#it's true i exist here and it's not linear

[faggotryandtransjesterism]

the ds9 pilot is insane. they went into the writer's room and decided the introduction to this series needed to be a long form exploration of the nature of grief

[anthropwashere]

She pestered an aunt I don't think I've seen in over 20 years to text me to confirm I received these Crucial Amazon Pajamas, amazing

Was briefly baffled by a package I didn't order appearing today and had my suspicions, but blocked voicemails from Mom confirm she bought me pajamas? I'd have preferred if she used that money to pay back whoever she owes most recently. But. Well. She sent 'em.

Honestly Amazon pajamas are a huge step up from the last gift she sent me like 5 years ago that had me genuinely freaked out wondering who the fuck was anonymously sending me soft pornography

[piratefern]

that's was Long and great explanation you can actually wrote a wattpad book of it! And I actually like the storyline it's really great and really felt bad for scp 049 :( honestly it was too much for poor birdie TvT

And yea why bother! I will like to read scp 035 one too ☆(≧∀≦*)ﾉ Thanks for taking my questions ( ˘ ³˘)♥

YIIPPEEEEE, thankyou so much :’D

alright with dyo, we’ll need some context too, in the sense that you will need to be aware of the original lore for Alagadda so id recommend reading the wiki if you haven’t already)

(Another note is that my version of Alagadda’s time doesn’t work linearly, so in this sense, it is entirely possible to enter alagadda during any time it exists, and exit to earth in a different era than when you left. It explains how the culture is affected by different eras in time, and this will be also important narratively!)

(He is originally from Alagadda as per the usual lore, except in my au he wasn’t banished to earth, and instead took refuge there, fleeing execution from the ambassador and other lords.)

In my au, dyo has a toxic sibling relationship with the other lords, ontop of this he’s also the shortest and the runtiest of the few and so was picked on, which lines him up to becoming the hanged king’s favourite as he was the easiest to manipulate.

Originally working as the jester for his king he is killed by a peasant uprising (as per the original lore) and is brought back to life three days later, offering his king a cup filled with the blood of his enemies gifted by the brothers death.

The lore follows the original story line from here in which he invites a bird like doctor to the palace to cure him of his influence of the hanged king (remember how time in alagadda isn’t linear? Yep, thats hasel! He finds a broken passage to alagadda after the point in which he has left dyo and just before the foundation finds him. He researches it and fixes it, hoping to find the “cure” for the vine on the other side)

Hasel doesn’t recognise dyo’s old form as the black lord and dyo at this point is yet to even meet hasel, and so neither of the two realise that they were intwined from the beginning.

after being cured by hasel and attempting to fight the influence of the hanged king, his execution is plotted against him by the other lords and the ambassador, and so, he escapes to earth.

yet, in my au the lords and the ambassador are still after dyo, but are unaware of his ware-abouts, Dyo destroys the portal which in turn wipes his entire memory, hoping that it will never be rebuilt again.

But didn’t hasel rebuild the portal? Uh oh! He did! Meaning he had unintentionally both freed and doomed his lover. Not only that, but the foundation had been tracking the signal that the portal had been omitting, causing the capture of both the portal and hasel! And, of course, the foundation would absolutely never destroy it!

On another note, sometimes memories of Alagadda will seep through the cracks, instances from the past that dyo forged reflect memories from his childhood and experiences in Alagadda.

Dyo landed in ancient Greece, and genuinely believes he is from there. He believes that he was a balatro (roman jester) for the king, and was fused to his mask by the ancient Greek gods as a punishment for stealing the golden wreath from the king of Rome.

However, it is evident that this story isn’t true, at the time Rome had a consul system not a king, and despite the fact Rome had capitulated Greece they didn’t share the same gods despite their similarities.

He makes his way through life, but aware of his immortality he drowns himself in alcohol and lavish parties. He doesn’t get close to anyone as he knows that they will one day die and that he will not, causing him to build bad behaviours, appear overtly cocky and confident, a tendency to avoid rejection as a side effect and a need to convince himself that everything is alright.

So! Imagine dyo, an immortal being, avoiding close relationships with anyone he meets and putting up a persona to avoid anyone liking him, finding another immortal being!I

He grows incredibly attached to hasel, for the first time in almost two millennia he doesn’t have to be alone anymore, he can finally learn how to open himself up and build on his issues and break down his persona.

But this causes abandonment and attachment issues, so you can imagine how he must have reacted when hasel leaves!

He can’t handle this, and embarks on a journey to find him again, this journey spanning over a century from WW1 to present day, in which he is also captured by the foundation and placed in the same facility as hasel… and the portal!

They are given their numbered codes 035 and 049, but with dyo being so close to the fixed portal he gradually begins to remember his past…

So yeah thats all im up to so far :3

i haven’t written anything past the foundation and the portal plot, but technically in the original draft i made with my partner a couple years back they escape with the help of Laurence (106). They learn to mend their broken relationship and also learn how to get along with laurence despite his creepiness, but that part is all old stuff so i might rewrite it. But the fact hasel leaves at WW1 was important, as this is around the time Laurence becomes anomalous, so it ties their stories in too :3

[justajsworkshop]

k, so i've been ruminating on the levels of creation today, primarily the first two and how this impacts how i affirm/imagine.

at the very top, we have the father: the great I AM, the divine mind, the void, source, etc. whatever label you want to use for it. this is pure is-ness: it just is. it's ultimate reality. it's all moments, all possibilities, all things superimposed over each other—everything everywhere all at one. it's existence itself, total unified fulfillment, perfect and unchanging. this is what we mean by "creation is finished." everything already exists but only in pure potential.

the only way for god to know itself as god is for god to become aware of itself and boom: we have the first manifestation of ultimate reality, the son of god, your I AM awareness. this is the second level of creation. the great I AM just is, whereas your I AM awareness is aware that it is. because in order for awareness to exist, it must be aware of something, and your I AM awareness is aware of being. it's pure beingness.

there is only one moment, one thought, one being—the great I AM—that we are experiencing from infinite vantage points. the passing of time, moving through physical reality, my fingers typing away on this keyboard, they're are all shifts in awareness to create the illusion of a linear horizontal experience within ultimate reality: it's the appearance of change in the changeless.

and the more i contemplate on this, the more i realize, understand, and accept that we've already been given everything. the kingdom is ours because we are one with the father; we are one with ultimate reality that is already all things, all moments, all possibilities. but again, these all only exist in pure potential until we choose what to call forth into our awareness, and we get to shift our awareness through this one moment in infinite different ways.

it's our free will to choose or not choose a certain experience for ourselves from the infinite menu that is god: all things, all possibilities, all potentials. not only does god always say yes to everything, but god already said yes to everything by giving you all that it is. this is why in the parable of the prodigal son, the father says, "son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours."

your I AM awareness cannot be separated from the greater "I". this is the paradoxical nature of awareness jesus referred to by saying "the father and i are one" but "the father is greater than i."

when you're saying it's already done, it's already yours, it's already true, you're not lying or stating anything untrue or unreal. that reality/moment where your desire is fulfilled already exists, and by affirming/imagining—i.e., choosing—you're putting your awareness on this fulfilled state and declaring it as yours.

in my personal experience of conscious creation, i have never manifested faster and easier when i drop all trying. the more effort i put into manifesting, the more i separate myself from what's already mine because i'm implying that there is a process or performance that must be accomplished for manifestation to take place.

and this is when manifesting feels hard and difficult to me. obviously i am desperate for immediate results because i want a reward for all the work i put into it. but what i'm doing is asking god to commend me for all my hard work when my excess effort actually boasts a lack of faith in what's already mine.

manifesting is simply being aware of your desire, and all we are is awareness. it's suppose to be effortless because it is effortless since fulfillment just is.

now when i affirm, i am affirming with the assumption that it's already been given to me (because it has), and that god has already said yes (because it has). i affirm without concern for conditions, time, appearances, or really anything to do with the physical experience because the physical experience and i are one just as i am one with the father.

it's all just one being here, and that being is you. i recognize that the physical is just the tiniest possible slice of ultimate reality and that all other possibilities are mine in an instant because it's all happening at the same time anyway. by affirming/imagining, i'm calling forth my desired experience and claiming it as mine.

repetition doesn't manifest: awareness does. and when i repeat affirmations, it's only to remind myself of what is already so, so i may keep my awareness on my desired end even when the physical limited self is trying to tell me otherwise. i let that physical self be as they are. i let them fear, i let them doubt, i let them exist without trying to change them, but while also maintaining a greater awareness and understanding that i am more than what my physical organs perceive, and what they do perceive is one of limitless possibilities, all of which are available to me in an instant with a single decision.

as i posted earlier today, it's not that conditions/circumstances don't matter or that you have to ignore them. i recognize that no condition or appearance—no matter how bleak or alarming to the physical self—can possibly limit the limitless being i truly am: god.

because through god, all things are possible. through me, all wishes are granted, all paradoxes are unified, and all fulfillment just is.

there is nothing to change. there is nothing to fix. there's only your desired experience to choose. choose it over and over and over again. because we're already persisting no matter what; you might as well persist in fulfillment.

[napolonio]

Do you accept asks? It's okay you can just delete this if you don't. So I've been detaching from ego and at times I feel at peace, then the ego is triggered and I'm back to being anxious. I think I'm expecting this "special" experience to happen like this euphoric feeling, cause I know that I'm not the ego, or whatever it thinks or feels, but I guess I'm expecting the thoughts and feelings to stop completely. And they're still here. Which makes me feel like I'm not detaching correctly lol. Do you mind sharing how you were able to let go of your ego for good? Thanks!

