#its none of a problem just passive observation

[nmoroder]

Hokma askblog post #13: dominate someone!

Askblog tag: #nmoroder hokma ask Please see pinned blog post before asking questions!

i have nothing to say for myself. i have completed lobcorp during this new year's holidays and this is what i felt. also i usually press pics together in posts like these to make them shorter on dash but this time they just don't correlate by format so im sorry for that

[muletia]

𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐟𝐮𝐥 ₊˚⊹♡

obsessed!smokescreen x human!reader

summary: you and smokescreen are trying to watch a movie, but his irresistible and constant need for closeness stubbornly gets in the way. will you make it to the end? (spoiler: you won’t)

cw: fluff, suggestive, obsessive thoughts, unhealthy clinginess, possessiveness, very mild not nsfw dub-con, biting/marking, very light manipulation from smokey

word count: 1570

Your eyelids grow heavier and heavier. Consciousness drifts into another dimension, and your head slowly tilts forward further as you lose contact with reality and embrace sleep with open arms. But alas, sleep is not meant for you—not yet. Your boyfriend is keeping watch, ensuring you continue your fight to stay awake. And when he's near you, he seems unusually attuned to moments like these.

"Hey, hey, don't drift off on me now," he pleads, voice desperate, because this isn’t your first slip-up. "We just started the movie!"

"Ah, sorry," you mumble, rubbing your face to try and wake yourself up, which works. For now.

Your attention returns to the flickering TV screen in the garage, and for a moment, you really do feel alert. You're not proud of how easily you drift off, especially with company, but the day's events are catching up to you, pulling your eyelids downward. You’d promised him you’d finally finish this movie together— you’ve both tried to get through it multiple times, only to be interrupted every single time by something—or rather, someone.

That someone is none other than your personal heater sitting next to you, the primary disruptor of your small private movie nights.

And, as you catch him from the corner of your eye, it's clear he’s got a new idea for spicing up your passive movie-watching routine. His broad smile is utterly contagious, and you fight hard not to let your lips curl. It’s endearing, but you’re not falling for it—not yet. You know exactly where this evening will go if you give him your attention. After all, you’ve lived this scenario many times before.

"Optics on the screen," you chide softly. "We just started the movie, hypocrite."

"Oh, I am watching," he replies, with mock indignation.

"Not me!" you sigh. "We’re not restarting this movie for the tenth time. Look at the screen." You motion toward the brightest source of light in the room.

He knows he should listen. He’s the one who suggested the movie night in the first place. He also chose the film—one of your favorites—because he wanted to experience it with you, to watch your reactions, hear your thoughts, and discuss it afterward. All of it was just a way to interact with you, to be showered in your attention. To absorb it like the finest energon, savoring its addictive sweetness.

It’s not his fault that everything you do is infinitely more interesting than any fiction on the small screen. Sure, he likes human culture and finds it genuinely fascinating—but only because you’re at its center. You’re the one who reveals its secrets, who offers him glimpses of the daily life he so desperately wants to be a part of. Watching movies together lets him simulate that life. He knows he should use every chance to learn more about your world. The problem is, he can’t focus.

It’s not as if there are moments when he thinks of you more or less. No—he’s always thinking about you. Seven days a week, every hour of Earth’s solar cycle. During missions, patrols, recharge—even when he’s with you. It’s suffocating, overwhelming his processor, a constant need to express his untamed emotions, but with no outlet to relieve the ever-growing weight.

Having you by his side is wonderful—feeling your scent, your warmth; brushing shoulders and sharing a blanket. But, ever ambitious, he needs more. Thoughts of you provide only fleeting satisfaction, failing to meet even a fraction of his desire. They leave him helpless once again.

Smokescreen doesn’t want to be just an observer anymore, a witness to the action around him. Those days died with Cybertron.

He wants to feel, touch, and explore, even though he already knows every inch of your body—every mole, scar, and birthmark. Alien, but captivatingly beautiful. Unparalleled softness. Addictive. Meant to be worshipped and adored. It’s no surprise his servos fit your curves perfectly, as if you were made for each other—not just in spark, but in body too. No stimulant could compare to the euphoria of adoring you. No human cinematic masterpiece, no mission, no praise from Optimus Prime himself.

"You’re incorrigible," you sigh. "You just missed the most important part."

Suddenly, he realizes he’s spent the last several kliks staring only at you, fantasizing about physically expressing all the emotions roiling within him. His servos are trembling now, and he has to touch you—to prove how much you mean to him, how vital you are in his life.

Electricity courses through his frame—a signal of surpassing limits. He’s nearing a breaking point, teetering on the edge of abandoning the careful balance of your relationship. Can’t let that happen. He accepts destroying himself, allowing his yearning for you to dictate his sanity, but no scars could ever mar your soul. No matter how many he bears himself.

His trembling servos find the fabric of your shirt and gently tug at it. Enough to send a signal, not to frighten. If you pull away—he’ll shatter.

"Hey," he begins. You glance at him briefly, but your eyes quickly return to the screen. He tugs harder, practically pawing at your stomach now, desperate for attention. "Please, I don’t want to watch the movie anymore. We can finish it another time, can’t we?"

He knows he’s repeating himself, using the same lines he always does. It’s cheap and undignified, unworthy of someone whom even Optimus Prime considered passing the Matrix to. But his need has consumed him, taken over his frame and spark, which craves you so intensely that static buzzes in his audials. Every molecule of his being chants your name, begging for you.

He moves closer, exerting pressure. It’s a dangerous game, one that could easily irritate you. But he’s so desperate he has to play his cards on this gambit.

"I promise we’ll finish it next time, okay? [Name], please, I need you."

"We could also finish it tonight, hmm?" you offer.

"But I already missed the most important part."

"You’re smart—you’ll catch up on the plot." He sees your playful smile, teasing him with your intentions. But this time, he’s too overwhelmed to join in the game.

One servo continues tugging at the edge of your shirt while the other slides beneath it, cautious and precise—while he still has the control to be so.

You finally give in, unable to focus on the film any longer.

"Alright, I’ll hold you to that," you warn, finally turning your head toward him.

What greets you are wide, pleading optics, shimmering with need. Begging for you. Beautiful, but deceptive. Luring you into a trap. Or maybe you’ve already been ensnared? Enchanted into letting him do more—letting his servo wander further up, finding its way to your chest.

"Incorrigible," you murmur, tilting your head slightly to one side, exposing your neck—his canvas for the evening. "But at least I’m not sleepy anymore."

"Good," he purrs near your neck. Warm, processed air brushes against your sensitive skin. "I’m going to show you how much you mean to me. I’m afraid it’ll take a very long time."

Servos press tightly to your body, while dentas leave their mark, creating art from love bites—one of his favorite human inventions. Such a pity he couldn’t bear them himself—would flaunt them proudly if he could.

"I wish they lasted forever," he whispers, kissing the bruised skin, already intoxicated by your closeness, even though it’s only a fraction of what he craves.

"And I don’t," you admit. His response is a hurt whine, but Smokescreen quickly resumes his work, moving slightly higher. His marks always came out messy, more like bites than love bites, but he was so proud of them that you couldn’t bring yourself to criticize him. At least, not directly.

"One of my friends noticed them once. She thought I’d been mauled by a wild animal."

You feel him smile against your skin because it’s an accurate description of his love. Wild, untamed.

"Sorry," but it's also unimaginably tender. "But you like them, right? I’m good at this, aren’t I?"

"You’re unmatched, love."

Not sensing the sarcasm, he holds you tighter, as if he wants to merge you both into one being. Feels his trembling spark yearning for a bond, a union with yours. And while you can’t grant him that, the mere act of sharing the most intimate, vulnerable parts of himself is satisfactory. Not enough, because nothing ever will be. Just like the love bites, the most blissful interfacing, or kisses and cuddles. They work for a brief moment, a fraction of existence. They fill the void, which begins emptying the moment you part.

"I need more," he groans. "Please. I need you."

"I wish you were this eager about watching movies."

You reach for the remote because yet another movie attempt has ended in failure. Your boyfriend doesn’t appreciate your effort to put some distance between you, even for a few millimeters. His servos hold you firmly in place, and his dentas possessively catch your neck. Luckily, you don’t have to reach far.

"We’ll manage next time," he promises, though the absent tone of his voice makes it clear he’s lying. You know he won’t last. He’ll falter at the start, trying to make up for lost time by showering you with affection, though it’ll only be a fraction of what he wants to give.

"Hard to believe that."

"Mhm, love you too," he mutters, utterly enraptured by your closeness.

[windvexer]

1. Can divination be thought of as setting a specific future in place, "collapsing the waveform" so to speak? 2. Whether or not it actually does - whether or not it is rational - how does one deal with the guilt of divining something bad and then watching it happen?

Divination does not control the future.

You cannot accidentally make bad things happen by thinking that they might occur.

Having a spiritual moment with a pack of cards does not give you the power to control the future.

It is not rational to believe that you have the power to accidentally manifest bad realities if you use divinatory tools. This is not a safe or healthy mindset to cultivate. You should not entertain these thoughts.

You should consider examining your beliefs about how you think divination "works," and choose some healthier ones.

Every hypothesis about how divination works is just trying to map the abstract. None of them are final or absolute. If your map of divination leads you down the path of anxiety, burn it and get a new one.

Over about 16 years of being a diviner, I have hosted many different beliefs about how divination "works." I can assure you that it works fine even if you have the "wrong" beliefs about it - but some beliefs can certainly just drive us to anxiety and all sorts of problems.

"My readings might make bad things happen to people" is not a map anyone should be using to navigate divination. You do not need to be following that hiking trail, my friend. Circle back around and choose a new path to take you to better places.

Guilt is based on agency. In my experience as a diviner, our role is in most circumstances to be a passive observer who removes themselves from the equation as much as possible. I do not feel guilty when I perform readings of bad futures, because those futures are not my fault. I did not cause them, encourage them, or collapse other possibilities.

Often, I feel privileged that I am placed in an opportunity to help someone avoid something bad.

I understand the anxiety of performing a reading that's all bad news, and I have seen the bad news play out many times.

But I can't be guilty over it, because it's not my fault. If my reading uncovers an unwanted future, I can choose to warn people about it, help people with it, or deliver the information and let that other person do what they want with it.

I sometimes feel bad in other ways - especially social anxiety that people will blame the messenger. But I don't get guilt.

Because to think that the future of others is somehow about me and my actions, and I'm responsible for it, would be the height of hubris.

I'm not the main character. The future doesn't care about my oracle cards. The future is popular, and surrounded by many friends. It doesn't even know I exist. And if I were ever able to get its attention, I doubt it would entertain my opinions about what it's supposed to do with itself.

[c0pernicus]

I feel like I never really see people talk about just how bad the long term effects of prolonged abuse, or C-PTSD can really be in people, especially young people, and I wish it was talked about more.

I pretty much never talk about my own experiences for safety reasons, because I would always receive a whole mess if I did choose to try and tell others what I went through, and maybe that's what has made my experience with C-PTSD so bad, but its genuinely so debilitating.

The burn out, the exhaustion, the body aches and horrible sleep schedules and inability to maintain a job because my emotions and brain had really never recovered even years- half a decade- after everything stopped. The digestive issues, the memory problems, the entire lack of a sense of identity and self. The lack of want to put effort into my identity and self.

I feel like I'm chronically searching for someone that's supposed to be me. Constantly, I'm stuck now trying to validate a sense of self I no longer possess. Old passions, old hobbies, old things I liked and enjoyed- It feels like I've been stripped down to bone and nothing sticks anymore. If I have an interest it's very fleeting and I usually will drop it once I find I start to enjoy it, as if its been so heavily ingrained in my brain that peace and happiness and to just enjoy things isn't something I'm allowed. I've become incapable of thinking anything even neutral about myself at this point. I don't believe nearly anything anyone else says to me, and I feel very passive towards others in general if I'm not terrified of them instead. I lack friends and connections, and I constantly hide away from others.

I'm constantly frozen. I can't function on even a basic level if someone else is present in my home; I have to be doing what they're doing, or engaged in some way with what they're doing (Watching, observing, next to them at the very least and quietly doing something unobtrusive) or I can't do anything at all. If I am left alone I'm riddled with anxiety and my mood plummets, my intrusive thoughts are constant and like a horrible movie montage I can't turn off. Trying to lay down and sleep is no better, for years I've been stuck having to just occupy my brain until I pass out.

It's a constant ghost I just can't seem to exorcise from myself. No amount of trying to forgive or forget or let go or move on or accept has made a pebbles difference in the mountain I'm stuck under. I forget everything and anything except for what caused all of this; my wife and friend constantly cut me off to tell me that they've already heard what I'm telling from before from my own mouth, and they I know there are times where they let me continue like it's the first time I've ever told them the fact or the story and I'm simply none-the-wiser. I can't remember things I've done, things I need to do, events or recent days even. I feel stupid and airheaded on the best days, and I know it shows to others because they've told me before.

Work is hard because of the anxiety, the agoraphobia, the memory problems, the health problems. I'm sick constantly; I can't eat or retain food, I have the flu, I've caught Covid for the 8th time despite trying to be good about cleanliness when I leave the house and return. I can't eat a lot of food without being in pain, with it going right through me or sitting like a rock in my stomach for several days. My joints ache more often, my muscles are sore, my traps are solid to a concerning degree from the daily stress of just living with it all. I can't remember the last time my eyes weren't sunken in and purple-blue.

Therapists have only wanted to slap me with a diagnosis and an array of medications- none of which have worked. I've been told it's depression, it's anxiety, it's PTSD, it's bi-polar, it's BPD, it's psychotic depression, it's schizoaffective, it's DID. The DID one threw me for a loop, I'm not going to lie, but the rest were believable enough. I don't look at my medical charts anymore, so I don't know what I have or haven't been branded with by now. The meds and talk therapy never help, I never feel release, I don't believe words anymore- especially from strangers. The meds make the brain fog worse, or I feel numb, or people don't like the person I've become, or my self harming gets much worse, or I just want to kill myself enough to really try to.

Stress tips me over the edge so easily. The hallucinations suck and I resent them. They're a one way ticket to being unemployed and unfunctional for potentially months at a time, and it's humiliating after the fact as well. The last time I had a bad episode I believed there was a man living in my closet, and I couldn't go inside of it. I would hear him moving around inside, he'd yell and get so angry if you opened the door. I've thankfully forgotten the name I gave him; it was something stupid for sure.

I've become a miserable ghost, and I don't see any light at the end of the long tunnel. There is no way back to my body. I'm just lost and wandering and witnessing but never participating. It hurts the most to think of how I was before too many things piled up; the passion and the drive and the creativity. Always making something, always doing something, there was always some project or plan or thing I was doing that I felt pride for. I didn't care if I was weird to others, because I was confident in myself.

I just lay down now, when I can. I do my dishes and my laundry, I try to shower when it doesn't make me nauseous to. I take care of my cats and I work jobs infrequently. I sit with my parents disappointment in who I've become like it's an old friend, and we share coffee and reveries.

I exist, begrudgingly. That is the only thing I try to take pride in now.

[synesindri]

i was tagged by @leatafandom — thank you!! it was fun both to see your answers and to think about/look up mine <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

99. some day #100 will be posted but who knows when or what that will be lolol

2. What’s your total A03 word count?

395,538

3. What fandoms do you write for?

currently none; i'm doing original stuff only lately. however i have things on ao3 written for marvel (specifically the asgardian faction), downton abbey, what we do in the shadows, and of course most recently (and also least recently...i've come full circle) supernatural

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

seize the crown (wwdits, e)

friendly favors (wwdits, e)

judges of character (downton abbey, gen)

"mr barrow has the flu" (downton abbey, t)

thomas barrow and the power of friendship (downton abbey, t)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yessss i love responding to comments!!! i appreciate them so much, and i love an opportunity to talk about my writing <3 i can understand why people might prefer not to, especially on a place like ao3 which is technically an archive, but i like the community feel of interacting with readers on there (and i love it when other authors reply to my comments so kind of a golden rule situation)

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

hm...technically the song remains the same (spn, t) has the least desirable endingbut imo passive (mcu, gen), which is entirely about grief and denial, is angstier despite "brother died" being a less dramatic problem than "stuck in eternal crushing hell isolation"

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

to me it's phantom fangs (wwdits, t), my little vampirism-as-trans-allegory project! it's a bit of a bummer at times but to me the ending is so happy <3

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

i haven't!

