#regression also yes but i try to be aware of that... like when i was saying i've been triggered for months that's a huge part of it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

coraniaid · 1 year ago

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You said a few days ago that you would have liked if season 7 went more in the direction of Help rather than the direction of the First. I know you're not a big fan of the First but I was wondering what you meant by that specifically, and what kind of direction you might have preferred season 7 go in overall?

I don’t have any good reason to think it actually happened, but I always get the impression from watching or thinking about Season 7 that the early plans for the season changed pretty significantly at some point after most of the first few episodes had already been written. (Perhaps when they decided that it would also be the last season? I’ve heard conflicting accounts of when that decision was made.)

If you go back and look at the then-contemporary discussions of the show, the whole season was initially marketed as something of a ‘year zero’: a return to the show’s high school era roots, to something much more upbeat than Season 6, to the original Scooby Gang as the focus of the show.

And just to be clear, I rather like Season 6 – it doesn’t always work, and I think some of the subplots are pretty dreadfully executed, and sometimes I respect the episodes more than I enjoy watching them – but it inarguably has a clear vision for the story it’s trying to tell, one that builds on and recontextualizes what came before it. But for the payoff for that season to land, we needed Season 7 to be different. To be less cynical, more hopeful. It needed to show us that Buffy was right to promise Dawn in Grave that things were going to get better.

And that sort of reset is what we got … for about half a dozen episodes. Then, of course, it goes rather horribly wrong.

I like Help in particular because it is, for me, the closest the show ever gets to delivering on that promise of a return to the high school era. It’s not quite a regression or a soft reboot: Buffy is still an adult with a job, even if she’s suddenly unexpectedly back in high school. Her more mundane responsibilities haven’t suddenly gone away. But now the job she has isn’t something she hates but has to do – it’s something that she actually has a calling for, almost literally, something that harks back to her getting the Class Protector award back in Season 3. In Help Buffy’s inhabiting the same world she did in the first three seasons, she’s still trying to save people, but this time with a new, more experienced perspective.

The episode feels very aware of the show’s history, too. There are nods to Lie To Me (a teenager Buffy knows is going to die because of illness, not anything supernatural Buffy can stop) and Reptile Boy (the cult trying to sacrifice a teenage girl to a demon for material riches) and Beauty and the Beasts (with Buffy herself taking on the role of Mr Platt, worried that Mike is going to turn out to be another Pete), and of course the whole episode is a callback to Prophecy Girl. Because Cassie – probably the show’s last great one-episode character (and yes, the actor comes back later but the person doesn’t) – isn’t just somebody Buffy is trying to save, she is Buffy: a Season 1 Buffy who struggles to make friends and has a supernatural gift she doesn’t like to talk about and knows she’s going to die heartbreakingly young. I don’t think it’s merely chance that Cassie’s big speech to Buffy about her destiny (“You think I want this? You think I don’t care?”) echoes Buffy’s own words to her mother in Becoming either (“You think I choose to be like this?”).

Plus, while the episode ties into the wider story arc – with Spike in the basement and hints that Principal Wood might be up to something and our first appearance of future Potential Amanda – the whole thing still tells a coherent, self-contained story. It stands on its own right; it makes sense on its own terms. it’s not just another installment in the long running saga of General Buffy and the friends she never talks to who later kick her out of the house she owns.

And I think there was a lot more ground there to explore, in the same vein as Help. At least a full season’s worth. There was so much more the show could have tried to do in terms of going back and revisiting some of the classic moments of the first three seasons from a more mature and more grown-up perspective, instead of summarily kicking Buffy out of her new job and then blowing the school up (again). If this season is about the future – about new Slayers being called, one way or another – then what does that mean? How else are Buffy and Willow and Xander engaged in the challenge of trying to pass on what they’ve learned about life on the Hellmouth to a new generation?

At its best, Buffy has always been in conversation with its past, building on ideas that were touched on in one season and asking the audience to think about them again from a different angle. And the beginning of Season 7 sets up the perfect stage to try to do more of that.

I’d have loved to have seen a whole season of Buffy trying to keep her students alive while also preparing them to go out and live in the world. Of Dawn making new friends and finding value in being herself, not just the Slayer’s sister or the mystical Key. Of Buffy and Willow and Xander really getting to know each other again, and having a chance to talk about everything that happened to them last year. A whole season of, in a way, seeing the show from the very beginning, but this time from the perspective of people like Giles or Jenny or Joyce.

But instead we got a lot of boring wank about an impossibly old super-god who can’t actually touch anything (but one who Buffy would definitely let Dawn die to defeat because this godlike being is so much more impressive and scary than Glory, trust us guys, please, we swear) and her army of interchangeable and personality-free super vampires (and of course Caleb, who’s somehow even more mind-numbingly boring than they are). Instead we get a second half of the season in which Andrew Wells has more screen time than Willow or Xander or Anya or Giles or Dawn. Instead we get to wonder whether Giles is the First and try to pretend to care that Spike has been hypnotized. Instead we get Lies My Parents Told Me.

Oh well. At least Faith shows up near the end.

#btvs #asks #thanks!

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littl3babybug · 1 year ago

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since requests are open maybe lil scott with cg wallace 👀👉👈 like either general hcs or like the first time wallace saw scott like genuinely regress idk wjqkqlnd whatever u want is fine 😋😋

EEEK FIRST SCOTT PILGRIM REQUEST!! Ofc I can sweetheart!! Very excited abt this!! I’m gonna do headcanons for both bc I’m very excited

Regressor!Scott and Cg!Wallace Headcanons!

The first time

🎸 The first time Wallace caught Scott regressing was at 2 in the morning

🎸Scott hadn’t head the best day and he was trying his best to sleep it off from the moment he got home till he had to get up the next morning

🎸Didn’t work, what a shocker!

🎸Anyway, he ended up waking up at 2am and just couldn’t get back to sleep so decided to play sonic

🎸While the volume was done the bright light coming from the centre of the fully dark room made Wallace stir in his sleep till eventually he woke up to see Scott sat in front of the tv playing on his game

🎸He looked oddly relaxed for it being 2 in the morning. So he got up to check on him (aka tell him to get his ass back in bed)

🎸When Wallace approached Scott he noticed that his roommate was snuggled under a blanket with a pacifier lodged between his lips

🎸Interesting

🎸Now sure Wallace knew Scott was somewhat aware of age regression due to his friends but he had no idea Scott partook in the recession

🎸He was stumped.

🎸So he leaned down and gently tapped him on the shoulder, Scott nearly jumped out his own skin. Immediately the paci was disgraced somewhere across the floor and Scott’s face filled with a panic as he fumbled out an explanation before Wallace just sort of shushed him

“Oh my god I’m so sorry I didn’t mean for you to see that at all, it’s nothing weird honestly it’s like what Neil and-“ “shhhhhh, use your inside voice buddy”

🎸The way Wallace spoke so sweetly to him immediately made him stop talking. He was flabbergasted.

🎸Wallace had really just brushed this off like it was nothing?? Of course Scott wasn’t complaining. He was glad Wallace was okay with this he was just in shock really

🎸Safe to say the rest of the night was spent with Wallace and Scott talking about the insistent and setting some boundaries about this newfound relationship they’d gained

General headcanons

🎸Scott regresses either very small or slightly older. I’d say from either 1-3 or occasionally 5-8 depending on his feelings

🎸If he’s regressing from stress then it’s 5-8 but for bedtimes and general cuddles or naps he regresses to his younger state

🎸He has a sonic themed paci!! Ofc he does (yes Wallace bought it for him)

🎸Lots of stuffies. So many stuffed animals.