See, I think that many of us will continue to make use of a body, concepts and live in a world of perception, so really, ego will still be there in some shape or form. What you really need to realize is that you are not it.

To understand ego is to understand time. Through life when we operate as a body, we learn concepts, we learn rules, we learn structures, and that's how ego gets shaped. It is used to navigate life. You know that if a car is driving at high speed, you should not cross the street, that's ego. You have learned social qeues so that you can interact with others, that's ego. "If ___ happens I should do ___". It's a literal program. Now, all ego knows is illusory, because it's the past, it no longer exists. You see life through the past, you aren't really in the now, so really what does ego know? How can ego be helpful in the now if it only operates based on something that does not exist?

Say you were betrayed by a friend. What does the ego do? It feels like its sense of identity has been menaced, so it has to defend itself. It internalizes this experience, it keeps the memory and uses it as its favorite accesory. Friends are fake, you're unlucky and everyone betrays you, you need to keep your defenses up. Not only are you giving yourself this identity, but also your friend, perpetuating the whole story thinking that keeping such memory alive in the now, will bring you a different future and keep you safe in the present.

You wouldn't dare forgive your friend. They deserve your cold stare and hatred. What if you thought about forgiving them? Forgiveness not in the conventional way, but in a new meaning. Forgiveness being an act of correction. What forgiveness really is, is the realization that the betrayal was illusory, it was never real, your friend is innocent. Your ego would feel so frightened by the sole idea, it will feel so vulnerable and unprotected. But you can't really stop identification with your own identity, while also keeping alive the menacing stories you have of seeming others. They're not separate from you and how you see them, directly affects you.

As long as you keep alive your labels of this world, its people, the body, you will still continue to need that ego that created this world. It will keep you bound.

The reason why I think mentioning other people is important, is because seeming others is one of the reasons ego exists. Ego sees others as an enemy. You can let them close, but not too much. As long as you keep stories of others, it will have an effect on you. You can't get rid of your own stories and keep others' alive. Because imagine again your betrayer friend, say you think you successfully "let go of your ego" and the friend comes into frame again, you still hold their story, what will happen? What you mentioned in your ask, ego gets triggered, and what does it bring back?? Correct, your identity of being an unlucky person who has fake friends.

This applies for everything you have learned about this world, society, science, objects, history, all of it. None of it is the now. Continuing to see life through those lenses, is to keep the past alive.

So, to conclude ego=past learnings. If you realize all is now, ego becomes useless. If you trust and surrender to your true nature, you can learn to live as God/imagination/consciousness, and cease the contract with the ego.

It's not linear. Personally I'm not a huge fan of trying to rush things, I enjoy patience. Which brings me to my favorite ACIM quote "infinite patience, brings immediate results".

Also, something fun that not everyone on here might be a fan of, challenge yourself to do things you don't usually do because it's soo "out of character". Say you ask for dark coffee every day, now choose the craziest drink in the menu you can think of. Say your bed sheets are always dark colored, buy a bright colored one. Do/say something that makes you cringe. Dress in a way you would never 😈. It's very funny, I do it every day lmao. Challenge your perception of self. If you feel like you can't, start by imagining it. Imagine yourself doing out of character stuff. You'll see you'll naturally stop being the character.

Disclaimer: as I mentioned at the beginning, most likely you will continue to make use of a body, therefore don't put it in situations of danger. It still has to eat (because I've seen some people asking about eating in imagination 🥴), it can't fly, don't cross the street without looking both ways. This work is mental, so don't feel the need to prove something in the "physical", that's very foolish to do, considering that you probably are still attached to the body and your concepts of it and of this world. Meaning it can be endangered if you try to defy those concepts.

[verflares]

adding onto this but i did in fact play and beat skord hd last year and it wasnt even hard like not even a little bit. i even first tried all of the minigames that made me cry from frustration when i was like 12. kind of humbling honestly

I’d be interested in hearing your apparent strong opinions on other Zelda games

i used to think skyward sword was too hard and nearly gave my wiimote bitemarks trying to pass the lumpy pumpkin harp minigame in 2011

[blindbatalex]

bruins hrpf recs from the server #5

Hello again! The theme for this week was ✨ a fic that broke your heart ✨ Below are our recs:

rec lists so far: || week 4 || week 3 || week 2 || week 1 ||

A (Little) Slice of Heaven by Anonymous || willypasta || 11,541 words || reccer's notes: this fic rewired my brain. I read it months and months and months ago and I have yet to recover. 11/10 I come back to it way more than I probably should

(and i’ve got a plane to catch) you drove me all the way back by @fvcking-damage || mcgryz || 2,862 words || reccer's notes: this is some self-indulgent mcgryz angst i wrote a couple of years ago, idk what i was writing out with this one but. yeah

and turns to dust by adjacently || Jordan Eberle/Taylor Hall || 2,130 words || reccer's notes: i can eat taylor hall angst for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

between your love and mine by @blindbatalex || willypasta || 6,360 words || reccer's notes: This is a story about trying to reconcile two sides of your identity that are at irreconcilable conflict with one another, and what having your wings clipped like that at a young age does to a person.  I certainly broke my own heart while writing it.

dancing by @rasksmoustache || marcheron || 1,111 words || reccer's notes: This fic is so vivid and visceral and sad, it permanently altered my brain chemistry.  Unrequited (but is it really?) marcheron which gets the feeling of loving someone and being just a little too late so so well

Done & Undone by @ghostgeno || marcheron || 14,428 words || reccer's notes: 2023 Game 7, the aftermath. Fair warning: I don’t reread this very often because of how effectively it puts you in Brad’s headspace immediately after the game, in brutal, excruciating detail. And yet. And yet. If you feel like being taken apart and then put back together, if you want to feel all the loss and tenderness and love that remains despite the loss, read this fic.

good at secrets by @fridgefishwrites || prefix boys; mcgryz || 4,017 words || reccer's notes: this fic meant (and means) so much to me because it just gets what trying to live your life and build something beautiful while faced with unrelenting homophobia is like.  I love the non-linear narrative and the prefix boys but it was always Matt who stole the show for me in this story

like a stranger by blindbatalex || marcheron || 13,142 words || reccer's notes: not a fic alex hasn't read before (sorry bud) but i'm Obsessed with fics where the characters talk past each other and the angst compounds and this fic is a perfect example of that, amongst other things!!!

make no apologies by @sphesphe || marcheron || 3,757 words || reccer's notes: Brad gets himself suspended before the Winter Classic and Patrice takes it harder than he thinks he should.  He plays it off as fine, things happen, just be better Marchy but it isn't true. He's angry. After the game, Brad stops by, they have a talk and lo and behold, feelings emerge! (And much more!)

Sixth Borough by bookhousegirl || Jimmy Hayes/Frank Vatrano || 3,067 words || reccer's notes: The third in a trilogy of fics featuring this pairing. This is a very quiet little vignette featuring two former Bruins who were not stars and did not end up experiencing great success in their time here. It exists entirely in the gray of adult complications and disappointments, and refuses any easy catharsis, and is beautiful for those reasons. For those of us who cared about the Bruins in the (relatively) dismal era between 2015-17 it may come across as a tiny time capsule; for everyone else, I hope the delicate way it honors the hopes and dreams of those who don’t become hometown heroes, who don’t get the happily everafter ending, stays with you.

Westward Expansion by bookhousegirl || Jimmy Hayes/Frank Vatrano || 3,625 words || reccer's notes: Jimmy stares out vacantly at the coaster climbing the track. “Just because we’re from the same place doesn’t mean we’re from the same place.” When Frank takes Jimmy to Six Flags, he expects it to be a fun day, showing Jimmy all the rides he used to love growing up. Jimmy is distracted though, melancholy because Frank has so much promise and Jimmy took so long to get to where he is.

Wolverine Feed by @sphesphe || swaymark || 10,659 words || reccer's notes: fic that makes me ill each and every time i think about it

[lionheartedmusings]

i saw a post earlier that q!tubbo is the only "moral" character even after purgatory and it's kinda kept me awake, not because i don't agree with the sentiment (i do) but because the idea of morality as intrinsically important in fandom / character analysis is fascinating to me, *especially* when we're talking about the morality of someone who's basically just spent two weeks in some eye guy's budget hunger games.

first off, while i fully agree that by the end of this q!tubbo *is* a character that tried at every turn to be kind and generous even to his own detriment, how does that make him more or less "moral" than q!phil or q!fit? he still killed, the same as them. he still strategized to beat his friends, has blood on his hands — why is he marked above x, y, or z in the moral scale?

well, one could argue that he did what he did for his team, for the eggs, and because he was forced to when he was put in the game in the first place, yeah? it's not his fault he's in this position, and he's doing his best to survive it. i personally think that's totally valid and justifiable, but it leaves a huge elephant in the room.

what about everyone else?

i'm going to use q!bad as an example because he's my main pov, and before i go into this analysis i want it known i'm very much playing the devil's advocate and illustrating a point — i am not saying his actions are "good". good? good.

okay. so, q!bad. here we have a non-human father who was told by his missing child to win regardless of the cost, or whomever he had to run over. he had to win. is it immoral then for him to take that to heart and play the game the way it was presented? is it immoral for him to kill for his child, or to be determined to win even in detriment of others? to want to use the same strategies in the battlefield that everyone else would, even if they're not kind or polite?

i don't fucking know, because morality isn't linear — this situation *isn't* linear bc if people will go on the record saying they would kill for their child and are praised for it, what makes q!bad's actions in the universe he's existing in any different?

you can even say that by some perspectives, q!tubbo extending so much kindness to his competitors over and over again was at times (or could've been) detrimental to his team ergo their childrens' lives and yet he still did it. is it more moral to save children or be nice to someone else?

my point being, i feel that the morality argument while very very interesting is kind of irrelevant bc when push comes to shove, characters aren't compelling bc they have more or less morals — i genuinely think a lot of media / character consumption has *actively* been harmed by everyone's need to have the thing they enjoy be "good" or "moral" or "right" bc if it isn't, what does that say about us?

the answer to that one is: absolutely nothing, but man do i think sometimes people in fandom feel guilty if they like or prefer an immoral or grey character vs a "stereotypical" moral one.

anyway, all this to say that i think by the end of purgatory, q!tubbo is the character that was most true to himself and his values from start to finish, and it's been a great watch. is he the most morally correct? eh. who the fuck knows.

