#tenet of adulthood

[dungeon-strugglers]

✨New item!✨ Chain Devil’s Embrace  Armor (chain mail or chain shirt), very rare (requires attunement by a lawful creature)  This mass of chains slithers with sinister sentience, threatening to constrict anyone in reach. Each chain ends in a rusty hook or wicked blade, perfect for snaring and lacerating victims. Donning the chains as a suit of armor is an unpleasantly confining experience, but the living metal adjusts to provide ample protection and mobility to its wearer. You can choose to don it as a suit of chain mail or a chain shirt. You have a +1 bonus to AC while wearing this armor.

Infernal Oath. In order to attune to this armor, you must declare an oath that will bind you together. The oath can be any goal, set of rules, or moral tenet that you choose, however it must be clearly defined and actionable. If the oath is of sufficient clarity and importance, it appears in written form and must be signed in blood before it burns away. 

Grasping Chains. The armor has 7 charges, and it regains 1d4 + 3 expended charges daily at dawn. As an action while wearing it you can expend 1 charge to shoot out hook-tipped chains to ensnare a creature that you can see within 10 feet of you. Make an attack roll against the target with a +8 bonus. On a hit, the target takes 2d6 slashing damage and, if it is Huge or smaller, it is grappled (escape DC 16). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, takes 1d6 piercing damage at the start of each of its turns, and you can’t use Grasping Chains. 

Devilish Form. While wearing the armor, as a bonus action you can invoke its infernal essence for 1 minute. For the duration, you gain the following effects:

Your skin turns blood red, your eyes glow like coals, and chains writhe across your body. 

Grasping Chains’ range increases to 60 feet. It deals an extra 2d8 fire damage when it hits a target.

You are immune to fire damage.

As a reaction when a creature starts its turn within 30 feet of you and you can see one another, you can create the illusion that you look like one of the creature's departed loved ones or bitter enemies. It must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened until the end of its turn. Creatures that can see through illusions are immune to this effect.

Once you’ve used Devilish Form, it cannot be used again until the next dawn.

Sentience. The Chain Devil’s Embrace is a sentient, lawful evil suit of armor with an Intelligence of 11, a Wisdom of 12, and a Charisma of 14. It has hearing and darkvision vision out to a range of 120 feet. The armor communicates telepathically to the creature attuned to it and can speak, read, and understand Infernal and Common.

A sadistic chain devil named Tyrastr lives within the Chain Devil’s Embrace. The armor yearns to inflict pain and tyranny on others. It doesn’t care what the beliefs of its wearer are, so long as they are enforced meticulously and transgressors are punished without mercy.

Curse. While wearing this armor, Tyrastr demands strict adherence to your oath. If you act contradictory to your oath or do not seize an opportunity to mercilessly pursue it, the chains constrict around you and you take 1d8 piercing damage. The damage increases by 1d8 with each subsequent transgression. If this damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you immediately die and your soul is sent to hell, where it is imprisoned by a chain devil warden.

Until your attunement to this armor ends, you have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws while wearing any other armor. A soldier kneels before you, defeated. Blood and sweat mats the hair to his face. Up close, you see he is a year or more from adulthood. The boy’s trembling rattles his armor. “The cur prostrates itself before you, make it suffer!” Tyrastr’s vile, metallic voice pierces through your mind, dripping with sadistic glee. “This one was there, watching your home burn!” Despite your commitment to destroy the Malefic Order for razing your temple, your rage falters. Killing this boy would be wrong. You turn your back and listen to his fleeing footsteps.  “Spineless worm! How will you avenge your brothers if you cannot do what is necessary!?” As these words reverberate through your skull, your chain armor constricts. Links of jagged iron bite into your flesh, reopening half-healed cuts. Blood mingles with rust. The pain is exquisite. - 🖌🎨 Like our work? Consider supporting us on Patreon and gain access to the hi-resolution art for over 200 magic items, printable item cards and card packs, beautiful creature art and stat blocks, and setting pdfs with narrative hooks and unique lore!🧙‍♂️ Thank you so much for your support! 💖

📜 Credit. Art and design by us: the Dungeon Strugglers. Please credit us if you repost elsewhere.

[stromblessed]

henry and hans and kcd's coming-of-age themes turn into an absolutely compelling gordian knot if you insert one trope in particular, one you'll see in historical fiction and epic fantasy every so often, and one i heard a few times in my fundamentalist religious upbringing:

that homosexual attachment is a sign of immaturity

henry and hans both have some growing up to do throughout the games. henry was coddled by his parents, hans' adolescence seems perpetual. they - hans in particular - use and discard women as they please, risk their own dishonor in a dozen ways, are naive about politics, can pick and choose tenets of chivalry when it's convenient with little self-awareness, and most strongly highlighted in the narrative: they want to live a life of adventure free of real responsibility

that last one in particular isn't all bad, it's just painfully innocent, and a painful misunderstanding on hans' part especially, who is only just beginning to see how not free he truly is. but it's also, for me at least, a big part of what drives the romanticizing of hans and henry's relationship, a big part of how arthuriana can be inserted into their narrative, and an excellent tool for yearning

the trope i mentioned can basically be a way of saying: sure you, a boy, want to kiss boys. that's all well and good. but that's not real love and it's not a serious relationship because in this society, you can't take that into adulthood. when a boy becomes a man, he marries a woman, has children, takes up real responsibilities, and leaves behind childish things. and those homosexual feelings are childish because if you commit yourself to them, it will never lead to maturity - wife, kids, contribution to society, godliness, the aptitude to resist temptation. recall that in kcd's medieval period in catholicism, active suffering (be it mild or severe) without giving in is what makes you saintly

for girls and women, rinse and repeat but for all the implications that come with being female instead of male re: expectations and responsibility

a major story thread binding henry and hans together is how they free each other. hans, through his adventurous nature and his privilege, and often with his recklessness, launches henry from a life of serfdom and servitude into one of renown, heroism, and exploration. (this isn't a part of canon due to the timeline of storytelling, but i like to think that if everyone was serious about henry being hans' right hand, henry would also have been given a noble's education rather than him needing to figure it all out himself to support game mechanics) henry gets the more literal role by physically saving hans again and again, but also by being hans' one real friend and support in the world as far as we can tell. they make each other's stories more interesting and more fun. we actively want them to have that life of adventure and freedom together

and hans cements that longing by bringing lancelot and galehaut into the romantic plotline. lancelot and galehaut had that life together, and their myth is permitted and loved by kcd's medieval world because it operates within this lowercase-"r" romantic realm of loyalty, devotion, fantasy, courtly love, and friendship. even today, a capital-"r" Romantic interpretation of their story would be considered just that: an interpretation. the masses would have considered lancelot and galehaut to be the pinnacle of platonic - utter love and devotion while still being, for lack of a better word in this analysis, "mature"

i actually thought it was viciously clever of the kcd writers to include an arthurian myth in hansry's romance because of the meta of it all. a platonic interpretation of lancelot and galehaut is the mainstream. a platonic interpretation of henry and hans is (WAS) the mainstream. even in the game, henry can respond to hans' story very innocently, as though the capital-"r" Romantic undertones have flown straight over his head, such that hans has to gently guide henry toward the conclusion. i'm not even fully convinced that hans himself sees lancelot and galehaut as fully capital-"r" Romantic - i AM convinced that he heard about their life of devotion and freedom and adventure together and that whenever it was that he saw henry and put two and two together, he felt a longing so strong that it 180'd his character development

and their kiss hits like the most satisfying lightning strike ever because. you mean to tell me that's not mature?

