do you even have any idea what you can do with a million gold? That's too much for him, he's leaving! He will whine and complain all day long.

Swapfell Papyrus - He's a bit shocked but quite excited too. That's so cool! Can you teach him to defuse a bomb too? He wants to try! It looks like a fun activity to do as a couple. You're not too sure about this. I mean, the guy dropped his plate carrying it from the sink to the table...

Fellswap Gold Sans - Well that's awkward. Wine might or might not be the one who put the bombs here in the first place to explode some of his rivals. You can see he is very uncomfortable and he will definitely not tell you why.

Fellswap Gold Papyrus - "yeah i won the lottery but accidentally lost the ticket, that's too bad." "What?" "what?" Well, what a plotwist.

[real-godzekiel]

Weston and notes

this is my new horror guy for Huddled Inn. why did i do so much. well it's kind of just that i felt that i had to do something before shit wore off. the reason why i don't have a lot for certain OCs even though i love them very much is that highs wear off so i'm trying to get more motivated to draw OCs by doing more for OCs i don't care for too much but are very entertaining and fun to write/draw about.

this is what Weston used to look like before btw so i'm not going to draw this form often. i will have notes and other concept artwork after a cut. (TW: CANNIBALISM AND MURDER AND TORTURE)

backstory (copied directly off my Twitter)

weston was a bartender in huddled inn that got fired because he had an argument with his ex-gf while working.

he got so fucking mad he killed his ex in her apartment. then in a fit of adrenaline he grilled her and ate her. normal human behaviour

then he began to panic about being caught. so he decided to get a rusty cursed book and summon an eldritch god to give him special powers

the special powers were eternal life without aging (additional info: he was and still is 32) and the ability to control sounds. as in. he can shoot and kill a man entirely silently. and more .

so. lots of killing and eating people at huddled inn. he would disguise as a bartender-still-working and poison a bunch of people's drinks and then take the bodies from the hotel rooms for grilling and eating.

ok. probably not just at huddled inn but various places. but yeah. weston was very happy because he killed, grilled, and ate a lot. he was very arrogant. killing, grilling, and eating was, to him, a way he can get revenge on society for giving him consequences he didn't like

eventually he became some kind of urban legend which only fuelled his ego since he was not getting caught. he was, in fact, a very tactical and smart person at that time, too.

he kept coming to huddled inn in particular because he was very mad about being fired, btw

so, success for weston ig until other supernatural entities came to huddled inn. Phutredhaz in particular

basically. one night. weston drugged, killed, grilled, and ate a guy who he thought was just any other guy. a little eccentric and weird on the fashion, perhaps. well. either way. that guy was a member of phutredhaz's basement kinda-cult-but-not-really so She got really angry

She came and discovered weston 's weird abilities, so Her first decision was to order weston to start getting a lotta fresh rats for Her to atone for his behaviour. he, the arrogant fuck he is, however, decides to try and kill Phutredhaz instead. so She sends him to hell LMFAO

Weston thought he was invincible so shouldn't technically be able to be sent to HELL. but then it was "well you're not technically dead She's just letting you stay here to suffer for. uh. a year." so he does suffer! and it was kind of bad! and then he returns and what does he do

Weston tries to take revenge. so Phutredhaz sends him to hell again. this time it's for 10 years.

After Weston returns he tries to do the "revenge by killing, grilling, and eating" again on a fucking demon and gets sent to hell one last time for 20 years

when he returns he finally decides not to try again because he is now officially Scared. what does Phutredhaz feel about this? nothing. She doesn't gaf. She forgot about him. Her kinda-cult-maybe-not-really was dying so She had way more important things to worry about

So. After 31 years of all that hell-time (and especially hunger for sweet vengeance in the form of human flesh), Weston. Weston got dumb. Hell-time accelerated the development of the seal that was already in him when he first made the deal.

He forgot how to serve beverages. He forgot how to cook, and thereby the "grilling" part was gone. He forgot that to properly kill and get away he shouldn't yell while not using his noise-powers-thingy just so he could taunt his victims.

now that i think about this part this is actually kind of terrifying. either way. hellfire burned (parts of) his hair off. he eats raw flesh now. he does not know about the internet or (much) about michael jackson. he also forgot about places outside of huddled inn, so he kind of starves

he does have. another guy around at the bar. more on her later. anyways i find it still pretty fun to write a kind of comedic horror villain that does not really care about any living human other than himself

THAT'S IT! feel free to ask questions idk

Oh and the other guy

she's inspired by Exit 8 particularly Mr. Deja Vu . yea

[demonslayedher]

If the story was set in the modern age, like a more serious version of Kimetsu Academy, do you think it would have been easier or harder to kill Muzan? And do you think the change in time would effect which characters died? From a Doylist POV I imagine all the same characters would have died, in similar ways probably, but from a Watsonian POV I think everyone's fates could have been different.

For readers at home: Doylist POV is from the perspective of outside a world of fiction, Watsonian POV is analyzing it from the perspective of being within the universe of that fiction.

Kimetsu Academy is like the "everyone is happy and nothing bad ever happens to anyone ever" AU we all deserve after the hellride we road with an alligator at the wheel. If we were to take that world's basic building as constraints (Muzan is a politician, Kimetsu Academy is a front for finding demons and raising demon slayers, etc) and eliminate the gags (no more exploding art room unless there's been a serious battle there), then...

This sure puts Gyutaro and Ume in a dangerous situation, doesn't it? If we jump straight into working with them, I could see a couple of delinquents following a path that leads them to a night of violence which results in choosing to become demons, or, if they are already covertly living as demons and Gyutaro is just trying to take care of his sister, then they could potentially have a bright future ahead thanks to the Academy looking our for them (while also keeping an eye on them and pretending not to know).

In any AU that I take seriously, I always want to know the perimeters, what stays the same, and what's different. As there are so many ways this could be different, I think that alone would change the fates of a lot of characters. For example, for demons to go to school, this either needs to be an underground school (which might work for the Ubuyashiki's purposes), or demons need resistance to sunlight, which would totally alter Muzan's goals. Maybe this is a Muzan who has ALREADY ATTAINED mastery of the sun and now his goal is to take over Japan. And, maybe after Muzan attained that, he almost entirely wiped out the Demon Slayers again, so they need to rebuild themselves in secrecy. Hmm, yes, I like this, and I'm going to use it as my framework for contemplating this AU.

Muzan is aware that he didn't pull up all the roots all those years ago, but now that he is in public spotlight with publicly traded companies, he has more image-management constraints to work around, hence the need to send spies like Nakime and Kaigaku. He's also probably eliminated any demon that couldn't master their appearance enough to look human, thereby decreasing the overall number of demons, thereby making fewer incidents of death-by-demon throughout the country. If they do start getting out of control, then it puts Muzan in the sticky situation of his constituents bugging him to do something about it.

My next question is how consistent the character motivations are. Maybe Tanjiro's family did run a bakery, but after they got killed for whatever it was Muzan wanted out of them, he and Nezuko escaped and now live in an underground dorm (because I can't get rid of this underground idea, maybe not all demons have mastered the sun, or there's limits to how much they can stand). Maybe humble baker Tanjuro was actually developing family-honored recipe all this time that had the potential to kill demons' appetites and weaken them? No, no, this has too much potential for getting silly, he's a baker who also used a sword.

As Japan has a group-home system typically run by public employees as opposed to much development in their foster care system, let's say Hisa is the dorm mother and many of the children who live the dorms had no where else to go, or were sent there by masters who knew the true goals of the Kimetsu Academy. So they all go in with various understandings of what they're learning outside of regular class hours, as the regular classes are open to regular students so that the school can keep up it's "we're a regularly nice school, we just don't happen to have a lot of sunlight through the windows because show concern for our students with health conditions, for similar reason, we don't use any peanuts" kind of front.

The Final Selection to get into the school includes a regular academic test too, because they have accepted responsibility to educate these young people too, after all. Some writer much smarter than me would think of clever ways for them to incorporate what they learn in math and science and literature into their Breath techniques.

So that sets the stage a big more, or rather, is like the ring in which we'll set up a bunch of Nichirin Beyblades and see who tears each other up.

That's really going to depend on each character's motivation: what they are willing to die for and how they'll go about doing it with the new constraints, as well as opportunities in this world.

For instance, I think Shinobu's gonna die in much the same way. She's made up her mind to so much that it would take lots and lots of Doylist intervention to stop her. Let's assume biology teacher!Kanae is long since dead (or "mysteriously retired" or "mysteriously transferred to one of their sister schools abroad" as it might look like on official modern day paperwork).

Other characters who died by facing a battle head-on might find themselves dead in a similar manner, like history teacher!Rengoku and kendo!Sabito. Sabito perhaps is already a ghost in the halls, but for all the students who don't know the academy's true aims, history teacher!Rengoku sudden departure would be a major blow to the atmosphere of the whole school.

Muichiro and Genya... I'd like to think they might had more of a fighting chance, depending on the circumstances and constraints a political secretary like Kokushibo might have. For instance, Muzan's rule to retain his human appearance may be tricky enough for him that it gives them just enough wiggle room to survive, however much that survival is gonna hurt.