[legobiwan]

"I've heard the myths but didn't want to believe they were true. This really is THE BOOK OF BILL." "...his book has one purpose: to conjure Cipher's voice into its pages. To communicate with the Triangle...even after his death."

I have...questions...as to Ford's reported timeline here and how it relates to the events of Weirdmaggedon and Bill's eventual incarceration/forced institutionalization in the Theraprism.

We know the Theraprism exists outside of time. But if we're thinking in a linear manner from Ford's point of view, it gets a little wild. Here's Ford, who hears all these "myths" about Bill's book and how Bill would try to communicate after death. But Ford has learned about the "mythology" before Bill's death and the book wasn't written until (from Ford's point of view) after Weirdmaggedon so how could he have heard myths about it in the two-week time span between the Weirdmaggedon and the kids going back to California?

Because the word "myths" implies old stories, not some intergalactic rumor mill of two weeks ago. But the book can't be old, again, from Ford's point of view, because the events that preceded it weren't all that long ago.

I doubt Ford is using the wrong term here. He's a stickler for precise language, even if he sometimes uses that precision as a veil to obfuscate the truth and bend the narrative to his favor.

This leaves us with some interesting possibilities.

At some point, Bill told Ford about his backup plan in case things went awry and Ford's just covering for himself. I'd give this maybe a 20% chance of being true, not because I don't believe Ford is incapable of manipulating his own self-narrative at this point (he definitely is and I honestly think half the intention of his "warnings" to the reader are aimed at himself as a kind of confessional). But I don't think Bill would have given away that info to Ford, if he even entertained the idea at all that he could be "killed" in this manner.

The Oracle brought this up to Ford during his time in Dimension 52 as a warning. I give this 50/50 odds, as she used to be a Henchmaniac and is...well, an Oracle. Seeing the future, or some murky version thereof, is kind of her thing.

Timey-wimey shenanigans. I find this to be the most intriguing. As stated above, the Theraprism exists outside of time, so I guess it's possible for Bill to have created the book in past, present, and future and for its legend to have eventually made its way to Ford. Does this mean what happens in the Theraprism can affect the past, present, and future of the realities its residents (tried to) shape? If Bill succeeds in therapy, how will that change Ford's timeline, both past, present, and future? At what point in time will Bill reincarnate and in which reality? Or was this a one-off of Bill being able to shunt his book through some kind of reality portal? Or, or - if Bill escapes - not outside the realm of possibility - when exactly would he escape to? Can he create another offshoot dimension where he repeats his go at Weirdmaggedon, but learns from his mistakes? Can he do the same with Euclydia? Are there other Bills or is he it?

Anyway, there's some great fodder for AU fic ideas here (time loop fans, this one's for you), but that line's been bothering me for a few weeks now and felt the impulse to talk about it.

[viridianevergarden]

What can be a possible explanation for Azriel’s shadows dancing and singing with Gwyn? Could it be that she’s a lightsinger? What could be the implications of that? Is my boy in danger?

Hi anon! Lots of good questions that are frequently asked but I’ll throw in my two cents here:

The big question, is Gwyn a Lightsinger?

It is entirely possible. Very possible, imo. I’m almost confident.

Throughout ACOSF, SJM made it a point to note that Lightsingers are a thing in Prythian. They exist and like Shadowsingers, they are rare and may be coveted by most. However, unlike Shadowsingers, these individuals do have the abilities to lure unassuming victims.

They are described as ethereal beings that possess pretty faces, friendly faces, and yet when their unassuming victim has been entrapped, they show their true colors before execution.

Now, one thing to note, Lightsingers were only mentioned alongside Kelpies. In the bog. So whether they typically exist elsewhere is a different question. But again, entirely possible.

But moving on. This could just be a harmless ploy by SJM to deepen the lore of ACOTAR but… In this very same book, all of these strange things happen:

Nesta noting that Gwyn glows when she sings.

Nesta also describing Gwyn’s voice as being different, or sticking out from the other singers.

Nesta making it sound as if she was being lured in by the sound and entranced.

The obvious mentions of Lightsingers some time after that. (To possibly slap a label on what she is?)

Then in the BC, yet a second POV noting strange things regarding her, Azriel “could’ve sworn” that his own shadows sang in answer to Gwyn’s song as he was going down the stairwell. Almost like they were being lured back to the source of the song.

So all in all, this is the first book of the series that confirms the existence of Lightsingers. All the while, not one but two people make note on these strange things. Each and every one of them pertained only to Gwyn. No one else.

I don’t think this is a coincidence nor do I think Gwyn just glows when she sings and has this weird ability to lure someone in for nothing.

It’s like SJM is waving her hands and saying “hey! Pay attention to this!”

Which makes me think that she wanted to showcase Az and Gwyn interacting at the end of that BC as a means to further indicate that something IS off with her. And to show how Azriel’s shadows react to those types of things in his head, which they did indeed react.

Is Gwyn evil? Is Az in danger?

I think that while this BC is nothing but a teaser of what’s to come, it cannot be ignored that the end is a red herring.

Now I do NOT think Gwyn is evil. Not intentionally. I don’t even think that she is aware of her possible abilities.

The most that I can think of in terms of her playing a part in some scheme is Gwyn being an innocent puppet while her strings are pulled from somewhere else by someone else. (Koschei?)

I mean, Koschei himself said he’d been preparing for Az. What ever that means, it does not bode well and it is solid foreshadowing.

Azriel is a target for Koschei for some unknown reason.

And Gwyn would be the best unassuming character to utilize as a weapon against him because she is close enough to him to harm him. (Meaning she’s in Velaris and sees him from time to time)

So Azriel could definitely be in danger.

So to conclude, I do think Gwyn is highly likely to be a Lightsinger even if she doesn’t know it yet. Theres just too many strange things about her that two people (or rather SJM herself) have noted regarding her.

It would just be weird to make this linear string of details in one big book and then do nothing with them come the next one.

[constantlymisspelled]

Stewjon and Its Peoples

A Complete Guide to the Planet, its Peoples, and its History

[Yes, I went a little bit insane. And yes, I have more projects I should be doing. I know that full well. Here, have a 4k long extrapolation on the Stewjoni.]

The Planet;

The Planet Stewjon is an averagely sized, mostly temperate planet with two celestial moons. Its rotation cycle lasts an average of 28 hours, with just under 320 days in a standard rotation around the sun, which is named 'Itz' by the locals. The planet has three large bodies of water, each connected to the other, known as the 'Great Seas', and most of the world's population sits along the coasts of these seas. Stewjon experiences moderate seismic activity, although only along specific rings, where the cities are rarely built above three or four stories. Stewjon is located in the Core, and sits along a defunct Hyperspace Route that fell out of frequent use after the New Sith Wars ended. Stewjon has a standard gravitational pull, a breathable, arable atmosphere, and contains both lush forests, bountiful seas, and polar circles. Winter and Summer are extremes, and the planet experiences a seven-year average water cycle that creates a distinct feast and famine alternation. Winter brings snow to the areas of the Poles, and Summer brings fires to the lands that currently sit along Stewjon’s Median Line. The earth of Stewjon is rich in many semi-precious to rare metals, but less so than many Outer Rim planets. However, the true jewel of Stewjon is the planet's strange volcanically created crystals and coloured waters that were once a great tourist attraction. These crystals are believed to have been what has caused many of the unexplained phenomena of Stewjon’s long and complicated history. [Extrapolation needed]

The People;

There are multiple peoples that consider Stewjon their home world. Before occupation by the Sith, and even earlier, the interference of the Rakata Empire, it is believed that Stewjoni were once a singular race. Genetic research compiled by the Stewjoni Medical Board currently presents that Stewjoni were humanoid in shape - pre-interference - but did not have their quintessentially modern appearances of the current subclasses of Stewjoni. It is currently believed that the first few splits in the species occurred naturally, in the form of the Faedh and the Sidhe.

