#new point of view

[stellarpurplecollar]

Journal: Stand and look up.

When my brother and I were growing up, we did a Christmas thing. It was one of the few things we ever did together. As soon as the tree was up, we would drag a pillow and some blankets into the living room, fold the blankets to make a bit of cushioning for our backs, and lie on the floor with our heads tucked under the tree to fall asleep staring at the lights. We chatted a bit, but I don't remember any kind of deep conversation. No secret swapping or philosophical reveal. He would almost always fall asleep first. Mainly we were there for the lights.

I think once we hit middle school, we tapered off from the experience. By then, we had smartened up -- acknowledging Floor=Back pain. We started camping out on couches and recliners for a few nights. Still, the conversation was mindless chatter. Sans profoundness.

He has kids now. We still don't communicate. I wonder if his boys camp beneath their trees. I couldn't provide a significant tree for my girls. I don't remember if they ducked under their grandparents' tree; I just don't remember.

Recently, in my therapy group, a young woman said she liked to go into the forest and look up. She does it whenever she gets the chance. "I love that sense of smallness. It's like, my body loses balance but my mind gains insight, you know? Like, whatever problem I took to the woods, it wasn't as big of a deal compared to my inner tree holding the rest of my life." I wanted to ask her if birds pooping from that height constituted a conundrum or some sort of thought hiccup, but we aren't allowed to ask those sorts of questions. Honestly I hate not being able to be myself.

I can't wander into the woods; my walker won't fit. And I don't need to look up to lose my balance. Unless I have wandered out there to die, I won't get to experience that feeling of awe. But I can still look up. The other night I spent an hour staring out the window. I am in a place far from where I grew up; the stars didn't look familiar and I was uneasy. I spotted a falling star. It was brilliant! In a sky full of pin pricks, this was a marker, thick and flowing.

The next time you are somewhere you normally are not, look up. It doesn't have to be nature. It can be information, a person of personal influence or connection, or to watch a flock of birds passing overhead. However it happens, you will come home with a new perspective -- even if it is with only one eye.

Shortchanged in foresight,

She Who is Collared

[toniko]

me when my omniscient reader has no viewpoint

[eggwhiteswithspinach]

👏 Same Platform, New Point of View

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Lackadaisy Enrichment

[bacchuschucklefuck]

and! barbarian!fig! its her

[thepersonalquotes]

The best thing about photography: it changes your point of view.

Nina Hrusa

[pigeon-noises]

"I look forward to the day we meet again."

Once again inspired by @isnt-it-pretty's FtCoR fic

[solcarow]

stella ( @obstinaterixatrix ) yuor tags possessed me

[cinnamonsikwate]

"why couldn't shuro have just been honest about what he felt with laios and falin it's not that hard" are you. are you White

[goldensunset]

O you, who at the world's far-off end dwell,

I know your wish- it is my wish as well.

[jaynovz]

In discussions about the finale of Black Sails, one of the things I often see is folks hard-focusing on Flint's fate, in an either-or binary fashion, usually presented as "Which do you believe-- that Silver killed him? or sent him to the plantation?"

Now, for posterity's sake, gonna mention a few things-- first off, that's simply not thinking broadly enough. There are farrrr more than two options here and I've come up with my share of the reallyyyyy bad ones for sure. Whatever your mind chooses, none of those are happy endings anyway, there are bittersweet, bad, and worse endings all the way down. (They are paused, they are in a time loop, and also all endings and no endings are happening simultaneously)

But also, the more cogent point is that, it doesn't actually matter what happened *to Flint* The story is... not actually about him at that point. We have transitioned from Flint as protag to Silver as protag, setting up for (the fanfiction that Black Sails has ended up making of, ugh, king shit) Treasure Island.

And so, I just, don't find it to be of particular interest exploring what we think Flint is actually doing or if he's alive for real. What is EXTREMELY interesting to explore though is how Silver's speech at the end to Madi is sort of giving Thomas back to Flint as a pacifier/comfort object, but how... Silver is giving Flint that thing in his own mind as his own type of pacifier/comfort object.

That's the REALLY chewy bit. What actually happens to Flint is not the purpose of that scene for me, of Silver's recounting of events to Madi. It's more about... projection. It's about how Silver is dealing with whatever happened to Flint/whatever he did.

And I just feel like it's missing the point to focus so hard on if Flint is alive or not.

He is the ghost of the story regardless, that's what's important. He's going to haunt the narrative for the rest of everyone's lives. No one has been untouched or unscarred by coming into contact with Captain Flint; he has a forever legacy. I'm not the first to call him this, but he's Schrödinger's Flint and he's staying that way.

But this?

"No. I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it. There is a place near Savannah... where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret. An internment far more humane, but no less secure. Men who enter these gates never leave them. To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be. He resisted... at first. But then I told him what else I had heard about this place. I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it. I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it. So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner. He returned with news. Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer... he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well... whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it... so unexpected. I choose to believe it... because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all... but one who existed beforehand... waking from a long... and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight... and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes... letting the memory of the nightmare fade away. You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it. But I'm not the villain you fear I am. I'm not him."

This is the speech of a man who is self-soothing, who is spinning himself a tale, who is projecting, who is coping.

and THAT is just, way chewier, innit?