9. Do you write smut?

yee. although i'm never sure if i want to write smut lmao but it sure does happen a fair amount sometimes

10. Do you write crossovers?

it's not generally my thing, although i do enjoy heavy allusions. i do have at least one though!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of (i have had art stolen though RIP)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! although i'm not sure the translation is up anymore; it was a number of years ago

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

no...i'm curious about this but i'm not sure how it would go? but anyway no, at least not yet

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

formally it's samifer because i got my fandom phd in this lol but who even knows in actuality tbh

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i'm soooo haunted by the last chapter of crimsonpeaknatural aka hollow's gate (spn, e). it is my longest fic on ao3 by far and is literally one chapter from done, i just can't bring myself to write the last ~7k. it is fully outlined. i know what happens in it. i just can't write it! why

i also started a michean fic over the summer that i really like but i doubt it'll ever be finished. at least i never posted any of that though :p

16. What’s your writing strengths?

imo characterization/perspective, atmosphere, and prose versatility. maybe pacing? i've gotten comments on that a few times but it's less of a self-observed strength

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

i don't know what plots are <3 also sometimes my prose wraps around to being a little too circular for its own good so that's both a strength and a weakness of mine lol.

tbh i'm also bad at killing my darlings, especially when it comes to scenes i'm obsessed with, unless i give myself a LONG time to edit. like, on the order of months

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'm not really a fan of this as a reader and i prefer not to do it as a writer, but also i'm not going to knock it on principle because i do understand the appeal, especially to people who are writing primarily for themselves and are comfortable in both/all the languages they're including. it can be fun sometimes to see the differences between the language the dialogue and the translation gives (if they provide one) if the language is one i'm also familiar with.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

harry potter. y'know...what can you do lol it is what it is. i wrote the kind of dramione angst you'd expect of a person like me who was 13yo at the time

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

ohhhh i don't know. i had SO much fun writing poker face (spn, e) and i think it succeeds at doing everything i wanted it to do. this isn't an objective answer but i am genuinely very happy with that one so it is my answer atm!

no-pressure tagging @artoodeeblue, @fandom-space-princess, @quietwingsinthesky, and anybody else who would like to do this!

[tyrannuspitch]

Further dead parents thoughts:

Part of the reason I like the idea of Sherlock and Mycroft's parents being dead is because Sherlock seems to have a specific fascination with death which goes beyond him being heroic, edgy, or low-empathy.

He doesn't just investigate crimes. He's very picky about which cases he takes on, and he doesn't normally choose, say, robbery or blackmail. The cases that get his attention are almost always murder.

Many of the experiments we see him do involve human bodies, and are specifically focused on how the body changes after death (eg post-mortem bruising) - things that have little practical use besides investigating murder.

The way he decorates his flat. Painting of a skull? Basic. Taxidermy and animal bones? Getting a bit gothic now. A real human skull which he talks to??? Now that is freak behaviour.

Arguably, his recklessness. The first episode shows Sherlock having what I would call passively suicidal impulses - he isn't exactly trying to die, but he doesn't seem to value his own life very highly at all. Obviously, part of this is the same unhappiness and need to escape that drives addiction. But I do wonder if there's another side to it - a morbid curiosity which means he isn't just being pushed away from life, but actively called towards death...

So, Sherlock is intellectually fascinated with death (specifically, human death, which also means... humans.) I think it would be fair to say that he tries to understand the living through the dead. Autistic interests are often a lens through which you see the world, and to investigate murders, Sherlock needs to develop and practice a framework for understanding social behaviour - which he has done with remarkable success. But it's still not quite enough. He can observe, but not connect. He's always the scientist, outside looking in.

(And there's something sort of symbolic in there, isn't there? Being fundamentally separated from human connection by death... Being unable connect to others because the people who were meant to teach him how are dead... [Which is, of course, far from the whole of Sherlock's social problems. But still, perhaps, part of them.])

Sherlock also seems to take a kind of comfort among the dead. Until he met John, he apparently had regular one-sided conversations with a skull, and referred to that skull as a friend. (This could be a joke, but it strikes me more as him letting something slip.) There is a void in Sherlock's life that he fills with the dead: The dead can't reject him. The dead listen to him. The dead need him - death gives him a purpose and a place to belong.

And I don't think it's just loneliness, either - I think there's a subtly existential side to it. Sherlock has built his whole life around understanding death and finding reasons for it. Every single day, he chooses to confront the question: "Why did this person die?"

(Incidentally, I think Moriarty is tormented by this question. He would say that Sherlock can only answer "how", never "why", because there is no reason or greater meaning to human mortality. And while Sherlock is constantly searching for meaning on an individual scale, Moriarty is lashing out at a meaningless universe by embracing its meaninglessness. Yes, Sherlock, people have died. That's what people do.)

Of course, none of this necessarily means that Sherlock is responding to the death of someone specific, let alone the death of his parents. He could just be tormented by death itself.

But let's imagine for a moment that it was his parents. Let's imagine that it was sudden, and violent, and in his mid-to-late teens: an age where it's likely that he would have a rocky relationship with them, but still young enough that their sudden loss would change him forever. Let's imagine he was already trying (and/or being pushed) to grow up too fast, and then his home/family/childhood disappeared overnight. And let's imagine that the violence was an accident, like a house fire or car crash, perhaps with a story to unpick, but with no motive, no villain, no satisfying reason. It would make sense, wouldn't it?

[errantabbot]

A Churchman’s Lament

I contend that religion is an immensely valuable enterprise. Unfortunately, most religious institutions are bankrupt, many leaders are inept outside of those contexts, and most of the training to become a ���religious professional” is similarly impoverished.

The factory formation of denominational franchise operators, who are distinctly not spiritual directors, let alone embodiments of the priestly archetype of wisdom-people is a significant factor in the decline of western religious institutions.

Looking to Christianity in particular, it never ceases to amaze me to see the endless hoop jumping that folks are moving through to try to reclaim some of the institutional adherence of the past. It’s always “How do we bring people back to the pews?” “Where are all of the young people?” We keep doing the same thing again and again, and lamenting that those things don’t work, all while refusing to look at, and dare I say, change what we’ve been doing.

The modern church as an institution was founded on the boom of a socio-political milieu that no longer exists. Yet we still persist in acting as though it’s our current reality. It’s not, and it won’t be. There is no amount of theatrical accoutrement, acrylic pulpits, labyrinth printed drop cloths, or political co-opting that is going to fix it.

Some of the better observers of church life in our present era rightly identify that there are significant generational shifts in values with regard to organization membership and the importance institutional belonging between the church goers of the early 20th century and the “nones” of today. That’s certainly true and a worthwhile observation.

Where things get mucky, however, is when we refuse to appropriately contextualize the Golden Cow that is various surveys noting a passive belief in the supernatural (“spirituality”) among even the majority of the unchurched as the ticket that we somehow need to hitch our wagon to, or perhaps more hopefully, to commandeer.

Its. Not. Going. To. Happen.

That we hold out hope for some amorphous “belief” in something vaguely spiritual and otherworldly as even mildly useful…well, that just more indication of the root problems.

Again, we refuse to meaningfully examine what we’re doing, and to honestly critique our institutions and functions. The latent assumption is that the institutions are essentially inerrant expressions of the faith, and what needs to happen is just better marketing and folks will suddenly “come back.” Of course, most of the demographic we’re fishing for has never been a part of any such thing to “come back” to.

And, to get to the more operative point, amidst all of the refusal to reflect honestly on the institution, we dare not approach the actual nature and function of our beliefs.

The reality is that much of *what* and almost all of *how* the church believes is untenable to the masses.

People have abandoned the faith because it has become clear that it no longer reflects any version of discernible, objective reality, and in this, has no bearing on the daily lives of contemporary people living in a global context, even when they throw caution to the wind and give it a whirl in their more desperate moments.

Most dedicated church goers are not so much devotees of a faith as a they are devoted to their social location, to their insular communities, and the wholesale, ready-made identity that corporate belonging provides.

The average churchgoer is a folk-believer at best, they go through the motions topically as matters of costly signaling to facilitate ongoing belonging, and perhaps to stave off existentialist concerns through surface level devotion to a highly siloed faith narrative. In reference to this latter point, the object permanence invoking wisdom of the childlike idiom “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me” aptly applies.

None of this is to say that the stories and spiritual technologies of the church are particularly insolvent, it’s just that they are saddled with nonsense, and deposited in banks that refuse to acknowledge the existence of the wider world as it is. To continue the analogy: cash only transactions, in idiosyncratic currencies, that are only accepted internally.

In the past couple hundred years, great minds have given us to the tools to really understand what it is we’re doing in religious praxis and what it is that our myths are conveying beyond the trappings historicity and literalism, and indeed they’re somewhat uniquely capable of being useful things and serving useful means.

Archetypal psychology, interpathic dialogue, neuroscience, and quantum physics have expanded our understanding of how it is that we are, but our franchises have been ill equipped to make good use of those insights, regarding them often as external threats to an internal homeostasis, refusing to mingle with the world beyond the “good enough” assumed possession of sufficient truth.

But what is this truth sufficient for? Certainly not to serve as an authentic balm for the human heart outside of a highly dependent context, which absurdly enough should be the fundamental application of religious truth and wisdom! It’s no surprise then that the loftier goals of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, mildness, and self-control prove so elusive, as does any real movement toward understanding, mutuality, and unity among people.

The fact of the matter may be that the church is simply reaping what it has sewn, and ongoing( substantial pruning seems to be both inevitable and necessary. And still, I wonder what will be left standing amongst the rubble.

~Sunyananda

[haresvoid]

'IT LISTENS, IT SPARES FULL ATTENTION TO THE OTHER. Even as tentacles sway with evidence of unease-- - but it does not let that consume it // CONTROL IT // to make unfavorable decisions rash and sudden. Arms adjust to rest poised behind a back, palms lightly cupping own wrists (A DISPLAY OF WILLINGNESS TO PARTAKE IN CONVERSATION // ONE CLEARLY DEVELOPED IN LENGTHY TIME AWAY FROM ITS OWN KIND // AND A MIMIC DISPLAY TO THE EMPERORS OWN). Not a mock-- - it never took such petty actions-- - but it was one part its own natural action and another a habit developed. “&– - It is still a power play none the less-- - an act of control. Have you such little faith in non-illithids that you believe they could not establish such connections without your aid?” Equal parts dissatisfaction and understanding-- - Omeluum was aware of illithid natures // DOMINANCE AND CONTROL CHIEF AMONG THEM (AND IT COULD NOT EVEN SAY IT WAS FREE OF SUCH). Its own was born of research-- - of outcomes and developments that could control the lives of people-- - if passively, if positively. It worked as a substitute to quell NATURES DESIRES. Perhaps a hypocrite // PERHAPS JUST TERRIFIED ITSELF COULD BE CAST UNDER THE SAME LIGHT IT FOUGHT AGAINST // or perhaps just because the others actions felt a few steps closer than it determined comfortable.

'HOWEVER, IF THIS ACT PROVED BENEFICIAL FOR MANY, THEN THE SCHOLAR WOULD OBSERVE. The colony was an opportunity it would likely never get again-- - to be among its own kind // LEARNING AND STUDYING // without the traditional aspects of an Elder Brain or the looming Grand Design occupying a mind (AND WHEN IT CAME DOWN TO IT, IT WAS STILL A MIND FLAYER // THE DESIRE TO BE IN A COLONY WAS ONE THAT NEVER TRULY COULD BE QUELLED). It wished to work past these problems while maintaining a functional spot within the group, for its own benefit-- - Omeluum was not entirely free of selfish desires. “&– - But things can change-- - just because the fact of them being devil worshippers never was learned, nor your exposure initially, does not mean fate will be so kind this time-- - that the illithid influence behind what you are doing would not be exposed. You may be putting too much faith in the past.... what exactly is the extent of your plan? Do you plan to get in contact with old members-- - old members who you speak were devil worshipers? Do you intend to build it from scratch, from a society that is freshly traumatized by illithids, betraying trust and lying to them about the truth? I just..... I sense flaws. Flaws that could grow to be problematic at best, or cruel and evil at worst; and dangerous....” Political fields were not its expertise // IT COULD ADMIT SUCH // however books perused and general interaction with others bore some fruit of knowledge of its ways.

'YELLOW HUES NOTICED THE HAND INVITING TO LEAVE, BUT THEY DID NOT FOLLOW GAZE TO THE DOOR. Clearly they had no intent to leave, carrying about the conversation as was // SHIFTING FROM POTENTIAL ACCUSATIONS TO ACTUAL ANXIETIES FILLING ITS MIND (BECOMING FEEDBACK, BECOMING A HUNGER FOR KNOWING). Something was looming in mind, something born from the fractional bitter tangs of frustration, guilt, and sorrow it briefly sensed in the air coming from The Emperor. It grew until Omeluum decided it was time to pry // TO QUESTION FURTHER. “&– - I sense there is more to the story of the Knights, and your involvement with it-- - how did they dissolve? What caused the devils influence to end? ”

Hands clasp behind his back. Listening and ingesting all its fears and uncertainty clouding its mind– but not its judgment. None of which is misplaced. After the fall of the Absolute, and Bhaal's intricate plan of wielding it beforehand, their kind are prosecuted more than ever. Despite the small colony the Emperor has established within the Underdark– which consists of carefully selected independents from the death of the Absolute– their rusted Arcane Tower would still be mistaken for ivory. Not seen as refuges, but as monsters who must be culled.

Something he does not fault the common folk for. Omeluum shares their same concerns. And while he often finds amusement in the arcanist's prickly nature, this time his mind emits a sensation of understanding. It's not laced with the outstretch to calm them. No, his days of trying to sway another through such means have been left in the rubble of Baldur's Gate. Even if the desire to comfort them cradles beneath the surface.

" Are you aware of the Knights of the Shield's identity? " He keeps himself level with Omeluum– his equal. " They were nobles and merchants who focused their efforts on the commerce and civic matters of Faerun. They manipulated its politics in their favor, but many within were unaware of their leaders true nature… " His gaze draws away from it. The growing sensation of frustration creeping into his mind. " They served the archdevil Gargauth; the deity of betrayal and political corruption. "

Unbeknownst to Omeluum, yet, the Emperor had to take matters of his precious city into his own hands. Though the fond memory of Duke Stelmane quelled his frustrations immediately. He severs the feeling of guilt and sorrow– such feelings would serve no purpose to him now.

" …A group of devil worshippers is seen as no different than a colony of illithids in the eyes of the heroic. Though... they were able to keep their secret even after their dissolve, and I intend to do the same for our colony. " He holds his head high. His words ring true– the colony is a priority despite his selfish desires. " There would be no enthrallment, no enslavement of any kind. My intentions are focused on Baldur's Gate's commerce and reestablishing trade with other cities without Gargauth's influence. " And the power that comes with it– this is his city after all.

The Emperor lifts an open palm towards his chambers exit. " If you wish to not partake you are free to leave... " As long as it doesn't pose a threat to the colony… and his plans. It would be a shame to waste such a strong mind.

[saintlike78]

Hey, can you do a poly marauders x fem reader where they get jealous because a slytherin boy is flirting with her because she has a snake ring ? Sorry if that was oddly specific, also you can decide if it’s fluff or smut ☺️

The snake ring and the snake [poly Marauders]

A/N: I loved this idea! Thank you so much for the request! I decided not to do smut since I haven’t written a non-smut poly Marauders fic before, but I hope you still enjoy it.

Pairings: Poly! Marauders x Fem! Non-Slytherin! Reader

Words: 1.5k

Warnings: Fluff, polyamorous relationship, flirty Slytherin boy… Idk, but let me know if I missed anything.

_____________________________________

The sound of pages being turned and voices speaking lowly filled the large library. The book in front of you had long lost its appeal and the words were all blending together as your mind wandered. You were daydreaming of the boys that occupied your thoughts, as they so often did. Your elbows were resting on the table, your fingers mindlessly fiddling with the golden snake ring placed on your right pointer finger. You loved your ring; it never left your finger and you never intended it to. It had been a gift from your three boyfriends when you had celebrated six months of being together.

The three boys were sitting a couple of tables away from you, having been shooed away as they often were the cause for your lack of concertation.

They often spared glances in your direction, not actually paying attention to their own work, as they were just waiting for you to be done so you all could head back to their dorm.

You were so caught up in your little daydream that you hadn’t noticed the boy with the green tie taking a seat beside you, a small smirk adorning his face.

“I like your ring,” he said causing your gaze to snap to his face.

“Thank you, I like it a lot as well,” you said with a smile.

