#which is true but most often results in them taking out these issues on their wives/girlfriends either as a ‘my s/o is my therapist’ thing

[ruscha]

getting a powerful urge to do essay research on something approaching the subject of masculinity performance/identification among cis men in the current day and in particular the ryan gosling/he’s literally me/etc effect esp when it comes to the constant framing of “male sadness/loneliness” as a particular kind of feeling that other genders cannot possibly relate to

[introboy]

So so excited to share my @mcytblrholidayexchange gift for @follow-the-compass-home! My concept was to combine a bunch of prompts together into one AU.

The premise is a modern-fantasy roommate situation where Tango, Bdubs, and Etho live together in an apartment. The only issue is that none of them are human, but they're all trying desperately to blend in, even though they don't really understand humanity as a concept.

More information can be found below the cut, and an introductory fic snippet can be found here (x)!

Downstairs Neighbors AU

Prompts used as inspiration:

Focus on Tango, Etho, and Bdubs

Include Boatem

Story told from Grian's perspective

Hybrid/inhuman AU

Angst with a happy ending

Emphasis on character dynamics

Here's a summary!!!

Tango, Etho, and Bdubs found each other by looking for roommates on Craigslist. They live in a 4-bedroom apartment together.

Tango is a spirit who wanted to interact with the world in a physical sense, so he built himself a body. He's basically just a ghost possessing an android (but unlike ghosts, he was never alive; he came into being as a fully-formed spirit). He doesn't adhere to normal bodily necessities like food, water, or sleep, which is convenient but also heavily concerning from an outsider's perspective.

Etho is a specific kind of shapeshifter called a mimic. He doesn't have a true form, but can copy the shape and mannerisms of most living creatures. The only constant across all of his appearances is a scarred left eye and white hair. Unfortunately, it takes practice to nail specific species characteristics, so he often forgets what he's supposed to look like and falls into uncanny valley. He wears a mask to cover his more noticable facial slipups.

Bdubs is some sort of plant creature (he doesn't really understand it himself). He has a perfect internal clock and sleeps, without fail, for 12 hours every night. He spends a lot of time in the unoccupied bedroom-- he uses it as a makeshift greenhouse, and it's filled with grow lights and humidifiers. He loves taking care of houseplants, but it's also a cover for him to spend time under the grow lights. Without enough light & water he gets lethargic.

Bdubs, Etho, and Tango, henceforth referred to as BET, all assume that the others are human. But since none of them know how to act human, they continuously pick up stranger and stranger habits from each other.

BET are close friends with Impulse & Skizzleman, who live together across the hall. Their upstairs neighbors are Grian, Pearl, Mumbo, and Scar, who are also besties with Imp & Skizz. BET and Boatem don't know each other well, but Grian especially thinks his neighbors are really odd.

Like BET, Grian is not human, and neither are the rest of his roommates. But they all know about each other, and Grian especially is really good at knowing how to act natural in public places. He's an avian shapeshifter, who can take the form of either a scarlet macaw or a human. Unlike Etho, both forms come equally naturally to Grian, and the shapeshifting process is a lot easier for him.

(Imp & Skizz are not human either-- they are a demon and an angel respectively. But, like Grian, they're really good at blending in when in public.)

One day, Grian gets injured on a flight and accidentally ends up on BET's balcony instead of his own. He's too disoriented to shift back into his human form or fly away, so Bdubs and Etho find him outside their door. Tango calls Impulse over in the hopes that he knows how to fix the random-injured-parrot crisis, but the only result is that Grian and Impulse start to truly take note of how strange their neighbors' living situation is. Incidents like the one pictured above arise (i.e. everyone finding out that there is not a singular scrap of food to be found in the entire apartment).

Ok that's all the rambling I'll do in this post, but I hope you enjoyed! Happy holidays!!

[lilmajorshawty]

The 10th house is your inner thoughts and how you cope with your external environment. It can often be the difference between the EGO and the ID. In respective formatting your 10th house is your face beneath the mask and can denote to your more detached or impersonal, and personal feelings that are not readily expressed to the people around you.

Midheaven series : how your monologue effects you.

Aries Midheaven : “ CEO”

these natives lcan have a critical and rather professional inner voice. One that is big on ensuring the way the outer image is presented is calm/collected and put together. But this can also make the person cut throat, a social and career climber no matter the cost and the type of person whom is very tactile and calculative when it comes to the way they present themselves. The latter can also be said that in the true spirit of Capricorn these natives can have inner issues with authority and routinely set up situations in which they can be in charge.

Aquarius Midheaven: “The Observer”

These natives are often regarded as the most detached of the midheavens. They tend to have a very complex inner monologue with themselves and their surroundings. They often times had a childhood that may have been over emotional/dramatic/passionate but at many moments lacking objectivity and rationalism. As a result in their dealings with the external world they tend to be a bit aloof. They process the world around them from a distance never readily diving all the way in, if it all. They are curious about people and their emotional motivations behind the actions they make but they still have difficulty connecting to these feelings often time taking a “collective” approach to strangers and outsiders. They’re friendly and captivating due to their messiah like ambivalence but they can also seem intimidating and come across as indifferent to the presence of others due to their at times cold nature. They’re often very detached and not readily emotionally available in a way that sacrifices their own vulnerability. Though they might be friendly and though they might have that playful impartialness that makes them seem warm and open you will soon find out that they’re very difficult to get close to if at all. Everything lay on the surface no matter how “open” they may seem. There is quite the wall that prevents any from getting closer. Their inner monologue tends to be inspective, box and prism like. They find the outside world to be a cage and one they seek to escape and every scenario plays out as a situation they seek to rebrand and resculpt in some way.

Pisces Midheaven : with a Pisces 10th house there’s this painful nature to their inner monologue. It’s can present as machinist tendencies and can be the inner monologue that tears down the native only to create a accommodating outer image. They have to be liked and seem agreeable. Many Gemini risings fall into the outer image of compliance and socially acceptable tendencies as to not ruffle feathers as the Piscean 10th house forces them to hide their true feelings on matters, be it disagreeing, be it wanting to go a different path or be it outright not liking another person. Their inner monologue forces them to mask these aversion to things and others and often ridicules them for feeling such intense feelings even if they’re completely justified in feeling that way. They’re perceptive and can easily pick up in the nuances and animosity or bad intentions of others but they will seldom do anything about it. They much rather swim away from bad energy then confront it which is more often then not why once overstimulated these natives run.

[centrally-unplanned]

Time for a pet peeve take response - let me capture our target below:

[Unpopular Fantasy Opinion Take:] The fantasy genre by-and-large took the wrong takeaway from Tolkien, and has been generally spiraling since as a result. They took his surface-level aesthetics and fantastical elements, and left his engagement with real, historical texts, his philology & his moral seriosity. In a different timeline, subsequent authors would have adopted Tolkien's erudite love of language and mythology and applied it to other cultures & mythologies - not just superficially, but by engaging with the great Chinese novels or the Shahnameh like he did with Beowulf. Even when you *do* see more recent novels "inspired by" other cultures, they are very blatantly just taking the (degraded distillate of the) Western, Tolkien-esque tradition and coating it in a thin veneer of Chinese or Mesoamerican lore.

This is not the first time I have seen this specific take, and it is part of a "fallen literature" genre that is always confusing supply & demand, with a hefty bout of selection bias for good measure.

To get the obvious out of the way, the "lessons" people took from Tolkien are entirely what audiences want to read, and were never going to be any other way. Most people don't wanna read hard, heavy books! Even if they want that sometimes, for every one Gravity's Rainbow they are gonna read a dozen Gone Girl's as a palette-cleansing snack, which means by-the-numbers the latter will dominate. Fantasy did not invent the genre of adventure stories and swashbuckling heroes and hot maidens to woo and mystical mumbo-jumbo; people stapling tried-and-true genre tropes onto elves and orcs once they took off was a given. The "shallow" part was the only part that could have changed; a world where the median fantasy novel is dealing with theological issues could never have been.

And to top this all off, no disrespect to Tolkien at all, but like...he isn't that deep? The "moral seriousness" of the Lord of the Rings is very simple - characters are often cartoonishly evil or blatantly good, the conflicts they face are often black and white, and in particular the moral dilemmas faced by characters boil down to tests of courage more than half the time. What Tolkien does have is his own unique interests? Like in Middle Earth the "act of creation", from art to life, is itself a moral undertaking with metaphysical implications. This is super cool - but it is also again very simple, it is barely even discussed in the novels and his ideas can be summarized in a paragraph. This is all good btw! The novels would not benefit from more complicated morality. But modern books are just as complex, and often more so.