🎸If he regresses in the night and Wallace isn’t awake he’ll manage to shuffle his way into Wallace’s arms so they’re snuggling while Scott sucks his thumb

🎸He also uses teething toys! The little bubble circle ones are his favourite, he has a red one that’ clear and sparky

🎸He LOVES the movie cars. Like he adores that movie. Will watch it religiously. Watched it so much Wallace has BANNED it from the apartment unless Scott has had a particularly bad day

🎸Ramona co-caregivers with Wallace! Wallace is his main cg with Ramona taking care of him when he’s at hers

🎸Scott doesn’t necessarily bite but he’ll put your hand in his mouth and just sort of…hold it there

🎸He won’t suck on your fingers or anything it’s just in his mouth

🎸Wallace calls him ‘little dude’ and ‘little man’ a lot while ruffling his hair. Scott pretends he hates it but secretly he loves it

🎸He called Wallace ‘Wally’ and Ramona ‘Mama’ when small

🎸GRABBY HANDS!!!

Thats I can think of rn, Ty for requesting!! <33

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transmutationisms · 2 years ago

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I feel like this is likely a bat to a hornet's nest topic but I deeply respect your takes and thoughts overall a lot so here goes: I really appreciate that the show frankly goes out of its way to not pathologize its characters and lets the audience sit with them in the context of their own lives. So I'm kind of baffled that so much focus is given to "diagnosing" them in fan discussions, the vast brunt of which Kendall gets. I don't understand how you can watch this show and understand him as someone who's been heavily abused and had his reactions to being abused weaponized against him and come away being like "wow it's so cringe he acts like that, he must have a brain disease and is just too stupid to understand that. every action he takes is because he is manic/depressed/letting the disease manifest. if only he took the good moral Legal drugs that I do instead of the ontologically bad ones that are Illegal and for dirty addicts. hopefully one day he will Get Help and Receive Treatment so he will be more palatable (no whatever he's done up to this point doesn't count because it didn't work which must inherently be due to his own moral failings)." How did a show like this attract so many Reganites??

bat at a hornets' nest yes. yeah i've said before that i dislike diagnosing fictional characters as a general rule. it's tautological ("they do [x] because they have [y], and they have [y] because they do [x]") and abrogates further analysis of their motives or the meanings of their actions. and it's doubly irksome to me with succession, because unlike a lot of tv, i genuinely don't think that it's written within the weltanschauung of dsm neurobio determinism. ie, it's not a show where the answer to "why did he do that?" is ever supposed to be "his brain is just like that"—these actions are supposed to mean something about what the character wants and needs, and the effect of the capitalist milieu on those things. it's psychological, not psychiatric (& of course, psychoanalytic approaches are common in formal literary studies, whereas blunt psychiatric diagnosis is decidedly less so).

with kendall's drug use there are some particularly irritating ways this all plays out. i've been fiddling with my own reading emphasising the context of logan's demands on kendall and the construction of bourgeois masculinity, and have tried to place kendall's drug use as a response to neoliberal control mechanisms à la deleuze or foucault. i could certainly be challenged on elements of this reading, but what i see on this website is generally just an endless slog of very biomedicalised reads that seem to have no awareness of the particular historical and social baggage present in that model. i do agree there's an element of reactionary DARE-esque moralising going on here (stg if i have to read one more post written by someone who, like, has never so much as met a coke user and thinks all drugs instantaneously give you irreversible morally weighted heart damage, lmao), but it's honestly not just that.

i think most of the time when people do this they're not trying to be reactionary or regressive, and often they not only don't believe themselves to be moralising affective distress, but actually think the dsm diagnosis is the way to avoid that type of moralisation. this is essentially the "it's a discrete disease entity, so they have no control over it and can't help it, so it's not their fault" argument. in practice this fails on many levels. for one thing, it often implicitly assumes that 'ending the stigma' requires any kind of mental disability or affective distress to be treated analogously to physical disability or illness, as though those latter are not also consistently stigmatised and moralised—because ableism is actually more complex than that and has to do with the fact that capitalism values people on the basis of the 'use' it can make of them and their bodies, etc etc. it is also, again, a wildly decontextualised understanding of affective distress, the reasons why people use drugs—including in a manner that feels compulsive and out of control—and so forth.

i'll add also that wrt succession, i actually do see a LOT of pathologisation thrown at roman as well, and more than an incidental amount directed at connor, tom, shiv, and logan. which is to say, i don't think this is solely about people's discomfort with addicts. there's a broad tendency among fans, echoing the even broader social tendency, to see medical diagnosis as personally liberatory, and medicine and psychiatry as passing 'objective' judgments that are necessary in order for a person to 'get better.' this is essentially positivism and is very much a status that the medical profession has fought to obtain (in france you can trace certain 18th-century discourses on national decline, aristocratic luxury, and the corrupting influence of the city -> the birth of clinical medicine after the first revolution -> social hygiene and the pathologisation of the parisian urban poor -> the third republic's 'physician-legislators' and the general class status and professionalisation of medicine; i know less about the gory details of the american and british cases simply by dint of what i do professionally).

we tend to forget these histories when talking about science; it presents itself as a set of timeless, incontrovertible truths that are simply waiting to be uncovered, and we have entire industries of science communication and journalism that propagate this view. which is to say, circling back to succession, i don't believe that most people diagnosing and pathologising these characters are trying to be reactionary or are aware that there are reactionary and moralising elements inherently built into these discourses. i think they're largely people who have not been given the tools to see alternatives, like the perspectives dominant in the history and sociology of science, which are very much kept paywalled and inaccessible on purpose because this is profitable for the academe.

this type of popular literary analysis is simply not going to go anywhere as long as this is still the status and the moral resonance of medicine (and psychiatry by extension because it gained its professional independence without sacrificing the appeal to medico-scientific epistemological authority). i don't think succession viewers are any more or less prone to this type of thinking than the general population they exist amongst. i firmly disagree with this attitude, obviously, and like i said, i don't actually think succession is written 'psychiatrically,' which cannot be said for all tv lol. but i more or less expect to encounter this type of deference to medico-psychiatric judgments in 95% of social interactions and contexts, again because of a combination of institutional control of information, other forms of inaccessibility, and physicians' and psychiatrists' advocacy for their own class and professional interests, both historically and ongoing today.

#psychiatry

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dana-chan-the-control-brain · 11 months ago

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Okay, hopefull future Theory time.

Because I am convinced that solar will come back...at some point.

But..but. It should hurt a bit.

I want Moon to grieve a bit longer. He is gonna exhaust himself trying to get Solar back. Like run himself complete ragged to near his breaking point.

I want sun to pull him out of it. (Maybe for moon to break down crying, like sun had with earth when old moon died)

And I want THEM TOGETHER to come up with a solution for solar to come back. Something off hand that sun will say that will spur moon on into a whole new idea to get him back.

And then when that works cause it is gonna work. Solar would be back. And EVERYONE is waiting for him. All of them.

And he gets pulled into a group hug. And he might look at both sun and moon being like.

"I was right to be proud of you two"

(moon should break again. But happily this time. And then they drag him off to have ice cream as a family)

Just. I believe solar will be back. I really hope so. And I had to scream at someone. You were my target I am so sorry.