“A pretty ring for a pretty girl… it would be even more perfect if you were in Slytherin,” he said moving a bit closer to you. You figured he did so just to observe your ring better, you were painfully blind whenever someone was flirting with you, and it often got you in trouble.

You laughed a little, “I don’t think I would fit in very well with you lot, but it would be fun to try to be a Slytherin just for a day.”

“I could show you our common room someday,” he offered, scooting even closer, your shoulders practically touching.

“I would love to see it! I want to see all the common rooms before we’re done with school… I’ve already seen the other three, so I’m only missing yours,” you said excitedly, completely missing the flirty suggestion that the boy had insinuated. You were just excited, hoping you could bring your boys with you, so you all could see the dark common room in the dungeons.

It was at this moment Sirius decided to look in your direction; his jaw almost hit the floor when he saw you sitting shoulder to shoulder with another boy, not just any boy but a Slytherin boy.

“Oi lads, look!” Sirius said while pointing to you.

The two other boys looked up from their books and were equally as shocked when they took in the sight before them.

They all saw you laughing at something the boy had said and none of them missed the sly smirk that had taken over his face.

The jealousy was growing in each of them, a frown taking over their faces as they observed you, blissfully unaware of the Slytherin boy’s intention.

You were just too nice for your own good and loved making new friends, especially from other houses, which your boyfriends often admired you for, but right at this moment, they wished you would just be less nice.

“I can’t handle this,” Sirius seethed, angry jealousy churning in his gut.

“She’s just being nice,” James tried, even though all he wanted to do was to shove that boy as far away from you as possible.

They watched as you tipped your head back, letting out another laugh. They were all memorized by the sound of your pretty laugh, but anger boiled in all three of the boys at the fact that someone else was causing such pretty laughs to leave your mouth.

Sirius’ eyes rolled up in his skull so many times, you would think they wouldn’t come down again.

“Well since she’s no longer studying, we can go join them,” Remus suggested, to which both boys nodded and quickly gathered their stuff and bolted towards your table.

“You can come by later tonight,” the Slytherin boy, whose name you had learned was Harry, suggested.

“Wouldn’t it be more fun to see it in the daytime? Then I could see the lake as well from the windows,” you said, still not picking up on his intentions.

“We could do it both during the day and during the night,” Harry said with a wink.

“That would be so fun,” you smiled, very excited to finally be able to see the Slytherin common room.

“What would be fun, Bunny?” Remus asked, your three boys now standing by your table.

“Oh hi! Harry here has invited me to see the Slytherin common room, so I’m finally going to have seen all four common rooms,” you said with a happy clap of your hands.

Remus, James, and Sirius all mentally facepalmed at how completely gullible you were.

James and Remus moved to sit on the other side of you, while Sirius went with the more territorial approach.

He stood beside your chair lifting you from it, “Up you get, pup.”

He then, not so gracefully, sat on the chair pulling you onto his lap hugging you close to his body.

Harry sat beside you, moving his chair away, so he wouldn’t be sitting so close to Sirius.

“And who might this be,” Harry asked, slightly annoyed and confused.

“Oh yeah, sorry… these are my boyfriends, James, Remus, and Sirius… and this is Harry,” you answered, also introducing Harry.

“I was hoping they could come to see the common room as well since they haven’t seen it either.”

“Uhm, I thought it would just be us… Uhm, but I guess,” Harry answered clearly confused, causing your three boyfriends to smirk.

“That would be so great, so we’ll come later this evening if your offers still on the table?” you asked hopefully.

“Uhm, yeah, sure…” Harry answered awkwardly.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be so fun, isn’t it Harry?” Sirius said, not really looking for an answer.

“And how nice of you to invite our girl to see your common room, wouldn’t have expected such niceties from a Slytherin,” Sirius added in a passive-aggressive tone, seeing right through Harry’s offer.

“Yeah… no problem, mate.”

“But we’ll all see you later then… bye,” Remus said and waved goodbye, a not-so-subtle hint for Harry to leave.

“Uhm bye,” Harry quickly scurried off, not wanting to agitate the boys any further.

You moved so you could sit sideways on Sirius�� lap, so you could see all three of their faces when you talked to them.

“What was that all about, pup?” Sirius asked, trying not to seem jealous or angry.

“What do you mean?” you said with a slight tilt of your head, not understanding what he meant.

“You were going to go to the Slytherin common room with him?” Sirius clarified.

“Yeah...? I mean, I was going to ask if you could join right before you came over, but then you came and he said you could come as well,” you were utterly lost, not understanding why they all seemed so angry.

“Oh, darling, you are absolutely adorable,” James laughed, causing Remus and Sirius to do the same.

A frown pulled at your lips, you weren’t very happy with being the bud of the joke and you were even less happy with not understanding it.

“I don’t understand what’s so funny,” you pouted.

“Aww, puppy,” Sirius smirked and kissed your pouting lips.

“Harry was flirting with you, he didn’t actually want to show you his common room, he did want to show you his dorm room though,” Remus explained causing your frown to deepen.

“Oh… I thought he was being friendly,” you mumbled in a small voice fidgeting with your fingers in your lap.

“You’re just our sweet girl, being nice to everyone, even when you shouldn’t,” Sirius said kissing your cheek and rubbing soothing circles on your back.

Your face turned red with embarrassment, and you buried your face in the crook of Sirius’ neck inhaling his masculine scent.

“I just wanted a new friend, and I made him think that I was going to hook up with him,” you said sadly, your voice muffled by Sirius’ clavicle.

“It’s okay, Bunny, you’re just bad at reading when people are flirting with you,” Remus said, trying to suppress his urge to laugh.

“Yeah, just think about how long it took before you realized we were flirting with you,” James said with a small laugh.

You let out a small laugh at that, thinking back to before you got together and how absolutely oblivious you had been.

“But I would never purposely flirt with anyone else, I didn’t mean to give him the wrong idea,” you said lifting your head, wanting to make your point very clear.

“We know, pretty girl, we just want other guys to understand that they shouldn’t flirt with what clearly doesn’t belong to them,” James said, reaching for your hand across the table and squeezing it.

“But do you still want to go see the Slytherin common room?” you said jokingly.

“If we really want to see it, I could just force good old Reggie to give us the password,” Sirius said with a slight laugh.

[bella-caecilia]

#21 pink please!

Thank you so much for the prompt! You sent this a while ago so please, forgive the late response. Here is finally some young Cobert angst! Contains (light) smut. Probably M-rated

Pink – Immature, Timid, Unconfident

1890

Cora had to leave. She had to get out and walk; walk away. Ideally, she would like to run. But she knew best that this wouldn’t do. It was pity enough that she had had to call her maid and wait for her to make her ready to go outside. Everything was so unnecessarily complicated in this world.

The tea with the family had grown to be unbearable. Being there with him as he nibbled the tiny but countless teacakes so totally unbothered. Mama displayed her practised cheerful tone whenever a topic was discussed that excluded Cora for the mere fact that she didn’t understand enough context to be a part of the conversation. If the discussion did include her though Mama’s eyebrows arched high on her forehead and her voice was monotonous and grave. As if everything regarding the young daughter-in-law was a touchy and serious topic. Papa usually stayed silent during these discussions. Sometimes his jaw clenched visibly. A sign that he was thinking about something that posed a difficulty, a challenge. Robert either averted his look, glancing out the windows across the carefree land or mustered Cora with a critical expression. His brow furrowed, sometimes his eyes squinted a trifle, and he regularly took sips of his tea to avoid having to add something directly addressed to his wife. It was so plain and it didn’t hurt less with every day it was repeated. Cora was a problem nobody quite knew how to handle.

She huffed and clutched the fabric of her coat with both hands, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her breath escaped her lips in tiny clouds of warmth. She stalked down the path leading away from the estate. She didn’t want to believe it. She was no problem. They didn’t say it out loud. None of them did. But, oh, how she felt it in their looks, their tones, their sighs. Cora was hard to integrate and hard to teach. Cora was slow on what she was expected to deliver. Cora wasn’t easy to love.

She pressed her lips together as her pace quickened. A futile attempt to run away. Away from her thoughts. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that they thought like this. Because it wasn’t true. She easily integrated and learned. She did her best to quickly realise every request and task directed at her. And she tried so hard to be loveable. She blinked her eyes. She was not a problem.

No one said so, she told herself. But why then couldn’t she help but feel as if she was whenever in the presence of her new family?

“But you were raised to be a mother one day, weren’t you? It’s not that they taught you something different in America, right?” Violet had asked dead serious, her eyebrows raised in a challenging expression. Cora hadn’t anticipated such a low dig and had turned her slightly open-mouthed face to her husband. What was she to say? Was this really how a daughter-in-law was treated here? But Robert’s reaction had stung even more. He had looked at her curiously, seriously considering Mama’s inquiry an interesting question. It had taken all of Cora’s well-trained composure to suppress an outraged gasp.

“Well, of course,” she had given back simply and calmly. She had tried to chew on one of the pink-iced teacakes but the crumbly sponge cake had gotten stuck in her dry throat. The sweet sticky icing had tasted traitorous as she observed Robert casually licking it from his fingertips, thinking no one was looking at him. She just hadn’t been able to stay a minute longer in this room. So, she had put the pastry aside instead and had smiled a sugary smile at Mama while saying, “You’ll see it when the time comes. If you may excuse me now. I’m tired.”

She was tired. Tired of it all. Still, she wandered the grounds restlessly. Because she couldn’t bear the stifling silence of the spacious halls. She couldn’t comprehend how there could be such a huge distance between Robert and her. How was it that they hadn’t managed to grow closer by now? She tried to push away the rising images of last night but after the first flash of his bare vision hovering over her, she was lost in the spiral of still fresh memories.

There had been the usual knock on the adjoining door. Brisk and inquiring. Cora knew he wouldn’t come in if she gave no response. He didn’t disrupt her sleep and wouldn’t invade her privacy. One time she had been dozing already, and rubbing her eyes it had taken her a while to realise she must have been woken up by his knock. Her reply had been groggily, and he had only popped his head in tentatively. “I didn’t want to wake you. I’ll let you sleep.” She had told him he didn’t have to but he had insisted. A few times she had considered not letting him in. Being on her own would maybe be less alone. But she hadn’t had it in her. If she was awake, he was welcomed in her room. It had been the same last night.

“Come in!”

He opened the door soundlessly and pulled the strings of his dressing gown belt tighter as he closed the door behind him. Cora sat propped against the headboard of her wide bed, her hands clasped over the closed book on top of her covers. Her full attention was on him, her gaze following his every move. Robert’s eyes didn’t meet hers. He took quick steps towards the bed and sat down on the edge with his back to her.

“Do you have a new dressing gown?” Cora inquired. She couldn’t stand the silence in the room. It seemed he was avoiding her at all cost. He was about to take off his slippers but paused to lift his right arm and muster the fabric of his dressing gown.

“Could be,” he gave back with a shrug of his shoulders. “Have you never seen it?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Cora kept her tone light. The dressing gown founds its place at the feet of the bed. Finally, Robert turned to her. He looked at her for the first time. Shortly, he acknowledged her face, sweeping his eyes over her features, before he settled his gaze on the book in her lap.

“Did I interrupt you? We don’t have to if you don’t like to.” He stayed seated on the edge of the bed. A safe distance between them.

“No, I haven’t even begun reading yet,” she quickly replied. “And of course, I like to have you here.” She smiled softly because it was true. No matter how awkward it sometimes was (mostly because of his absence of mind) she preferred to have him with her. That maybe was the problem.

“Well, if you say so,” he sounded little enthusiastic. His former question seemed a bit like an excuse to her. As if he was looking for a way out. But he got onto the bed fully now, and she was quick to put her unopened book to the side. She brushed the loose curls of her dark hair behind her ears, trying to push them into the night coiffure her maid had applied with a simple silk ribbon at the back of her neck. Robert moved over the mattress, lifting the light upper covers to slip beneath them. Suddenly, Cora felt a hit of his breath at her neck as he shuffled closer and a rosy blush spread on her features. She lowered her gaze. God, he wasn’t even doing anything and she was flustered already! What this man did to her!

“You look nice tonight, Cora,” Robert spoke softly. His palm cupped her cheek and slowly wandered down under her chin, lifting it lightly. She looked into his pale blue eyes cautiously. Her lashes fluttered as she was searching for some warmth there. His gaze dropped instantly when his hands wandered to her waist. His touch was gentle and distant. But she had missed the opportunity once again to come closer to her husband’s warmth. She knew it was there, enveloping all his tender feelings. But for whatever reason, she was being kept away.

Robert now fought with the constricts of Cora’s dressing gown. The dusky pink garment was wrapped at least once around Cora’s slender body. She had gone to bed with it for the chilliness of her room. The smouldering fireplace was much too far away from her lonely spot in the big bed. Robert huffed when he didn’t get the soft material from his wife’s torso.

“Let me help you,” she whispered and struggled from the offending piece of clothing less elegantly than planned. With a sweet and encouraging smile, she turned to her husband beside her and reached out her arms to start unbuttoning his nightwear but as if it was a serious battle, he grasped one button after the other, trying to do it faster than she. When he was about to untie his lower garments, Cora’s hands laid idly in her lap.

“May I?” he turned to her and his hands hovered over her thighs. She only nodded. Robert pushed down the blankets a little and grabbed the exposed material of her nightgown. He gathered it in his hands until he had reached the lower seam and one of his hands sneaked underneath, seeking the waistband of her drawers. His lips connected with her cheek as he loosened the string of her waistband. He pressed a kiss to her lips as he pulled down her underwear. Cora returned his kiss heartily before she helped him getting the drawers off her legs. Now Robert moved above her, taking off his pants completely and then pushing her nightdress up, revealing her full nude vision. Right before Cora took the dress to pull it over her head, she saw his eyes wandering over her body as unrestricted as nearly never. She was very eager to throw the nightgown aside if he was to devour her with his eyes like this. His hand dropped between her legs again, cupping her down there and gently beginning to stroke. Cora sighed. He could do this more often she thought. His eyes had locked with her chest and he seemed to be considering something. She could practically see him taking heart. And then, his mouth descended on her breasts, kissing them extensively one after the other. Cora closed her eyes. Her head sank weakly back into the pillows. Her silent sighs turned into soft moans. At first, she laid there passively and savoured his passionate attentions. After a moment, her hands found his head and her fingertips disappeared in his sandy curls. She drew light circles on his scalp, gently scratching the back of his head. His lips travelled up her chest and neck and connected with her open lips. Cora pressed her mouth to his hard and sucked his lower lip between her teeth. She felt him shuffle between her spread legs until his hardness pressed against her. He broke the kiss and his eyes searched hers questioningly. She returned his intense look and nodded.

Pushing inside her, his eyes fell close and his lips parted slightly to let out a low moan. Cora tried to relax, wanting to give in to the pleasurable experiences that, at this moment, were right in her reach. Being this close for her to grasp. But since the moment Robert had broken their fiery kiss, he was distant. Their skin only touched barely. They were about to absolve this task with minimal contact she feared. He began moving above her slowly but Cora felt cold. With his hands and lips on her, it had been as if her body had forgotten the freezing temperatures of her room. But now, his hands were pressed into the mattress on either side of her chest and his lips were up there, high above her. Far from her reach.

Cora didn’t want to force more closeness on him. She didn’t want him to be uncomfortable. So, she did as she did so often and laid there beneath him, trying to make it work the way he predefined. But today, the cold took hold of her and it made her panic a little. It had started out so nicely. So much closer and more intimate than usual. She had liked it. It had been thrilling, it had made her nervous but she wanted to explore it. As the fear formed in her head that he might not touch her again during the whole act and that it would turn out less satisfying than ordinarily, her hands sought at least the slightest contact and wandered up his tensed arms. Her grip grew tighter around his biceps, and he looked into her eyes. For a second, she wanted to ask him for a kiss because she felt like this was what his pink lips called for. But she didn’t. Instead, she pushed her hands onto his back as he began moving faster. And it worked. Robert buried his head into her neck for a moment and she held him in her arms as he rocked them both closer to the brink. It felt better this way. Cora was able to enjoy it more. And then, he started kissing her shoulder, and the warmth spreading from her core expanded with a much quicker pace. Cora mirrored his actions and his skin felt so good beneath her lips. When he was close, Robert lifted himself and they were able to look into each other’s faces again. And everything Cora saw from that point on was his flushed nude body moving eagerly above her. The blood rushing through his body coloured his skin light pink. He groaned. She only saw the rosy colour of his skin. She moaned. Skin on skin. Low moans and breathy sighs. Pale pink bodies holding on to each other so close… until… It was over. It was done, and the closeness was gone. A few moments later, he was gone as well.

