#mind garden

[thorette]

Did I live in a haunted house

With tiles cracking like eggshells

Photos on the wall, watching me tiptoe

Up the hallway that grows longer and longer

Hoping I can get to my room before I hear screaming

Ducking to avoid the menacing blow

Promising myself that the house I build when I’m older won’t be haunted

[wanderingmindthoughts]

currently reading "building a second brain", as part of my efforts towards this blog but also in general in my life -my phd is demanding a lot of knowledge-organization skills that I don't really have. I want to use this blog as an organization tool about my thougths and beliefs, but I'm still hesitant on how personal I want to get. like, I'm okay sharing philosophical concepts and developing them, but I don't think I want to publicly think about my trauma and personal relationships. I would love to use this for my academic stuff, but I guess I can get into trouble about sharing research before it's published -so it may be prudent to use some kind of private note-taking tool for that (I'm considering logseq)

[alixdelin]

(via Gridllr)

The Mind Garden ahad @wiresandtrees

[go-star-sailor]

waiter waiter more transfem wirt pleasee

[spidertroupeart]

My boyfriend and I's stupid conversation about hot dogs ft. company

[littlebird7]

Hey! I write on AO3, come check it out!

Adrien walked into his dorm room, the room was small, but it felt cozy and warm. Two adjectives that could never have described his room in his father’s manor house. He put his suitcase down on the unclaimed bed, his room mate was gone at the moment and Adrien felt a bit of relief that he could get settled before meeting anyone. He put his bag down next to his suitcase and saw a lump that wasn’t usually there. He ran his hand through his blond hair, scratching his scalp repeatedly. Odd.

He felt inside the bag and pulled out a hexagonal box embossed with chinese-looking emblems and a crest of some kind that was foreign to him. He opened the box and a bright light came out and blinded him. He crossed his arms over his eyes and looked on in awe! Magic! Magic was real!

“Hello,” the tiny black creature zoomed out of the box and looked around Adrien’s room, it went into his suitcase and searched through all of his roommate’s things before settling on his bed, “where is the cheese?” the creature whined at him. “I NEED cheese in order to live!” Adrien blinked, he hadn’t moved, the creature was fascinating and hadn’t exactly been easy to talk to as it had wandered through the small dorm.

“Hi, little black… ummmm, what are you?” Adrien didn’t want to be rude, he didn’t know what kind of powers a creature like this one possessed.

“I’m a kwami, you know, a magical being that can turn you into a superhero!” the Kwami puffed out his chest and smiled wide. His whiskers bounced and he looked so pleased with himself that Adrien laughed.

“Nice to meet you, Kwami, how exactly do you turn me into a superhero?” Adrien was intrigued. Why would he need to become a superhero and who had given him this kwami?

“Well, all you need to do is put the ring on and say ‘Plagg, claws out’ and you turn into a superhero!” Adrien’s eyes shone with excitement as he reached for the ring in the box now completely ignoring Plagg. The Kwami started to get a little nervous, “But there are some things I need to tell you before you…”

“Plagg, claws out!” Plagg’s words were downed out by Adrien’s demand to the kwami. A green light washed over him and he was swathed in black leather, his face had a mask and his hair was messier than usual, wait, he had something on his head. He reached up to feel and felt velvety soft cat ears. He loved the new look. He felt something on his back and grabbed it, it was a staff. There were several buttons on it, in the shape of a cat’s paw. He pressed one and the staff grew, taking up the whole room. “Crap!” Adrien said, and pressed the button again, hoping it would reverse the effects. Luckily it did. “I better try this outside!” he opened up a window and hopped outside, pressing the button again (it was a toe bean), this time the staff expanded a great deal more--launching him into the air. The whoosh of the wind in his face cooled off some of his excitement and he arrived at the top of a building.

