#penumbra ask

[maedre13]

Podcasts I’ve listened to, in the order I’ve listened to them…

[lunar-disillusionment]

*Astraia soon felt a portal open underneath her and she dropped in, crying out as she landed into a new world*

The world before her looks like the entryway of the PizzaPlex. Except it looked very different. The coloring was black, purple, and green, the entrance appeared more like one to a giant concert than one of a mall, techno music and rock could heard faintly through the echoing place.

[bloodydrew]

I was doing FINE then I started to listen to podcasts and now I’m GAY

[meerkatp]

Dellumbra OTP 20, 24, and 30

20: Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship.

Been trying to think of a song all day, but am drawing blanks. "OTL

24: Who���s more likely to give the other a massage?

They both have especially when they've seen the other overwork themselves or be just really tense, but Della's more likely to give one to Penumbra. Penny's more likely to be on edge from her training alone (and the amount of people her uncle-in-law's pissed off over the past century sure as hell doesn't help) so Della does have to remind Penny to just relax every once in a while. (Also that if there was a attack of sorts Beakly could handle it.)

30: Your OTP gets to pick out each other’s outfits; what is each wearing?

Thought it would be easier to draw than describe.

[rhymesswith]

[croh3]

i’m sorry but this is the funniest thing i’ve ever drawn so i need to share it

[sabworks]

The downside of living with your space pirate family.

Also Juno can’t handle corsets.

[pen-and-umbra]

ok but let’s get into the DIRT and break this down like sephiroth dissecting a mako pod. if sephiroth had the sheer will to resist jenova’s “reunion” possession during the robio incident in first soldier ep2,then his little nibelheim meltdown wasn’t some tragic puppet show. bro had agency. he chose to burn it all down after reading some scribbled notes in the mansion library..

“jenova made me” is pure gaslighting—if he could shut her out once, he could’ve done it again. but nah, he vibed with the villain arc

Hard disagree. It is completely inappropriate to compare these two scenarios.

During the Robio mission, Sephiroth has not yet dealt with the years of festering trauma and combat experiences that will contribute to his emotional burden later on. While scarred, he has not endured **years** of being celebrated as a phony hero while powerless to deter ShinRA's shenanigans. His companionships have not yet bloomed and grown, only to deteriorate into vanishing acts and bitterness. As a teenager, he is still in the early stages of that path and has not reached a breaking point.

Moreover, it is crucial to acknowledge the significance of starvation, sleep deprivation, and isolation, as these factors directly impacted Sephiroth's mental and emotional state during THAT mission. Unlike the isolation he experiences in Nibelheim, Sephiroth is surrounded by people in Robio. Angeal, regardless of personal feelings, is a by-the-book leader who prioritizes formal assignments, chain of command and team duty. Meaning that he wouldn't back off just because Sephiroth asked him to. This is fairly different from the circumstances Sephiroth had while staying at Mako reactor and the mansion basement.

Zack and Sephiroth were friendly enough, but their dynamic was more like that of a mentor and a student, with Zack playing an assistant role. Zack still regards Sephiroth as a larger-than-life superman, as I briefly mentioned here. He never considered that Sephiroth might struggle to handle a situation. This is exemplified in the Nibelheim episode, where Sephiroth is isolated in the basement, plagued by intrusive (and quite possibly Jenova-induced) thoughts and accumulated anguish, while Zack remains unaware and enjoys peaceful time at the inn. Zack refrains from checking on him because he cannot fathom Sephiroth's potential inability to process a certain situation/information. Zack's perception of Sephiroth's strength and resilience is so strong that he fails to recognize signs of vulnerability, resulting in missed opportunities for intervention. The disconnect between his admiration and Sephiroth's internal struggles eventually contributes to the unfortunate events that occur later.

Given teen!Sephiroth's resilience and lack of extreme stressors in Robio, it's understandable that he can YET resist Jenova's (?? or whatever power is behind all that woo) attempts at manipulation. In contrast to Nibelheim events, he also does not experience physical and psychological effects of sleep deprivation, hunger, dehydration, or the need to confront personal struggles while avoiding burdening his squadmates. (By contrast, look at him shutting himself down when the topic of family & hometown pops up upon arrival at Nibelheim.)