Art teacher!Uzui will probably keep teaching and act like nothing's wrong, and just be like, "what?" when the normal students are balking at his missing hand and eye (made less noticeable in the first place by the hoodie).

Graduated!Mitsuri and chemistry teacher!Iguro are a toss up. Obamitsu is always best tossed in the "happy end" direction so there they go, somehow or another they'll survive this one because Doylist intervention demands it.

Himejima... given his leadership role, I think he's going down.

Tamayo might have a chance! Modern day constraints on Muzan's activities means modern day opportunities for taking him down! She might have more sly ways of delivery medicine to him than just punching him and expecting him to absorb her fist. His schedule may be public enough that they can work one step ahead of him to slowly poison him.

I guess that's what my gut tells me! Again, to really say for sure, I would need to see the world more fully developed and see how the characters grow and developed within that world--especially it requires a serious take and not a gag one.

[steamishot]

mini move

tonight will be our 17th and final night at the airbnb, thereby concluding our temporary stay in south pas. i simultaneously feel like i've been back in socal for a long yet short time. there have been ups and downs, especially when it came to our new tesla and driving in a new area. the second time i drove the car, i scratched the wheel pretty deeply by turning too sharply on a right turn. other stressful things included: finding/coordinating charging, learning the controls of the car, a barrier gate almost falling on us (our mistake for being in a keep clear zone due to the train tracks), a car almost backing into us in a parking lot, and an accident on local streets that literally happened ~50 ft away from us where a car burst into flames, etc. i always missed having a car while in nyc, but now that i have one, it feels like such a big liability.

firsts: getting reacquainted with family and friends again felt like a lot of "firsts". the first time that matt and i hosted them at our own place in LA. meeting friends for the "first" time or first time in a long time as a couple. going to my parents house for the "first" time where my mom doesn't have a room set up for me. symbolically, my closest friend in nyc is SC. we broke off into a long distance friendship on 9/11. out of respect of the friendship, i waited a couple weeks before hanging out with my closest friend in LA, SZ.

identity shifts: it feels uneasy and scary, how my identity will slowly start changing again, due to environment and the people i'm around. it felt confusing at first because although i lived in LA for the mostly the entirety of my life, i couldn't call myself an LA girl anymore due to having lived in nyc the past 4 years. was i a NYC or LA girl? 🤷‍♀️

culture: the work culture here is so different, and it's reflected in trying to set up our new apartment. in nyc, we were used to people responding very promptly (to emails and phone calls). here, it seems it's difficult to get in touch with anyone and the response times are much longer. for example, emailing the leasing office at my old building, i could expect a response in less than an hour or two. now, i'm lucky if i get a response within 2 days.

food: the food here has been cheaper, less expansive, and overall more bland/healthier. we're definitely eating less and spending less on food. plus, the weather is just too hot to be overeating. there's also a more sedentary lifestyle here due to the driving culture so we can't just "walk off" our dinner as easily. it took me 6 months-1 year to adjust to nyc's food culture, and i think it may take me a similar amount time to acclimate back and to find new favorite spots.

exercise: we have been doing a lot of (hot) yoga here. the classes on classpass are generally cheaper, and classes are tougher! i think LA people are already used to the heat, so being in a hot yoga studio doesn't faze them as much. we also go along with matt's dad to a park where they run and i walk/jog, lol. i think i'll get back into running! it's the perfect setting for it now that we don't have to consider the season (i.e. we can run outdoors year round).

space: it feels great to not be in a studio anymore, even though i am sad about saying bye to our nyc home. also, it seems like someone signed for our apartment so it'll have new occupants already. technically we are nomads until we officially move in on 10/9. because of this, it feels a bit unsettling that we don't have a home anywhere for a few weeks. we are basically living out of our carryons. i'm really glad to have selected a two bedroom apartment because i really want a designated "work area".

mexico: this may be too ambitious, but we decided on a week-long trip to mexico city and oaxaca with matt's dad during the period that we will be without a home. so, we'll be flying out tomorrow morning and returning the next saturday. i'll be WFH for the first half during mexico city, and took a few days off for oaxaca. we basically went from VVHCOL to lower and lower cost: switzerland -> nyc -> LA -> mexico in about a 6 week span.

overwhelm: i've been feeling a lot of emotions lately. sometimes i feel so grateful that everything i wished for is coming true. sometimes i doubt everything. sometimes i feel so happy to be around family again, and other times i feel sad about my loss of independence. sometimes the grief of closing a chapter in nyc hits me. i used to think that i loved LA, but now i think i love LA only because my family is here. so that means i have to learn how to love LA again since it feels like a stranger. this is also partly because i'm now technically living in the "suburbs" of LA, and not actual LA LA, so there is that extra adapting to do.

i attended zumba class at the gold's gym in arcadia using classpass because matt wanted to visit his old gym. this was on the friday of the week we just landed back in LA. the demographics were completely different from what i was used to - middle aged, mostly asian women, who were all friendly and seemed to know each other. i remember feeling a wave of overwhelm during class, like what the hell am i doing and where am i? two fridays before then i was in switzerland, the previous friday i was in nyc, and then that friday i was dancing with middle aged asian women in arcadia.

[thescentofcardamom]

Fears often hold us back or drive us forward. The fear of revealing ourselves, of opening up, of not having our needs understood by another person. We have certain 'core beliefs', shaped in childhood, which resonate strongly whenever someone touches a sensitive spot. Some constantly try to hide, never finding satisfaction and seeing in this the 'mismatch of a partner', even though it's often their lack of skill in asking for understanding in a way that would evoke it. They don't want to accept that it's the joint work on something that leads to something more valuable. Others try to show too much, thereby overwhelming with emotions. They want, but they want too much, and in this way, they ignore the feelings of the other person. Talking is important, but it's also important to want to talk in a way that understands both oneself and someone else. Not to be afraid to show weaknesses and at the same time know that you can feel safe with them.

I was thinking about this last night. About the fact that sometimes I can't directly say that I fundamentally need something, and instead I get angry or demand a lot. This gives me a sense of control, protection, but often it doesn't help because it doesn't give someone a chance and I don't get closer. Giving a chance for understanding is important, I know that. Sometimes I lock myself in impressions that were shaped in the past, ignoring the fact that I had a big part in it, often not being able to talk in a way that gives someone a chance for change and understanding. I assume that this person 'is just like that', but after years of relationships with people, I am sure that compromises can be reached, that something can be developed so that both of us feel respected and happy.

[vulpes-aestatis]

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

Now, hear me out please, comrades. I know opening with a Nietzsche quote sounds like one of the testotruthers or whatever they're calling themselves now.

Just hear me out. Consider the words, really consider them.

Y'all are familiar with al-Kotfari, yeah? How about Frederique Tanaka-Dupont? Of course you are, otherwise you wouldn't be listening to this stream.

Well, they were right… somewhat.

I mean, the whole alien tech thing is bunk… probably. Even if it's not, it doesn't matter. Maybe if it's not, that just reinforces my point.

My fucking point is Angels are real. I'm not talking about the HAKs, I'm talking about the transcendental concept they represent.

We've got code built on code built on code. The core firmware of an HAK is at least a seventh generation generative system. Yeah, there might be a human somewhere in the loop doing an audit here and there, but for the most part, the code hasn't been touched by human hands in a century.

The pilots, likewise, clones of clones of clones. All sorts of fucked up selective corporate breeding going on there.

The corpos have been playing with forces beyond their comprehension. Strength through unity etc etc, I don't need to tell this audience it's all bullshit. It's fucking dollar signs. It's keeping the fucking shareholders happy. The shareholders and the execs don't have the first fucking idea what they have created, all they care about is a little black number every quarter.

That's where they fail.

It's all profit profit profit, but they aren't even in control.

Please don't misunderstand. It's not like this is some house of cards, pull out the bottom and the whole thing collapses. Doesn't work that way.

What I'm trying to tell y'all is that humanity has created a literal heavenly host. We've created God.

Comrades, we have spent far too much time thinking of these things as machines that can be stolen or soldiers that can be turned. We need to think of them as something to be worshiped.

Wait! Hold on, hear me out, please!

If you ask some soldier on the front lines whether they put their faith in the Central Authority or Whaleship Heavy or the Rook Class down the hall, what do you think the answer is?

The part that we, all of us, need to understand, the part we all need to learn how to exploit is that Rook Class knows. It knows that the soldier has faith in it. The dual body meta entity knows that it is being worshiped and it responds in kind.

We are already observing this exact phenomenon amongst our comrades in arms. The Angel-Killer, Abaddon, La Gran Inundación… we have gods of our own now.

Goddamn, I'm raving like some technotheist.

Just… fuck… it isn't a house of cards. It's something completely different. It's God in the machine. It's the rising ape meeting the falling angel.

Humanity is at a tipping point and if we want to come out on top, if we want to survive at all, we need to embrace the Angel.

