#and without the burden of executive function i get to see all my strengths

[unfunnystandup]

i LOOOOOOVE having adhd unironically it’s so fucking cool and punk to have 30 thoughts in one second and so many ideas and so much creativity and i can tell u anything about the jfk assassination or 90s sketch comedy or the making of grand theft auto 4 radio shows. neurodivergence is beautiful.

#i love being neurodivergent i am so proud :) #always saw it as a disorder but my meds are working really good right now #and without the burden of executive function i get to see all my strengths #and i think that’s worth it. #It’s by no means easy but #we love to demonzie adhd and autism and neurodiversity #and label special interests and stuff as cringe #like… we’re having fun :) #adhd #actually adhd #mental health #ramblings

[linkspooky]

Who in you’re opinion are the 5 best written characters in jjk?

1. Suguru Geto

Geto is the type of character I refer to as an "empathy monster", his genuine feelings of empathy for other people just make him all the more monstrous. Empathy isn't a positive or negative trait, it's just one personality trait that makes a person. It's just the ability to inuit other people's emotions naturally. It's not some magical trait that makes you a good guy. Suguru starts out his story as someone who strives to be good, but in a "self righteous" way. He's trying to assure himself that he's a good person, that his beliefs are the right ones.

Geto and Gojo work so well as character foils, because they are essentially the same person. They're both "the strongest" and that makes them see themselves as apart from normal people. Geto at first believes it's his duty to help weak people, but that still comes from a place of looking down on them.

Then Geto is put through something no normal teenager should have gone through, he gets close to a girl, only to watch her die right in front of him when he promised to be the one to save her and fall away from his best friend shortly after, because when Satoru became the strongest it seemed like he didn't need him anymore.

Geto sees himself above normal people, but it's actually him genuinely connecting to someone he and Gojo would have dismissed as a normal person before in Riko Amanai, and seeing her desire to live in this world the same as everyone else, only for it to be taken away that breaks Geto. Geto feels this empathy deeper and stronger than everything else, and because he cares the loss absolutely devestates him and the only way for him to go forward is to just cut off that empathy. He starts seeing everyone, except for the sorcers closest to him as being human. He disqualifies them.

Geto works so well as a character, because it's his good qualities that drive him to tragedy not his faults. He shows how uncaring the world of sorcerers is, if trying to be a genuinely caring person can be a fault that drives you off the edge.

2. Satoru Gojo.

Gojo's writing is well done because it's balanced, the entire character is built around the idea of being "the strongest" but instead of it being a power fantasy, Gojou's character revolves more around how much it sucks to be him.

Gojo can win any fight alone, but it doesn't get him what he wants. He can't use his strength to solve every problem. There are several things he can't do, he can't teach that well, understand or relate to other people, play politics with others.

What Gojo wants is a better world, and comrades that can stay by his side without getting left behind, but he can't have those things. Gojo actually has an insecurity around being the strongest, because he thinks it's all that defines him. He sees his strength as insufficient ultimately because there is so much he failed to do. He has strength, but he couldn't save Geto. Gojo is the strongest man in the whole world and still he fails, he makes mistakes like any other human. Just like his character profile says, Gojo can do almost anything, but there's nothing he particularly wants to do and when he does find something it slips out of his fingers.

3. Okkotsu Yuta.

Jujutsu Kaisen writes main characters well, and it does this by not allowing them to be "the main characters' of their stories. In most stories the world revolves around the viewpoint of the protagonists. However, in the case of both Yuji and Yuta every time they try to view themselves as the heroes, or act self-centered in their viewpoints, they get slapped in the face and reminded that they're not the only ones fighting here.

Yuta is a well thought out version of the "nakama" trope, in that Yuta's entire problem is how codependent he is. He can't function without people around him. He was so afraid of losing Rika when he was young, that he cursed her and bound her to him for years after her death which inevitably made her suffer.

Yuta's passivity is also a serious flaw. Maki calls him out for "playing the victim" as an excuse to avoid responsibility. If he lets others push him around, then he doesn't ever have to make decisions for his actions because he's "not at fault." Yuta's arc in Zero is forcing him to grow up and take responsibility, otherwise he'll keep hurting the people around him like he did Rika, and I hope we can see the conintuation of that arc.

