#realizing people are aware of me is kinda scary though

[paranoiddreams]

During an Argument (HC)

BTS during an argument 🥲

இ Warnings!! - mentions of alcohol, angst (?), Tae’s is kinda short sorryyyy, emotional stuff lmao, not sure what else to put but Jk’s kinda made me sad

இ A/n!! - Hello!!! This is my first one of these so go easy. Lmk other headcannons I should do, or even send in some prompts for your bias and I’ll write a short one-shot :3. Enjoy~!!!<3

🍡Seokjin🍡

- the type to raise his voice without realizing, I know this struggle all too well since I do the same exact thing

- He is very passionate about the things he believes in, even if it’s a small issue

- He puts aside his pride most of the time with trivial things, but with more serious obstacles in life, he draws a line

- And those lines/boundaries are not to be messed with.

- He will get heated in the moment, but will eventually calm down later and feel really guilty, without completely blaming himself or the other person since he understands everyone has bad days(!!)

- In the same way that he has boundaries, he will make sure to respect the other person he’s arguing with’s boundaries as well.

- Like he knows better than to being up petty off-topic things, and would never deliberately put someone else down in an argument

- He is a little arrogant at times though, and can get lost in his own truth

- But when he cools down and steps away, he thinks with clear emotions, and will not feel ashamed to be the first one to apologize/want to work things out

🥃Yoongi🥃

- never raises his voice, especially with women

- He has a good grip on his anger and emotions, so he’s able to be mature during arguments, which also ultimately makes him really intimidating

- Wins most arguments based off of aura alone lol

- If things do get heated, he’ll leave before he can say anything he’ll regret—because we’re all human, and it happens.

- Goes for a walk or drive, and thinks about things, before going back and trying to fix anything.

- He only does that with people he loves though, if he’s arguing with someone that doesn’t have an important role in his life, he’s quick to drop them lol

- Depending on the argument of course, but he isn’t one to ignore red flags

- Is an active listener, and will genuinely try to hear the other person’s point of view on the argument

- But he does strike me as the type to keep small things that bother him to himself, ultimately creating resentment and other arguments later

- But he’s aware of it and tries not to🥸

- If things get real bad, he’ll start drinking, but never around the person he’s arguing with. He doesn’t wanna be like that around someone he’s upset with, because he knows that things can get carried away quickly when you as alcohol into the mix

- Overall responsive, mature, but cold.

- Takes responsibility and will apologize if need be without any complaints bc he knows when he’s wrong.

☀️Hobi☀️

- scary scary scary

- Idky, but I’ve always seen Hoseok as the type to be passive aggressive

- Like you’ll know before you fight with him bc there will be little hints that he’s angry a few hours before

- He’s very quiet, but that’s probably what makes him even scarier

- He’s firm and dominant with his beliefs, but is also willing to look at things from opposite point of views later on

- Like in the shower the next day or smth lol

- In all reality, he’s cold and guarded during arguments as a defense mechanism, but is a mess on the inside

- Doesn’t like the feeling of being mad at someone he cares about, or vice versa.

- So, he will almost always be the first to apologize, or come to talk about things

- He’s also shameless during argument, as in he will say some harsh things, but will also be apologizing in the same ferocity later

- Strikes me as the type to go out and buy something, or do something for the other person, as a kind of gateway into talking things out

- Not like bribing them out of being angry with him, but to reset and show surrender almost

- Doesn’t like arguing with anyone, so arguments don’t happen often

- But that’s what makes them even scarier when they happen

- Will ultimately feel bad if he scares anyone though, since he relishes in the feeling of making people laugh and feel hope, he hates making those he cares for feel the polar opposite.

- A sweet baby not too long after fights happen, and won’t stay mad for more than a few hours depending on the argument

✒️Namjoon🖋️

- level headed, mature, and brutally honest

- Oh god I think fighting with this man would destroy me the most personally😊

- He is not afraid to call people out on their bs, no matter who tf it is

- Except his parents bc he doesn’t wanna die

- He is cool, calm, and collected, all things he is usually, but during fights it’s just scary

- He’ll speak with an even tone, but be seething on the inside.

- But he is also respectful and considerate, so depending on the argument, he won’t be purposefully mean

- Especially if it’s someone he loves deeply and is close to. Then, he’ll find himself selecting his words very carefully not matter how angry he is

- Is definitely the type to need space for a few days at least, even if he forgives the person

- If it’s simple miscommunication, he’s fine in a few hours. But if it’s anything big that gives off red flags, he’ll disappear for a few days haha

- It’s projection hours ig

- Will talk to his mom about it maybe, just so he can get her opinions

- Will also possibly talk to one of his members, because he knows that they know what’s best for him as well

- Isn’t one to hold grudges although, and wants to fix things right away if possible

- Doesn’t yell much, but his tone does get very firm and intimidating, we’ve all heard it ami

🪞Jimin🪞

- omg sassy lil bitch (affectionately)

- Petty, but not overly to the point of no return

- Strikes me as the type of person to tell his friends closest to him about the argument just to get advice, kinda like Joon, but with literally anyone he talks to regularly lol

- An EYE ROLLER I CAN FEEL IT YALL

- Accidental manipulator🥹

- May or may not relate to this HEHEHE

- Like he doesn’t realize it sometimes, but he will for sure guilt trip sometimes

- Jimin is definitely the most messy fighter out of them, and will not hesitate to cut ties

- That being said, he’s also the one who’d do the most to redeem himself if he was in the wrong

- He will apologize in person, through letter, through gifts, quality time, food, money, he’ll do anything just don’t hate him :(

- But if ur not anyone too important to him, he’s fine he’ll just— 👻👻👻

- Has a particular annoyance with people who can’t take arguments seriously. Like he wants to fight, scream, and cry if it’s serious enough, just so he can get it out now, but if the other person shows they don’t care as much as him, it’ll piss him off even more

- But then he’ll do the same thing and act like he doesn’t care for days🥲

🍁Taehyung🍁

- the type to talk to himself when things get really deep😭😭😭

- I’m talking like little whispers of “you’ve gotta be kidding me,” or “are they serious right now??”

- Also a disappearing act like Joon, but maybe for even longer🙄

- Tata don’t take shit from people anymore. We already know he’s had his share of toxic friends, so he might resort to petty arguments at times

- Is also emotional, so can say a lot of things he doesn’t mean

- He’s also a guilty conscience like Hobi, and will most likely be the first to apologize depending on where he stands in the argument

- The type to cry—whether it be from sadness, anger, or just pure frustration, he will have tears in his eyes

- Also strikes me as an eye roller and pacer🥲

- Tata feels like the type to care way too much, or not at all, and most of the time it’s the latter

- So most arguments with him end up being one sided at some point bc he’ll just stop giving a fuck😭

- Jimin and him fight the most, but are also coincidentally the most sappy when they make up

🎤Jungkook🎤

- this one is surprisingly hard to write because I really don’t see Koo getting into too many arguments

- He’s a very go-with-the-flow kinda guy, so he doesn’t find himself in those situations too often

- But when he does, he goes very quiet, and almost seems like he’s not listening

- But he is, and maybe a little too much, because he’s only quiet so his brain can race around with negative thoughts

- I think he can get annoyed pretty fast with certain things, and can have an attitude in certain situations though

- But I can see him being better now, since he’s older and more mature

- Like Yoongi, a drinker, but not around the person he’s in an argument with

- He also might just be a journal-venter!!!

- Idk, maybe in his phone notes, or he just vents to his friends through text, but either way, he’s gonna vent his feelings through writing.

- Can’t stay mad for more than a day if it’s someone he really cares about :(

- Like if it’s any of the bts members or his parents/brother, he’s already over it before the argument even ends

- Which is why he can look like a push over sometimes when he gives into the other person too quickly, but in all reality he just doesn’t care anymore and wants to stop fighting

- Gives the same vibes as that one video like, “I suddenly just remembered…I don’t gaf…”

- One of those people who is very dramatic emotionally :,)

- We all know the rain incident with chim 😭💔

DISCLAIMER!! I do not know any of the bts members in real life so these are all interpretations and written purely for entertainment purposes.

[browniefox]

The (New) +Anima Au Guide!

A few months ago, I made a post about the basics of +anima, and now I realize it was kinda bad, so I'm making it again! So, here's a little guide to the basic world of +anima - mostly how anima work - in hopes to inspire people to create +anima aus!

What is +Anima?

+Anima is a ten-volume manga written by Natsumi Mukai. It is very good and cute, you should read it! It revolves around a world where certain people have something called an anima.

When a child is put into a life-threatening situation, there's a chance that they will get the abilities of a nearby animal - granting them wings like a bird, or tail of a fish, for example - in order to survive the situation. It's like if trauma gave you cat ears!

Nana, for instance, was running from her drunk and angry father in the woods at night, and got a bat anima. Natural anima only happen to children.

Getting an anima, or seeing someone with an anima, is rare enough that, even if people are aware of what anima are, those with bird or fish anima are often confused for angels or mermaids. Those with anima are usually treated poorly and feared as something dangerous and scary.

Those with anima are able to look like normal humans most of the time, accessing their anima and transforming back and forth at will. When appearing like a normal human, however, there is still proof of being an anima by way of a marking(s) somewhere on their body. The marking reflects the animal/trait that they have, the location usually correlates with there or how the trait shows up.

As an anima is connected to survival, children with them usually lose their anima as they grow older and find themselves in better situations. In the manga, most of the anima are either kids or teens. There are a few cases of adults with natural anima, two being seemingly homesless men (one seems to be a rat anima, while another is a bison), and a few who are of the Native American-Coded group in the manga, the Kim-un-Kur, who are known to keep their anima through adulthood seemingly because 1. it's less ostracized against, 2. their life style probably is better with one, and 3. they're more in tune with nature and their anima.

(^this is the the buffalo anima and a crow anima)

There is also such a thing as 'fake' or 'manufactured' anima, but only in a sense. There's a way to extract the anima from a person, though if the person is not willing the anima will not remain after the procedure. When willingly extracted, however, the anima can then placed into another person, though the connection between human and anima seems to be tenuous, and the anima may choose to leave.

Outside of a 'manufactored' anima, in canon there is one instance of an anima hopping from one human to another, though in that case the anima was that of a vicious and vengeful bear.

While in-fiction it's mostly hinted at and a little vague, it seems that the anima - as in the animal power itself - seems to have some degree of sentience, as it seems its the anima that makes makes the choice when to leave the human. It seems to be that the spirit of the animal literally ends up in the human that gains the anima.

Those with anima also seem to be able to do a further transformation into a more animal-like form called metamorphosis.

As you may have noticed me doing throughout the post, those with anima are usually just referred to as ‘anima’, though the animal spirit in the is also called their ‘anima’.

In the world of +Anima, there is also a side of the continent that has big market in anima slave trade, so make of that what you will.

Anyway, I find the world of +Anima FASCINATING, please talk to me about +Anima and make aus I love it.

(These are the four main characters of the manga! Cooro (crow), Husky (fish), Senri (bear), and Nana (bat).)