Yes. This

Sun told Earth in therapy that Solar is the best one to calm Moon. Solar was always this. He was Moon's rock. He was always the one to put a hand on Moon, and tell them that they can't get angry now or behave recklessly. Solar always put Moon in his place when Moon was acting too far out of line. When Bloodmoon broke Lunar's arm, Solar strongarmed Moon to keep him with him, and gave him a stern talking to in the bathroom. This has always been Solar's role. And he never minded doing it, and he wasn't scared to tell Moon like it is. Solar was Moon's stability. Now Moon doesn't have that anymore………

WHICH IS WHAT RUIN WANTS. It's why Solar's dimension was one of the first ones targeted. He's manipulating Moon's rage. He wants Moon to kill him, destroy everything…. Throw a fit and think irrationally. Solar was holding Moon back………. Moon does not have that anymore………

Things will get worse.

But Moon will be so destroyed over this.

Not to mention, how Earth and Lunar will take the news.

The last conversation Earth had with Solar is how great he was and how he helped her with therapy.

Solar was also there to calm Lunar down after killing Eclipse.

Lunar and Solar meeting changed both of their lives for the better.... I am worried about Lunar losing control and regressing.... Lunar made a little progress... of self awareness and practicing self talk.... But he JUST STARTED his treatment.... He hasn't been to his first therapy session yet...... Lunar is very venerable and I worry about things going worse with him.

#tsams #danachan's rants #laes

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perplexingluciddreams · 1 year ago

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are you really fully nonverbal?? and if so do you use FC or any other scientifically fraudulent treatment approach.

(because others have gotten offended: I am not targeting you specifically just wary of many “nonverbal advocates” I see being paraded on this platform when their voices are very likely not their own. this is a human and civil disability rights issue and I’m wary of it spreading to Tumblr which I know as a social justice oriented platform. This is a good website about this civil rights issues https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org

Yes. In my case, I am fully permanent nonverbal from (late) regression, but growing up I was semiverbal with unreliable speech (my mouth say things that I could not control). I cannot get speech back ever, it is permanent loss.

I don’t use Facilitated Communication. But FC, RPM (Rapid Prompting Method), and S2C (Spelling to Communicate) is all methods that help some people communicate and is not “fraudulent”. I will admit I don't know anything really about FC, though.

I type my posts mostly on phone or iPad. This post is on iPad because it is longer and I need more text predict and autocorrect for that. I also have AAC device, I use in real life interaction along with basic BSL (British Sign Language).

If you are worried about nonverbal people’s voices, only thing you should do is listen to us. Especially if you are concerned about nonverbal people who use FC, listen to them and what they say. And believe in their communication.

I will always believe nonverbal/nonspeaking people who use FC/RPM/S2C, above anyone who try to discredit them and their communication methods.

“Paraded” on this platform is not nice to say. We are just people doing same thing as a lot of other people, posting on social media about our lives and interests and things that matter to us. “Voices are very likely not their own” - I know exactly about what it is like not being able to control my voice and how scary and upsetting it is, you should not compare a valid communication method to this. Also I have not seen anyone on Tumblr that use FC, that I am aware of.

I see other people answer this and go into more detail so I will spare my energy and not type any more. And I am not the best person to answer in the first place, I am just a random teenager that happen to be nonverbal. I am not advocate, I don't have all the information, I don't know enough to talk about such complicated topic.

It really seem like you just want to get other people to discredit FC, not that you are actually interested in care for nonverbal people. The fact you write “scientifically fraudulent” right away, and not even ask question in neutral way, show that. And link website that ONLY show negative side of FC, is not scientific at all. If you don't consider all sides then you cannot make a neutral and fair decision. And really is not my place or your place to decide what "count" as "valid communication".

Maybe if people is offended, you should think about why.

#anon ask

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mama-waterlily · 23 days ago

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(disclaimer: if you reblog this post please make sure you're a 18+ account, and don't tag it agere. i don't want minors stumbling on my nsfw page. if you ignore this i will block you)

ok so i've spent a good amount of time in agere communities for a while, and i've come to notice some... offputting behavior?

cw for some light mentions of child grooming

most of it is fine. the point i start to get really uneasy is when people start writing shipping dynamics, and this puts me off because i check people's ages, and there are a lot of minors in the space. a lot of them.

so forgive me, but i'm a bit put off when i see the terms "little, caregiver, and flip" used in the context of relationships or dynamics. i don't think i need to point this out, but this is very reminiscent of kink lingo. we're not going to pretend it isn't? "sub, dom, switch."

i'll see some posts in the agere tag of some lonely 15 year old typing in baby lisp about how they want someone to take care of them, and i'll see a 19 year old respond offering to babysit them. i report them any time i see this, because i feel it's not appropriate or safe for an adult to be DMing a minor in a space that's so kink-adjacent, and so commonly mistaken for kink. i feel a lot of people have rooted some of their kink into the space, because a lot of ageplayers are also age regressors. myself included. maybe they can't tell the difference and don't understand that what they're saying or doing is suspect?

the biggest thing that concerns me is a fixation on caregivers. relationship dynamics. i'm very uncomfortable seeing minors essentially describe CGL relationship dynamics, even in a nonsexual situation, and seeing people with adult ages in their bio reblog them.

maybe i'm just going crazy, maybe i'm just paranoid. but i've seen some stuff. here's a story.

i was in a cute babyish daycare style world in vrchat a couple years ago, and it was just me and two people there. one of them was 15, and the other was 20. i guess the 15 year old was there because she wanted to help regressors calm down or feel taken care of? idk. i was just keeping to myself and listening to the music and looking around. the other two were talking, and i overheard the 20 year old make a couple allusions to how they "make a lot of lewd jokes, but they'll try not to when talking with her". they then ask the 15 year old if they could "be her little". my blood kinda ran cold, especially because she said yes, and didn't seem to be aware that anything was wrong. i'm usually not confrontational but i told the person to fuck off and warned the kid about people like them. i usually mind my business but this felt like it could be extremely pivotal for the rest of the kid's life. if you know anything about child grooming and the ways people get kids used to discussions of sex, then you know what was going on here. i hope i helped her. idk what happened after that, because she ended up getting off to go to bed soon after i lectured her, and i never saw her in the space again.

this shit happens. and i'm really fucking concerned for minors in a space that has so many parallels to an existing kink that people have to constantly be clearing up the stigma that age regression isn't a kink. and since they're so adjacent, there are going to be people with mixed sexual feelings on ageplay going into agere communities and, since they haven't examined themselves and sorted out their feelings enough, bring those mixed feelings into a space with a lot of minors.

anyway, this was sorta just a little ramble. it's been bouncing around in my little brain for a bit.

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rhetoricandlogic · 6 months ago

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REVIEW: Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I know Adrian Tchaikovsky best from works like Children of Time, Children of Ruin and Dogs of War where he uses other creatures, often affected by humanity’s meddling to talk about very relatable human issues, often dealing with the issue of communicating across species boundaries. Elder Race deals with similar core themes, but all of the protagonists are human. Sort of.

Lynesse Fourth Daughter is an impetuous spare heir in a devolved human society that is at a roughly high medieval state of development (or rather, regression) who seeks the assistance of Nyrgoth, the Elder sorcerer (Elder Race, get it?) to aid against a demon that is afflicting nearby lands. The problem is that Nyrgoth isn’t really a sorcerer but a low level anthropologist who’s notionally supposed to be tracking the development of a colony on behalf of the successors to the more developed human civilisation that originally set them there.