“Goodnight,” he said with his back to her. How could he get back into his clothes so fast? “Sleep well.” He stood up. Only a brief look over his shoulder. So fleeting he couldn’t have seen anything at all really.

“Goodnight,” she breathed silently into the sound of the turning door handle. Over and done with. That was how they went to bed so many nights.

And now, as she walked down the gravel path, all she saw before her inner eye was skin. Rosy skin. A pale pink body. An innocent colour. She snorted. Innocent yet intimate. And in truth, it was none of it. Again and again, she herself created the appearance of intimacy between them. Yet there was none. Not for real. But she was sure that every time they had been a little closer last night, he had enjoyed it just as she. And still, he had escaped her. Cora was hurt. She opened her arms for him again and again, and he was running away cowardly. She saw glimpses of longing in his eyes, she was sure. Why when it sometimes seemed as if he did enjoy her company as if he revelled in her closeness, why did he chicken away like a moody young boy? Cora was frustrated. What made him doubt? What made him insecure?

Cora halted when her feet had made enough steps away from the estate. Her thoughts paused for a moment too. She looked into the pink sky, illuminated clouds drawing pictures of her lost home. Cora had spent endless moments marvelling at the spectacular Ohioan sky and practising her painting hand at the romantically pink and lilac cloud formations only a few years back. The vision now, hanging over her who she stood on the cold and harsh English land, made her eyes glassy with a yearning for a time lost. She used all her willpower to keep her lip from trembling. It would mean defeat and perhaps – a tiny but growing part of her mind feared it – it would also mean regret. She didn’t want to regret her marriage. She didn’t want to regret any of it. But more often than not it felt like everything she needed for her heart to be filled, filled with energy to live, had been taken from her.

And then, as her mind and eye resumed wandering, there was again skin, only skin for as far as her eye could reach. His light pink body being close to her. He was the only thing on her mind. And she wanted him to be her energy to live. Craved to be his energy, his reason for living. But she had to get these presumptuous dreams out of her head if she wanted to survive here.

...

if you want to send another prompt, here is the prompt list: Colour symbol prompts

[kumkaniudaku]

Understanding

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17

Recommended Listening: Understanding x Xscape, Purple Emoji (ft. J. Cole) x Ty Dolla $ign, My World x Asian

Word Count: 2,137 

If you were going to win an award that afternoon, it’d be for attire, not confidence. Your expertly crafted golf outfit was the only thing willing your feet forward once you parked your car in front of Senior’s golf course.

Black women and men dressed like modern Jet magazine ads waltzed in and out of the clubhouse while you scanned the area for your party. You’d been to your fair share of golf courses, but none as exquisite as The National. Marble accents complemented modern brass finishes and unbeatable views of the city. The desire to take photos for your father was almost too much to shake, but you managed to play it cool. Acting out of place was surely some type of faux pas for the wealthy.

Across the way, Senior sat at the bar sipping a glass of water while thumbing through a newspaper. His furrowed brow was identical to Yahya’s whenever he was knee-deep in work or a good book. The mental comparison made you smile before ushering in a tinge of sadness. For two people so undeniably similar, they were miles apart physically and mentally.

You navigated through groups of young and old alike on the way to the bar.

“You made it on time,” Senior spoke without looking up from a story on education budget cuts.

“I made it with time to spare.”

“You don’t get praise for doing what’s right.”

“Think of how much better things would be if we did.”

Senior paused his reading to take a deep breath and shake his head. You mentally berated yourself for overstepping so soon. Not even five minutes into the outing and you had already committed an avoidable infraction

Yahya I prolonged the unbearable silence as he continued to read through another article, reading each line painstakingly slow while you watched in agony.

“I apologize. That was unnecessary.”

“I’ll ask you again,” he spoke, finally looking away from the newspaper to study your face. “Let’s leave the character right here. We’re here for a purpose, so grab your clubs and follow me to the first hole. I hope your game is as good as you are at running your mouth.” Taking his retort in stride, you quickly grabbed your set of clubs and followed with no objections. “After you.”

Senior found himself immediately impressed though he wouldn’t verbalize his feelings. He watched you breeze through each hole with near expert precision, opening a series of questions at hole 5 during casual small talk.

“Where’d you say you were from again?”

“A tiny town in South Carolina that you probably wouldn’t know.”

“Try me,” he answered while taking stock of his position on the fairway.

“Anderson, South Carolina. Home of Larry Nance and the great Chadwick Boseman.”

“Can’t forget James Kennedy, Young Lady.”

You cocked your head back in surprise. “What you know about Radio? I mean outside of what the movie says?”

Senior remained quiet long enough to take a hard swing. The loud “whiff” of his driver slicing through crisp, clean air didn’t match the stroke’s output. Both of you watch the golf ball sail high into the air before making a landing well short of the intended destination. Senior shook his head at the miscalculation before turning to answer your question.

“Black folks from all over are connected, even without all that Snapgram and Facebook foolishness.”

“I could argue it’s helped, right? How else would you be able to share your granddaughter’s first steps with the whole family?”

“In photo albums. You might not remember those, but they did us just fine.”

“Yeah, but it’s instantaneous conversation and information. Who wouldn’t want that?”

“Maybe instantaneous conversation is the problem. We aren’t making enough time to stop and really think about what we’re saying to each other.”

“Mm.” You let the conversation naturally taper before following Senior to his golf cart. The rolling hills provided enough scenery to keep you interested while you sorted the words in your head.

“I think we may have started off on the wrong foot.” You spoke once the cart came to a full stop. Senior trailed behind in silence, gathering a new club while watching you examine the other golfers in the area.

“You’re rather observant.”

You chuckled and plucked a club from your bag. “I’ve been told. Yahya calls me Eagle Eye when I catch something he’s already talked about ten minutes ago.”

“It’s what his Big Mama used to call his Pop-Pop for the same thing. That man was notoriously late to the punchline.” The nostalgia in Yahya I’s voice caught you off guard though he didn’t see your minor fumble. Something in his retelling appealed to your sense of compassion in a way that you considered long gone when it came to him.

“Let’s not beat around the bush. You have an issue with my presence that we should discuss. Because I can assure you, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Bold,” Senior responded with a sarcastic laugh. He gestured to nothing in particular as you squared up to take a swing and nodded. “And direct. Continue.”

You took a moment to hit a line drive toward the green in the distance, using the movement as an outlet for the unexpected nerves churning your stomach. Both of you quietly watch the golf ball for its final resting place before you turned to speak.

“You are extremely hard to please, and it is literally ruining your family. Yahya does everything in his power, and, excuse my French, you don’t seem to give a fuck. Why is that?”

“What makes you think that my love isn’t what makes me push him to be the best that he can? It may not be the fluff and frills you’re used to in your home, but it’s what he needs to get him to his potential.”

“Did it help you?”

Senior mistakenly allowed a quick moment of confusion to take over his features. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You tell me. When’s the last time you enjoyed a laugh with your family or felt like you could just...be? You’re carrying a weight that is crushing the people around you, and you don’t even see it.”

“You don’t…” Senior caught his words and bottled them behind his lips. He took a deep breath as he approached his golf ball and took a half-hearted swing. Noticing his misstep, he shook his head. “I’m from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My father, Yahya’s Pop-Pop, moved my mother and me to a shotgun shack to find work when things weren’t quite shaking out back home. He was in and out of trouble and such. Couldn’t get right, but he had a natural knack for building and design.”

A nearby group of golfers erupted into laughter, helping to break up some tension.

“So architecture’s been in the family for a while,” you asked. Yahya I curled the corner of his lips into a far-off smile.

“A long, long time. It got us out of that shack when my siblings came along and into a house with our own rooms and a backyard. But, my father was a hard man. Hard to please, you know,” he laughed, making a reference to your earlier words. “He wanted the best from me, and he made damn sure he got it. I needed that to get my head out of the clouds.”

“You also needed some reassurance.”

“Perhaps. But, what’s done is done. I look at what I’ve built with no complaints, especially when it comes to my boys. I couldn’t be more proud of the men they’ve become.”

Senior’s proud smile almost looked foreign on his face. You’d never seen more than an indifferent expression or the slight twinge of anger smoldering behind his eyes.

Leaning on your club, you kept your eyes forward to gaze out over the course.

“Yahya would love to hear that. I don’t know if you know this, but he is desperately searching for your approval. There is not enough praise from me or anyone else that could replace knowing that you’re proud of him. Yet, as much as he would like to tell you these things himself, he’s afraid that you’ll think less of him for being vulnerable.”

“I could never think less of the boy. Tough love is still love.”

“Maybe for you,” you added, shrugging. “But, what good is continuing this cycle if it’s hurting the children you claim to love and the grandchildren after them?”

Senior dropped his head in thought before looking up with an unreadable expression. “Deuce will be fine. He’s all the best parts of his mother. I...I’m confident he’ll figure out fatherhood on his own despite my shortcomings. We raised him well.”

“Forgive me if I’m overstepping -”

“That has never stopped you before, young lady.” His light-hearted chuckle invited you to follow suit.

“Fair point,” you laughed. “So, let me cut to the chase. Allowing Yahya to just ‘figure things out’ is a passive existence. Yahya says you’re constantly reminding him to take things into his own hands. Sounds like you should take your own advice. Be the parts of your father that you needed at 33.”

Instead of acknowledging your advice, Senior twirled his club in his hand on the way to the golf cart. He maintained an impenetrable poker face that even the most skilled readers couldn’t interpret. You silently hoped that at least some of your words had made it through his thick skull, but you chose to let the discussion meet a natural end.

As he started the cart, Senior turned to you and smiled. “How the hell you learn to swing like that? I know it wasn’t in Anderson.”

“Hey, we play a little golf here and there!”

“Where? Out in the woods?”

“No, out in the Bayou like you did.”

A small smirk crept across your face as Yahya I chuckled at your joke. He sounded identical to Yahya, full of mirth and beautiful melodies.

“The ole Bayou,” he repeated in a thick accent. “You ain’t seen a place more beautiful in your life.”

“Maybe Yahya and I could visit one day.”

He quickly looked over and shrugged. “Maybe. For now, you focus on defending this lead. I think I’m getting back into my rhythm.”

Senior couldn’t make a convincing comeback, but he did show glimpses of a softer, more personable disposition. He cracked jokes on occasion and asked questions that turned the conversation from a therapy session to banter between associates. Your mind traveled to the possibility of civil family dinners or vacations during the ride home. Though it seemed silly to create imaginary scenarios after one conversation, you couldn’t help the urge to see a better future.

Your happiness helped you float into your shared apartment, making Yahya smile when he caught a glimpse of your wide grin and short skirt.

“Damn, girl,” he hollered from the couch with Leche cradled in his arms. “If Tiger was out there cheeked up like that, I might’ve paid a little more attention to the golf network.”

“Oh, really?”

Your raised eyebrow made Yahya kiss his teeth once he caught on to the joke. “You know what I meant. Where you been anyway?”

“Oh, I was just out doing a little golfing...with your dad.”

“Right. That was today, huh?”

Even Yahya’s best attempt at feigning interest, his question came out in a flat drone typically used on annoying coworkers. You dropped your purse and keys against a nearby barstool on the way to his spot on the couch.

“It was today. I think we had a good time,” you answered as you slid your arms around his neck from behind, placing a gentle kiss behind his ear. “He didn’t yell at me.”

“You must’ve kissed his ass the entire time.”

“No. We talked about how great I am at golf. I mean, I kicked his ass.”

“Good on you, baby girl. Bring honor to our house.” In a surprise maneuver, Yahya pulled you over the couch and into the space beside him. “Is that all?”

Silence blanketed the room, allowing the college basketball game in the background to have center stage. You considered your options carefully, weighing the pros of a potential argument against a peaceful Saturday indoors. Yahya turned his attention back to the television as he waited for a response.

“Did you hear me, baby? He didn’t say anything rude to you, did he?”

“No!” You blurted. Taking a deep breath, you slowly slid the remote off the coffee table and pressed the power button. Yahya blinked twice at his reflection on the black television screen before turning to you for answers. Your fingers danced across his thighs to interlock with his long digits.

“I think...I think we need to have a real talk about your dad.”

----

A/N: I hope this is better late than never. Only two more chapters left! Really striving to have those to y’all by the end of the month.

Let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged!

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[zerogate]

In the West, the term ego is variously defined. My dictionary equates it to the self. In Freudian thought, the ego is contrasted to the id and superego as one of the components of the personality. We all have some general or intuitive understanding of what the term means. We can speak of people having big egos, weak egos, or healthy egos. None of these is exactly what is meant by ego in Buddhism.

In Buddhism perhaps a more accurate term than ego would be self-image. The self-image is a mental event that contains a little picture of ourselves...

We have many, many of these images. Which image is activated at any given moment depends on the external trigger. What they all have in common is that they are mental events, something that appears in our minds. We have only one problem here--we completely buy into these images. We identify with the various "me's" in the above examples, rather than regarding them in a detached manner as just another mental event. If we are able to observe their arising with detachment, the various self-images lose their power and slowly dissolve.

When we begin to do this, we might feel a considerable amount of fear and anxiety at first. The ego evolved as a way to deal with the chaos of being; dissolving it opens us to the fears that accompanied its original emergence. Letting go feels like death. Actually, it is death--what dies in the release is the same as what dies when we physically die. But remember, in Buddhism the moment of death is also a moment of pure enlightenment for those who can recognize and use it. The fear and anxiety is simply more thought that we can let go...

When we let go of these images and their attendant fears, we begin to experience spaciousness. When we identify with the self-images, our minds are contracted; as we let go, our minds open up to their vastness, which approaches the true or absolute nature. With time, this vastness actually becomes inviting; it no longer makes us feel as if we are dying. We've experienced it enough to know that we can open up, survive, and be better off for it.

Identifying with our self-image no longer feels safe and comfortable; it feels claustrophobic and stultifyingly boring. This is a major and important transition in our practice: when we reach this point in our practice, we have "gotten it"; our progress will be smoother and our commitment stronger.

Many people fear egolessness because they fear they will become dysfunctional. But let's look at the lamas we know: They left Tibet as penniless, starving refugees, adapted first to Indian and then to Western culture, and are now engaged in an incredible range of truly beneficial activities. Hardly dysfunctional. What I recommend to people with this view is this: Give up 10 percent of your ego, I0 percent of your thoughts. See what happens. Are you better or worse off? No one yet has said worse! Having done so, we can trust that slowly giving up the other 90 percent will be beneficial.

Almost all of us associate egolessness with a state of nonassertive wimpiness because of the way this term is commonly used in the West.

People who have that predilection are probably drawn to the Buddhist teaching due to this misunderstanding. We let people walk over us and say we are nonattached. We don't assert ourselves to get what we want because we think we have no desire. I was like this for decades, and I can assure you this is complete nonsense.

This comes from confusing ego with self-image. The nonassertive personality has a very strong self-image of being powerless and weak. He feels he will be crushed if he asserts himself. To compensate, he develops a philosophy that exhorts non-assertiveness and passivity, that confuses nonassertiveness with desirelessness. This is big ego. This is strong self- grasping. This is wrong--it is not good Buddhism. I've never met a wimpy lama. They are hearty, earthy people who enjoy themselves while actively engaging in the world and accomplishing a myriad o f beneficial activities. They are never afraid of standing up for what they believe.

One test you can give yourself is this: If there is something you want and you don't pursue it, is it because you truly have a different set of priorities, or is it that you simply feel unable either to pursue your desire or to succeed? If it is the latter, it is a highly defiled mental state that must be purified. It's wonderful to give up desires or not to retaliate when abused, but these should be choices made from a position of strength, not the limited responses of a crippled being.

So a sense of weakness is a self-image to which we cling. It can and should be given up. When we give it up, we will experience spaciousness and we will feel stronger. We don't have to become aggressive jerks; we simply want to reach a balance where we are free to act appropriately.

-- Bruce Newman, A Beginners Guide to Tibetan Buddhism

[confusedinfj]

Cognitive Functions and What They Look Like Explained with Objects

I’m going to attempt explain the cognitive functions better than I have before, and hopefully in a lot more depth. The risk with this is that it could be wrong, but at least an attempt was made. I’m not an academic or anything, I’m just writing from observation/experience stuff that I find helpful to understand. Hopefully this can help you type yourself more accurately too!  All functions are described as they are in the first 2. 

I hope this helps you see how EVERY FUNCTION IS IMPORTANT!

And no. None of these objects really make sense. 