[coolingrosa]

you have already talked about how you think that canon ink is autistic coded, but did you know that he canonically has hyperfixations? It's the term used by Comyet to described his interest in underfell/au's and was an inktobertale propmt in 2022 (all the propmts relates to ink as a character, comyet said). it's just such...a specfic choice ngl (it makes you wonder if comyet's aware of that or not lmao)

I don’t think Comyet was fully aware, as during the early years of tumblr, autism was kinda a taboo thing. Autistic characters were babyfied or heavily stereotyped and people rather stuck with ADHD as the main form of neurodivergent rep- even if the characters were VERY autistic coded. Perhaps nowadays, though, they are aware, as lockdown did bring a lot more awareness to the disorder and made it less scary for people to use on ocs. However, Comyet always read to me like they assumed the traits they gave Ink were more ADHD coded, and though he does have a lot of those traits, it’s very clear he leans more towards autism. He has too many factors for it not to be such as the intense hyperfixations, lack of social skills and cues, stimming, hard time with emotions, masking habits, trouble making decisions that don’t center around his hyperfixations, and more

people don’t realize how many traits adhd and autism have in common- and it’s quite common for people to get misdiagnosed with one or the other while growing up or even having both. I wouldn’t knock out the possibility of Ink having both to be honest, but I also know Ink having ADHD is a lot more common and covered than his Autistic traits, so I tend to focus solely on that theory to get more attention to it.

[xmy-love-to-youx]

Double Trouble: Chapter 2

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x reader x König

Summary: A short story about Y/N, a sweet and tiny woman who gets caught in between 2 large and strong men.

Warning: light smut, Ghost (yes, his a warning)

No one knows where this tension between them came from. Some say it's a masculinity thing, others say they are competing to see who's the best.

Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks. The tension at the base increased, silence is the sound you hear. Everyone is now aware of the situation between Ghost and König, it's obvious having 2 tall men is scary enough but since they are openly glaring at each other, it put everyone on edge.

Even though they glare at each other at any given opportunity, they are at least civilized about it. When Captain Price is talking they would listen and once his done, they are back to glaring at each other.

To some people this is the scariest drama the base will ever have but to me, it's kinda hot. The way they glare at each other, thier dominant sides going out. I can only imagine what it must be like in bed with them.

The deep growl that echoes in my ear as they pound into me from being, taking what is theirs, claiming me.

My mind wonders into sexual fantasies, the type of fantasy that paints a blush on my cheeks, that leaves me soaking wet, the type of fantasy that makes me touch myself at night.

"It's rude to stare love"

That voice is familiar. Deep and smooth, soothing.

Once I snapped back into reality, a pair of chocolate brown eyes stares into mine. The stare was intense but in a good way, the way he looks at me with such a rough yet a gentle look, it's enough to make me melt in my seat.

My body warms up and a blush appears on my cheeks, it that moment I realized how close we are to each other. So close I could smell his musky scent with a hint of bourbon. It's so intoxicating.

"You okay?" he asks, his voice gentle with worry as I did not respond to him yet.

"Hm. Yeah. Just got lost in thought" I finally responded.

"What's on your mind?" he takes a seat next to me and turns his entire body to face me.

My eyes scan him, his quite a sight. The shirt that his wearing hugs his frame perfectly, it reveals just enough muscle just to remind you that his basically pure muscle under his clothes. His large hands covered with black gloves, the jeans he wears clings to him and reveals all the muscles he has. His legs spread perfectly, giving me a beautiful view of his bulky thighs and if you travel further in. His bulge, that tells me his big, my eyes widen at the thought.

Why is he so perfect?

"Like what you see?" he teases, knowing exactly what's flowing through my head.

"Uh. Well. Um. You look great!" I squeaked out.

A deep chuckles erupts from him.

Holy shit, his killing me.

"Oh! Look at the time! I have to talk to Price!" I stood to my feet as quickly as possible "Bbbyyeeee!"

I quickly walked away and once I was alone. I leaned against the wall, I brought my hands to my face and cupped my cheeks, my cheeks were warm, my mind wonders back to him. The way he sat and teased me. He knows what his doing to me...

Throughout the day, I've been keeping myself busy to distract myself. I've been doing more work than I should and that even Price raised an eyebrow, knowing that I'm doing more work than I should but he kept his mouth shut about it. Eventually when night rolled over and things calmed down, exhaustion hit me like a bullet train. I slowly dragged my body to the kitchen and make me a cup of coffee. My mind foggy with exhaustion, I wasn't aware of my surroundings.

A hand wraps itself around mine, it's warm, rough yet gentle. I looked over my shoulder.

König.

"You were about to throw salt in your coffee. You should rest, you've been busy today" he says softly, his hand gently caresses mine.

I looked back to the salt container that I mistook for sugar. Man, I must be really tired...

"I'll make your coffee. Please sit down" he says gently.

"Thank you König" I turned around with a smile and pat his shoulder.

I walked past him and took a seat with a sigh. My eyes grew heavy and time slowed down for me.

König placed himself beside me and watched as I struggled to fight against sleep. He find it cute the way I blink slowly and the soft yawn that leaves my lips. He gently pulls me to him, my head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around me.

The last thing I remember seeing is his ocean blue eyes looking down at me with the softest look. The last thing I felt was his body heat that comfort me like a warm blanket, his arm holding me against him. The last thing I heard was his gentle voice wishing me a goodnight rest. After that, I slipped into the most peaceful rest I've ever had.

Taglist:

@happydelightfulstrawberry

@gluttonybiscuit

[stilljuststardust]

hey,i dont want to be one of those people but i dont really have anyone to talk to… so thank you for being here for us. how do i keep being motivated and sure that i will wake up in my DR if that just doesn’t happen. I was sure that i would wake up there cause i already am there you know?I was really confident like no doubting though i was aware of. i just let myself relax into it. i just have to move my awareness like how hard can it be. i dont believe there is anything i have to change about my mindest or anything that could be holding me back. like im sure in myself most of the time and i know the 3D doesn’t matter but i somehow still let it influence me. i dont wanna sound like one of the people who is like i dont believe that i can shift cause believe me i KNOW I CAN. but i disappoint myself? it seems like i dont fully trust myself if i keep waking up here. hope you understood what i wanted to say. its my journey and nobody can make me shift i know… just kinda wanted to talk to someone hope you dont mind🙁

Posts I think you would benefit from:

What I do after a "failed" attempt

How to deal with the 3D

The way we think of shifting sets us up to "fail"

You're not doing anything wrong I swear

Hello love, I'm sorry you're feeling this way.

You don't have to be motivated, you don't have to feel good, you don't have to feel enlightened 24/7, you just have to know that there is more than what you're seeing.

We all have moments like this, it doesn't have to mean you've done something wrong. Reading into it and trying to find what went "wrong" won't do anything but stress you out.

There. Doesn't. Have. To. Be. A. Reason.

There is NO "being held back", there are no blockages. Nothing can stop you unless you believe that it can. I want to tell you that what you're doing IS enough, but some words sound hollow coming from other people.

I know you're probably SO tired of hearing affirm and persist, sometimes it just feels like being shrugged at when you ask for help, and I'm sorry that you're feeling worn down.

You're not stuck, you're not waiting, I promise in the 4D you are where you want to be. Your only job is to remember who you really are and what is really happening. The physical world doesn't tell the whole story, only you can do that.

I know it's so scary to trust that it's working. Trust me, we've all been there, it's OK. You're not doing anything wrong.

It's OK to have rough days. It's ok to have days where you feel awful and disappointed. It's not going to stop you unless you decide it will stop you.

It's completely unrealistic to expect anyone to have the perfect mindset. Do you think that successful shifters are immune to this? They aren't.

I know SO many people who shift consistently that still cry and scream and doubt themselves and feel stuck some days, and you know what? They still shift.

Nothing is stopping you I promise. Don't go looking for blockages. I wasted the beginning of my journey in a constant cycle of trying to find the next blockage to eliminate, what I didn't realize is that if you go looking you'll always find them.

The belief that I must've been doing something wrong and "all I had to do was find it", WAS the problem.

I beg you not to make the same mistake.

Know that even if you aren't seeing it, it's still happening for you.

[8turning]

HII can u do a 8turn headcannon abt how they r like crushing on the reader and what they do to show the reader their love for them ?

thank you for this request!! apologies that it took me so long 💔

☆⠀⠀8TURN — when they're pining for you !

hyung line + jangshinz (separately) x gn ! reader ★ fluff. mutual pining. ★ headcannon

warnings: swearing. physical affection. let me know if i missed anything!

n. i have a similar headcannon here about how they'd show their love; this fic will focus more on how they pine for reader since a lot of my thoughts are already shared on that post!! ♡ also this derailed a bit,,, there's implied confessions HELP sorry 🤒

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀〈 REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED ! 〉

⁰⁰¹ : JAEYUN.

wouldn't realize he liked you until someone pointed it out to him 1/2 🤕

^ he would regret thinking deeper about what yoonsung had told him: "are you sure you don't feel anything for them?" . . . queue a montage of every single memory he has with you where his stomach did a "weird flip" that he never chose to acknowledge.

basically. jaeyun was fucked LOL

BUT despite his revelation, he managed to keep himself composed pretty well. he was never overly affectionate with the members so him suddenly getting lost in his thoughts a lot wasn't exactly foreign.

what was foreign, though, was his very apparent distance.

to be fair, he wasn't fully aware he was doing it. it was more so "when i'm around them i get this Feeling. i cant handle that Feeling right now," then he kinda just. goes somewhere else for the time being.

you'd realize it, overthink it all, and text him on a whim that you needed to talk to him.

he'd get so nervous and only then would he really think about his behavior and . . . yeah you deserved an explanation, even if it resulted in rejection for him :(

he wouldn't speak first. he'd want you to feel welcomed to let out any emotion you were feeling; you were the one who wanted to talk, it wouldn't be right of him to take over.

he'd know that no matter his reason, him suddenly avoiding you and saying "i didn't realize" wasn't going to cut it, so swallowing whatever anxiety he had, he confessed then and there. it wasn't too in depth, of course, but it didn't feel right for him to hide it any longer - especially after everything.

but, the silence that followed his confession made all the anxiety bubble up again, only for you to speak about your reciprocated feelings.

in an unknown way, him pulling back from you is what brought you two together in the end; strange how that works.

⁰⁰² : MYUNGHO.

he's not shy in the slightest LMFAOO 💀 it'd be more shocking if you didn't know he liked you.

it doesn't even matter if you two were hanging out with other people either, he'd make a point to sit by you during a movie. even if it wasn't a horror movie, he'd still tell you that if you're scared, you can cling to him (as if he is any better with scary movies . . . his arm ends up around your shoulder anyways).

he's not usually one for talking during a movie, but he cant help but crack jokes here and there, using that as an excuse to lean in closer to you and watch as you try to hold your laughter in, his eyes watching you adoringly.

myungho would pull you into your own little world when you're with one another,,, he'd literally be so obvious about his feelings for you i'm crying.

openly flirting and complimenting you non-stop,,, holding eye contact if you ever caught him looking at you,,,

myungho would literally tell you how much he liked you straight up 🤭 "i like you a lot, y'know that?" "i'm so glad i met you." "you'll let me stay with you, right?"

the only time EVER he'd get shy if it was you who initiated something. he'd actually lose his mind.

it'd be such a stark contrast to the myungho you knew previously that you couldn't help but laugh a bit whenever you caught him like that.

holding his hand out of nowhere or leaning your head on his shoulder is a surefire way to make heat rise along his neck and make him go speechless.

he's so open about it and talks about you so much. his members are SICK OF HIM!!!! /j

minho probably threatened that if he doesn't make a move soon that he'll ask you out himself . . . you'd get a message from myungho the next morning ♡

⁰⁰³ : MINHO.

bye he's so so playful and he'd be able to cover up how he truly felt pretty well, which was both a positive and a negative for him.

positive: he'd be able to hug you nonchalantly or tap his cheek asking for a kiss and you'd think nothing of it.

negative: you'd think nothing of it.

since minho often acts this way with his friends as well, he slowly becomes self-conscious of his actions, worrying that that's all you saw him as - a friend.

he'd probably slowly try to either a: be more forward with you, or b: reserve certain actions for you only.

minho would stop blowing kisses to myungho and asking seungheon to kiss his cheek. he might even go as far as to not be as physically affectionate with his members anymore.

slowly letting you come to the conclusion yourself that the way he treats you is different from his members.

if you weren't the type to fight against him when he acted this way, if you suddenly started reciprocating the same actions towards him, his head would start spinning.

if it was a normal occurrence for you to return his energy, he'd start to wonder if you treated your friends like this as well.

but . . . he never saw you cling onto jaeyun's arms like you do with him . . . and you don't look at haemin the same way you look at him . . . hm . . .

minho crushing on you would be hard to detect until he made more of an effort to let his guard down about it.

you'd pick up on his behavior change pretty quickly which only opened the conversation of "why are you suddenly treating me like i'm special?"

