#we all have different capacities and capabilities

[liones-s]

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

[bunnyb34r]

Context for the breakdown (this time) is that I'm at my fucking limit with people asking me to do things and have this idea that only I can fix it. Like between mom, my shithead coworker (even when he's not asking ME it still triggers that anger), and my fucking cat of all things, it just feels Neverending. I think the main issue is that my dad used up all my fucking patience growing up bc this man would not do shit for or by himself and just being asked so many times this week to just fix everyone's problems pushed me over the edge

I half jokingly told mom that I'd probably be the type of mom who just leaves their family in the middle of the night and never comes back. Like as horrible as that fucking sounds, I really don't think id be able to handle people relying on me to do everything for them. Like ffs try to do it yourself first! And it's like a fucking 1 year old 😭

But for real I think dad just using weaponized incompetence and just being so self centered really used up all my patience for this shit and I just hit my limit

[ultred]

“if you already have it, why affirm 100000 times that you do?”

“y’all glorify neville because he said feeling is the secret yet how can you feel something you never experienced = neville bad”

“visualization better affirming better methods and techniques = bad everything bad just be it just decide it”

“nondualism loa 3d 4d no separation but there is separation but also you have everything now but not in the 3d so there is a time delay but it also happens now”

“u can affirm without self concept and you don’t need self concept and you can get anything you want if you just affirm it even if you don’t decide it or live in the end and those living in the end people = bad”

“self concept is all you need to manifest and to achieve this self concept ? well. you gotta decide and be it because if you use methods you are not it”

😐

this is getting unbelievably annoying. i honestly don’t understand why people gotta complicate shit so much. maybe it’s just THAT simple that people can’t just accept that it is. not only is it simple, but also meant to be experienced differently.

any method or technique works. anything works. everything works. i think so many people have forgotten that not everyone has the same exact brain as they do. we are all extremely different. different childhoods. different beliefs. different traumas. different circumstances. different will power. different upbringings. different brain capacities. different limiting beliefs. different capabilities. different levels of sensitivity. we’re all not the same. even if we are all connected to one consciousness, we’re different on a human level.

someone who has been severely abused as a child will not be the same as someone who wasn’t. another person can also go through the same childhood and be completely different. you can’t expect someone who is depressed to be more motivated and open than someone who isn’t. i’m not saying that we should accept anything we view as negative about ourselves, but some people genuinely believe that deciding something is just that easy for everyone.

methods and techniques aren’t just used for manifestation. they’re used to help YOU manifest in a way that is suitable to you and how your brain functions. affirming isn’t bad. visualizing isn’t bad. whatever method isn’t bad. it’s all about bringing your awareness to your desire. if you keep affirming, you bring awareness to your desire. you are normalizing this desire in your mind by repetition. this is literally how so many people get brainwashed into believing anything; by repetition. some people have extreme limiting beliefs for multiple reasons and need to keep repeating shit until it becomes a more common “thought” for them than the undesirable one and is more engraved in their awareness. some people find it hard to just decide. and that’s okay. do whatever tf you feel comfortable with and suits YOUR mind. you can have it and still affirm that you do. your subconscious isn’t gonna be like woah this mf is affirming about something they already have ? well that means they don’t have it .. bfr. your subconscious mind isn’t your narcissistic toxic ex so please stop treating it as such. i affirm for things i already have. sometimes i look at my jacket in my closet and keep repeating in my mind that i have this lovely jacket and i’m happy i do. hell i can even annoy the shit out of everyone around me and sing about it in the most annoying voice ever. my boyfriend is the sweetest person i’ve ever met yet i constantly tell myself that he’s so sweet over and over in my head. it’s seriously not that deep y’all. some people have more inner dialogues than visuals or imagery in their heads and vice versa. some people can even do both at the same time. (that’s how my brain works) it really depends on you and what is natural to you.

you can visualize without emotions. why ? because some people generally don’t feel that much emotions to begin with. when you visualize, you gotta be yourself. how’d you feel if you received roses ? me personally, i’d smile a lot and feel loved. someone else might not feel that. they’d probably just appreciate it and that’s it. how would YOU feel and act when you’re visualizing and having your desire. that’s it. and honestly, it’s mostly just about knowing and living in the end more than anything. i visualized a lot of things without feeling anything. i just kept telling myself that what i’m visualizing is my actual reality and got them. you can visualize however you want.

let me make it simple for you. there is no separation and everything is instant. your 3d and 4d are the same but your 4d is within your control and is your actual reality (contrary to what you’ve been raised to believe) and it is reflected in your 3d. everything is you and you’re everything. whatever reality you choose to identify with in your 4d is your actual reality and has no choice but to be reflected in your 3d because it’s just a mirror. you’re welcome.

self concept is important, yes. do you need it ? no. will it help you a lot ? yes. and to achieve your ideal self concept— well, it depends on you. are you someone who can just decide who you want to be or would methods help you achieve this self concept ? whatever feels comfortable to you, do it. whatever will help you reach your goal do it. some people can’t just decide and that’s okay. exactly like how some people can calm themselves down in a second while others might need to take a few breaths first until they gradually are able to calm down without needing to do so.

honestly so many people are starting to not make any sense. you can and can’t do anything at the same time ? or tell you that you’re limitless yet limit you and fill your mind with so many limited beliefs. do whatever feels comfortable and whatever continues to bring your awareness to your desires. when i say just decide, persist, and “be” in my posts, all i mean is decide, persist, and be who you want to be in your own way or the way most suitable to YOU !

[senseandaccountability]

"I'm me again"

Yes well this is me getting a little sappy - again - about the spirits/demon thing as a metaphor for the human experience, must be Friday. 

(Yes, this is about Solas.)

Last night my Ingellvar was tending to the graves with Emmrich and she said “demons” and immediately corrected herself, because of course she meant spirits but people outside Nevarra so easily call them demons and Emmrich, one of the kindest and most insightful people in the entire DA verse, would of course never do that. Because he sees them all as spirits. Some of them may be twisted, embittered, furious and cruel but to him they are still, at heart, the same being as their more positive virtues. You are always you, as Solas tells Cole. 

Which is also what Solas argues for all of DAI.

Which is also what Solas personal quest actively shows us in DAI.

His friend, broken and twisted by the mages' bindings, dies a spirit of Wisdom, thanking him and telling him not to be sad. “I’m me again.”

Which is also a very strong theme in Solas entire arc. 

