#just a little ramble

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

Vi and her Counterpart’s Violence

Okay so as soon as I saw this scene in s2e3, I was immediately reminded of this scene in s1e6

Vi sees someone she loves, someone she perceives as innocent and in dire need of protection, being so comfortable with violence. She doesn’t have a problem with violence, if anything she uses it as a tool, but she has a problem with certain other people doing the same. Why should they be so violent when she has it handled? When she is meant to be the violent one, shielding them from getting to that level?

Caitlyn and Jinx are never beating the mirror allegations

In both scenes, Vi calls out her counterpart’s name multiple times. But, of course, instead of calling Jinx by her chosen name, she calls her Powder. And instead of calling Caitlyn by her given name, she calls her Cait. ‘Jinx’ represents Vi’s greatest failure, the opposite of who Powder is meant to be, while ‘Caitlyn’ seems represent privilege and power, the two major things enabling Caitlyn to act in such an opposite way to how she’s ‘meant’ to. ‘Caitlyn’ is who everyone else knows. They know Caitlyn Kiramman. Vi knows Cait. Vi knows her Cupcake. (Still a little confused on why we haven’t heard that at all this season?)

Violence is Vi’s. It’s hers because she refuses for it to be her counterpart’s. Of course, we’ve said this a million times: Vi is a protector first and foremost. A protector fails when their protectee is exposed to the weight on the protector’s shoulders. Vi was never meant to be innocent and she never seems to resent that, all she does is take it as a challenge that has no failing option.

In both seasons, Vi was pulled away from the situation and everything was interrupted. But, at least in s2, she got to talk to Caitlyn after. The problem is that there was such an obvious disconnect. It doesn’t matter if there was a kid, Caitlyn would have gotten the shot. It doesn’t matter if Caitlyn would have gotten the shot, there was a kid. (Although, I do think this whole kid thing is interesting after seeing how Vi feels about collateral damage when Jayce killed that Chembaron’s child. Maybe after seeing the council explosion, Caitlyn’s grief and that same Chembaron plan a terrorist attack, she’s changed her mind?)

Vi gets to view violence as a necessity. Vi gets to choose when violence is right or wrong, not who she’s supposed to be protecting. Vi gets to find comfort in violence, not who she’s supposed to be protecting.

Vi begging Caitlyn not to change isn’t just about everyone else in her life changing, it’s about forcing her own position to change as well when she finds so much comfort in it.

Anyway, I just think the parallels between these scenes are pretty cool and also getting to see Vi on the receiving end of violence from who she’s meant to be protecting is so interesting. I do wish the parallels were hammered home a little bit more because the scene in s1, you could really see it in Vi’s face and hear it in her voice how fearful she was of seeing Powder like that throughout the whole scene, while the fight scene felt a little short and the argument after left me wanting a bit more! Even tho I did appreciate the intensity of Caitlyn saying Jinx’s blood is in Vi’s veins and Vi saying Caitlyn is the one acting like her and all Caitlyn can respond with is violence, further proving Vi’s point and hurting her even more. I appreciate it all, but I hate to say that it feels like it’s missing something! I think what I wanted to hear from Vi was more than ‘It’s a kid!’ I wanted Vi to try to wake Caitlyn up, cry to her about her and Powder’s childhood’s, throw Caitlyn’s argument about ‘the cycle of violence’ back at her. But we didn’t get that.

[thatkarleesidraws]

You wanna know why I like Dazai so much?

It’s because he resonates with me. When I was 18 and severely depressed, I went to the club every weekend. Friday, Saturday and sometimes even Thursday til 5 in the morning, blackout drunk, smoking one cigarette after another, waking up with a massive hangover, just to fill that void in my chest.

Of course it didn’t help. I’ve known it back then, and I know it now. But slipping into those self-destructive behaviours was better than not feeling anything at all.

I don’t know when it started. Maybe I was just born with it. All I knew was that I don’t feel like I belong here and that I want to go home.

I’ve been the golden child, the smart kid that got good grades without studying much. But where did it get me now? I’m 25, working through my second therapy, taking antidepressants again and I have no idea what to do with my life. I have no desire in earning a whole lot of money, no desire to contribute anything to society, no desire to exist.

It’s odd, really. Contradicting even. I find a lot of things beautiful. Music, art, nature, sometimes even people. Always seeing the world through the eyes of a child. Though somehow I’m always at war with myself, trying to bend and force my mind to function properly.

I’m not even sad. I just don’t know what to do or say anymore. I’m so tired of explaining myself, tired of being the “funny friend”, tired of always listening to others. I don’t even want anything anymore.

But there he is. A fictional man, with a dark past who pretends to be silly and carefree even though he’s dying inside, who puts my thoughts into better words than I ever could. That is why I love Dazai so much. Because there is this one character that gives me the feeling that I’m not alone in my suffering. Is it delusional? Yeah, maybe. But I can’t be bothered. He gives me a sense of belonging in this world of pure chaos and for that I cannot thank him enough.