4.  Kokichi Muta.

Kokichi is a perfectly executed tragic character. His circumstances aren't his own fault, but he still makes bad choices in those circumstances.

Kokichi's desire is to be together with everyone else. However, Kokichi is so afraid of his friends hating him, because of how worthless he believes his own body to be that he can't let them close. Kokichi has internalized the idea that he's weak, so he takes all the burdens on his own shoulders in an attempt to prove he's strong.

That, is what leads him to try to challenge Mahito all on his own. He wants to be closer to the others, but he can't bring himself to rely on them. It leads to one of the saddest scenes in the manga, and expresses the tragedy that's repeated again and again in the jujutsu world, that these are all just kids that want to be friends, and have the normal lives everyone else have. I want to be together with everyone. That's what Riko said. That's what Kokichi said. That's what Yuji tried to promise to Junpei. We want the characters we like to be happy, but to the ones with unhappy endings their story still matters.

Kokichi couldn't leave his room in the end, but even so there was still someone who loved him in Miwa, there's still someone who will remember him - and there's a power in someone who tried their hardest to live and love even if they failed in the end.

5. Mahito.

Anyway, now I'm going to praise the asshole that killed my other favorite.

Mahito is a frankenstein's monster like Dabi, he's just a little uglier. Mahito serves as an embodiment, a walking, breathing, id of human selfishness and desire. What's so interesting about his character are all his nasty traits are perfectly human ones. Human pettiness. Human jealousy. Human fickleness. The things that Mahito does are all things other humans do with each other. A confrontation with him is like an acknowledgement of just how terrible people can be to each other.

However, there's more to him than that Mahito is basically an infant, he is frankenstein's monster, a creation of humanity but distinctly not human and unaware of what he truly is. What I'm invested in is the potential of a character like Mahito. His starting point si the absolute worst of humanity, but humans are ore than just their bad traits. Just looking at the bad parts of people you're not looking at the whole truth. I'm interested in what kind of character that Mahito can grow into as he gains a wider view of the world around him, because he is a curious learning thing.

I actually hope we see him come back in canon after being eaten by Getwo, because there's a lot more that could be done with a character with so much potential as him.

#Anonymous #spooky speaks #jjk meta #kokichi muta #metasks #mechamaru #okkotsu yuta #satoru gojo #suguru geto #mahito

[amunvulcan]

Fortuna (Latin: Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular through the Middle Ages until at least the Renaissance. The blindfolded depiction of her is still an important figure in many aspects of today's Italian culture, where the dichotomy fortuna / sfortuna (luck / unluck) plays a prominent role in everyday social life, also represented by the very common refrain "La [dea] fortuna è cieca" (latin Fortuna caeca est; "Luck [goddess] is blind").

Fortuna is often depicted with a gubernaculum (ship's rudder), a ball or Rota Fortunae (wheel of fortune, first mentioned by Cicero) and a cornucopia (horn of plenty). She might bring good or bad luck: she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Lady Justice, except that Fortuna does not hold a balance. Fortuna came to represent life's capriciousness. She was also a goddess of fate: as Atrox Fortuna, she claimed the young lives of the princeps Augustus' grandsons Gaius and Lucius, prospective heirs to the Empire.[1] (In antiquity she was also known as Automatia.)[2]

Fortuna's father was said to be Jupiter and like him, she could also be bountiful (Copia). As Annonaria she protected grain supplies. June 11 was consecrated to her: on June 24 she was given cult at the festival of Fors Fortuna.[4][5] Fortuna's name seems to derive from Vortumna (she who revolves the year).[citation needed]