hans is crying at the thought of henry's death, and then again at the almost-reality of his rejection. hans' voice breaks for the first time EVER in game. it's the most serious and solemn we've ever seen him, even the most desperate. it's the craziest, most delicious whiplash from every time we've seen him and his cockiness with a woman. henry experiences the full spectrum of human emotion in 2 minutes. it is by far the most serious and, in my opinion, most heartfelt love scene he can have in both games. it is absolutely the most risky romance for henry, too. and afterward, hans and henry are both all in - even though we know that hans' intentions to skirt or cancel the wedding will come to naught. they are committed

they've grown into their manhood together and made each other better people. because we see behind the closed door that henry locks, we see that their romance is just an extension of that character growth. whereas our trope would say that their growth is stunted. it's never stated outright because it shouldn't be and doesn't need to be, but the masterclass of growth and emotion in the hansry plotline stands as its own proof of the fallacy of that "homosexuality is immature" viewpoint, as well as all viewpoints that romantic relationships are cheaper or less pure than, say, masculine friendships. the only difference between platonic and romantic hansry is hans' willingness to act on his feelings, as many have pointed out before

and so i cannot even tell you how fast all the breath left my body when hanush IMMEDIATELY slams reality home with the wedding conversation. henry and hans' silent exchange. hans' immaturity has been a thorn in hanush's side for the entire story. and now he's going to strongarm hans into that mainstream view of maturity. the very thing that hans wanted all along - now keeping him from henry, the actual real physical manifestation of all the love, devotion, freedom, and recognition that hans has ever REALLY wanted. the irony is so delicious because hanush doesn't know about hans' homosexual feelings - but the theme is there, the trope is there, hovering, and haunting, and so masterfully and absolutely disproved so very recently, and so the player can only sit there, crushed and grasping for any hope

so yeah. the tangle of homosexuality being perceived as immature, vs. hans and henry showing real immaturity throughout the first game especially as they fumble through heterosexual dalliances and chivalry and politics, vs. hans and henry's gay love for each other being the most mature love they've ever experienced, vs. the platonic ideal of masculine friendship not actually being that different from true romantic devotion, vs. mainstream societal expectations of family and masculine leadership being neither much of a choice nor true freedom, vs. henry and hans' friendship and love being a real representation of a life of adventure and daring that would in fact hold them back from their society and challenge what society has led them to believe they should want out of adulthood (henry: settling down and all that comes with it, hans: power, recognition, his birthright)

[designing-witch-forms-4-ur-faves]

So uh.. Can you make a witch Design for bayonetta? I mean she's already a witch But I mean Make her a witch forn from madoka magica

Bayonetta/cereza's History

Cereza was born as the forbidden child between a Lumen Sage and an Umbra Witch. Her birth caused a rift between the two clans due to a tenet claiming that "the intersection of light of dark will bring calamity to this earth". In turn, her father was exiled and her mother was imprisoned. She was originally prohibited from learning magic and grew up an outcast among the witches; despite this, Cereza met Jeanne and formed a strong friendship with her, often playing together as children and later forming a friendly rivalry. As a child, the little comfort Cereza had were the times she could sneak into her mother's cell. Her mother would try to express her affection despite her confinement, creating Cereza's Cheshire doll and often singing Fly Me To The Moon to her every night. Cereza was later given her Umbran Watch as a birthday present from her mother.

Bayonetta Origins:

On the eve of Cereza's tenth birthday, Rosa was to be moved to an even more solitary cell with no hope of seeing daylight again. The girl tried to stage a rescue, but her lack of strength and ability in the dark arts meant it was doomed to end in failure.

Turning her back on the clan, Cereza travelled to the outskirts of town where she met Morgana, another exiled witch who lived in isolation. Sympathizing with the girl's plight, Morgana began to strictly train Cereza in using magic so that she could one day be strong enough to rescue her mother from her fate

Adulthood:

After the Clan Wars, the Witch Hunts began. Around this time, Jeanne was chosen to be the next leader of the Umbra Witches, and in her final test to prove her worth, she chose Cereza as her opponent due to being perhaps the most powerful witch in the clan, despite the Umbran Elder insisting that it was forbidden. Their battle was interrupted as the Angels attacked; unaware of the true mastermind behind the attack, the Umbra Witches, including Cereza, were led to believe that her father, Balder, had initiated the Witch Hunts and attack. After finding her slain mother, Cereza lost her will to fight; Jeanne, understanding Balder's plot to resurrect Jubileus by obtaining the Left Eye, sealed away Cereza in a special ritual which imparted her into her Umbran Watch's red jewel and was hidden inside a coffin at the bottom of a lake

Five hundred years later, she is promptly found by Antonio Redgrave, who was hired by Balder to investigate her whereabouts. Shortly after being found, he is killed by Balder and his angels. His son, Luka, looks beyond and, due to being unable to see into Purgatorio, mistakes her for being the one that killed his father. Unable to remember much of her life, she retains that she is one of the last surviving Umbra Witches and dedicates her life to killing angels and regaining her memories.

Altered History:

Due to Balder's manipulations by bringing forth a younger version of herself from the past, Bayonetta inadvertently changed her own past and history.[1] Although the changes made in her past do not affect her history in this world overall and instead spawned another, the Left Eye of Darkness would open in both the main universe and the parallel universe because of it.

Bayonetta, working as a nun, acts out a funeral ceremony to summon the angels of Paradiso to her in order to fulfill her contract with Inferno. Casting aside her nun clothes, she is able to subdue them with ease with the help of Rodin. After her skirmish, Bayonetta travels with Enzo, a black market information broker, back to Rodin's bar in hopes of getting some answers regarding the Eyes of the World and the half that she carries in her watch. However, during the drive, the pair are ambushed by the crashing of a military plane and Bayonetta promptly takes to battle. There, she comes face to face with a mysterious woman who possesses similar weaponry and magical abilities to her. Despite the two of them working together in order to fend off the angels, the stranger disappears without an answer, though Bayonetta remarks that she seems to remember her from somewhere.

(And also sorry if this is too long!! Really sorry)

No need to apologize for the long post, I appreciate all the information I can get in an ask. Really helps!

The moment I saw she had different designs, I knew I wanted to combine elements of all three of her designs into this.

I remember watching a playthrough of Bayonetta 1 a long time ago but I never finished it. I think the last thing I remember was cereza emerging from a lake??

I might try and finish watching that playthrough sometime in the future after all these years (adding it to my long list of media to consume later)

Hildrun : the crescent moon witch

[theworldvsyoshiko]

If you just wandered in here for some reason, I've been rambling about this for a while. The short version, though: I forgot to swap people around while I was setting up my initial colonists, so I accidentally started the game with a randomly-generated 13-year-old with almost no skills. She almost immediately picked up an ancient beer from the ground and chugged it, so needless to say, she immediately endeared herself to me.

Since this whole thing started happened by accident, I never documented the basic situation here, so might as well start with that.

Meet Yoshiko "Happy" Russell. She started as a solo mechanitor, which means that she installed a chip in her brain that allows her to control robots mechanoids, got discriminated against as a result, and decided to flee to the edge of known space to live by herself.

As if that wasn't bad enough, this is the backstory the game gave her:

Thanks to this, the game often displays her name as 'Happy, Pushover.'

She isn't good at anything except research. The only other thing she's competent at is shooting. She's not a horrible artist, but she's not good, either. I think she's only managed a single work with a quality above Poor.

She's also now 17 years old, because Rimworld accelerates aging for anyone under 20 to get them to adulthood faster. Going from 13 - 18 takes 2 actual years.

Also, if you are familiar with how Rimworld handles ages, you will notice that she's 3433 chronological years old (i.e. she was in cryosleep for millennia), which has to be one of the highest that I've seen. It's also confusing, because it's now the year 5501, which means that she was born in 2068. According to the fiction primer, humanity started spreading out from Earth around 2100. So this kid was, like, the first person off the planet. I'm gonna say that relativity bullshit is to blame.

She follows the Creticonian Creed, which came from the game's 'randomly generate a lightweight ideoligion and develop it through play' option. I added a couple of precepts to it before starting, and the result can basically be summarized as "it is a moral imperative to automate as much work as possible so I can spend more time on Space Reddit." This is a philosophy that makes her constantly a little bit happier because she has automated turrets outside her front door. The randomly-generated title for the leader is 'Great Great Automancer,' and they are entitled to wear a beret. Which is all to say that it sounds exactly like something that a 13-year-old who's too smart for her own good would come up with. I swear that apart from the tenets, I didn't touch any of this.

[maxiemumdamage]

I think part of why I am super fixated on Thistle’s age as part of his tragedy is because of the autism.

Thistle was a child when all that went down in Melini which led to the creation of the dungeon and his descent into madness. He was a child and Delgal was an adult when Delgal, terrified by mortality, demanded Thistle make the kingdom live forever and then blamed Thistle for giving the kingdom exactly what it’s king asked for.

Thistle was a child. But he was a child constantly being treated like an adult because his so-called adoptive family didn’t understand that he matured at a different speed than them. Because they adopted and lowkey enslaved a kid from another race and didn’t bother learning about any of the things that made Thistle different from them.