The Faedh – ancient ancestors to what are now called the Seraphim, or the Sephi – were similar to the so called ‘Angels of Iego’ in appearance. They were commonly tall (standing on average from six to seven feet when fully grown), with elongated features, and were thought to have glowed slightly in the dark. It is this trait that is believed to have caused them to deviate from the main Stewjoni species. It is indicated in research that not only did they have membranous wings, contrary to other Stewjoni species with furred or feathered wings, but soft antenna instead of the more common antlers. The major difference between the species has been discovered in ancient burial grounds and upon study of bones and holograph evidence. The Faedh were believed to have been what is now considered ‘Force Sensitive’ in a specifically linear way. Ancient writings from old Stewjoni archives painted a people who looked like Faedh to have been Seers, or Prophets. Much like most of Stewjon, Faedh had metallic red hair, and largely opaque, colourful eyes. They were also believed to be non-venomous, which is a possible reason for their exodus off Stewjon, and for leaving the Core worlds.

The Sidhe – who are still in existence deep within the Great Woodlands of Stewjon – were small (somewhere from two to three feet in height) and are believed to be the mostly closely related to the ancient Stewjoni genus. Much like the Faedh, they possessed wings, although typically lightly furred. There were the odd exceptions of membrane winged Sidhe, but they were often contained within a small cluster of families in the Deep Woodlands. Sidhe were often colourful, although it is believed they have begun to take the appearance of similar features to their neighbours after the attempted eradication by the Sith. Sidhe often have short little horns instead of full antlers, and usually only sets of two, to four. Sidhe are the longest naturally lived of all of Stewjon’s native species.

The Common Stewjoni (Modern) is typically human in appearance, with a couple of notable differences. Stewjoni, and those with Stewjoni blood, are often easy to medically identify, if hard to spot as a passerby. Stewjoni have two livers, to protect from Stewjon’s many toxins and hazardous wildlife. Stewjoni also have Retinal Tapetum, or reflective irises, although it is unknown why this particular trait emerged in the species. As a species, Stewjoni are often rather diasporic, with certain areas having vastly different common features than others – sea the Saphire Islands, where children will have white hair until they hit puberty, or the Nameless Lands, where many Stewjoni have blue, or even grey skin, despite no relation to Pantorans, or Chiss. One of the common attributes known by outsiders is the Stewjoni ability to, it is believed, ‘breed with anything,’ however this is not strictly true. The reproductive processes of most of the Stewjoni is typically humanoid – much like most warm-blooded species – with a few glaring exceptions. First, are the unusually specific requirements for getting a Stewjoni’s romantic attention. Then the particulars of actually successfully copulating with a Stewjoni. And then, it depends entirely on your and their subspecies whether the egg (yes, egg) is soft shelled, or hard shelled, which in turn changes both how many children will be born, how long gestation lasts for, and whether or not the child will survive infancy. The other common misconception about Stewjoni is their red hair – yes, it is now the dominant trait of Stewjon. However, this trait was specifically engineered to become exclusive by genetic tampering. Red hair was always common, except now it is almost impossible for Stewjoni to have any other hair colour thanks to this fact. It is also believed that the red of the Stewjoni never fades. This is unfortunately untrue in certain circumstances.

The Ancient Stewjoni are beyond living memory, and whilst many have theorised what they would have looked and acted like, the truth is unknown. It is believed that they were a combination of much of modern Stewjon.

Their Biology;

The physical body of most Stewjoni – even those only partially, or adjacently Stewjoni – are often similar. First, most Stewjoni are considered venomous. The venom in question is, truthfully, more of a muscle relaxant and tranquiliser than a true venom, as it very rarely kills by itself. It is believed that Stewjoni gained this ability to help them escape a predator that had pinned them, and run their own prey into exhaustion. It also assists with inter-species relations in many ways – such as being a common ground between many predator and prey species, and being largely helpful in difficult sexual relationships. It is not a true sedative, and cannot be used like the holoporns suggest, either. Stewjoni view unmitigated use as a form of harassment. A form of punishment is the surgical removal of said teeth – very rare, viewed as the worst of punishments.

Modern Stewjoni – if living off world – are required to attend a set of ceremonies during their aging. First, is their official blessing into the community at thirteen, as they believe the beginning of puberty to be a time of celebration. Second, is their seventeenth, often seen as their first forays into learning the ways of the adult warrior. And third is twenty-three, when their body is settling into its more permanent form, seen as the introduction of the person in question to the world as a true adult. Each of these ceremonies coincide with important biological events in Stewjoni life – from the age of thirteen onwards, the children will often be on watch for possible ‘threats’ and have higher than traditionally human aggression levels due to having been heavily hunted by Sith and others at this age. At seventeen, Stewjon allows children to take charge of their own affairs and begin to take steps to leave the nest of their parents, whilst still being a part of the immediate family. Most Stewjoni will become fiercely independent at this age – in their own way, which is still largely communal due to the species’ social needs. And at twenty-three, Stewjoni are often encouraged to travel their world. Once, before the Sith, the histories state that Stewjoni would travel the world and bring back stories, wisdom, and new kin. That is no longer possible under the Isolation Acts enforced by the Republic.

Stewjoni have a close biological relationship with the force. It is incredibly rare for Stewjoni to be born Null. It is also rare for Stewjoni to be particularly powerful. The average midi-chlorian count of Stewjon sits in the range of three thousand to eight thousand midi-chlorians, just under the Jedi Order’s acceptable amount. Admittance to the Jedi Order is often only allowed in the case of special abilities – such as powerful visions, or unusual talents such as disintegration. Due to this, it is often observed that Stewjoni are incredibly sociable, and empathic creatures. The community comes first to a startling degree, and it is common for entire families to spend their lives together. Children are raised communally on most levels of Stewjoni society, due to the biological prerogative of the children of the people being the highest priority. This has such an instinctual drive that most of Stewjons wars, conflicts, and laws almost always directly relate to children, their rights, and the protection of. This unfortunately means that children, left unattended around a Stewjoni out in the galaxy, have a large chance of being spirited away to Stewjon, not to return. This is rare in modern times, but still possible, and difficult to counter when up against an entire planet. (See Stewjon vs The Republic for more details.)

The red of Stewjoni hair is due to a couple of factors. It is first of all, similar to the colouration of the Twi Lek, in which certain shades and patterns travel down family and Clan lines – the blood red hair of one Clan being specifically different to the fluorescent, mildly glowing variety of their close neighbour’s being key example. It is also true that the red of a Stewjoni’s hair should be permanent for their entire life. Only stress, strife, suffering and pain should ever dull a Stewjoni’s hair. If surrounded by loved ones, it is rare for grey hair to do more than pepper a Stewjoni’s hair until the death of a partner, or a child, or other such tragedy, and it is more common for a Stewjoni to die out of grief than for them to continue living past such things. The grieving is a private affair, and many Stewjoni have refused to explain the phenomenon to outsiders, claiming that without the force, they cannot explain such things.

It is said that hair, once cut from a Stewjoni – if provided willingly – will stay as bright as the day it was given as long as the Stewjoni lives. The Jedi Temple has evidence of something suggesting this to be true in the ancient records of the Archives, describing a Master finding their padawan’s braid, coloured white after their death.

The reproductive process of the species is often instigated through external pressures – such as change in season, diet, and circumstance. Many Stewjoni will go through delayed puberty without being forced into fertility. Additionally, the idea of Stewjoni being easy lays is quite far from the truth. Many Stewjoni will take certain behaviours commonly accepted by much of the galaxy – prolonged eye contact – very differently, which causes friction between Stewjoni and their partners. Stewjoni as a species require large family groups to reduce stress and promote a sense of calm and safety. Only young Stewjoni tend to leave home alone, and even then, are often shadowed by older clan members. The adage of ‘If you see one red, there are more unseen’ is very true, and is basis for much of their interactions with the greater galaxy.

Sexual dimorphism is limited in Stewjoni, and almost invisible to outsiders. Many would claim that almost all Stewjoni seem to be the same sex, or similarly shaped, but this is often due to the necessity for their people to blend in amongst each other. Stewjoni, after much of their historical strife, are a preferred target for slavers, as they are considered exotic, and either good slaves or gladiators. Stewjoni are often confused by the question of whether they are male or female, as there is such little difference in their species between one or the other, however. There are some key things to remember. Not all Stewjoni have the appropriate organs to carry, or have children, but the vast majority – well over 80% of the populace – do, which makes the conceptualisation for the differences in gender seemingly meaningless to them. Those who are explicitly only female, or only male, make up less than 40% of the total populace, and it is believed the margin is only going to continue to decline, due to the biological interference of the Sith. It is not uncommon for only those with higher testosterone levels to have facial hair, however, this is not exclusive, or even all together common. Some sections of Stewjon only have hair on their head. Others, like the remaining Sidhe, have a light dusting of metallic fur all over their body, almost translucent. Additionally, modern Stewjoni often only show the more extreme variations of their natural colouring if they complete their coming of age on their home world. It is unknown as to why.

Their Culture;

Religion

It has been observed that Stewjon have a religious relationship with death in a way that most of the Galaxy cannot comprehend. It is often observed that Stewjoni will behave as if their loved ones aren’t dead per se, simply resting, or out of action. There is still a sense of profound grief at the loss of life, especially young, as they believe that the being in question has not yet learned all they needed to proceed to their next life. The religious worldview of the Stewjoni is very cyclical. All things are connected, running into itself like a stream, and there are festivals that celebrate the passing of time of the last rains of the year.

It has been considered a religious requirement for Stewjoni to learn to either dance or fight to appease their ancestors and their gods – to prove they are worthy of the life they have been awarded. It is also considered fair to judge another and their clan on their battle, or physical prowess. Stewjoni must have purpose within the community, even if that purpose is simply to provide company, it is treated with great respect. An example of this would be an ancient story of a warrior who broke their back, and could no longer walk, but continued to tell stories and fables to children until their dying day. They are held as a hero in folklore despite having never won a fight.