Actually just a little aside here - a lot of people do this thing with Tolkien where they mention his letters and drafts like that is canonical story text? Yeah he wrote like an essay about the theological implications of the various orc origin stories, but he didn't publish that, it is nowhere in the Lord of the Rings and is barely in the Silmarillion. Other authors have notes like those; you just don't read them.

And the "other cultures" stuff is particularly egregious - I'm sorry, are we just not reading many modern stories? You think Spinning Silver isn't pulling great threads from Slavic folklore? You think the Chinese Gays in Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed aren't dropping refs to Daoism and the four classics in between their will-they-won't-they necromancy shenanigans? In response this author would, of course, pivot from their bailey of "no one references other traditions" to the motte of "and if they do it is shallow" with no definition of what qualifies as such, nor again any admittance that audiences care way more about getting the gays than the deep cut cultural refs. The fact that the median person in the west prefers their Dungeons & Dragons campaigns in a default Tolkien-esque setting because the point is to have a comfortable backdrop for ease of play of a combat dice game will just not factor into their analysis.

The elephant in the room for all of this is that foundational texts differ, structurally, from modern texts, because they were made in different environments. The Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't sell well today! The prose is wooden, the characters are flat, it throws random lore it never explains at you, Tom Bombadil is just there as a walking momentum-destroying plot hole, etc. People read it because it was a first in a world that didn't have books committing to this level of world-building & detail in a fantasy environment. And as a new genre, things like his crazy level of language building are appealing, it's all so new and different, something cool to dig into.

But imagine picking up your 185th elves-and-orcs sword & sorcery book in 1998 and reading "ah yes Quenya is just one of two alphabets for the Elven tongue and it is inspired by Finnish-Germanic and I write entire poems in it even though I never finished a cohesive dictionary or grammar system but I do have 15 pages of pronunciation notes"?? You would throw at it at a fucking wall, absolutely insufferable. It was cool the first time, and that is why you learn Elvish, just like you learn Klingon. That was never gonna keep as a zeitgeist - instead just popping up here or there as this or that series takes off.

You have to accept that audiences are in the driver's seat on this one - they have infinite stories to choose from, they are absolutely not being dragged along by willful writers. Which means genres will evolve and change over time - and that is fine.

[sylus-wife]

I can't seem to get lucky enough to see that line again where sylus says "beasts don't belong in a cage" in destiny cafe, but besides that, I think that how sylus views himself is one of the most interesting parts of his character.

throughout our journey with sylus and in the anecdotes, we often see this reoccurring theme of beasts or "taming", like how sylus tamed his horse in no defense zone, and how he offered to take the man's dog out on a walk that had issues with people other than its owner in wander in wonder, and especially how he chose to tame the dragon instead of killing it in adventure above clouds. I personally think that sylus often finds himself sympathizing with these animals who are viewed as "troublesome" or "beastly" by other people, as he often also has to, or have taken in the past, the burden of being the "beast", whether it is others who label him as such, or if he purposefully takes on a terrifying demeanour as a means to an end.

^^ an example of this is when he frees the beasts from the overlords artificial garden, and during this anecdote, we can see some short details of what sylus is thinking during this time regarding the feelings of the caged beasts. when he frees them and recognises their need for vengeance against the people responsible for imprisoning them, it's like sylus is saying: "the ones who have been treated as monsters desire the blood of their wrongdoers. what did you think was going to happen after keeping them locked away for so long?" here, sylus is the beast, recognising his other fellow beasts, and his form of vengeance is granting them freedom from their isolation, and allowing them to take their own vengeance against their wrongdoers instead of doing it for them.

sylus is actually way more sympathetic than people give him credit for, especially towards animals, as he was also caged and treated as such, like how he was imprisoned in tartarus. I also think that when his myth drops we will also see this reoccurring narrative tool being used again, since the form that we vaguely see him take in the flashback to MCs previous life with him IS terrifying and beast-like. this appearance that he has took (which is sort of suggested to be his true form due to the multiple references there is of sylus directly saying that his current body isn't real) could possibly be what led him to alienate himself from everyone else, as people are naturally terrified by beast-like creatures and want to keep them locked away where they are isolated from everyone else.

and with the whole "taming" thing, I just think to myself how much he trusts MC?? like, it is also a reoccurring narrative tool in sylus' story where taming or some sort of bondage is involved, and I otherwise wouldve thought that sylus would hate the idea of being bound with how he desires control, but then here he is throwing himself at MC whenever a situation of him being bound by her or TO her is involved, as if she is the only one who can tug him by his leash and he'd willingly follow. honestly he's like a big guard dog..

overall, I think sylus has a tendency to objectify himself as a result of many things, such as his reputation as a beast, his lack of self-preservation due to his indestructible (as far as we know) body, and how he insists on how MC should use him to her advantage. I also love his relationship with animals and it is sometimes upsetting to see how MC thinks that sylus is incapable of extending kindness to others (though she does not think this anymore since she has developed a deeper relationship with sylus and has a better read on his character) and I hope MC can be beside him on his journey to hopefully put an end to his self objectification or at least find ways to get him in a healthier mindset and have a better attitude about himself 🥹

[yanderes-galore]

please remember to not burn yourself out !! i see we both have httyd brainrot so ill make a request for toothless ! platonic and pet like obv. can you do platonic toothless scenario where idk toothless is being clingy with beloved ?

Sure! I talked to the original requester on Discord for a plot so this is what I got :)

Draconic Friend

Yandere! Platonic! Toothless Being Clingy Short

Pairing: Platonic/Pet-Like

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Overprotective dragon, Clingy dragon, Possessive dragon, A bit light-hearted compared to my usual stuff, Stalking implied, Violence, Jealousy.

You knew Toothless how most people knew Toothless. You're an ally to the dragon riders and a friend Hiccup himself. You had your own dragon to train and often looked to him for advice on how to properly bond with your dragon.

Your dragon isn't the only dragon you've managed to bond with however. It turns out you and Toothless naturally hit it off, the Night Fury often following you around and growing excited when he sees you. Hiccup comments that you must have a natural talent with dragons if Toothless likes you so fast.

Supposedly not many riders get a reaction from Toothless like you do.

Sometimes it felt like you had two dragons. Toothless would always be Hiccup's dragon, yet he had an attachment to you as if you were both close pals. Such a bond causes issues with your own dragon unfortunately.

Your dragon has usually been fine with Toothless. It's actually Toothless who has issues with your dragon. For some reason the Night Fury hates seeing you give your dragon attention.

It's like Toothless follows you when you aren't looking. Then, similar to a neglected puppy, pounces on you when he feels you're too close to your own dragon. You never have a private moment with them.

What's worse is you've heard Toothless growl at them. Supposedly the two dragons have gotten into fights due to both you and Hiccup finding minor wounds on both of them. It's gotten rather dangerous between the two dragons.

You can't seem to figure out the cause, after all the real reason isn't all that obvious.

Toothless is an utter angel around you when you're alone. He lays on you, rubs against you, licks your face, and cuddles against you. Such behavior makes you think he just dislikes your dragon for some reason. Which is partially true.

Hiccup suggested you leave him and Toothless alone to see if that helps. The issue is Toothless wouldn't leave you alone if you were in the area. The answer seemed simple enough, set up a riding session with your dragon.

Things seemed to be going great. You set up your dragon and was prepared to take off. Until you heard a deep growling behind you.

You freeze, slowly turning and staying in front of your dragon. Your dragon snarls as Toothless stalks over, eying the riding gear and you preparing to leave. You try to do what you can to calm him.

"Toothless..." You softly call his name, hoping the dragon would stop being so aggressive. "It's just for a bit. I just want a little ride with my own dragon, okay?"

There's another growl and you can faintly hear Hiccup call the dragon's name in the distance. Toothless glares at your dragon, another snarl being sent their way as he narrows his eyes to slits. Carefully you step away from your dragon despite said dragon's protests.

As a result Toothless seems to calm down. You tell your dragon to stay while you distance yourself from both of them. You watch as Toothless grows calmer.

"That better?" You ask cautiously.

Almost immediately the dragon darts towards you. Your dragon freaks out and nearly darts to your side, yet you call them to stop. You feel the dragon smash into you and collapse onto your body.

It's difficult to breathe with the large beast on you. Toothless growls in whatever the dragon equivalent of a purr is while he licks your face. You quietly ask him to get off but he scoffs and covers you in his body.