[16magnolias]

It feels like life has been handing me mutant zombie lemons lately. So many things are a struggle, and it's been hard to find joy in the things that once took no effort at all to love and appreciate. A Bible verse of the day study recently helped give me some clarity, and I wanted to share it, and my journaling thoughts, for my own future reference and in case it helps someone else who's in a low spot. ❤️

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:12

I think a lot of people – myself included – tend to see the first part of this verse – “My command is this” – and think – Ah. Yes. A command. And some days my lip curls and something inside me shrivels and my heart is very stubborn and proud and doesn’t really like to be commanded, and I begrudgingly accept this command, and try to live it out as a duty, but it’s a bitter, sour thing.

And some days, my heart is so incredibly tired, I could weep with the thought of having one more thing to do and I just feel like I can’t. Another command? Another responsibility? Please, Lord – no more.

And then I read a little more and come to “love each other” – and this is familiar. We know we should love each other. Jesus taught it as one of the greatest commandments – “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” [Matthew 22:37-39]."

We know we should love each other, and so we try to do that, and we try and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail and here is what I think the problem is – or what my problem is, sometimes.

I try to do it on my own. I try to love others like I love. And my love is well-intentioned but sometimes selfish and often messy. I need to read all the way to the end of the verse – all the way to the end of the command.

“Love each other as I have loved you.”

Which led me to ask the question – Jesus said this as he was preparing for his death, at the Last Supper, at the celebration of the Passover, with his dearest friends. He knew these would be some of his last words with them before his death. This moment and these words were important. So - how did Jesus love his disciples?

If we go just a few verses prior to this, we see one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” [John 15:9]

Jesus has loved his disciples as God himself has loved Jesus.

How has God loved Jesus?

God has loved Jesus with the most delighted, biggest, purest, most all-encompassing love. God orchestrated the events of Jesus’ birth to meet hundreds of prophecies, announced his birth with a multitude of angels and a star in the sky, and announced at his baptism that ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.’ [Matthew 3:17].

God gave Jesus what he needed and he calmed the sea for him and multiplied fish for him and healed for him. God met with him in quiet places and gave him strength to do what he needed to do. In the Bible, we see that God loves Jesus completely with an all-encompassing perfect love.

And that’s how Jesus loved his disciples. With a big, pure, delighted, all-encompassing, perfect love.

He saw and accepted them for who they were, despite their flaws. While they were still flawed and confused and well-intentioned but messy and selfish, he called them, knowing one day he would be betrayed and abandoned by them. He saw the strength and good in them before they saw it in themselves. He sat with them, taught them, empowered them, protected their rest, prayed for them, fed them, corrected them, called them, sent them. He died and rose again for them, forgave them, reinstated them – he did this for them, and he does this for us all.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”

“Love each other as I have loved you.”

Jesus was and is the perfect example of holy, Godly love.

God loves you (and I am speaking to you but I am also speaking to myself) – God loves you with a big, pure, good, all-encompassing, perfect love.

And he wants us to love others the same way.

In Christ, God acknowledges – he recognizes, accepts, and knows you as his child! He loves you, he chose you – to be holy and without fault in his eyes, in Christ – before he even made the world - it was always his plan for you to be a part of his family. God decided in advance to adopt us into his family!

He wanted to and it gave him great pleasure to do so! It was not a chore or begrudgingly done to keep his title of ‘good’. It was a sacrifice and it cost him something – it cost him everything. But it was for his ultimate joy. It was his desire to save you, rooted in his great love.

You are free from trying to earn this position – it is freely given to you by God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I think a lot of times we mess this up, because we balk at ‘command’ - or we try to love each other in our own strength – or because we see ‘as I have loved you’ and have a twisted or darkened or fearful understanding of what it means to love as God loves.

But when we really, truly love each other like Jesus loved his disciples? Like God loved His Son? Like God loves us?

We see how simple and freeing that command really is. Not easy – no – because I am still flawed and still messy and still selfish. But it is simple.

We are free from stressing out over keeping hundreds of laws and maintaining appearances and from striving to earn something that is already ours – that we already possess.

Less fear – less obligation – and more freedom, in Christ.

Freedom to love God and love each other with big, pure, good, all-encompassing, perfect, humble, grateful love.

[thepenultimateword]

Why do the cool ideas live in my head but don't want to come out onto the page? I'm in such a writery mood right now, but just...nothing wants to be actual words, just little daydream pictures. Also no plots, only premises.

I also just finished a show, and I'm messed up over it. Do people actually just watch shows and move on when they're done? They don't live with an empty feeling in their stomach and their head full of thoughts for the next however long it takes to get over it?