Yes, this is very much nailing the ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’ trope right on the head, but it does it very well.

Things are complicated by the facts of exactly why Nyrgoth is alone in his tower and has a reputation for coming to these people’s aid in former generations and the story really turns on the difficult relationship between Lynesse and Nyrgoth and their vastly different outlooks on the world.

Elder Race is not a long book, definitely in novella territory but it packs a lot of big ideas and sharp characterisation into the low word count. Tchaikovsky uses the contrast between the core characters as a way to show how people can be very different but also ultimately very much alike.

You have Lynesse being impetuous and determined while Nyr is restrained, overly cerebral and battles depression. Lynesse sees Nyr’s capabilities as magical while he’s all too aware of his limitations and the science at play. At the same time, for wildly different reasons both fear that they are failures and want to prove themselves, to find connection to a kindred spirit or find meaning in their lives.

The difficulties of communication are fun as well, as Nyr’s imperfect translations of Lynesse’s lingual drift leads to him trying to explain science to her but the meanings sound like magical terms, so he ends up saying “I’m not a sorcerer, I’m a magician” and similar to great mutual frustration.

Throw in the way that Nyr often misreads things like how clothing styles are supposed to work or the nuances of local power structures or manners and theres a neat comment on how being a more advanced, supposedly Elder Race and having a near omnipotent viewpoint isn’t as great when you lack context.

Ultimately, the demonic antagonist ends up being almost beyond Nyrgoth’s science anyway, which implies that there’s more going on in this universe than he’d previously been aware of and maybe they have made contact with a genuinely Elder Race and not just a coloniser with some cool toys. The shared existential dread of a genuine Outside Context Moment is a nice subversion of the tone of the story up to that point.

I also detected a fun pun where Lynesse refers to the adversary as a demon, yet how it works seems to be analogous to what a daemon in computer terminology does, except operating on a biological level.

All in all Elder Race is a really fun novella, displaying Tchaikovsky’s trademark sharp prose and big ideas conveyed in interesting ways. It feels like a nice thought experiment that worked out into a compelling story and I’d recommend this to existing Tchaikovsky fans, plus anyone who likes Iain M. Banks, Ann Leckie or Gareth L. Powell.

#Adrian Tchaikovsky #Elder Race #mahreviews #long post

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theoceantot · 10 months ago

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Chapter 2

After a lot of walking the two saw the butterfly estate. You loved how big and pretty the house looked.

"Is so big and pwetty"

Before Shinobu could stop her You ran into a Wisteria tree and started to smell all of it. To her shock you weren't affected at all by it in fact you seemed more relaxed.

"Now Now its late and baby's need their sleep" Shinobu said and took your hand leading you into the estate.

Y/n wasn't used to being in a house this big. She's always been poor and never even knew the luxury of having three meals a day.

"You need to hold my hand so you don't get lost okay?"

"Okays"

'How'd she know I was gonna run off?'

Shinobu led you into a spare room and put multiple drapes over the window so the sun wouldn't burn you in the morning.

"Let's get you into bed shall we"

You were gonna protest but the yawns came out to quickly. Shinobu took off your clothes and put you in some comfy pajamas.

"Are you feeling comfy butterfly?"

You sleepily nodded your head and crawled under the covers. Shinobu was about to leave until she heard you cry and start to reach out to her.

"No leave me please stay"

"Relax I'm not going anymore"

Shinobu got into bed next to you suprissd to see you cuddling into her. You warmed up to her that fast? You've only just met. Shinobu didn't complain and allowed you to cling onto her for the rest of the night.

"Master?"

Shinobu was spoken awake by Kanao.

"Are you aware there's a demon next to you"

"Yes I'm aware Kanao so please put your sword down"

Kanao nodded and put her sword away. Shinobu gently shook you awake causing you to wake up crying.

"I sowwy no hwurt"

"You're okay butterfly you're safe. Can I touch you?" Shinobu softly said not to scare you.

Y/n nodded and Shinobu pet your cheeck with her small hand. You loved this affection so much that you grabbed her hand and tried putting it into your mouth.

Kanao was about to draw her sword when Shinobu stopped her. Y/n wasn't trying to eat her. Biting was just the littles love language. She kept doing this until she held Shinobus arm like she was scared of her leaving.

A confused Kanao asked. "Shinobu why is she acting like an infant"

At this point you were regressed to early infant years so you didn't understand a word she said.

"Kanao, do you remember when we talked about age regression in your psychology class?"

Kanao shook her head embarrassed that she forgot.

"Ahe regression is when someone reverts back to a younger state of mind"

Kanao looked at how you flapped your hands around and laughed then sticking your thumb into your mouth. Shinobu saw and quickly pulled your thumb out.

"Thats a no no butterfly. We wouldn't want you getting sick would we?"

Y/n didn't like this one bit and began to loudly cry. She wished she would have brought her paci with when she ran away.

Your loud crying attracted the attention of Aoi who rushed in the room seeing what was happening

"Is that a demon?! Why is she crying?!" Aoi panicked.

"Aoi, do you have an adult pacifier?" Shinobu asked.

She nodded and went to retrieve it.

This seemed to calm you down a bit and you three waited patiently for Aoi to come back.

"Here you go little demon"

Aoi handed you the paci and you instantly put it in your mouth and began to suckle on it.

"See all better!"

Aoi sighed in relief.

"Thank god I picked up those pacifiers just in case we had any littles"

Kanao and Shinobu nodded and watched you start hitting the bed laughing. Not only were you an age regressor but the three of them also suspected you had autism now too. With the stimming and not liking being touched. Both kept in mind to be really gentle with you.

"Shinobu, how are you gonna tell everyone else about this?! Do you really think Master will allow this" Aoi questioned. Her eyes widened as she saw your arm. There was a cut on your arm and it looked fresh. 'She must be pretty weak if she hasn't even regenerated yet'

Shinobu giggled. "Y/n is harmless. Her wounds from yesterday haven't even fully healed but I'm pretty sure you already knew that" Aoi nodded taking one last look at you before checking on the other patients.

"Shouldn't we set up a room for Y/n since she's gonna be staying with us?" Kanao asked.

"I suppose we should. We'll wait until it's night to go shopping so Y/n can pick whatever she wants" Shinobu said and gently pinched your cheeks. You giggle and gently patted her cheeks making you and her giggle.

𝑻𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒐 𝑺𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒔

•Kanao doesn't fully understand age regression yet

•Throughout the day you followed Shinobu like a duckling

•You were nervous around Kanao at first but quickly warmed up to her

•Aoi intimated you

#fandom agere #little space #agere #agerereader #little!reader #age regression #agere caregiver #age regressor #agere reader #knyagere #kny agere

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libbee · 2 years ago

Text

Aftermath of 8th house moon or scorpio moon mother-child relationship

Once upon a time there were two orphan boys in a small town somewhere in Japan. Their belongings were taken by people, house was seized by landlord and they were homeless. On a cold winter night, they had only one quilt or blanket to shield both of them in the snow. They hugged each other tight and put up the blanket. Next morning they were found deceased. A hotel owner picked their blanket and kept it in his hotel for the use of customers. A customer comes, eats dinner, drinks alcohol and goes to his room. Hotel owner gives him the same blanket that he picked up earlier. Customer goes to sleep but wakes up to a conversation: "big brother, are you cold?" "Yes, are you cold too?" Customer is terrified and informs the owner. Owner calls it rubbish and says he must be drunk. But the customer leaves hotel in fear. Same pattern repeats with many customers in coming days. Hotel owner is worried because of loss of business. So he takes the blanket with him and sleeps in it that night. He then wakes up to two voices talking to each other. But who was it? These voices came from the blanket. It was the conversation the two boys had the night they passed away. Their voices and feelings were absorbed in the blanket and kept replaying every night.