Roman writers disagreed whether her cult was introduced to Rome by Servius Tullius[6] or Ancus Marcius.[7] The two earliest temples mentioned in Roman Calendars were outside the city, on the right bank of the Tiber (in Italian Trastevere). The first temple dedicated to Fortuna was attributed to the Etruscan Servius Tullius, while the second is known to have been built in 293 BC as the fulfilment of a Roman promise made during later Etruscan wars.[8] The date of dedication of her temples was 24 June, or Midsummer's Day, when celebrants from Rome annually floated to the temples downstream from the city. After undisclosed rituals they then rowed back, garlanded and inebriated.[9] Also Fortuna had a temple at the Forum Boarium. Here Fortuna was twinned with the cult of Mater Matuta (the goddesses shared a festival on 11 June), and the paired temples have been revealed in the excavation beside the church of Sant'Omobono: the cults are indeed archaic in date.[10] Fortuna Primigenia of Praeneste was adopted by Romans at the end of 3rd century BC in an important cult of Fortuna Publica Populi Romani (the Official Good Luck of the Roman People) on the Quirinalis outside the Porta Collina.[11] No temple at Rome, however, rivalled the magnificence of the Praenestine sanctuary.

Fortuna's identity as personification of chance events was closely tied to virtus (strength of character). Public officials who lacked virtues invited ill-fortune on themselves and Rome: Sallust uses the infamous Catiline as illustration – "Truly, when in the place of work, idleness, in place of the spirit of measure and equity, caprice and pride invade, fortune is changed just as with morality".[12]

An oracle at the Temple of Fortuna Primigena in Praeneste used a form of divination in which a small boy picked out one of various futures that were written on oak rods. Cults to Fortuna in her many forms are attested throughout the Roman world. Dedications have been found to Fortuna Dubia (doubtful fortune), Fortuna Brevis (fickle or wayward fortune) and Fortuna Mala (bad fortune).

Fortuna is found in a variety of domestic and personal contexts. During the early Empire, an amulet from the House of Menander in Pompeii links her to the Egyptian goddess Isis, as Isis-Fortuna.[13] She is functionally related to the god Bonus Eventus,[14] who is often represented as her counterpart: both appear on amulets and intaglio engraved gems across the Roman world. In the context of the early republican period account of Coriolanus, in around 488 BC the Roman senate dedicated a temple to Fortuna on account of the services of the matrons of Rome in saving the city from destruction.[15] Evidence of Fortuna worship has been found as far north as Castlecary, Scotland[16] and an altar and statue can now be viewed at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.[17]

The earliest reference to the Wheel of Fortune, emblematic of the endless changes in life between prosperity and disaster, is from 55 BC.[18] In Seneca's tragedy Agamemnon, a chorus addresses Fortuna in terms that would remain almost proverbial, and in a high heroic ranting mode that Renaissance writers would emulate:

O Fortune, who dost bestow the throne's high boon with mocking hand, in dangerous and doubtful state thou settest the too exalted. Never have sceptres obtained calm peace or certain tenure; care on care weighs them down, and ever do fresh storms vex their souls. ... great kingdoms sink of their own weight, and Fortune gives way ‘neath the burden of herself. Sails swollen with favouring breezes fear blasts too strongly theirs; the tower which rears its head to the very clouds is beaten by rainy Auster. ... Whatever Fortune has raised on high, she lifts but to bring low. Modest estate has longer life; then happy he whoe’er, content with the common lot, with safe breeze hugs the shore, and, fearing to trust his skiff to the wider sea, with unambitious oar keeps close to land.[19]

Ovid's description is typical of Roman representations: in a letter from exile[20] he reflects ruefully on the “goddess who admits by her unsteady wheel her own fickleness; she always has its apex beneath her swaying foot.”

Fortuna did not disappear from the popular imagination with the ascendancy of Christianity.[21] Saint Augustine took a stand against her continuing presence, in the City of God: "How, therefore, is she good, who without discernment comes to both the good and to the bad?...It profits one nothing to worship her if she is truly fortune... let the bad worship her...this supposed deity".[22] In the 6th century, the Consolation of Philosophy, by statesman and philosopher Boethius, written while he faced execution, reflected the Christian theology of casus, that the apparently random and often ruinous turns of Fortune's Wheel are in fact both inevitable and providential, that even the most coincidental events are part of God's hidden plan which one should not resist or try to change. Fortuna, then, was a servant of God,[23] and events, individual decisions, the influence of the stars were all merely vehicles of Divine Will. In succeeding generations Boethius' Consolation was required reading for scholars and students. Fortune crept back into popular acceptance, with a new iconographic trait, "two-faced Fortune", Fortuna bifrons; such depictions continue into the 15th century.[24]