Your dragon tries to intervene, sensing their rider's distress, yet Toothless responds with a growl and an attempted bite. It doesn't occur until now what the problem is. Toothless is jealous you have another dragon as a rider....

The thought is baffling. Hiccup and Toothless are meant to be riders. Toothless loves Hiccup... perhaps he loves you similarly? The new problem is how you get him to drop this behavior?

"Toothless, they're taking me on one ride..."

Toothless responds with an annoyed roar and nuzzles into you.

"What... did you want to take me for a ride?"

Toothless emits a softer roar in response.

"Come on, boy... you know you can't do that-"

Toothless, being as moody as ever, ignores you and continues to guard you from your own dragon.

It takes Hiccup coming to your aid to coax Toothless off your squashed body. With a wheeze you manage to pick yourself up and struggle towards your dragon. Hiccup apologizes profusely as Toothless tries to walk past him to see you.

You're only able to fly when Hiccup occupies Toothless again. Even before you take off you catch the gaze of the Night Fury looking at you and your dragon. It's predatory, feral, jealous... possessive.

As you fly on your dragon, you begin to fear for you and your dragon's safety.

Toothless has hurt them before... would he do something worse next time he's alone with them?

Would he do something worse if he was alone with you?

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: basking shark

I'm not feeling too motivated today, so, I'm going to discuss another animal that likes to take it easy: the basking shark. This shark decided it's not into that whole "hunt down prey and fight to live" thing and decided to become a filter feeder instead. It seems to have worked out too, as basking sharks can be found worldwide and are the second largest fish, surpassed only by the whale shark. There is only one extant species of basking shark, but a few extinct species have been discovered.

(image id: a basking shark seen from the side. It is a large, brown shark with a large head and pointed snout. Its mouth is closed)

Cetorhinus maximus is one of only 3 species of filter-feeding shark, the others being the whale shark and the awesomely-named megamouth shark. Basking sharks average 8 meters (26 ft) in length, but can reach up to 11 meters (36 ft). An average adult weighs around 4650 kg (5 tons). They have a typical shark body shape (which has led to them being mistaken for great white sharks), but the mouth anatomy is different. The mouth can open up to a meter wide and appears toothless, though it is actually filled with tiny, conical teeth that appear to serve no purpose in adults. The gill slits are longer than in most shark species and almost completely encircle the head. Like other filter-feeding fish, the basking shark's gills are also used to catch its food. It swims forward with its mouth open and as water passed over the gills, zooplankton and small invertebrates and fish will get caught in the gill rakers, from where they can be swallowed. The basking shark's favorite food is copepods of the order Calanoida, though they will also target other copepods. They can detect their prey with electroreception like other sharks. Because plankton is not known for being fast and adult basking sharks have no natural predators, they aren't known for being particularly speedy. A basking shark on the hunt moves at a blistering 3 km/hr (1.9mph). They can move in fast bursts of speed and occasionally can jump clear out of the water. It's not 100% clear why they breach, but it seems to have a few benefits. It can help dislodge parasites (which is a big issue for basking sharks. They are often covered with scars from lampreys and cookie-cutter sharks) and notably they breach more during mating season, so it may also be used for sexual display. Breaching and the resulting splash may also be used for long-distance communication and threat displays. I remember being a kid watching Shark Week and being told by the TV that great whites are the only shark species that breach and that was just not even remotely true. The basking shark has the lowest brain to body weight ratio of any shark.

(image id: a basing shark seen from the front with its mouth open. The mouth is very large and white on the inside. Its gill slits can be seen from the inside, looking like large slits in the side of the mouth)

(video: a basking shark leaping out of the water multiple times)

The name basking shark comes from their typical behavior. They swim slowly at the surface of the water while feeding, leading to sailors thinking they were basking in the sun. They were commonly called sunfish, but the name is no longer commonly used to avoid confusion with the ocean sunfish. While swimming at the surface, they sometimes spin around or swim belly-up. Basking sharks are migratory, traveling toward the poles in summer and toward the equator in winter. It was formerly believed that they hibernated over the winter, but it is now known that they spend their time in deep water. While migrating and in summer, basking sharks display social behavior. They will shoal in groups hundreds strong and can often be found in small groups of similarly-sized fish, usually of the same sex. Not much is known about basking shark mating. They are ovoviviparous, with eggs hatching internally and developing further inside the mother before the pups are born. Gestation is believed to take between 1 and 3 years and a few large pups are born at a time. Pregnant females are very rarely seen and they may spend their time in deep water. There is only a single reported example of a pregnant female being caught and it has 6 pups. The seemingly useless teeth may actually be used in utero, as the unborn pups likely feed on unfertilized eggs after their yolk sacs are consumed. This adaptation has been observed in other ovoviviparous sharks. While females have two ova, only the right one actually functions. The lifespan of basking sharks is estimated to be around 50 years.

(image id: a group of 14 basking sharks swimming in a circle, seed form above. It is believed that this is a mating display)

(image id: a juvenile basking shark seen from above. It can be distringuished from an adult by the snout, which is sharp and hooked)

Basking sharks are classified as endangered by the IUCN. They has historically been hunted for their meat, hides, fatty livers, and fins. While there is currently no commercial fishery of basking sharks, they are poached for their fins and have not recovered from overexploitation. Bycatch is an ongoing problem for the sharks. Multiple countries have enacted conservation efforts including legal protection and the enactment of protected areas where fishing is prohibited. Basking sharks pose no threat to humans. They also do not fear humans and have even been known to approach and swim around divers. Basking sharks also appear a lot in the pseudoscience of cryptozoology. I can go into why cryptozoology is a pseudoscience in more detail in another post, but its the study of alleged animals not recognized by science. Basking sharks show up a lot as globsters, unidentified corpses that wash up on beaches or are caught in fishing nets. Basking sharks are responsible for a lot of globsters due to the way their corpses decay. Large amounts of decay happen around the head, which can lead to the mandible bones hanging loose or detaching and the snout decaying to look like a small head on a neck. In addition, the claspers (reproductive organs) of male basking sharks are very large and can be mistaken for limbs. One likely example of this is the Stronsay beast of 1808. Described as a six-legged decaying sea serpent, it is likely that the legs were actually the jaw bones, fins, and claspers of a male basing shark. A more recent example is the Zuiyo-Maru plesiosaur (warning: picture below and it's gross). This carcass was pulled up by the Japanese fishing boat Zuiyō-Maru in 1977 and based on the pictures taken and the word of two Japanese scientists, was thought by some to be an example of a recently-deceased plesiosaur. While the carcass itself was thrown back overboard, some samples were taken for analysis and based on them and anatomical detains from the pictures, it was concluded that the carcass is actually a heavily-decayed basking shark. The "neck" of the carcass is the spine and brain case with the jaws having decayed and fallen off. Further anatomical details such as the presence of cartilage in the fins and body proportions support the carcass being a fin and do not support it being a plesiosaur.

(Image id: top: the Zuiyo-Maru carcass, a large, decomposed carcass hanging rom a hook. It appears to have a long neck and fins. Bottom: a diagram comparing the anatomical features of the carcass and a fresh basking shark)

[kingofanemptyworld]

Rin, identity issues, and the complications of being an isolated, alienated teenager

It feels sort of weird to say but I generally don’t head canon characters as having particular sexualities. Whatever people go for in fics is usually fine with me - gay, lesbian, bi, pan, something more general like queer. As long as it makes sense for the story they’ve built and the character they’ve shaped to fit it, I’m good. Unless you’re ignoring a canon LGBTQ+ sexuality, in which case, yeah, I’ll take issue with that.

But anyway. Rin.

I’ve got my personal ship for him (BonRin my beloved), but regardless of the pairing I see him as bisexual. He’s so open with his infatuation with Shiemi, and okay, sure, fandom likes to ignore the love interest in shounen for the most part because we’ve got gay ships to peddle. But I don’t see the point in that unless it really reads like it’s a front, or a result of a character suppressing themselves for one reason or another. And with Rin, I think it’s pretty clear his affection for Shiemi is sincere. You technically have the in-universe evidence of the demon that brought out his true desires to back that up, but even without it, Rin likes her. It’s complicated because of Yukio and Shiemi’s own inexperience with romance, and yet I never once doubt he really likes her.

That being said… he’s very appreciative of the guys in his life, too. (Peddling my gay ship here) Bon in particular, considering he’s often admiring how cool he thinks Bon is, that his haircut suits him whether it’s the blonde rooster look or the undercut. If you don’t want to see it as romantic interest, that’s your prerogative, but to me Rin comes across as seeing cool and cute as different traits he finds attractive (in Bon and Shiemi respectively).