Mother is a goddess, the divine earth that gives birth to a new life

All mothers care for their offsprings, be it human or cow or dog or birds

But sometimes, some mothers are themselves so unhealed that despite their best intentions their parenting style terrorizes the child

These are the 8th house moon or scorpio moon mothers

Since the child spends most of his time close to mother, he is attuned to mother's emotional cycles

And since the child knows nobody else in the world, he is dependent on mother for all his needs

Mother is suddenly happy, suddenly irritated, suddenly anger outburst then act like nothing happened

A child who grew up in this environment has emotionally disfigured life even in adulthood

He does not understand why he keeps feeling childhood emotions when he does not live in that environment anymore

But the feelings of childhood are deeply absorbed in his body. Just like the blanket in the story above, child absorbs the energy of his environment that keeps replaying for many many years on its own

Absorbs the feelings in environment, destablizing, perpetually chaotic, repetitive memories, analytical thoughts, age regression, flashbacks of childhood are common

Even after the child has stepped into adulthood, his body has absorbed the eggshells environment of childhood and causes various emotional, mental, physical problems

There is a book called Body Keeps The Score and a whole field of psychology dedicated to how mother or father issues can carry with you your whole life and impact decisions at every point of time

Proof is in the experience

It is not fault of mother either. Imagine the kind of environment she grew up in to turn out like that

The process of healing can be really personal and duration will vary from one person to other. It is also about willingness, luck, how self aware they are, resources to read from. I myself dont know much about healing, I just try to validate what is common for certain natives to feel so they dont think they are lost or hopeless

Though if you are comfortable or habitual to feeling unwholesome emotions, healing is an oppotunity to become enlightened

For eg, there is a famous astrologer P V Narsimha Rao with many planets in 8th house (but not moon) who is efficient in astrology, spiritual practice, meditation, advaita vedanta, topics of karma, tantra and matters of spirit. There is a free pdf on his blog where you can see how he puts his 8th house planets to use by really reading into the unconscious. His blog is called vedicastrologer.org.

In the same breath, I would like to mention Osho for his spiritual talks who also had many planets in 8th house

If natives are capable of adjusting inner expectations to physical reality, realize they did not have a conventional childhood and that they need not conform to socio cultural norms as adults, the darkness they feel can be the source of enlightenment

Even Buddha sought enlightenment because he was disturbed at the sight of a sick man, an old man and a dead body

That is to say one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious (Carl Jung)

#astrology #Moon in 8th house #astro community #astro notes #astroblr #astro tumblr #astrology and mental illness #vedic astrology #vedic astro notes

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tomyo · 1 year ago

Text

A silly post that turned into an essay on:

The Adolescence of Utena 🌹

So I feel like a lot of people generally agree that Adolescence of Utena is a continuation of the tv series (another revolution) and honestly right now I have kind of hazy memories of wanting to discuss the parallels of Utena and it's movie with Evangelion and it's movies.

However right now I'm mostly thinking about how AoU is kind of like a cancer. I don't know what word to properly use, overgrown, oversaturation, a virus but it is pushing things to the extreme with it characters. Now yes that's also because it's a movie but like there is a lot more explicitly to character relationships. When people have described the school as in decay but I think you could also look at it as the stretch marks of it suddenly growing beyond its shape (a puberty like sudden growth). If the space, the mob, the plot and the characters were all acts in a play then they have been boiled down to their essence. I'm specifically thinking of the instance where Anthy bursts the pipe for the dance scene and how empty everything feels outside of them. That the old rose garden is this forgotten relic and the new rose garden is the center stage shining above all else but unsafe with hidden ledges and no railings. There is no housing for the roses almost as if they are wild flowers that grew where they pleased.

I always liked particularly how Anthy was very forward in this. She doesn't seem aware of her previous life but she is much more in control than the last one. It's not good, it's not right but she is somewhat consensual in the incest. In a sense she catches previously always in control Akio of guard leading to his panic and trying to regain control by erasing both of them. Akio himself even is moreso the cliche of a playboy this time, extremely open with his sensuality and a cliche of a 90s heartthrob. I think there could be a statement to say it's also a good representation of complex trauma and grief. The pre opening credits start on what looks like it could be the moment after Akio killed himself which then jumps through the school to Bride Anthy kneeling before a younger looking Akio which previously represented his original chivilary and the concept of a prince (also in a sense a glorified image to idol). The scene could be read as a triggering moment where Anthy becomes chained to upholding her brother's legacy, a feeling that is disorganized from both grief, trauma, and a complicated love hate for her brother who was her abuser. The siblings in other media are implied to be gods and with Akio gone, Anthy is left to both uphold his part as the mastermind while also being the bride. She is baring a heavier load.

I would say AoU is much more about Anthy than Utena. The overgrowth could also be similar to a sheltered child to is given control. They go a little overboard. She seems both exploring the freedom to control the space but also falls back into her role and will go from her playful run to Saonji to still and emotionless when he caresses her face. It's like this switch between knowing she can do what she wants if she wanted to and then regressing into guilt over being "bad" for falling of from what she's expected to do. At points it almost like she wants Utena to punish her for perceived wrong doings. When they find her brother's body she buried she seems maybe annoyed but not worried or defensive of her actions, keeping focus on having Utena do whatever she wants with her. That in itself in a thing; I would say to some extent tv Anthy is meant to come off as an ideal Japanese wife, someone who has strong integrity but is subservient and a half step behind her husband at all times. AoU Anthy is much more openly willing to please her betrothed like a service top. (something something cool girl monologue) She's compensating for her failure of her role to her brother but also trying to reclaim her sexuality as her choice. When Saonji takes a kiss from her, he is guiding but she is not hesitant to do it.

When it comes to Utena herself I would say she is passively influenced by Anthy while also driving Anthy's eventual rebellion. Tv Utena I'd describe moreso as tomboyish, she sports a men's uniform top but the pants relate to neither, a third option, where her hair is still worn long. She would not be mistaken for a boy but things like her becoming more feminine was an active manipulation by Akio. Again as almost to overcompensate, AoU Utena is comedically masculine and assumed male at first, her little side cap always go to me since it had become uncommon by that point so it came off somewhere between looking like she was a cliche delinquent or like she was cosplaying a male student based off of out of date knowledge. It's like the step to far into trying to present masculinity when you're first trying(I had to take a moment to cringe recalling wearing cosplay pieces to class when I first started trying so myself but all my suit pieces where mismatched). I might go into that more later though. I'm also a fan of the dub so I haven't heard the tv original but Utena uses Boku in the movie, a masculine pronoun. While she tries to prevent Utena for falling into the narrative at first, Anthy seems to switch back into her role the moment a spectator catches them, Saonji. However upon learning that Utena is a girl is the moment that Anthy asserts her own agency fully, she is now lowered to reveal her chest but willing bends back to reveal the sword.