Stewjoni believe all things have soul, or life, if loved and known long enough. It has created an interesting conflict between the Stewjoni and their neighbouring planets when it comes to the introduction of droids in day-to-day life. Stewjoni don’t believe in the purchase of droids as you cannot own and purchase people in their beliefs, and due to this, despite their respectful treatment of the automatons, very few droids exist on Stewjon. Additionally, the extremes of Stewjon’s climate tends to destroy unprepared hardware. There are a multitude of religious diasporas on Stewjon, with the practices varying not just from city to city, but from clan to clan. Paint and tattoos on Stewjon have particular cultural and religious significance in certain groups.

Relationship with the force

There are many force sects on Stewjon – before their interactions with the Je’daii order, Stewjon had as many temples as there were cities, but once the fledgling republic discovered the planet and its peoples, a set of skirmishes almost wiped out the religion and force sects off the face of the planet. Fortunately, Stewjoni are first and foremost survivors, and believe in communal knowledge, and it took a Je’daii living undercover for three years to finally be allowed to enter a Stewjoni Temple.

The Modern Temples, further destroyed and tarnished by the ancient Sith battles, fall into a small select systems. The Star Temples, who predominantly teach their disciples how to interact with the great cycles of the universe. The Storm Temples, who teach their disciples to weather great pains and protect their kindred from the affect of outsider magicks. And the Summer, or Sand Temples, who teach their disciples to pull from the ebbs and flows of life and death without enforcing their will onto the world. Only the Star Temples – most specifically, the Star Temple of the Capitol of Waijoni has ever been accessed by a member of the Jedi Order.

It is believed by outsiders that Stewjoni throw away children too strong in the force. This is untrue. Stewjoni are often heavily connected in the force that binds all things, and often entire families can fall into the same nightmare or vision if an untrained Seer lives without shielding. This caused the Stewjoni obsession with Mandalorians, which will be explored in history. The inability for the children to separate from the minds of their family causes some strife, unprepared, or weaker in the force parents often place their children in care until they can come and collect them. However, stewjon is constantly in turmoil, and so children are often swapped between families by choice, by accident, or by force. There fore, to keep the more powerful seers from being poached until they can defend themselves, Stewjoni will often temporarily donate their children to Temples around the galaxy, and come to collect them when able. Other occasions, such as force related illness, can cause mass and sudden abandonment and adoptions as well. This also led to Stewjoni of ancient times racing off into the stars to chase a ‘call’ only to come back with children from around the Galaxy, often taken from unprepared parents.

This has lead to Jedi and Stewjoni being conflated together, being synonymous with ‘Child Stealers’ which is true for one, and not the other.

Whilst most on Stewjon are born with at least more than a passing Force Affinity, those without are often considered safe to send out into the galaxy under modern law, as they will often be able to resist a call from the stars. Ancient Stewjoni Force Sensitives travelled on great ships powered by something the species carefully keeps secret from outsiders, but allows the Null Stewjoni to interact with the force whilst flying said ships. The smaller ships of modern times are fast, agile, and are often spotted in patrols of no more than six, travelling around the galaxy across the ancient passages the Stewjoni People once travelled in their many Force Pilgrimages among the stars.

Language

Due to the frequency of force sensitivity and the incredible empathy of Native Stewjoni, it is believed that the Stewjoni Language only developed so that those who couldn’t sense the force, or outsiders, could communicate with them. This unfortunately means that Stewjon has all the hallmarks of being a pidgin language, and thus has very few completely rigid rules in place. One of the few common conventions is related to writing, and script, which was the basis for the words and their phrasing, however much of Stewjon’s language style was borrowed from others. Such as Ba’va meaning ‘Uncle or Auntie’ or B’ur meaning ‘Mum or Dad.’ There is even significant pidgin from the ancient Je’daii who interacted with Stewjon – such as Dai meaning ‘offworld Force practitioner,’ Je’deyir meaning ‘Outsider’ and Sythe meaning ‘enemy/monster.’

One of the most well-known names out of Stewjon is ‘Obi Wan Kenobi’ after the many historical figures from Stewjon with that name. However, it might surprise you that Obi Wan Kenobi is not a name at all, but a red herring. It was designed, after one of the worst civil wars on Stewjon’s surface, to separate unclaimed, and claimed war orphans. It was supposed to be a way for the child to know that they hadn’t been picked yet. However, outsiders construed the meaning, and took it to indicate the child was unwanted, not unable to be cared for, leaving many Stewjoni who’d been forced from the system with that name when occupied by the Republic into poverty. This of course instigated much of Stewjon’s attitude against the Republic, the Jedi, and the Galaxy. Obi Wan Kenobi means ‘no one, of no clan.’ Which is contrasted by the real meaning for exile, which is ‘Wan Bi Kitrir,’ or Undesirable Person.

It is believed the word ‘Ken,’ for clan, came from the root word for ‘kin.’ Stewjon has no name in the language of its peoples, it is simple titled True Home, or Suti’yon, which was misheard by travellers as Stewjon.

Family and society structure

The importance of family and community in Stewjoni culture has lead to some interesting dynamics not commonly seen in seemingly human species so close to the core worlds. [Unfinished]

Their History;

Early Stewjoni have been documented around the galaxy in eras that long predate the accepted comprehension of space travel. This has led to the belief that ancient Stewjoni utilised vastly different tech to the Rataka Empire long before they encroached on the galaxy. This of course means that even on planets that deny any relation to Stewjon, the quintessential metallic hair and reflective eyes can reappear thousands of generations onwards. It is believed – and perpetuated – that Ancient Stewjoni often travelled to for off worlds in some form of ancient migration or forgotten force practice.

This brings us nicely into their first specific recording. The Pantorans claim that, sometime in the era of 32 000 to 30 000 BBY, a troupe of Stewjoni were in residence to bear witness to the winter solstice festival. They were documented to have stayed a few months, danced, and sung and spoke in a strange, incomprehensible tongue, introduced their magick and technology to the people around them, shared star maps, and left for their next location.

Mandalore states that, sometime around 20 000 to 15 000 BBY, an ancient Manda’lor and another troupe of Stewjoni assisted each other in a great battle against a nameless group of mercenaries preying on the Starships used to house the population of Mandalore at that time. Historians theorise that this may be why the words for magick, force healing, and other non-jedi related variants of the skills began to appear in Mando’a at this time. It also coincides with the Dathomiri beginning to be commonly widespread around the area Mandlore will one day occupy. It is believed that sections of the magick is in some way shared between what Mandalore remembers of Ancient Stewjoni, and what Dathomir has taught them.

Recorded history of real note on Stewjon picks up a written form around the 13 000s, and sometime during this period, Stewjon begins to select a princess – a person who is actually not required by Stewjon to be female, just mistakenly titled that way by outsiders upon meeting – to be the interplanetary advisor between the rest of the Galaxy and Stewjon. Around this time, the ancient Hyper-lane between Stewjon, their nearby branch worlds that would one day be lost to the Sith Lord Nihilus, and Iego would be documented by the Republic, and fiercely defended by Stewjon in what is described as Stewjon’s first real battle on the Galactic Scale.

It is somewhere around this time that Stewjon garners the attention of the fledgling Sith Empire of the era. In 7 000 BBY, Stewjon documents a rapidly rising number of assaults on the edge of what was once ‘their space’ – which under modern laws, they no longer possess – and this caused a number of Stewjoni Warships to be scrambled to meet the assailants.

It is described by many that from 6 000 to 5 000 BBY, after centuries of subtle genetic experimentation and torture, Stewjoni began to disappear from the galaxy. The Republic still hadn’t documented them as a species – and the ancient Jedi order has lost much of the knowledge in the most recent assault on their new Coruscant Temple, and no longer had information of the Species – this meant that when Stewjoni began appearing among the Sith, often enslaved, or Fallen, the Republic simply saw them as tube made creatures from the labs of the Sith, and put them down in the same way. This caused incredible outrage from what remained of the Stewjon at the time, who started a three-way assault on the Jedi, the Republic, and the Sith. It ultimately led to the occupation of their world, and the destruction of their temples, first at the hands of the Sith Empire, and later at the hands of the unknowing Jedi order, who had no precedent for what Stewjoni should have looked like, and almost eradicated the entire species by accident.

In the centuries that followed, Stewjon became incredibly insular, and began to bar entry to outsiders due to the suffering that the Sith and the Republics attempts at eugenics had caused them, leading them to be wary of anyone not outright part of their people. Stewjon had been under Republic occupation for almost a thousand years when the Sith Empire and the Mandalorian Empire went to war with the Republic, and in this time, Stewjon broke free of control, and actively killed any and all republic citizens still in their worlds. Unfortunately, they again attracted the attention of the Sith Empire, and begun to have to fight both just to survive. In the few occasions that Mandalorians and Stewjoni met on this era of battle, it was cold, but respectful – as Mandalorians still told tales of the Stewjoni of old, and some of the more non-human Stewjoni still were prevalent in society.

Stewjon eventually offered support to the republic against the Sith on smaller, closer to coruscant battle fronts that caused the Republic to allow Stewjon to move into true isolation – left alone in the heart of the republic as a non-member world, completely self-sufficient. The Jedi were barred from entering the planet’s space after Darth Nihilis destroyed much of the nearby systems unless they were a Finder. Multiple children were given to the Jedi Order at this time, and were also brought back to Stewjon, without their Master, for their coming of age.