The Corporation is distinctly opposed to calling pilots "angels". They've released several statements recommending that officers silence any such language, saying it "threatens the integrity of the forces", and that HAKs and the pilots who control them are "tools, not deities". But I mean, when you see the way a suit's holoprojectors form a pulsing ring around a pilot's helmet, or when one slumps forwards out of its cockpit to reveal that thick mass of wires creeping from its back, it's impossible not to see the resemblance. And when, like most of the men stationed here, you've found yourself pinned down by heavy artillery fire from two directions with no chance of survival, but out of the heavens a Bishop-class rig emerges and razes the enemy with what can only be described as holy flame? I mean hell, that's enough to make anyone a believer (pardon my language).

I have a buddy who deals with the HAKs directly. He works in biomechanics, combat simtech or whatever. I asked him once what he thought about the whole "angel" thing. He got real quiet, and he looked directly at me and said, "you don't even know the half of it." And I stared right into his eyes and I could see that same heavenly flame burning in there and I knew that he had seen something he couldn't quite understand, but that he loved with all his heart.

[c-is-for-circinate]

c3e15

You know, I have a very low tolerance for horror fiction. There were parts in the Aeor Arc where I was NOT okay.

I'm having so much fun with this? I don't know why campaign 3 so far, which has very much been full of admittedly horror tropes, hasn't been hitting those same buttons, but mostly it's just so much fun. I can only chalk it up to how very very much it keeps reminding me of the 90's scifi I grew up with. Everything about the shade-creepers is one long extended X-Files episode, and little baby 1997-era C who also had no stomach for horror loved the X-Files. So like...??? But fair enough.

I think it might be an agency/control thing? Aeor was scary in the way of something ancient and lurking, where the world itself was broken, where the walls and the floors and the woods were hungry, vaster than human lives, unknown and thereby unfightable. The shade creepers and their queen are scary in the way of something that can be investigated and shot dead by a pair of FBI agents who work out of a basement office, and that's so much more manageable. And wonderful. It's great and I love it.

I do have some thoughts and questions about the Greenseekers! On one hand (and someone mentioned this on my last reaction post two weeks ago, which was very smart), they really do fit into that X-Files dynamic, the Twin Peaks of it all, the detectives with a career based on logic, investigating and trying to force logic onto paranormal circumstances that might evade easy categorization. And in that sense they're great, they're fabulous, they're the perfect inclusion. But they're also fucking fascinating coming at C3 through that other lens I won't shut up about, through Class Warfare Campaign, because oh boy their existence claims some things about the system that I'm not sure this system can back up.

The thing is that they claim a willingness to haul anyone, even their own employer, to jail, but that presupposes the existence of a jail willing to hold them, a court system willing to try them, laws written that confirm unethical as the same thing as illegal. We've seen Matt be generous with such things, in campaign 2, pushing through prosecution for Xenoth and Trent both, and maybe he will be again here, and that's his right--but it would be a gift of generosity not necessarily implied by the worldbuilding as it stands so far. Maybe Matt doesn't want to completely forsake his dystopia and is willing to let it have a functional court system. Maybe the Greenseekers have other ways to ensure their targets see punishment. Maybe, for all their experience, they've never gone up against a target this big, maybe they're overconfident. Maybe they're lying about their motives and intend to side with their client either way.

The thing is that they seem like the good guys, they really do, and they're independent contractors because the local cops aren't anything like trustworthy and the only investigative law enforcement you could even think to trust are a couple of people who don't even go here. The thing is that they seem to be the good guys, or at least the lawful good guys compared to our party's slightly-sketchier-but-somehow-more-trustworthy chaotic good, but after Laudna accidentally intimidated a witness into a faint by being too friendly, they broke his fingers and fucked with his brain. They didn't even seem to see a reason that could be wrong.

I like them, but I don't trust them. I don't really trust anybody in this town, including most of the party, though I'm at least a little closer to trust with all of them. I trust that they want to help get us back out of here with at least most of the group alive. Beyond that it's all question marks and suspense.

Matt playing out 'awkward exes two years later meeting on a job thing' was pure fucking gold, though, so jot that down.

[larrythefloridaman]

Y'all like your deities with or without the shell?

Under the readmore is aaaaaaaaall color god observations and musings based on them, because I am studying to become the world's Premiere Chromatheologian and RGB Understander so under the cut is pretty much Oops! All Spoilers! up to the most recent episode of season 3.

Apparently Universal Color God Attributes:

Damage to their domain hurts them, but fixing the issue, or lashing out by using their powers destructively, can help them to repair the damage.

If they sustain enough damage, it can temporarily paralyze them and send them into a strengthened but 'exposed' state (chartreuse's spirit activation in the last fight of 19) and further damage after that will activate a failsafe, which is unique by domain but seemingly designed to give them the chance to balance things, but can get… very out of hand or backfire depending on circumstances. (see: cobalt’s failsafe sending mark's universe into a never-ending apocalyptic war because word of the cure for death became too widespread for the killing urge failsafe to affectively balance anything because every side could simply revive their fallen.)

Chartreuse's failsafe is something of a stopped time bubble quarantine where processes that require the passing of time cannot complete, allowing her the time to wear down the offending party to beat them to death or plan around finishing them.

Cobalt's is inciting war, the casualties serving to balance the scale. I'm not sure we know Crimson's yet- he's never taken enough direct damage without doing damage to compensate in order to trigger it, although i dont remember season one well enough to recall if any of the universe stuff in it tracks with the pattern bc season one is a bit fucky

Connected in a fashion that allows them to simply Sense the overall status of the others to some extent, although they don't know Why theyre in the state theyre in without asking (chartreuse [and by extension, folk, presumably on her information] confronting crimson via crimsonaut for pretending to be dead, Cobalt confronting both his siblings about how they are handling their duties improperly but not knowing about Folk. He knew about the constants deaths because hes a death god, duh, but he didnt use their names like crimson did, possibly implying they're erased upon death so thoroughly that only crimson and the constants can really recall a shattered constants' existence, not even the other guardians.)

Abilities of the guardians can be replicated by mortals through three apparent methods- through machines (dimensional bus, the time machine, presumably J0hn's part in Sephiroth's resurrection,) simply through advanced enough individual skill (Home MD curing death, potentially Dantoinette's universe portal travel, maybe Genwun's sped up time bubble that evolved them into Genfour? although that could very well have just been an illusion and theyre just like, a fuckin theater kid that was doing pretend character development for the Bit or something given GenFive turned out to be a zoroark) or through stealing some of the power of the relevant god (Dr. Order stealing Chartreuse's power, Dani maybe having stolen some of Crimson's when she beat his ass. Dani's one woman universal travel is like, wicked ambiguous)

Cobalt:

Can seemingly perceive or act through any living material. (The Tree. Cobalt instructed Larry to slap his hand on that tree, that shit glowed and he had a new deal tattoo without Cobalt ever having been physically present)

Can influence the resurrected by giving them a killing urge. Represented by an aberrant brainwave and a ringing in the undead's heads. This doesnt appear to be direct control- as the Grunk could clearly restrain himself from killing people that genuinely didn't deserve it (like nightly and cha cha, who WERE grunk event targets but not fatally so. Nagito was a crimson thing so it really doesn't count here. God poor grunk his life really is just a constant plaything in the hands of the gods huh) and Sephiroth very much had personal motivation to want to kill Folk. failsafe activates this ability on the scale of war.

Deals. The extent of what Cobalt can do with these is unclear but Iggy's god powers were taken from him as his part in the deal so what he can take isn't limited to physical things or things obviously related to his domain.

Weaknesses:

Deals. While this ability is impressive his preference for making deals for those that offend against his domain is potentially very exploitable- Larry's knowledge of the cure for death is, if word of it were to ever get out beyond Larry, wildly dangerous for this dimension, so technically the safest thing for the iron-fisted cobalt to do would be to nip the problem in the bud and get rid of him. But, fascinatingly, that wasn't even put on the table, the first thing Cobalt does is threaten J0hn, prompting Larry to make a deal. While Cobalt enforces death, he also doesn't like unnecessary death, and Larry demonstrably knows how to keep a secret for the good of the world even at great cost to himself and Cobalt is aware of this- easily clarifying to Larry the aberrant thing endangering the universe wasn't his timeloop business. So while he's clearly not letting his resurrection fuckery go unpunished, he's being pretty merciful when he doesn't have to be and from a strictly, brutally pragmatic perspective probably shouldn't be.

His control over the undead manifests as a ringing and an aberrant brainwave trackable by J0hn's equipment, and could probably therefore be accounted for and circumvented? J0hn has, wisely, largely sworn off fucking with people's brains after the sephiroth fiasco went So Wrong, So Very Wrong, Oh God Oh Fuck Someone Cool Almost Died, but if he hadn't, and if J0hn let his dislike for authority and keeping Larry safe outweigh reason like he let safety, spite and comedic value outweigh good ethical sense when reprogramming sephiroth, in theory Mr. 'hacked a time machine for breakfast?' could. y'know. probably do it. what is a god's authority to an anarchist, what better to challenge life and death than the cold and eternal machine, you get the point its a fun scenario

Olive Garden Breadsticks and Small Cute Dogs, apparently

Chartreuse's:

Time Clones: taps into parallel timelines to retrieve alternate versions of herself to utilize.