This was the perfect place to press all the buttons on his staff. He pressed the middle toe bean button, (to the right of the button which extended the staff) and it turned his staff into a phone. A red light glowed on the screen, it was getting closer. He wondered what it was? He pressed the last toe bean buttons and a user's guide appeared. Interesting. He’d read through it later. Finally, he was ready to press the palm?, sole?, paw-bean? in the center of paw print. This one split his staff in two. Cool!

He used one half to track the red dot on his phone and the other half he extended and put between two buildings. He began to walk across it looking at his cat-phone the whole time, the red dot grew closer until it appeared right on top of him. He looked up only to be met with a red blur that zoomed right into him. He found himself tangled hopelessly in wires and his whole body was pressed against something soft. He opened his eyes and saw that he was face to face with a girl, and they were kissing! It was obviously an accident, but he backed away immediately. Both his face and the red blur’s face instantly turned beet red.

“So sorry miss, I didn’t mean to kiss you! Not that I didn’t like it, but you I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“I’m so sorry, I just got these powers a few minutes ago and didn’t mean to crash into you!”

Neither of them heard the other, as they both spat their words out at the same time. Adrien laughed and cleared his throat.

“It’s okay, it looks like we’ve been teamed up, did you get a chinese styled box with some jewelry in it?

“Yeah, I did. Did you see who gave it to you?”

“Nope,” Adrien popped the p, he felt freer than he had in a long time. “I was hoping you had, mine just appeared in my bag.” he backed his head away as far as he could get to better look at her. “What should I call you? M’Lady?” Yes, that was so smooth! He mentally congratulated himself.

“Uhhh, good question, perhaps Ladybug?” She was looking at him a little oddly. “Smooth?” the question came out of her mouth and he looked confused. Is he flirting with me? Adrien’s eyes popped wide open. That wasn’t my thought! Now Ladybug’s mouth was open.

“Can you hear my thoughts?” he asked her, slightly awed.

“I guess I can, Mr. Smooth.” she teased him. “It appears that you can also hear mine?” His face went red as he nodded and he did his best to clear all of the thoughts from his mind. “What is your name?” His eyes are so green!

“Why yes, my eyes are green, Ladybug.” he smirked at her. She liked him! A ripple of delight coursed through him and he heard a scoff.

“I do not!” She untangled them and he got his staff back together. “What is your name? Green eyes?” She batted her lashes at him, mockingly.

“Well, ummm,” he looked himself over and remembered his cat ears on top of his head, “Chat Noir?”

“Okay, Chat Noir. Our partnership is…quite unique. We’ll have to be professional in our THOUGHTS as well as our words.” Damn,this will be hard! That thought was doubly enforced in his mind, it reverberated off all of the walls of his head like they had both said it aloud. Had they thought the same thing at the same time? “I guess so.” Ladybug said aloud. This would take some getting used to. They thought again at the same time. Ladybug laughed and so did he.

“I wonder if it’s like a distance thing? Or maybe only when we’re suited up?” Gosh I hope so. Her thoughts leaked into his brain.

“I guess only time will tell.”

There was an explosion of sound and color across the city, and they heard the screams and cries of civilians. They took one look at eachother and launched into the sky to investigate. This must be the reason we have our miraculous. Chat Noir sent out the thought to Ladybug who was further away from him than they had been before. She turned and looked at him. I guess so Chat, let’s go help, people need us! The distance didn’t seem to matter yet. I wonder if/when it will. Stop distracting me, I’m trying to understand what’s happening! Ladybug yelled into his mind. He looked at the scene they had arrived at and his jaw nearly hit the floor.

A large stone monster was wreaking havoc on the city of Paris. It was huge! It has something in its fist, look! LB was talking to him. Can you help me, you know what your powers are, right? His face blazed and he felt a wave of embarrassment roll over him. Ummm, I have a guide book, but didn’t get to read it yet. The girl looked at him and rolled her eyes. Better get started Buttercup! I’ll try to engage it, see if I can talk it down, but my Kwami said that your superpowers are important and opposite of mine. She told me I’d need your help because we’re an Alpha pair, I think she said? She gave him a pointed look as she swung her yo-yo string on the Eiffel Tower. READ! She commanded, and then she was gone.