The ubiquitous image of the Wheel of Fortune found throughout the Middle Ages and beyond was a direct legacy of the second book of Boethius's Consolation. The Wheel appears in many renditions from tiny miniatures in manuscripts to huge stained glass windows in cathedrals, such as at Amiens. Lady Fortune is usually represented as larger than life to underscore her importance. The wheel characteristically has four shelves, or stages of life, with four human figures, usually labeled on the left regnabo (I shall reign), on the top regno (I reign) and is usually crowned, descending on the right regnavi (I have reigned) and the lowly figure on the bottom is marked sum sine regno (I have no kingdom). Medieval representations of Fortune emphasize her duality and instability, such as two faces side by side like Janus; one face smiling the other frowning; half the face white the other black; she may be blindfolded but without scales, blind to justice. She was associated with the cornucopia, ship's rudder, the ball and the wheel. The cornucopia is where plenty flows from, the Helmsman's rudder steers fate, the globe symbolizes chance (who gets good or bad luck), and the wheel symbolizes that luck, good or bad, never lasts.

Fortuna lightly balances the

orb

of sovereignty between thumb and finger in a Dutch painting of

ca

1530 (

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg

)

Fortune would have many influences in cultural works throughout the Middle Ages. In Le Roman de la Rose, Fortune frustrates the hopes of a lover who has been helped by a personified character "Reason". In Dante's Inferno (vii.67-96), Virgil explains the nature of Fortune, both a devil and a ministering angel, subservient to God. Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium ("The Fortunes of Famous Men"), used by John Lydgate to compose his Fall of Princes, tells of many where the turn of Fortune's wheel brought those most high to disaster, and Boccaccio essay De remedii dell'una e dell'altra Fortuna, depends upon Boethius for the double nature of Fortuna. Fortune makes her appearance in Carmina Burana (see image). The Christianized Lady Fortune is not autonomous: illustrations for Boccaccio's Remedii show Fortuna enthroned in a triumphal car with reins that lead to heaven.[25]

Fortuna also appears in chapter 25 of Machiavelli's The Prince, in which he says Fortune only rules one half of men's fate, the other half being of their own will. Machiavelli reminds the reader that Fortune is a woman, that she favours a strong, ambitious hand, and that she favours the more aggressive and bold young man than a timid elder. Monteverdi's opera L'incoronazione di Poppea features Fortuna, contrasted with the goddess Virtue. Even Shakespeare was no stranger to Lady Fortune:

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state...

Ignatius J Reilly, the protagonist in the famous John Kennedy Toole novel A Confederacy of Dunces, identifies Fortuna as the agent of change in his life. A verbose, preposterous medievalist, Ignatius is of the mindset that he does not belong in the world and that his numerous failings are the work of some higher power. He continually refers to Fortuna as having spun him downwards on her wheel of luck, as in “Oh, Fortuna, you degenerate wanton!”

In astrology the term Pars Fortuna represents a mathematical point in the zodiac derived by the longitudinal positions of the Sun, Moon and Ascendant (Rising sign) in the birth chart of an individual. It represents an especially beneficial point in the horoscopic chart. In Arabic astrology, this and similar points are called Arabian Parts.

Al-Biruni (973 – 1048), an 11th-century mathematician, astronomer, and scholar, who was the greatest proponent of this system of prediction, listed a total of 97 Arabic Parts, which were widely used for astrological consultations.

Aspects[edit]

Lady Fortune in a

Boccaccio

manuscript

Sculpture of Fortuna,

Vienna

La Fortune

by

Charles Samuel

(1894), Collection

King Baudouin Foundation

Fortuna Annonaria brought the luck of the harvest

Fortuna Belli the fortune of war

Fortuna Primigenia directed the fortune of a firstborn child at the moment of birth

Fortuna Virilis ("Luck in men"), a woman's luck in marriage[26]

Fortuna Redux brought one safely home

Fortuna Respiciens the fortune of the provider

Fortuna Muliebris the luck of a woman.