And maybe it was just my experience, but I think a lot of autistic people remember being told how mature they were when they were little kids. Only to have people demand to know why you didn’t understand something they viewed as a basic tenet of adulthood or social life once you’re supposed to be all grown up.

(Obviously there’s also a racial bias at play — it’s not an accident that Thistle is one of relatively few dark-skinned characters in the show while the Melini royals are white. But I don’t feel as though I can speak authoritatively on that, especially since the autism is something I’m more familiar with.)

Thistle was a child when Delgal demanded immortality and a the Golden Lion offered it. And because he didn’t age or mature, he functionally stayed a child for the thousand years the dungeon existed. But he’s treated like an adult who holds the sole blame and culpability for his actions, despite how many people who were of far greater privilege and maturity pushed him to that point.

[solarspike]

quick elf doodles, lore under cut

elves are descended from the fairies that came to Velloriand after the great and terrible Hellwars, where the mortals of the planet attempted to oust their oppressive gods and establish Velloriand as their own. They failed, and the population of the planet was decimated - minor deities including fairies, angels, and devils, needed to step in to repopulate. in the four thousand years since this happened, the descendants of the fairies have absorbed their environments and differentiated into the elves we have today. elves live until they are killed, and reach physical and mental maturity around the age of thirty. they are still considered "young" by other elves until their second century

twilight:

found in the 'twilight', the layer of the world beneath the surface, cavern elves have grown to be extremely specialised to their dark, fungal environments. they can see well without light, but they rely predominantly on their senses of hearing and smell to get around. like all elves, they have two rows of sharp teeth, which fall out and are replaced as needed. culturally, twilight elves are fascinated by the dark and macabre, and many venerate the mushroom god Torber for their tenets of personal freedom, self-actualisation, and community. a lot of them also love piercings, tattoos, and (by surface standards) "unusual" hairstyles, making competitions between themselves to see who can pack the most metal and ink into their stone-coloured skin. other cavern elves, particularly the ones residing in Mantle City (the capital of the Twilight), prefer the ways of Orthoclase, the god of Death. these elves, comparatively, are much more culturally repressed, believing that you must play the hand you are dealt, and know your place in society without attempting to break free. (sylvia grew up in this religion, and it is partially why She Is The Way She Is)

green:

green elves, although not typically green, get their name from their woodland environments. they tend to stay in their communities from their birth until their death, and can go centuries without leaving their thousand-mile forests. they are fiercely territorial, and will stop at nothing to protect their homes, frequently killing and eating idiots that unknowingly wander into their woods. they have a special connection with their woodland homes, and often form symbiotic bonds with the plantlife that surrounds them, becoming one with the trees themselves. not always religious, but certain clans are devoted followers of the Evergreen, the life of the world. secrets that will never fall on outsiders' ears have been passed down through clans for generations, and they use this power to protect their forest and the things living in it, as well as simple things like taming beasts, predicting the weather, travelling quickly, and entering Quinacridones

snow:

these elves are the most human-looking of the bunch, with shorter ears to protect them from the cold and stouter proportions to help them stay strong and sturdy in whipping winds. these elves are almost never born with wings, but ones that are grow up to become prophets, scholars, and mages, if they survive to adulthood at all. snow elves make up almost the entire kingdom of Tagabinsk, with the elf queen Eira ruling with a fairer hand than most. their icy home is punishing enough, and snow elves tend to have a strong sense of community and a strong will to help those in need. they are excellent fishers, sailors, tailors, tinkers, builders, and engineers, but their favourite pastime is gathering round the fire and telling old tales.

chromatic:

the rarest and most violent variety of elves, found exclusively in the kingdom of Chroma, high in the clouds. A vast majority of these elves are born with wings, but the ones that aren't are thrown from the clouds if they don't prove themselves useful by adulthood. sometimes they'll just get thrown off anyway. chromatic elves are tall, skeletally slender, and many-toothed, having mouths full to bursting of identical white teeth. their kingdom is beautiful, spilling with rainbows and lightning, but no outsiders are permitted to enter without good reason. thankfully, these elves keep to themselves for the most part, deeming themselves above everyone else and thus too good to touch the sullied earth below. occasionally, you will find chromatic elves on the surface, and you don't want to be left alone with them. having lived in isolation for so long, they have convinced themselves to be superior, and barely view anything else as living beings, let alone people. visually, they have skin, hair, and eyes that come in all colours under the sun, and their wings best resemble those of a dragonfly, giving them superior mobility in the air. they subsist off water and sunlight, and blood if they can get their hands on it

[anddreadful]

I never want to seem like i’m holier-than-thou-ing or dunking on whoever the most recent sad fans of cancelled TV shows are, or on people genuinely mourning that their favorite big name author turned out to be a creep, or whatever, because this comes from a place of love and sympathy, but truly one of the most important tenets of creative adulthood is to prioritize your investment in the art you and your friends make over anything else.

I’m not saying you’re not allowed to care about a star wars/ dragon thrones/ YA book tv show, but mainstream corporate media is to be enjoyed at a remove and it should not be made a pillar of your identity or an innate part of your own artistic expression. the power you invest in fandom belongs to YOU, not to the object of your fixation, and you can choose where you put it. the only way to get off the carousel of capitalistic disappointment with this shit is to love and create your own self-sustaining practices within a network of real, present people, and decide that that’s what matters.

[callme-secret]

And They Where Neighbors

TASM Peter Parker x Oc

Plot - peter parker sucks as an upstairs neighbor.

not my best work, but i want to get back into writing so sometimes you just gotta put stuff out. Please leave any helpful comments!

×××××

Suspiciously cheap rent is always suspicious for a reason. Brie knew this. Everyone in New York did, it went without saying. Cheap rent meant rats, or mold, or a creepy landlord that talked a lot. Cheap meant no one else wanted to live there. 

So when Brie found a one bedroom apartment in her budget, walking distance from her school, and with working ac, she knew to be cautious. It even claimed to allow pets. (Normally code for the place came with its own pets already.) She couldn’t imagine what they were trying to sugar code. It must have a bed bug infestation, or it was haunted by a poltergeist. Maybe it was all some elaborate way to kidnap her and sell her into sex trafficking. There had to be a catch.

Brie knew of a million things that cheap meant in New York, but she was desperate. So when she went to tour, she wore a face mask in case the walls did in fact contain the next bubonic plague, and her thickest boots, in case she had to stomp her way past whatever vermin lived there too.

But there was no vermin, or mold. It was actually quite nice?

The landlady, Mrs. Zhang was kind and in her mid forties. She explained that her and her husband owned quite a few buildings, but this was their first one so they felt quite attached to it. They themselves had once lived here when they first moved to New York, and had spent nearly all of their young adulthood living here.

They took good care of the place, made sure to keep up with renovations, and all of the other upkeep. It really did show too. The building looked warm even from the outside. Red brick walls, black rimmed windows, and a navy blue front door, all screamed home. Even the entrance was clean. A tan hallway with a well organized mailroom and a black staircase. There wasn't even a missing floor board.

The apartment itself was even better. Sure the kitchen was small, and the appliances a decade old, but there was a big window in the bedroom with a fire escape right beside it, and enough space to fit her desk. There was nothing growing in the pipes, no sign of rodents or bugs. It was perfect.

“Why is it so cheap?” Way to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Mrs. Zhang pursed her lips. “To be honest with you, we can't seem to keep a tenant for longer than three months and we don’t know why.” 

Okay, first red flag. Apparently three tenets had come and gone in the span of the last year, all without reason and with quick getaways. The weird thing was, this problem only seemed to happen to the one apartment, everyone else in the building had been living there for years now with no incident.

So, Brie reasoned what was life without risk? If no one else had issues maybe it was all some big coincidence.  She and her cat moved in the next week.

And for a while Brie wondered why no one could last longer than three months. As far as she could tell there was no better place to live. Her neighbors were nice, one had even brought her cookies after she moved in. (an older woman named Tony, who smelled like pickled sugar.) She only had to contact Mrs. Zhang once about a flickering light in the hallway and it was fixed within the week, and nothing could beat her commute. What once was a twenty minute subway ride, and a bus ticket, was now a ten minute walk. Brie was actually showing up early to her classes, just to prove she could.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with this apartment. Brie thought she might have actually been in love with the place from how perfect it was. Then the other shoe dropped.