Time Travel: what it says on the tin. Travel to the past creates painful splits in the prime timeline, but through careful action and traveling back into the past, these can be weaved into a time loop. A split from the timeline is a wound, and a successful timeloop is the surgical scar it can become with attentive care, to use a medical metaphor. Carefully closed and healing. Keeping Folk here is essentially akin to chartreuse pulling out her stitches on the initial incision.

Time Stopping: creates a space wherein things that take time to complete cannot complete, where things can move, but everything within is in a perfect unchanging stasis until the bubble drops. This is the form her failsafe takes.

Timeline Creation: can create timelines from scratch.

Can fuse alternate timeline versions of the same individual to allow them to coexist. (Ryan's confirmed in the discord that Dantoinette experienced both failures in 20, because Chartreuse fused the two instances of her to save the post-raid instance from fading. Could... theoretically do this to Folk and save herself the pain, but while Folk and Therapuppy are the same person, there's seven years and untold amounts of difference deriving from the time and circumstance between them and the inherent cognitive dissonances that would result from attempting that would be wicked fucked up to inflict, and that's assuming there isn't some reason that it wouldn't be possible anyway. while the two Danis had like. A day or so's difference between them, so she could be safely fused with the only dissonant thing being that she remembers both being too slow to prevent order's time escape and beginning to dissipate post-raid, AND losing that fight to her pre-raid. RIP Dani, that perfectionism must be kicking her ass)

Weaknesses:

Unwilling to use her powers destructively in her pursuit of domain repair and thereby much easier to damage to the point of paralyzing her, making her particularly vulnerable to Power Theft

Morally Optimistic. At one point in 19, she briefly justifies Crimson's shitty evil actions to herself after experiencing for herself how Wack the kerfuffleverse is firsthand, ("and all he did was kill a couple people!" Chartreuse. Honey.) and when she fights Crimsonaut she seems to actually believe for a second that he's actually worried about her when Crimson asks if she's okay after he beats her. Additionally, as D+, she concerns herself with trying to understand doctor order's motive, and after Larry defeats Order, he makes a point of confirming she feels no remorse before making his request for what Chartreuse does with her, and appeals to the idea of letting Order fulfill her desire to be a god in a way which isn't a problem for anyone and Chartreuse is more than happy to oblige under these conditions after what Larry's done for everybody. Then immediately threatens to evaporate him for playfully teasing her about having a crush on folk. Fucked up a little bit

Crimson's:

Universe Shifting: Travel between universes.

Universe Correction: appears to replace an aberrant individual with the 'correct' version of themselves for that universe, presumably sending them back to their own. (Mario from super mario was universe corrected, but still seemingly exists in wario form as evidenced by smashup kerfuffle, and was simply temporarily replaced with his corrected universe counterpart. But like. The dimensional bus system is still active crimbo doing the Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me routine aint gonna work if they can come back with a shrug and bus fare. you're fighting the symptoms without treating the problem)

Universal Constants:

Three individuals per universe that serve as the pillars which stabilize said universe, created by absorbing red orbs Crimson creates. Becoming a constant grants power, but also makes the constant fragile, and death wipes them from the face of the multiverse, only crimson, those he's possessed and the other constants seemingly able to recall they ever existed, although some physical evidence is still left behind (Larry's record of Nagito's death, which is just as redacted as everything else relating to him but still is very much something Larry has. Kind of a Voidfish adventurezone type beat ironically enough? Taako really has seen all this shit before no wonder he peaced tf out)

To counterbalance the weaknesses the constants have, they have a sort of spidey-sense to alert them to danger, and an intrinsic bonded connection to their fellow constants, and additionally, Crimson apparently doesn't suffer any pain from the death of constants or the structural instability of a universe.

Possession: what it says on the tin! Seemingly can only be done with permission to living things- none of crimson's direct hosts seem to have entered that agreement unwillingly, Valentine lost a bet, Hamburger and Crimsonaut have been by all evidence intentional allies to Crimson- but electronics are fair game, as seen with The Guy's suit. Kinda curious how that rule applies to bitches that are half and half, like J0hn or the clonebot gang, as its unclear whether The Guy's suit was yoinkable without permission because it was mechanical or because its not sentient. could go either way but if it's the former that's potentially very frightening

Fusion: Two individuals from alternate universes can be fused into one shared body which can take on aspects of either depending on which is currently in control. (possibly allows someone who traveled into a given universe to become a fixed resident there without it being an issue for Crimson, whose job is to prevent interdimensional travel?) Monday Mark and possibly T.O.M. are our main examples.

Corruption:

Unpleasant As Hell and can even kill you instead of changing you if you cant handle it.

turns the corrupted individual into a twisted exaggeration of themself, allows them supernatural control over their shape, and makes them very difficult- if not impossible by traditional means- to kill, based on Garfield.

Subjects them to control by Crimson, but can be exorcised of this influence just like crimson's direct hosts can, although the supernatural changes to their physiology are seemingly permanent, judging from Shantae.

Notable Weaknesses:

Exorcism can be performed to free a possessed or corrupted individual of Crimson's influence. Its unclear how exorcism works/is learned in CPUK, but confirmed exorcists: dantoinette and yung papaya's snake dad, confirmed non-exorcists: folk

The universal constant orbs are physical objects so they are Very Stealable and they grant a power boost so theres literally an Incentive to beat his ass for anybody who wants to be strong and either doesnt know or doesn't care about the whole 'getting erased when you die' part

Crimson has lots of tools to create pawns, but all of them have drawbacks. Corruption could kill a potential pawn, possession generally seems to require permission, and he has no control over the constants' choices and actions

Manipulative bitch's highest stat is charisma and it shows. This motherfucker is selling snake oil. If he was mortal rather than a Whole Entire God he'd make an excellent ineffectual saturday morning cartoon supervillain and i think everyone, including him, would be happier for it, ngl

Something interesting ive realized that likely wasnt fully intentional, is that a lot of Dr. Order's creations, considering her motive, can kind of be sorted by a color god it appears to be a crude attempt at mimicking the abilities of. My Grunk is a poorly executed resurrection, the clonebot gang vs chartreuse's timeclones (this one deserves special mention because Chartreuse used this shitty attempted mimicry to her advantage with D+, very smart and ironic play, excellent job Treusy,) spirits are somewhat similar to universal constant orbs (orbs which can be absorbed to grant power, but which have physical repercussions- key differences being that spirits require activation and grow stronger while attuning to a user without being used, and having far less severe drawbacks, taking a heavy toll on the body, but only once they've worn off and without the risk of wiping yourself from the face of existence,) and she also augmented Perfect Spriteman and Larry, which kind of track as crude imitations of Crimson's corruption!

Garfield was an acerbic cat who loved food and hated mondays, now its an actively malicious ever-hungry amorphous entity whose only weakness is monday and whose only consistency in form is 'cat-like.'

Shantae was (to my extremely limited understanding of shantae,) a friendly heroic type who had to introduce herself often, and she became something akin to a biblically accurate angel that can *only* introduce herself.

The Grunks a tough but sweet and supportive single dad with stage presence and a tendency to fly off the handle when he or his family are slighted, and now he gets so hype in the audience when his son does well that he bursts into flames and ascends and we get random grunk events along with the associated murder charges when he gets mad and the target sucks enough that he doesn't hold himself back from killing them.

Perfect Spriteman and Larry fit the trend of exaggeration of already present traits- Spriteman fucking loves sprite and became something that only thinks about sprite, and Larry the Florida Man, characterized from minute one by unpredictability and who spent his first matches in the series pre-shapeshifter transformation staying alive keeping stocks for Shockingly Long even despite getting seventh, became literally physically random as well as developing the ability to regenerate, albeit with the ability to feel pain normally very much intact, unlike Garfield just... Soaking up damage like its nothing in his pursuit of Jon. The fact that Arbuckle legit defeated Garfield, even temporarily, is terrifyingly impressive honestly that dude is fucking built different for being so chronically bland

i dont think they're actually corrupted in any meaningful way we have to worry about, to be fully clear, Spriteman was cured with fucking antacids, i simply think they could be a fucked up attempt at making something that kind of seems like it from a functional standpoint, from the wannabe god doctor that brought us green clones whose only fundamental association with time was accelerated aging and who thought an actively rotting corpse thats just reanimated enough that it can throw hands was as good as curing death

[brooklynislandgirl]