I also think his bisexuality would fit neatly into his narrative struggles to “pass” throughout the early parts of the series. Rin has grown up as the neighborhood problem child, ostracized for being violent, and eventually he decides he’s fine with just his brother and his father — and the rest of the monastery, presumably — for company. (Except that’s absolutely not true and clearly he’s starved for friendship and support.) People looked at him and saw a monster, even before his demonic heritage made an appearance; why would he bother giving them even more ammunition when it comes to reasons to hate him? So no matter when he figured out his attraction to guys, he’s not going to lean into it, because he also likes girls, right? (Ignoring for a moment that bisexuality is a lot more nuanced than that.)

Rin likes girls, Rin is human — that’s what’s going to get people to like him, or at the very least tolerate him. That he likes guys, that he’s half demon, he can shove that shit down and pretend it doesn’t exist. Lock up any stray thoughts and keep the sword sheathed around anyone who doesn’t already know.

(Excuse me for being amused by Rin wielding his humanity and supposed heterosexuality as a sword and shield.)

The problem, of course, is that he can’t keep up the facade forever. The narrative won’t let him. Rin has to embrace his demonic side, because it’s the only way to move forward and to continue to help his loved ones. And once he’s moved past the issue of his friends being upset over the deception, when they understand he’s still Rin despite what he’d hidden from them, Rin is finally allowed to be himself. He uses his flames, he lets his tail move freely in the open around the Cram School kids. Rin still doesn’t like this side of himself — it’s inextricably tied to every moment of pain and isolation he’s dealt with his entire life, including the death of Father Fujimoto (and, y’know, his mom). But he is moving forward, he’s trying to adapt.

And isn’t that some great fucking subtext for his bisexuality, too?

[frankingsteinery]

i mentioned victor's delusions in brief previously (here), but because of the inherent complexity (and almost contradictory aspect) of their nature i decided it warranted its own post!

victor, alongside other psychotic symptoms, experiences delusions of guilt and persecution. a delusion is an involuntary belief that isn't rooted in logic or evidence; a person experiencing a delusion is fixed in their belief, and they can't stop believing it even if they know it isn't true and/or despite contrary evidence.

while victor's delusions–specifically regarding those that revolve around the creature–by in large turn out to actually be true, i.e. the creature actually harmed his family and victor by extension, during the point in the novel when he was experiencing them, he has no evidence to suggest that this was the case, and within the context of the rest of his symptoms, they'd still be considered delusional ideas.

for a variety of reasons, i'm still on the fence on whether i'd categorize victor's mania and grandiosity during the creation process as constituting delusions of grandeur. and to what extent is this sense of grandiosity justified, because he DID discover the secret of life itself… does that not almost warrant the feeling of being superiorly intelligent, this sense of infallibly, and the belief that they should be lauded for their achievements, in almost anyone who could have made the same discovery? it's tricky because i’m not sure if i just have an aversion to the "victor had grandiose delusions during the creation process" take simply because the vast, vast majority of those who make that argument also make the argument that delusion of grandeur = arrogance = evil = victor sucks (and that line of thinking is a whole separate can of worms in of itself…), or if i actually don’t wholly agree with it; for this reason i won’t touch on this here yet

with that out of the way–

like i’ve stated before, victor’s psychotic breaks are either triggered by the stress of the creation process or the death of one of his loved ones. this results in delusions of persecution, which is defined as when the affected person believes that harm is going to occur to oneself or those close to them by a persecutor, in this case the creature, despite a clear lack of evidence. initially, this starts with paranoia:

“Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become…”

“With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet”

this paranoia develops into a delusion as victor’s belief that the creature means him harm, despite having nothing to support this idea, becomes fixed. this comes to a head after the creature’s animation: 

“I beheld the wretch…He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs…where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life”

“I issued into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on”

delusions can often feel like a sudden truth (the false belief) has been revealed to you. victor himself notes this sudden, extreme shift in perspective within himself:

“...dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete!”

as victor recovers physically, this delusion becomes less present as the acute phase ends, and victor’s fears regarding the creature fade into the background as he enters the recovery phase. he stays in this manner until psychosis is again triggered by the stressor of william’s murder–then, victor’s delusion of persecution returns. however, this time, he believes the creature is not only going to harm himself, but was the murderer of william. once more, this starts with paranoia:

“Fear overcame me; I dared no advance, dreading a thousand nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define them…The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings.”

and then develops into a fixed belief:

“I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch…Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth… He was the murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact.”

while it turned out that he was actually correct in this assumption, what’s important to emphasize here is that victor has absolutely ZERO proof that the creature was involved with the murder of william, apart from seeing a shady-looking outline outside of geneva after walking in the rain all night. victor is not thinking clearly here, which he himself acknowledges in a phenomenon known as double book-keeping. double book-keeping refers to a mental process where an individual maintains two conflicting beliefs or realities simultaneously--where a person might experience delusions or hallucinations while still having moments of awareness that these perceptions are not grounded in reality. here, victor holds two realities (believing in a delusion while being aware that this belief would not be shared by others):

” My first thought was to discover what I knew of the murderer, and cause instant pursuit to be made. But I paused when I reflected on the story that I had to tell. A being whom I myself had formed, and endued with life, had met me at midnight among the precipices of an inaccessible mountain. I remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at the time that I dated my creation, and which would give an air of delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable. I well knew that if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have looked upon it as the ravings of insanity…”

and, in fact, the only evidence he has is (seemingly) proof to the contrary i.e. the locket found in justine’s pocket. yet victor holds this belief with the intense conviction characteristic of delusions, as well as the incorrigibility of a delusion, as he’s continually resistant to his family’s logical counterarguments, as ernest recounts the events to victor upon his return home:

“This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith; and I replied earnestly, “You are all mistaken; I know the murderer. Justine, poor, good Justine, is innocent.”

he goes on to make the same assertion to his father and elizabeth, without once questioning the validity of his previous belief. 

victor develops delusions of guilt surrounding the trial of justine, the delusional belief of one's personal guilt for an event, real or imagined–it is an extreme and unwarranted feeling of remorse or guilt that someone has done something terrible. people with delusions of guilt may also believe they are "evil" or have committed an "unpardonable" sin and deserve to be punished forever. despite having no hand in the results of the trial, and again, no proof that the creature was even involved, victor is convinced of his guilt to the point of agony. for example:

”My own agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial. I believed in her innocence; I knew it. Could the dæmon who had (I did not for a minute doubt) murdered my brother also in his hellish sport have betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy? … The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold.”

”During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison room, where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair! Who dared talk of that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony…But I, the true murderer, felt the never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or consolation.”

  The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet behind… I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe.

delusions of guilt are often accompanied by low self-esteem, depression, and sometimes suicide (attempts); victor experiences all of these following the trial. this delusion is maintained throughout the rest of the novel.

lastly, during the chase at the arctic and on walton’s ship, victor experiences delusions surrounding his family. in his final attempt to hold onto those he lost, victor becomse unable to distinguish between reality and the delusions that sustain him:

"During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night, for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country… I persuaded myself that I was dreaming until night should come and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest friends. What agonising fondness did I feel for them! How did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my waking hours, and persuade myself that they still lived!...I pursued my path towards the destruction of the dæmon more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul."

Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a remote world."

ultimately victor's delusions evolve throughout the novel; what starts as paranoia becomes a fixed belief that the creature means to harm him and his family, which eventually develops into a certainty that he's responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. by the time he reaches the arctic, he clings to delusions of his family still being alive and that they're talking to him.

i'll probably make yet another post dissecting what this all means in context, i.e. like avo said; the implications of the treatment of victor as a character due to these symptoms of a "weird" "scary" illness... buuuut. again. another time!

[raxistaicho]

Felix's anger towards Dimitri in Three Houses is the most misunderstood aspect of their relationship and I will die on this hill.

Felix's problem with Dimitri isn't that he can't see that what Dimitri went through was traumatic. It's not that he's running away from his own trauma regarding the death of Glenn.

Its the fact that Dimitri uses the deaths of their loved ones as an excuse to be monstrous.

And the proof of that is in their A-Support.

Felix: Sometimes you have an animal's face, contorted with anger and bloodlust. At other times, a man's, with a friendly smile. Which is your true face? Dimitri: Do not waste your breath on questions with such obvious answers. They are both the real me. My father, my friends, Glenn… They all meant a great deal to me. And they were all brutally slaughtered. I alone survived. If I do not shoulder the anguish and regret they must have felt, who will? Felix: Hah. So, that's how you justify your atrocities.