But it’s really not just Solas, or the elves. The eternal struggle of spirits is a reflection of the human soul and what it means to be human. What parts of you does the world let you cultivate, what parts are hidden and twisted in the dark, what virtues would you be remembered for if you died tomorrow? What sort of person have you become? What person could you be? DA is crammed with these themes.

Since the spirit reveal/confirmation, I’ve seen a lot of very detailed and very cool discussions about the specifics of spirit virtues and demon characteristics and that’s some good shit right there, but you can also be lazy like me and very much just read it as various aspects of human nature interacting with each other. We’re all so many things over our lifetime, to different people, in different contexts. We all carry such endless capacity for goodness and gentleness and we’re all so very capable of hurting each other.

In the codex entries we see Solas try over and over and over again to appeal to the better nature of the Evanuris. He is described as brilliant and wise, he is pulled out of the Fade specifically for his wisdom and he tries to get them to reflect that, to listen to his concerns, to use their powers differently. Why don’t you make creatures that can protect the People, he asks Ghilan’nain. Why do you need to push your power further, he asks Elgar’nan, the people are already submitting to your rule, why must you shackle them? War may have twisted him up already but there’s nothing he says that isn’t extremely valid and wise about the Evanuris’ approach to ruling.

But as we learn from the Spirit of Command in Crestwood in DAI, wisdom is considered a soft virtue in a world of war and hierarchy and his reasoning falls flat or gets interpreted as fear or insubordination. Unheard and undervalued, his wisdom grows sour and prideful. He isn’t wrong, he knows he isn't, and he will show them. You are not gods, I will make you see that you are not gods. I will humble you until you understand that I am right. 

This is a profoundly human experience.

The ancient elven empire ultimately falls to its own greed and hierarchies and lack of boundaries - all of which Solas pointed out, all of which he and his rebels opposed. But the Evanuris didn’t listen, they were caught in a power scheme where only individual power matters and everyone else becomes pawns. How ironic then that their empire falls to its own foolish pride and boundless cruelty against the Titans, the first children of the earth. They hurt themselves by hurting them. They wound the fabric that binds them all together. 

Solas as a character is an open, ongoing conflict between "spirit" and "demon" aspects, between light and dark, between identifying as a solitary creature or part of the whole. It’s never more visible than during the final act of DAV where he is at once Solas, standing with the Shadow Dragons against the blight. And also Fen’Harel, scheming to get there in the first place, treating people in his way like dehumanized pawns to reach his final destination, a goal that can be argued to be entirely tainted with pride at this point, a way to soothe his conscience and need to be right more than it’s a way to save the world. And he’s the Dread Wolf, physically embodying the struggle against the corrupt powers since he, unlike the Evanuris, doesn’t believe in binding creatures to fight his battles. It’s significant that while he fights alone, he cannot do it without help from Rook. Elgar’nan directs all of the blight at the Dread Wolf and it takes a sacrifice from the team to free him from its grasp. It’s a battle orchestrated by a god. 

And Solas, powerful as he may be, is not a god. 

That is why it’s so lovely to me that the ending isn’t just a matter between Solas and his conscience or between Solas and Rook or Solas and Lavellan. Because we are not single entities. We are not islands. That’s why we need each other, because we respond to each other, we affect each other, we abuse and love each other and we cannot really understand in which ways until we connect. We use each other to remind us of who we are, or who we could be. Every Benevolence needs a Wisdom, every Command needs a Compassion, every one of us needs someone else in some way, shape or form. We are not meant to be solitary. We all share Solas' deepest fear of dying alone. We all share Solas’ ongoing conflict with the better and worse parts of our nature. We all reflect each other. The ending brings in the past, the present and the person that knows Solas not as a god but as a person.

We are shattered fragments of a greater whole and it was, as Morrigan points out, Solas’s love for and loyalty to his people that set him on this course long ago. And he broke the world. He broke his people. He couldn’t save them, all the horrible things that he has done and he still couldn’t save them. Ultimately and emotionally to him, this isn’t about wisdom or pride or good or evil or any such dichotomy, this is about grief and regret and broken humanity.

That is why it’s so powerful to me that a romanced or friendly Lavellan is so kind to him in DAV. They approach him carefully, they kneel down beside him to make a connection, they are understanding and compassionate and it may not be what he deserves on some grand justice scale of things, but it is without question what he needs. Pride and regret and grief need compassion, hope and benevolence much more than it needs to be proven wrong or challenged, kindness breaks the cycle.

They reach out to him not the way one would reach out to a god, but to a person. Because that’s what Solas needs to be reminded of - his humanity. That’s what their love and friendship has always reminded him of, that's what the Inquisition taught him - that the world is worth caring about because broken as it may be, it is also full of people. 

And people matter. They might not matter to the Dread Wolf, but they have always mattered to Solas.

That's what the good ending represents.

"I'm me again." 

[souriru]

hello Soru, I’m evil now and I think a fic about Leona doing something villainous to protect women / women’s rights etc. would make me feel better

if the dimly lit room was an intimidation tactic, leona would scoff in the faces of that faction. he'd grown up practicing and perfecting his magic in the dead of night, when the servants would rest easy for the night knowing that their lieges were in their beds for the night. the night was his home and the moon and stars were familiar friends.

"you want to tell me, that this is your proposal." he starts, and the ministers scoff lightly at his audacity to start negotiations without his brother or father's approval, but this was no mere negotiation- this was an active war. "give me an example of what you think would happen were i or my brother and father were to give you the go-ahead. go on."

the room remains silent, and even his brother and sister-in-law have nothing to say. "the traditional roles of the sunset savannah ensure the woman is in power. they are the hunters, the feeders, the birth-givers, the teachers. i feel sorry for your mother who married the pathetic man whose dick you shot out from- or maybe she wasn't even married to him, because marriage is something equal. excuse my language, brother."

farena merely nods by his side and swallows, and leona takes that as further permission to rip them a new asshole. "you're a self-serving maniac who couldn't get a woman to stay by your side willingly, so you decide to punish all the women ever born for that. it's not their fault you do not have the capacity to be a nurturing, capable, and worthy man."

the council members at this point are also exchanging glances. "i'm trying to push this nation to modernity, not take it back to the ancient times of a completely different land. do not bring that tradition here again, or i will make your lives so, very, very, very miserable, that even if you have the power to establish these rules, you will hear me down the halls of the office you walk in. understand that we rely on them even more than they rely on us, because what can a man do that a properly grown woman cannot?"

but as the representatives stand up to leave, one decides to taunt the royal family and their archaic ways, and farena's eyes widen as the man himself turns to sand, his brother nonchalantly looking at his nails before sniffling and getting up. "someone better clean that up. dump that out with the rest of the mud, he'd be doing something useful then, i suppose."

i hope you like this nettles 🫶🫶🫶🫶 428 words stay safe, my american mutuals and friends <3 and if anyone who reads this voted trump (highly unlikely that you simp for leona and can be a trump supporter) pls do not interact with me <3

[centrally-unplanned]

I somewhat favor mass deportation from Palestine. I don't see how the situation on the ground will get better, and while deportation will in itself be awful, "100 years from now, the Palestinian diaspora will enjoy quality-of-life (social, political, economic) equivalent to their local communities" seems more plausible than, "100 years from now, the Palestinian people will enjoy a fair standard of living in Palestine."