Fe: The Thermostat

A thermostat can’t feel whether it’s hot or cold itself, but it can feel if you are! And depending on how fancy your thermostat is, it will cool you or heat you until you’re just the temperature you want to be. That is its single goal in life: to keep you comfortable. If you’re sad, it will try to fix it. 

Basically, Fe is about everyone being genuinely happy and comfortable. It wants to be in touch with other people and respond to their needs accordingly. It’s not necessarily good at showing or expressing this, but that’s its aim. 

Well developed Fe is the function that encourages open discussion of problematic feelings that it KNOWS are right there - remember, it can FEEL them, cos it’s a thermostat. Poorly developed Fe ignores unspoken problems and pretends it’s a good little thermostat anyway. 

If you’re upset with a Fe user, just tell them calmly. If you need space, just tell them calmly. If you’re angry, tell them why. READJUST THE THERMOSTAT. Don’t be surprised when the Fe user does the same - that’s their way of trying to keep everyone happy in the long run. Good Fe believes arguments are necessary. Bad Fe is passive aggressive and let things build up until they’re too big to handle. If you sense your Fe user is doing this, approach them about it and get it out while you still can. Fe users don’t talk about issues with emotions most of the time - they speak about feelings clinically. It helps if you explain to a Fe user how the problem makes you feel, but also that you still love them.

High Fe - is a natural thermostat. It doesn’t even realise that’s how it operates, it just DOES. High Fe users can struggle to even FEEL that they have their own problems, and can easily be ignored as a result (sheeple). As their Ti develops, they should become a little more self aware, and better at turning their natural thermostat off every now and again so they get a break. A key feature of high Fe users is that they’re just ALWAYS THERE. You might hate them, get sick of them, find them annoying, or feel like they don’t understand you... but they’re always there. Always trying. Immature high Fe is very sensitive to extreme temperatures, but with Ti development comes a bit more separation and ability to help you through, even if you’re not responding to their attempts at cooling/heating you. Because constantly living as a thermostat requires you to learn that SOMETIMES you just can’t change the weather. So at the end of the day, even though they’re not a T type, well developed high Fe users can actually be less sensitive and more useful in a rough patch than their low Fe counterparts. 

Low Fe - is a thermostat with emergency settings. It kicks in at unusually high or low temperatures and gets it back into humanly-survivable temperatures. As Fe develops, low Fe users become more sensitive to other people’s temperatures and can regulate the environment a little better. While low Fe users aren’t naturally very sensitive to your extreme temperatures, they can become suddenly overwhelmed and deeply upset if things go too far and they’re the reason you’re not doing so well. With good character development, which is totally SEPARATE from MBTI, a low Fe user can become just as good at maintaining the perfect temperature as a high Fe user. It will just take a little more effort and skill. BUT, since they’re not always used to being a thermostat, they’re not always aware of what’s the weather and what’s their fault. So at the end of the day, even though they’re not an F type, well developed low Fe users actually seem to be more sensitive and fragile than their high Fe counterparts.

Fi: The Thermometer

The thermometer can’t really do anything about the weather - it can just tell you what’s going on. Fi users are very sensitive to what’s going on around them, and feel the need to regulate the climate they’re in as much as possible. That is: going against their own feelings can actually be painful for them. They feel a very strong NEED to be who they are. Fi is about being in touch with yourself and your own emotions/beliefs/you name it. Bad Fi can easily be selfish, but good Fi has the capacity to help where Fe stands... clueless. 

Good Fi values you feeling good too! Fi users CAN apply their thermometer to others and get a reading on how hot/cold their climate is. They can’t feel your emotions like the Fe thermostats, but if you express emotion they can essentially measure it. Good Fi users try to help you in any way they would feel would be helpful if they were in your shoes. This means Fi users are much better at showing sympathy than Fe users.

If you’re upset with a Fi user, you have to tread carefully. They can be easily hurt, and will definitely take things the wrong way if you don’t articulate it correctly. The clinical approach of Fe users is often not appreciate, because it’s interpreted as cold, uncaring, or worse - nasty. You’ll have to express a lot more emotion when talking to a Fi user. From what I’ve found, you have to approach Fi with Fi, so I’ve never managed to do this successfully. It always becomes a fight for like an hour until finally the Fi user understands what I was trying to say. So, from what I’ve found, Fi finds the Fe approach hostile, but responds better to genuine displays of emotional vulnerability.

High Fi - is a natural thermometer. It knows what it’s feeling, what it believes in... all that jazz. It finds it hard to compromise its feelings and beliefs for ANYTHING or ANYONE. It can be kind and sensitive as a result, but also very fragile and easily overwhelmed. Well developed Fi users learn to work through the emotional instability of thermometer life, but immature Fi can be unstable and selfish. Te development helps high Fi users get on with things and move through whatever they might be feeling. They can apply that same resilience to others who are suffering, and inspire people to get through their emotional lows. So at the end of the day, even though they’re not a T type, high Fi users can function better under emotional pressure and inspire action better than their low Fi counterparts. 

Low Fi - is a thermometer that is usually ignored in favour of getting things done. This means high Te users can be confident and headstrong most of the time, but occasionally have dramatic shut-downs into low Fi. And since they usually ignore their thermometer, they don’t really know what to do about it. HOWEVER, well developed low Fi users can learn to apply their thermometers to others with some skill. And they can be more overwhelmed by others’ emotions because their Fi is so low. So, at the end of the day, even though they’re not an F type, well developed low Fi users can be more sensitive and sympathetic than their high Fi counterparts. 

Te: The Car

The car is designed to get you from point A to B without death or injury. It’s complex, but not too much can go wrong at any given moment. The process itself is fairly simple: engine sparks, wheels go round - drive. Te wants to get to point B quickly, and is focused on action and outcomes. And if you stand in its way, you might get run over. It isn’t necessarily focused on the steps required to get from point A to B, it just sees the end and drives.  

Well developed Te values doing things effectively as well - not just getting them done in the first place. This means Te users can be persuaded to change their approaches and routes providing you can argue that it’s worth it. Te is good at seeing potential in other people, but can make the mistake of seeing the end point and missing the starting point or steps required to develop. 

If you’re upset with a Te user, you’ll have to appeal to Fi. No one likes criticism, not matter how high a T function is! However, high Te users can tolerate and even appreciate the Fe approach to relationships and conflicts, providing they’re not having a low Fi moment. 

High Te - This is life in the car, on the road. Always heading towards a new goal. However, contrary to popular opinion, Te users can actually be very kind and considerate! Providing they’re well developed, Te aims to take care of the people it loves. High Te users can fall into the Te trap of seeing the person’s potential without recognizing they’re not quite there yet. They can be very idealistic and romantic in relationships because their Fi is so low. They can also be angry little cars who run people over if they’re poorly developed or just mean. This is why Te users have a reputation for being cold and controlling. I’ve found Te users only really act like this when they’re succumbing to low Fi. 

Low Te - This is the car that mainly sits in the garage, but occasionally comes out for a Sunday drive. Although, poorly developed low Te looks like saying mean things just to hurt people when you’re upset, or provoking people for a reaction.High Te users definitely go through phases like this when they’re young, but low Te users are more open to these problems when they’re older. Well developed, low Te helps high Fi users overcome their overwhelming feelings and get through things. It may even help them compromise if they absolutely must. 

Ti: The Aeroplane

The aeroplane is designed to take you over long distances very quickly, and as safely as possible. There are back up systems, back up systems for back up systems, and multiple things can go wrong if you forget to do even one simple thing. It’s a much more dangerous process than driving, but it’s also much faster if you’re trying to go far. 

Ti is about understanding things so that you can run your life well. Poorly developed Ti is dysfunctional, but well developed Ti can get you pretty far with very little effort! But unlike Te, Ti isn’t as focused on the end destination so much as it is on the steps required to get there. Every little detail matters, just like on an aeroplane. And if even one small detail has been misunderstood, the Ti users’ entire understanding of something can go crashing down like an aeroplane. They MUST understand the parts to understand the whole. 

If you’re upset with a Ti user, you can refer to the Fe section. Ti users prefer a clinical approach to emotions simply because they want to UNDERSTAND rather than be overwhelmed by negative feelings their thermostat will detect once you start crying in front of them. Ti will then engage thermostat measures to ensure relationship contentment. 

High Ti - Life in the sky as a pilot. The Fe thermostat doesn’t matter so much when you’re trying to make sure you don’t fall out of the sky. High Ti users aim to understand every small thing in life. Poor high Ti users have a faulty misunderstanding and drive everyone insane arguing they’re right. Well developed Ti users have a good understanding, but often enjoy arguing anyway, just to make sure they don’t have any flaws in their understanding. When you’re arguing against yourself, you have to know your stuff pretty well! While they’re not given enough credit for it, high Ti users can be very considerate in relationships, and aim to understand their loved ones just as well as everything else. Ti isn’t satisfied with a functional understanding, so it may provoke and tease to better understand people. And when it goes too far and upsets people, the emergency thermostat kicks in to fix the problem. 

Low Ti - life in the sky as a co-pilot. Low Ti users prefer to take their cues from someone ELSE - preferably the pilot (high Ti user). Low Ti users can be overwhelmed if they have to take on too much responsibility or have to understand too many small details. Then they can feel like a co-pilot taking control of a plane after the pilot has died and the plane is spiraling down. They’d rather do what they’re told and keep the pilot happy! But they also take comfort in knowing that - if it really comes down to it - they can fly the plane and land safely. They like knowing they have back up systems, back up systems for back up systems, and are capable of making it out alive. 

Ne: Google Search Auto-predict

You’re not even finished typing, and Google already has 10 ideas about what you might be asking. That’s the Ne brain - branching out, and out, and out... sometimes a bit TOO out. 

High Ne - Google search auto-predict is always on. It all happens at once, just like how Google suggestions change with every letter you add. And when you finish your question, it’s kind of disappointed you didn’t ask one of the 10 other more interesting ones. Easily bored, always sees a better option... but also very good at picking which option is most realistic. May or may not care.

Low Ne - random auto-predict. Because sometimes Google doesn’t predict anything as you type? That’s a weird phenomenon. But then it’ll just suddenly appear halfway through a sentence? Yeah... like that. Poorly developed low Ne can mistake every new idea as a great idea, but well developed low Ne knows which ones are worth listening to :)

Ni: Google Search Results

Did you mean...? Not only shows you every single possible thing on what you Googled, but also shows you what could be immediately connected to it. 

High Ni - Figures out what you’re looking for based on a few key words that may or may not have made sense - understands your typos. Does it all in seconds, doesn’t really understand the algorithm. Just does it. Can take you down a rabbit hole for hours. Forgets about time as a concept. Sometimes connects strange things, but somehow makes sense anyway. Usually isn’t wrong about what you were Googling. Bad Ni thinks it knows everything though, and forgets it needs to add things to its database. Good Ni is always learning MORE

Low Ni - Like the 20th page of Google Search Results. Doing the same thing as high Ni, but not as effectively. Might have a few conspiracy theories in there. Might’ve misunderstood your question or taken the typos literally. Occasionally gets it right, but the best results are usually on the first page anyway. 

Se: The Camera

Takes a picture of the moment, every detail rendered exactly as it was. 

High Se - High focus camera, good colour, good lighting - the kind of pictures you want to keep forever and frame. Se knows what’s right in front of it. It doesn’t miss anything it can see. Might not understand what’s about to happen, but knows what IS happening. 

Low Se - Like a polaroid camera, and the pictures might not be worth keeping. Awkward shots that are accurate but not great quality. Might be blurry, not really able to see faces... just a LITTLE bit out of focus, so that you miss something that was pretty obvious. Has a kind of artsy vibe though. 

Si: The Diary

Recorded everything, but from a very subjective point of view that may or may not be accurate. Is structured so that it can be read again and again. 

High Si - A very detailed diary. Concerned about detailing every aspect of life. Some pages have been ripped out. Sometimes pages are inserted to add in additional information that may or may not alter the entire memory. A nice little organised diary that’s written very neatly. 

Low Si - A diary that gets an entry once every 6 months or so. Still valued and personal, but a lot is missing. Since it’s less tended to, pages are less likely to be missing or replaced - so what’s written is probably more accurate. There’s just not that much of it. A very badly written diary that’s got coffee stains and might not be entirely legible. 

[p-artsypants]

I’ll Handle This (9)

In Which Plagg cuts the Umbilical Cord

Howdy folks! Thanks for the patience! I like to pretend I’m regular with uploads, but we all know that’s not true. And for a little while, it’s going to be worse. I had a gallbladder attack this week, and I have to wait about a month to get it out. In the meantime, I get sick pretty easily from most foods. So I’ve kind of put writing on the backburner. 

Oh, I’m also planning a wedding!

Thanks for understanding and not sending demands for updates!

FF.net | Ao3 

—

Adrien was feeling pretty darn good, all things considered. 

Ladybug, or Marinette rather, had been so adamant for so long that no one could know their identities. It was a mantra he stuck to, though he desperately wished to know her outside the mask. 

With Nino in on the secret, it felt more liberating than he expected. All night, he told Nino stories of his terrible excuses and narrow misses of getting caught. 

“I don’t know how I didn’t catch it sooner.” Nino had said, hindsight being 20/20 and all that. 

And Adrien admitted that he felt dumb for not realizing Nino was Carapace sooner. So Nino’s guilt was lessened a bit by that. 

While the boys talked, Plagg stayed rather neutral. He didn’t divulge any more of his plans or prepare them for what was to come. 

Because he couldn’t. Plagg was preparing for several different outcomes, all hindered on many overlapping factors. He just had to hope for the best for now and not stress Adrien out. 

The kid deserved to enjoy his first sleepover.

—

Being an ancient being, Plagg’s passive perception was relatively high. He noticed things and had an awareness that surpassed most other entities on the planet. 

Though, he rarely acted on anything he noticed, since he could phase out of most danger.  It mostly kept him from being seen by people who weren’t supposed to see him. 

However, alarm bells were currently going off like crazy inside his—or Adrien’s—head. 

Lila was hovering just a bit too closely for comfort. 

Though she was usually the main attraction in a conversation, she wasn’t very good at spying. She hovered, just at the edge of the circle, throwing out plenty of ‘oh, don’t mind me’s, but keeping her eye trained on him. She even followed them when they went out for lunch. Far enough away that no one would notice, mind you, but there none the less. 

Lila was not Gabriel’s muse. She was his stooge. His little puppet. His meat camera. 

As long as Lila was around, Gabriel was aware of every action he took. Who knew what kind of bull shittery she’d pull if he did something remotely different. 

But what exactly was she watching for? Just reporting his change in behavior? 

Had Gabriel suspected too much? 

It was high time Plagg put the next phase of his plan into action. 

But first, he needed to throw Lila off the trail. 

It was after class, and everyone was packing their stuff up and discussing how the weekend had gone. 

This seemed like the perfect opportunity. 

“Hey guys! I taught Lila how to play Magic at the last photoshoot! Anyone want to play with her?” 

The words were like fresh blood in a tank of sharks. Lila was grabbed and sat down at a desk, as she tried to come up with an excuse to leave. 

“Oh, I’d uhh...I’d love to play. But my mom has a doctor appointment after school and she wanted me home...” 

“Oh Lila, it’s okay,” said Plagg. “Don’t feel bad about skipping our study session. This is your chance to really bond with the boys in our class!” 

Lila just sent him a tight lipped smile. 

“Okay, Kim, let Lila use your deck.” 

“What? No! ‘Soul Sisters’ is perfectly crafted and only an expert can really unlock its true potential.” 

Alix swiped the deck from his hand. “Yeah, you build a deck with all the tig-bitty angel wifus. It’s great. Take a break, horn dog.” She slammed the deck down in front of a traumatized Lila. 

Max was her partner. “Don’t worry, we’ll go slow and I’ll explain everything as we go along.” 

Plagg smiled to himself, watching as the boys, and even some girls, crowded around to watch. 

He then caught Marinette’s eye and gestured out to the hall. There was no way Lila could stealthily maneuver her way over to him without drawing the attention of all their classmates. 

In the hall, Plagg took Marinette’s hand and led her away, into a secluded corner of the upper floor. Hopefully, Lila wouldn’t spot them if she tried to do something rash. 

“Is everything okay, Adrien?” Marinette asked, her face tinged pink. 

“Not...not completely. Lila was following and eavesdropping on me all day.” 

Marinette gasped, covering her mouth. “That’s sick!” 

“Yes, I agree. I’m not quite sure what she was looking for, but I’m fairly certain she’s spying for my father.” 