(hint: its because you are special to him).

⁰⁰⁴ : YOONSUNG.

he is taking this to his GRAVE!!! he'd try to be so so so secretive and discreet.

yoonsung falls hard and doesn't want to overwhelm you with how he feels and everything :( wants to try and soak in the feeling of crushing on you but every time he sees you he just gets so overjoyed and just wants to confess right then and there.

which is why he feels he needs to take this to his grave 😭 he's not sure if he will ever be able to fully "calm down" around you enough to properly confess to you the way you deserve to be confessed (he thinks you deserve the world).

tries to act as Normal as he can around you, but most of the time i think he'd fall kind of silent.

whether you're with a group of friends or just talking one-on-one, he'd get so wrapped up in his thoughts and become uncharacteristically quiet.

it was a constant internal battle for yoonsung. he wanted to be near you but also knew he likely couldn't hide how he felt for much longer.

unlike minho, yoonsung wasn't going to hug you or hold your hand out of no where. he did this with his friends, sure, but he didn't see you as just a friend, which made physical affection towards you that much harder.

the lines would get blurred in his brain and he feared if you reciprocated, even if it was platonic, he'd make an assumption that could end up hurting him.

of course, yoonsung was unaware of your feelings towards him as well, and seeing him seemingly pulling away from you, you subconsciously do the same :(

he doesn't realize just how different he was acting towards you until that moment, and as if his heart took control over his brain, he'd spill all of his feelings for you, doing his best to explain away his behavior.

and it worked - who could stay mad at him for too long?

⁰⁰⁵ : HAEMIN.

wouldn't realize he liked you until someone pointed it out to him 2/2 💔

everything would be going perfectly fine for haemin,,, until minho jokingly commented about how much he liked you. then that became all he thought about.

begin haemin's internal debate of if he liked you romantically or not! and if it was true (it was), how long? upon actually giving it a lot of thought . . . he's liked you for a while without really processing his feelings effectively.

and now,,, he cannot properly face you!! at least, not in the beginning.

everything hits him so fast and he's forced to process his emotions at a rapid pace now. he does a decent job at hiding his inner turmoil about the topic, but he eventually confides in kyungmin about it (though it wasn't on purpose),, kyungmin just caught him while he was dazed!! totally not like he went to kyungmin stressing about possibly ruining your friendship hahaha . . .

once he was able to fully "recover" and process everything, he's a goner. heart eyes are permanent.

just so absolutely infatuated with everything you do and say. comes around more often and always manages to take the spot next to you if you're with a group of people.

always always always joking around with you because he loves the sound of your laugher and how happy you seem when you smile, especially when you smile because of him.

in a twisted ending, haemin is grateful that minho made him fall into a crisis. if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been able to have these moments with you.

once you end up together, minho rightfully takes full credits for the relationship starting, kyungmin taking credit for helping haemin get over his fear of ruining everything between you two.

so - albeit his disagreement - haemin accepts that they should get some credit for their help.

but how it all came to be doesn't matter much, as long as in the end, he ended up with you.

⁰⁰⁶ : KYUNGMIN.

i'm not usually fond of the trope of someone who brings up the person they like every time they can but,,,, kyungmin does exactly that. his members get so tired of him for it too HELP (he's gotten into the practice of just,, thinking of you instead of verbally bringing you up so often).

his members' anger (/j) doesn't stop him though!! every chance he gets he talks about you,, the only time that stops is when you're around 🧍‍♂️

you BET the members are gonna poke fun at him for that too LMFAO

when you're around, he'd be much more into listening rather than speaking himself.

"platonic" kisses on the backs of your hands. "platonic" hand holding. (nothing about it is platonic).

kyungmin would love love love to rest his head on your shoulder!! whether he's standing behind you while talking with a group of friends or sitting next to each other watching a movie, he just likes the feeling (bonus points if his arm is looped under yours to play with your fingers).

he'd be in his own head a lot,,, daydreaming and such,,, even though you're right next to him 🧍‍♂️

if you were to nudge him while he was like this, he'd look at you with the most love-filled gaze.

he didn't have to say anything to you, just from the way he looked at you and the light blush forming on his cheeks, you knew. the way your stomach filled with butterflies as you held his gaze was also a great indicator that his look meant something more.

it was then when he saw how your gaze changed too - it changed to one that matched his own. with a deep breath, he'd squeeze your hand before a smile spread across his face.

© 8turning 2023.

[butterflydm]

wot reread: towers of midnight (chap 50-end)

spoilers for towers of midnight (suicide cw; body horror cw)

Oh, this Elayne PoV opens with an interesting echo of a Rand scene. Here, Elayne strips lands and titles from her former rivals to the throne, knowing that the shame of it would likely lead them to commit suicide rather than live as commoners. Back in ACoS, Rand stripped the lands and title from Colaveare in an attempt to NOT kill her, because he was unaware that her own pride almost certainly lead to her killing herself rather than living with being a commoner. It illustrates some key similarities between Rand and Elayne but also a key difference, in that Elayne is aware of the consequences of her political choices in a way that Rand was not always aware. And she's doing so knowing that one of the people most affected by Colaveare's loss of power (a Cairhienin noble named Bertome) would arrive just in time to witness this.

2. She is using all this as a political lead-in to making her claim to the Sun Throne by giving Cairhienin nobles some power in Caemlyn, by offering the estates that she just stripped from her previous rivals. And... she then offers mercy to the nobles that she just stripped of lands here in Caemlyn, by mentioning that new lands and titles can be found for them in Cairhien. Basically binding the two nations closer together even before she officially takes the Sun Throne.

idk how much we needed the scene afterwards explaining Elayne's brilliance to the reader (but maybe it was helpful to the readers who were inclined to dislike Elayne?). Birgitte does still feel somewhat 'off' here from the character that she used to be.

3. It remains so baffling to me that Min is the central 'researcher' into all things Callandor. Makes no sense. But Elayne and Aviendha (both more logical choices) are off actually having their own independent storylines that aren't related to Rand so... Min it is, I guess.

Min warns him that the sword is more dangerous than they'd believed before and he's basically like, "nah, I know, it's chill." lol, despite the book's efforts to convince me that Min's role here is super-vital, it just... really is not.

4. Instead of going himself, Rand sends an Asha'man off to infiltrate and investigate the Black Tower. I really hate that such an important plotline got relegated to tertiary characters!

5. lol, I do like the scene here with Rand and Cadsuane; now that she's too baffled by him to keep bullying him, their interactions are kinda funny most of the time. He also, relatively casually, reveals here how far back his own memories go. Once again though... I really wish this were in Rand's PoV and not Min's.

Because here, Min is 'troubled' by Rand casually sharing his memories from four hundred years ago and Rand is like, "pat pat, calm down, silly mortal girlfriend, I am not a scary monster anymore, I promise" but like... what is going on in his brain? One of the main reasons that Rand's descent into madness worked so well for the reader is because we got to see it internally, and it feels like we're being cheated when we don't get to see how he deals with realizing that LTT's memories were not all due to madness, and this is part of him and he needs to process it. Getting it all second-hand through Min is just... not enough.

I am glad that Rand doesn't give all the credit of making it through to this point to Min (like so much of the fandom likes to do) but credits many of the people who have cared for him: his father, Mat, Perrin, Elayne, Aviendha, Nynaeve, Moiraine (He doesn't mention Egwene here, though, and he should). It is really frustrating how parts of fandom like to act as if Min is the only person who cares about Rand. Circumstances have pulled away most of the people he cares about and who care about him, but that doesn't make the affection disappear and it doesn't make the help they've given him meaningless.

6. Thousands of Borderlander soldiers down here, even as the Blightborder collapses and their people are overrun in the north. Such a frustrating plotline! Anyway, they slap Rand and ask him a question about a death during the Age of Legends and now things are good and they'll actually fight in the Last Battle.

lol, Min's viewings that she has here are so useless to Rand -- 'they'll probably be in a fight soon but whether that means the Last Battle or fighting against you right now, idk'. Thanks for that complete lack of information, Min.

I feel like this entire thing could have easily been used to show the folly of trusting prophecy over your own good sense? The Borderlanders acted as they did because they believed "better a dead Dragon than a Dragon who will destroy the world" but... they didn't really have any way to fix that problem anyway, lol, so their secret prophecy was just as useless as most of Min's viewings are and the only thing it accomplished was leaving their borders less guarded than they should be. Rand points out to them that, while he may have given them his original ultimatum in an asshole way, it remains the truth -- given how far they are from their own lands, he is the only path remaining to them if they want to fight in the Last Battle.

But, yeah, this is just a subplot that felt like it went on way too long and then died with a whimper and not a bang.

7. Hmm, Elayne points out that Birgitte has been getting more and more irritable, which implies that her change in characterization was deliberate (meant to illustrate how her emotional stability is slipping alongside her memory loss maybe?). Elayne basically calls Birgitte the Fun Police here, saying, "You don't like anything, lately." Anyway, Elayne is making her move for Cairhien here. I would have much rather spent this book on Elayne Secures Cairhien than Perrin's Whitecloak Trial. Instead, we mostly just skim over it, and Cairhien accepts Elayne fairly quickly. After she's claimed Cairhien, she sets in motion: a. sending the current army to Merrilor to meet Rand; b. mobilizing any additional men and women who want to fight in the Last Battle and training them; and c. getting all the city's bellfounders to start working on more dragons.

8. The first paragraph of being back in Mat's PoV and he is wistfully thinking of serving girls sitting on his knee. Strike twelve-point-three.

We also, here, have Mat choosing a red scarf to ~dedicate~ to the memory of Tylin and the others who died to the gholam, briefly considering making it pink (he does emphasis that he considered this very briefly). Ew, gross.

I was just talking in my last post, during the Aviendha's vision section, about how easy it is to make saints of the dead. It really feels like this is a perfect illustration of this: Tylin is dead and can't physically hurt Mat anymore, so it's 'safe' to consider honoring her, in a way that it wouldn't be if she were still alive. Dead sainted Tylin happening so soon after dead sainted Tuon in Aviendha's Rhuidean vision definitely makes me go ~hmm.

9. Mat thinks here that he believes that ~the new empress~ is going to surprise the Seanchan. Not sure what he's basing that belief on, lol. But, just like Fortuona was Making Lies Up In Her Head to justify her decisions, so is Mat, I guess. He wants to believe that Tuon is Different From The Other Seanchan, so he's convinced himself that she is, despite having literally zero favorable evidence (and the reader was just recently in her head, so we know for a fact that Mat is absolutely incorrect that Tuon has surprised the Seanchan in any way -- she has done exactly as expected of her, because she's just a bog-standard High Blood Seanchan)

(side note: I actually do not have any objection to Tuon just being another Seanchan, in terms of her moral code. The weird part about the way it is written in the books is the way that some Westlands characters behave as if she's better in some way, when we've never seen her do anything exceptional, in terms of ethics or morality. I get that the Seanchan are brainwashed to think the Imperial family & the Empress are special, but when Westlands characters act that way, it makes me raise my eyebrows. I talked about this back in CoT & KoD too -- how sometimes Mat behaved as if Tuon had undergone an entire character arc despite that... you know, not happening and her being just as awful (in terms of ethics) at the end of KoD as she was in her intro in WH. It's not Tuon being awful that I object to -- it makes sense that she's awful, given what we know of her culture and that she's the top dog in that culture -- it's Westlands characters inexplicably behaving as if she's A Special One Who Isn't Like Other Nobles that triggers my bullshit meter, like Mat thinking in KoD that's it's ~right and good~ for Olver to bow to her and make much of her despite that going completely against the way Mat normally approaches nobility; hits my bs meter hard).