Fortuna Victrix brought victory in battle

Fortuna Augusta the fortune of the emperor[27]

Fortuna Balnearis the fortune of the baths.[27]

Fortuna Conservatrix the fortune of the Preserver[28]

Fortuna Equestris fortune of the Knights.[28]

Fortuna Huiusce Diei fortune of the present day.[28]

Fortuna Obsequens fortune of indulgence.[28]

Fortuna Privata fortune of the private individual.[28]

Fortuna Publica fortune of the people.[28]

Fortuna Romana fortune of Rome.[28]

Fortuna Virgo fortune of the virgin.[28]

Fortuna Faitrix the fortune of life

Pars Fortuna

Fortuna Barbata the fortune of adolescents becoming adults[29]

[princeescaluswords]

White Man’s Burden

Here’s a little statement to get the fandom’s blood pumping.

Fandom’s insistence that Stiles Stilinski and/or the Hales had the right to control Scott McCall was and is a function of white supremacy.  The obsession with Stiles’s intelligence, his academic standing, and his supposed infallibility along with the supposed inherent superiority of the Hales due to their ‘embracing the wolf’ and status as ‘born wolves’ is another manifestation of the same cultural phenomenon as racialist colonialism.

(Caveat: I cannot take credit for introducing colonialism into a discussion of Teen Wolf. It was invoked by others long before I started watching the show.  They can’t legitimately complain now.)

Fandom’s beliefs echo Rudyard Kipling’s poem of the same name as this article, which encouraged the United States to take imperial, colonial control of the Philippines during the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902.  Kipling’s argument was that as the more advanced civilization, the U.S. had a moral obligation to control brutish uncivilized non-white races, describing them as, quote “Your new-caught, sullen peoples, half devil and half child.”

Isn’t it eerie how that line echoes the way fandom sees Scott?   How many times has fandom described him as whining and stubborn, traits we associate with sullenness?   How many times have they pointed out that Scott’s moral principles and optimism reveal his naivete and lack of sophistication, much like a child?  How many times have his acts, such as when Scott suggested that the Argents may have had a reason for the Hale fire or when Scott was forced to make Derek bite Gerard, been taken as signs of his utter depravity?  (During the same period when Peter was on a murderous rampage -- which they gleefully justify! -- or Derek was trying to execute innocents on the strength of hearth wisdom.)

The process works like this:

If Stiles was a genius (which he wasn’t), if he was an academic rival to Lydia (which he was never shown to be), and if he was, as they like to say, always right (which he definitely was not. To list all the times he had been fundamentally, critically wrong would require far too much space), then it only stands to reason that he should have been in charge, doesn’t it?  It should have been him calling the shots during all the seasons, not dumbo Scott!  In fact, how many times has fandom written that it is Stiles’s burden to protect dumb werewolves, especially his best friend!  (You can barely read fan fiction without tripping over this conceit.)

It doesn’t matter to them that in the first three seasons, Stiles had minimal stake in the outcome.  It was Scott’s life and freedom that were repeatedly on the line: throwing off Peter’s yoke in Season 1, surviving the Hale-Argent War in Season 2, evading Deucalion’s snare in Season 3A, etc.   Hilariously, they resent the idea that people would ever value Scott at all -- their preference would be that Stiles was the target of villainous manipulation.  After all, he’s the real genius/threat/value.

How do I know that this is keyed to race?  The answer is, unfortunately, simplicity itself: Mason Hewitt.   We actually know his GPA  (Corey says: “I didn’t know it could go that high.”), and we see him solve puzzles (finding the Nemeton, why Kira can’t read the book, the Dread Doctors using frequency, the way to predict Ghost Rider assaults).  He is obviously highly intelligent and, similar to Stiles, the human best friend of Liam.   