Marinette squeezed his arm. “I’m so sorry, Adrien. If I knew how to help...” 

“I should be the one apologizing.” He said, genuine sadness in his voice. He had hoped solving Adrien’s problems would have helped Marinette out, but he worried it would be the opposite. 

“What do you have to apologize for?”

He took her hands, holding them delicately in his own. “I told you that I made a deal with her to get you back into school. But…”

She whispered. “Adrien...” 

He touched her face, ever so gently, laying the charm on thick. “Marinette, I care about you so much, and if I could avoid this I would, but...” 

“But what?” 

“Lila’s made it clear that she’s taking this feud I’m having with my father personally. She’s going to take whatever chance she can get to go back on our agreement. She’s going to go after you again.” He shook his head, conjuring tears into his eyes. “I can’t bear to see you hurt by her!” 

“Oh Adrien!” She gasped, before throwing her arms around him. “Please don’t cry. I can handle her, honest.” 

“I have a plan in motion,” he clarified, squeezing her. “She won’t get away with her lies and harassment for much longer. I just need you to be strong.” 

“Whatever you need, just let me know. You don’t have to do this alone.” 

“I know. Thank you, Marinette. Now, I have to go before Lila escapes my trap.” 

Her smile was genuine and full of gratitude. “I’ll see you tomorrow then! Bye!” 

Eager to take what head way he could get, Plagg pressed a kiss to Marinette’s cheek before hurrying away. 

He missed her squealing and dancing after he turned his back. 

—

“I really dislike that sausage-haired cretin.” Plagg muttered as he walked home. “It’s one thing to lie to get attention, but for her to spy on us all day? Talk about creepy!”

“Thank you for warning Marinette,” Adrien said as he floated by his shoulder. “I agree that Lila is looking for any opportunity to go back to bullying her. I think with the warning, she’ll be able to come up with some way to protect herself.” 

“Nothing against your lady’s ability to find solutions, since that is her job as Ladybug, but I don’t know what kind of back up plan she can have against a compulsive liar. Why is every adult in Paris so gullible?” 

“I have a theory,” Adrien suggested. “They aren’t gullible. They just see a pretty young girl crying and they just go along with whatever she says to make it stop. They just assume she’s exaggerating or something.” 

“Good observation,” Plagg commended. “I agree.”  

“But I think we should put off worrying about Lila for a bit and focus on my father. He hasn’t seen you since Friday morning when you serenaded him. I can’t imagine he’s going to be happy to see you.” 

“Adrien, we’ve been over this. I can handle a grown ass adult throwing a temper tantrum. There’s only two things he hasn’t tried yet, and they’re both pretty extreme. I don’t know if he has it in him. I called his bluff before, anyways.” 

“What two things?” 

“Having me arrested...or getting violent. I dared him to hit me and he swore he never would. I just can’t imagine he was telling the truth.” 

“Are you trying to drive him to it?”

“I’m trying to drive him to a place of ‘I give up, what do you want’? Hopefully we can talk, and he’ll come to see you aren’t a child anymore. As much as I think your dear old dad is capable of being a butt head, I think he’s also capable of understanding. He is a successful businessman after all. Business doesn’t come without a little mercy.” 

“That’s a...way to look at it...” 

At that point, they reached the mansion, and Adrien returned to the pocket. 

Plagg decided not to ring the doorbell, and instead climbed the wall. 

He strolled very nonchalantly up to the front door, and entered, slamming the door shut behind him. 

Then he waited three seconds. 

“1...2...”

“Adrien!” Gabriel rushed out of his office. “I didn’t expect you home already.” 

“Because Lila didn’t text you with my location?” 

Gabriel just stared, slightly wide-eyed and pale. 

Caught red handed. 

“She is spying on me for you, right? This isn’t just her stalking me on her own. She’s not smart enough for that.” 

“I—“ 

“So what? You don’t know how to communicate with me so you go to the only person in my class that I not only dislike, but has a record of compulsive lying? Seriously? You thought that was your best option?” 

“You do not get to lecture me about my choices!” Gabriel barked. 

But Plagg just shook his head. “You make no sense to me.”

“My decisions and actions don’t have to make sense to you. You are my child, and you will obey me! Do you understand?” 

Plagg just gave him a patient smile. Arguing with him never went anywhere, because Gabriel always turned his ears off the second Adrien said something he didn’t want to hear. 

Which was anything that wasn’t “yes sir.”

“I understand what you want. But I can’t give it to you. You haven’t listened to what I’ve said. You’re so caught up in injustice, that you haven’t seen how your yelling has affected me. I’m just pulling farther and farther away. Do you want to lose me for good? Is that what you want? Because that’s the road you’re heading down. I’m 15 now. Three years of this, and I could easily move away and never speak to you again after how badly you’ve treated me.” 

“I do not treat you badly! Have you ever gone without food? Without a soft bed? Without clothes or showers? No! You have it better than most people in this city.” 

“You’re right, I should be without want or need. But you’ve severely neglected my heart. Gabriel, I’m lonely, and sad. I’m disappointed every time you break a promise. I can go anywhere and have food and shelter and whatever, but only you can give me the love of my father.” 

Gabriel was silent at this, staring at his son, his lips in a firm line. 

“So I’m going to go. I’m staying with some friends for a while. Just to give you a taste of what it’s like without me. If you like it, then, when I’m 18, I’ll leave, and never come back.” 

Gabriel looked to the ground, but found himself unable to say anything. Plagg ascended the stairs, and went into Adrien’s room. 

“I don’t want to leave…” Adrien said, quietly. “I’d rather stay and…” 

“And do nothing?”

Adrien looked away. 

“Look,” said Plagg, directing his chin up. “Your father is a hard nut to crack. We just have to push harder and harder. Do you still trust me?”

“What choice do I have?”

“It’s going to be okay, kid.” He rubbed his thumb over his whiskers. “I promise.” 

He packed up his duffel that he had taken for his sleepover, and came back down the stairs. 

Gabriel was right where he left him. “So, you’re going? Just like that?” 

“At this point, I think it’s for the best. Just for a little while. Give us both some perspective.” 

“You’ll regret it,” he warned. 

“Maybe. But what’s there to learn from if I don’t make mistakes?” 

Gabriel didn’t stop him as he walked out the door. 

After he left, Nathalie emerged from the office. “Your son is surprisingly mature for his age.” 

“No, he’s stubborn. Just like his mother. I give him three days before he comes crawling back.” 

“And if he doesn’t?” 

“Then I’ll make him come back.” 

—

Chat Noir bounded over rooftops at sunset. He had a destination in mind, and getting spotted by Lila or one of Gabriel’s other goons would ruin it all. 

After traveling in circles, he finally reached the Lahiffe house and stopped on the fire escape outside Nino’s room. 

Nino looked up at the sound. “Oh dude!” 

“Nino Lahiffe, the time has come.” Said Plagg in his ancient voice. “This is the Miraculous of the Dude.” He opened his hand to show a single Hersey’s kiss. “You will use it for the greater bro-kind, and let me crash here for the foreseeable future, as I have run away from home.” 

“Dude...” Nino took it reverently. “I will fulfill my sacred oath...but you should probably come in through the front door, and we should kind of explain this to my mom, or she’s going to wonder how you got in the house.” 

“True. Meet you downstairs in five!” 

—

Marinette laid in her bed, eyes trained to the sky through the sky-light, hands clutching a pillow tightly to her chest. 

She sighed.

The sound made Tikki roll her eyes. She knew Plagg was hamming it up, but did he have to be so…charming?! 

“Tikki…” Marinette announced, after mooning for over an hour. “I think…I think I can tell him tomorrow.” 

The words were music to her ears! Finally! “You can do it Marinette!” 

Then a shadow passed Marinette’s face as the worst past through her mind. “But what if he hasn’t been earnest? What if the way he’s been acting has just been to get back at his father or Lila?” 

Tikki almost groaned. “Marinette, Adrien loves you. He really really loves you! The way he pulled you aside today and warned you about what was going to happen with Lila? He didn’t do that for anyone but you. That was real care! The longer you beat around the bush, the more you’re putting off your own happiness. And you don’t want that, do you?”

Marinette sat up, resolve hardening. “Tomorrow then. I’ll tell him tomorrow, and get my happily ever after.”

[nightswithkookmin]

Jikook and Taekook in The Soop: Ep 06 Analysis

PREFACE

This discussion is a continuation of my opinion piece on Soop episode 06. I explained in that post, how I think Soop was initiated by BigHit and BTS to repair and replenish the dwindling bond of the group as prior to Soop, there had been some friction between some of the members which could be traced as far back as November last year and had only increased exponentially through to March this year.

Now I said this without prejudice, and knowing full well there are a ton of content withheld from us in the present day likely to be released years from now that may reveal a moment, a behind scenes, that to others may seemingly counter this perception of mine.

But like my theory on the Jikook break up moments, I stay my ground. I don't draw my conclusions based on a single moment of tension happening in isolation because they are human- a jet lag here and a muscle pain there could lead to an unnecessary outburst here or there. That's not it.

I look for patterns, take into consideration their personalities, note how a moment impacts or is likely to impact those established values and patterns of behavior that BTS themselves consciously contribute to to influence their public image and reputation- I take this delulu business pretty seriously you know? Lol.

For instance, when I say Jikook broke up it's mostly because I've noticed that over a period of time, certain things that make Jikook a couple to me are no longer present between them, in the way they interact, rather than that there was a few seconds tension between them in random moment on screen.

And I am well aware, that when some people say they feel Jikook are broke up that they are basing their conclusions off of their own insecurities about them rather than that they have seen enough, thought through enough about those observations to reasonably draw such conclusions.

For example, because to them Jikook interactions is their evidence of a romantic relationship, then Jikook not interacting in a random moment would indicate to them that something is wrong and that they are broke up- basic delulus.

I employ a different metric. Not better, just different. For example, I used them not knowing certain things about themselves within certain periods as an indication something is off.

This is not a hard rule. It could be random but when the information they are in the dark about came into existence within a period I suspected they weren't a couple due to other things I had noticed within said period, then that becomes a confirmation of that period for me. Feel free to disagree.

Jikook know everything about eachother, EVERYTHING. Or at least, they act like they know or should know everything about eachother.

They love to be the ones to know eachother the most and love to show off their knowledge about eachother like in the recent Bangtan Bomb when JK said he knew Jimin could touch his toe when he stretched.

'See, I told you he could touch his toe.' he says with pride. Then the bit about Jimin and beans, Jimin and the convenience store underwear etc.

So when JK suddenly doesn't know Jimin took pop dancing or when Jimin acts surprised that JK had gimbap it raises an eye brow. No?

What's more concerning to me is their reaction to news like this. JK zoned out for a bit and Jimin looked confused out of his wits in those instances. You could tell its something that really bothered them.

And while this may be an isolated incident for most, it's usually not for me or even surprising to me. Because, as explained, usually moments like these fit into an established pattern of inconsistent behaviours identified within those specific timelines prior to such moments, from my observation.

And I see most people also don't know how Jikook looks like when they are not 'together.' Which is also part of the problem.

To most people, a Jikook break up would look like the apocalypse up in BTS- it's not.

I've said several times in my blogs, if you believe Jikook are real then pay attention to what they are and not what you expect them to be. Their relationship parameters are set by them not us and our ideosyncracies.

To me and the way I see them, a Jikook break up is and would always be a return to friendship.

When Jikook break up they revert back to being friends. Friendship is their default, in the group setting anyway.

And as I've said, they lose or strive away the qualities that make them a couple during break ups but at a bare minimum their friendship will be there- for the harmony of the group.

And I think this is why some Jikookers theorize that Jikook knew the consequences their relationship was going to have on the group before entering into their relationship.

While I disagree they thought things through before deciding to commit to a romantic relationship, I agree that they know and have considered the impact their relationship can have on their group.

It is why they revert and will revert to being friends during times like that so their break up and conflicts doesn't affect the dynamics of the group.

I think this is one thing they both very much understand and commit to, to make sure their shenanigans doesn't impact the dynamics of the group- they owe their bandmates that much.

It is also this understanding that allows them to thrive and hide within the group.

What all this means is that, in times of a break up, the skinship will very much be there, the wearing the same attire will be there, the wearing the same bracelets will be there, they will still ride together if they have to- because none of these is what make them a couple!

And a fight is not a breakup, mind you. Often when they fight, I find they may not want to be around each other among other things but they don't lose the qualities that make them a couple.

You can still see their couple aura in such times. Whereas in the case of a breakup those couple qualities disappear entirely. In my opinion.

Perhaps I should make a blog post on what I feel makes Jikook a couple and how those qualities disappear around the times they break up? I'll think about it.

I have stated over and over that, skinship, car sharing etc are all not in any way indicative of a romantic relationship, not to me anyway. And honestly, if you can't tell between Jikook as friends and jikook as a couple- do you even deserve rights? Consider your delulu membership revoked. Lol

And if you aren't observant, shy away from angst, see them as a fantasy rather than actual human beings in an actual romantic relationship- subject to change, subject to growth, susceptible to temptations; if you mistake things that make them friends for things that make them a couple you would not spot their break ups when they happen. Or worse, you'd dismiss and overlook them when they do happen.

Deadass, you could be very much looking at the end of Jikook but still screaming power couple extraordinaire-

Isn't that where we are with Taekook? People mistaking all the things that make them friends for a romantic couple?

People dismissing all the questionable moments that's happened between them over the years- like Tae saying he couldn't even tell JK had been given a mission to ignore him because Jk ignores him anyway behind cameras, Tae's passive aggressiveness towards JK like in the VLive he exposed Jikook, the missing birthday wishes on Twitter etc- and not reflecting on them enough to critically examine their impact and what it says of the state and nature of their relationship?

Taekook in the Soop is an indictment of the shipping community. But I am not here to police anyone's delusions- freedom of belief, speech and all that jazz.

What I am here to do today, my dear delulu colleagues, is to examine Taekook in the soop and share my thoughts on the infamous conversation they had in that episode.

I will also be pointing out a few observations I made about Jikook in that episode that I feel will help shed more lights on the current dynamics between Jikook which further proofs Jikook is real.

TAEKOOK IN THE SOOP

Taekook's conversation in Soop 06 is shaping out to be one of the most controversial moments in the history of BTS ships.

To some it was a doze of reality, a game changer, if you will and had some people questioning their sanity while others jumped off the Taekook bandwagon all together.

But some die hard fans of the ship were quick to come up with a theory to explain away what had transpired that night as big bad BigHit curating that entire scene in order to bamboozle them and absolve themselves of all guilt for having previously separated Taekook and forced them to hide their relationship- scammers never die. Lol

Why would Taekook have that conversation on camera if it was that serious, they ask.

If they aren't close why did JK put his hands around Tae here? Why did he look at Tae there? They fist bumped in the background of this MV, surely they are a couple- y'all know how I feel about skinship being used as a determinant of romantic relationships so I'm just gonna roll my eyes here and keep it pushing-

This is what happens when you whimsically and randamly label a ship as real without due diligence, without conducting the necessary tests that allows you to reasonably assume that that ship is or could be real.

A ship is not real until it's breached the fourth way into alternative shipping and I'm sorry, Taekook has not breached that fourth wall. No other ship in BTS has breached that wall except Jikook. I have explained this over and over again.

How can Taekook breach the fourth wall when half of the moments, half of the content needed to establish it's piercing moment exists in the imagination of people?

By claiming BigHit hides, and cuts Taekook moments or any other ships moment, by claiming Taekook's interactions are mostly off camera, these shippers are shooting themselves in the foot and fooling no one.

Because what they are indirectly saying basically is there aren't enough moments to analyze upon whose findings we can draw such conclusions that Taekook is real.

I have a hard time believing Jesus is real and I'm a Christian. You think I'm about to buy that Taekook is real, based on faith??? Y'all tripping.

And no. The skinship don't count either. I mean people were running around the corners of the internet swearing up and down Jimin and Mina were dating based on their skinship until it was revealed Jimin had been abusing Mina all those years.

Skinship is performative and not a reflection of true intimacy or true bond.

That being said, yes I see Taekook's relationship. I see their dynamics. They are beautiful and as a multishipper- I really dig their bond. I do.

I have called them the evil power duo of BTS. I have said they don't have much intimate interactions between them on camera but when they activate their evil powers, lord do they set my insides on fire.

WHY FILM THAT BIT ON CAMERA?

For quality entertainment purposes. Lol.

Soop is a quasi self produced production by BTS. As such they themselves created the content, concept, decided where they were going to be, what they were going to do at what time and most importantly who they were going to be with or hang out with.