When the New Sith Wars began, the Stewjoni sided with the Jedi and the Republic near immediately, resulting in much of the Galaxy following suite. After them, midway through the wars, Mandalore also offered their support, which cemented the first official treaty and legally documented interaction from Stewjon and Mandalore, resulting in the suspected apprenticeship of a Force Sensitive from Mandalore in Stewjon’s modern ways. This is the era in which the Mandalorian Houses came into effect – it is believed it is mimicked off of the way Stewjoni states their Temple of Origin after their Clan name, showing their allegiance and beliefs. This is argued against by most modern Mandalorians, specifically the New Mandalorians, who believe that Houses were a step away from Mandalore and Stewjon’s shared barbaric history. Notable Clans from this time were the Asterabi, or the ‘Unflinching,’ the Kestis, or the ‘Blade/Dark Family,’ and the Yeneboro, or the ‘Many Shapes.’ It is during this war that the Republic banned all non-Jedi adjacent Force practitioners from Republic space, and with Stewjon’s new alliance, the ‘darker’ Temples on Stewjon were either hidden, emptied, or in the case of the Kestis’, who could not hide their guardianship of the Temples of the Dead, exiled. Most exiles from Stewjon for this reason were immediately given residency on many of Mandalore’s distant worlds. Unfortunately, it means modern Stewjon and modern Iego – the current location for the majority of Clan Kestis – despise the Jedi personally.

At the Ruusan Reformation, and later the Dral Haran (The Republic's assault on Mandalore in a time of peace), Stewjon, and subsequently the Stewjoni, were barred from elections and from voting. This was proven to be a wise move when the current princess of Stewjon ordered their fleet to rally against one of the supply vessels headed to attack Mandalore. Stewjon has been banned from purchasing large numbers of ships, ammunitions, and transports ever since.

Modern and Current Galactic Impact;

[Unfinished]

[Don't mind me, guys. Doing what I do best. I'll add more to this as I explore the worldbuilding in my writing, but so far, this is what I have. I'll add pictures and references eventually, and hopefully have a semi organized pidgin to explain Obi Wan's naming convention. But that is for a distant horizon.

And for non-Star Wars fans, this is not at all canon, I promise.]

[[Wow, I haven't even gotten to clothes and cuisine yet, haha.]]

[yurious-george]

4'33'', by John Cage, is commonly remembered as 4 and a half minutes of silence. But contrary to popular belief, the song is not actually meant to be the sound of silence, but the sound of quiet. Ambient noises contribute to - and consist of - the performance. True silence does not exist. If one tilts their head right, the whole world sings. and, with that said, a playlist.

yeah, this one's a doozy. hi, cubewatermelon and co. miss me?

rhetorical question. don't answer that.

A few nitty-gritty things out of the way, first. this is specifically intended for the 2018 mod team for the sleepless domain fans discord server, primarily cubewatermelon/mary cagle. Folks who knew me are welcome to look on, but I'm not going to do much to catch people up to speed. hi, everyone! hope you're well!

I also might be a bit disjointed or biased in my recollection. For reasons that will be made clear extremely soon, I can't put my childhood on a linear timeline. I can only express myself, and hope I don't mess it up horribly this time.

Noooowww to the big stuff. re: stalking; i genuinely didn't mean to stalk anyone, and when they told me to back off, i backed off. I am not willing to discuss this further. not being able to conceptualize other people's emotions or the consequences of my actions has caused some problems for me

that's an autism thing btw. im autistic i dont think i told anyone that

And now, the special guest you've all been waiting for: a big round of applause for the elephant in the room! In accordance with the WMA Declaration of Tokyo, the deliberate overprescription of psychotropic medication is a form of pharmacological torture. Most victims of pharmacological torture and experimentation are children, because it is nigh-impossible to sue for brain damage when there is no fully-formed adult brain for comparison prior to the abuse.

Torture is a strong word, but I don't have another word to use. psychiatric abuse usually describes mistreatment in psychiatric wards; pharmacological abuse describes a patient who takes advantage of a prescription; medical abuse is when a doctor (usually physically) abuses their patient. Being able to understand what happened to you is a form of agency, and I don't even have the words. I identify as a torture victim; this may change.

This high dose was precedented and legal, but the vaginal stretching of intersex infants is also legal. much involuntary psychiatric & psychotropic treatment (such as restraints and solitary confinement) are legal, and child marriage is legal. abuse is not abnormal: it is profoundly normal. Because something is normal, legal, and precedented does not prevent it from being torture.

and when your mother hands you a poison apple and says "here, eat this; it will be good for you; i hope someday you'll forgive me" you have to eat it, because you are eight years old and you don't get to argue with your mother. despite all this, I don't blame my aunt for refilling the high dose. when I said the dose was hurting me, she listened. (thank you, auntie. i wouldn't have gotten out without you.)

And this brings us to you. oh, you four. (five? i forget myself!)

I'd like to establish some context. I was used to things getting taken from me. friend groups in particular: I didn't expect to keep any friends, because I constantly expected to have to pack up and move on. I moved a lot in my childhood, and in Africa, i was constantly told that at some undetermined point in the near future, i'd have to go back to the states. living with my aunt was a temporary thing, i was expected to eventually move back in with my parents at some undetermined point in the future. I relied heavily on online friends because they were people I could have anywhere, so online communities were my only lifeline - not to mention, i was basically in solitary confinement while in Kenya.

Most of all, I was terrified of my mental health/actions being exposed, examined, found lacking, and ultimately excluded. (this is why i was so afraid of psychiatric wards.) When you decided something had to be done about me - cutting me off from the server so i had to speak with you - It was either comply with your demands to communicate (which I could not, and did not understand why) or lose the community. I was so, so afraid of you i wanted to die when you all confronted me, and of course i couldn't say that, because only manipulative people would say "your attempt to solve this problem makes me want to seriously hurt myself."

But then I got called manipulative anyway <3 yay <3

Seriously: I wasn't trying to manipulate anyone, and i have no idea how you can manipulate someone without intention. (ah, that felt good to say!) Between medication spellbinding, alexithymia, and prior abuse, all my thoughts were so disordered i genuinely couldn't explain myself most of the time. Looking back, I have no childhood memory where I was fully lucid. I leaned into a manic persona because it was the only way I had any agency at all. I was something beyond both reason and self-recognition, and I willingly tried to brute-force my way through an extreme trauma response to please you. And you still hit me with my worst nightmare. that's why i was mad at you lol

I was so, so afraid, all the time, and I didn't even have the tools to understand I was afraid. How could someone as confident and impulsive as me be so fearful all the time? Was that manic persona freedom? Or was it a longer leash?

(Forgive my impulse toward rhetoric. I shouldn't ask questions you can't answer.)

I also couldn't say how badly i was hurting, because that would be venting, but you also accused me of venting when I was just talking about my day? or what was on my mind? I didn't understand that very well. autism moment, don't bother explaining it now. I also couldn't burden people with my actual mental health problems, because making strangers deal with that would be toxic! I resent you for setting up a system where it seemed safest not to speak and then punishing me for my inability to communicate. I resent every system that set me up for failure and punished me for failing, including yours.

And yet - I know that was not your intent! I can see in retrospect how hard you tried to be kind using the tools you had. The people with power over me, who genuinely did not want to do me harm and gave me multiple second chances, still upheld and facilitated the systems that tortured me; a miniature parody of the psychiatric system. (talk therapy and communication are useless if you struggle with self-awareness.) The same is true for the source: No person in my psychiatric treatment wanted me to suffer, and yet, here I am: a torture victim without a torturer. (except my parents, sort of.)

The logical conclusion, then: the system only intends to heal those who are already compliant, or prioritize compliance. The rest of us are treated to induce compliance, and if we still cannot, we are sequestered away. My medicine made me sick, and my prescribers made money off of keeping me sick - off of my torture. This is not a conspiracy: it is my lived experience.

However, even if i could communicate perfectly, we still would have had massive communication issues. Like - you know that one page where ben and steffi talk about dating, and ben says he thought steffi was gay? and steffi gets super defensive and it escalates into a screaming fight? I found that offensive, because a character getting that offput by the concept of not liking men (or a man) is kind of lesbophobic! But I understood that it would be a pain to redraw/write the page so they they fight about something else, don't fight, or some other solution, so i didn't need it to be fixed - just wanted to point out that was a reasonable interpretation, and one to be aware of in the future. but somehow my concerns got interpreted as a phrasing issue…? like, Ms. Cagle rewrote the page to say "weren't into guys" instead of "gay"..? You were very polite about it, Ms! But I found this interaction so baffling I didn't even try to correct it. that… wasn't what i said…

frankly we should bring back mildly homophobic steffi. twas narratively appropriate (<- different essay for a different time)

but yeah the whole communication operation was doomed from the start. rip!

The issue was always my inability to communicate, but my meds made it nigh-impossible to understand what I was feeling, and when I did, expressing myself could get me institutionalized. My suffering was inevitable but always, somehow, my fault. Awesome! *disintegrates into a pile of sand*

I cannot deny I was a girl like a box of matches waiting to be struck. You had no choice but to do as you did. But is it really what you ought to have done? (On this, I have no answer. I hope you have one that satisfies you.)