[girlrandomstuff]

do you ever think about leia getting to see bail and breha again at force heaven/afterlife?? cuz i do and i cry every time

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #58 Part 6

Everything happened so fast that when Danny finally got to flop onto his bed at the Wayne manor he let himself sink into the covers with a heavy sigh. Everyone broke off into their own rooms to change into more comfortable clothing once they had arrived. Jazz and Danny both had rooms, they started out as guest rooms but were quickly personalized since they tended to spend a lot of time here. Danny even brought most of his models and other various precious items that he didn’t want broken accidentally by his parents (again). His and Jazz’s rooms were set up just like the other bedrooms in the manor, with an ensuite bathroom. They both had dressers, walk-in closets, queen sized beds with ornate nightside tables, and decent sized desks with windows looking out to the backyard garden. 

They were allowed to decorate it any way they chose so Jazz had her room painted a dark teal color with an extra shelf for some books she’d been studying, most being the field of Psychology. Danny meanwhile chose to paint his room a dark blue reminiscent of the night sky, complete with glow in the dark stars and some that didn’t glow, that were painted by Damian, they had all worked together to map it all out as accurately as they could. 

Danny briefly let his thoughts wander as he tried to process the day's events. Was he okay? He wasn’t even sure at the moment, he was pretty sure he was a ghost temporarily and the weirder part was the cool feeling he felt from his chest was still there. 

Danny with a change of clothes in hand went into the bathroom attached to his room. He looked at his reflection again and he looked rough, his eyes were red from crying and he looked exhausted. 

He turned away and quickly got into the shower to wash himself.

The water felt hot on his skin but he marveled at the fact that he could still feel it. These thoughts helped ground himself as he finished up with his shower and got dressed in the comfy PJ’s he grabbed.

He found himself staring at himself in the mirror again. He couldn’t help it, his ghostly appearance from earlier had scared him and his normal looking reflection he now had was comforting. 

He looked like a normal person, like he always did, his bags were now gone. Some small part of him thought maybe it was all a dream? That small part was wrong and Danny knew it deep down, but that small part still hoped.

Did he still have a pulse? He was still breathing and he was sure his heart was still pumping so he probably had one. 

Going back over to his bed he picked his phone back up and after a quick Google search on how to check and what his rate should be he held two fingers to his other hand and counted.

He ran his hands through his hair and took a shaky breath. He counted his BPM at 29 BPM while the normal rate for him was around 60. So it was now less than half what it should be. He wasn’t sure how worried he should be about that or if he should tell anyone or keep his mouth shut. He couldn’t be a meta now either. Him and Jazz had spent hours discussing what it would be like to carry the meta gene and one day get powers.

He watched his reflection from the vanity above his dresser, would he turn back into that pulseless form? 

A knock startled him out of his thoughts as he let out a small yelp. He almost didn’t register his eyes that flashed green for just a moment as he felt his heart skip a beat.

“Danny! Alfred called us down for dinner, everyone else should be down soon as well…” Jazz called from the other side of his bedroom door, her voice sounding like she was trying to keep up a sense of normalcy. 

“Right… coming!!” Danny replied, his eyes lingered on themselves for a moment before he let out a small sigh and grabbed his phone and followed Jazz down the hall.

A few moments passed as they walked side by side in silence, Jazz kept sneaking glances at him, like she couldn’t believe he was here either. She hesitated for a few minutes before speaking, “...Danny? Are you… Okay?” She spoke slowly like she was scared he’d disappear and at that moment he wanted to do just that. 

He wasn’t sure exactly what he should tell her, he felt okay but he wasn’t exactly sure. Everything felt the same but different, everything was the same as it had been before his accident but now he felt a weird dissociation with the world around him, like he wasn’t really there. He couldn’t explain that feeling to Jazz so he shrugged.

“Honestly your guess is as good as mine as we know about the same.” Danny answered with a sigh.

Jazz gave him a look that he couldn’t quite decipher, “are you sure you should be up and around then?” Her voice was quiet again like she was afraid he’d disappear. Danny couldn’t help but stop in his tracks as he thought about it.

“I mean, nothing has happened yet? I can’t really explain it.” He rubbed the back of  his neck with his hand as he looked down and refused to meet her gaze again. 

He continued walking after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence and soon they arrived in the Dining room.

[another-goblin]

2.2 Spoilers

There are a lot of birds on Penacony. Characters directly called after (Black Swan, Robin) or strongly associated with birds (Aventurine's peacock, Ratio's owl, winged halovian Sunday always accompanied by his purple bird). Plus all the birds of Penacony - statues of birds, figurines of birds, paintings of birds, origami birds and so on.

And out of all these birds, the peacock is the only one that doesn't fly (technically, they can fly, but not for long, sort of like chickens).

So all these conversations we hear in 2.2 about flying and non-flying birds can be applied to Aventurine.

For example, this:

And Sunday's opinion about how the birds who are not good at flying should be locked in cages for their own good (yes well done Sunday, Aventurine would be very excited to hear about it. ouch).

The game has been exploiting Aventurine's peacock symbolism before (his deliberately eye-catching appearance, and "jarring" voice), but 2.2 added a whole new level to it with this metaphor.

It would be interesting to analyze all the mentions of birds in 2.2 from that point of view, but transcripts are not yet available. And watching through 10 hours long walkthroughs to find all mentions of birds is a bit too much.

[nostalgiahime]

Internet Tech Article from Point of View Magazine (November 1999)

[gffa]

FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW: "THERE IS ANOTHER" by Gary D. Schmidt

And it was right at that moment--at that exact moment--that Yoda felt Obi-Wan grow suddenly stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and then move in a quick burst into the netherworld of the Force. And Yoda felt Anakin fall even more deeply into painful loneliness. A loneliness so terrible that Yoda almost felt pity for him.