It started small at first, or maybe she just started to notice it slowly. Her upstairs neighbor was a night owl. Not that big of a deal, except for the fact that y/n could hear him at 3 a.m. seemingly breaking into his own apartment. Every night like clock work, he would scale the fire escape like it was his own personal entrance, and struggle with his window. The wood swelled with the summer heat and Brie knew from personal experience it made it nearly impossible to open any window. Yet, her upstairs neighbor forced it open, everytime, before he fell face first into his apartment with the loudest thud possible. Waking her up. Every time.

Even when he was successfully inside, her upstairs neighbor had no idea what keeping it down was. All night he would stay up, eventually she put together he must have been an engineer of some kind. The vents carried broken conversation, mainly curses, but Brie could put together the few words she had. He complained a lot about things not working, and said a lot of math equations that sounded like gibberish in her ears. Either way, his voice filled her apartment, even at the crack of dawn.

There was also the annoying fact that everyone in the building seemed to love him. (Of course they did, they didn’t have to live below him.) Tony raved about the boy upstairs who always helped bring up her groceries. Mrs. Zhang always mentioned how if her husband couldn't make it out, Peter, as everyone referred to him as, never minded helping her fix squeaking door hinges or leaking pipes. Even Mr. Harbinbridge, the grumpy old man that lived on the first floor, liked him! One time he mistook Brie for this Peter. It was the only time she ever saw him smile.

Fine, Peter couldn’t be that bad, just noisy. Brie could live with that. She’s had worse neighbors, even roommates. Then her cat got stuck in the window.

Sir Issac Mewton had never been a skinny boy. Even when Brie first adopted him, the orange tabby cat weighed nearly fifteen pounds. Still, he wasn't fat, he just carried a lot of muscle. At least, that was the mantra Brie repeated in her head.

The mantra died however, when she first saw the ball of wiggling orange fur. Brie had memorized the exact amount of space to leave her window open in order for Mewton to slip through. He liked to explore, and who was she to take that away from him. She wished she took it away from him as she watched him howl from between the window sill. 

So maybe she had notice Mewton putting on some extra pounds, but this was excessive. Brie knew it wasn't from her, he had been explicitly banned from anything that wasn’t his veterinarian approved diet cat food. As far as she knew, that's all he ate.

The investigation lasted less than a minute, before Brie peaked her head out of the window, now lined with orange fur, and spotted what looked to be a bowl on her upstairs neighbors stoop.

This was the last straw. This so-called Peter could be loud at ungodly hours, he could even be annoyingly loved by all, but he could not make her cat fat. This is where she drew the line.

So at 11 p.m. on a Sunday, in her hello kitty pjs, and her untied yellow converse Brie found herself in front of his door. Mewton clutched between her hands as if the feline could do something to protect her from the clearly bad idea forming in her head. Most of the heat she had felt downstairs had smoldered on her walk up. Mainly the idea of how silly she was being.

Brie lived with mewton and knew from experience how persistent the cat could be to get some extra kibble, no doubt he had conned poor upstairs peter into thinking he was a starving stray. The whole complex always raved about how kind of a person he was, he was probably just trying to help. A kind person just doing his best.

Yes, she was being silly. She’ll go back downstairs and try to catch him in the morning. Explain that Mewton was not starving and actually is on a weight loss journey. Brie was sure Peter would understand.

And then, Sir Issac Mewton, the traitor he was, meowed. Loudly.

The shuffling of feet behind the door made Brie freeze. This looked bad, didn’t it? She was in her pjs for god's sake, how the hell is she gonna explain this one?

Peter opened the door rather quickly, for how late it was. For a beat the pair just looked at each other. Brie thought to herself a few things. One, well at least he was also wearing pjs, though she did not peg him for a pokemon man. Two, of course he was cute. The boy had to be at least 6 '2, with fluffy brown hair, and brown eyes hidden behind cute, in a dorky short of way, glasses. He smiled. Y/n forgot the other things she was thinking about.

“You found my cat!”

She’s going to kill him actually.

“Your cat?” She echoed back, her voice sounding flat in her own ears.

Peter smiled rather sheepishly. “Well I suppose he’s not my cat, I just feed him from time to time,” he reached out to scratch Mewton’s chin. “Poor thing always comes crying, like he hasn’t eaten in days.”

Mewton, still being the traitor he is, started to wiggle in her arms like she hadn’t fed and raised him for nearly five years. If Brie was thinking level headily, she probably would have just blamed her stupid chubby cat. It was him that was manipulating everyone in this corridor right now, but she was not thinking level headily. Months of letting things go had pushed her to a point of no return.

She smacked his hand away from her cat, and glared straight into his stupid brown eyes. “Sir Mewton is not starving. He eats twice a day, with very expensive diet cat food I can only get from the vet’s in midtown, so if you would please stop feeding him!” she should stop there. “And for god sake, do you know people live below you? Have you ever thought once why they can't keep a tenant down stairs? It’s you! And the routinely 3 a.m. fight with your window, or how about the fact that you can’t use a front door? The fire escape is not your own personal entrance Peter! Do you ever think outside of yourself? Christ!”

That was too far, Brie regretted it the second she said it. Especially when the poor boy just looked so confused. But she was a coward, a very angry coward, that turned on her heel and quickly bolted to the staircase. Not without a “He’s not your cat!” shouted over her shoulder.

Mewton meowed rather pathetically in her arms.

Peter Parker stood, rather dumb folded, and admittedly rather confused in his doorway. The smallest "sorry" leaving his lips before he could even fully process her steps receding down the stairs.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By; Andrew Doyle

Published: Feb 28, 2024

Many years ago I gave a talk at the London Metropolitan Archives in which I outlined my reasons for rejecting the then fashionable theory of social constructionism in relation to human sexuality. In the coffee break that followed, I was approached by a lesbian activist, who claimed to have chosen her orientation as a means to oppose the patriarchy. She demanded to know why I would not accept that sexuality had no biological basis, even though I had spent the best part of an hour answering this very question. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I’ve already explained why I don’t agree with you’. ‘But why won’t you agree?’ she shouted in response. ‘Why?’

Primary school teachers are familiar with such frustrated pleas. The anger of children is so often connected with incomprehension, a sense of injustice, or both. When it persists into adulthood it represents a failure of socialisation. We frequently hear talk of our degraded political discourse – and there is some truth to that – but really we are dealing with mass infantilism. Its impact is evident wherever one cares to look: online, in the media, even in Parliament. Argumentation is so often reduced to a matter of tribal loyalty; whether one is right or wrong becomes secondary to the satisfaction of one’s ego through the submission of an opponent. This is not, as some imagine, simply a consequence of the ubiquity of social media, but rather a general failure over a number of years to instil critical thinking at every level of our educational institutions.

To be a freethinker has little to do with mastery of rhetoric and everything to do with introspection. It is all very well engaging in a debate in order to refine our persuasive skills, but it is a futile exercise unless we can entertain the possibility that we might be wrong. In Richard Dawkins’s book, The God Delusion (2006), he relates an anecdote about his time as an undergraduate at Oxford. A visiting academic from America gave a talk on the Golgi apparatus, a microscopic organelle found in plant and animal cells, and in doing so provided incontrovertible evidence of its existence. An elderly member of the Zoology Department, who had asserted for many years that the Golgi apparatus was a myth, was present at the lecture. Dawkins relates how, as the speaker drew to a close, ‘The old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said – with passion – “My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.” We clapped our hands red’.

This is the ideal that so few embody, particularly when it comes to the unexamined tenets of political ideology. We often see examples of media commentators or politicians being discredited in interviews or discussions, but how often do we see them concede their errors, even when they are exposed beyond doubt? There is a very good reason why the sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer opened his First Principles (1862) by asserting that there exists ‘a soul of truth in things erroneous’; but such concessions can only be made by those who are able to prioritise being right over being seen to be right. Too many are seemingly determined to turn difficult arguments into zero-sum games in which to give any ground whatsoever is to automatically surrender it to an opponent.

The discipline of critical thinking invites us to consider the origins of our knowledge and convictions. A man may speak with the certainty of an Old Testament prophet, but has he reached his conclusions for himself? Or is he a mere resurrectionist, plundering his bookshelves for the leather-bound corpses of other people’s ideas? Hazlitt expounded at length on how sophistry might be mistaken for critical faculties, noting that the man who sees only one half of a subject may still be able to express it fluently. ‘You might as well ask the paralytic to leap from his chair and throw away his crutch,’ he wrote, ‘as expect the learned reader to throw down his book and think for himself. He clings to it for his intellectual support; and his dread of being left to himself is like the horror of a vacuum’.