The reports on the Seanchan that he's reading come from Elayne, btw. Also, he HAS officially signed the Band over to Elayne's employment. So, again, we have this tension where Mat has been set up as the tug o'war rope between ~Fortuona~ and Elayne. Or, more accurately, Mat is setting himself up as the rope. And setting himself up to eventually have his nose rubbed into the crimes of the Seanchan (including Tuon) in a way that he won't be able to deny (post-canon, I assume). Elayne did not give him any reports on the Seanchan attacking the White Tower, it sounds like, which makes sense -- the official White Tower position on weakness is: we don't have any. He notes that there are rumors of the Sea Folk allied with the Seanchan and dismisses THOSE as nonsense started by the Seanchan capturing Sea Folk vessels. Hey. Hey, Mat. What do they do to the people on the vessels? I know that you know the answer.

10. One of the spy reports makes him think of Rand, and we are reminded that Mat has to banish those colors "over and over". Funny how Perrin doesn't have that problem. Perrin finds dismissing the colors super easy. Mat also thinks about how "at least Rand was wearing clothes this time", which is a reminder of how frequently Mat apparently thinks about Rand around bedtime. Again, not a problem that Perrin has ever had.

11. Hmm, a conversation between the two people who seemed to most desperately want to believe that Tuon can learn to be a better person, and the two people who had the biggest changes in characterization between Winter's Heart and Crossroads of Twilight: Setalle Anan has come over to talk to Mat.

Strike twelve-point-four, as Mat tries to pretend he isn't thinking about Setalle Anan's 'ample bosom' (it's the second time he's had thoughts of attraction towards her since his marriage, so I'm not double-counting her as a full point, just like I'm not double-counting Elayne).

When Setalle Anan wonders if he truly knows the Andoran queen, Mat says that she's a "nice enough girl", because (at least in this part of the storyline) Mat has grown enough to see that his original assumptions about Elayne were incorrect.

12. Setalle Anan says that she's trying to work out the puzzle of Mat, and Mat being so close to the queen (who is Aes Sedai) is another piece of the puzzle. She mentions getting a letter from Joline, who has arrived safely at the White Tower and who has asked after Mat, to check in that he's okay, which completely baffled Mat. I wonder if Joline and Teslyn have had some long conversations off-screen about Mat, because Mat has been such an asshole to Joline on-screen that her respecting him so much really is somewhat baffling. But, yeah, the whole "friendly with some Aes Sedai but married to a slaver who wanted to enslave all Aes Sedai" is definitely... well, 'puzzle' is a kind way of wording what Mat currently is (especially to anyone who doesn't know about the prophecy... which is everyone).

Mat asks Setalle Anan what it was like to lose the One Power and no longer be Aes Sedai. She explains that she's happy for those who can still channel but is envious and misses it. The way she talks about it really reminds me of the way how Mat seems to feel his marriage has locked him away from acting on his attraction to other women and it's an interesting comparison to think about, now that it comes to mind. She burnt herself out, she wasn't stilled, so she accidentally did this to herself (just like Mat accidentally married Tuon). She is envious of those who can still channel but happy for them that they have the ability (and Mat keeps checking out women 'for' other men around him... though he never actually tells those other men about the women). She also kept herself in contact with the Kin all those years, essentially punishing herself by reminding herself over and over what she no longer had. Hmm.

Then she asks Mat why he hates Aes Sedai. And Mat essentially... completely sidesteps the question, though he does say that he doesn't hate Aes Sedai. But he immediately changes the question to "what bothers me about WOMEN" and away from "what bothers me about Aes Sedai" and then almost as swiftly, the conversation turns to "what bothers me about NOBLES". I wonder if his mental conflation of Aes Sedai=all women=all nobles is part of what causes some of his odd thinking.

13. This is where we get his ~boots~ argument against nobility, which comes across to me like he's saying that, nobles have so much excess that it makes him uncomfortable, though Setalle Anan believed that he's talking about the complexity of leadership. Mat denies that the conversation is a metaphor in any possible way, which is very Mat of him. I will note that he says that your 'best' pair of shoes should be your walking/working shoes, which are your most important pair.

If you were wondering: no, Setalle Anan doesn't tell him that she betrayed him and told Tuon about his protective medallion. Tuon actually doesn't openly come up a single time in the conversation, which is somewhat interesting, considering how much of the discussion feels like it's half a step away from Tuon.

After Anan leaves, Mat tosses aside Verin's letter, deciding that he will never know what's in it.

14. I genuinely like Pevara but... yeah, sucks that Nynaeve isn't the one headlining the Black Tower story arc. Apparently the White Tower 'embassy' to the Black Tower has just been chilling inside for... weeks? And now they are trapped inside, and gateways don't work. (another dreamspike? I do not recall)

15. Perrin gets to say a special goodbye to Mat. The buffing up of the Mat-Perrin friendship definitely feels like the biggest marker so far of Check Out Sanderson's Bestest Favorite Boy, yeah, lol. Thom twits Mat about his marriage by poking at the sore spot of how it makes Mat a noble now. Grady opens a Gateway to send them to the Tower of Ghenjei, and will open a return Gateway every day at the same time. They leave from Perrin's camp, which is just outside Whitebridge. Then Perrin & co all head to Merrilor.

16. Noal has managed to acquire a fancy outfit and a fancy new walking staff. ...? I hope again that plot device Noal gets replaced by someone more interesting in the show version (if they should get this far). My dream team is, of course, Mat with Siuan (as Moiraine's love interest) and Birgitte (for historical knowledge and to fill Noal's, ah, other role and, much like Noal wants to redeem himself for his failures, Birgitte may want to succeed at saving someone from the Tower where she has failed before).

17. They are able to open a doorway into the Tower by etching the opening symbol for the game of snakes & foxes into the Tower with a bronze knife. The inside of the Tower itself doesn't look like either the Aelfinn or the Eelfinn's bargaining places, Mat notes in dismay. Whatever script is used on the walls here, it isn't the Old Tongue, because Mat doesn't recognize it. Mat realizes this time, as he didn't fully realize before, that the world of the 'finn is a completely different world to their own. Interesting that even now, after Mat has ~gotten hitched~ to his prophecy girl, he still feels like the snakes gave him "no useful answers".

18. One of the Eelfinn appears, to try to tempt them into leaving their tools of protection behind and when Mat realizes that he's feeling swayed by the argument, he asks Thom to play music to break the spell. And the music puts the Eelfinn to sleep. Mat realizes that trying to make a map of the place is useless -- they need to rely on his luck. So he starts rolling dice to decide which direction to go. After another confrontation with multiple Eelfinn where he loses his dice, he begins spinning around to dizzy himself and then picking a direction at random. He then follows that direction no matter how many side corridors appear to tempt them, and he leads them to the room where Moiraine is waiting.

19. Seeing Moiraine again brings up a lot of complicated emotions in Mat: frustration and anger, but also gratitude and awe. He feels like he understands her motivations for her choices now, but still dislikes some of the actions that she took. Thom yanks her out of her prison, even after they find that whatever she's being held in is hot to the touch, and Mat marvels over how tiny she is, compared to his larger-than-life memory of her.

20. After Moiraine is pulled from her prison, eight of the Eelfinn are in the room, on the tall pedestals, dressed in white. Mat warns everyone against saying anything that sounds like a bargain. So Mat is the one to make the bargain, with the terms that the Aelfinn had already given him -- his price would be "half the light of the world" (aka his eye). Mat wonders if being willing to pay this price to save the world makes him "a hero, after all". One of the Eelfinn rips Mat's eye out of his socket with his bare hand.

21. Mat thinks here that he had assumed that Thom was here for the same reason as Mat -- because it was something that needed to be done (aka it was the right thing to do) -- but the way that Thom is clutching onto Moiraine's unconscious body is making him wonder. Noal realizes a hole in the bargain that Mat had made -- he'd said that the foxes weren't allowed to attack them, but had said nothing about the snakes. And so now the chase is on.

22. After a tense chase, where Mat is throwing around fireworks to keep the Aelfinn at bay, and they've long since strayed from the direct path that would lead to their exit, Noal sacrifices himself so that the others can continue escaping, serving his plot device duty and 'dying clean' (does Mat ever actually tell any of the Malkieri about this? I will try to remember to keep a watch out in AMoL). Mat thinks that once he would have thought dying with honor was pointless, but honor has mattered to too many of the memories in his head for him to dismiss it.

23. Hmm, when Thom mentions the idea of maybe getting some Aelfinn answers for himself, Mat tells him that he doesn't want them. "They aren't answers. They're threats. Promises." Talking about what just happened with his eye, or talking about Tuon? (I mean, likely both. It's definitely been something that I've noticed that Mat does not at all seem happy or grateful to the Aelfinn for shackling him to Fortuona, despite how he keeps desperately trying to convince himself that he trusts her and that he finds her super-attractive)

24. Mat thinks back to his time with the Eelfinn, his exact words, and realizes that he asked for a way back and that his ashandarei is the one thing he has that is not explained by them answering his other boons. That it's his key to leaving. He didn't ask them for a weapon, he asked them for a way out. And he is able to cut it to cut their way out of the Tower and back into their own world.

25. My narration here doesn't really cover how much I enjoyed this sequence but it was a lot of fun! I do think that this moment, like some others, would probably feel more impactful if it happened before Rand had his epiphany. Rand having his big moment at the end of TGS kinda... trivializes almost everything in ToM, honestly. Because... well, we already know that Rand has decided not to destroy time and the universe. So, if I had been structuring the last three books, I would have placed Rand's epiphany right here, after Mat & co. make their successful escape from the Tower of Ghenjei (and after Perrin and Egwene have helped each other in TAR). That way, even before they all go to Merrilor, it feels like Moiraine's return is symbolic of Rand's turning point, if they're paired in the narrative like that.

26. We get the counterpart of Gawyn's relief at having Egwene's emotions in his head by learning here that Egwene also finds it a comfort to have his emotions in her head and feel his devotion first-hard in a way that makes her unable to doubt it. So, yeah, Egwene and Gawyn are really on the same page in a way that the majority of romantic relationships in the series never manage. They want the same things out of life and neither of them is forcing themselves to live a life that makes them unhappy for the sake of catering to the other person (examples of this kind of relationship: Rand & Min, where Min forces herself into a poly relationship that makes her feel possessive and jealous all the time; Perrin & Faile, where they both have vastly different ideas about their 'ideal life' and the solution was for Perrin to give up his own ideas and pick Faile's; Mat and Fortuona, who both want to fundamentally change their partner into someone unrecognizable from who they currently are)

27. Mat is thrilled that he managed to survive the Tower of Ghenjei, now that they are safely out (and Moiraine is slowly regaining consciousness). Mat also realizes here that Thom knew all along (or at least for a while) that Noal was Jain Farstrider but never told Mat. It's in a semi-joking way that he wonders what kind of friend Thom is, but, yeah, I've been wondering about Mat and Thom's 'friendship' for a bit now, and this is another interesting piece of evidence about how Thom is not particularly open with Mat.