As gently as she can, she uses voice commands to dim the lights so they might not create coronas in his vision and thereby increasing the amount of added discomfort he has to suffer. His gaze is palpable as any caress she's ever endured and she isn't sure whether or not she finds that disagreeable. It might amuse them in different ways to find some sort of sympathy. She feels a deep wave of empathy roil through her once again when she comes perhaps too close. Hears the way he speaks. Each word feels as if it is pried from a closed fist. "I commend you, Sir. Too often a patient comes to rely not on merely the relief of certain medications but it becomes something of a wild fire beyond control. We've made great strides in treatment but sometimes--" she pauses and half closes her eyes before shaking her head. "I'm sorry. You of all people don't really need a lecture on addiction." She makes note of the very faint viridian hue beneath his skin and chooses the exact spot next to his carotid artery, a space he exposes for her, as the site for the hypo-spray. She uses the self-distraction of his conversing with her to administer the medication. Though it is a painless process Beth has noticed that often times patients tense up in the seconds leading up to dosage. It is the anticipation of pain rather than the reality that does it every time. She can't imagine the days of barbaric medicine when sometimes the cure was worse than the sickness. "No, Commander," she says and the whisper soft voice would be the same one the good Doctor would tell him was her natural timbre. Her face remains neutral. There is no offense taken at his words nor is there the set of brows and mouth that suggests she was about to argue in any way. Her eyes remain mild, her entire affect one wishing she could soothe the pains that must be excruciating and give him comfort. "Though meditation can often help, I was actually thinking a more therapeutic remedy. Sometimes it can help to massage the scalp, neck, and shoulders. The same nerves that signal pain can be disrupted by different stimuli. It's something I would like to think I'm fairly good at, if you'd like to try it Commander. I would also suggest a glass of wine in the evening at least four hours after taking any medication. It pairs well with a hot shower or bath when such luxury is available." Not exactly cutting edge medical science, her recommendations border on folk remedy. "Again, you have my deepest sympathy Sir. Often times pain can be so agonising that one can barely breathe."

How she comes by this so earnestly is nothing she explains. Nor does she seem like she will unless he asks her directly. As far as privacy goes, Beth has much in common with the Commander though it doesn't occur to see it in that light. Beth never expected to find herself aboard a star ship. That had always been her brother's dream. The vast reaches of space and surrounded by stars. Touching the heavens in ways few could imagine. She was more the terrestrial sort, content to spend her days near the sea though she would have gladly followed him anywhere. But then he had died and Beth? Her head, her heart had never stopped screaming. Never ceased to feel empty and void of all life. Her mother threw herself into her work, serving as a diplomat amongst new civilisations. She can't recall the last time they were in the same room together. And the Admiral? He was the one that insisted she join Star Fleet's medical corps. She had never had the courage to disobey one of his direct orders. And now here she is. Her losses still hang heavy. Robs her of sleep. Of appetite. She has seen the very same shadows that lurk under his eyes reflected in her own mirrors, but she tells herself most surely that chronic pain of any sort can do that to a body, even one not entirely human. Very carefully, she puts one delicate hand on his shoulder, feather light and barely there. "It should be kicking in any moment now, Commander. Can you feel any relief or are you still…?" She doesn't finish the statement, doesn't think she has to. It's an intuitive leap of logic and maybe she feels it could be insulting if she continues talking at all. She hopes he doesn't take it as a brisk brush-off "If you like, I can have you absolved of duty for a few hours so that maybe you can get some rest far from the maddening crowd."

IF THE CREW CHOOSES TO VIEW him as impenetrable, then he holds no preference place to correct them. The perspective only benefits him and it is a keen advantage he would prefer to maintain when reality would shatter that image—

—truly imperfect or vulnerable; a liar, a thief.

Retaining a facade of control has been engrained into his body through years of discipline, stood neat even now, leans lines as he wars with the weighted tension that has drawn and born itself inside his mind.

                         Nodding once, Spock folds passively into the nearest bench, simultaneously stiff and distant of his prized focus. In truth, he had avoided coming here — he should have alerted Doctor McCoy fifteen hours ago — pushing forward until the strain on his mind demanded it. The cost has mutated his precision, slowed his hands. At this juncture, his thoughts are nearly nebulous, torn between too bright lights and the sweeping sound of her voice.

All of it rings, harsh in his ears, and bordering on something much too soft for Spock to acknowledge in his present state.

It helps to concentrate on the Nurse’s movements. Resting his hands on his thighs, Spock sets to watch her as she prepares the cocktail. There are few with full access to his medical records, even fewer possessing the knowledge of what his people have come to endure. Vulcans are historically private — this is private — Spock has been no exception to the need for reservation.

Yet he finds himself deliberating on whether to provide Nurse Riley with further information to fulfill this purpose and speed his relief. The ache has become intolerable — thus the only reason for his presence — amber liquifying into a muddied ochre, pooling away from him like melting wax to an open fire.

He stares at the hull across the room.

“ I confess I have no desire to become dependent on its effects, ” he tells her. And still, the admittance burns him as he tilts his head fractionally, exposing his neck. He knows there is no logic in reticence; pride is illogical. It may bring him greater consequences than blurred vision and exhaustion.

Spock exhales quietly.

                         “ My present request was never a willing outcome. However, if you are at all intending to suggest alternative methods not unlike meditation, I must disagree. ” His eyes return to observe her response. He means no offense. It is indelicate assumption he makes. But experience — in addition to the Nurse’s implication of his infallible nature — tells him that she will likely consider it in that manner nonetheless.

“ Meditation has failed to curb my discomfort at this — intensity. ”

Another burn of truth.

[keirametzbrassknuckles]

I did see your post about working 15 hour days so I understand the delay, but at some point I would like to hear why you enjoyed Little Foxes<3

Hello I'm so sorry it took me so long to get around to this. I know I was the one who said I'd write a review and then... didn't. I'm a flake what can I say.

I wanted to actually take the time to formulate something coherent though and it got a little out of hand (and failed on the coherency front)

SPOILERS below.

You mentioned in your last message that you found the style dry which I'm not even going to try and deny because it is. At first glance, it falls into the trap of "tell don't show" that so plagues litfic these days and which makes me want to gouge out my eyes. But after a little bit of thought, I think it's actually quite deliberate and is a part of the point of the book rather than a stylistic choice made to keep up with prevailing trends.

It's a fairytale told in the style of a fairytale (think Grimms, the very matter-of-fact telling of those stories). The narrative itself is interspersed with scenes from an absolutely bizarre original fairytale featuring Koschei the Deathless which itself takes a lot of influence from various other pieces of literature (Bluebeard, The Divine Comedy, Peter Pan, a smattering of Grimms etc). As a framing device, it sets the story up with an aura of surreality from the get go. The MC is likely relaying this story after the fact to a friend, which makes the almost oratory feeling of the narrative ("and then, and then, and then,") make a little more sense.

The main character is probably neurodivergent, definitely traumatized, and also eleven. He's also a voracious reader and while he makes very few direct literary parallels it's always something that's there at the back of the narrative (and which, I'll admit I don't think many Western readers will get the full impact of, not being familiar with the general zeitgeist of Russian lit - I certainly didn't). He thinks of himself as Koschei and by framing his life like a fairytale he can make himself his own hero and thereby wrest control back from an absolutely senseless and uncaring situation.

The amount to which Mitya the MC actually understands anything that's going on around him is variable. There's a backdrop of politics and poverty and a general (unresolved) theme of loss of innocence in a harsh world, but Mitya really doesn't seem to internalize any of it. Or, if he does, he mostly chooses to ignore them in favor of the good things. This does get a little stale - I like to see my characters actually get knocked down by the world occasionally which Mitya staunchly refuses - but It's definitely a refreshing change from the plethora of whiney depressed and traumatized litfic protags whose only purpose seems to be to make the reader feel worse. Sometimes resilient naivete is comforting.

At its core, it's a very simple story about being eleven in a changing world and I think the author was able to convey through the fairytale narrative structure all the little magics of being that age even despite the trauma and pain and harm of an untenable situation. There was a personal poignancy in that and, as someone who also used to dissociate through playacting in the guise of a fictional character to escape my childhood, I felt seen by it in a very particular way.

This is not to say that the book is without flaws - the narrative meanders, I didn't really form a connection with any of the minor characters (though I found the grandmother an absolute delight), and the inciting incident of the plot doesn't really resolve in any satisfactory way (to which I won't extend the benefit of the doubt. I think the author just legitimately dropped the ball on that one).

I'm not going to talk too much about the gender issues the MC suffers from because honestly, I don't really feel like they're worth mentioning. It seems almost like something added in after the fact to exploit the current push for LGBT literature (and somehow a story about a gay or bisexual boy was deemed too simplistic). There's no resolution to it, it presents conflict but only really with the other characters and only briefly, and the MC himself is adamant that he's too young to really know what he is or who he is, or what he wants to be. An attempt was made to use it to critique the rigidity of gender structures in Russian culture more broadly and illustrate the cultural sea change of the 1990s as Russia embraced contact with the West again but that also fell a little flat for me. The attempt was made though.

It's not a perfect book by any means and will probably go to a new home rather than onto the bookshelf but it remains a very sweet story, despite the brutality at the core of the narrative.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

I totally agree with you about the cheating. The timing of it absolutely sucked, but if we had to have it (and we probably did at some point) I'm so glad it wasn't about Robert having feelings for someone else and all about his overwhelming love for Aaron, but how can we move on and forget about it when Robron (and us) are stuck with two permanent reminders of what happened? It's the baby part of the storyline that has never made sense to me and still doesn't. Where are they going with it?