The natural human instinct for confirmation bias presents a further problem, one especially prominent among ideologues. Anything can be taken to bolster one’s position so long as it is perceived through the lens of prejudgment. We can see this most notably in the proponents of Critical Social Justice, who start from the premise that unequal outcomes – disparities in average earnings between men and women, for instance – are evidence of structural inequalities in society. They are beginning with the conclusion and working backwards, mistaking their own arguments for proof.

Worse still, such an approach often correlates with a distinctly moralistic standpoint. Many of the most abusive individuals on social media cannot recognise their behaviour for what it is because they have cast themselves in the role of the virtuous. If we are morally good, the logic goes, it must be assumed that our detractors are motivated by evil and we are therefore relieved of the obligation to treat them as human beings. What they lack in empathy they make up in their capacity for invective.

Again, we must be alert to the danger of cheapening argumentation and analysis to the mere satisfaction of ego. One of the reasons why disagreements on social media tend towards the bellicose is that the forum is public. Where there is an audience, there is always the risk that critical thinking will be subordinated to the performative desire for victory or the humiliation of a rival. In these circumstances, complexities that require a nuanced approach are refashioned into misleading binaries, and opponents are mischaracterised out of all recognition so that people effectively end up arguing with spectres of their imagination. The Socratic method, by contrast, urges us to see disputation as essentially cooperative. This is the ideal that should be embedded into our national curricula. Children need to be taught that there are few instances in which serious discussions can be simplified to a matter of right or wrong, and fewer still in which one person’s rightness should be taken as proof of another’s wrongness. In the lexicon of Critical Thinking, this is called the fallacy of ‘affirming a disjunct’; that is to say, ‘either you are right or I am right, which means that if you are wrong I must be right’. One cannot think critically in such reductionist terms.

To attempt seriously to understand an alternative worldview involves, as Bertrand Russell put it, ‘some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think’. In the study of psychology this is termed the ‘cognitive miser’ model, which acknowledges that most human brains will favour the easiest solution to any given problem. These mental shortcuts – known as heuristics – are hardwired into us, which is why being told what to think is more pleasurable than thinking for ourselves. I remember an English lesson in which I had initiated a discussion with my students about the representation of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, a topic that routinely comes up in exams. I wanted to know what they thought, and why. One student was sufficiently bold to ask: ‘Can’t you just tell us what we need to write to get the highest marks?’

This was not the fault of the student; there has been a trend in recent years, most likely influenced by the pressures of league tables, for schools to engage in ‘spoon-feeding’. Schemes of work and assessment criteria are made readily available to the pupils so that they can systematically hit the necessary targets in order to elevate their grades. The notion of education for education’s sake no longer carries any weight. I have even seen talented pupils marked down by moderators for an excess of individuality in their answers. In such circumstances, even a subject like English Literature can be reduced to a kind of memory test in which essays are regurgitated by rote.

It is hardly surprising, then, that pupils who opt for Critical Thinking courses at GCSE or A-level often perceive it to be a light option, a means to enhance the curriculum vitae without too much exertion. Courses are generally divided into Problem Solving and Critical Thinking, the former concerned with processing and interpreting data, and the latter covering the fundamentals of analysis and argumentation. Pupils learn about common fallacies such as the ad hominem (personal attack), tu quoque (counter-attack) and post hoc, ergo propter hoc (mistaking correlation for causality), along with others derived from Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations. The Latin may be off-putting, but in truth these are simple ideas which are readily digestible. If one were to discount arguments in which these fallacies were committed, virtually all online disputes would disappear.

That said, the existence of Critical Thinking as an academic subject in its own right might not be the best way to achieve this. As the psychologist Daniel T. Willingham has argued, cognitive abilities are redundant without secure contextual knowledge. Critical thinking is already embedded into any pedagogical practice that focuses on how to think rather than what to think. The increased influence of the new puritans in education presents a problem in this regard, given that they are particularly hostile to divergent viewpoints. Any institution which becomes ideologically driven is unlikely to successfully foster critical thinking, and this is particularly the case when teachers are at times expected to proselytise in accordance with fashionable identity politics. The depoliticisation of schools is just the first step. Critical thinking requires humility; this involves not just the ability to admit that one might be wrong, but also to recognise that an uninformed opinion is worthless, however stridently expressed. Interpretative skills are key, but only when developed on a secure foundation of subject-specific knowledge. This is the basis for Camille Paglia’s view that art history should be built into the national curriculum from primary school level. In her book, Glittering Images (2012), Paglia explains that children require ‘a historical framework of objective knowledge about art’, rather than merely treating art as ‘therapeutic praxis’ to ‘unleash children’s hidden creativity’. Potato prints and zigzag scissors have their place, but we mustn’t forget about the textbooks.

When I was a part-time English teacher at a private secondary school for girls in London, one of my favourite exercises for the younger pupils was to ask them to study a photograph of a well-known work of art for five minutes without speaking, after which time they would share their observations with the rest of the class. So, for instance, I would give them each a copy of Paul Delaroche’s ‘Les Enfants d’Edouard’ (1831), which depicts the two nephews of Richard III in their chamber in the Tower of London just prior to their murder. My pupils knew nothing of the historical context, but after minutes of silent consideration were able to pick out details – the ominous shadows under the door, the dog alerted to the assassins’ footfall, how the older boy stares out at us with a sense of resignation – and offer some personal reflections on their cumulative impact. To create, one must first learn how to interpret.

The kind of humility fostered in the appreciation of great art could act as a corrective to the rise of narcissism and decline of empathy that psychologists have observed over the past thirty years. According to the National Institutes of Health, millennials are three times more likely to suffer from narcissistic personality disorder than those of the baby boomer generation. Writers such as Peter Whittle, Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett have traced the rise of hyper-individualism in Western culture. One particular study revealed that in 1950 only 12 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement ‘I am a very important person’. By 1990, this figure had risen to 80 per cent and the trajectory shows no signs of stopping. One of the ways in which this trend manifests itself is the now common tendency for arguments to deteriorate into accusations of dishonesty. After all, it takes an extreme form of egotism to assume that the only possible explanation for an alternative point of view is that one’s opponent must be lying. In order to think critically, we cannot be in the business of simply assessing conclusions on the basis of whether or not they accord with our own.

An education underpinned by critical thinking is the very bedrock of civilisation, the means by which chaos is tamed into order. Tribalism, mudslinging, the inability to critique one’s own position: these are the telltale markers of the boorish and the hidebound. A society is ill-served by a generation of adults who have not been educated beyond the solipsistic impulses of childhood. At a time when so many are lamenting the degradation of public discourse, a conversation about how best to incorporate critical thinking into our schools is long overdue. Our civilisation might just depend on it.

This is an excerpt from The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World. You can buy the book here. It’s also available as an audiobook.

[blurban-form]

Bluey’s School (Glasshouse School) (2/?)

References in this post are primarily from this link: https://academics.hamilton.edu/government/dparis/govt375/spring97/Teacher_Training/tt4.html

Waldorf Schools

Any episode that includes Bluey’s school… right away you can tell that it is an atypical school. It is: it’s a Waldorf school. The teaching style, curriculum, etc. are all distinct from standard approaches.

Here’s a deep dive on this based on some online research…

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the first Waldorf school in Germany in 1919, believed that all children should be given "individualized" attention (rather than just those with special needs.)

This style of education emphasizes a focus on the 'individual' rather than the 'group', with each child being valued for their individual accomplishments: every child is deserving of the same attention typically given to gifted and learning-disabled students in conventional educational streams.

Classes within these schools are structured in a unique system of "blocks" that focus on particular areas of study for a period of three to four weeks rather than the same subjects for the whole school year or semester.

As children grow older, more concrete and technical areas of subjects are introduced. Through this method, not only are the developing child's needs met, but so are their interests. As a result, students are kept actively engaged.

Features of this style of education

Key elements of the Waldorf educational approach include:

Teachers try to fully engage the individual student at each step by gearing the curriculum to their age and needs.

Teachers focus on the child's learning processes and achievements in all areas, not just the academic. In this way, the children can be developed as complete human beings.

Waldorf classrooms don't include computers, televisions, etc. Note how in “Typewriter”, Bluey thinks she needs a typewriter for a story but her teacher takes the focus off of typing a story and onto Bluey and her friends actually having an adventure.