28. Um, strike thirteen-point-four as Mat thinks about how fetching Moiraine looks, with her flushed cheeks and her hair tumbling about her face. haha, he does feel kinda awkward about finding her attractive, much as Rand felt awkward about finding Caraline Damodred attractive even realizing how much she looked like Moiraine.

29. Mat refusing to let Moiraine heal his eye (not even just to take the pain away, which is all she believes she can manage now) does feel weirdly symbolic of his self-destructive behavior as of late -- he risks his life to save Moiraine, gives up his eye to save her, and then shies away at the idea of her healing him. Much as I once wondered if the Aelfinn devised Tuon as a punishment for Mat, I now have to wonder... is Mat punishing himself? Because that is wildly self-destructive. He could get an infection in his FACE. I'm sure he has countless memories of battle wounds going bad and killing soldiers post-battle. Passing up being healed just seems like he's actively self-harming here.

(I guess the question I'm asking is: how much does Mat subconsciously hate himself right now, that he would do this to himself? Again, we have the contrast in this same book of Galad realizing how nonsensical it is to have Aes Sedai as your allies and then refuse to allow them to heal you, which feels like a direct and deliberate reference point to show us that Mat is not acting rationally here -- either punishing himself or feeling like he doesn't deserve healing? Kinda amounts to the same thing, I suppose)

30. lol, Mat tries to downplay his affection for Rand, yet again, but Thom calls him out on it by mentioning how Mat 'keeps saying' that Rand deserves a festival in his honor for cleansing saidin. Honestly, the case of Rand vs Fortuona does feel so illustrative at this point re: Mat's constant lying to himself -- Mat tries so hard to force himself NOT to feel loyal and affectionate towards Rand and TO feel loyal towards Fortuona, but then his mind keeps betraying him (he keeps thinking of Rand, over and over, in much greater detail than Perrin does; and, conversely, he keeps thinking of all the attractive women in the world that he's Not Allowed to think about due to his marriage to Fortuona).

31. Thom tells Moiraine that Mat married "the Empress of the Seanchan" and Mat cringes at the info being shared (he hunches down and tries to cover his face with his hat and 'forces a chuckle'). Moiraine is startled, but when Mat says it was 'accidentally' because the Seanchan have 'odd customs', she goes, "ah, ta'veren". Mat doesn't think of his reaction here as 'shame' but, yeah, it vibes hard as shame. Moiraine says she needs to go seek out Rand, and Mat agrees that she should, but says he has things that he needs to do in Caemlyn. And then he thinks of Rand (again) and blushes.

32. While I've seen Sanderson get blamed for it -- the Thom & Moiraine engagement scene was written by Jordan, as confirmed by Sanderson's retrospective (Sanderson is one of the fans who did not at all pick up on Jordan's murder-mystery style way of setting up Thom and Moiraine's 'romance' in the earlier books which, you know. Me too, lol). And 'abruptly making a life commitment out of nowhere with barely any lead-up' is also classic Jordan romance writing, lol.

Direct quote from Sanderson: "I will note, by the way, that Verin’s interaction with Egwene in The Gathering Storm was my biggest surprise from the notes. My second biggest was the Thom/Moiraine engagement. Robert Jordan wrote that scene, and I was surprised to read it."

So, yeah, the whole "I would give up being Aes Sedai for you" offer was all Jordan.

That being said, knowing that this scene was written by Jordan also makes me wonder how much of the previous scene that leads into it (Mat blushing over how much he's thinking about Rand and his clear shame over being married to the Empress of the Seanchan) was also written by Jordan. Moiraine actually IS one of the few characters in the Jordan books who occasionally slung around the name 'Matrim', so her using it here isn't a Sanderson 'tell' the way that it is for many other characters. I also wonder if the paragraph of admiration and Mat thinking of Moiraine as 'fetching' was written by Jordan because, if so, that might be the germ of the idea that led to all of the other moments when Mat has been distracted by how pretty all the women he's Not Allowed to admire are Because Wife.

33. When Mat reacts like a cat fallen into a bath at the idea of being bonded (though, hilariously, he does specify that he doesn't want to be bonded to a woman), Thom points out that "your Tuon" is capable of channeling, which is information that Mat has been trying to actively suppress from his memory (and he almost immediately does so again here, very quickly after Thom reminds him of it), another example of Thom bringing up Mat's marriage to specifically twit him about the parts of it that will make him unhappy (like how earlier, he brought up how it makes Mat a noble). But this conversation is kinda the first time that Mat has confirmed to other people that his marriage was 'accidental' due to 'Seanchan customs', I think? Which is information that Moiraine & Thom could theoretically share with other people (like, for example, Elayne, who is already aware that Mat is willing to self-destructively make himself miserable in order to keep a promise, from her experiences with him in Ebou Dar). Also, Moiraine now knows that the Empress of the Seanchan is capable of learning to channel.

34. Mat's missing eye is still throbbing in pain, but he doesn't give a thought to asking Moiraine to heal him. Either deep fear, like Moiraine suggested, or deep hate... for himself, I think (certainly not for Moiraine, as he's surprised himself in this scene with how much affection he's been feeling for her). I'm leaning towards 'self-hate' because Mat doesn't even consider asking THOM to help him clean and dress the wound using normal non-Power means, so it feels very much like Mat has given himself a painful punishment.

He also wonders what Tuon might think of a husband 'unable to defend himself', so, yeah, I think he's also very aware that she is not a supportive and caring life partner. He actually comes across as genuinely scared of her reaction here (he describes himself as 'trembling' at the thought). You're in an abusive relationship, buddy.

35. Olver opens the letter from Verin and gives it to Talmanes -- Verin was trying to warn Mat about the Waygate in Caemlyn being left unguarded and a huge force of Shadowspawn coming through the Ways to attack the city. Talmanes curses and heads off to defend the city, but then we see that it's already under attack. Congrats, Mat! Your stubborn determination not to ever listen to Aes Sedai has helped lead to an attack on Caemlyn.

36. For the first time in this entire book, we get a Rand PoV. In the epilogue. And it's only two pages long. *sigh*

Rand sits in a dream and thinks about what will come in the morning, when he speaks to Egwene and the monarchs of the world. We don't get ANY reflection on the events of the past book or any of his feelings about anything.

He hears distant screams of pain and follows them, and he sees 'Mierin' aka Lanfear, who tells him that she is being tortured by the Dark One and needs his help.

I'm so frustrated that this is the only Rand PoV that we got in this entire book! Why would you do that! What a terrible narrative choice!

37. Lan arrives at Tarwin's Gap -- "he was home again. For the last time." And he and his forces charge towards the Shadowspawn.

38. The very ending of the book is a quote from the 'prophecies of the Shadow' (the ones that Moridin is relying on but have already failed Graendal). We get a mention of "Midnight Towers" here but I have NO clue what it's meant to refer to, since it clearly isn't talking about the Seanchan Towers of Midnight. So, yeah, ????

The title of this book remains such a baffling choice.

How ready are we for the Last Battle?

Rand: organizing; basically ready

Egwene: organizing; basically ready

Mat: finally got his ass in gear. Managed to be the fault point for the Caemlyn invasion, so he was accidentally helping the Shadow there by being stubborn for no good reason. Kinda mirrors him helping the Seanchan by protecting Tuon during CoT & KoD. First he fails his friends through action (protecting a slaver) and then he fails them through inaction (not reading Verin's letter). But he also helps his friends (bringing Aludra to Caemlyn; rescuing Moiraine) so Mat has been a double-edged sword recently, useful and harmful at the same time.

In terms of his marriage: shame, repression, and denial seem to be the main emotions that Mat is bringing to the table. That's a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. The clash of values between Mat and Fortuona feels inevitable, once the immediate stress of the Last Battle and its aftermath has passed.

I am interested (this may or may not be the correct word, lol) on if Mat will become pod!person Mat from CoT & KoD once he's actually in Fortuona's orbit again. So far he's done his best to maintain the illusion in his head that "Tuon" and "the Seanchan Empire" are separate entities and he can help one of them while being opposed to the other one, but obviously that illusion will take a pretty hard hit once he's around Actual (Westlands Territories Only) Seanchan Empress Fortuona 'Slavery Is My Game' Paendrag again. I've genuinely enjoyed a lot of the Mat scenes in ToM but how much of that is because I haven't been forced to endure Mat & Tuon interacting? I guess I'm about to find out!

Elayne: she’s BEEN ready.

Perrin: went through wolf boot camp; basically ready. The wolf-related plotline Perrin does in these two books should have been in his plot during The Slog; Sanderson basically rewinds us to LoC!Perrin and goes from there, giving Perrin character development that should have been happening all along.

The Whitecloak-related plotline was... meh? The most I can give it is 'meh'. It solved a problem that I didn't care about and ignored the problems that I did care about, essentially.

Nynaeve: We don't get enough Nynaeve but what we do get is good, except for her massive communication issues, lol. She should have done the Black Tower plotline in this book rather than it being given to tertiary characters. It's an important enough plotline that it should have happened within the main cast.

Series ranking:

Hmm, this one was somewhat tough to rank because I mostly loved all the Mat & Elayne related scenes, and the Egwene and Nynaeve scenes were also good but I was very frustrated with almost all the Rand-related scenes being someone else's PoV and Perrin was. Not interesting to me unless he was in the wolfdream. So. Better than WH but not as good as EotW. Too Much Perrin, lol (you wouldn't necessarily know this from my reread posts because I was zooming through the Perrin chapters and then spending ages on the other ones, but trust me. There was A Lot of Perrin).

The Fires of Heaven (😍)

The Shadow Rising (😘)

The Dragon Reborn (😘)

The Path of Daggers (😘)

New Spring (😘)

The Great Hunt (😄)

The Gathering Storm (😄)

Lord of Chaos (😄)

...

A Crown of Swords (🙂)

The Eye of the World (🙂)

Towers of Midnight (🙂)

Winter’s Heart (🙂)

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Crossroads of Twilight (😒)

Knife of Dreams (😒)

[anonymoushotsexyperson]

Thinking a lot about how the inevitability of death is not talked about.

I know you got attention span issues pookie bear so I split this post into sections and you can read whatever your most into if you can't do the whole thing ^_^

SECTION 1 my first encounters with the idea of dying.

I wish I could literally hug John Green for writing the fault in our stars. People can say it's sappy or whatever but it is one of the only mainstream forms of media that successfully acknowledges the inevitability of death and the lack of control we have over it. Though it took a lot more than TFIOS to wake me up to the conversation of dying.

The first time I realized death was a thing I can remember so vividly. I was at least 4 years old, I forgot how the whole conversation went but I remember my dad saying

"well honey everyone has to die one day."

"even you and mom?"

"even me and mom."

He said it so casually while folding laundry in the kitchen not knowing my world view had just completely shattered 😀. I went into our shared bedroom ( I didn't have my own yet because POOR) and cried on my parents bed. I don't know what happened after that. I think I just shoved death into my back pocket and kept it pushing because it was too hard to really grasp at that age. It still is now, but it especially was then.

Section 2 Being someone aware of your mortality and not being able to cope with it.

I think about death a lot now, it's been a reoccurring visitor in my brain since covid. It surprises me that the average Joe doesn't think about death all the time considering the current climate of our world. Im not gonna lie i've developed a bit of thanatophobia (death anxiety). This is because I have always dug myself out of my depressive episodes using knowledge and through that knowledge, understanding my relationship to the world helped me fall involve with living in it. The idea that one day this experience will end and regardless of what you believe whether it's in heaven or reincarnation or whatever we really don't know what's coming next or if there is a next. I don't think i'd necessarily be too keen with an afterlife as well as the idea that an afterlife doesn't exist. Both seem pretty ass, because if there's an after life cool but like what happens after that? You telling me i'm just here for ALL ETERNITY NIGGA? But also the concept of just dying and thats just... it? Kinda stupid and DUMB if you ask me. I think what im really looking for here is control.