But there is no gifset, there is no fan fiction, there is no meta which argues that Mason should have called the shots for Liam or that he should have been the leader of the sub-pack that forms in Season 5.  There’s no argument that Liam’s obsession with Hayden rendered him unfit for temporary alpha or that Liam was whining when he complains about his lack of control (instead, it is all blamed on Scott’s lack of training.)   

The same process applies to the Hales.  We see Peter’s and Derek’s failures on the screen. We see Peter get his ass kicked by a bunch of teenagers.  We see Derek’s bad decisions condemn children to death. Yet, somehow, the fact that Peter and Derek have embraced the wolf (which apparently means trying to kill their enemies and getting their asses kicked for it) and the fact that they’re born wolves means they should have the right to command.  You can’t open AO3 without finding a story where the idea that Scott is wrong not to submit to them.

You know who doesn’t have the right to command that same brown boy?  An actual druid-emissary with actual magical powers.  (Deaton’s guidance is sinster!  He’s up to something, they know it!)  Embracing the wolf, a virtue, means being willing to kill, unlike one of the world’s oldest living werewolves, who has embraced pacifism and retreat!   Or if it comes to respect, how about a 900-year-old eight-tailed Celestial Kitsune who urges the protagonist to make a noble sacrifice and kill his best friend for the good of others.  Or is it only 22-year-old born wolves who are allowed to demand the sacrifice of innocents for the greater good?

Yet, you would be pressed to find any fan-created product proposing that Scott should submit to Deaton’s guidance, Satomi’s philosophy, or Noshiko’s pre-eminence.   But you can certainly find stories where a 16-year-old beta werewolf with I.E.D. has the right to throw off the yoke of his ignorant Latino alpha.

You don’t have to take my word for it.   Simply explore the fandom content out there.  Look how many times it’s implied that Scott is foolish or dangerous for not submitting to Stiles or the Hales.  Look at how many stories where the Hales and Stiles ***force*** Scott to submit and then say ‘Scott is so much happier now that he was part of a real pack’ with the man who betrayed him repeatedly and the man who mentally violated him repeatedly.   Find out how often Scott’s expression of independence is taken as willful selfishness, his victories transferred to Stiles, his virtues diminished?  Pay attention to the word choice -- it is always for Scott’s, for everyone’s, own good.    A White Man’s Burden indeed. 

#teen wolf fandom problems #fandom racism #mason hewitt #scott mccall #scott mccall defense squad

[sometimesrosy]

Do you think Clarke’s suicidal tendencies will ever be addressed more, or do you think they suitably were and resolved in s6?

I don’t know.

I think they spent quite a bit of time on them, going into her mindspace and having her give up and then having the Monty-in-her-mind argue out of them. I’m not sure her suicidal tendencies aren’t situation specific. After Praimfaya, with the eclipse psychosis, and in her mindspace when she had lost her body. Praimfaya and mindspace happened after she’d “lost.” When she thought there was nothing left. The psychosis was eclipse induced but I think it came from her self-hate and tendency to “bear it so they don’t have to.” She doesn’t just bear it, she takes on the blame. THAT I think has not been resolved.

I don’t think that, ultimately, Clarke IS actually suicidal. Her will to survive is too strong. She can’t give up, even when the world is dead or she is dead. She keeps fighting. Granted I am not an expert on the issues surrounding suicidal tendencies, but then, i’m not sure the writers are either, so I’m going to continue to assess it as a literary obstacle. 

I think it’s part of her personality taken to extremes. The part that Abby warned her about in the pilot, where she warned her about wanting to take care of everyone else. She kind of erases herself and her own needs. She bears it so they don’t have to and then she breaks... or almost breaks.

She keeps coming back though. That’s part of why she’s Wanheda. Death has been after her since the pilot, when she was sent to earth days before her birthday/execution. 

I feel like part of her story is death can’t take her without her permission. So the times when we are most worried about her survival are when she has lost her own will to survive. The psychosis was outside of that, but even that, she forced to quiet down. Murphy made her put her suicidal tendencies aside... why? To save Bellamy. Double whammy of taking care of her people and protecting Bellamy. She almost killed herself after praimfaya because she lost everything, right before she found a way out, the valley. She almost gave up in the mindspace, until Monty, the moral center of the story, appeared and told her no that was not doing the right thing. Even the finale of season 6, when she put a gun to her own head, that was not actually suicidal tendencies, but the last weapon she had in her arsenal, something she knew would make Madi fight, like she fought in the mindspace-- her love. 