The Waldorf curriculum integrates arts and music into all areas of study. Daily activities include drawing, painting, singing, instrument playing…

Even the aesthetic atmosphere of the classroom is different to a standard school: The Tampa Tribune described a Waldorf school setting: "Imagine a classroom with old wooden tables, a backyard garden and children learning to knit and crochet. Where art and music is intertwined with every subject, students write their own textbooks and the toys are all handmade". Which is definitely the look/feel in Bluey’s school…

Additionally, a tenet of this style of education is that a focus on art and nature in education can lead to a greater appreciation for the beauty of life later on.

Waldorf schools encourage children to keep working on their imagination skills beyond kindergarten, using these skills to learn how to co-operate, share and interact. This concept of letting children progress into adulthood at their own level is a unique cornerstone of the Waldorf education method.

This concept of letting children progress into adulthood at their own level is a unique cornerstone of the Waldorf education method. This last piece is very key -- we seldom see anything being taught to the children; they’re free to do their own thing, make up activities, interact with one another, problem-solve, etc. and Calypso is there to gently guide them towards solutions occasionally.

So Why is This in “Bluey”?

The show “Bluey” is somewhat based on the show’s creator, Joe Brumm’s life experiences as a parent. Joe Brumm chose to have his daughter educated this way after she started the first grade. This is explained by Joe Brumm in an interview with the website The Father Hood:

"Bluey was still in embryonic form when Brumm’s eldest daughter started school. Her experience changed the course of the show.

'Play time was suddenly taken away from her, it was just yanked and seeing the difference in her was horrendous,' he says. 'There was no playing, there was no drawing, it was just straight into all this academic stuff. And the light in her eyes just died.'

Brumm researched alternatives for schooling and researched the value of play for child development. It is said that this is what led him to select Waldorf-style education for his daughter.

'Bluey is just one long extrapolation of that,' Brumm says. 'It’s to encourage people to look at play not just as kids mucking around, but as a really critical stage in their development that, I think, we overlook at their peril.'

Quotes from Joe Brumm from this link:

Closing comment & a caution

Personally, I think it’s interesting to see a different approach of educating children depicted in a TV show. It’s not “oddball”, it’s just a part of these dog-children’s lives.

I feel like the public is exposed to a lot of examples of children’s education on television and it’s generally portrayed in a negative light: e.g. The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers… and even on shows like “Arthur” the kids were often complaining about school, or having something unpleasant/stressful take place while at school.

My only concern for Bluey and her classmates (and maybe it’s a long-term issue, nothing to worry about in the short term) is this: a potential downside to a Waldorf-style education would potentially be the sharp adjustment a student will encounter transitioning from this nurturing environment to one where that isn’t the case. It could well be unsettling.

…phew, ok, maybe one or two more posts about the school to come.

(Maybe, because of the source material, some of this post may sound a little like a giant sales pitch… it’s not meant to be. I think it’s interesting because it’s different; something else to learn about, etc.)

[michaelplastic]

idc what they say u can live ur life however. i have never had a credit card or a bill in my name or a license or really any of the things people consider tenets of adulthood . suck my weenar

[cellphishthekaiju]

OC Ramblings: Ja'l'on & Kalach Hallowleaf - Firstborn of Omega Lae'zel and Alpha Shadowheart

Yes, this is ABO/Omegaverse nonsense and OC brainrot cause I'm neck deep in the Shad'zel brainrot. I have a WHOLE series of smut fics about Omega Lae'zel and Alpha Werewolf Shadowheart.

Anyway, onto the characters themselves

(clears throat)

Because Selune has a sense of humor and Shadowheart is her Chosen (at least in this canon), every time her and Lae'zel breed, they end up with twins. Their firstborn were no exception.

Ja'l'on, Alpha male and twin brother to Kalach. He inherits the lycanthropy of his sire though due to his mixed blood, Ja'l'on's werewolf form is not as 'elegant' as Shadowheart's werewolf form (his form is more akin to the Underworld Lycans). As all those who inherit Shadowheart's werewolf 'blessing', he has silver hair.

He is very close to his sister and holds both his mothers in high regard, especially Lae'zel. In his younger years, he strove to emulate his githyanki mother as well as uphold the tenets of the Moon Maiden. As he reached adulthood, he focused himself on becoming a paladin of Selune but has yet to swear his oaths.

Kalach, Beta female and twin sister to Ja'l'on. She is named for the late 14th Century hero that battled the the King of Shadows and was known for the shard of Gith's Silver Sword embedded in their flesh. (Some mistakenly believe she is named after Karlach, the 2nd half of the Blades of Avernus and Hero of Baldur's Gate... deeply missed friend of Shadowheart and Lae'zel)

In appearance, Kalach takes more after Shadowheart than Lae'zel yet did not inherit the lycanthropy 'blessing' like her brother, so her hair remains black with a reddish sheen that looks much like Lae'zel's hair.

She is far less 'disciplined' than her brother, adopting a more 'devil-may-care' attitude with a desire to explore Faerun and carve her own fate from the planes. Though she honors Selune, she has no desire to commit to the priesthood. She would like nothing more than to go on adventures with her brother at her side; making their mark on the planes like their mother's did during the Absolute Crisis.

Once they reached adulthood, these siblings find themselves bristling under the pressure of being restricted to living in Moonhaven. Shadowheart and Lae'zel both fear their mortal enemies; Shar and Vlaakith CVII respectively, would quickly bring harm or worse to their children, having attempted to do so ever since they were born and all subsequent children they've had since.

The twins also play a role in my Lae'stra X Omegaverse crossover, which you can read here, in all it's smutty insanity.

(Kalach is smitten with Hestra, to say the least xD)

I hope you enjoyed another installment of my OC ramblings. If you liked, I love talking with folks.

[amazing-spiderling]

For the "random get-to-know-me ask game" camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

<3

To answer this backwards, I think I've changed in a lot of superficial ways. That is to say, I think there are a lot of my core beliefs and tenets that still exist, and I appreciate a lot of the same things and dislike a lot of the same things I did as when I was younger, but now that i'm mumblemumble years old, I have the freedom to enjoy them and express myself without fear or embarrassment. It's liberating!

As a child, I have distinct memories of being a bit of an outsider, but it didn't really bother me. I recall being pretty young, maybe 6 or so- and hearing (in books or cartoons etc) that we should always be ourselves and not worry about what other people think, and it's okay to be weird, and just sort of accepted that at face value and never looked back. So it didn't really bother me if I wasn't friends with the cool, pretty, popular kids in class because I absolutely believed that if someone didn't like you then their opinion shouldn't matter to you.

I do remember having little tolerance for people I thought were not being genuine, I remember being at summer camp rolling my eyes at other kids there who were "acting" like they were so cool and weird and different, but knowing that they couldn't tolerate anyone there that was "too far" outside the norm, and the idea that you could only go "so far" in "weirdness" before getting bullied or ostracized only further cemented my ideas on the matter.

I think this has served me well into adulthood. I'm still into a lot of the same hobbies, some in a broad sense (anime) other's in a more specific one (I was digging around a small neighborhood comic shop and found a discounted copy of the first comic my friend ever gave to me to read and immediately had to buy it because the laser focused joy was so strong). It helped me weather skepticism from my family, coworkers, etc and to find "my people". I can't say I have always been (or am even now) a flawless judge of character, but at the very least I have a good idea if another person and I are going to "click" from early on- and I think it saves a lot of time.

This doesn't mean that I spend most of my time judging other people, mind you- it just means that for most of my life, I've been able to take a look at a situation and see what parts (and parties) really matter and move on.

[shihalyfie]

Hello! During the Kaiser arc we get to see several instances of the original chosen digimon in their adult stages while alone in the digital world, protecting zones. I wonder if it was supposed to be a mechanic that as long as they didn't lose enough energy they could maintain their adult forms indefinitely, or maybe that since their partners were closer to adulthood they too could maintain the form longer, or maybe even evolve by themselves...? What are your thoughts on it?

This is a good question, and I don't really have a good answer for it! I used to just pass it off as an oversight, but nowadays I'm not sure because that would have to be such a huge oversight it would be unusual, as it violates what seems to be a core evolutionary tenet. (Although I suppose it's possible that the relevant scenes were supposed to have their partners in play, and then something got cut for time?) Bar any more useful explanation, I'd say that what you just said doesn't seem unreasonable.