Well I think we can move on because Robron have moved on. In theory anyway. I get that that doesn’t work for everyone. But Aaron has moved on. He’s accepted Seb into his life and he’s expressed that he’s happy. As for Rebecca, she’s not a threat to them anymore and while her scenes may still annoy us because the writing for her is still sometimes awful, she’s just sort of there. I don’t know, neither one of them bother me anymore because I just let all of it go because I didn’t personally want to be miserable anymore. I can’t tell you how to feel about it anon. That’s just what worked for me and it’s made everything a lot better. I mean, I still sometimes think too hard about where they’re going with things and Rebecca’s story/character still drives me mad but, I’m trying just to go with the flow. 

With regards to the baby part of the storyline, I obviously don’t know what was going through the minds of the storyliners when they came up with this, but I feel like they didn’t start from a standpoint of ‘how do we give robron a baby?’ and go from there. I feel like it was more that a baby as a plot device, ticked a lot of plot boxes for them and a convenient little byproduct of it was that there would in fact be a baby at the end. I don’t think they put enough forethought into the far reaching ramifications of that and reaction to that, but well, we are where we are now. 

Plot Box #1 - The baby was a permanent consequence of Robert’s actionsThe baby’s existence forced Robert to confront his mistake more than I think he usually might have. He doesn’t usually suffer such long term consequences for his actions, which is why he keeps making the same mistakes. The baby was out of his control and I think it scared the hell out of him, but it didn’t let him erase what he had done. 

Plot Box #2 - The baby was a catalyst for the break upWhen Robron got back together the first time, they had so many issues that they never dealt with, their communications issues being chief among them. I remember screaming at the screen during the Chill Era for them to just sit down and have a proper conversation. They never really did. The existence of the baby completely broke their communication down to nothing, thereby highlighting it but also highlighting their codependency and Aaron knew he needed to have a break to work on himself without having to worry about how it would effect Robert and their relationship. 

The moment Robert found out that the baby was actually going to be a permanent reality, he shut down. He couldn’t talk about it. I think in the early days, he was conflicted about it. I think he did maybe want to be a dad but it scared him but he was more terrified of what it would do to his relationship because one of the conditions to Aaron forgiving him for the ons was that the baby wasn’t going to be a part of their future. So Robert just decided he wanted nothing to do with the baby because he thought that’s what Aaron really wanted and he didn’t want to hurt Aaron or lose him. Aaron on the other hand, was trying to be supportive because he didn’t want to risk losing Robert. At the same time, I think he knew that Robert felt more than what he was letting on and that lack of honesty drove him crazy. He just didn’t know where Robert really stood on the issue so then he didn’t know where he stood with Robert but he didn’t want to voice all of this to him because he didn’t want to rock the boat so he internalized it. I think the breakdown in communication, which probably led to Aaron feeling like he had a lack of support for the other stuff he was going through (prison trauma and gordon stuff) because he didn’t want to bring that up so he wasn’t a burden, is what led to the self harm. And the self harm plus Robert’s inability to properly deal with the baby concept plus Aaron’s anger toward that with the wrench throwing, was finally Aaron’s wake up call that they needed a break. And they did need that break, both of them, to figure out how to be better, healthier people on their own before they got back together. And they did both get there in the end. Even if it took Robert a lot longer to get there than Aaron. 

Plot Box #3 - The baby was a tie to the WhitesThe biggest problem in the Hell Plot for me was always the fact that they wanted to involve Robert in the Whites’ exit. It never worked for me. They had to drag it out so long because of the pregnancy and they just had him do too many insane things (robrence for one). But those feelings aside, the baby was key to Robert scoring a place back in that family so he could try and destroy it. Without the baby, they had no reason to trust him again and so he wouldn’t have been able to fulfill his plotly duties and steer them toward their exit. (Of course I think their exit would have been way better if it had focused on Lachlan and his descent into darkness but whatever…we are where we are now)

Plot Box #4 - The baby was a catalyst for Robert changingRobert’s scheming was getting way out of control but the moment the baby was born, it gave him a reason to stop. Now, I mean, I hate this part because this was what ruined Seb (besides his name) for me for a good long while. There was just too much of an abrupt change between Robert nearly willing to sleep with Lawrence to keep up his scheming and Robert stopping his manipulation altogether to become super robot dad for a week before he lost access. That one week just did nothing for me and made me resent the little guy even more because none of it felt believable and because none of it felt believable, Robert’s insistence on getting him back felt really emotionally empty for me. That’s why the scenes of Robert struggling a bit after the crash really helped me a whole lot with Seb as a concept. The baby also was just a catalyst for Robert to become a better person, besides just a reason to stop the scheming with the Whites. They tied it into Aaron with having him tell Robert multiple times that he needed to step up for his son. That along with the Christmas coma and realizing he needed to let Aaron go were what really allowed Robert to finally become this better, healthier version of himself. 

Plot Box #5 - The baby was a catalyst for the Whites’ exitThe baby may have stopped Robert scheming to start his transition into being a better human but his arrival also kicked off the period of time where all of Robert’s schemes were discovered. Seb put Lachlan on edge even more, which led to the attic and Seb being taken by Gerry, which led to Rebecca telling the rest of her family about the fraud, which snowballed into the rest of Robert’s schemes coming out. This led to Rebecca feeling like she needed to get away with Seb and go to the other side of the world to get away from Robert, which of course led to the double kidnapping and ultimately the opportunity for Lachlan to cause the crash. Seb is very powerful. Haha

Plot Box #6 - The baby ultimately steered Robron toward their reunionAaron and Robert hadn’t spoken in like two months before Seb was born but then all of a sudden they were sharing scenes again. Aaron was talking Robert into staying to step up for his son and having little chats with him around the village even if it did still seem a little bit painful for him. Then once super robot dad week was over and Robert was on a mission to get access to his son back, Aaron was there to be a support for him. After the crash, Aaron was there again to give Robert more motivation to be there for Seb since he was all he had at the moment. Then of course we had the start of the two reunion weeks where Aaron finally holds Seb for the first time and I guess sees that he’s not so bad. This leads to the babysitting, which leads to frustrated Alex, which leads to Valentine’s Day and Aaron again being a support to Robert about Seb stuff. And then obviously Valentine’s Day reawakens all of the feelings and led them to reuniting the following week, with Aaron fully on board to take on Seb. (Sure it may not have been the transition of feelings on screen we may have all hoped for but it’s sort of there if you look hard enough and again, we are where we are now and he’s happy)

And in the end, at least for the moment, yes, Robron have a baby and if you’re not thinking about all of the sociopolitical ramifications of that, you probably think, aww well that’s nice. Haha. I don’t know. I’m not really sure what they were thinking about in terms of the end result with a baby, partly because I guess we’re not at the end of that story yet. For the moment, I think it is what it is. They have a kid and everyone seems to be embracing that what with the Dingle scenes yesterday. 

For sure, unless there’s some magical solution to this that they’re going to pull out in the end (which I doubt), I think they didn’t think hard enough about the future ramifications of this story and the reaction it would get, because from a Plot standpoint, a baby was going to work hard and do everything they needed it to do. I just don’t think they expected people to be as upset as some people are. And I don’t know what to say to those people who are still upset and bitter about the whole thing because I respect their principles and the issues they have with it, but again, for me, I just didn’t want to be angry and bitter about it anymore so I’ve tried really hard to let it go. Who knows how I’ll feel once we get whatever conclusion we’re going to get with the Lachlan/Rebecca stuff, but for now, I’m just letting myself enjoy what we’re getting. 

[mittensmorgul]

Do you know of any instances in canon history where Dean's intuition has turned out to be wrong in a major way? Because it seems like we're going to start to see some answers to the "he was brainwashed" question since Jack flapped off and Dean still doesn't trust him.

Hrrrrm. This is a really difficult question, because like the Winchester Hunting Mindset, it’s not this black and white.

Like obviously of course he has and hasn’t, but extenuating circumstances. Context matters. Shades of grey, etc. etc.

Even all during s6 he fought against what his intuition was telling him about Cas, because he so wanted to believe in Cas. I mean, that’s a huge part of why he couldn’t forgive himself, or get over what Cas had done even by 7.17. He blamed himself for not pushing harder for answers, or maybe even for taking that whole year off with Lisa and trying to play normal

But aside from emotional overriding of what he’s got that bad feeling about, I can’t think of a single instance of his intuition being flat-out wrong.