(that was genuine, by the by. i've spent a lot of time pondering this mess, and I still haven't found the "right" answer. I don't think there is one - though action or inaction, there is no version of this story where I don't suffer. I can only hope it was worth it. wait, hold on *adds the omelas child to my Kin List*)

Nor can I deny making my previous open letter in a small attempt to 'get back' at you - i'm not above that. lord knows i'm not innocent. but i really was trying to channel that rage into something productive. unfortunately i was doomed to fail because i didn't know what i meant. if you showed me that letter now, you'd hear a lot of "what? I don't know why I said that" "i have no idea why i would complain about something so minor" etc. You can disregard all that. This is what I was trying to say. the obsession, the trauma, the projection: all of it. So much of my obsession was talking around an issue i couldn't identify.

(meguka image) I know now

I knew I would be traumatized by this whole situation. I saw it coming and i could do nothing to stop it. But Gear was crucial to deciphering all this - in fact, suddenly thinking about her last year prompted me to really dissect my medical situation and realize i was tortured. I couldn't have done it without her. cassie & maggie, against the world.

Gear scans surprisingly well as a victim of long-term torture, actually. I don't think you meant to do that but good job!

speaking of her - i still don't think she's consistently suicidal. she's a real cockroach of a character, and I love her for it! But sometimes, i want to die and i want to live mean the same thing, because they both mean i need to get out of here. Imo, her thought processes and desires frequently contradict themselves, like mine did. and making your favs kill themselves in increasingly gruesome ways is really fun catharsis!

But please don't take this to mean I consider myself - or Gear - blameless. I love her because she's not blameless, because she's cruel for fun, because she'd rather be wicked than helpless. Like knows like. What I mean to say is, as of 2018, there is a black space between little Margret and Gear, and I saw all the signs of something very, very bad happening in that space. I know because I shared that space. what I mean to say is, teenage girls don't go out of their minds over nothing. Everything I made here is just an expression of what I heard in the narrative's silences.

and thus my biggest apprehension around revisiting the comic. knowing the author and I have such fundamentally different experiences with mental health - what if the signs of torture i picked up on weren't intended, or i completely made them up? what if, in the parts i haven't read yet, there's information that uproots my entire interpretation, or berates her for refusing mental health services that hurt me profoundly? how do you reconcile that a character so crucial to deciphering yourself may not be anything like you at all? I Don't Know. Shitpost, probably

You're welcome to share those shitposts and whatnot by the way. Creating this let me put down years of hurt, and i hope it relieves you, too. I don't need to go back on the server, or forgiveness, or anything besides understanding. consider this a peace offering. the terms are yours.

Despite writing nearly 10k words, I still probably missed something or was callous or whatever. Self-expression and self-understanding are… new to me. My apology may be understated, but please take it as I meant it, with utmost sincerity. My askbox is open, and I'm more than happy to discuss antipsych resources, KB, What The Hell Is Wrong With Gear, artistic choices made in this comic, etc. I'm even down to reconnect on discord! Maybe. Uh, I'm conflicted. I reserve my right to not want to talk, be slow in responding, and so on, as should you. we've no obligations and all the time in the world. Let neither of us hurt ourselves in meeting because it's the "right" thing to do. I'm not blaming anyone or trying to start drama. If it would give you the most peace of mind to completely ignore this, please do so.

or, translated: as of right now, I'm not ready for any information about KB after steffi reunites with her dad, or difficult emotional reunions. I would really like to hear from everyone, and I'd appreciate casual well-wishes. I don't want things to be the same, I want them to be peaceful. Baby steps, cassie, baby steps. (very large and fearful prey animal tries not to run into oncoming traffic)

mostly, making this was for me. Perhaps I've said too much, but after spending so long unable to express myself freely, my art was cathartic and necessary. I'm no one's martyr or innocent, I'm just a torture victim trying to make sense of it all. I want to articulate some thoughts I couldn't figure out how to say before and make some silly things that make people laugh. Most of all, I'm happy in ways I never thought I could be, and I would like to share that joy with old acquaintances and other fans of a story I adored.

What I mean to say is: The train's about to leave the station, and there's an empty seat beside me. The train will still leave whether or not you board; but I would be honored not to go it alone!

Thank you to everyone who stuck by me even after the drama. Ethel, Felipe, Chris - even though we've fallen out of contact, your kindness and patience meant more than i can say. special thank you to @stars-in-a-jam-jar, the first person i confessed everything to after the smoke cleared, and someone i consider myself close with no matter how long we fall out of contact. My close online friends, @shafpanda, @theoandmoon, @dvanaestmrva, my honorary cousin @my-name-is-jimmy, and everyone else I confided in about my torture. and, of course, my partners @transloo and @teenyjellyfishy, and my little sibling, @aroacenezhaanddainsleif, the three people I love most in the world. Thank you, all. it is an honor to love you, and be loved by you.

[blairbarely]

(In honor of Gladiator weekend, here's an essay I wrote a little while ago when I couldn't stop crying thinking about AFTERSUN and FUN HOME)

There’s a house, a house of bodies and stories. A house where death hums low and steady in the background. This is Fun Home, a musical that isn’t just a play—it’s a testament, a ledger of grief, self-reckoning, and the ache of becoming. It’s not linear. It’s not clean. It moves like smoke, circling back, consuming itself, burning.

It starts with Alison. Three Alisons, to be exact. There’s the kid, all big eyes and brashness. There’s the college girl, shaking with discovery. And there’s the grown-up, sitting at her desk, trying to stitch it all together—her father Bruce's life, his lies, and her truth.

Elsewhere, on vacation with his daughter, there’s a man, Calum, young but weary. A girl, Sophie, open-eyed and reaching. A summer sky stretched wide like a canvas. This is Aftersun, a film not bound by plot but by feeling. It’s not a story so much as a reflection in water, rippling and shifting, impossible to hold.

Fun Home doesn’t move in straight lines. It remembers in flashes, like how we live. The smell of wood polish. A piano in the parlor. A ring of keys. All these objects, these anchors, pulling Alison back to herself, forward through the haze. It’s a puzzle that will never be whole, and that’s the point.

Aftersun unfolds like an old Polaroid—blurred at the edges, washed in gold and gray. Sophie is grown now, but she reaches back, back to a vacation with her father in some sunlit nowhere. She’s not searching for answers, not exactly. She’s trying to touch what’s already gone.

Memory is like that: a patchwork of glimpses and silences. A camcorder frames Calum’s smile, but behind the lens, Sophie sees something she can’t name yet. Maybe she sees him unraveling. Maybe she sees herself.

At its heart, Fun Home is about trying to love people who are too tangled up in themselves to love you back the way you want. It’s about parents and children, about the gifts they give you and the scars they leave. It’s about the things you carry—the good, the terrible, and the unknowable—and how they shape the art you make.

Calum is kind, funny, alive in the way only the deeply sad can be. He dances in the dark, practices Tai Chi by the pool, buys Sophie birthday gifts he can barely afford. There’s love in everything he does, but there’s something else too—an absence, a shadow. He’s there, but not all the way.

He hides it well. Or maybe he doesn’t. Kids notice the cracks, even when they don’t know what they mean. Sophie watches him like he’s the sun: too bright, too far.

Bruce’s song “Edges of the World" near the end of Fun Home is a raw scream dressed up as a goodbye. He’s crumbling, dissolving. It’s not redemption. It’s a last breath, a leap into silence.

Alison doesn’t find answers. She doesn’t fix what’s broken. But she draws it. She sings it. She turns the chaos into something tangible, something true. And that’s enough.

Charlotte Wells doesn’t tell you the full story of Calum and Sophie. She shows you flashes—a dive into the pool, the flicker of a strobe light, a cigarette burning down to ash. The camera lingers, waits. It doesn’t ask for permission to be quiet, to hold space for what’s unsaid.

And the music—it drifts in like a ghost. “Under Pressure” plays, and you feel the weight of the song, how it wraps around Calum and Sophie like a plea, like a warning. Later, there’s a rave, a place where past and present collide, where Sophie and her father exist in the same moment, just for a heartbeat.

And then it’s done. The stage goes quiet, but the story doesn’t leave. It lingers, like the smell of old books, like the ghost of someone you loved.

Both Aftersun and Fun Home are pieces of art born from memory, from ruin. They don’t shy away from the hard stuff—shame, longing, loss—but they doesn’t let you drown in it either. They remind you that there’s beauty in the wreckage, that even the darkest places can hold light. Neither is just a film or just a musical. Fun Home is a hymn for anyone who’s ever tried to make sense of the mess and called it home. Aftersun is an old home movie, its edges frayed like the ribbon of a well-worn cassette. It won’t give you everything you crave, but it hums softly in the dark, keeping the memory alive, as long as your heart can bear to press play.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Do you think Billy and Tommy suffer from intergenerational trauma ? Also we never see Billy and Tommy interact with Max. If you could alter their origins what would you do ?

(You don’t have to answer all these questions sorry lol)

When we talk about intergenerational trauma, we are usually referring to trauma which persists in our cultural memories, or to trauma responses which become cyclical patterns in our families. One of the things that's really interesting about this family of characters is that none of them were raised by their birth parents or grew up with a complete knowledge of/relationship to their cultural heritage. This is slightly less true now for Wanda and Pietro, post-retcon, but my point is that the way these people have inherited intergenerational trauma is typically non-linear.