[rosykims]

hiiiiiiiiiii sorry it took me literally 3 months to do this but here she is !!! my tav, vierynrae drisune — viera to her closest friends and vierie to her doomed-by-the-narrative boyfriends. disclaimer please immediately disregard her hair bc i still havent found a hairstyle OR fit i like for her, but since she would realistically change her look every 6 to 10 hours im happy just waving some selections of note @ u all <3

truly unfathomable lore dump under the cut (tw for physical assault and miscarriage)

she/her

209 years young <3

astarion romance with a generous sprinkle of dream visitor sexual tension for reasons i'll get into (tldr the emperor takes the form of her dead fiance bc they both know its the only form that could ever hope to get through to her 😍)

"seldarine" drow! formerly a lolth sworn menzoberranzan girly, now a well established and famed diabolist of neverwinter (we'll get into it lol).

nowadays shes lolth's no. 1 hater but — having regrettably served her pretty contentedly for 100+ years — she feels too alienated from the seldarine pantheon to truly consider herself a follower. she does toss a prayer eilistraees' way for good karma's sake every now and then, though !

fiend pact (of the chain) warlock ! outside of the power her patron offers her, she's relatively useless in a fight (ie no multiclassing for her lol). the majority of her skills are in leadership, social maneuvering and underhanded political subterfuge. forging her pact was a very deliberate and very necessary move from her perspective to like. add some bite to her bark going forward.

im saying that her level one feat (if the mod ever drops lol <3) is magic initiate: bard and while she isn't canonically a multiclass, she could very easily become one if her pact fell through.

she's canonically a noble background, though she could easily be mistaken for a sage. truthfully all of her interest in the arcane stem from political ambition, noble is the correct answer (and a background she tries to keep under wraps)

lawful evil alignment, bordering very close - and eventually transitioning - to lawful neutral. evil is a sort of unfortunate necessity from her pov right up until the start of bg3, but her character is more aligned to the Lawful part as opposed to the Evil part. she follows a strict code of professionalism, unscrupulous loyalty, and also sometimes "just business, sorry kid" :/ but outside of those circumstances she's as charming/kind/reasonable as they come lol

ok. whew. heres the full unabridged off the walls loredump. prioritizing her menzoberranzan history over her diabolist career bc otherwise i'd need a whole third month for this lol.

viera drisune (later taking the elven adult name vierynrae) was the 13th of 21 total children borne to mistress viciiva drisune, matriarch of the 17th house of menzoberranzan

only vierynrae herself and 2 other sisters actually survived to see viera's elven 'adulthood'. one sister was xaeszara drisune- the firstborn and heiress. xaeszara saw herself as an aspiring proxy of lolth, forsaking politics as she became utterly consumed with fanaticism and religious fervor. she perceived acts of heresy against her goddess in the everyday routines and familiar faces of her kin, and often took to culling her siblings and cousins in sporadic ritual offerings to the spider queen :)

arac'nene drisune, the 16th child and vierynrae's younger sister, also survived - specifically because she was just as deranged as the eldest. she didn't possess xaeszara's zealotry, but still relished in lolth's simpler tenets of chaos and slaughter. the two essentially allied together to pick off the other siblings and minor family members, arac'nene acting as xaeszara's attack dog against any she deemed undevoted to lolth. which was all of them, naturally.

vierynrae only survived because she clued in to the alliance early, and knew the only way to survive was to win the favor of their matriarch and mother, viciiva, by making herself an invaluable asset in all matters of house affairs. and she did! what she lacked in combat prowess she made up for in charisma and intelligence, and quickly earned the trust (and protection) of viciiva after overseeing several successful raids/assassinations of rival houses and improving their overall position in drow hierarchy. the other two siblings couldn't touch her without dooming their house's winning streak or worse, earning the mother matriarch's wrath.

for almost 70 years viera enjoyed the relative safety of her mother's protection, while being groomed by her into a natural leader. vierynrae's actions helped house drisune ascend the ranks of nobility until they were eventually named 10th of the great houses.

in all those years she dutifully followed the tenets of lolth, the only faith she'd ever known, until one day while skulking about in the caverns just outside of the city, she met kiryn'kel nathril , a handsome, bewilderingly sweet man whom she would soon come to learn was not only a seldarine surface drow, but also ironically a cleric of eilistraee, who would regularly venture deep into the underdark to save its denizens from the tyranny of lolth.

against all odds (and in spite of several dozen death threats and attempts viera would make against his life) they fell in love, and began an affair in secret that would last for over 15 years. during this time kiryn taught her about the surface; about sunlight and freckles and kindness and what an honest, earnest hug felt like. he was patient, and successfully de-radicalized her, soon even convincing her to begin aiding him in his efforts to undermine lolth and free any who might stand a better chance on the surface

try as he might, though, he was never quite able to convince her to leave menzoberranzan and marry him up in his home in neverwinter. she had too many ambitions in her own city and still held on to the drow superiority she'd been indoctrinated in to. what's more, she still held a stubborn, optimistic hope that she could miraculously change her home from the inside (while conveniently consolidating all her power and authority over the other houses, too, of course)

this didn't happen, obviously. vierynrae's family's suspicions were growing due to the subtle change in her attitude over the years, all culminating with her abruptly learning that she was pregnant with kiryn's child. she knew her child was a son, and that her house already held the two total male heirs allowed (ie: the two surviving men xaeszara hadn't murdered), and so she finally accepted kiryn's proposal and began to make bittersweet plans to flee the only home she'd ever known.

the plans were short lived, and the pair were inevitably caught by house drisune mere hours before they had agreed to leave. to avoid the shame - and consequences - of the truth getting out amongst the other houses, the matriarch viciiva allowed vierynrae to live, but only after cutting off her ring finger, confiscating its band, and forcing her to watch as kiryn'kel was publically and sadistically executed.

but this wasn't enough for xaeszara, who noticed during the execution that viera's hand hovered a little too long - a little too protectively - over her stomach. in her grief, vierynrae barely noticed her two siblings' whispers, nor when her mother was invited into its fray. the gravity of her situation only dawned on her when her mother bid her halt during the long walk back home, and asked her one grim question: "is it a male?"

her silence was the answer, and viciiva nodded, permitting xaeszara to push vierynrae down a flight of stairs carved into the stone. arac'nene was waiting at the bottom, laughing, to kick her nearly to death - more than enough to guarantee the child would never be born.

minutes blurred into hours, and vierynrae -grieving, raging, but mostly numb - knew her days in house drisune were numbered. she never went home, instead limping her way out of the city gates and on towards the secluded place she had first met kiryn all those years ago.

from there, she began bargaining, first to the gods - who would not answer a lolth-sworn - and then to the anyone in the nine hells who would listen. she screamed at the cavern walls that she was willing to bargain, and after three days, the fiend who would soon become her patron emerged from the dark. she offered up his soul to him right there in exchange for the power to raze the city of menzoberranzan and everyone in it, but the devil only laughed. "do you truly think your little soul is of equal value to that of the city of spiders?" he asked. "how many souls call menzoberranzan home, i wonder? thirty thousand - fifty? not to mention the wrath of lolth this tantrum of yours will inevitably bring about . . . why, that price alone is worth as many souls as you have hair on your head."

and with that, the terms of a pact began to form. a drop of infernal power for every act of service - and for every soul sent to the styx - tallied by the silver hair on her scalp. each deed's value would be measured in strands, turning black as the underdark itself to mark the progress of such an insurmountable price. once every hair had turned, she would know at last that the pact was complete, and she would be powerful enough to return to the underdark and attempt a final stand. until then, she would serve her patron in any and all things.

her first kill was her mother, matriarch viciiva. her patron was true to his word; as 17 strands of silver hair turn blacked, she felt an equivalent surge of power - just enough to make the weeks long trek out of the underdark and up into the sunlit lands, alone.

i hit the block text character limit oh god 🤪

and so her new life began. she navigated a hostile surface world with only her patron's whispers to guide her, eventually settling in neverwinter, in spite of a population vastly hostile to her kind. over the years, her uncanny ability to sniff out a desperate soul - and then cordially offer then aid - made her a recogniseable and accepted figure in the city, eventually putting her in the position to make a legitimate business out of it.

business flourished, and as her renown grew, so did her power, forever measured by her rapidly darkening hair. by the start of baldur's gate 3 she is formiddable — a diabolist and the right hand of her patron, feared and respected, secretly amassing every resource, ally and advantage she has at her disposal through low whispers and coded letters. all of it to pay the price of marching — one day, perhaps centuries from now — on menzoberranzan, and having the power to take it.