Even in smaller ways, he’s typically right about the case stuff and Sam’s the doubter, but you specifically asked for if he’s been wrong in “a major way,” so I’m going to try and focus on The Big Issues. But again, the only instance I can think of right off the top of my head where he was stubbornly and blatantly wrong about a case was in 12.04– when he was absolutely convinced it was the social services lady who was a witch. Again, waves hello at Davy Perez, for absolutely nailing Dean’s immediate personal trauma and underscoring so many of his personal issues involving Mary’s fresh abandonment, his lifetime of likely run-ins with Family Services and well-meaning social workers, his parentification of Sam, his problematic relationship with John and the responsibility to hide the truth about their lives and protect Sam at all costs… which played right into the case they were working and colored his personal reactions. But again, extenuating circumstances…

Because of his personal issues with Mary and abandonment and the fact the social worker was openly admittedly a witch. Dean also got a very different impression of the family than Sam did (literally, he only had half the information to make his judgment on). He saw the father and son, the “happy families” side of the story where everything was presented to be done by their own choice, for positive family-bonding reasons in the wake of a personal tragedy. Meanwhile, Sam was in the house getting the skeevy third-person retelling of a first-person story by the mother, making it clear to us, who saw both sides of the story, that something was Definitely Fishy in that house. Meanwhile, all Dean could see after that encounter was that Sam had a bizarrely antagonistic reaction to a conversation he could only assume was nearly identical to the one he’d had outside.

This stark division, the reminder that they’d both had an entirely different experience in their respective interviews and thus come away with entirely different theories about the case, is highlighted as soon as they leave. Rather than sharing the reasons for their vastly different impressions and trying to figure out WHY they were given two entirely different impressions of this family, they each stubbornly stick to their guns. That was the entire POINT of this episode, on a meta level. And this lack of communication and understanding of the other’s entirely different experience and viewpoint and insight, Sam’s entirely unprepared for the entire family to be “in on the secret” and Dean’s bowled over to discover the social worker was nothing like she’d appeared to be on the surface.

And as soon as he saw the other side of the story, he instantly figured it out

So that’s the one glaring exception to Dean’s instinct, and it essentially works as an “exception that proves the rule,” because of the meta nature of the reasons he was “wrong” about the social worker.

That brings me to Dean’s role in the overarching narrative of the entire series. He’s the emotional POV for the audience. We’re supposed to ride along with him and even when he’s wrong he’s right. I know this bothers some people, and for some this is a major reason that they just don’t like Dean as a character. But most of the time, he’s the barometer for how the audience is supposed to react and feel and interpret the entire narrative.

We know Dean lies professionally, and is therefore an unreliable narrator, but we’re also given to understand that we’re still supposed to be “on his side” because he’s our emotional POV.

Whether he’s 100% right about Jack puppeting Cas or not doesn’t matter to me, so much as Dean’s reading of it being presented as the correct reading. Whether Jack meant to or not or whatever… (and we have ample evidence that most of what happens with his power is not something he does consciously, but that doesn’t mean he’s not subconsciously doing this stuff anyway), Dean’s read was the presented “main” reading and the events seemed to match it.

But I would argue Dean’s less right than 100%, but not more than 50% wrong. (the 50% being powers vs Jack himself doing it, i.e. the bit he’s partly “wrong” about is his assumption of any sort of intent on Jack’s behalf) and there will be a REASON he is wrong if he is which would necessarily justify his reading.

The fact that DEAN believed in the sock-puppeting, and the fact that JACK believes that it was a possibility, is what’s led directly to Jack’s current dilemma

Now that Cas is back, and he and Dean can finally (as he said in 12.23) “work through our crap,” theoretically he’ll be able to talk with Cas about all of that and try to understand Cas’s motives between 12.19 and 12.23. Unfortunately, Cas is also not objectively placed to talk about it, since it happened TO him and his emotional attachment to Jack /now/ is again a separate thing.

I fully believe he would have formed those same bonds with Kelly and unborn Jack in BETTER circumstances. Even if he’d gone back to the bunker with Sam and Dean as he’d already consented to do before the events at the sandbox. Arguably, it would’ve been a much safer and secure place for Jack to have been born, and for Dean and Sam to have come to understand the larger circumstances at play here.

As it is, Jack or his powers just made it happen for sure. Because of Dean’s stated concern that Cas wasn’t under his own control there, it renders anything Cas would have to say about it moot, because we can’t trust his objectivity. Because of Dean’s stated pov opinion on it.

Cas’s innate goodness and kindness vs his issues with protecting people/being a guardian angel/wanting a win all would lead him to care for Jack, and to feel responsible for caring for Jack, even if Jack’s powers hadn’t become a mitigating factor. I mean that’s why Kelly “picked him” to be Jack’s guardian in the first place. She (or Jack’s power) could plainly see Cas’s “goodness” in direct contrast to Dagon’s “badness.” He was even wavering about his orders to kill Kelly and Jack a few times IN 12x19, but he got pushed over the edge hard. This was not a gentle nudge or a moment of genuine character realization.

In the span of one glowy-golden-eyed sock puppeting (and that part is NOT up for debate, Jack’s power literally took Cas’s hand and used him to destroy Dagon), he went from “Jack must die and go to heaven before he’s born” to “Jack must be born with all his power at all costs” with no logic in between. We didn’t see his process on screen, and "he’s powerful enough to make me zap a knight of hell" is not good enough reasoning.

This was arguably the first instance of Jack’s power trying to do something good (killing Dagon) while having drastically unanticipated consequences (Joshua’s death, Dean being injured, the Colt being destroyed, and Cas abandoning his stated mission to take Kelly to Heaven so that Jack could be born with all his power). His power had already resurrected Kelly and thereby saved Jack, and that had caused cosmic alarm bells to ring in Heaven, providing the homing beacon Kelvin used to locate Kelly in the first place.

If anything it should be more concerning that he has that much power before he’s ever born. That firmly demonstrated his self-defensive instinct that we’ve seen trigger his power repeatedly since he’s been born.

After his power ~does the thing~ he doesn’t even seem to understand that he’d done anything. Like waking Cas up in the empty. Or the fact that his power resurrected Kelly when she’d killed herself, and yet he has no concept that he probably could’ve resurrected the guard he’d accidentally killed in 13.06 in the same way. Jack still is in a stage where he has to WANT to do things and I think understanding the guard is dead was too final to realize he COULD bring him back.

He seems to just ~do stuff~ with his power, not realizing it, and then later once he realizes he CAN, he attempts to do it deliberately– like the whole “throw people around” thing he seems to have perfected so he can do it without killing the rest of TFW at the end of the episode. I mean, the previous time he’d pulled that trick led to the circumstances he was terrified would happen ~without him intending harm~ but being unable to stop it from happening anyway. And yet he still did the Force Throw thing.

Then again, his INTENT when he was throwing that power at Dave the Ghoul was to kill/maim/injure… but he clearly has a lower setting on it and wasn’t afraid to use it on Sam, Dean, and Cas before flapping off, immediately after stating his reasoning for leaving being his desire NOT to hurt them…

He’s so highly conflicted about his OWN relationship with his powers that HE HIMSELF thinks of them as a tool and not inherently a part of himself. Right now his powers are literally acting like the man behind the curtain, and everything Dean’s witnessed with his own eyes has confirmed his initial impression that Jack’s powers are Not Trustworthy.

Over the course of the first six episodes of the season, Dean’s gotten to know Jack //the human person// outside of his powers, and seen what he was struggling with, his self-loathing and self-doubt and fear and confusion, and knowing that Jack’s powers may have set up the circumstances that led to Cas dying but also led directly to Cas coming back… well, that proved Jack’s intent was good, but still doesn’t clear up the whole “my power does what it wants and damn the consequences” issue that brought them to this point in the first place.

It’s rather a moot point if it ever really had been true or not before 13.04, but Dean’s BELIEF that it was true influenced Jack’s belief about whether or not it was true, which led directly to Jack “calling out” for Cas in the Empty… sort of proving the mechanism by which his power acts without his conscious control, and extends a TERRIFYING amount of influence into realms were even God has no power to act. And he does it all without it even registering to him. So in that respect, yeah, Dean’s 100% right.

He’s right because that’s the function of his POV within the narrative itself. And again, I know that has the potential to piss people off, and it’s kind of a hard fact to swallow sometimes, but unless the narrative explicitly proves Dean’s intuition wrong, we’re supposed to trust Dean’s assertions. And so far I’ve seen nothing to contradict this one.

[sagebodisattva]

Epistemological Solipsism

So much of the externalization conditioning, and any kind of conditioning really, is set in place by erroneous assumptions. We overlook this, as, early on in existence, in the more immature stages of our egoic development, without consciously knowing it, we establish dubious premises that quickly solidify into foundational beliefs that shape our entire view of reality. And if these types of shoe'd in assumptions manage to put down roots on firm grounds, which they almost always do, they will be almost impossible to undo. And so imagine the type of quandary this presents when the kinds of assumptions that one has accepted, hence becoming the potential bedrock of a belief system without any pensive review, are actually false or faulty! This is the beginning of mental slavery, as any false assumption about existence will necessarily have you assigning power to something you are imagining to be outside of yourself... or perhaps to something you are APART of, or are a byproduct of... as the case may be... but in each and every case, it is voluntary self disempowerment... and whether it was willful, innocuous, unconscious, or deceptively introduced, matters not. What matters now is that you are anchored to a false position, that becomes the trap to which you remain tethered, which will thereby direct assignments of power to illusions, based on the default designs of this organizational arrangement.