Dimitri is so far into his own head with his grief and anger that he's using the dead as an excuse to go on his quest for vengeance, hurting anyone and everyone in his path and treating everyone around him cruelly. This desire for vengeance isn't for the dead. It's for himself.

And Felix rightly calls him out on that.

Felix: "I will fulfill my duty to the late king." My old man used to say that over and over, like a mantra. How nauseating. No one seems to understand. The dead won't acknowledge your loyalty. They don't care. What a load of bunk it is, pretending to serve a corpse. You're serving your own ego. Dimitri: You are wrong. Felix: No, I'm not. The dead are dead, the living are living. You have to respect that boundary. If you keep stringing gravestones around your neck, you'll snap.

Dimitri doesn't respect the boundary between the living and the dead. He doesn't understand it, and none of the people who should have been taking care of him made sure to teach him to respect it. And as a result, we're left with a man who uses being "the voice of the dead" to justify his cruelty.

And Dimitri is absolutely aware of what he is doing. He's not well, but he's still very clearly concious of what he's doing. And we know this because of what he says to Byleth following the death of Randolph.

Dimitri: If you do not approve of what I have become, then kill me. If you insist that you cannot...then I will continue to use you and your friends until the flesh falls from your bones.

Dimitri is actively choosing to be a dick. There is no kinder way to put it. He's being a dick, and using the deaths of Lambert, Glenn, and the people of Duscur as an excuse.

And it isn't like Felix doesn't understand on some level. If anything, he's one of the few members of the cast who CAN understand. Glenn was HIS older brother. Rodrigue HIS father. And despite the fact that Dimitri is considered more important and he was often left to the wayside, Felix still loved and cared about them. They're his family. And he knows they loved him too, even if it wasn't in the way he should have been shown (I have so many issues with the fact that Dimitri is more important to Rodrigue than Felix is but that's a rant for another day). If anyone should have the right to be angry about their deaths, it's him.

But he doesn't hold onto that anger. Not in the same way.

Felix: I'm not immune to emotion, you know. Far from it. I haven't gone a day without questioning why my father and brother had to die, while I survived. I'll bear this pain until the day I die, but I refuse to wallow in it. I have more important things to do than blubber for my whole life.

Felix does not and will not allow his anger and grief to allow him to cause atrocious acts in the same way. And he backs up his words with actions. Which is something Dimitri needs to do for their relationship to improve at all. Which is shown in Chapter 18 if you make sure their C-Support has been viewed.

Felix: Hmph. And how do you intend to make up for my father's death? Dimitri: Felix… I realize words alone are not enough to repent, but I fear they are all I have. Felix: I'm not after more empty words. I want you to speak through your actions.

If you don't have their C-Support, Felix won't say he'll agree to help take back Fhirdihad. He will, of course, as he's a playable unit. But because of both the actions of the player and, as a result, Dimitri's actions, Felix won't vocalize his support.

Dimitri can say he has changed and realized the errors of his ways and offer apologies, but for Felix, they mean nothing if those words aren't also put to action.

And THAT is what the entirety of their issues is.

Both of them lost many of the same loved ones.

But while one chooses to move forward, the other chooses to wallow back. While one chooses not use that pain to commit atrocious acts of violence, the other uses it as his justification.

And THIS is why it makes sense for Felix to leave. On top of just not liking being a noble with those kinds of responsibilities, his head of state is someone who he is diametrically opposed. They might have been "friends" once (and I say it like that because prior to the Tragedy their friendship looks very one sided), but friendship doesn't mean you accept and partake in torture and unwarranted levels of slaughter.

And Felix outright tells us this.

But both those around him and a lot of the audience do not want to listen.

Oh, that's good, thanks for breaking that down! :)

Like I've said, Felix is one of the characters I haven't analyzed super well, so I appreciate the breakdown from someone who knows him better.

[artbyblastweave]

hello. I am in the middle of doing My Take on vampires and would appreciate your thoughts on Them in fiction. they don't seem to pop up more than occasionally in superhero media, but also you are pretty widely read & they have noticeable Eras/Tendencies that I can see.

I'm definitely not as much of a vampire guy as I'm a Superhero guy, so all my opinions on vampires should be taken with a grain of salt, and with the knowledge that a lot of this is stuff I've picked up through Osmosis and the occasional lit-review for that one class in college. But here goes-

One of my potentially more controversial takes about Vampires is that I think Vampires (and adjacent creatures like werewolves) are great at capturing the emotional truth of being part of a marginalized group, or sometimes just for being subaltern- the world against you, people make you feel like you're wrong for existing, that you're dangerous, etc.- and this is why they go gangbusters both on this website and in general. But the narrative often faceplants for me if it tries to portray vampires as a literal marginalized group because all of that stuff is often objectively true within the fiction in a way that it isn't true of real-life marginalized groups. It's a souped-up version of the X-men problem, because most of the X-Men aren't obligate cannibals! The result of this is that there have been several times I'm consuming something vampire-related that wants me to primarily sympathize with the vampires, and meanwhile I'm going "geez, that's a rough deal, but I think you all need to be killed on purely utilitarian grounds, sorry."

(I do also get the sense as well, right, that this is inextricably tangled up in the fact that a lot of foundational vampire literature was kind of just taking a lot of the horrible lies people tell about the scapegoat group du jour to justify their oppression and then making a guy of whom these things were objectively true. I get the impression, at a distance, that Dracula demonstrates like fourteen different flavors of "Those Depraved Easterners Are Coming For Our Women," although to truly lock in that Take I'm gonna have to read the thing instead of just absorbing it through Tumblr Osmosis whenever Dracula Daily is running.) There are ways to thread this needle, the big one of which is to just sand down the negative externalities of vampirism. Have them feed on animals or voluntary donors or make the human predation thing an in-universe slanderous fiction to begin with. Have them feed on exclusively on quote-unquote "criminals," if you have the right unexamined assumptions about the validity of the death penalty. Go the Elder Scrolls route, where drinking blood isn't necessary to survive but is necessary to maintain a human appearance, thus ensuring that the most morally conscientious vampires are the ones most likely to be identified as vampires and scapegoated by the angry mob. The issue I sometimes take with this is that the act of implementing a "fix" of any kind can sort of broadcast that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too- that you're cutting away the ideatic core of what makes vampires interesting when divorced from metaphor, taken objectively- that they're living trolley problems. As others have said, if you sand them down too much, what are you getting out of a vampire story that you couldn't get from a Tolkien Elf, or from Batman?

A fictional group which I've never really had this issue with, though, is Zombies, in the Romero tradition. When a work wants to construct Zombies as a primarily sympathetic group, it's much easier for me to get on board with that without feeling like the core Vibe has been compromised. This is because there's actually a fairly recent source text for zombies in the form of Romero's Living Dead films, and a major component of the Living Dead films is how much it sucks without recourse to become a zombie.

I was working on a post once, which I never finished, about how there are like, three-to-four vectors of horror that zombies can embody, which different works play up to different extents. While obviously one of the big straightforward ones is the fear that your entire community starts trying to kill you and eat you one day for basically no reason, a major anxiety on display in the original Living Dead trilogy- Dawn in particular- is that in the face of a weird but manageable problem human society would act as its own condemnation, totally failing to rise to the challenge-the horror is that we would let something as inept as a zombie be dangerous to us! Also present in those films? The horror of the idea that your daily routine is so rote and conformist that you wouldn't need to be sentient to continue to carry it out- that the biggest difference between you and them is that you can occasionally be evil in more interesting and evolved ways. And there's this fear of physically and mental degradation with zombies, which for a host of reasons I find extremely fucking relatable. The sense that your body is falling apart piecemeal, bits of you sloughing off when you turn the wrong way or turn your head too quickly. There's this fog over your thinking. The bone-deep knowledge that you used to be more, and are now fundamentally less capable- that there's just enough of you left to understand something is missing. (Read into my personal circumstances whatever you want from this.) Being a zombie is foundationally, fundamentally gross in a way that being a vampire isn't; when people try to do "sexy zombies" half the joke is the pairing of those two words. There's this horror comic Kieth Giffen did once called Tag which is basically entirely about the horror of being a corpse that could feel it; I think about that comic a lot. Anyway, because so much of the horror of zombism is external to whether they're actually attacking and killing people or not, you can totally sell me on zombies as an unfairly-maligned demographic in a way that's much harder for me to buy with Vampires- dropping the danger they pose to other people allows you to maintain so much more of the core of the thing than it does with Vampires, where it feels much more like you're tip-toeing around the tensions between Wanting To Have Fun and the moral horror inherent to what you're trying to have fun with.