I don't like this. I feel bad about this. It's not a "good" plan. But I don't know what else is more than "pie in the sky" thinking, and the status quo is worse.

I am not gonna be an asshole to you about this like I bet you would expect many here to be, I am a realist and I think that realism is typically the right approach. I see the logic that given [X], it would be better for the people of Gaza to simply leave. After all, I approve of refugees in general! I do not blame for "not staying" or some other dumb bullshit, becoming a refugee is the good and right response to many situations. If we could welcome the entire population of Gaza into the wider Austin metro area (climate match + capable of building the housing) I would do so.

But it seems very important to clarify what that [X] is - in this case, it is the myopic obsession the Israeli right has with being genocidal maniacs in order to paint-by-numbers a semi-arid scrubland to match the deranged musings of a book from over a thousand years ago. They could just not do that! They don't have any reason, whatsoever, to do it. The "unsustainability" of the Israeli-Palestine conflict is entirely an invention of the Israeli state. That does not mean there could be kumbaya-levels peace or anything - the PLO are corrupt reprobates and Hamas are, of course, radical authoritarians worshiping at the altar of useless historical grievances and infected with a death cult. But that describes like 30% of the planet, and they get along. China-Taiwan is sustainable, North Korea-South Korea is sustainable, India-Kashmir is sustainable! The median number of deaths from "terrorism" in Kashmir doesn't even glance the murder rate in the typical large Indian city. The world keeps turning, life goes on. It is only human action, direct choices by individuals with full capacity to do better, that takes these conflicts and make them unsustainable.

Israel could, trivially, recognize Palestinian statehood or even just general autonomy, defend its borders, punish the occasional missile strike that would surely still occur with minimalist force, and turn the world against the aggressors diplomatically. Saudi Arabia would sell out Hamas in a heartbeat for that. The rest of the world, could - less trivially but not actually that hard because Israeli is tiny - simply inform Israel they will no longer recognize their silly crusade against Palestinian statehood and if they want to block US/EU navy ships from delivering food they can meet our nuclear weapons out in the parking lot. You will not have perfection but you will have millions of people living their normal lives, neither being faced with anything close to a threat of mass-scale ethnic cleansing.

So I do get what you're saying, I just think that hope has to be framed correctly - given that the millions of other much easier paths to a better outcome that could be easily pursued by any of the involved people are going to be ignored because the actors in question are combinations of vile or incompetent, maybe your path is the right one. That isn't ironic, I actually do get it. But I do think once those paths are fully visible, swallowing that pill becomes a lot harder.

(I'm not saying there are no Palestinian sins or agency btw, this is just a post about depopulating Gaza - this is a situation where Israel holds all the cards. Different topics would have different framings)

[aingeal98]

The thing that gets me about "Helly was never cruel" is that he's completely right but also. Helly never had the opportunity to be? From the moment she came into existence everyone around her had power of some sort over her, she was the newest severed employee and all her older coworkers were men. Everything she did was geared towards defying the cruelty that those in power, including Helena, subjected her to. She was aggressive and angry and brittle and witty but she never had enough power to be cruel.

What's fascinating to me about Helly/Helena is that we know everything Helena is capable of is something Helly is also capable of. Their limits of defiance and will and their capacity for good and evil are the exact same. Helly was put in an environment where all that fire and no nonsense cut the bullshit attitude could only be channeled into rebellion. Helena grew up in an environment where those same traits were either stamped out or refined into sharpness and ruthless cruelty.

There's no wiggle room when it comes to wondering "What if the roles were reversed?" because we know exactly what would happen. They're the same person by nature and completely different due to nurture. What a weird feeling it must be, to know the person you despise most in the world is someone you know beyond a shadow of a doubt you could have been exactly like if things were different. I am all you could be and you are all I am terrified of becoming.

[tanadrin]

also not sure how strongly intelligence is really selected for in a strict state of nature environment

Eg: high IQ is also correlated with things like allergies, nearsightedness, neurosis, depression, and lower fertility over lifetime. If intelligence is polygenic, it’s possible that some of those genes aren’t really beneficial to an organism outside of specifically trying to be a theoretical physicist in a developed nation.

if I remember right, turnover point is somewhere around 115-120 IQ and you start to see poorer overall life outcomes?

i have a bunch of thoughts on this, which i guess boil down to the fact i think whatever model you're using to discuss intelligence here doesn't make much sense.

humans are highly social animals whose large brains experienced strong selection pressure to get larger to navigate complex social situations and to improve social coordination; in that sense if intelligence is a unified concept it must be extraordinarily adaptive, because social groups that can coordinate effectively can heavily outcompete social groups that can't. we see this is true even just where new developments in social technology (or non-social technology!) improve the capacity for coordination.

i think the history of hominid evolution is an incredibly clear demonstration that intelligence is massively adaptive. the biggest qualitative difference between humans and chimpanzees is our intelligence, and we hunt chimps for food. the history of australopithecines being supplanted by hominins and then the genus homo winning out and then humans winning out in that genus bc each group had successively bigger brains that were better at coming up with effective tools and coordinating in large groups. the whole process of australopithecine to modern H. sapiens evolution is only 3-4 million years. and remember, the human ancestral environment (so far as such a concept is even coherent) isn't grunting cave men, it's complex social groups capable of strategy and planning and caring for members of the community.