Hmm. Death transformed by love. Death transformed by love? 

That...that fits the genre. Post apocalyptic science fiction survival show, right? Everything has died. This is about coming back from death. This is about rebirth. This is about transformation. This is about the redemption of humanity and of the various characters. This...fits Bellarke. 

In Day Trip, Bellamy was the one with suicidal tendencies, the one who thought he was the monster, and Clarke brought him back, told him he had worth and value, forgave him, fought for him, gave him dignity and even power. Ever since then, Bellamy has been trying to do the same for her. As she takes on more and more of the burden of the horrible things they have to, he has been supporting her and giving her absolution and bearing it with her and centering her and giving her something to believe in. Comparing the end of season 2 to the end of season 6, it’s finally working. She can’t bear it, in s2 she leaves. She can’t bear it, and in s6 he tells her they did do better and it was worth it and she comes back to him and they end the season in an embrace.

He’s done it. He’s transformed her pain through love, he’s brought her back from death, and given her the key to save everyone and stop the evil of the primes from spreading.

I don’t think Clarke’s suicidal tendencies will be resolved the way they might in therapy. None of these people get therapy. I think it might be resolved by her making the choice to choose life and pain and love and recognize it is not a weakness and is, instead a strength.

And... that has already happened in the s6 finale. 

I think s7 might be moving on. What happens AFTER death. After you survive death coming for you and you turn out to be stronger than the pain and loss and desire to give up??? Again. That fits the post apocalyptic genre. Get smacked down, get up again. Right? THAT’S survival. But we’re looking to do more than just survive, so what? 

So.

What?

So love. 

Love keeps you getting up again. Love keeps you fighting. Love gives you strength. Love gives you a reason to keep going. Love gives you a future... Clarke and Bellamy never think about the future. When people do think about the future, like Bryan or Kane or Monty, it’s a domestic future, a safe home, chickens, trade, children. Love.

I think.

This show.

Is about.

Love.

Love is how you survive.

Love is WHY you survive.

Clarke is Survival. Bellamy is Love. Bellamy is the key. Clarke is Commander of Death. Bellamy is Love. The head and the heart. Yin Yang, death and life. 

Hmm. Love alone doesn’t do it though, it can go off target and become cruel, off balance, like with Pike. It can also break, like with Octavia, who lost her love and then lost her brother in praimfaya. Survival alone can be too much to bear, which is why Clarke could go on when she found hope in the valley, and love for Madi, and why she kept the fantasy of Bellamy alive all that time. LOVE made it worthwhile. 

I went off track, didn’t I?

I think Clarke’s suicidal tendencies were addressed and I think they have been transformed through love, and Clarke has come back from the darkness with her superpower. Through love, humanity can be REBORN. That’s the trick about death, you see, it is the key to the life cycle. We die. We feed the earth. New life is born from our ashes. From the ashes we will rise. Love is the energy that keeps us moving.

If this is so, then I’m going back to my initial theory that I cam up with after Hakeldama in season 3, but taking it farther. So. Bellarke is endgame, because UNITY is one of the essential themes, and being the head and the heart, they need to be together to function. But to take it farther, this is not just about survival, this about love. Bellamy is the heart to Clarke’s survival head. Therefore the key to humanity’s redemption is the unification of survival with LOVE. Bellarke is the symbolic representation of the main goal, which is the REBIRTH of humanity. Humanity needs to find LOVE again. 

I suspect that within the survival and death of season 7, we’ll see love in all its forms, from the first flush of romance to long established couples to sibling love to platonic love to parental love. Because LOVE is how you redeem everyone. And yes Bellarke. 