This is important to understand, as so much of mental illness, or spiritual sickness if you will, relies on sustaining ignorance of the truth. But it's totally up to you if you want to break free from the false programming. And this doesn't mean a conversion to an alternative programming. This means a liberation from all programmings, and standing in the light of the truth, which needs no support, needs no selling points, needs no shuck n' jive, nor song and dance. The truth always speaks for itself, while the lie requires contrived narrative. And this is exactly why false existential assumptions are deceptively introduced into your qualitative being; because despite what most of us would like to believe, there's no way to really force delusion on anyone. Yeah, maybe you think you could try to torture someone into accepting it, but any such acceptance wouldn't be authentic, as anyone would pretend to accept anything just to stop the torture. One does not hold what is not held in the heart. Or maybe you think you could force it into a mind through coercive re-education or brainwashing, but a truly strong mind can never be forced into delusion. If the mind relents, it's due to it's own immature strength and the natural tendency to compromise as an easy way out.

And sometimes we hear about other such things, like harsh physical circumstances having the ability to break a spirit, but I think stoicism has pretty much demonstrated this to be a fallacy. Oh, am I saying this only because I haven't suffered to the proper degree? Or, did you just give up and are now cynically guising that failure beneath a sneering justification? No. The only way a conditioning can successfully infect a consciousness is by invitation, compromise or unchecked deceptive infiltration, all of which gain access through avenues of permission. The fact that that they are granted entry with permission is exactly why the programming is so grueling to unseat. A belief forced on someone will not long be held. A belief willingly embraced by someone, unconsciously or not, will be defended to often extreme limits. And it's not too hard to figure out why, as the conditioning has become a best friend. The conditioning provides security and comfort to a contrived identity that seeks normalcy, familiarity, predictability and routine; all of which combine to form a malaise of deprivation, lethargy, and boredom. A sitting duck, aptly primed to be stalked by death itself.

So this is why there is so much circumvention of solipsism, a so called philosophy that's implications could be called to be in accord with the truth; because if you ever figure your way out of the externalization conditioning, you will inevitably attain power of mind, and then less power will be assigned to the illusions, and if that happens, you will become difficult to control. Hence why "they" must do every thing they can to stop you.

So this brings us upon the subject of epistemological solipsism. What is epistemological solipsism? Epistemological solipsism is the variety of idealism according to which only the directly accessible mental contents of the solipsistic philosopher can be known. The existence of an external world is regarded as an unresolvable question rather than actually false.

And so, this is why I don't consider epistemological solipsism to be all that useful of an application. It's kinda like solipsism lite; with light being spelled "L I T E", clarified as such so as to invoke the correct tone of connotation. Of course, as usual, we note that epistemological solipsism is touted as a variety of idealism, which frames the entire consideration as unrealistic, ie: existing only in the imagination; desirable or perfect, but not likely to become a reality; which thereby downgrades the significance of the truth that only directly accessible mental contents of a solipsistic philosopher can be known. As if there was some other way for knowns to be accessed by a philosopher. Whether knowledge is acquired directly, indirectly, empirically, or dogmatically, matters not, as any possible synthesis or transference of knowledge is only going to be through a mental medium.

But then comes the funny part: The existence of an external world is regarded as an unresolvable question rather than actually false. Hmmmm. Might this position be more aptly called agnostic solipsism? I guess this position is one more interested in upholding the integrity of intellectual honesty rather then standing in the light of the existential truth. It's an interesting position to be sure, as it teeters on the fence of the truth, afraid to fully commit because it knows it can't prove the truth by the rules that the externalization conditioning demands, and yet, oddly, still seeks to placate and pander to it somewhat, by upholding it's standards. It's obvious from this, that the epistemological solipsist has a lot more work to be done nihilistically, and might prove to benefit from some psycho-nautical exploration, or deep meditation.

And so, by this epistemological standard, which is actually less solipsistic due to it's externalization mindset of an extrinsically existing universe who's qualities can only be known through a set of separated sense organs, epistemological solipsists claim that realism requires the question:

“Assuming that there is a universe independent of an agent's mind and knowable only through the agent's senses, how is the existence of this independent universe to be scientifically studied?"

Well, that's the thing. Sure it's a required question for realism, but it's also an equally required question for the epistemological solipsist, who probably never thought to answer it himself. What is the alternative to knowledge based on the interpretations of the five senses? As a solipsist, the answer should be clear, but let us not forget that what we are dealing with is, not so much a solipsist, but rather, an externalist who's merely conceded that anything known about the universe is confined to sensory data. Despite admitting the purely mental nature of existence, they are not yet ready to go as far as admitting the universe is completely imaginary and that reality is a production of the mind. And so, here we find it: the epistemological solipsist's willingness to take on the false existential assumption, while afraid to commit to implications of the truth of his own position, in order to satisfy the dictates of physical science, which is completely constructed upon the externalization conditioning. It seems the only thing epistemological solipsism wants to clarify is that objectivity requires an assumption; and as long as this point is understood, it's completely willing to concedes to the outlines of the physical model of existence. But why? If it's false then why take on such a assumption at all? Yeah, I know people don't wanna let go of their ideological attachments. People don't want to let go of old physical science, in the same way they don't want to let go of religion.

“Oh Sage, they are not the same thing!”

Yeah Charlie. That isn't the point, and not what I was saying anyway. Science may have a bit more credibility then religion, as it does seek to build knowledge on observable phenomena, but it still falls short, as it is founded on a false premise about reality that simply isn't true. The false premise that calls itself, "realism". Isn't that some shit? Realism and idealism are both supposedly philosophical concepts equally up for debate, yet mind independent reality gets the title of realism, why mind dependent reality gets the title of idealism. Hmmmm. Doesn't it seem that someone wants to slant the favor towards realism? Doesn't it seem that by these types of classifications, one position is being assigned a handicap while the other is assigned a disadvantage? One should wonder why this is.

So it seems that epistemological solipsism doesn't want to posit anything about what so obviously exists firsthand, and instead only wants to concern itself with the claims of knowledge within the illusion. Like a persona in a dream who doesn't want to concern itself with lucidity, but instead wants to make sure that it's clarified with the other personas that any knowledge in the reality is only applicable to the context of the sense perceptions of a subject. That's nice, and while it does stick one toe into the waters of solipsism, it doesn't hardly go deep enough into the truth. And that's because, in the grand scheme, knowledge is irrelevant to the nature of reality, and to uncover and become intimate with the nature of reality, doesn't involve learning, study or the acquisition of knowledge, which I know for many of you, presents an impasse that cannot be breached. Hence, the reason for the advent of epistemological solipsism: for those willing to explore only so far as it relates to what can be argued in conjunction to claimed knowledge and the mind of a subject.

So the utility of epistemological solipsism seems to support the maintenance of a general non-committal skepticism that asserts that truth is only that which can be be known directly through the five senses. Other then shattering the usually unchallenged authoritative assumptions of contemporary philosophical realism, what epistemological solipsism achieves is questionable. It isn't conducive towards lucidity, so what function does it serve within delusion? Perhaps merely to make for a more interesting offering of skeptical doubt to an argument made in philosophical discourse? Perhaps.

For, isn't that always the MO of a skeptic? Not so much to present an argument, but rather to just throw wrenches in existing arguments, and perhaps ridicule them for the sake of entertainment? But I dig the rigors that this places on the externalist. It certainly narrows the borders of what a realist can argue as knowledge. Which brings us many intriguing novelty considerations, such as when the epistemological solipsist asserts a classic argument typical for the position, such as: if a person sets up a camera to photograph the moon when he is not looking at it, then at best he can determine that there is an image of the moon in the camera when he eventually looks at it. Logically, this does not assure that the moon itself (or even the camera) existed at the time the photograph is supposed to have been taken. To establish that it is an image of an independent moon requires many other assumptions that amount to begging the question, which means to assume the conclusion of an argument—a type of circular reasoning, which is an informal fallacy, in which an arguer includes the conclusion to be proven within a premise of the argument, often in an indirect way such that its presence within the premise is hidden or at least not easily apparent.

This really puts the realist in a tight spot, as it also puts the burden of proof on the realist to show how aspects of reality are ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, perceptions, linguistic practices, and beliefs, of which, might not even be possible to demonstrate. Yet, when all is said and done, epistemological solipsism doesn't really go as far as it should, and suspends any assertions that awareness is the primary foundation. So, as it stands, it is merely a position that imposes a standard upon what can be accepted as truth within knowledge.

As for answering the question of, if a philosopher can only truly know the aspects of his own mind, then how should a philosopher go about studying the universe, it loses it way, for it would rather assume objectivity in the name of science with a stricter standard rather then follow the implications of the position and discover the accurate premise; which reveals that there really is no universe "out there" to assume exists objectively in the first place. Lucidity, or awareness of the dream, is revealed through focusing on the source of attention, not through the examination of dream details.