[isa-ghost]

amfmn missa.. p please.. please mother … feed us

I'M BEING ENABLED PPOVERHEAT

He's an actual grim reaper. That's where he's disappeared to so often in canon, reaper duties. It's a very demanding job, you know.

Doesn't stop him from feeling terrible about being gone so often though. He misses his husband and kids and hates how often he's out of the loop :(

Fr though Phil and the kids make him so so happy after spending countless hours working such a sad job. It's also partially why he sings and makes art. That brand of fun is catharsis for the soul.

He has all his canon weapons but I ALSO gave him a reaper deathscythe. And boy is he gonna use it. Fucking AWOOGA MissaSinfonia when he's angry.

Btw as a reaper he can FEEL souls. He can see their power, their condition, feel the surface level emotions and personality of its owner. This will come in handy later in the fic. ;)

As per the post I made asking for Missa appreciation so I can characterize him properly: He's undyingly loyal, he fights hard and loves even harder, he's protective, silly, and goddamn can he flirt.

All his wet cat behavior is a result of getting too overwhelmed by The Horrors. He's seen A Lot as a reaper. But somehow Quesadilla Island and all its... Everything. Always manage to show him a new brand of What The Fuck he's never even imagined before. Hence all his screaming and weeping when he's caught up on what he's missed. Like how tf else is he supposed to react??

Somewhat attached to that, he and Phil rlly were a match made in Federation Heaven bc they both have issues with self-doubt despite being insanely skilled and sharp-witted. Missa is better abt it than Phil though. His only acts up when he messes up a lot or just. Doesn't have a clue how to handle a situation where it's dire that he does. It's more of an insecurity about being unprepared and failing his loved ones than it is a doubt he has skill. He KNOWS he does, he hates when it's not enough. That's how he differs from Phil, who thinks he has none at all.

Btw when you fuck with the people he's protective over, he gets PISSED. We're getting a LOT of pissed off Missa in AMFMN <3 Ofc there'll be a lot of reaper tears too, his husband is suffering and there's little he can do about it. :( But ohohoho when the sad turns into rage. BARK WOOF. Eventually he decides EK is catching these hands and scythe.

He also shakes hands with his husband on being a self-sacrificing little shit. And. Yeah this is gonna happen later in the fic. (He's not dying dw dw)

You have no idea how excited I am that I basically get to build his dynamics with Fit, Etoiles, and Bagi from scratch. I'm so hyped. People are welcome to reply with this with any crumbs we have of their dynamics in canon but afaik they've rarely interacted outside of very minor moments, so AMFMN will largely be a sandbox for me to establish what I THINK they'd be like. Which in my fic plan so far, is largely taking each character's personality and applying how I think they'd react to a situation, and how that would look when two of them are interacting in that situation. Ex: at one point Etoiles has to comfort Missa bc he's just having a ROUGH time with this saving Phil stuff. But Etoiles is NOT a comfort guy. So he does his Etoiles thing: hearing Missa out while also cracking his usual brand of jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood.

I also have a plot point planned with him and Bagi when shit is hitting the fan the hardest and OUUGHHH. That self-sacrificing shit am I right.

God I'm being so mean to him specifically in AMFMN though. Ender King is a sack of shit, he knows exactly who to harass most using Phil's body >:/

See in my AMFMN Fitza headcanons, I said they're each other's confidants. Which IS true. However, no one in the fic gets the honor of Phil FINALLY communicating with someone about his issues other than his husband. Missa is the person he caves and confesses things to. Missa gets the HC Deity lore and what's been happening to him lately. This is actually what Chapter 3 is :D

Also I am so sorry but I'm sliding a Missa Romantic Love Confession attempt into the fic and it gets interrupted by The Horrors. But yeah Missa is romantically in love with Phil, he just respects that Phil sees things platonically. He still wants to communicate his feelings though.

[merakiui]

Yandere Riddle getting his childhood friend pregnant after he convinces her to fool around,,, orz Imagine him purposefully sneaking peeks into your period tracker to see when you’re most fertile!! Looking up the best positions to conceive a child and bending you into them under the guise of ‘experimenting.’

Omg and he's written the days that are best for conception in his own personal calendar!!! Aaaaa imagine how obsessive he becomes, constantly scouring all kinds of reliable articles in search of the best positions, notable signs (if any) to look for when you're most fertile, and slowly and secretly preparing for the day when you do take a test and it comes back positive. >_< creepy, gross Riddle... he's so obsessed with you and at times it might feel like he's a reflection of his mother when he's so deep in love with you, wanting to control every aspect of getting you pregnant because he sincerely, wholeheartedly believes he's the right one for you and you're the right one for him.

And since the both of you are so accustomed to this routine fooling around he's able to convince you to let him put you in these positions. Maybe he gives you a placebo pill each time and insists it's birth control and you think nothing of it when you take it because you trust him, because he's your best friend, because he'd never do anything to hurt you, because he'd never lie to you, because he's responsible, rule-abiding Riddle Rosehearts. That way, when you assume you've taken the proper measures to prevent pregnancy, he can get away with not having to wear protection, which also means he gets to cum inside every time. <3

Riddle loves you, so it's only natural he'll be ready to accept you with open arms when you eventually come crying to him about news he's been expecting for a while now. He'll find a way to handle his mother and any other issues that may crop up as a result of your pregnancy. For now, all that matters is that the both of you are together. Riddle has always been sensible, but he'd like to believe that true love can triumph every inconvenience. After all, even he wants his own fluffy romance! He'll break a dozen rules just to attain it because it's often the things that are just out of reach that make him want them the most. And Riddle has always wanted you.

[thedivineart]

PICK A CARD: MESSAGES FROM YOUR ANGELS [ oracle series reading #02 ]

♡︎ M A S T E R L I S T ♡︎

ᵖ ᵃ ⁱ ᵈ ʳ ᵉ ᵃ ᵈ ⁱ ⁿ ᵍ ˢ ᵉ ʳ ᵛ ⁱ ᶜ ᵉ ˢ

O N E T W O T H R E E

PILE ONE

some of your challeges and issues will come to an end but of course if have willingness to release them, specially if have a problem with a family who is a feminine energy-could be your mother, you may have been lately often have argument or have an issue with this feminine energy in your life which causing you to irritate a lot or your emotional and sensitiveness are causes of this 'feminine energy' and your energy is becoming to surround negative energies. Whatever you problem you have or had domestic or private matter it is, learn to know how to release it, for some if your a feminine energy your insecurities keeps rooting you as well worries about your life, this coming year you need to learn how to step up and break this cycle you've been through all the time, your angels are saying it's safe to move on. You been feeling that everything is falling in to shit lately and you worry about it that 'much', you feel that whatever you do there's on progress in your situation, realising some worries are affecting the vibration of 'positive' and 'blessings' in your life, it's a great way to open the door and do release what you need to release specially that your angels saying that it's a good time to break it this winter to upcoming autumn cycle.

PILE TWO

it seems your doubting your self-worth regarding to your financial matters, your angels wants you to know that you can attract your desires and that includes material things if you 'must' believe in yourself. you should know how manifestation or law of attraction in your life so you can attract positivity in your life or know how to value yourself and value the others too. A new love interest will begin or a new relationship in taurus season, if your longing for something else to happen your angels says that don't give up just yet! something will come to you in once in a blue moon, in rare moment, so you need to grab this chance but don't be afraid 'cause this opportunity is a positive one. If youe believe that something may happen then it can happen, if not then not. This past days or week you been feeling of lost in touch in reality or in real life, you must pay attention to reach your goals and make a concerned decision about your goals, the more practical you were, the better results you'll have. Find an inner balance between your resposibilities and your dreams, take time to solve questions, problematic situation or issue that may possibly occur in your life. This past few days, you've been super romantic or even hopeless romantic but doesn't focus much on realistic of the world and the person you've been inquiring most of the time is your 'soulmate'.

