I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.
I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:
Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)
Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)
Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often
Eat dessert first
Celebrate well, and often
Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)
Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.
Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate
Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)
Walk without having a specific destination or goal
Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.
I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.
FINALLY SOME ART FOR AN AU IVE BEEN WORKING ON!!!!! YIPEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
So tl;dr Twisted Modes like an alternate game mode designed to be a form of 'hard mode', where the play styles for each toon have been muddied or completely changed to offer a completely different experience for players. The premise is that the toons are like a remnant of previous games, its based upon the clone theory so each individual toon has their own story and lore separate from the others (though there are exceptions for a few characters!). Also the AU is written in a way that's meant to semi-emulate the game itself which is why the stats and alternate abilities are listed, expect more gameplay aspects to be given in the future bc i love coming up with gameplay mechanics 😈
The chars here aren't all of the ones planned btw I wanna make another sheet when I can, feel free to ask questions tho ill be happy to answer ^^ pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea
ok i swear i'm not going to talk about my breakup forever but the thing that just keeps bothering me:
i know that not getting what you need in a relationship is a COMPLETELY valid reason to end it but also. i feel like having a very vulnerable moment where i opened up about my struggles with intimacy and being relieved that i didn't have to keep doing things i wasn't comfortable with, then being dumped a YEAR later because of my lack of intimacy. is something i should be allowed to be very hurt by???
I don’t think the Lotus Hotel & Casino should automatically acclimate its inhabitants to the modern time period, because the entire point of the hotel is that it’s trying to keep people there and they will never leave, so the ideal scenario is to prevent them from experiencing the passage of time. The best way to do that would be to keep things changing as little as possible from the guests’ perspectives, and convince them they’ve spent less time there than they thought.
Even though the guests are canonically in a sort of daze, Percy specifically notes that time felt extremely distorted in the hotel, not just in the sense of “we were here for what felt like hours but outside the hotel it was a week,” but in more of a “It only feels like we’ve been here like half an hour, but i guess it might have actually been a couple hours or so- oh, a week has passed outside.”
I like to imagine the hotel is actually pretty labyrinthine when you start getting into it, and the deeper you go the older the sections of the hotel start becoming, so you get these really eerie effects when traveling through it. Especially since the hotel would theoretically shift with the other mythological locations, so if you go back far enough the hotel probably starts getting really weird, because also it’s just kind of infinite inside. People have definitely gotten lost in the depths of the hotel forever, outside of the whole never leaving the hotel thing. The di Angelo siblings might have been slightly extra resistant to the daze effect though and so were able to travel further outside their designated era wing than they normally would and start noticing that there was Something Really Weird Going On. But it still probably would have taken them awhile.
just thinking about how in hopeless war cherry says “you’ll still be the losers destined to fail and we’ll be the lucky ones” and then in stay gold Johnny and pony sing “can’t you see that we’re the lucky ones”
because while the socs are lucky with money and privilege, the greasers have love and family that they wouldn’t trade for the world.
antoine + étoiles insane moments, p.2. aka the ass saga. p1 here
transcript + context for some of the clips below
[Video Transcript:
[First clip plays.]
Rivenzi: You want to see Etoiles’ ass, of course…
Antoine: Yeah, I’m gonna stare at your ass, Etoiles…
Etoiles: Fuck, what dread, during Popcorn [a talkshow Etoiles had been invited on the previous week], when I went up to the map and you said that, and I thought ‘whoa—‘
Antoine: Sorry
[Second clip plays: the moment during Popcorn]
PA/Domingo: Antoine Daniel has posted a tweet for us: ‘I wanted to look at this map of Africa, but Etoiles’ ass in the shape of a standing bell is driving me crazy. Smiley face with eyes in the shape of hearts.’
[Third clip plays: a continuation of the first clip.]
Antoine: Sorry, bro…
Ponce: Oh but that tweet, besides
Rivenzi: A standing bell…
Antoine: What’s more is that I never tweet and when I do it’s to tweet this sort of shit
Ponce: That’s exactly what I told myself. When PA read the tweet, I thought to myself, ‘but he never tweets!’ And he tweets to talk about Etoiles’ ass
Antoine: There needs to be a good reason, you see
[Fourth clip plays: a clip from the Team du Lundi’s minecraft server.]
JDG: Someone (in chat) said, ‘I can’t tell whether the atmosphere is good tonight or—‘
Antoine: It sucks, it sucks
Florence: You don’t need to ask every time, it always sucks
Baghera: Always sucks. Especially when Etoiles talks about ass [which had been a previous topic of discussion for him that night]
Antoine: Stooop, I enjoy it
Mynthos: You enjoy it?
JDG: It’s true tonight that it’s more weird than bad
Antoine: I like it when Etoiles talks about ass….
[Fifth clip plays: a second and different clip from Popcorn.]
Etoiles: —you’re not allowed to tell me that [Xari claimed to not know much about cinema]. I know you, I studied, because you’re my rival [in pop culture]. I really enjoy what you do in life, Xari, and you’re really knowledgeable about cinema
Antoine: What do you mean he’s your rival? And I’m just shit?
Etoiles: You, you’re my lover
Antoine: Oh yeah, sorry, my bad
PA/Domingo: One of the three is gonna die soon. There’s a whole situation, there’s a whole lore
[Sixth clip plays: a clip from the QSMP.]
Antoine: Don’t you want to get married, dude?
Etoiles: Well, I don’t have the time to fuck
Antoine: What the fuck?!
Etoiles: I don’t have time to fuck, dude. I just need to kill everyone
Antoine: No but just a marriage, you see. You’ve watched Game of Thrones— you haven’t watched Game of Thrones, you can’t know how marriages work in that series
Etoiles: I’ve watched it, but I’m married to the street, dude. I can’t give out my heart that quickly
Antoine: Yeah but you can give out your ass quickly, no?
Etoiles: No, frankly, my ass—
Antoine: What the fuck?!
Etoiles: Giving out your ass takes time, dude
Antoine: What the fuck…
Etoiles: Then again, I need to think about it. I’ll give you my answer. I need to discuss, and everything
Antoine: I’m tired of getting betrayed. You get married with someone else—
Etoiles: Never in a million years!
Antoine: —it’s like yesterday. Apparently Maximus got the mic from his ass removed while I wasn’t there. I was supposed to be the one to do it
Etoiles: Oh okay, so I’m your second choice?
[Overlapping]
Antoine: No! It was just to help him—
Etoiles: No, but, okay
Antoine: He got— listen—
Etoiles: There’s no problem!
Antoine: Fuck, nevermind
Etoiles: There’s no issue! Oh, so you’re opening my chest and stealing?
Antoine: I was just looking! Out of curiosity
Etoiles: Yeah, that’s it
Antoine: I don’t even understand what’s in it
Etoiles: Yeah, out of curiosity. Dude, your opinion on my cave?