Bottom line. Sephiroth embodies the dangers of perceived strength. When life presents challenges, you deal with it because you have no choice. However, once you've dealt with it, people expect you to keep doing so. When someone is seen as strong, others typically do not inquire casually about their well-being. Sephiroth's mental fortitude and practiced self-restraint were a mixed blessing; they shielded him from external manipulation (only for so long, of course), but they also isolated him from the support he needed. In other words, his practiced stoicism becomes a liability; no one intervenes because no one **believes** he needs help.

Who knows, if Zack had trusted his instincts about Sephiroth's strange behavior and stayed in the mansion for that fateful week, the outcome might have been different. Essentially Zack’s admiration blinds him to Sephiroth’s vulnerability. He interprets Sephiroth’s isolation as “handling things,” failing to recognize the signs of collapse. This isn’t fault-finding, but a critique of how we fail those who “seem strong.”

In the end, Sephiroth’s seeming resistance in Robio doesn’t negate his collapse in Nibelheim, but highlights how trauma, isolation, and emotional neglect created the perfect conditions for his fall, whether Jenova-driven or not.

[shit-juno-steel-would-say]

hi hello i am alive and relistening to penumbra and

JUNO WAS SO CLOSE TO HAVING SOME SENSE OF HAPPINESS. HE WAS SO CLOSE. BUT HE COULDN'T LET HIMSELF HAVE IT. AGGHHHHHH

[insanelyadd]

if some of us did lay eggs in the in closure would they get mad if they were fertile? Also what they going do? Stop us? Ha!

No one in the enclosure would be capable of doing that. XD It would make things really complicated and annoying and unnecessarily stressful for everyone if the people in the enclosure could reproduce asexually, so they purposely only chose mortals that wouldn't cause those issues.

[whumpflash]

tansy is TWENTY???? they should be at the club… 😔

- 🎣

they should 😭😭

They really are just a baby lol, they were still a teenager when they started fighting with the rebels

Under a more peaceful reign they'd probably be going to festivals with friends. I could easily see them being ye olde music hipster, learning to play Mandolin and performing at town events

but alas

[sunshine-girl-shines]

Does the penumbra podcast have a tag like “masked” for malevolent or “do not archive” for TMA?

[nureyevs-worst-alias]

Had a weird dream last night that I was for some reason married to Juno Steel (?) and the entire time I was just running away from him and I think in every universe he's just doomed to have everyone that loves him just vanish even if it is my fucked up dream universe so that's fun

[your-fav-is-a-snake]

Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev? From the penumbra podcast

Juno steel from Penumbra is an Eastern Ribbon Snake!

Peter Nureyev from Penumbra is a Northern Scarlet Snake!

[faultyvessel]

My family deals with a lot thank to my pod fixation ™

I think my favourite thing to come from it by far is my sister asking “are all these shows legally required to be obsessed with eyes to make up for the fact that you can’t see anything?” And fellas I think she’s on to something

[juno-tism]

do you have any silly juno steel hcs for any of the characters 🥺🥺🥺

BOY DO I HAVE HCS!!!!

Juno is surprisingly very touch avoidant. He’s very jumpy and flinches at touch. The only person he’s let freely touch him without permission is Rita and Nureyev.

Him and Rita have had many a nights back when he was still getting life together where they would just fall asleep cuddling. She would help him wash his hair and clean up around his place when he wasn’t feeling up to it.

Rita and Juno qpr rights bc I said so.

I also headcanon Juno to be audhd. I photocopy all my stims onto him because he’s literally me. He picks his skin a lot when he’s nervous and he has… just the shittiest eye contact.

you will never get Juno to look you directly in the eye unless you ask. He would literally rather look anywhere else than right in someone’s eye.

Also he has a ton of moles bc why not?