when people say stuff like "intelligence probably wasn't adaptive in the ancestral environment" i think theyr'e also often thinking of intelligence in a stereotypically modern pop-culture way that's pretty shallow, as like just performance on math tests. while nobody was taking math tests in the early pleistocene, the math test is not the central use case for intelligence. memory, abstraction, planning, coordination, tool use, these are all things that benefit massively from intelligence in both social situations and non-social ones. conjuring up the discursive stereotype is of a very smart person is a nerd who's great at a STEM subject but socially inept is not actually invoking a very coherent model of intelligence--which gets in to the way that many of the people who take this perspective are, i think, using this stereotype of intelligence to paper over personal inadequacies. yes, they may think, i am socially inept, but i do well on IQ tests, so i have that going for me. they do not want to admit that they might actually be inept at certain things--that their intelligence might have certain glaring deficiencies. they want to write off the kinds of intelligence that don't flatter themselves as being somehow not "real" intelligence. but, for example, autism is a genuine cognitive deficit, albeit one not always incompatible with doing well academically. it profoundly disables some people, which is why it is a diagnosable syndrome in the first place. and plenty of neurotypical people are intelligent in some ways but have notable cognitive deficits in others.

so while many intellectual faculties correlate, they don't correlate perfectly, and because intellectual talents can be differently distributed between different faculties (or honed in uneven ways), we return to the problem of trying to recover a general factor of intelligence from factor analysis, an enterprise which i think is fundamentally flawed. if that's the case, this conversation is even muddier because there is no one general factor of intelligence we can treat as being acted on uniformly by selection effects, and what we really ought to be doing is trying to distinguish different but overlapping cognitive faculties. in that case it may be true that whatever ability to manipulate extremely sophisticated mathematical abstractions that terence tao has really isn't adaptive in the ancestral environment, but clearly a lot of much more mundane abilities that we associate with intelligence in informal discourse are.

[chocodile]

Amaranthine Magic System PART II: Spellcraft for Wizards

This is Part III of a three-part worldbuilding set.

Part I - Part II (you are here) - Part III

So, what makes a wizard different than a non-magically capable mundane? A few things:

Unusually strong personal magical field

Ability to sense/”see” magical energy

Some unknown characteristic that allows them to manipulate their own magical field as if it were an extension of their body. Possibly a physical difference in brain structure?

The last part is the most important and is truly what sets a wizard apart from every other creature on the planet. Though, of course, without the first two traits, it’s going to be of limited use.

As mentioned in Part I, wizards cast their spells by applying a mental “filter” their own magical output. This is referred to as active casting. Passive casting, which will be covered in Part III, is typically the realm of animals and plants. Being able to filter something mentally is an extremely unique skill only possible by sapient creatures (probably) due to the complexity involved. However, wizards do typically use hand gestures in casting as well. Hand gestures provide an additional optional channel on which you can “filter” your spell. Because it’s easier to do hand gestures than to teach yourself these complex mental filters, it’s common for amateur wizards to use many more hand gestures when casting, while very advanced wizards use fewer of them because they are capable of juggling a larger number of simultaneous “filters” mentally. Additionally, hand and arm gestures are commonly used like the barrel of a rifle, to control and direct the magical energy being shaped by the mind.

Learning how to control magic like this takes many years of study and practice. You must really understand the “physics” of how the waves work and how each puppeteer string will affect the shape of the waves when pulled. On top of that, you need a good understanding of the object you’re interacting with. Magic will move differently through water, air, or stone. If you are trying to create a spell that will create a net of energy that will catch fish in a river, you need to be very familiar with the physics of how magic will interact with water and flesh, as well as have an approximate awareness of how deep the water is, whether the bottom is rocky/uneven or not, how fast moving the current is, etc. Gathering that info will require several steps of study and reconnaissance before you ever get to the “make a net and catch some fish” part.

Healing magic is very tricky for this reason. Flesh can be knit together, but because the blood vessels and nerves and such are so small, and so many different types of material are present in, say, a cross-section of an arm, successfully re-attaching a limb would be something only an expert who has dedicated their life to studying anatomy would be able to pull off. You know those radioactive tracers doctors use before imaging tests? That sort of thing gets a lot of use in healing magic. Healers can train themselves to recognize the tracer (well, a magical energy equivalent) and follow that through a body, then target their spell on the location where the tracer ended up. Much easier and more reliable than trying to guess exactly where someone’s alveoli are from outside their body.

Spellcraft has two primary “branches”. The First Branch is a school of magic based on unleashing your own magical potential in a very basic, direct way. Its rawest form would manifest as something like a lightning bolt: an erratic, jagged bolt of pure, difficult-to-control energy. Pretty much all “attack” type spells are variations on this, as well as any spells that involve pushing/pulling/moving things. This branch of magic is seen as much easier and, ironically more beginner friendly. Though it does have the capacity to cause grievous injury, the concentration and mental effort involved mean it’s very hard mix up a “pull” spell and a “fireball” spell. Western Kingdom schools almost exclusively teach this branch.

The Second Branch deals more with manipulating the world’s “background radiation”. (if First Branch magic can be visualized as a line, Second Branch magic is more of a plane or 3D sphere) The wizard alters and exaggerates the shape of their own magical aura to exert pressure on the “background radiation” around them to produce type spells that are more like buffs/debuffs in a video game. Some examples would include a spell that makes everyone in the area feel weirdly invigorated or sleepy, or slows down/speeds up time in a small area, or makes a room with your dead mom in it really, really cold (cough, cough). These spells tend to be more subtle and frankly kind of weird… it’s a very versatile branch of magic with some interesting potential implications. However, it tends to be the harder type of magic to learn by far and requires a very steady hand and calm mind to maintain.

Though they use First Branch magic as well, it’s worth noting that Second Branch magic is very common in the Eastern Kingdom, where it has been well-studied for thousands of years. Their extensive library of research is kept by the Eastern Kingdom Sultan in his private library. Westerners tend to view the Second Branch as shady and manipulative… who knows what a Second Branch wizard could be doing to you without you knowing? The only Second Branch magic to be commonly used in the West is healing magic.

However, as mentioned before, one important thing about the magic system in Amaranthine is that wizards are not psychic. They don’t have x-ray vision and do not innately know how every object or life form they encounter works, and a lot of specialized magic involves knowing the inner workings of things and being able to picture things clearly in your head. A wizard cannot use telekinesis to pick up an object they don’t know the location or shape of (if they tried, it would likely either not have any effect, or they’d break it/damage it/knock it over by targeting it incorrectly, depending on how “off” they were). Nor could they use magic to pick a lock if they didn’t already know how locks worked well enough to visualize the inside of it.

For this reason, wizards tend to be pretty well-read in general, as you have to know a lot about the mechanics and structure of the world around you in order to make the best use of your powers. Hyden specifically has a lot of esoteric nerdy technical knowledge about how things are put together but also huge blind spots when it comes to how the world works in practice. For example, he may know a lot about the anatomy of a corn plant because he had to study them one time when the Royal Mages tasked him with purifying a village’s corn field of crop blight, but still be unable to identify a carrot or yam. He may be able to draw a detailed diagram of the wheels and axle of a carriage because he helped assemble a fleet of them once upon a time, but not have any idea why those parts go together or what they specifically do.