PILE THREE

a new cycle of life will come to you when you feel to look good and feel more gorgerous, or when you feel something you want to show off like your new fashion style or your new look, if you've been wishing to get someone 'attention' your angels are saying 'they working it out now!' however don't expect that this thing will come to your naturally, your coorpiration is need and require here, precisely your action is need by showing how proud you are for yourself but in a positive way of course and what you can offer to others. Learn to uplift/ get along and carry your with others, then you will realize that what you want to attract is coming to you. Be proud proud for who you are, show your true self, learn to flirt, and be generous about your self like spoiling what you like to buy. Your success will come to you when you got confidence and love and accept yourself more. Some here needs adjustments to get what they want though your in the right track, you must reassure your step 'cause one wrong move everything will dissapear in just a snap, oh well i don't meant to scare anyone here that's the message that appear, okay?. It's just be careful at your desicions you make in every situation you will going through, so choose wisely the right path.

A R T E M I S

2 0 2 2

ˢ ᵒ ᵐ ᵉ ᵒ ᶠ ʳ ᵉ ᵃ ᵈ ⁱ ⁿ ᵍ

P I C K A C A R D

[short-wooloo]

No, The world between worlds is not in Rise of Skywalker

People will just come up with anything won't they?

Apparently it's a not too uncommon belief that the wbw is in ROS

Why?

Well, there seems to be 2 reasons given for why

1. Because during the final battle with Palpatine Rey looks up to the starry sky and hears voices...

Ok, this one is deeply rooted in "it looks/sounds the same therefore it is the same"

Additionally, this is not how the world between worlds works

The world between worlds is explicitly another dimension (and we'll cover how you even get there later) that has windows into different points in time, past and future, the people in said windows cannot interact with you because they exist in their own points in time

In ROS, Rey hears the voice of multiple deceased Jedi, people who she has never met, addressing her directly, that alone is proof that it is not the wbw (I mean there's a lot of easy definitive proof that this isn't the wbw because the basis for it being such is flimsy but I digress), because the wbw offers windows into the past/present/future, and more importantly, the people in those windows cannot interact with a person seeing them through the wbw

Furthermore, Rey communing with the deceased Jedi is a case of narrative payoff

In her first scene the film establishes that Rey has been trying to commune with the spirits of past Jedi, this scene is her finally accomplishing that goal, this isn't anything deeper, it's basic story structure, you set your protagonist up with a goal, and you have the achieve it at the climax/near the end

Reason 2.

Books

Frikken books

See, apparently because the one of the sacred Jedi texts talks about the wbw, that equals it being in the film

Now I actually own and have read the ROS visual dictionary, and here's what it has to say about the wbw:

"Unattributed visualization of the chain wotlrlds theorem, also known as the world between worlds, or vergence scatter"

That's it, that's the full extent of the wbw being "in" ROS, it's never is brought up in the movie, we never read the book it's in, all we have is a visual dictionary saying "this page of this book has doodles of the wbw"

Also, something people really need to understand is that these books don't really mean anything

They're not hard immutable canon that the films must adhere to, they're written by different people from the movies often with little input between the two

Visual dictionaries don't really matter, they're just "books of neat facts"

By the way, this whole page is not something that should be taken at face value, it is noted here that these books are rich in metaphor a blend myth and history

So yeah, wbw ain't in ROS

So why do people want it to be in ROS?

So they can have a way to undo the sequels

(Thanks to @tarisilmarwen for this)

Yeah, the wbw can't do that

That's kinda what the whole episode of Rebels is about, Ezra can't use it to change time, and why can't he do so? Well, because:

A. He doesn't know what will happen, butterfly effect and whatnot, the results could spiral out of control and he could just make things worse

B. Paradox, the bigger issue, if Ezra saves Kanan, well that means Kanan is no longer holding back the explosion, thus Sabine, Hera, and most importantly, Ezra himself will die

C. Its wrong to change time, it's fundamentally un-Jedi like, its taking the universe and countless lives and bending them to what you want, its selfish, that's not what the Jedi are, a true Jedi would never do this, to change time like this is what a sith would do

Which gets into

Temptation, the wbw is temptation for Ezra

That is the narrative purpose of the wbw in Rebels, it comes at a point where Ezra is at his lowest, its a test for him, will he remain true to the way of the Jedi? Or will he give in to the dark side?

But why he could save ahsoka?

Well here’s the thing, did he?  Did he save ahsoka?

Or was that always meant to happen?

See, saving ahsoka doesn't cause a paradox because we already knew ahsoka survived, we saw her reenter the malachor temple at the end of Season 2 (there’s a serious bit of revisionist history going on here where people either forget this or outright ignore this fact) she was already alive, Ezra didn’t change the past, he caused it to happen the way it happened, its a closed loop

“But what about Palpatine?”  Surely him trying to gain control over the wbw proves that you can in fact use it to change time right?

no

Palpatine’s attempt to control the wbw doesn’t mean it can change time

Palpatine certainly thinks he can rule time, but more importantly he doesn’t care if messing with time causes paradoxes or catastrophic consequences

Whether the rules regarding changing the past are soft (you can't change the past because you have no idea what will happen) or hard (you can't change the past because you'll create reality destroying paradoxes), Palpatine would do so anyways

Palpatine is fundamentally a selfish sociopathic person, he'll destroy everything if he can rule the ruins

And even if he can't alter time, the knowledge the wbw grants is dangerous, its a window into the past and future, using it Palpatine could have learned of the existence of the Skywalker twins early, or where surviving Jedi have hidden, or seen how he dies, Palpatine knowing these things could lead to disastrous consequences

Lastly we get to how one enters the wbw, (and why it's obvious that the wbw isn't in ROS)

For starters, you can't just accidentally end up in the wbw, as the claim for it being in ROS relies on, to get to the wbw, you need to be in the right place, and actively trying to get there

In Rebels Ezra enters the wbw through a gateway in the Lothal Jedi Temple

So yeah, you can't just stumble through it randomly

But more importantly, it's a Jedi Temple that he enters through, aka a place of the light

So why in God's name would you be able to just accidentally enter the wbw on exegol, aka sith cult planet?

The answer: you can't

(Also if a way into the wbw is on exegol why isn't Palpatine focusing on that?)

The wbw, a place that is specifically out of reach of the sith/dark side, has only ever been accessed through gateways in areas of the light

That's why Palpatine needed Ezra to get it, that's why he had to use a dark side ritual to try and capture Ezra and Ahsoka while they were in the wbw, he could effect them but not it, and of course it is why the wbw is not in Rise of Skywalker

Goodbye, and use critical thinking skills

[batsplat]

Tysm for your deep dives into MotoGP I LOVE your posts no matter how long or short, you have such a keen eye and pen for weaving history with narrative and the psychological patterns of the sport. 

I was hoping to hear your take on the decline of the Japanese manufacturers in MotoGP. I’ve only been into the sport since the end of 2023 so still super new!! And I’ve learned so much from ur blog 🙏🏽

Ive been seeing some takes on here about how a lot of prominent MotoGP podcasts present the decline of Yamaha and Honda as a result of the Japanese “culture”. Idk if you’re an avid podcaster so basically there’s this narrative of the Japanese as an isolationist developer which refuses to bring in/poach European engineers and copy off Ducati bc of national pride + historical dominance . Also that they’re too risk adverse and slow to develop and test new parts on the bike.

I Totally agree with the tumblrinas that this  seems very one-note (and racist) analysis to say a “cultural difference” is the ONLY thing influencing the Japanese teams decline over the last decade. Would you know/could guess of any other factors that could’ve led to this decline in performance? Sorry for the long ask <3

never apologise for a long ask, and that's very kind!!