Anthy specifically has two foils in the movie; Utena and Touga. Anthy and Utena are mirrors or grief for the prince they lost and are following in the shadow of. Utena's rejection of femininity is to replace the loss of Touga she's in denial of much in the way Anthy plays the mastermind to hold onto the image of Akio. However like Anthy who has to play the role of a bride/princess, Touga's narrative is also about how he had to please others in much of the same way. He was literally sold off (like Anthy is won) to be a son and sexual victim of his adopted father. From additional materials it's been said his trafficking is a constant and in part willing in order to protect Nanami from targeting. His appearance was decided to the preference of his abuser, played the part of a heart throb for many women, and was the idol for his sister and best friend. People pleasing it less overt than Anthy's. When with Shiori, he is depicted as a receiving and giving lover; exchanging intimate acts of ear cleaning and painting ones toenails. It mirrors the same almost motherly but sexual nature Anthy presents to Utena; willing to bare Utena's anger by lovingly nuzzling her hair.

Again I got to cut away to say the dance scene always causes a panging in my chest Knowing how those roses falling with the song lingering on into the following day was meant to absolutely stun theater goers 20 some odd years ago. Its gives me this indescribable longing when it fades to the next scene every time.

Back to plot stuff, the stair scene is a great metaphor for how Anthy is pushing Utena along. Up until that point the story has been; the two meet, Anthy chooses to help Utena win her, she offers herself explicitly but is rejected, and then coyly flirts with Touga to rile up Utena. I would say at point Anthy's attitude is representative of a pushy girlfriend. She keeps trying to make Utena fall for her, first passive but explicit and willing to lead, gets rejected so she ignores Utena's command to leave in favor of diverting her by discussing her clothes and reengaging by intimately laying into her, and then once again taking being pushed away in stride. Being very casual and giggly with Touga feels out of character in the way it feels intentional to make Utena jealous. Albeit instead it pushed Utena to crack over Touga being different who is where is current affection lies (it's hard to love someone else is you haven't let go of who you lost). Before the full confrontation Anthy almost seems depressive, one of the scenes resembling her TV suicide attempt. While Utena is at first aggressive and distrusting of Anthy at the start of it, it seems like the moment of honesty was at least some step towards intimacy (emotionally) that Anthy was grasping for. (Haha man I could also get distracted talking about Utena being the hilariously accurate example of a clingy affectionate butch but that's really off topic) Utena is finally engaging with Anthy encouraging her to assert her dominance more. They're obviously drawing partners, she doesn't need to ask Utena to come along because she just will if she doesn't give Utena a chance to argue, and she has domain over where they can go in the school.

To be real at this point I'm watching subbless Japanese to remind of me stuff so I don't remember Utena's full ramble (I think some friendship speech like girl) but you can tell by the fact that Anthy is letting her image slip by willingly changing her body language to suggest boredom or annoyance. She shifts from passive posing into something more confrontational as she chooses to force vulnerability with Utena again. Anthy previously would've easily held position as expected of her as an obedient bride especially this one who had been frequently painted by her brother. She not only 'switches positions' on Utena but chooses to take on the role of the viewer that she was often denied and uses Utena's own words against her to convince Utena to be naked for her (I mean emotionally as well, Utena's whole speech was suffocatingly formal again to my vague memory and basically full of shit). To be naked in front of someone in both senses is to also be trusting of who is with you. Utena is being put on the spotlight by Anthy; a large empty but public room with big windows and planes taking off outside, the exact place our instincts tell us not to be naked and vulnerable in which adds to Utena's stress. However I'm certain Anthy is navigating Utena into making it seem like she was asked to do the same. She brings Utena to a space that will inadvertently reveal aspects of her relationship with her brother and in some part she wants to be 'forced' to show the hole in her chest, the scar and trauma he gave her.

Returning to the emotional complications of Anthy. The turmoil of abuse does not end when the abuser is gone. And like I said Anthy seems stuck between wanting to change and punishing herself for changing anything out of guilt. She feels the responsibility of her role but also eats into the idea that she is the 'witch' of the story, not just from how that's what others tell her to be but how she sees herself as the cause of misfortune. "The curse of the Rose Bride" is having to live on with the scar and work that her brother offloaded onto her. The ugly truth's about her personhood including the things seen as moral event horizons. One could look at her constant provocation of Utena is to spur either the rejection and disgust she believes she deserves or to find receive acceptance that she does not believe in. Someone loving her like the way *the idea* of her noble brother did. The sight of Dios to me is in a way to say "a person who cares for you in a noble way.". It is the sight of someone who won't exploit her. And at that is interrupted by the truth of her brother's dead body. So she runs, literally tries to step away from all the progress she's made.

So two things we gotta stop to go over, the character design and the term adolescence. At this point I'm retroactively making my thesis be the emotional haywire we experience from two types of major life events, the growth into individual personhood away from our caretakers, adolescence and the processing of trauma and grief. Obviously I went over grief so let's get to adolescence. So tons of people have said it better than me that the whole egg quote is also represented by the school, highschool is the final barrier (shell) to adulthood. The point of being born outside a proverbial womb that one must be strong enough to do for themselves. There are many ways teens think they are mature enough when they actually aren't and blah blah highschool isn't the end of your life. Growth is not always a constant progression forward and you can easily fall back into a childish life. I remember feeling more adult at 18 than I did at 21. TV Akio's failing to grow came from the fact that he wanted "power to revolutionize the world" but did not want to bare the responsibility of the swords which in context represent the anger of all the duty he had offloaded onto his sister. The image of an adult who refuses to grow up and rather surround himself with teenagers who do not yet know better and so emulate him. Anthy at the end of the tv series finally finds the catalyst for change and so crosses the threshold of the school into the adult world to find her Utena. Escaping abuse however is also not a linear path either and people can find themselves back with their abusers again. Sometimes I'm between if tv and movie Anthy are the same person for aspects like this despite her not seeming to be aware of who Utena is to her fully. The school might be a cracked shell but they are still in this world. Adolescence if you have lived a life being told what to do is a hard and sometimes guilt riddled experience. You were never given the space to self actualize and you are expected to take over the controls leaving you struggling between how you want to live and how you were told to live. It is confusing to know what to do with yourself when all limitations are taken away from you. Something resonates with that feeling and the various frames from the scenes of young princess Anthy being stormed by the mob of expectations. They vary between guilded to silly with a macaroni like quality being made out of candy and match sticks and ribbons interspliced with jeweled and gilded ones. Anthy looks more childlike in the movie than the TV series and I think sometimes graduating to adulthood changes you to being somewhat childlike all over again. But the world has changed since last time, a revolution is what we call one year when we spin around the earth, a year to grow and change in a new way from the previous. You may start new but the world did change.

Maybe it's still to not have realized how Anthy and Utena switched hairstyles. I always did realize that Anthy now had straight hair and Utena's was wavy but it just hit me on the head that the way Utena disguises her hair short is basically a similar tuck to Anthy's but vertically. Basically she hid her longer layers by coiling them up into each other BUT THEN hiding the tuck her a boys length shorter layer. Anthy's dress is also the more stand out change of the two, the original was always somewhat unconventional but the movie one really brings a sense of modern fashion in its design; body hugging, a front slit, and the show off of a pair of mature heels. Anthy does look a teen trying to present as an adult. A princess is always seen as a childlike person, the 'daughter' to the 'mother' of the queen. I have less to say deeply about Utena's outfit sas the fact that the shorts I mentioned before invoke the image of a yet to mature prince, sporty but unrefined and still also childlike. I think overall the gakuran sporting more place and harsher contrast gives the feeling of mourning but as well bring a level of maturity as the patterning reminds me a little of high end fashion of the time. Again, children trying to play adults. (As I was writing the end I realized that Anthy's new dress is a merging of hers and Utena's pink one from the TV series) Somewhere long ago when I started writing this I meant to talk about how they're acting out a fairy tale but we lost that plot.