[girlknifed]

Why You’re Not Experiencing What You Deeply Want (Even When You’re Doing Everything Right)

as someone who feels advice is more impactful when rooted in something deeper like psychology or spiritual tradition: i wanted to share my research on why things like shifting or other spiritual expansion can feel so hard to reach.

this post isn’t meant to contradict any of the other helpful advice you’ll see on here, but if you feel like you’ve hit a wall or that shifting is something far away, the most self honoring thing you can do is understand yourself before looking for outside solutions.

in the shifting community, we’ve all already accepted that putting shifting on a pedestal keeps it out of your reach. but why?

why can't you have what it is that you want so badly?

this is a long one, but it’s for your own good.

1. Psychology: The Upper Limit Problem (by Gay Hendricks)

in his book, the big leap, psychologist gay hendricks (haha gay) calls this the upper limit problem. the idea that you have an inner thermostat that measures how much success, happiness, and expansion you believe you deserve.

this measure can be different for people; some might believe they deserve everything, some might believe they deserve none at all, and the rest of us fall somewhere in between.

the thing we all have in common however is that our reality will match the capacity of our inner thermostat.

if you, who believes you do not deserve it, start getting too close to shifting, your inner thermostat says ‘oh! nope. we hit our maximum. this package is not for us.’ and unfortunately, your reality will comply.

getting anxious before attempting, suddenly doubting if its real when you get close, changing your method again and again, obsessing over symptoms or doing it right.

you don’t believe you deserve this amount of freedom/power/peace, so you will self sabotage.

it was never about your capabilities, and as unpleasant as this might be to hear, the situation you are in is one you have designated for yourself.

understanding this is the road to victory.

2. Spirituality: The Law Of Detachment + Clinging Energy

in spiritual terms (especially in buddhism, taoism, and law of attraction), this is about attachment vs detachment.

the more you grasp at something, the more you reinforce the belief that you don’t have it.

so when you want shifting desperately, you’re not aligned with the version of you that already has it. you’re aligned with the version that doesn’t.

that desire energy can turn into fear, urgency, and scarcity which literally will block your flow.

this is why so many people only shift or project accidentally when they’re relaxed, distracted, or not trying. they’ve dropped the fight response that usually blocks it.

you don’t manifest what you want.

you manifest what you are.

look at yourself and see that all of which you have is only what you have chosen for yourself.

3. Closing Thoughts

you don’t need a new method or script or routine.

you need a new relationship with your own mind.

you’re not doing it wrong. you’re just doing it from a place of fear.

once you understand it, you can bring your desire down from the pedestal. have it sit beside you. have it get familiar.

thank you for reading. raise your inner thermostat.

if you find that this resonates, i will be posting the straightforward method i used to overcome my inner wiring soon.

Sincerely,

[ooooo-mcyt]

Somewhat of a continuation to my post on manipulative characters in the life series:

I think we need to remember that "manipulation" is not a single monolithic act and that there are a hundred different ways for someone to be "manipulative" that are not all created equally and do not all map onto each other. Like, someone can be good at mostly benignly influencing how they're perceived, or they can be good at selling things and scamming, or they can be good at turning people against each other, or they can be good at lying to/using and then betraying teammates, and those are all 'manipulative' in some way, but a player being good at or willing to do one of those things doesn't mean that applies to the others?

Scott is good at making people like him and keeping his emotions under wrap to a degree that he can control how he's perceived by others, which is 'manipulative' in a way, he's good at manipulating broad and impersonal (or antagonistic) social settings to benefit him, but you'll rarely see him do the kind of manipulation that involves scamming people, and he would literally never hurt or betray his team, nor is he in the habit of trying to personally control his teammates in a manipulative way.

Gem is good at turning people against each other, making people like her and then pointing one person one direction and one person the other in a way that benefits her team, but she also isn't a scammer, or, importantly, a traitor, and has proven she'll stay with her team even when given the option to choose a bigger team over them. As willing as Gem is to twist narratives, usually she doesn't lie to her teammates or even consider leaving them.

Scar is our big scammer, his big talent comes in with making deals, his ability to utilize a combination of genuine persuasion and his littleguy persona to make people buy literally anything he sells. He's also fairly good at 'misinterpreting' instructions in a way that happen to benefit him and only him. That being said, he's not really a traitor (other than briefly in third life). While Scar can be isolationist and impersonal, he tends to hold onto the teams he does have and won't backstab them.

Martyn is our big traitor, he's earned a reputation at this point for his willingness to flip on a dime if a teammate isn't useful anymore, he very much is the type to stay with someone only so long as it's good for him. He's maybe the first one I'd say is probably willing and able to do all kinds of manipulation as well to be honest, though I think disloyalty within teams is the biggest one for him.

Etho's also good at pretty much every form of manipulation, which does go understated. He'll use the "I'm so pathetic and scared of you :(" shtick to control how people perceive him, he doesn't often 'betray' teams outright but he does always seem to have his foot in at least two (if not more) teams so he has options, and he's scarily good at using the "I'm so pathetic" thing specifically to lure people into traps (the time etho went "waiittt joel i'm scarreedd, joel lets teamm, i need youu :((((" in secret life to manipulate joel into being an easier kill for the boogeyman army was wild).

Ren is good at twisting narratives, and specifically tends to do in the context of making sure he's always viewed as the good guy (even when this means actually literally lying. i know i always use this example. but the time ren suggested unprompted to grian that they attack the g's. and then formed an army against grian the next episode because he "made" ren kill impulse. was wild). But that's, like, the extent of his manipulation. Ren will manipulate narratives and even lie outright to avoid facing his own capacity for harm but other than that he's pretty loyal and honest.

Like I'm just saying that the word "manipulation" covers a super wide range of behaviors, some mostly benign and some very much not, and I feel like sometimes we start assuming someone who is capable of 'manipulating' in one way is automatically willing and able to be manipulative in every conceivable way even when they very obviously don't do that, or, on the opposite side of things, assume that just because someone is honest in some ways means they can't be manipulative in others. Just because Scott can make people like him doesn't mean he's using and trying to control and hurt his teammates, and on the other hand, just because Ren is very loyal and usually honest doesn't mean he's incapable of lying or twisting narratives when he really feels the need to. Idk.