I tend to get in trouble for saying this, but I think that Billy and Tommy's reincarnation makes the most sense as a metaphor for interracial adoption. Specifically, their relationship to Wanda, their Romani heritage, and their family history maps fairly well to that experience. So, while the course of their lives has been impacted by the trauma of past generations in a very material way-- and there is something to be said for epigenetics-- they may not have internalized the Maximoff family's intergenerational trauma in the way that you're picturing. The nature of their existence and upbringing creates its own traumas and fractured identities, but a lot of what they've inherited is going manifest in the course of processing new information about their background as young adults-- not to mention the ramifications of being publicly known as Wanda's children in a post-Decimation world.

I am not an adoptee, so this is not my experience to speak on, and you can take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, but I am a person of mixed Romani heritage, and family separation and cultural disruption in the wake of WWII are big parts of my inherited trauma. That's part of why I find the Maximoffs-- Billy and Tommy included-- so relatable, because that's a specific form of cultural trauma that they have had to endure in every generation, and in ways that reflect multiple periods of Romani history. Part of why I like to really emphasize the fact that Billy and Tommy are Romani characters is because their positionality and way of arriving at Roma identity adds nuance and diversity to Romani representation. I think the spectrum of Romani cultural & ethnic identity is something that a lot of comic writers and fans just don't understand, but I think that digging in to how Billy, Tommy, and Luna relate to those identities would be a really good, organic way to have those conversations in the text and bring a more authentic understanding of the subject to readers. But you absolutely need a Romani writer to do it, and that's why they need to start hiring us!!!!!

I'd also like to point something out that I don't think anybody really talks about-- the current version of Wanda and Pietro's origin story and how they got their powers reflects the real history of human experimentation, reproductive rights violations, and child abductions that have plagued Romani communities for a long time, especially in mid-century Europe. Their "mutations" are a product of that violence, and the fact that Billy and Tommy inherited those mutations reflects the medical and genetic legacies of this racial trauma. This is presented in direct contrast and conversation with the Maximoffs' magical heritage as witches, which is is a racial stereotype that here is subverted as a positive, enduring legacy of cultural empowerment and survival.

Of course, the text itself does not fully commit to these ideas on paper, but my point is that when you have the knowledge and you're invested in how Romani people are imagined and portrayed in this world, it's a very rich text!!! I love comics and I love these characters! There's so much to talk about!

Since you did mention Magneto, I want to note that Wanda and Pietro's relationship to his & Magda's history and their inherited trauma is also non-linear, and has shifted several times based on retcons and varying character treatments. There's no doubt that they have a lot of baggage, but again, it's a situation where they didn't grow up as children of Holocaust survivors, so the way they process it might just be different. I certainly do think that the Holocaust and the war are part of their cultural memory, even if we don't know how much the Maximoffs were directly affected. Billy and Tommy are more removed from Magneto in this sense, but it should go without saying that one or both of them are Jewish and would already have a connection to that history through their foster/birth families.

[atamascolily]

As someone who makes fanvids and AMVs, I spend a lot of time looking at media in unconventional ways--cycling the same clips over and over again, jumping around in a non-linear fashion rather than watching straight through in chronological order, etc, etc. Usually, this is in service of getting shots to line up with the music or finding that one snippet that perfectly illustrates a lyric, but it also means I spend a lot of time engaged with the source material at a level of repetition and detail that most viewers do not indulge in.

I thought nothing would be able to top that level of granularity, but then I started making text post memes by juxtaposing media screenshots with clever and witty posts made by strangers on the Internet. Instead of watching the same clips over and over again, I was now watching specific individual scenes shot by shot, searching for the perfect frame to pause and screenshot. Suddenly, I was engaged with the source material on a whole new level, staring at stills I have never really looked at before, despite having watched them in motion a billion times already.

This was especially true of Madoka Magica and even more true for Rebellion, where the animators had lovingly incorporated whole new levels of detail I had never encountered before--some of them so complex and intricate, they could only be fully appreciated as stills, either because they were only on screen for an instant or because there was so much action/other stuff going on in the foreground that drew my eye when I was watching casually or for plot. (As much as I love subtitles, they did not help with this, since their presence meant my eyes were also naturally drawn to the bottom of the screen as well instead of focusing on the background.)

I started documenting my PMMM observations here on Tumblr, partially because it was low-stress and informal fun, and partially because this site has such excellent and convenient image hosting (for now, anyway) that it's really easy to discuss and compare multiple images at a time, which I think is more effective than reams of text at proving my points.

When I look at a screenshot, I have two major questions in mind:

1) What am I looking at? 2) What does it mean?

The first question is one of observation and identification. This part is usually straightforward, but can be more complicated if the animators are drawing on an element of Japanese culture that I'm not already familiar with. The answers to this question vary considerably depending on context, but they're usually not a source of tremendous controversy among the fandom; they are fairly objective, with a definitive right or wrong answer.

The second question, however, is more complicated and subjective. This is where analysis and interpretation come in--of the shot itself, the scene in which it occurs, and how it fits into the installment/series/franchise as a whole. It's entirely possible for different people to have wildly different takes on this, and multiple readings can and do exist simultaneously.

In my meta writings, I usually attempt to answer both questions: first, by pointing out details that I think are interesting, and then by offering my interpretation of them. Rebellion in particular is so visually dense that it's possible to randomly pause at any scene and find something new; no matter how much I watch it, there is always more to analyze.

To be clear, I don't think that watching Rebellion frame by frame is inherently better than watching the whole thing straight through, just that different perspectives and insights are possible. In this sense, both Madoka Magica TV series and Rebellion are inherently fractal in nature, with meaning multiple levels and layers regardless of scale. Unlike real-life fractals like the Mandelbrot set, however, there is a clearly defined limit to this--I doubt once you zoom into the pixel level there is anything to find, but hey, you never know with SHAFT.

I generally prefer to work with material that has already been released rather than stuff that hasn't, but I try to ground my predictions in my observations as much as possible--by which I mean, consistent with the show's themes and motifs on both a macro and micro level. That in itself doesn't guarantee that they're right, but I like to think they are plausible, which is all you can really hope for with that sort of thing. And of course, all my analyses and predictions tell you as much about me--how I see the world and what I value--as they do the work itself.

I used to joke that I was working on an honorary master's in media studies and Rebellion in particular, but after looking back at my output over the last six months, I'm not so sure that's a joke anymore...

[fastcardotmp3]

🎊 december bookshelf 🎊

november recs | recs tag

Happy (almost) New Year! Here are some bits of brilliance I'm closing out the year in reading, and here's to everything that you guys have made this year. I'm so grateful to exist in a space with so much talent and so many big hearts willing to share in it, and I can't wait to read what you have cooked up for 2024 🥂 love, dot

🎊 INCENDIUM by @stargazersteddie- I have always been and will always be a weird dragon kid at heart and this fic was tailor made for the weird dragon kids of the world LIKE! dragon shapeshifter eddie is SUCH a concept and then to add dragon hunter steve to the mix? to add a genuinely intriguing corrupted corporation claiming to help people? to add ronance espionage and secrets in the woods and-? you know? a treat of a journey really and truly.

🎊 captain's log webcomic by @rogue-alien - That sweet spot where beautiful, perfectly representative art meets a brilliant premise in which Dustin finds a bunch of old "Captain's Log" tapes Eddie recorded before he died and things develop from there. Truly makes my day every time I see this has updated with a new page and as a comic book lover I'm fully enamored with everything about this

🎊 if you wanted, you could do no harm by @eskawrites - I'm a lover of a road trip story in which everything becomes clear because the scenery has changed and this is SUCH a beautiful depiction of that. getting to live inside Nancy's head as she goes from knowing she has to get out of Hawkins but not necessarily why to finding this sense of peace within herself and the things she both can control (kissing the girl who made sure she wasn't alone for the journey) and can't control (the big unknowable that is life) was a delight and a joy <3

🎊 mark it on the starmap with an x by @cheatghost - the Eddie POV "show me the place (where he inserted the blade)" sequel/ companion piece of my DREAMS. I love an Eddie character study with my whole heart and the way lou explores him in this particular circumstance, being blocked off from the joy he built for himself and leaning on Wayne and almost being forced into adapting without getting a say in the matter? Brilliant, immaculate, perfect, HELP ME.

🎊 max the bloody handed by @hellsfireclub - KAS!MAX!!! Beautiful Lucas POV as things fall into disarray, as his sense of something's wrong gets proven right, and with such a cool and eerie tone the whole way through. also Lucas with a crossbow which you KNOW is everything To Me.

🎊 this time of the year by @gothbat99 - robin HEARS nancy even when nancy isn't saying anything aloud and robin KNOWS that nancy needs a moment to let her brain go quiet and just be and I'm beside myself!! sweet and warm and tinged with the inevitable grief of the holiday season what if I cry huh?

🎊 The Future is the Same (but i have to try) by @fragilecapric0rnn - such an intriguing world built in so few words but the thing that has me on the FLOOR is the nancy and steve reckless grieving power duo of it all LIKE. designed for me specifically perhaps??? the characterization, the looming danger of every choice they make, the impulsive nature of it all!!! brilliant!

🎊 crash by @cheatghost (yes, again! sue me!) - i say 'designed for me specifically' a lot but this time it's actually TRUE and let me tell you!!! the psychic damage incurred was IMMENSE!! the nancy character study of all time, the cyclical/non-linear journey through grief and catharsis and hope and acceptance of my dreams, i'm never going to stop thinking about this fic you HAVE to read it, it's imperative To Me okay? okay. okay okay.

PS. don't forget to tip your writer in kudos and comments if you read and enjoy these! it's talking to each other about the works we create that makes this fandom world go round 💖