What is important now is that when Anthy runs, Utena follows. Even before she faces closure, she asks first where Anthy is showing how her priorities have shifted. Her final willingness to recognize someone she loved was gone is the exact thing that brings her to the level of Anthy who how needs to reckon with the same thing, the death of her prince. Anthy tries to backtrack and proclaim Utena the prince of the school (the ruler of the domain within the shell) and reobjectify herself to being subservient to Utena. Rejecting her adulthood in someways. But Utena does not indulge the narrative.

Throughout the TV series, Utena's journey is that of growth. From a flimsy ambition to resolve, to a recognition of responsibility for those she cares for especially in how the champion is also a leader to others, and finally to the self determination of sacrifice for others. Whether she knows so or not, episode 1 Utena wanted to be a prince for selfish reasons. She wanted to become a prince because she believed the prince gave her a will to live. But she never took enough responsibility for others feelings, shirking Wakaba's feelings and staying aloof to everyone and even the gravity of being Anthy's prince. She had to constantly be retaught that you can't take things at face value or be half hearted over every situation. Which is why by the end she rejects the supposed love of her prince for Anthy who she truly does love. And even still had to learn that loving that person does not mean they will provide the same back. Anthy backstabbed Utena because Anthy was conditioned to believe she could not be loved and only through Utena's full resolve could she see a new world for her. And we return to this point as Utena turns into a car.

Hey! it's time for that point where everyone asks, what's up with the car thing? Well simple, a car is an image of transition, of moving on. Utena, is offering Anthy to move on from her abuse, the trauma of her brother. But a car needs a key to function in the same way loved ones can only help you escape abuse if you have the will to want to leave it. Utena cannot simply make Anthy recover, she has to want the recovery.

There are many ways you may struggle to change, the cycle of repetition and pattern is least resistant to others. But there are also those willing to support you on your journey of growth if you continue forward. The final barrier in the way of Anthy ultimately is her brother, less of a ghost as much as a concept, the destruction of ambition to overcome what you've always known. The race to the outside world is maybe one of the most gripping moments not just for it's gorgeous animation but for the transformation Anthy goes through. Absolutely refusing before haphazardly taking the leap into Utena as it dawns on her she can escape, to crying for Utena to save her when she's overwhelmed, to refusing to return to the comfort of the egg again when the hardest challenge presents itself, the castle thar defines her personhood for her whole life at that point.

Utena does not save Anthy, she shows Anthy that she can save herself. A person who was always told she was defined in relation to her betrothed and her brother and her role as a witch is given self actualization. To grow from adolescence to to self actualize, to become an adult finally responsible for all your agency. To overcome trauma is to reclaim you agency and identity for yourself. To revolutionize the world starts with a personal revolution.

I'm tomyo and thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

Additional notes: Japanese Akio's voice sounds kinda pathetic like I could punch the dude from how wimpy he sounds at points and I kinda love that. Again Im a particular fan of the English cast but I noticed this more this time. Also missed fitting in how the duels now take place in the open but all the students watch disinterested playing into some of the "this is a play by Anthy" allusions I wanted to initially make. I was really gonna keep this to just being "oooh I get why it's called the adolescence now" but then literally I also had a grief realization too and well... My final thought is that I learned to really love Anthy. I think Americans tend to not feel too strongly on her because we aren't taught a high level of emotional consideration and at some point it really felt like Anthy only ever got in art in relation to Utena ironically enforcing the same treatment she experienced in the story. I'm not free of this either having previously thought "ah yes, I am non binary ofc I relate to Utena..... right?". Wrong, it's Wakaba hahaha. But it's taken a while how much Anthy means to me especially in hindsight my first gay dream was specifically about movie Anthy which I just ignored for years. If anything I want to bring more love to her one day, she deserves so much more than she's given!

#utena #revolutionary girl utena #tomyo says shit #essay i guess #anthy himemiya

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trashlie · 2 years ago

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Considering the latest fast pass episode, I can’t help but wonder what comes next. Q-tip realizes not only how badly he mis perceived Nolan and treated him like as ass, but yui’s been drugging q-tip to keep him in control.

What will happen now that q-tip’s at Nolan’s door? Will Nolan return that beating he promised q-tip for assaulting him?

Will there be a sort of switcharoo in behaviors where q-tip does and gives up so much to tell Nolan he’s sorry? Only for Nolan to say f u over and over again?

How will yui even control q-tip, now that he’s aware of what she’s done to him? At most, it seems she’ll have to make him regress, unless he keeps this grim discovery from her.

I wonder if yui will even try to continue sabotaging Nolan, especially if she learns q-tip’s currently dead to the boy.

There’s so much to ask and talk about.

I actually think things are going to get so much worse for Kousuke now because of what he has figured out and because Yui is not going to just... simply give him up, you know? Because his predicament is that yes, he knows what she's done to him, but also: he knows that Yui's reach extends far beyond what his own can and he has no way of knowing who is in on her manipulation. Even something as simple as the realization that she refused to allow Hansuke to run the tests he wanted to do and had Kousuke discharged even though he was not well and should not have been is enough to show him that he has no control in any of this. It's her family's hospital, of course they'll do and say what she calls. But even that she threatened Hansuke's career over doing his role and duty as a doctor! That's above the law.

How does he know who he can trust? How does he know when he's been drugged? Obviously there are things like drugging him to make him pass out, but it reads so much deeper. What about the night he went to the club with Hansuke and Yujing? He barely drank but he was behaving and feeling as if he'd been drinking all night, with the auditory hallucinations, becoming aggressive and fighting people, leaving all of those voicemails, arguing with an imagination of his brother. What was already in his system before he began drinking and how did it get there?

Kousuke lives on his onw, not at the family home, with a hired chef. That one day he called Hansuke over because he was stressed out and nothing in his normal routine - including eating desserts - were helping him to calm down. Ordinarily the crepes would help him! But the crepes he prepared, because his personal chef was out?

There's all these little clues that show him he can't even trust his own hired help. What is possibly safe for him to consume?! Who all is in on it?

And that's just the drugging. He doesn't know yet that Yui threw out Rand's gift and replaced it with something subpar, something so out of Kousuke's tastes that it makes it seem like Rand doesn't know him or care about him at all. What happens when he realizes she did that? When he remembers every event Rand missed, or arrived late to, arguing with Yui about how she didn't tell him anything? Will he start to realize that she has been driving that wedge all along, that every time he moved closer to his father, to his goal, she got involved and ensured that gap was further widened?

When he starts to see for himself that dissonance in the way he views the world vs how others do? Will he be haunted by Yujing's words, that at no point has Nol ever fit the violent, unstable character Kousuke has attributed to him, that at no point has she seen that character in him - but rather that it appears to fit Kousuke more?

Something that we must keep in mind regarding Kousuke is that the way he treated Nol was not without reason. Yui has ensured that Kousuke always perceived him as a threat, and it appears she's gone to great lengths to discredit his character, the way he is perceived, the way Kousuke remembers him.

Does Kousuke even have a specific incident in mind that he can concretely recall to back up his claims? I think if he was pressured to tell him about a time, he'd fail to, because possibly no such event exists. What he believes is based on Yui's influence, what she told him in the aftermath of an event so traumatic he seemed to dissociate or white out as it was happening, that he has no actual recollection of, because of the drugged tea that has blurred his memories. The thing is, he absolutely believes Nol is violent and unstable, not as "someone told me this" but because he's been so very convinced of it.