[ghost-bison]

i became curious and searched up how the name "dalek" came to be:

at first, i thought it must have something to do with the norwegian word "dårlig", which means "bad", because of the doctor's reaction in 2x13 "doomsday" when rose said they were in bad wolf bay ("dårlig ulv stranden" if i'm not mistaken): he thought she'd said "dalek". but if you look up the pronunciation, it sounds more like /dɔːleh/ (approximate english phonetic transcription) than how she said it, /dɑːlɪg/ so i thought, even though the mix-up between "dårlig" and "dalek" was done on purpose and the definition, "bad", would be pretty damn on-the-nose, it's not it. so i did some more research.

apparently, it was terry nation (the guy who invented the daleks and davros in, i guess, 1962) who came up with it. according to him, the name simply "rolled off his typewriter", so it wasn't supposed to mean anything. but like me, he got curious and found out that the word "dalek" is serbo-croatian for "far, distant".

this really pleased me for two separate reasons: first, and this is the most obvious interpretation, the daleks are aliens from a distant world, far from earth. but i mean, to daleks or chelonians or raxacoricofallapatorians or any other alien species, the same can be said for earthlings: we are far, distant from them, and any and all species are far and distant from us.

but! if you think of the other meaning behind "distant", not geographically speaking but culturally/morally speaking, that's when things get interesting: the reason the daleks are the main foe in doctor who is that they are detached, so different from any and every other enemy the doctor and unit and torchwood and the shadow proclamation and such have ever had to fight. they keep surviving and coming back because they are so distant, so alien (in the "bizarre" sense of the word) to all other species.

if you take, for example, us humans, the doctor loves our species because of our capacity for love, forgiveness, change, compassion. you see it in the people he picks: rose, martha, then donna, etc. they represent everything he loves in a human being. everything he needs, everything he misses since his own species, which used to be capable of those feelings too, has gone.

he doesn't pick soldiers and has an aversion toward them, because as much as he pretends to hate it when his companions "wander off", he keeps choosing people whom he knows will wander off, people who will question his orders, people whom he doesn't have to feel or be superior to. whereas soldiers, they are conditioned not to question, and to follow instructions, to do as they are told.

in 1x06 "dalek", when nine realizes that the dalek's gun isn't working, he says "if you can't kill, then what are you good for, dalek? what's the point of you?". then, the dalek tells the doctor, "i am a soldier, i was bred to receive orders".

soldiers, whatever species they are, are too much like daleks: they wouldn't question him. that's why, when he realized he was the last of his species, the dalek turned to the doctor, his greatest enemy ("then what should i do?"), and then rose ("order me to die"), for orders. that's why twelve refused to keep journey blue as his traveling companion in 8x02 "into the dalek": people who don't question orders are dangerous to his lifestyle.

he needs people who go against what he says. not only that, but the doctor is, himself, a soldier of sorts, and sometimes he needs the right orders (1x06 "dalek": "what the hell are you changing into, doctor?" -rose ; "the runaway bride": "doctor, you can stop now"/"sometimes i think you need someone to stop you" -donna ; 4x02 "the fires of pompeii": "not the whole town, just save someone" -donna). else caecilius' family would have died in pompeii. else the doctor would use guns, he would die, he would try to break fixed points in time, he would lose himself.

in that sense, the daleks are as far from the doctor and his children of time as can be. i wrote about it somewhere in a one-shot someday: "the daleks weren’t robots, per se, but they kind of were, for someone like the doctor, or the humans, who both felt everything so deeply when all those monsters knew was hatred".

the daleks are to the doctor what dependence and servitude are to freedom, and in that sense, they are distant.

[atleasttheresthis]

There's a lot going around about the Neil Gaiman allegations, but one thing I keep coming back to is how we think about abusers in general.

@transcyberism wrote this on another post (quoting and not reblogging because I think that would hijack the original post): "Abusers look and act like normal-ass people."

I keep thinking about this because, unfortunately, abusers are normal-ass people. They're not like some alien species, they're people, with lives that, often, look a lot like yours. This doesn't mean that the things they do aren't devastatingly hurtful, or violent, and have outrageously harmful consequences. Of course they do. But the point here is that, most of the time, abusers aren't like an unknowable force for evil. They're people, and they're often motivated by the same things you are.

What I'm trying to get at here is that we are all capable of hurting each other beyond repair. I don't believe there is some innate capacity for evil and damage that abusers have and we don't, I believe the ability to cause damage resides in all of us. This doesn't mean that everybody is an abuser and everybody has caused such damage. I'm not pointing at you, the person reading this, and accusing you of being an abuser. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying that we all could be. Not that we have, or we're going to. But we could. Abusers are normal-ass people, and so are we. And normal-ass people hurt each other all the time, intentionally or not.

In Avatar the Last Airbender, when Toph says "it's like these people are born bad," Aang replies "no, that's not it at all. Everyone is capable of great good or great evil." I think he's hit the nail on the head. I don't believe people are born bad, and I don't believe people are born good. We are all capable of unimaginable suffering. Abusers are normal-ass people.

The reason this is important, I think, is when we consider what Lila Shapiro, the author of the Vulture article, writes about Gaiman's history with Scientology. Apparently, he was subjected to horrible things at the hands of the church and his parents when he was a child. As other people have pointed out, this is not meant to absolve him or forgive him, or even explain his actions. We're not in his head, we don't know. It's more to put his actions into context. Neil Gaiman is a normal-ass person who had horrible things done to him by other normal-ass people and did horrible things to other normal-ass people. Abuse victims abuse victims. Again, this is not meant to explain/absolve him, but to put his actions in context.

I also think we have to remember that Neil Gaiman is very likely a normal-ass person as we try and make sense of what to do next. Yes, he should face some kind of punishment; yes, his victims deserve justice; yes, we probably shouldn't make any more of his stuff into hit TV shows, and we should probably think twice about buying his books. But we can't just, like, kill him, or write him off as a one-note evil character who is completely different from us. He's not the Other Mother. He didn't do these horrible things because he's fundamentally different from us, he did these things because he is, unfortunately, a normal-ass person, just like we are.

[catpriciousmarjara]

Okay so there's this dp x dc tumblr post about the JL finding the Ghost King's family tree or something and lots of misunderstandings happening but I can't find it anymore and would be grateful if someone would send it to me... Anyhow I was inspired by it and this is the result!

Also on ao3 if you wanna check it out there!

The Family Tree

"So you're telling me this is just a family tree?", Green Lantern asked with a frown on his face.

Bruce could see Constantine's eyes twitching at that question. As always, leave it to Hal Jordan to annoy people.