[nursingwriter]

Freud and Positive Psychology Positive Psychology and Freud Many people today would have people believe that Freud's only contribution to positive psychology would be his demonstration of what not to do and how not to view the human psyche. In other words they mistakenly take all the stereotyped Freudian standards, without regard for his whole contribution to psychology, which does actually offer a great deal of positives, and equates it to negative and problem-based standards. Yet, in truth Freud offered a few things up to positive psychology which cannot be extricated. Freud first contributed to positive psychology by theorizing the perception is not necessarily reality. What I mean by this is that he was one of the first to assume that people don't always know the reason they act or think as they do. This assumption, though surrounded by negative connotations today, was extrapolated on by other theorists who decided that the only way to think (normally or healthily) is to think rationally and see the world exactly as it is. The problem is that for most of positive psychology this extrapolation has been entirely attributed to Freud, when in reality though he struck the rational thinkers as superior, he also theorized that most people were not thinking in a purely rational (truthful) way about the events in their lives. Freud had a general sense in his work that negative events and negative thoughts could and would do lasting harm to the human mind. This in and of itself is one of the most important tenets of positive psychology, that negative thoughts and negative events can do harm to the human psyche. Though Freud, unlike positive psychology mistakenly theorized that those early negative or even benign events and stages (often not even remembered) would possibly greatly affect individuals in a negative way from childhood to adulthood. Freud did not however assume that this was the case for everyone, as many would have us believe. Freud is often credited with the idea that in everyone there is a little bit of psychological pathology, and is often taught in this way, his works to some degree are far more neutral than this seeking to allow the student to see the potential for psychological pathology as a way to better understand why we are the way we are and why we seek reconciliation or treatment. In other words Freud made a lot of assumptions, placing templates over healthy people that might not have really applied to all but in so doing he made some important points, one of the most important being that to some degree we are all driven by unconscious desires. In positive psychology the psyche really goes wrong when the unconscious desires are seated in desires that do not end in our happiness but instead end in our sadness or in anxiety. The context of Freud's work, as well as the pessimistic society which he was a contemporary to may have contributed significantly to his more pessimistic take on why people are the way they are and do the things they do. Freud also offers a great deal, to positive psychology, by adding to the concept of keeping one's mind positive, even to the point of tricking oneself into believing a positive over a negative schema. Freud's defense mechanisms are really the very first example in psychology where the phenomenon of self-thought alteration to sooth the mind is seen. What Freud basically said is that the human mind will reconstruct events and especially interpersonal events and communication to keep ourselves happy and in a good light in our own minds. Though Freud is often credited with applying these defense mechanisms in a negative frame, i.e. that lying to oneself to make ourselves feel better is not a constructive but a destructive mechanism, when taken out of context defense mechanisms can also be thought of, as long as they are not truly harmful as a constructive state of mind, where the individual seeks reconciliation over complicated and troubling social interactions to better his own frame of mind. Therefore in the end the individual is usually happier than he or she would have been if he or she had not deceived him or herself a little bit to construct reconciliation and reduce anxiety and tension. No individual can say or do everything right all the time and having demonstrative and even instinctual ways of mitigating tension, anxiety and even guilt is not a wholly destructive circumstance. Defense mechanisms relate to us in general life because they, to a large degree drive our personal interactions. If as positive psychology is correct and most people are using defense mechanisms to seek internal happiness this can create conflict, hence the assumption that defense mechanisms are bad. Conflict can arise when the retelling of the story through defense mechanisms goes beyond thought and is transferred into word or deed. If say an individual retold a story about the impetus for an interaction over and over to the point where it was believed by him or her then if they then reiterate that new story to the second party or even a third party the other party in the event might have reenacted the event in completely the same way (using a defense mechanism to make themselves feel better) the story would be a wholly different event and there could be conflict between the two. Hence the old adage there are three sides to every story your side, their side and the truth, comes into play. Though this may seem like a simplistic explanation try to relate it to something that has happened to you in your life; for example using Freud's rationalization defense mechanism I can construct a scenario from my own experience. Rationalization is creating false but credible justifications for actions, thoughts or deeds. Rationalization is also probably one of the most common defense mechanisms that people use, innocuously and in conflict in daily life, again especially in interpersonal relationships. Having said this I will then offer a couple of examples: I was told by a friend a private piece of information (a rather common event in most people's lives). I then retold the private information to a 3rd party, despite being asked not to by the 1st party. I probably did this in good faith, thinking it would be helpful for the other person to know or I may have had more dubious intentions like trying to find out what the third party thought of the 1st party's situation. Either way I rationalized the telling of the 1st party's personal information to the 3rd party by convincing myself that I had done it to try to be helpful to the 1st party, help her to communicate about her feelings and help resolve conflict yet what ended up happening was the opposite, the whole situation created more conflict. Yet, either way the result is an example of how I used rationalization to help mitigate my negative feelings of guilt regarding telling the 1st party's personal information to another. Had the situation ended there (which it rarely does) the rationalization would have been very effective at helping me feel better about betraying the confidence, and in fact I distinctly remember the feeling of satisfaction as if I had done the right thing when the conversation with the 3rd party ended. Another example of a way that the same defense mechanism can work in a more productive way would be to consciously redirect bad thoughts or thoughts of learned helplessness to thoughts of opportunity and positive future outcomes. In other words here is an example of consciously using rationalization to build rather than degrade a learning process. In my personal experience, probably not unlike many others' unemployment has been a frustrating and mostly negative experience coupled with a lot of missed opportunity and a good deal of direct (but mostly indirect) rejection. Neither of these things feels very good. For myself I looked at unemployment like an opportunity. The work I had been doing all but disappeared, but I had been very unhappy doing it for a long time and only continued in desperation. I wanted to completely change directions and this loss of work was a way to do that. So then I reframed the way I was thinking about being unemployed and looking for work. I broadened the kind of work I was looking for to work I was more interested in and rationalized that I had the skills and qualifications to get any job I wanted. Ultimately I did not get one of those new jobs but completely revamped what I was doing to better meet my own needs of happiness and to achieve more success. Now I am happier and learning more at the same time. Applying positive psychology offered me a chance to reformulate how I was looking at the situation and to avoid learned helplessness and negative thought. Lastly when discussing Freudian defense mechanisms and their application to positive psychology one cannot overlook the defense mechanism sublimation, where the individual redirects socially unacceptable urges to acceptable behaviors. Within this simple statement of defense is a clear ideation of positive psychology. The individual must look inside him or herself and seek out a better way of behaving that might make him or her happier in the long run. Just because someone might have urges to do something socially unacceptable does not make him or her bad or unhappy but acting on that urge could change other's opinion of him or her and could ultimately make him or her unhappy. Changing that urge to a behavior that is more socially acceptable would then seem the best possible outcome as even though the individual did not get to do what he or she wanted he or she got the satisfaction of knowing he or she did the "right" thing and is not acting in accordance with society. What really could be "wrong" with that? Looking back on both these example learning processes, as well as the explanation of sublimation illuminate for me just how much principles of Freudian psychology and defense mechanisms are a part of Positive Psychology. Positive psychology unlike most branches of psychology reiterates the idea that there is good in most things and there is no sense that this is not true in the case of Freudian psychology. Freudian psychology offers one of the first fundamental looks into the concept of the psyche at all. Though he is largely discredited, and many of his theories are seriously challenged in modern psychology, even by positive psychology itself they are valuable in the sense that they offer one of the first looks into motivations that might not be completely conscious as well as sincere ideations about the complicated inner workings of the mind. Regardless of the manner in which Freud is discredited his work, and especially some of his more colorful theories became a starting point for discussion and debate regarding the whole gambit of human psychological conditions from euphoria to misery. Understanding Freudian theory and work therefore is essential to understanding the whole of psychology as well as positive psychology because not only does Freud come at theory in a pessimistic way, so we can see what not to do and think in terms of "normal" but he also makes positive contributions to understanding the human mind and offers points for departure of new thought. https://www.paperdue.com/customer/paper/freud-and-his-contribution-to-positive-psychology-6393#:~:text=Logout-,FreudandHisContributiontoPositivePsychology,-Length6pages   Read the full article