Everything was pre determined by BTS and the schedule was presented to BigHit- the camera crew and staff, beforehand so the staff knew where to place cameras, what equipment they were going to use and what props they are going to have to provide for BTS for effective filming.

Unlike run or Bon V where BTS have little creative control, BTS played a major role in the production of SOOP. So if that bit was staged then it wasn't staged by BigHit, but by BTS themselves- including Tae and JK.

I explained in my previous post, how I felt Soop is business but also BigHit's way of shutting BTS in a room and forcing them to settle whatever differences had crept up between them that had been affecting the dynamics of the group and threatening the longevity of their group around that period.

I said it was no different from Rookie King where they had an episode where BTS was allowed to shout their grievances off the top of a roof to foster unity among the members.

It's also no different from the missions they've are given from time to time or the love letters they have been asked to write to eachother. The objective of such projects have always been to bring the members closer, to build intimacy and to foster unity amongst them. Soop follows suit.

What's of interest to me and what you should be pondering over is what had led them all- BTS and BigHit, to embark on a project of this nature this time around.

BigHit is a business and can only stay on top of the game for so long if BTS is in the game. Them disbanding impromptu due to petty conflicts and misunderstandings amongst them will be a huge loss to BigHit.

And if you think petty issues aren't enough to bring down their empire- you are in the wrong delulu industry. Lol.

Kpop is wrought with stories of these nature. There are a lot of bands that debuted with and around the time of BTS's debut that are disbanded now due to the least misunderstandings- google it. I dare you to.

BTS do have issues from time to time that does threaten their band. How often have we heard them talk about almost disbanding? Remember 2018? Remember when JK cried because Hobi almost left the group? Remember when JK almost left the group to pursue a career in dancing?

The Kpop industry is hectic and brutal and bands within this sphere are fragile. it's easy to jump ship than to keep sailing. I mean, there's a reason Korean interviewers keep asking BTS their secret to staying together and for this long.

As RM puts it in the recent KBS interview, they are seven boys from different backgrounds in the same boat headed in different directions. That can create a lot of clashes here and there. So when tensions arise that they can help it, they take initiatives like Soop to help nip it and replenish their bond.

They don't allow issues to fester on to the point they want to go their separate ways. BigHit loves this about them and encourages that among them.

Do y'all see why I side eye people who claim BigHit is not happy with any pair within the group because they are real and wants to hide and suppress them?

Left to BigHit alone, BTS would be in one big happy gay polyamorous relationship with eachother if that meant the success and longevity of their business- they are depending on it. They would rather BTS keep the love in the barn than spread it elsewhere, if you know what I mean.

How are BTS portrayed in Tiny Tan? The bond you see in that animation is not just a reflection of BTS's actual bond but also a reflection of BigHits vision of their bond.

Jimin is portrayed as that hyung who is always watching over JK because he loves him so much. Tae is also portrayed as the one hyung who will dive to save JK. Tiny Tan is BigHit's ideal intimacy goal for the boys.

Again, BT21, how are their friendships portrayed in there?

It's absurd thus to think, believe or even assume that if there is an actual real intimate relationship between any of the boys, that Bighit's objective would be to hide and suppress it or even to kill it.

BTS's intimacy is a currency BigHit transacts with. But that doesn't mean BTS doesn't bank on it too. They are proud of their bond, often flaunt it. They know it makes them stand out of the lot and it's what has led to them staying together for this long in the business. They have a pretty strong bond.

They wouldn't have agreed to do this project Soop if they didn't want to or didn't think they needed it. They really love eachother as a team, as a band; they love working together and care about their careers unlike other bands we know. Cough, cough.

They are the blueprint and they know it. The last thing they want is for something as trivial as a misunderstanding to break them apart- Hobi said in his recent YouTube live how BE is their voice and an expression of their feelings and I can't wait to hear all the songs on the Album to understand what they've been through these past few months.

If building intimacy is the objective of Soop, then conversations like that of Taekook really shouldn't be shocking. It's to be expected.

If they felt the need to talk it's because they felt they was something they both needed to get off their chest.

Is a content of that nature good for ratings? Absolutely. Does that mean they performed it? No. Not at all.

It's similar to what Jimin did with JK in Rookie King in order to get closer to each other. They were friends. You think he couldn't have just approached JK off camera and told him how his actions hurt him?

How often have we heard RM or Tae ask if the cameras were they to capture a moment where the members have claimed to have cried and consoled each other?

See this is why people think Jikook is fake. They just don't understand that these boys choose to share certain intimate moments with the us out of love, out of a need to connect and have people share in their moments.

It's no different from BTS filming themselves screaming when they heard of that BB news. They share their joy, their pain and their conflicts with us as a way to connect with us.

How often have we wished the VMin dumpling fight was recorded, or that the rain fight was recorded? But when such similar moment is recorded y'all want to question the intention behind it.

Besides, having conversations like these on camera is the perfect cover for them to be vulnerable with eachother without feeling too vulnerable or feel like they are exposing themselves too much.

It's similar to how people choose to text or be vulnerable with others through letters and texts rather than in person. Its the fear of vulnerability. Being vulnerable like that in person can be extremely scary for them too. They are human too and sometimes they find their confidence and their voice when they turn on the cameras.

It's ridiculous to think a moment is staged simply because it is or feels like an intimate moment- Y'all claim BigHit hides Taekook's intimate moments and when they show it to us and it's fake? Chileeee!

If that moment was staged, then Jin apologising to Tae after their fight is fake, the fight itself was staged, V's letters were staged, V crying when reading those letters was staged- y'all see where I'm going with this?

None of it was real and we've all been bamboozled- Let's pack our bags!

Seriously though, we can't sit behind our screens and pick and choose which content is real and which is not simply because it doesn't align with our delusional theories. It doesn't work that way.

Especially not when everything we see is captured by the same lenses, edited by the same people and distributed by the same company.

Besides, Tae said the reason he did that was just to spend time with JK- which was the objective of Soop, wasn't it? For all of them to spend time together and bond?

How then is Taekook bonding by having a meal together any different from Hobi spending time with NamJoon in the mountains? Or Tae riding around the country side with Hobi? Or RM and Kook painting?

I'm yet to figure out the sequence that the entire project was shot in as I still haven't seen the full episodes. But I'll bet if there were any Taekook bonding moments, they were shot after their heart to heart moment, not before it. Tae wouldn't have been shy to invite JK had it been so. But who knows, I could be wrong.

TAEKOOK vs JIKOOK DYNAMICS

On Taekook's dynamics, I stated during our discussion on their love language that I don't see Taekook as emotionally compatible or emotionally dependent on each other even much less that they speak each other's love languages. They don't.

It's no secret Taekook have always lacked a certain level of mutual emotional dependency and vulnerability within their dynamics. To me anyways.

Rarely would you see them being emotionally vulnerable with eachother the way Tae is with Jimin or Jk is with JM. The only time I have seen them close to being emotionally vulnerable with eachother was at an award show when Tae cried and JK comforted him. But even that felt impersonal-

again the thigh slapping, cheek squishing, pegs on the cheeks, cuddling in bed etc doesn't count. That's skinship and you know how I feel about skinship or what I think of it.

When I say emotional vulnerability and dependency, I'm talking about instances such as when Tae said he missed Jimin, when he had to drag Jk away so he could ride with Jimin, all the things he said about Jimin in his letters, the way he talks about Jimin in his solo Vlives, writing songs inspired by Jimin, when he said Jimin was the one member who had been there for him during his grandmother's passing etc.

Jk expresses his emotional dependency on Jimin through his actions more so than his words- that need he has to constantly be around Jimin. You see this in moments where he subconsciously finds his way to Jimin like the 2018 comeback VLIVE where he and jimin were put in separate teams but after picking their groups mission he headed for Jimin's team instead of his.

You see this in the way he talks about Jimin when Jimin is not around. He would find a way to chip Jimin into any conversation- I dare you; Talk about heaven and it would remind him of Angel Jimin, talk about hell and he will burst out laughing because of Jimin's devil may care attitude that one time.

You see it in moments when he sulks and yap, whines and complains in a submissive tone when he interacts with Jimin at certain times.

Like when he talked about Jimin not waking him up in that interview, or even the New Jersey Live where he whined and pouted like a broke hearted seven year old and Jimin ended up doing- whatever that was to placate him... that VLIVE still makes me uncomfortable to watch to this day.

You just don't see that level of emotional attachment in Taekook. Their interactions are just that- interactions. Frankly, this moment in Soop is the only meaningful conversation I've heard between them in years.

It is this lack of emotional intimacy between Taekook that disqualifies them from being anywhere near real in my books.

While I acknowledge this lack of emotion amongst them, I wouldn't go as far as to say there's been a cataclysmic decline of their bond or friendship. They are still very much friends, just not intimate friends. Skinship wise, sure. But there is no depth to skinship as I've said.

So if skinship isn't what binds them, what does? Personality, for starters. And I know JK saying he and Tae had different personalities sounded confusing to most.

Jk had called Tae his commonality- this Festa was it? He's described Tae in his profiles over years and in recent times as someone he shares the most personality traits with within the group. He is not wrong.

Personally, I see him as very similar to Tae, Suga and RM in different aspects of their personalities.

I think what he meant by his statement about Tae becoming reserved since their trainee days was that he doesn't find Tae relatable.

You can share the same personality trait with people and still not find them relatable. And I contrast this with his interview with Jimin where JM said he and JK were similar in that they are both sleepy heads and hate to lose.

Jk quickly noted that they both were studying Japanese as well. He acknowledged the similarities between him and Jimin here also. Does it mean he found Jimin relatable?

No.

Jimin said after they both acknowledged their similarities that in spite of this Jungkook didn't seem to like him. Clearly. he too like Tae was feeling a barrier in his relationship with JK.

Jk futher admitted he liked Jimin. So if he liked Jimin and had a lot in common with him what was the problem? Relatability. Jk could relate to JM just as he feels he can't relate with Tae now.

In that interview he described how JM was pretty serious minded who liked to focus on one thing at a time- a trait he said was different and as such perhaps he couldn't relate with.

Isn't it the same song he is singing about Tae now? That Tae is reserved and too serious like Jimin was?

The difference between Tae and Jimin is, over the years and especially in recent times the members have talked about how Jimin seems less serious behind camera. Suga even went ahead to give him an award for this- lol, Suga.

Jimin has changed over the years. He's become more goofy and to JK- more relatable.

Have we all not seen Tae gradually close himself off within the group dynamics? How is it hard to see that that could be something that's impacted his dynamics with JK?

I've already mentioned how Tae has been through a lot trauma enough to shut him off emotionally to anyone but Jimin.

Seeing his two besties coupled up too mustn't be easy either. Exclusivity is one of JK's values and love wants. Jimin's love language dictates you treat him exclusively, differently from others- while this is complementary for them, it very much often leaves them with a tendency for to isolate and exclude others- how do you feel watching them from home? Think that but twice Tae and these other members.

That exclusivity Jikook exudes can make anyone emotionally dependent and attached to any one of them feel left out. And for Tae, I see how he would then want JK to treat him as a friend- as he treats Jimin perhaps. He didn't want to feel left out. Similar to how I said Jimin partaked in the culture of the group in early days because he didn't want to feel like the outsider being the last to join the group.

Jikook's exclusivity tendencies have a way to make him feel further isolated and disconnected from the group.

What it then comes down to between Taekook is the difference in their values and their understanding of intimacy. I think.

I have said, JK is one person emotionally closed off within the group. He used to be physically closed of too and took a minute for him to come to terms with even skinship.

These boys may be from the same cultural backgrounds but they have different beliefs and values and upbringing.

I explained how JK had had to suppress himself, his values and his beliefs especially in the early days in order to be the Maknae of the group and how he's been on a journey to slowly yet drastically grow out of that role and image.

I have explained that even though he does not have a problem with Skinship, he believes couples aren't supposed to cross certain boundaries with others which I said is what jeonlous is mostly about.

So when he said during that conversation, he preferred to keep a certain level of distance from people because he felt that level of proximity could end up ruining relationships, I understood perfectly what he meant. I have always suspected and speculated that about him.

No one BangPD script writer-nim put that in his mouth.

Tae is the opposite of JK in that regard. While Jk is emotionally closed off, Tae is emotionally lose and latches on to people quite easily- aka his attachment to Jimin.

He is among the members of BTS who I think lack emotional boundaries in the group.

Being emotionally close to people and receiving that emotional nourishment is one of Tae's love languages as I've explained in the past. And so I smiled when I heard him talk about how he wanted to feel loved by Army.

Tae lowkey has an anxious insecure attachment style brought upon him by no fault of his in my opinion and I've always felt a similarity between his and jimin's attachment styles in that sense- that constant need for reassurance for one.

While I feel Jimin's anxiousness and need for reassurance is often performative and as such is often exaggerated as part of his idol persona- Jimin does not in reality need reassurace of love from his love interest.

He may appear clingy to some and a bit insecure about his looks, but he doesn't trade his looks for love.

His looks I feel are important to him as long as his career goes. And he tries to look a certain way and obsesses about the way he looks because his looks is a means to longevity and fruitfulness of his career.

His love language is more towards wanting certainty and stability and making him feel like he is the only one.

On the other hand, Tae's need for reassurance sits at the core of him. I don't think it is an exaggeration or a persona at all. In my opinion.

His need for reassurance is born out of an innate fear of losing a connection, a fear of not being loved and a fear of losing love- not to psychoanalyze him or anything. It's just theory.

I've said Tae strikes me as a very melancholic person.

Remember when he faked being an Army to see if an Army was a Solo stan who just loved one member or him also as well- that bit was unsettling and uncalled for. Then during his conversation with JK he talked about how he needed that constant reassurance of love from Army- y'all still think he boo-ed up in there? Alright then.

Loneliness is a bitch. And I understand how he would be driven by an emotional void to connect and attach to people. He really was attached to his Grandmother and having a love connection like that yanked away from him without warning, without proper closure can leave a void behind.

So I see often while he craves to connect he often self sabotages that connection- he does this with Jimin at times, boy can he work Jimin's nerves!

It takes a big heart and a lot of patience to love a person of this nature- and there's only one Jimin in that VMinKook dynamics.

Jk is not good at emotions, can barely work his way through his own much less nurture someone with complex emotions such as that of Tae.

Tae has been working through a lot. Trying to be better. Taekook is just a casualty of Jikook...

I keep saying these boys are human and ought to be viewed, thought of and treated as such. If you want to ship them as characters within the Kpop verse then do that. But don't breach the fourth wall and still think of them as fictional beings.

If any ship is real, then their real lives are bound to affect their dynamics, their desires and influence their needs. It's crazy to turn a blind eye to all of that while uWu-ing your ass off at every cute moment edited and shared to you.

Comparing Tae to JK, JK to me barely expresses a need for emotional attachment to anyone. He is similar to Suga in that sense. It's easier to see who he is emotionally attached to and attracted to than to see his overt expressions emotions.

When you look at all seven you see who JK is emotionally attached to based on how he act around and towards that person. He shows, he doesn't tell. In my opinion.

Tae asking JK to treat him as a friend rather than as a hyung thus to me was his way of asking to JK to connect emotionally. That doesn't mean they weren't close. They were, just not as close as Tae wanted to be.

This is what I meant when I said both him and jimin had tried to break down JK's walls in their early dynamics around debut.

Jimin's approach was to breach JK's physical boundaries but in so doing he had accidentally breached Jk's emotional walls as I've explained in previous posts.

I stated how I felt, perhaps, JM coveted that physical connection between Tae and JK at the time he joined BTS, but it's occurring to me Tae equally perhaps coveted Jikooks emotional connection; asking JK to treat him as a friend- as he treats Jimin?

Now I don't know if that conversation was had before Jimin joined BTS or after so I won't push it.

Regardless, it seems JK putting up those emotional walls with him had led to Tar harboring resentments towards JK- typical of people with passive aggressive tendencies.

Sort of explains all those weird TaegiKook dynamics in the early days of Tae trying so hard to do things to make JK jealous- Do y'all see why I disregard anything that happened between all the members before 2016?

I feel because Tae was young at the time, he didn't have the emotional maturity at the time to deal with a situation like that and coupled with his passive aggressive personality, resentment was bound to build up between them.

This resentment showed itself through his passive aggressive attitudes towards JK- Jimin wants to come, JK is stopping him, then that slight head tilt. Oh, you were given a mission to ignore me? I didn't notice, you ignore me off cam anyway followed by that attitude whatever it was.