"This isn't just anything", the sorcerer said with narrowed eyes. "It's a Class-X magical artifact. If this thing is used as a focus for a ritual, the magnitude of magical energy would rise by at least 80 factors. For those of you non-magical or unfamiliar with magic, that's fucking huge."

Beside him Zatanna nodded, her gaze still fixed on the ancient manuscript. She hadn't taken her eyes off the scroll for more than a minute since she got to the Watch Tower and first saw it spread out on the containment room table. Constantine was the same. Captain Marvel was not present, working along with Superman, Hawkgirl, and Aquaman on a case, but his reactions have always been dissimilar from his magical colleagues, so his case might be anywhere between staying the hell away from it to trying to inhale it.

It was clear to Bruce that Zatanna coveted it, but was sensible and cautious enough to stay away from it. Constantine had no sense so he was a tossup. From where he was standing between Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter, the Gotham vigilante resolved to keep an eye on the two magicians. They most likely won't try to steal the artifact, considering the heavy dose of 'not messing with that thing' overshadowing the desire to possess it, but the scroll itself might be enchanted to encourage covetous feelings on those nearby. It wouldn't be the first time. Better safe than sorry.

It was Diana that stepped up towards the two JL Dark members to seek more clarification. As both a Demigod and as someone familiar with magic, she was usually the one taking point on such issues.

She gestured to the scroll innocently sitting inside the runic circle the two mages had constructed around it. "You have told us that the artifact is not destructive, that it is merely a record, and that the information it contains is not a spell, or a runic arrangement, or a magic circle. You have also told us that the strange energy readings coming from it are mostly due to the material it's made out of than any catastrophic sorcery enchanted into it. You have at last decoded it as a record of a family tree. Yet it is dangerous, a Class-X relic as you've said. Given all this information, I suppose the correct question to ask here is this: why is a family tree capable of raising magical energy output by 80 factors?"

The two magicians looked at each other. Zatanna finally pried her eyes away from the scroll and faced the room.

"Magic is a force that simultaneously has laws but at the same time adheres to none. It's confusing to explain but for the time being just keep that in mind."

She walked to the center of the room, followed by Constantine, visibly trying to collect her words. Bruce prepared himself for a complicated explanation and activated another one of the batsuit's recorders. He felt the urge to sigh, for a supposed unchained force, Magic was needlessly complex at times, and practically incomprehensible to non-magicals.

At the front, Zatanna took a deep breath and began.

"As you know there are multiple dimensions. But magical dimensions come under a different category. Depending on the overall magical potential of a particular magical dimension, we call it the World State Stable Thaumaturgical Output Capacity, we can classify these dimensions in grades and levels, as either higher or lower, with relation to each other. These levels are dependent on a multitude of variables like space, time, gravity, Events, Proximity, etc and as such are non-linear, and unfixed. That's the first thing."

Bruce could practically see the capitals on the last two. Looks like they would need to hold another meeting to clarify a lot of these concepts. Seeing the dawning of lost expressions on some of the members however, Bruce mentally amended that to many future meetings.

Zatanna continued. "Magical objects from higher dimensions become stronger in lower ones. The inverse is also true. This is all in relation to the Overture and the same polarity orientation of course but we don't need to get into that now-"

On the contrary Bruce thought they really needed more explanation on all of that.

"-In simple terms, a child's toy from a higher dimension could become the focus for an apocalyptic ritual in a much lower dimension, while an apocalyptic artifact from a lower dimension might as well be paperweight in a sufficiently higher one. There are ways around it, but if those methods are not implemented, then this is how it generally goes. The larger the level difference, the higher the power."

Now that wasn't concerning at all. Bruce really needed to update his contingency plans regarding magic.

Constantine continued from where Zatanna left off, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here.

"The second thing is that when it comes to magic, things that are indefinable or unquantifiable become definable and quantifiable. Stuff like love, hate, happiness, despair, fate, necessity, authority? All measurable. Not always needed of course, But definitely possible and frequently used in a variety of magical fields."

The sorcerer leaned against a nearby chair. "One such thing is Significance. The magic contained in true names for instance is mostly based on significance. A true name is significant to you, its a doorway to your soul, and therefore it holds power. Significance is also what we call a positive, additive factor in magic. In the absence of interfering variables, significance as a quantity is directly proportional to magical output. In other words-"

"-the more significant an object or an event, the higher the magical energy output, and consequently higher the magical power", J'onn finished. He looked towards the scroll. "The information recorded on it, the family tree as you've said, valuable in significance, most likely in terms of whose family it's a record of. In addition, the artifact is from a higher dimension with relation to ours, and that has a cumulative effect."

"Yeah exactly", said Constantine with a raised eyebrow. "Which means that if that hypothetical toy Zatanna mentioned? If that happened to be important enough, like a first toy, or a cherished gift or something like that, its significance increases, its potential increases, and in the right hands, or in the wrong hands really, that potential could be harnessed at a lower level."

There was a bout of thoughtful silence as they absorbed all of the information.

But Bruce felt as if he had been quiet enough and took the chance to ask a question of his own. "You mentioned something called the Overture, and polarity orientation. What do they mean?"

Constantine just sighed. "For fuck's sake Batsy those things aren't really important to the discussion..."

Bruce just stared.

..."Fine", the mage said in defeat. "There are many names for it, the Overture, Exordium, Legerdomain, Nascence...but the most accepted two are the Beforebirth, and the Womb. It's not a something as much as it's a someplace, but then again it's not really a place either. Simply put it's the birthplace of Magic, where it all began and all that. It can't be accessed without the Key and that's been lost for a long time. It's actually a mission for many magicals to find it you know? A holy quest for a lot of them. Some of them are straight up crazy though."

Bruce field that information safely away. Figure out a plan to combat fanatic magicians trying to find the birthplace of magic for sinister reasons. "And polarity?"

"Well", Zatanna began, "its how magic is classified according to the nature of...magic? Or rather the essence? It's hard to put in mundane terms...Anyhow broadly speaking there are two main polarities, the Obverse, and the Reverse."

For a moment, she struggled with the explanation before brightening, seemingly having found an idea.

"Picture a number line, but like on the y-axis! Zero is the Overture, Obverse dimensions are the positive number side, and Reverse dimensions are the negative numbers! The higher up the obverse dimension, the larger its magical output! Similarly, the lower down the reverse dimension, the higher its magical output."

Bruce had hardly parsed through that when their resident speedster spoke up.

"Guys", the red clad hero said, "I feel like we missed the obvious follow up question after Ollie over here...like I feel like this is important, but where exactly is the scroll from?"