Anyway, that relates because now I want to make a really cool story with lots of emotions and likable characters just like this show, but it's so hard. If only the little daydreams would write themselves for me exactly how I want them written.

[meili-sheep]

When you realise that Diluc is extremely important to mondstadt and if he were to get taken out, mondstadt will be facing so many issues.

(By the way, I'm not saying the other characters aren't important.)

Honestly, if the Traveler ask Diluc to help them, Inazuma probably wouldn't have happened. LOLOL Probably most of Sumeru too.

But yeah, I firmly believe part of whey we haven't gotten a Diluc Act 2 is because a lot of his lore is so ended game heavy. So while yes he's very important to Mondstadt's stability (and it's break between of him and the Knights that even gave the Fatui an opening) he's important to the story too whether Mihoyo likes it or not. And You're right, other characters are important... but I don't think a lot of other Character hold the same importance as Diluc does. Like I think he ranks of importance up to at least the Archons and then like Neuvillette and Al Haitham (less so but still). Like, both are critical to their nation… but also to the lore.

(As much as Al Haitham would like not to be, and I'm sorry, but I don't believe Nahida would let him quite being Grand Sage lolol because 1) trust isn't something she could really afford at the moment and 2) you will never get another unbiased person who does genuinely cares maybe not in a traditional sense of caring but still and finally 3) it's funny as hell)

now i'm thinking about the 3 of them together, it would be funny as all get out.

[dufferpuffer]

I wonder if, if Gellert had died, if Albus could have moved on. If, when alone in the world, he would be free enough, brave enough, to try and connect to someone else as closely as his first love?

Of course he could do no such thing himself - but if by some accident, some complication, some outside force Gellert fell and could be buried, be put behind him, live as a memory only... was there some chance for Albus to be happy?

Instead he is tethered to him, a locked away impossibility... a temptation he would feel pulling every night but never dare to picture too clearly in his mind, lest his thoughts spiral into desperation, into searing pain, into foolish and dangerous longing... How can he move on when there is still a thread wound tight around his heart? One that traps him to his sin as much as Gellert is trapped to his?

[firefly-factory]

One of my best friends has never played a minute of Skyrim in her life, but she still lets me go on rants about tes lore and sometimes she drops the hottest, most accurate takes I've ever seen.

Today she let me explain the nonsense that is Khajiit subcategories. Previously it was the bureaucracy of Altmer everything

Love her <3

[call-me-casual]

Okay, so during my holiday in wales I was standing in the ocean (like a normal person), when I had an idea that had me dissociating for a good 20 minutes

Basically it was a little series of shorts involving the LK cast (historical figures and all) teaching people (mostly kids) how to have a safe day at the beach - so stuff like listen to coast guards, pay attention to the flags on the beach and their meaning, how to spot a riptide and what to do, don’t underestimate the sea, etc. It wouldn’t break the fourth wall and the lessons would be conveyed through conversations between characters. Everyone looks and acts the same but they have modern stuff with them (modern beach clothes, etc)

My mind kept going back to the idea of James and Sarah being avid bodyboarders (My sister and her bf were bodyboarding nearby), so they’d be doing that during the shorts and they can have matching wetsuits because it would be very cute

There’d be some wholesome moments like Lafayette looking after/entertaining Henri (who is too young to go bodyboarding with Sarah and James), the journalists teaching Henri how to bodyboard with smaller waves, Moses having a hand signal code with the teens in case they can’t hear him over the waves, Sarah’s father and Washington calling the two in from the sea at the same time (Washingdad moment), the aides being goofballs, etc

If it was real it would probably be in partnership with a coast guard or something and either played in places near the coast or uploaded online

@sarahhillips @salmonthecat @sleepybamboo @floofyquenchiest @tricornonthecob

[st4rryskiesc0]

I keep seeing QSMP art on my for you page and I'm just like. Yeah you go!!! I have no idea what is happening!!! FitMC Philza?? they kiss! Yeah! Hooray!!

[shitpost-it-tristan]

Hehe, I'm always so giddy when I get messages from y'all-- Well, in general, honestly! But, specifically when I read the ones like

"I love reading your tags! They always make me smile!"

^^ These just, absolutely brighten up my day!

I'm so glad that y'all *actually* enjoy my (long-winded) tags! They're kinda just me, ranting and saying my unfiltered thoughts (pfft! That's EXACTLY what they are; I just type whatever I'm thinking!)

(Doesn't matter if they make sense, or if I'm completely incoherent!😅)

Anywho, I just wanted to let y'all know how much *I* smile when reading those! :D

-----

Edit: I JUST REALIZED THAT WHILE I WAS TYPING THIS

I HAD THAT EXACT EXPRESSION.