I haven't seen the tumblr takes but I do listen to the podcasts - and yup, some of the discussions of the japanese manufacturers make me pretty uncomfortable. on a semi-related note, sometimes feels like motogp for an individual sport is oddly preoccupied with questions of national character and broad strokes generalisations of entire countries/linguistic groupings/continents? idk, I can't articulate it well, but I do think it's a thing... in any case, the cultural essentialism when it is directed at japan often threatens to take on quite a condescending, patronising tone. essentially propagating a narrative that the wise europeans need to go over to japan to teach them their ways etc etc... it's really not great

now, the problem we're faced with here is that like a lot of people, I get most of my motogp news from the guys who are also doing the podcasts. which means that I am inevitably pretty reliant on them in forming my own opinions on this sport - like,, I'm not going to know all these other factors for the current struggles of the japanese manufacturers if they don't tell me about them. that being said, sometimes it's an issue of framing more than it is of the actual content of the reporting. to the best of my knowledge, it does seem true that japanese manufacturers have stagnated in part because they haven't hired widely enough, including probably from the europeans. this isn't because europeans are inherently better at designing bikes - the japanese manufacturers did dominate the sport for decades, after all - but that's just how things go sometimes... centres of knowledge shift, it's easy to fall behind. right now, for the current formula of the sport, getting yourself dall'igna or a dall'igna protege seems like the way to go. it's not some uniquely japanese national pride or intransigence that has made them so sluggish in embracing the new era... it's mostly just human nature that you're going to be resistant to change if your way has been the right way for a long time, right

worth pointing out that plenty of manufacturers can be arrogant about this kind of thing, including the italians. look at ducati's complacency after winning the 2007 title that sent them on a bit of a downward spiral until around 2014 - not helped by how they didn't rate their star rider and only had a wake up call when they gave their national idol an unrideable trash can for two years. which brings us to another reason for why the japanese manufacturers are doing so badly: the margins being so small nowadays. like, in absolute terms, honda/yamaha aren't dramatically further away from ducati than ducati was to honda/yamaha in circa 2012, but everything is just a lot closer now and you've got a million ducatis plus an assortment of aprilias and ktms to reliably slot into that gap. doesn't help!! so suddenly you're finishing p14 rather than p7 in the championship... a related factor is how strong satellite teams are nowadays; in the alien era, riders not on a factory bike were generally at way more of a disadvantage than they are now. that era specifically also featured quite a 'weak' grid for various reasons related to the impact of the financial crisis, teams lacking resources and dorna making up the numbers with crt bikes, etc... the point is that while on paper ducati's wilderness years look considerably less catastrophic than what's happening now, the strength of the current grid has made honda/yamaha's situation look even worse than it otherwise would. what's happened to the two traditional powerhouses in the series is pretty unprecedented, but not entirely so

that being said, obviously honda and yamaha are in serious trouble - and have been for a while now. you can kinda get into the weeds with both of them about how their competitive situations have developed... honda's overreliance on marc, for instance, their willingness to build a bike nobody else could ride - or how yamaha traditionally treated their satellite teams as customers rather than partners, plus how they never really managed to respond to long-standing rider concerns about the bike that went all the way back to when they had valentino/jorge on their team. (yamaha being chronically underpowered is something that does actually crop up in the mid noughties and never quite went away - there's something kinda fascinating about how motogp bikes in some respects seem to have quite an immutable character.) I wrote a short 'how did we get here' post for honda specifically - and as mentioned in that post, setting aside fabio's 2021 title, the decline for yamaha basically started when the switch to michelins and ecu happened in 2016. on the flip side, you can also focus on the ducati side of the equation and figure out how they've gotten so good, from how they've pushed the sport on in their technical developments with the wings and infernal ride height devices and all of that... how aprilia and ktm have been more willing to just straight up copy them, while the established powerhouses have been more reluctant to change their ways. you can point to how the pandemic (plus the war in ukraine) impacted different manufacturers to differing extents - including of course in making the third japanese manufacturer leave the grid entirely

which is all well and good, but it would still be interesting to get a bit more insight into why it's the japanese manufacturers specifically that have been flagging so badly. it feels like there's a pretty obvious next step here - get some takes from japanese people themselves. this does feel like something english language reporting on motogp in general is woefully short on given how big a role japan plays in the sport... journalists seem far more likely to discuss what has been reported in italian or spanish or german or whatever sources than drawing from japanese publications. which feels like a problem!! I have a twitter list with a few japanese accounts that talk about motogp, and I've tried to poke about to figure out some answers to this issue before. one bloke who seems to be quite well-respected and established in the paddock is akira nishimura, who writes for this japanese site and also occasionally publishes columns in the japanese version of motorsport dot com. now, I'm aware that getting one japanese perspective and drawing conclusions solely on the basis of that isn't ideal, but I reckon getting one japanese perspective is still better than getting none at all. so let's get some of his thoughts!

firstly, here is an article about the transfer of 'brainpower' between suzuki and honda after suzuki left the sport. I thought this was really interesting in terms of discussing some of the structural factors at play here that can help explain why there haven't been more outside hires:

isn't this helpful? cut out all the essentialising bullshit, and here we have some actually useful context. even namechecks the dall'igna move from aprilia to ducati as something that wouldn't really happen with japanese manufacturers - and yes, that does feel like it would be a problem if it means you're trying to figure out this aero business with no outside help. also helps contextualise how the big name hires made by yamaha and very recently honda are pretty significant, given how relatively unprecedented they are. and here is another article about how japanese companies are structured, in the context of poorly timed reshuffles at honda. again, it's not about the japanese needing to be 'shown the way' or some such crap... it's just that right now, the people best equipped to figure out the current formula of bikes are probably being employed by some european manufacturer or other and you probably want to get them on board. you hire their guys and copy their tricks, tale as old as time

then there's this column from last year about ducati's current dominance, which is useful in both giving us some insight about what some of the japanese discourse looks like as well as in providing explanations for the current malaise

that's really the main takeaway, isn't it - it's all part of the competitive cycle. sometimes it's european manufacturers who have had the upper hand, sometimes it's the japanese ones. there'll always be some competitive paranoia and mudslinging going on, as well as heavy criticism of those who are currently losing out - and at times people will get pretty racist about it. also makes sense that a more closed-off approach to knowledge sharing would help you when you're the ones currently winning, right, whereas it'd hurt you when you need to have some knowledge shared with you... ducati is doing really well because they happened to crack the code for how to build the best bikes for this current era in motogp, and the japanese manufacturers probably should have been faster in copying them. that's how it goes sometimes

also - while I haven't differentiated between english language reporters in this post, it is worth pointing out that the bloke I've been citing has been published on the motomatters website and was on an episode of the paddock pass podcast when news first broke of suzuki's withdrawal back in 2022. that one's obviously primarily just focused on suzuki - but it's still interesting, not least because suzuki was at least doing better than honda when they withdrew from the sport. the episode also discusses some historical context surrounding the last time the sport was in crisis in the late noughties with the financial crisis and kawasaki's withdrawal. then there's a thursday paddock notes episode from motegi last year, which included this exchange:

Q: Akira, is it enough to change personnel in Japan, or do you think there also needs to be some harder implementation of a program in Europe? I mean, we see Cal Crutchlow is doing a wildcard appearance this weekend for Yamaha, he was talking a little bit about Yamaha's processes and it does seem that there needs to be kind of a harder effort on both sides of the world for the Japanese to make some big strides quickly. Nishimura: I think only changing personnel doesn't change anything. Probably they will - it's my personal impression but probably they have changed their engineering philosophy, or their organisational structure itself. And [I would say] changing, or fixing. [...] Even if they bring some more from Europe to Japan, that guy cannot work how they want to. So the problem is down to structure itself or their management in engineering.

look. it's a complicated topic and we're not going to get into all the nuances in one tumblr post. obviously you'd want to get a bunch more sources than this from inside japan to get a better sense of what's going on. I am not an expert on the japanese labour market and kind of just have to take this reporting at face value, which isn't ideal. but let's just finish this post off with a list of plausible-ish-sounding reasons for why the japanese manufacturers been struggling so badly (x, x, x):

smaller margins between bikes, more competitive european manufacturers, and the strength of satellite teams exaggerating how far behind honda/yamaha have fallen

ducati bringing in dall'igna, the subsequent aero revolution, and the fact that the other european manufacturers have been more willing to copy ducati than the japanese manufacturers have been

japanese manufacturers being less willing to employ outside hires in their important roles, limiting the extent to which they can make use of ideas already developed elsewhere

a more sluggish development rate, leading to a bike that isn't changing fast enough to deal with the scale of the problem they're facing

somewhat nebulously characterised differences between european and japanese manufacturers, criticising the working process of the latter - in particular their conservatism in making changes to the bikes

the delayed impact of cost cutting measures implemented after the 2008 financial crisis, which has forced manufacturers to rethink their approach to testing. having to operate from both a japanese and european base - in particular in the context of the pandemic - has hindered the japanese manufacturers

a more substantial language barrier between test riders and engineers than in european manufacturers - paired with a conservatism in not letting enough race weekend testing happen. there has been a post-dall'igna cultural shift away from that conservatism in european manufacturers that has helped them progress faster

ducati making better use of their satellite teams, partly by running more bikes and partly just by treating them better (cf yamaha scaring off their satellite teams)

so yeah, I agree with the distaste for some of the english language reporting on this issue - though my issue primarily isn't with the actual content of the reporting as much as it is with how it's being framed, how the problem is being diagnosed. you can say that the current approach to testing probably isn't ideal and also that they need to be poaching more brainpower without talking about how all this reflects the japanese national character or whatever. just... dial down the condescension, guys. and maybe tell us what japanese sources themselves are saying now and again