As one everyone turned towards the artifact.

Constantine grimaced and Zatanna winced. They looked at each other as if asking who wanted to bite the bullet. Finally it looked as if Constantine lost. The sorcerer cursed under his breath.

"Well which dimension is the scroll from?", asked Wonder Woman.

Constantine took what looked like a fortifying breath.

"It's from the Infinite Realms."

Silence.

"What?", the Green Lantern asked intelligently.

"It's from the Infinite Realms. As in Infinite. As in end of the figurative fucking line, number line whatever!"

Everyone stared at the magicians as understanding slowly dawned.

There was what was essentially a magical nuke in the Watch Tower.

"Now", began Martian Manhunter, "this is unfortunate".

[leftontheforestfloor]

Cameron as Lockwood was amazing and the show writing definitely had him analyzed really well what Lockwood would've been like if he was older, instead of 15 as he was and Lucy being 14 and George being also 15 at the beginning of the book series

Yes, 18 yo Lockwood would appear more tired even from the first episode or maybe that's just Cameron lol because he's been thru a lot for years, as he's aged up by 3 years, but I keep thinking of the 15yo Lockwood who's still got his twinkle, his hopes. For me, Cameron!Lockwood is anxious and visibly trying his best, book!Lockwood doesn't know the kind of out of depthness he's actually in if he's a normal kid in a normal universe.

Cameron!Lockwood is hanging by a thread, book!Lockwood (putting aside our famous hc that the books romanticize Lockwood because it's from Lucy's pov) is a kid who stepped into a sinkhole and he's sinking slowly into it but he doesn't know it

I'm a sucker for the early teens books characters because those things that they changed and/or wrote to become more dramatic and/or didn't land as well as they would've if they weren't on tv....is because they're early teens in the books

This hollowed out grieving boy will not have the mind for anything else other than what he thinks is essential at that age; his company, his house, his livelihood, his looks and his friends. He's had enough at 15

It took him longer to reach the romantic attachment conclusions not because he didn't realize his feelings; being a ghost hunter means you gotta emphatize and understand why ghosts are acting the way they did, even if he didn't go as far Lucy did. It's because he's 15

Those awkward gaps in the books where Lucy was doing more than she should and we were all like, pls react the way a normal guy who likes a girl would, and he didn't? That's because he's literally 15/16. He doesn't know how to react like that. He was mad at Lucy for going against his orders as her employer because he didn't know how else best to react. Yet. Best he can do is try to cheer you up awkwardly with "you know I'd die for you". And he was super sincere when he said that.

He's trying to stay a company afloat at 15 and possibly younger than that when he first met George. He doesn't have the mind capacity for anything else. His energy is spent so much on being on top of things as the leader, appearing charming as he best know, getting as much good cases as they can, keeping the company and himself fed and sheltered; see how he treated Lucy in THB-- it's because he thinks what he did was right; he thinks keeping Lucy alienated was a way to keep her safe, he employed Holly specifically because he wanted the company to work smoothly, better

The kid who basically went suicidal mode because he didn't know how to deal with Lucy leaving the co. had probably just turned 16/17ish. They've only reached the age they were in the show i think, in the latter part of the books series

Yes angsty and capable 17/18 y/o Lockwood is great but can you imagine being in a younger time in your life and doing what he was trying to do? That's angsty younger, and capable 15ish y/o kid

It's not a vast difference in age, but I would sooner send a 17 year old kid to buy groceries than a 15 yr old if I had the choice

The age factor messes me up everytime because Lockwood lost his family and he's managing a company at younger than 15. Lucy left home at 14. 14. She lost her colleagues/friends at younger than that. That awkward, no filter George is 15. That kid who's also trying his best to manage the food intakes in the house the way he knew how to before Holly arrived was in his early teens

You turn to look at Flo and she's just a little bit older than the trio. Flo is older than Lockwood in the books iirc but still probably younger than show Flo. And she was already traumatized and messed up. I actually think show Flo is more sane than book Flo (maybe show Flo had better coping mechanisms lol)

Things make more sense in the show with 17/18/18ish characters managing the company. Normal kids are about to leave school at that age. 17ish are not adults but they're old enough that it's believable and not alarming that they're living together, they're fighting together with no adults supervision,

but imagine being younger than that...and no adult supervision, and it's not merely that it's all shenanigans, it's that they're early teens kids trying their best the way they know how too. In other words, too young it makes me wanna cry. If i was a character in the books, I'd adopt them all

To reiterate the wildness of it all, imagine you're agreeing to sending your 15yo brother and his friends to a haunted mansion where the owner is a homicidal geezer who wanted ro silence them by pretending to ask them to solve the haunting of his mansion WHERE PEOPLE HAVE ACTUALLY LOST THEIR LIVES

That's book one.

Do you realize how skrunkly and the extent of out of depthness they all had in the books because of how much younger they were in them and i wanna hug them sm

[fanfictionroxs]

Wrote this little something regarding Daniel's line "Armand, Amadeo, Arun.. where does the the bullshit start?" and how his reactions are so often seen without context and get unfairly assessed.

Daniel's reaction to someone doing wrong to him is to utterly destroy them. Whether it's him in s1, during the start of it all, after 50 years spent thinking Louis had sex with him in San Francisco and then tried to murder him.. and so being super defensive and unforgiving towards Louis, completely tearing his story to shreds because how can Daniel actually trust his version of the events when this man basically "wham, bam, die now, maam"ed him 50 years ago? (lol) Or whether it's Armand who tortures him for 6 days and Daniel returns the favour with a ferocity, tossing that script to Louis who throws it at Armand like divorce papers because that's what they are ultimately. A complete and total destruction of Armand's 77 years of manipulations.

And while there's many similarities between Louis and Daniel, both having 2 failed marriages, 2 daughters, bad fathers, falling in love with their makers.. the difference lies in their capacity to forgive.

Not saying Daniel isn't capable of forgiveness, obviously he is otherwise Devil's Minion would never have happened or all the little moments we see of him growing empathetic towards Louis even before s2ep5. But expecting him to forgive wrongs of such level (when folks are even bothering to acknowledge that something wrong was done to him) and play nice with beings with whom he has no equal standing, beings who remind him of it all the time, on top of actively dying from a disease? Daniel's reactions aren't that hard to understand, but sadly many folk have a habit of erasing the fact that he very much is Armand and Louis's victim. His fearless attitude and sharp words are a front a lot of times, but he never forgets the wrongs done to him, even if the audience might, and he gets fucking even.