[honeypleasejustkillme]

little ramble but bpd has symptoms that overlap in other mental illnesses but just because that exists doesn’t mean we should gatekeep people from self diagnosing if it’s their only option, mental health resources can be hella expensive so if people don’t have that kind of opportunity to have it that doesn’t mean we should just let them suffer in silence

[neurosky]

Update yall!! Apparently I had some sort of cold or something because now my inner ears are acting up and I've spent the whole day having vertigo 🤩 Had to go to urgent care and everything.

Tiny little vent here, but man, I'm actually so done. I wish people without chronic illness could understand how badly people with it genuinely want to do stuff, but just can't sometimes. I want to go to school. As an 18 year old high-schooler, that sounds like I'm lying. But after so many days lying alone in bed and watching all my friends go to school, all I want is to be there. School is just one of those things a lot of people take for granted until you can't go (in most situations; sometimes school is just genuinely horrible).

BUT, good news!! I have some meds now, so hopefully I'll be able to make it for my anatomy test tomorrow =]

[iciclehandds]

I just know that soap hides behind the kitchens door sometimes when he sees Ghost coming, jumps Infront of him to scare him and receives the most jaw moving, dream crushing punch right in to his face as his protons and neutrons starts decreasing and lossing mass with the force of the punch.

[saltyfinalboss]

i wish some archive features would also be present in the mass post editor. idk maybe its not possible but the archive has a way to filter by: month, post type, and tag. the mass post editor only has a way to filter by month (and if its published/drafted/queued) which like it’s nice but for example i was just thinking that i keep forgetting to tag my hollow knight posts as “hk” (so that people can find more hollow knight stuff on my blog besides just my art - which i tag as hollow knight), but since i can’t filter by photo or tag (which might be useful for locating untagged posts) it will probably be really hard for me to find them. anyway fail they put the good features in the one that cant edit posts conveniently

[meili-sheep]

So I'm sure people have heard about the Hoyo's blunt racism by now. And I did make a not of this on the update last Friday, seems there really hasn't any word of delay to fix this. I really don't want to post any fan work of Hoyo at this time, because in some ways it feels like support. Specially since I'm focused on Diluc and Childe and the attention should be on the Natlan characters and how gross this is.

So here is the plan moving for now. I'm not gonna updated today. I'm going to edit everything I have left for The Home Handmade, all the last 10 Chapters, and just post it all at once. So while it might edit up worst with the grammar and editing because of the rush, you guys get the story! And I don't have to post anything about Genshin! Is this right? IDK man, but It feels right to me. I'm pretty morally ridged, and the second something like this happens, a lot of the love I feel towards Genshin turns right off. Which ya know fucking suck, but I'm gonna hold out a little more hope. Pray they listen.

But until then. Uuuuh that might be it from me. I still had some things I was working on (mostly an angsty Rag Bro thing) But that's obviously on hold.

I'll still be here, man. I'll still take Diluc questions (BTW the way Duke and Lady are now Canon because FUCK YOU) But I'll here maybe talk about comics a little more.

Would you like to here about my new OC Diluk of Sondmtadt and how I'm writing a "I am cringe but free" story of him and Jason Todd teaming up to be the best?

[wherethewordsare]

Lark goes to underground boxing tournaments when things have been too quiet and his skin is too tight because he hasn't slept in days, waiting to be needed to fight and bleed and sacrifice.

It wasn't right away, but Nick finds out. He doesn't try to stop him. He doesn't lecture or ask why or try to talk him out of it. But he starts showing up with wrap for Larks busted knuckles and iodine for his cuts. Sometimes they don't even talk, Nick just simply wraps Larks hands, with as much care as he can possibly put into every inch of gauze.

Sometimes he'll heckle Lark for wincing as Nick dabs his bloody cheek. "You took three shots to the ribs and grinned. You can't take a little cotton swab?"

"You don't have to be here ya know," but Lark would turn his head letting Nick clean the worst of the blood by his ear.

One night Lark catches Nick at the door before he can even go in.

"Oh hey, man. Whats up?"

Lark doesn't say it. Doesn't say how tired he is or how much his bones won't settle or how far gone his thoughts are most of the time. He doesn't try to explain why every time he sees Nick coming to clean him up off the mat, he thinks maybe he could just let go of this need for structured chaos. Though he doesn't try because he doesn't understand it himself.

"Thought we'd change it up for tonight," Lark doesn't look at him but bounces anxiously on the balls of his feet. "Ya want to get a bite to eat?"

Nick stares at him for a long time as if trying to solve a particularly tricky math problem. But then he just shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and grins that same grin that makes Lark need to look away.

"Burgers beat the smell of iodine any day. Yeah."

Nick never tried to stop him, never told him off or made him feel small for needing something to feel more centered. He only came and made sure Lark didn't do it alone. It wasn't something Lark had to fight for, it just was. Maybe he didn't have to fight for every scrap of just being.