But at some point he's going to become fully aware of that dissonance. We've already seen it coming up a lot, but every time it does he doubles down, because obviously if he realizes, acknowledges, that his accounts are falsified, it brings us back to that territory of "what can he trust, what is real"? And he's so close to that. The realization that he's been drugged is showing him that, and I think we're going to touch a little on it with his visit to Nol.

I absolutely do not think this visit is going to go well, not because I think Nol is going to fight him - I think besides the fact that he's heavily injured, it's clear that he's just tired and done. He promised a beating at the time because he was pushed to his limit, he was angry and in the moment, but that's not where he is right now. I think more than anything, Nol is just done with him, and if Kousuke comes in with this realization that she drugged him, too, that he denied Nol every time he reached out to him, what's Nol going to do? Say congratulations you figured it out let's be brothers? Of course not. It will probably be more something about how it took this long for him to figure it out, after he nearly killed him? Something about how he doesn't care, he's done, just leave me be, I don't want to be a part of your life anymore.

I don't think it's going to be bad in that it's going to be an altercation, but rather it's just going to be bad in that I think perhaps Kousuke is reaching out for help, or even reaching out because he's realized how much Nol needed him, and it's too late. Because he's finally faced the truth and it's too late, because Nol doesn't want to be a part of it anymore. And in that way, yes, I think we're very much going to see that role reversal, where Nol is done with all of this and wants nothing to do with him, even as Kousuke finds himself in Nol's position, alone and vulnerable with no one he can trust no one he can turn to, and Nol will refuse the assistance.

At this point, there's still a lot Nol doesn't know about Kousuke's circumstances and I do one 100% believe that is going to change in the future, that Nol's feelings towards him will change when he comes to understand how much Kousuke was manipulated, how much they were pit against each other by Yui - that Kousuke seeing Nol as a threat is as deeply psychologically ingrained in him as Nol seeing himself as a monster. Perhaps once Nol can begin to see the way he was manipulated to see himself as this horrible monster who brings nothing but pain, once he realizes that Kousuke was very much a victim of Yui, he'll see that he, too, was manipulated in a way that altered his psyche so much that Nol was never able to get through to them.

But for now, I think we'll see Nol shut the door on Kousuke and leave him completely alone and vulnerable. And frankly, that's painful for me, because I'm really glad Kousuke is finally getting to this point, finally starting to see the dissonance and realize that so much of what he believes is falsified or manipulated, but it's so regrettable that it's too late. 212 made it so clear that despite Kousuke's fears and desire, despite how his addled views warped the way he treated Nol, he still knew that Nol was the only one to really see him, to have ever offered him unconditional love. He sees in Nol so much of what he doesn't possess, the kind of person he isn't. Kousuke never had the option to be that kind of easy going, laid back, easy to befriend person, because he was taught to perceive everyone as a threat, that everyone wants what he has, and they only like him for his money and influence. And to some degree that wasn't actually wrong! Nol is one of the only authentic people Kousuke knew, who wanted to like him for who he is, but that perception of him as a threat was something he could not undo himself. It's agonizing for me, to watch these tragic brothers fight and hurt each other, and to watch Kousuke start to make these steps and reach that state of vulnerability and know that he's going to be (rightly) pushed away, that it will now be his turn to sit with his fear, to be so alone with no one he can trust, and fall apart.

And I think that's very much how Yui will be able to further control Kousuke - because she doesn't NEED to drug him to control him. He's alone, isolated, all she has to do is box out Hansuke and Yujing, all she has to do is ensure Kousuke has no idea who he can trust. If anything, we're set up for a worse potential where Kousuke's mental state falling apart allows for Yui to be more of a caretaker, to be more involved in his roles and duties, should it reach such an extreme.

Consider even if he was to evade her drugging following this he's still going to deal with the withdrawal, and how he handles stress as a result of what they've done to his system, as a result of what he thought was his normal base of operation being a version of himself that's been drugged. How do you cope? How do you deal with the stress, how do you handle that? And again, the withdrawal!

That future hint in the anime expo poster really shows us that Kousuke is going to be having A Very Bad Time in the future. Will he turn back to the drugs, because detoxing is so difficult? Drinking? He's going to struggle so much and I think that works to her advantage.

As for Nol, it doesn't matter what Nol and Kousuke's relationship is, she will never give up on destroying him. Nol's existence is a threat, that much she was right about, even if he never wanted what Kousuke had in the first place. Supposing the muko-yoshi theory is true (and at this point I strongly believe it is), Nol very much is a possible contender for heir as a direct blood relative of Rand. The theory goes that Rand would have been adopted into the Hirahara family and is treated as a blood relative, and that is is through his blood lineage that the company can pass. As Rand's other son, this makes Nol more than possible . It brings us to two important points: a. if Kousuke is not actually Rand's biological son, it means he was never able to be heir in the first place and b. if Kousuke is incapacitated for whatever reason, Nol is next in line.

Everything Yui has done to Nol has been a long game, taking every effort to ensure that his image so is far ruined no one would ever consider him as a possible candidate to lead the company, to inherit the company and fortune. Kousuke's inherent, psychologically driven belief that Nol is violent and unstable is not without reason. He was sent away for it and locked away for nearly two years. There are news stories about him hurting Kousuke. At school a reputation of both violence and mental stability follow him. The media had no problem subscribing to the story that he was a violent person who was slipping roofies and assaulting people. Whatever happened that night Nol was taken away, that Kousuke cannot actually remember, as 300% in some way orchestrated by Yui, something she'd been building up to. It was the way she manipulated Kousuke to see Nol as this threat, it was how she'd commodified his familial love and made him believe he needs to become good enough to be loved by his father and took advantage of Nol's existence to further Kousuke's drive. Everything has been carefully orchestrated to encourage Kousuke to blindly chase his father, to become the perfect heir that she could puppet, and to ensure in no capacity could Nol ever be considered a possible contender.

Everything Yui has done has been because Nol exists. It has nothing to do with how Nol and Kousuke feel about each other - it has always been about undermining him at every opportunity, and encouraging Kousuke to do so as well, so that any of Nol's potential was diminished, never had a chance to grow.

As long as Nol exists, and certainly as long as he shows potential, as long as anyone believes in him, she will never let him go. There is no escape for him.

#I Love Yoo #ILY Brainrot #ILY FP #ILY Spoilers #Kousuke Hirahara #Yui Hiarahara #Nolan Oliver T. Lochlainn #I have so many feelings about these tragic brothers i just cry about them aljfakfjkafkj GOD #and what a MONSTER Yui is how she's orchestrated all of this #her goal was ALWAYS to ensure that Nol had nothing to stand on #because his mere existence alone is a threat #that's why she's done any of this #had Rand had an affair that yielded no children she would never have been this bad #i'm sure she would still have been awful and fucked with Rand but #this is because HE fathered another child #because Nol stands to inherit everything if something happens to Kousuke #if it turns out Kousuke is NOT Rand's child #from the moment he existed everything she orchestrated was about showing that Nol was ill fit that he was too unstable too violent too #dangerous to be considered an heir #that's why she manipulated Kousuke the way she did to view Nol as a threat #BECAUSE HE IS #and more importantly so that he would NEVER have a chance to grow to shine so be viewed as potential #and that is the key to understanding how Yui operates and why she has done to Kousuke AND Nol what she has

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