He flipped open the cat-phone reading as quickly as he could. I’ll be there for you as soon as I can M’Lady. He felt warmth and happiness radiate from her. She’s so awesome. You better start reading! Yes M’Lady! He opened the page and speed read.

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[birdy-babe]

I wonder if Verosika seemed so annoyed bc she knows he never acted like that for her. I wonder if in this moment she knew Blitz was serious. Because he never acted this way for anyone, at least before Stolas

[uraniumsuite]

MARVIN TRILOGY (I WATCHED IN TROUSERS TODAY)

individual photos under the cut + without the pop ups from me

without commentary

in trousers!!

march of the falsettos

falsettoland

[cassidyamber]

i've already talked about this in dms but like. man diana makes me SO emotional. second youngest person in the killing game. a man who she looked up to and considered a friend attacks her, and then dies horribly in front of her before she can even really process what has just happened. and THEN it comes out that someone she consistently reached out to and, again! viewed as a friend! resented her so much that she framed her for murder, AND intentionally set her up to be in that vulnerable position, fully prepared for the possibility that she'd either be seriously hurt by wolfgang or killed when the battery was dropped. and then guess what?? that friend ALSO dies horribly in front of her before she can process this. and THEN instead of getting upset, she chooses to live in honor of wolfgang, chooses to try and uplift the others rather than dwell on her own feelings. anddd she is IMMEDIATELY shut down. because unlike wolfgang, who she's attempting to emulate, she doesn't have the sway of his ultimate title to back her up, nor the experience. she's, again, younger than nearly everyone else here. not only that, when wolfgang gave his speech, nobody had died yet. it's a lot easier to have faith in encouraging words, and to trust others, when that trust hasn't just been broken. diana has wolfgang's conviction and desire to believe in others, but none of his influence. and not only that... while wolfgang encouraged everyone to trust each other, he still brought a knife to the meeting in the boiler room. diana didn't bring any sort of weapon. i think diana believed wolfgang's words more than wolfgang himself. i think she still does.

[thorette]

Becoming a parent after having a narcissistic parent #3:

Before you have kids, you’re afraid of

NOT being kind

NOT being a good parent

NOT being able to break the cycle.

However, these fears are evidence of self awareness, which leads to recognition and knowledge. With these tools, change is possible YET only if you value yourself and have the confidence that you are better than where you came from.

[wanderingmindthoughts]

Welcome to my mind garden

A mind garden is a place to plant, grow and create new ideas. A lot of people do this in one way or another -by taking notes, revising them, organising them and mixing them together in new and interesting ways. This means that this place will be inhabited first by half-formed thoughts and raw, stream-of-mind rants about topics that pique my interest; but over time I will edit, prune and link together all my little notes as they develop. Hopefully, over time they will develop into solid, interconnected theories that reflect the structure of my mind.

There will probably also be a lot of silly stuff.

There are several options for making a digital mind garden, like jekyll and TiddlyWiki (and more), but I decided to try and turn a tumblrblog into a garden. Firstly, because I already have an account, and also beause I really didn't want to fiddle with learning a new system.

So this blog's purpose is to record, archive and link together my thoughts but hey, it *is* on the internet. does that mean that it is open to being reblogged, commented? YES, it does. this is me willingly making the choice to think and learn in public. while this garden is fully submitted to my own personal goals, if I wanted no one to read along ang give me feedback, I wouldn't have posted it online (so long you do so with respect)

[arriayuon]

oh my god help they've successfully infiltrated my brain , some doodles of dork goobers at your service

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[lenateliier]

Maomao in various hanfu #1: Garden Party Outfit

[gabycantart]

not done but I just really want to post this ._.