In turn, I feel JK along the way started to build similar resentments towards Tae too as response to Tae's coldness and I see how to him Tae would be the problem- to him Tae is the one who had changed and grown distant, reserved in their dynamic- unrelatable.

I feel JK's grudge against Tae leading up to Soop however was because he felt his partner in crime had stabbed him in the back- get out of your imagination. That's not what I'm referring to. Lol. I'll explain in a bit.

But yes, this resentment I feel they were both harboring could probably had further complicated their dynamic and got in their way of achieving true intimacy beyond the skinship- when I tell you skinship is not an indication of intimacy.

You could see this in the way they both were very defensive in their conversation. Whatever had happened, JK had extended an olive branch to have Tae to sit and have drinks with him but Tae had brushed it off.

After this, he's shy to approach Jk to ask him to have a meal with him- Where did it all go wrong, they asked- twelve year olds, that's what they are. Lol.

There was a certain degree of lack of vulnerability in the way they expressed themselves with each other especially on JK's part which I feel leads people to conclude that their conversation was somewhat coerced- It wasn't in my opinion.

I have explained when I was talking about their love languages how I feel Tae in general is very headstrong, almost as strong headed as JK which I feel it's one of the things that gets in their way of achieving true intimacy and I feel that is what we were seeing in that moment during conversation.

I've explained intimacy, true intimacy requires a crucification of pride and a sacrifice of ego without which any intimacy would be superficial. I used VMin's dumpling fight as an example, where I said it took 2 days to two weeks for them to resolve their issue because they were both being strong headed.

It took Jimin's vulnerability and a sacrifice of his ego to reach through to Tae and even that took how long? And this is Jimin, the half blood Hufflepuff, president of the kumbaya fanclub we're talking about-

Y'all think Mr. Let it burn, I'll rather be dead than cool is about to let shit go? - Get some education. It's not in his vocabulary. It's not in either of them's vocabulary. Lol.

While I see these two as both unwilling to bow and submit to eachother, I've see them willfully submit emotionally to Jimin. Where they both fail to be vulnerable with eachother they both eagerly let themselves be vulnerable in this way with Jimin.

So it's not as if they are incapable of being vulnerable with eachother. If Tae's narration of his offer of friendship to JK is anything to go by, it seems he at one point was willing to take the steps to build that level of intimacy needed for their friendship to thrive but JK had barred him.

Tae in wanting to be close with JK the way he(Tae) is close with JM spoke volumes about Vmin dynamics as well. It tell me he doesn't see his bond with Jimin as exclusive. Special, but not exclusive- and we know how both Jimin and JK feel about exclusivity.

Which brings me to JK's perception about VMin.

I don't think JK see's Vmin's friendship as problematic. He just see's their lack of emotional boundaries as problematic and so often you see him try to put up boundaries for Jimin in their dynamic.

To Tae emotional connection is important and an indication of intimacy. That's his love language, that's his value. But how is JK going to open himself up like that to Tae when he sees what Tae and JM have as problematic? When he values and believes emotional connection has to be reserved for an intimate partner?

As explained earlier, exclusivity is a huge deal to JK.

He believes somethings ought to be reserved and exclusive to love relationships. He believed it then, he believes it now and he has consistently lived that belief through his actions throughout the years.

And if this is his values, then imagine his frustration at seeing people cross all sorts of boundaries with his man everywhere he turns- its enough to give anyone a complex, seriously.

When Tae explained that JK refusing to treat him casually as a friend was part of the reason they couldn't be as intimate, JK was quick to point out why he made that decision all those years and from the looks of it he ain't changing his mind anytime soon.

Dude literally said- I said what I said.

JK believes to make his intimate relationship special and to protect the sanctity of it, he ought to put up walls not further indulge in and perpetuate the lack of emotional boundaries within the group.

In this regard, Taekook is a casualty of Jikook, nothing personal. I've said, a real relationship involving JK or Jimin within the group is mutually exclusive to any other ship involving those two. As such all those other ships involving those two are bound to be casualties of Jikook.

In as much as BTS have thrived as a group on the lack of boundaries between them, this lack of boundaries was also ruining some of the members' joy especially JK who believes a certain level of boundary is necessary for a healthy relationship- Soop was very much neccessary.

And I see some Jikookers are claiming, Taekook settled their differences and had that conversation perhaps for Jimin's sake? Chileee- it makes sense if you are looking at things in isolation? But...

I mean Jikook have been dating a long time- six years now, for Taekook to be only now considering the effect of their dynamics on Jimin. If Jimin is whom they were concerned about they would have nipped it in the bud a long time ago especially around the time Jimin was having a tough time in his life. In my opinion.

I acknowledge the role Jimin played in bringing those two together and even believe he is the one that influenced them to take the initiatives they both took separately but no. I don't think they did this for Jimin. They did this for themselves first of all and for the sake of the sake of their careers, and the group.

[Image below. Check end of post if it's missing. Tumblr, Sigh]

I know some people have theorized that JK posted this on Weverse after his live because he was eager to do his next live with Jimin- true, but not only that.

The tension in that live was there but it wasn't there because he was uncomfortable with Tae per se. He has had a live with Tae in the past, has filmed with staff around and so Jeon Jungkook really had no excuse now did he?

Then the shade he threw, I shouldn't try to make anything next time- then proceeds to make gimbap with Jimin in their live while cheesing through it.

I feel his statement about making things was a Jab at BigHit. I told you previously how I felt he didn't want to do the live. That neither he nor Tar wanted to do the live hence BigHit's results to coercion. In my opinion.

BigHit at the time, it seems, was making them do these weird PG13 arts and craft thingy during their heavily monitored lives- it was weird as fuck especially for the audience that have grown used their VLives being a way for them to have intimate moments and conversations with BTS- I dipped out of most of those VLives. Deuces.

Homeboy was protesting because he just wanted to, first of all, have a Vlive alone with Jimin because they hadn't had one in a while- he deadass wanted to sit and stare into JM's soul while the rest of us watched on in silent discomfort and miserable loneliness while we thirdwheeled- This man, I swear to God!

But he also wanted to fight for their right to as a group to do whatever they wanted with little control and interference from BigHit- Independence really is recurring theme in JK's dramas. Lol.

After JK posted those rebellious tweets to out BigHit, Tae followed those tweets with a tweet akin to hold your peace followed by the shush emoji.

On its own it doesn't mean much. But read together with JK's post and the background I've given, it takes on a whole new meaning.

This moment to me was one of those evil twin power activation moments. Tae seemed to be with JK on that, in his own passive aggressive manner.

I talked about how social media was one of the tools they use to fight back against BigHit. Especially, by withholding their presence on social media platforms.

The company needs them to be online, interacting with fans and growing their fanbase. I hear some Idols, not BTs, are allegedly forced to appear on VLives even and social media even.

Yet BTS do that pro bono. So when they feel the company is tripping they exercise their rights to remain off the internet.

So imagine my surprise when Tae was suddenly popping up on Weverse, Vlive, YouTube live left right left!

I was surprised not because it was unusual of him, but because I felt that was contrary to the move he had made in support of JK earlier.

Do I think it is probably one of the immediate causes of the heat between Taekook that they needed to address? Probably.

I mean why else would Tae bring up him spending so much time online in his conversation with JK? How is that a way to bond with JK? Unless, perhaps JK had been pissed he did that and so Tae felt he needed to explain why he did that? Don't mind me. I'm delusional- but deadass.

Now a chunk of that conversation was voiced over so we will never know everything about that moment. And I hope, in the future they both talk about this and give us more details about this.

Both Jk and Tae have had issues with BigHit in the past and when they do they aren't afraid to come at BigHit with direct or passive aggressiveness.

Did y'all see ILand? How Tae took a jab at Bang PD over chicken breasts? How in Rookie King he expressed his resentment at BangPD for not knowing his name?

They are both expressive, assertive and less of a pushover in that way, I feel. They will put up the you can force the horse to the river side but can't force it to drink attitude if pushed against their will.

OTHER THINGS I NOTICED IN SOOP

I mentioned in my previous post how Jikook have been asserting themselves against eachother.

By that I meant, JK has been pushing JM to put up boundaries, treat their relationship with the same level of seriousness he does and not act like an ass kisser within the group all the time- bless him.

Jk used to be that guy who tried to please everyone. He would sacrifice his own happiness if that meant the happiness and harmony of the group. He is very Kumbaya in that way.

While this is noble, often he ended up stepping on JK's happiness because sacrificing his happiness is sacrificing Jk's happiness.

Him being the decision maker in their dynamics, that often means he ends up sacrificing JK's happiness without JK's permission.

To JK, JM would always come first. But Jimin is a bit of a people pleaser. He would consider the effect putting JK first would have on the group before placing him first- lately that has changed.

I feel Jk has been pushing him to careless about people's opinions of him and their relationship- please listen to the lyrics of GCF Helsinki to see what I mean especially whenever Jimin comes on the screen for the longest bar.

Just as much as JK has been pushing JM, JM has equally been pushing JK to be mindful of his possessiveness. While I see Jimin as someone who likes to belong, I don't think he wants to be owned.

So you see him pushing Jk to be social, to spend time with others- fix his issues with Tae for example, read books etc.

I hinted at this dynamic when I talked about Jikook shading eachother. Please check it out.

JK's always asserted himself and wanted to assert himself in the group dynamics and he has always expected that of Jimin as well.

It's no surprising then to see Jimin say no to Tae when Tae asked him to go on a car ride with him and Hobi in Soop episode 06. Old Jimin would have run along, no questions asked.

Jikook have changed. Their relationship dynamic has changed, their individual personalities have changed- are changing and they are changing eachother as well.

It explains why to JK Jimin feels more relatable as we've talked about above. They are changing but are also changing for eachother.

Some of these changes are glaringly obvious, others are subtle and easy to miss if you blink.

For example, Vmin's interaction mentioned above. Notice how Jimin is the outdoor kind of guy but in this instance he chose to stay indoors? Outdoors activities are his thing, indoors activities are JK's thing.

Do you see how Jk is influencing him?

He not only chose the indoors, he also chose an indoors activity that had JK written all over. How should I put this, painting, craft, drawing- those are ravenclaw traits not halfbood hufflepuffs' traits. Know what I mean?

True, Jimin loves these activities too but when you think of him traveling all over the world during their vacation- something I said was a cause of misunderstanding between them in August last year, you'd understand what I mean by JK asserting himself against Jimin.

They are compromising, they are negotiating, they are each embracing aspects of their personalities and accommodating it- you call it domesticity, I call it the aftermath of a trail period in Jikook's journey.

There are a lot other observations I made but this is all the length Tumblr can permit. Love Jikook and Support them.

Signed,

GOLDY

[kendrixtermina]

Interesting details about the 3 houses cast (From dialogue in ‘Heroes’)

The first name Ferdinand’s father is ‘Ludwig’ and he is apparently an insufferable braggart who also said his own name alot

Before moving into her uncle’s castle, Anette spent her early childhood in a small, humble house in the Capital. Gilbert & his wife couldn’t afford domestic servants so she did the chores herself.

Mercedes’ father died in a “conflict in the empire”. Before he died, he taught her mom the secret recipe that Mercedes mentions in the Constance and Dedue supports. A bit of her fatalistic passive attitude early on comes from feeling that she couldn’t change much about her life while she and her mom were being mistreated at the Bartels’ home

Claude has a lot of fun with the mushroom poison.

Despite their student’s glowing opinions, Byleth isn’t actually all that confident about their professor-ing, which is probably not unexpected given how the job was suddenly dumped in their lap.

They’re somewhat uncertain about whether they have real connections with people beyond just the professional level. I guess that’s another parallel to Edelgard.

Someone observed that they look “more like a mercenary and less like a teacher” while they’re fighting.

Apparently their students described them as “a bit eccentric at times”

They seem to like/appreciate it when other ppl can pick up what they’re really feeling/thinking. (I really hope Jeralt knew that) 

 It’s considered rare for Claude and Dimitri to agree on anything

The sad thing is that the trio is noted to be quite effective when they cooperated. I guess we also saw this in Cindered Shadows

There is a hilarious sequence where Byleth is like, “This may call for drastic measures” and everyone starts looking at Claude and correctly assuming that he’s probably already cooking up some sort of crazy plan

 Ferdinand apparently likes the “refined way” that Edelgard swings her axe

Petra considers hunting one of the most important skills you can have, both because you acquire many crucial materials (like leather etc) and because it also hones a lot of skills. Bridgid is very green & plentiful, so most people do some degree of hunting and even the rulers are expected to know it. Someone remarks that it’s probably a culture that places emphasis on self-sufficiency. That’s an interesting way to think about it, especially if you think about Petra’s attitudes, how she approaches even this cobjectively crappy political hostage situation as an opportunity and has a very problem-solvy approach to things. I’d noted that, but I’d never connected it with the hunting thing; I thought it was just Petra being awesome, which it basically still is, but it adds a cool layer to consider how she got this way and how this may be her way to stay close to her homeland’s values even in exile.

“In Brigid, there is a phrase we say. A gray sky will be pierced by the sun. A raging tide will be leading to land. Beyond failure, success is waiting.” 

Hubert seemed to know that he ten elites fought against the godess even pre timeskip. 

He also sees Edelgard as one of the few ppl who really paid attention to him when he was younger -  I guess this goes with this understated complex he has about his looks & personality.

Edelgard likes to just lie around and relax, but only when she’s all alone. At least pre timeskip or pre holy-tomb scene she didn’t think like she could really be herself in the company of others. She does seem to put some deliberate thought into what image to project/embody

Dimitri seems to think that having a crest (and high status) makes it his duty to protect & take care of the people – I guess that’s another way in which he’s completely ruled by obligation. He gets characteristically intense about this. “My life was never mine to begin with, I guess I haven’t the right to throw it away”

the glorious “nice weather” exchange has already been posted. Edelgard (and Lysithea) are the first to clarify that they shouldn’t bring their grudges into this situation since they’re not in Fodlan atm.

Edelgard and Claude are beyond shook when AzureMoon!Dimitri actually agrees. Chill Dimitri is apparently not something they ever imagined. He is obviously the most changed in “his” route, with the other two its no less profound but a lot more subtle. 

Lysithea has an interest in botany (now I really want her to talk plants with Bernie )

Hilda: “I haven’t heard about there being a future me here. She’s probably busy relaxing on a beach or something…”

Mercie and Anette immediately reassured each other that their future selves are probably cute af. Aww

 This is probably unsurprising, but future!Dimitri is still very tormented by his less than stellar actions during and right after the timeskip

Small Dimitri is heartbreakingly surprised to hear that there’s any version of him that’s alive and on the throne, though he hides it because his friends (or at least Annie and Mercie) did not have such doubt

Edelgard decides from the get-go not to concern herself with the future version of her. I get the sense that she really wants to avoid the scenario where she allows her resolve about what she feels absolutely must be done to falter after meeting a regretful future version of herself; I really like this, I know some haters will probably spin this into something about her not caring about the consequences of her actions but it really circles back to how she’s philosophically all about self-determination & can’t let something like a future possibility determine what she does… nor can she back off a sacrifice meant for the greater good just because it might turn out poorly for her (which it does, just not in the CF timeline that this particular future version is from)

 Cut to the future versions who have contrasting ideas about what to do about their tiny selves. Claude thinks they should not risk causing any time paradoxa. Dimitri ponders the thought of warning his younger self (and past!Byleth). Edelgard doesn’t think it would make any difference at all, especially since they would each be showing their tiny self the timeline where they win.

Though I guess one think to consider here is probably that Dimitri would be the most surprised by a sucessful older version of himself

Claude eventuallly agrees, since they were each doing what they thought was best (Claude, too, is sort of uniquely situated to grasp this as the one who can part on good terms with each of the other two in their respective timelines) – though he’s hoping that the time crash will maybe send their younger selves in a different direction (in which you see that this is distinctly VW!Claude & thus a bit more hopeful)

 the others actually agree & it ends with a fun semi-friendly sparring match

 Edelgard wants to show past!Byleth how awesome she’s going to be in the future

it is very in line with my interpretation of her character that she would describe her own disproportional strenght as “hideous”

Claude’s lines are solid gold in this. Like he’s just being aggressive irrevent to bridge the obvious awkwardness “Go on, we’re old dining hall palls!”

This gets Lysithea wondering what might’ve happened if they’d actually graduated as planned. I mean I kind of respect that they DIDNT put in a golden ending but I guess if you want one you can imagine that they got one after returning from Askr I guess.

let’s just hope that “the timeline none of them experienced” doesn’t just turn out to be silver snow lol