Section 3 Does no one talk about death because of capitalism?

Apart of me believes that this thing where people around me tend to avoid the conversation of death or respond like an npc when I do get them to speak about it is due to western cultures obsession with capitalism and power. Because if you contemplate your existence and how both big and small it is, all this capitalism shit becomes kind of extremely fictitious and ridiculous. Like yeah maybe people just don't talk about it because its SCARY but also what if it's so scary because we done talk about it and because we are wasting our lives as wage slaves and in some areas of the world, literal slaves. Also this makes me think a lot about how religions are used as a weapon of conservatism instead of respected as a philosophical and metaphysical analysis of the human experience. There is honestly so many examples of religion-especially religions associated with colonialism-being used to control people. This can be seen and interpreted many ways and most if not all of the most obvious interpretations probably ring true. But what i'm really attempting to segue into here is that religion is uses as a weapon by the powerful in all sorts of ways but the idea that it is used to keep us from pondering death instead of exploring what it's like is something ive been thinking about a lot. You can argue some religious folks specifically follow religion to relieve death anxiety and its always been that way but I think that it now exists on a dissociative level.

Also, the ignorant American I am, I couldn't tell you the part about western civilization playing a big role is from an informed experience it's more so a studious guess. I don't really know what the vibes in other countries are like when it comes to dying I have not gained enough international knowledge and experience yet. So thats where you come in reader. YES you. What do you think?

QOTD: why do you think the conversation around death and the inevitability of it is so hush hush? Where do you believe we 'go' after and how does that make you feel? If you are apart of a non western civilization do you see a cultural difference in our experiences?

[greeneyed-thestral]

I BOOKED A TICKET TO SEE MICHAEL IN NYE

so here's the thing

I went to London for the first time last october and going to the theatre there was a wake up call, as if a voice in my head that had been silent for a really long time whispered 'hey this is actually all you need to feel better? to sit in the dark and experience something special with other people that love it as much as you??'; so I wanted 'London at least once a year' to become a thing

right now I don't know what I'm doing with my life and some days I just feel like I want to hop on a plane and forget everything and everyone, sometimes I just stop and turn my head and realize oh I'm... not in London, but I remember who I was there??

one january evening I kinda mentioned to my sister that Michael would be doing a play at the National this spring; she got me all excited like we looked for planes, hotels and possible dates that could work for both of us and I literally couldn't switch off my head, which scared me, for I stayed awake all night 'till five o' clock writing a detailed schedule for this hypothetical crazy weekend

and then I kinda gave up the idea 'cause I don't have a job at the moment but what if someone calls me?? what if I'm away and I lose the chance of a lifetime? should I even go back so soon like shouldn't I wait for a better opportunity or something special?? but c'mon it's a weekend I mean who is going to need me AND YET--

my sister kept insisting for weeks but I didn't want to be bothered anymore 'cause I've been feeling really down and I didn't want to fool myself like last time, and everything felt pointless anyway

but last night she sent me screenshots of a plane and hotel option for a weekend in march when there's nothing going on here that binds me to stay, and I said you know what... maybe?

so she rushed into my room and not even two hours later we had booked the plane, the hotel and a theatre ticket for me to see Michael Sheen in Nye anD I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU BUT I HAD A BREAKDOWN and started crying

'cause moments earlier there was nothing and now there was this thing and I felt overwhelmed like-- I'm actually going to London just for a day, but I get to see Michael?? like I'll be in the same room as this person that is so so special???

and I felt guilty and scared even though I never leave the house and I don't really do nice things just for me, yet still I ask myself if it's worth it and if I deserve it

there are actually many pros: I had a plane voucher to spend within the year, this is the last weekend my sister can come with me, we get to see London in spring, the hotel is great and very close to the theatre and to the underground, if everything goes according to plans we get to see another play in the afternoon as well, also it's not like Micheal performes live so close so often, who knows when I'll ever get the chance to see him again, and c'mon these past months are proof that I clearly love him in everything he does, don't I owe him this?

on the other hand I get so scared of what might happen like what if I go all the way there and then Michael can't perform that day, what if I wasted the voucher, what about delays and unexpected problems, also the show is going to be filmed, maybe I should have said no and stream it instead of choosing to go there...

I just feel like I'm always waiting for a perfect moment, the perfect occasion, and maybe this is one and I can't seem to see it; must it be that I need others to push me this way otherwise I would never do anything? I mean to me it's scary that I have to reach this breaking point to experience something when I'm well aware that booking a plane to a place that is two hours away it's the norm for other human beings

I just need someone to tell me I did the right thing. 🥺

[tanadrin]

Hello! Bisexual cis man with BDSM/noncon fantasies. Two things that I think might be kind of interesting about my sexual situation:

First, although I recognize that "autogynephilia" is an awful, transphobic concept used to delegitimize trans women, it does kind of accurately describe me. In most of my life, I'm pretty much comfortable being, presenting as, and being perceived as a man. Sexually, however, I have a lot of fantasies in which I am a woman, and sometimes get kind of sad that I don't have breasts or a vagina specifically in sexual contexts, though on the whole I quite like my body and current genitalia situation and wouldn't actually want to make any changes.

Second, my kink fantasies tend to be about certain power dynamics or situations, and I nearly always enjoy imagining myself as either party. If I watch/read noncon porn, or just imagine such a scenario, I might picture myself as victim or perpetrator, depending on my mood. Likewise, in an IRL kink scene, if I'm interested at all, I'm pretty much always happy playing either role, though again I do sometimes have a preference for one or the other in the moment.

One unusual way these interact is that the "girl version" of me is exclusively submissive. In a dominant role, I'm pretty much always envisioning myself as myself, a man with a penis. When I'm being submissive is when I'm much more likely to envision myself as a woman with a vagina. The closest thing I've experienced to dysphoria was when I was I was subbing during cowgirl-style PIV and my partner made reference to my cock, when I had been imagining myself as having a vagina that she was penetrating with a strap-on, and it fairly violently broke me out of the fantasy. I've considered the possibility that this is just some sort of internalized misogyny (submissive=female/receptive) but it's not like I really have any control over it so I mostly just enjoy it for what it is.

I think autogynephilia is a bad concept etiologically bc I don’t think there’s much evidence to support the “erotic target location error” Blanchard hypothesizes is even a coherent idea. Aside from AGP as described not encompassing a huge swathe of the transfem experience—almost certainly the vast majority. There is another equally compelling model to me that nonetheless accounts even for the experience of self-identified AGPs, which is that sex is necessarily an extremely gendered activity. Most people, including most *cis* people, have a strongly gendered sense of themselves in an erotic context.

Thus I would expect it is pretty usual for someone who is mostly cis by default, or who is not dysphoric in most of their life (or is disconnected from that dysphoria) and therefore not often preoccupied with the issue of their gender presentation, to twig on that issue most strongly when it comes to their erotic life, if they are in fact in some capacity trans, because it is really really hard to disconnect from issues of gender even in our comparatively egalitarian society inside the bedroom.

I was mostly cis-by-default as a kid (though there were Signs in retrospect), and it wasn’t until adolescence, when I began to notice “hey, that’s weird, I like imagining myself as a girl a *lot* more when it comes to thinking about sex” that I began to consider these questions more deeply. And even then it took a while—not only because I grew up in a time and place where awareness of trans stuff was pretty bad, but because I was so meh about gender in other areas of my life (and un-confident about myself in general) that the idea of staking an actual positive claim in contravention of societal expectation of my identity was kinda scary. Terrifying, really. And that’s something I still have issues with as an adult, and not just around gender identity.

I think this experience is not all that unusual among folks who don’t realize they’re trans until adolescence or adulthood. Couldn’t say how common it is in the general population of such folks though.

I’m not saying you’re really trans or would be happier identifying that way—I mostly just wanted to pontificate on my alternative hypothesis of AGP. People should use the label that feels most useful to them (if they want), and if you identify as a man but like imagining you’re getting fucked like a woman, AGP is useful for that purpose. I hope you find someone to peg you and call you a pretty girl!

[callmejudgement]

My Shifting Timeline

Judgment's Detailed Experiences #2

(Including my 2 mini-shifts to my Winx and Twst dr!)

October 2020

Discovered shifting from that one tiktok about Saiki K "kicking people out of their drs". I thought they were talking about lucid dreaming at first, but when I went to the comments, a few other people were saying otherwise. So, I went into a deep dive of shifting and concluded that it was a physical experience when people "became aware of themself in another reality."

November 2020

I entered the vibration state "for the first time" (I actually experienced it once when I did not know about Shifting). I wouldn't say I got close to shifting, though, because I exited this state pretty quickly after hearing some phantom noises (they were not scary; I thought it was my baby nephew).

August 2021

I had a lucid dream on the night of the 10th, so I decided to go to my dr. I did not make a portal since that did not work for me the two times I tried before, so I simply thought about my dr and willed myself to be there. Then, it felt like someone gently pushed me, and everything was white. It felt like I was slowly falling and moving forward, kinda. I didn’t feel jarring or disorienting, but comforting. I felt my body changing positions and myself laying in my dr bed (it was my alt-earth magic school dr), but I couldn’t manage to fully shift and ended up back in my cr.

September 2021

I heard about this thing where you ask your spirit guides (or higher self), “What steps do I need to take to shift?” I don’t do tarot, so I decided to communicate with my spirit guides through lucid dreams. Plus, if I did it that way, I would get way more direct answers... or so I thought.

I had my first lucid dream around 4 years ago, and I’ve had multiple since then, so I was confident in communicating with them this way,

But when I had my first LD after deciding to talk to them, they straight up told me “no”. 

Imagine this: you’ve been struggling with shifting, so you decide to contact your spirit guides(something you’ve never done before). Then you have an LD a few days later, but when you ask them your burning question, they just say “no” and make you wake up. 

A few nights later, I had like 3 lucid dreams, and in each one, I tried to ask my spirit guide the same question. 

In the first dream, I realized I was dreaming, looked up at the sky, and said, “Spirit guides, I’d like to talk to you.” I started walking through a river in the town I was in, and it began to rain. 

The people around me told me to say the word “rain” (or maybe it was “water”) if I wanted to summon my spirit guide. I started to get pushed down into the water and lose lucidity before I could say it. I feel like they knew what I was going to ask and was avoiding the question (it’s pissing me off, tbh). 

After I woke up, I fell back asleep because I was super tired. In my next dream, I became lucid again. I don’t remember as much of this one, but I went to call my spirit guide. Before I could speak, the dream people came and started tickling me so I would become excited and wake up. 

I woke up, fell back asleep, and had another LD. This time I was only half trying to contact my spirit guides. The rest of me wanted to eat a burger(I’m pescatarian btw). So I was looking for a burger joint (I was in a giant mall), but many of the dream people were trying to stop me and wake me up. Their main tactic was to catch me and then tickle me so I would wake up. That’s actually what caused my dream to end, and I know it was my spirit guide doing. 

2022

Somehow, nothing notable happened in my shifting journey for a year and a half. There's just a fat ass blank space in my stories for this year that even I'm shocked. I have scripts and stuff, but no experience where I can say, "omg, I almost shifted!" So, nothing interesting here...

 February 2023 (mini-shifted)

I went to bed at 10pm and then woke up at 2am. I laid in bed for an hour, but I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got on my phone until 5:30. Then I listened to this immersive ambiance related to my dr (Twisted Wonderland).

I imagined I was in the black carriage on my way to NRC. I think I fell asleep for a few minutes, but when I woke up, the space between my eyes was pounding. It didn’t hurt, but it was like a thump thump thump. I ignored it and continued visualizing Twisted Wonderland. My mind was clear, and I was relatively alert. 

I felt a weight on top of me and visuals appeared in front of my eyes. My head stopped thumping at this point and I saw the door of a car. It was light brown and shiny (it looked kinda similar to the interior of a Mercedes Benz from the 90s/2000s). Floyd was sitting next to me and was practically on top of me. Like my back was against the right door, and he was leaning all up on me! It was nighttime, and we were in the backseat of a parked car. Everything was slightly blurred and surreal like I was in a half awake state. 

I remember that even in the moment, I couldn't get over how pretty his eyes were and how clear his skin was😭. My breath literally stopped. Bro was actually so beautiful.

Floyd moved around a bit, and then everything went black. I was back in my bed, and my head was still thumping. I fell asleep after that, and when I woke up, It felt like a dream, but the more I thought about it, the more real it felt. 

Even though I was in a half-awake state, the images were so much more realistic than my dream. The fact that this experience just felt so different from any of the dozens of lucid dreams or vivid dreams I have had just threw me off so bad.

From what I noticed in those few seconds, I saw the brown of the car doors and I think the seats were a tan leather. I saw the yellow-tinted car light that cast a dim yellow glow on the inside of the car. I think the passenger seat was empty, so only Floyd and I were in the car.... AND THAT'S WHY I MUST SHIFT BACK TO THAT EXACT MOMENT TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON! WHY WAS I IN A CAR ALONE WITH A MAN AND WHY WASN'T IT MY BLACK KING, LEONA KINGSCHOLAR!! Note: NRC is an actual college in my dr; students start at 18. 

March 2023 (shifted?)

It was about 3:15pm when I woke up. My room looked the same, so I thought everything was normal; it was only strange that I woke up hella late. I got up and stood by my desk, and then I had the urge to try and float. I balanced on one leg and slowly lifted the other until I sat crisscrossed in the air! Then I was like, wtf? I floated for a few seconds in shock, then I got down and ran out of my room to tell my siblings. My sister and brother (who should have been away at Uni, but I didn't realize in the moment), were in the kitchen. I showed them my flying, and they were not surprised. I think they already knew, so I was sharing old news.

I went back to my room and noticed Skyrim was on my pc. My brother was probably playing it. I closed his save and loaded mine. THEN I DIED LIKE 5 TIMES IN 10 SECONDS. Every time I loaded the damn save, a giant would run up on me and kill me one way or another! I got mad and gave up. Then, I did a reality check by pushing my fingers into the palm of my other hand. My finger did not go through my hands, meaning I was not dreaming. I was about to get my phone, but I couldn't focus, and I kept thinking about how I might accidentally shift back. Then I shifted back... I came back to this reality just as this body woke up. I grabbed my phone to check if I really shifted, and the time here was exactly 7:35, nowhere near 3:15pm.

Reflection: Lowkey, I don't consider this a full shift. Even though it was consistent, I didn't feel "completely there" mentally. Maybe it's because I was excited, so I wasn't thinking straight, but idk. It just didn't feel right so I don't accept this as a true shift.

November 2023 (mini-shifted)

I decided to take a nap around 4pm because I had that weird eye strain headache. I had been up since 6:30am and went to sleep at 12:30 am, so I was tired. Plus, it was right after Thanksgiving, so I had that post-holiday fatigue. I laid on my back and started easing myself to sleep while my sister played BG3 in the background. I decided that I was going to shift to my Winx Dr (I was drawing my dr self just before lying down). At some point, I stopped thinking of anything, and my mind started to buzz. It buzzed for a while but nothing was really happening. After a while, I gave up and thought, “I surrender myself (to my subconscious) to shift”. Immediately after I said that, I ‘fell down’ and the room became a small point in an endless void of black (imagine falling down a hole, everything around you is pitch black and you can only see the opening become smaller and smaller).

Then, I felt myself lying on a bed again, but it felt different. At first, I was lying on my back, but now I was on my stomach. I also heard a voice, initially I thought it was my sister or the voices from her game. But the voice sounded too far, like it was coming from another room and was muffled by the walls. When I looked in front of me, I saw a blurry (it could be because I have horrible vision or just blurry vision upon waking) and unfamiliar dark room. Then, I realized that I was in my Winx Dr, in the bedroom on the second floor of the bookstore where I always imagined waking up. Right when I realized that, my awareness ‘rolled’ (it literally felt like I was rolling when lying down), and I was in another bed. This time it was a very familiar one. It was the guest room that I stayed in for a month in my cr! At my instant realization, I shot up and tried to ground myself; however, black spots decorated my vision against my will (not that I was physically blacking out; my body felt fine. It was like my awareness was disappearing from the scene), and I shifted back to my cr room at 5:15pm. I thought it would have been much later, and I took much longer with the initial shifting process since I think I closed my eyes around 4:30 or 4:45. It was so quick, and now it almost feels like a fleeting dream or a long lost memory. But I know that it's real! None of my lucid dreams have ever felt like this.

[wabisabireiki]

How deep is your pleasure

Inspired exploration by Sabrina Lynn's work. (Find her on youtube, IG, Facebook, etc.). I also listened to Ethereal Astrology, Brittany (also on youtube) while I wrote this to remind myself of the sensations I've been processing.

Full Moon Lunar eclipse in Pisces + Venus opposing Chiron

A lot of resistance is coming up for me around expression. I have had several epiphanies about being addicted to self healing and having the realization that the brain will create whatever you focus on.

Personally doing ( physical action) anything has been very difficult. My mind wants to be terribly distracted. I am also seeing how much I am addicted to consuming: food, content, information, education, well being, style, fashion, aesthetics, the list goes on and on.

Even given that, I do feel a need to move something out of me- like these thoughts. I have been becoming aware of an old, ingrained, conditioned mindset ( solidifying more the last 3 months) that has been the imaginary chains I've had on myself for probably my whole life. This is so interesting as I have been digesting a lot of Jung's work on the anima/animus. This has provided a lot of experiential context in relation to myself in my relationships. The invisible chains being certain thoughts, feelings ( as sensations) and emotions.

For me this was identified as Jung's animus- the masculine partner a woman has that is the unconscious aspect of her mind, if she is unaware of it. I do believe that because of my experience with parts work ( IFS) and my own previous education through polarity consciousness in spiritual circles ( an actual somatic class I took with Jennifer Joseph, naturalmagics on instagram) I already had a bit of an awareness to him. I had conceived some ideas of him like going through someone's belongings in their house and making up narratives of what they might be like. The belongings, one could say, made me believe perhaps more than one masculine being resided there. I went down a rabbit hole and should write the story of Cowboy and Shaman someday.

Of course being abstract concepts of our mind, they are not actual people. Though I could see their projections in my life in different people I'd known at one point or another. Now, according to Jung, if the animus is maladapted he actually has his own anima ( which makes sense to me now, why cowboy was Gay & why he was kinda evil). These figures seem to be going through a transformation process with the awareness I've gleaned about them. Like the tail end of THE dragon. Careful now, you know what they say about chasing THE dragon.

Anyhow, He (my animus) seems to be getting clearer... almost like he's still a ghost haunting ( more like a scuddle these days) the house but he goes in and out of being something more jello-like than ether and even though he's still wearing a sheet around- I am very aware of him. Perhaps his speech is less OOOOooooooooh like and more coherent as grunts and uh huhs and mmm's. Far less cryptic, not scary and mostly frustrating if not comical or annoying.

Which brings me to Sabrina's prompt about pleasure. Imagine not being able to interface with your lover in a way that was pleasant? Just thoughts and ideas about what that should look like, and then using stand in's to kill time, subs to get experience? Not understanding your animus is like playing charades with someone from another planet. You don't speak the same language, cannot translate, you have no context, and you have no way to relate. This of course will not stop anyone from existing, it just makes your inner workings complicated, confusing, conflicted, and hard to understand. From that point of view it is difficult to allow pleasure to be alive in your life. Some aspect of you is always on the defensive for how you will mishandle it, because historically denying it is all you have done. Painful, suffering, uncomfortable existence, anxiety are normal. Which makes sense to me why addiction to substance is so palpable. To finally get some pleasure through immobilizing those deafening, defensive rigid parts, just long enough to have some relief in pleasure... makes too much sense. I did that a lot in my life.

So now, knowing the jello-ghost animus is on his way to have a Beauty and the Beast like transformation is quite exciting. I'm still reading up on how it works ( which is why he's in a chrysalis stage).

Looking more at exploring aspects of pleasure for myself and being able to dialogue with him looks like it will take some time. But can't help but imagine my own little Helen Keller genius making waves soon.

Visual meditation:

In the middle of writing this I did a 10 min heart centered meditation because I felt compelled to for some time and saw a corridor between a narrow stretch in a mountain like chasm. The ground was covered in a soft spongey moss and I was barefoot. As I moved forward I couldn't see anything in front of me, it was all thick mist. A few yards in and I start seeing colors peeking through of different colorful flowering plants. I walk past dense flowering blooms and looked down when I noticed the ground seemed to be more wet. Blood, intermixed with water covering the moss.

Moving forward it appears there is what looks like body parts of something strewn about. The mist is receding to reveal a vast field. It looks like a war has just occurred, but is over now. A river is rushing ahead and it is clearing this field of the blood and parts. I also see being's I don't have descriptions for... they seem to be ever changing in shape of creatures I do not recognize. It also appears these are what was in parts in the bloodied field. They are also carrying off the parts; like ants away from the field. I watch them. Very quickly they seem to be building structures. A tree house structure forms ahead of me, they build other tree/vine like bridges and other structures near the river... I move towards it with feelings of excitement and well being. The meditation ends*

[milimeters-morales]

me rambling under the cut

one of the least bad/most annoying side effects of atsv is how much it fucks over my thinking process when i’m trying to write a more realistic way of miles meeting up with people and friends from other worlds while being a student + spider-man + having a family that likes to spend time together, esp since i like to throw some comic characters into the mix. like it seems easy right? open a portal and go say hi. except you have to still plan ahead, because i have the times set different (for example peter is 30 minutes ahead and pavitr is an entire 12 hours), everyone has lives outside of being a vigilante (though gwen and margo give me the most freedom with this), and sometimes people just don’t wanna hang! don’t get me started on the portal itself, which you need to find a hidden spot to open and then take a few seconds to go through, to another side that you aren’t sure of the exact location. did you see the way the portal to pavitr’s world had Miles? and the way the go-home-machine sent gwen flying? of course, those are two diff types of portals, & there’s a workaround to everything, but it’s still a lot to consider and it just results in me taking forever to actually get shit down on paper. oh my god and the subtle tells of shit being resolved after btsv (bc i am not dealing with that) making the characters seem too ooc when they technically aren’t. bc it could happen. i’m always losing the idgaf war i love details i love hypotheticals and i love hidden meanings

another thing that isn’t canon and is just me making it harder for myself is me adding in anxiety and autism and a weird learned social behavior into the mix for miles. sure, guys and girls hang out. sure, they can be just friends. but he’s a guy who LIKED gwen and his parents don’t have the best first impression but are generally okay with her, and he’s at the age where all his girl friends will be teased as possible girlfriends by damn near everyone he knows. so it’s reasonable for him to not be around her while also around other people who don’t know the two of them like that, because dealing with that shit is exhausting AND embarrassing, stuff we both know Miles doesn’t like even if he can move on pretty quickly. so i expect him to sorta be like “nahhh… my cousins are here and… look let’s just hang out next time pleaseeee” and here’s where the anxiety and autism come in. miles (atsv) is not the type to care about how people view him based on his friends, and autism will result in him missing a lot of social cues but it’s kinda obvious to me that he doesnt miss the more romantic ones when it comes to gwen and how people view them together. this doesn’t help though because he doesn’t know what the do about it! he KNOWS the right thing: don’t let others get to you and work your shit out with gwen the way you know is right. but the anxiety makes him overthink about how gwen views all this (which i don’t actually go into detail that much about bc this is miles’s POV) because she means so much to him. and of course the whole “do i actually like her or is this just really deep connection or” from autism sometimes making it hard to define your feelings and a relationship, and anxiety making it a scary minefield to traverse if you wanna bring it up with said person. and don’t forget the awareness that the anxiety is making everything seem way worse than what it is, which Miles has and is so fed up by.

It all comes off as Miles eventually getting annoyed and tired of Gwen, which you know she did not take well. anyways…. throw all of this in with being a highschool student with a busy schedule and you’ve got miles’s main source of problems . too many friends and too many mental disorders and not enough time . i’m rereading this post and realizing none of it makes sense and kind of meandered .

[timidloner]

if you end up reading SVSSS, tell me if you liked it and thank you for the good wishes btw <3 ill survive long enough to see my MC getting crush by joren's arms hopefully i have to. EVEN MORE AFTER the tunic idea... tiddies are also my weakness, we shall suffer together. ahaha;; winning at what cost

on another note, this makes wonder would he realize the horny anguish of the MC (and perhaps use against them) or would he miss it because technically you did clarify he is quite emotionally aware of MC's likings towards others (with the jealousy) but it hits differents when its towards yourself if that makes sense cause you spoke about how he'd react to rejection but what about attraction huehuehue (for science i need to know especially after what you said about the nickname: i will malewife him)- rambling

Sure!! Though I'll probably go around to check it out after the November update, I plan to take a week off after uploading Chapter 1, so that will be the perfect time to catch up on some hobbies.

Ahh, university. I'm actually starting college in January, so soon I'll understand your pain :((, kinda excited though! And yes, I'm gonna deliver some good action with his chest. We stay winning, Rambling! I'm feeding us for free, don't die!

Now, going back to Joren...

He may not have the emotional intelligence required to deal correctly with his feelings and traumas, but he's very observant and, in the past, he was good at recognizing social clues. But it's been a while since he was around people, not to mention he no longer cares about social rules.

There are things he experienced himself (like people being attracted to him), and there are others that he learned from looking at people interacting in his free time (during his past).

I don't remember if I said this, but his view of intimacy is linked to roughness. He wasn't the only person who served as a sword for that particular noble house, there were others like him. This was his "social circle" to say it somehow, and sparring and fights usually lend to sex. And it helped him to know what a person attracted to him looked like.

The other things (loving gazes, tender touches, and all that) were something he could see sometimes around him. He knows what a person in love is supposed to look like. And he's going to know at some point if MC has feelings for Lena/Aiken, since he's always paying close attention to them.

And yeah! He's going to know if MC is attracted to him!! But it'll take more than just a heated glance, they have to be more obvious than that.

Also, he's very neutral about his body image. He knows some people find him scary. And there are others who don't care, his past sexual partners were just as scarred as him. So, his body is just that, a body. No shame or pride whatsoever about that.

But if MC found him attractive, he wouldn't hesitate to use that information to his advantage. Is MC visiting? Suddenly he needs more wood, and of course, he's chopping the logs without a tunic.

Ah, MC is carrying something to the Temple? He can help them. And no, he isn't flexing his biceps. But they totally should go swimming later with him. Or he can show them some cool tricks with his sword, no shirt, but it's because of the heat, nothing more.

And so forth.

I think he'd enjoy teasing them like that, it's proof that they like him in some way... But soon, the teasing would escalate if MC doesn't put an end to it, and he'll become more aggressive in his pursuit until he crosses all boundaries and they end up fucking.

[typically-untypical]

Echoes of the Past - Day 16

Prompt: “Horror's not a symptom, it's a love affair.”

CW: I don't think so, this one is mostly fluff

"Come on Patton, the movies aren't that bad," Remus begged, holding out his hand to Patton, "And if you do get scared, you can always curl into my side," he said, wiggling his eyebrows. Patton bit on his lip, hesitating to take Remus' hand. He wasn't good at handing horror movies, but he also wasn't good at saying no to Remus.

"I don't know, it all seems super violent, and... and I just don't think I will be able to handle it." He wanted to support Remus, but he also knew that he had to follow his own limitations and he just wasn't sure he could handle a horror movie.

"What if we keep all of the lights on, and I'll talk all throughout the movie so that you will know what's coming up and it won't scare ya." He was rocking back and forth on his feet, his excitement obviously showing in each of his movements. It wasn't a bad idea, they could remove some of the things that would make Patton's fear worse.

And Reus just looked so cute.

Not to mention, they could cuddle together while watching, and though Remus was certain to wiggle around a lot, Patton had a feeling that would only make him smile. His biggest worry was that their relationship was still new, and Patton wasn't sure if he was willing to trust Remus that much.

But... he kinda wanted to. 

"Let me show you why I love horror movies so much, let me break down the cinematography, and the acting choices, and everything." Remus gently took Patton's hand, holding it close and giving it little kisses. "Trust me."

They had only been daring for a few months, but Patton loved this part of Remus, the passion in his eyes, the bright excitement and the pure joy. This was the exact reason Patton was dating Remus and he didn't want to squash that. "Okay," Patton finally answered, watching as Remus' eyes grew even brighter.

He absolutely glowed and Patton pulled Remus' hand to his lips, giving him a light little peck.

"One movie, but we have to keep the lights on the entire time, and we stop if the movie gets too scary. Is that okay?" Remus nodded excitedly, wiggling as he started to pull them over to the couch. Patton giggled and allowed one more request to slip past his lips. "Will you stay with me on the couch when I go to sleep, too?"

Remus smiled as if that was exactly what he had been hoping for, pulling Patton into a hug, twirling him around and putting him down on the couch. "Okay, I'll choose something that isn't as scary, and I'll turn on some extra lights." Remus scurried around the room trying to get everything ready for them. He even went and got snacks for the two of them. 

"I can't wait to show you everything, and I can't wait to tell you all of my favorite parts. Thank you." Remus said happily, "Thank you for trusting me with this."

Patton hadn't seen Remus this happy since they had started daring, and he smiled as Remus pulled him to the couch and snuggled into him. Patton snuggled in closer, his eyes closed as he took in Remus' mossy scent, shoulders relaxing. Their relationship was actually a bit of an anomaly; Patton was very much aware of that. They had met in one of their college classes and Remus had actually stepped in when someone was harassing Patton. He wasn't used to having people stand up for him, it had been really nice, even if the scene probably wouldn't have escalated much. Still, Remus had taken his hand and led him towards somewhere safe.

He cared enough not just to step in but to make sure that Patton was okay. Patton had been really curious. He wanted to get to know Remus more and they had started to hang out more often. He hadn't been expecting much, Remus liked horror and pranks, and a lot of things that made Patton uncomfortable, but their core values were on the same track and Remus was always respectful. Patton watched himself fall slowly in love with Remus and it was beautiful and terrifying. He hadn't realized how in love with Remus he was until he was too far gone. 

Patton squeaked as there was a jump scare, even though Remus had warned him. His boyfriend chuckled and gently pulled Patton onto his lap. "You okay little mouse?"

"Does that make you the cat?" Patton asked but also gave Remus a gentle nod. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"I can be a cat for you." Remus teased, kissing at Patton's neck. "Maybe watching this with you was a bad idea, I can't help but want to sweep you away and take you somewhere where you will be safe."

Patton melted a bit as he curled into Remus. "You always protect me, and I want to know more about you. Can we keep watching? I promise I won't be a scaredy cat since that's your role." 

Remus let out a long hard laugh. "I love you."

This time Patton froze, scrambling to pause the movie. "What?" He asked, "Can you, can you say that again?"

"Yeah, little mouse, I love you."

Patton covered his mouth, for a moment before throwing his arms around Remus. "Yeah, I um... I really like you too. I think I love you." He pulled Remus into a kiss, resting his head against Remus'. 

"Let's go back to the movie," This had been a good choice.

@simplestoryteller @fantasticfangirl21 @joylessnightsky @melaniidarling @tsshipmonth2020

[phdmama]

15 questions

thank you for the tag darling @sitp-recs!! Gosh I haven’t gotten myself together in ages to do one of these!!  Imma tag... let’s see: @phoebe-delia @julcheninred @kingsofeverything @allwaswell16 @mxlfoydraco  and YOU!!! (Like, for real!!)

are you named after anyone? my first name is original to me (in my family obvs), it’s a common name with an uncommon spelling and I have a very uncommon nickname! My middle name is my paternal grandmother’s, who I never knew but seems like she was pretty amazing.

when was the last time you cried? I haven’t had a full-out weep in a while but I get teary all the time. When I was talking to my husband this morning about the impact of my new meds and realizing how fucking compromised I’ve been, now that the fog is starting to lift. I got teary.   

do you have kids? well it’s in the name! Yes, I do. I have three human kids and two cats. 

do you use sarcasm a lot? I do some? I’m super SUPER concrete so it’s difficult for me, because It often just feels mean and I cannot handle that. It’s taken me 23 years with my husband to be able to bicker/banter in that way, because he’s the person I trust the absolute most in the world, and I know he would never be mean to me. My kids often will spell it out for me (IT’S A JOKE MOM).

what’s the first thing you notice about people? smile

what’s your eye colour? It says blue on my driver’s license but I do have some center heterochromia so I have a ring of yellow around my pupil.

scary movies or happy endings? oh I am way way WAAAAY too anxious to handle seriously scary movies. I cannot do horror. I do, however, deeply enjoy natural disaster films, especially involving asteroids or volcanos. I always want a happy ending though. I’m well-aware that reality doesn’t always give us that, so I like it from my entertainment.

any special talents? I’m pretty musical, I have a good ear and a decent enough voice. I play violin, viola, some piano and was doing guitar for a while but kind of lost momentum.

where were you born? Large city in the midwest of the US!

what are your hobbies? too many omg. Knitting, sewing, photography, reading, writing (obvs), taking classes (my husband has BANNED me from any more degrees goddamnit), music...

do you have any pets? two cats and three kids!

what sports do you play/have you played? I am... let’s call it, not really an organized sports kinda of pal. I studied martial arts for about 10 years, I’ve done a LOT of yoga, running, barre, recreational skiing. Oh wait, I swam on the swim team for a few years as a kid but that was approximately 8 billion years ago. I played soccer for literally one day, but my god. So much running. 

how tall are you? 5′ 4.5″ and I’m the fucking shortest one in my family

favourite subject at school: honestly I love to learn, and if the teacher is good, I’ll be into It. I took some philosophy classes in college that absolyutely blew my mind wide open and changed me as a person. I loved research design, psychopathology, my counseling classes in my MA and PhD. I fucking love statistics SO MUCH. Like, a lot. Linear algebra was super fun. In my MS program, I really enjoyed my research design classes, my quant class, my digital behavior data class, text as data is cool but the prof was not so good, and my causal inference class was incredible. I’m taking data ethics right now which is so fun except for how the entire class is, you know, wrong. So, I guess I just really love a lot of things.

dream job: realisitcally, a data ethicist in health care resarch. If I could get paid and health insurance to sit around and read and get spa treatments, well, I’d definitely do that. I’ve learned that I actually really do not want to be paid for the hobbies I do for enjoyment (crafting, photography, writing etc), as it completely saps the joy from it for me.