I might also speculate, as I did before praimfaya, that Clarke will become pregnant. Because rebirth/fertility/pregnancy are symbolically linked and if Bellarke represents the redemption and salvation of humanity, (C=salvation and B=redemption,) then a pregnancy would represent the rebirth of humanity. In s5 we got the symbolism of Clarke being a mother with Madi, which means I was right about the symbols, but they had not achieved their redemption yet and so no true pregnancy/rebirth. This damn story is so slow burn. But if I’m correct, as I seem to be, then it is a distinct possibility that by the end of the series we’ll find out Clarke is pregnant with Bellamy’s child. It might be at the end of the season as part of the action (depending upon how time flows within the season actually and how soon they get together,) or it might be in a post script as a kind of flashforward like they did with s4, to have Clarke and Bellamy surviving in the after, with a family and a peaceful home, much like Harper and Monty got on the Eligius ship. Hard to know how it might go down, but the symbolism is stronger than it was in s4, and there is now a path to have it happen in the narrative. Plus they teased it with s4/s5 and Madi, especially with her looking like a child that could be theirs and Abby first seeing a picture of a five year old Madi who would be the age of a Bellarke child if there were one. 

this... this did not go where i expected it to go.

#the 100 #bellarke #tw:suicide #clarke griffin #symbolism #rebirth #the head and the heart #endgame #mythos #yin yang #honestly i think i was right and everything has just been building to this #maybe i picked up on it before the story was developed enough to be obvious but it keeps going down the path i said it would #despite my misinterpretation of the timeline #i misread how long the story would take and told the ending when we were still in themiddle

[firstcorinthians-elevenfifteen]

20/20 Vision.

So this is about to be one of the realest posts I have ever written.

This post is going to be about depression, a subject I hate speaking on (insert wobbly faced emoji).

Once 2020 started, I took a break from my environment, from people, and it was just God, Cairo and I for a few weeks.

I stepped into 2020 with so many goals and expectations, and I knew I had a part to play in executing them, I couldn’t just say, here God, here’s my faith - do your thing. I couldn’t expect my year to be massively different if I was still doing the same things I was doing. I needed to change. I just didn’t know how.

After I had Cairo, like I said in a previous post, although it was a happy time, I was still very sad. I had experienced so much and I had so much healing to do. Throw being a solo mother into the mix, and it was a sure recipe for postnatal depression.

It took me months to realise I was struggling from PND. It only dawned on me in January as I took time to reflect. I realised for over a year I hadn’t been myself. I’d gone into self-protection mode, mamabear mode, thick-skinned mode, emotionally-numb mode, and functioning in all those modes made me lose Millie. I hadn’t been myself in over a year. I was tired, worn out, tired, exhausted, offended, hurt, and did I mention tired? There was even a point where I was physically withering away lol.

I tried to come out of those modes, but something would happen and I would go back into them, vowing never to come out again. It was the only way I thought I could protect myself. Sometimes, misery loves company, and its favourite company is you. Sometimes being miserable is the most comforting feeling, because you don’t actually know anything different anymore. 

If you know me, you know I’m always reading something. One of the books I was reading at the time was “Wholeness” by Toure Roberts and whew chileeeee, it completely broke things down for me. 

I couldn’t see past my pregnancy anymore. Life stopped there. It was such a blow for me that I couldn’t see life before it, and I was struggling to see what life would come after it (silly, huh?). But depression pulls you into a deep, dark hole.

Reading the book made me see that I got pregnant in the first place because I wasn’t whole (you’re thinking well duh right?), although I acknowledged that fact, I hadn’t actually accepted it, prayed about it, and allowed God to work on that broken part of me. Being pregnant, then caused me to become even more broken, and whilst everyone can scream forgive and move on, it just wasn’t that easy. I needed to start right at the beginning. I needed to start looking at the issues within me that brought me to this point in life, so that I would not encounter this misstep again, and so that I could actually learn and grow from this season.

I had to address every insecurity that brought me to getting pregnant. I brought them before God in prayer and asked him to help me heal. To help me overcome them. I had to take scriptures concerning my insecurities and force them to become the new narrative in my mind concerning myself and my situation.

It was then that I saw God began to really work on my mind. Strongholds were being broken because I finally surrendered the most broken parts of me and allowed his word to loosen the lies Satan had given me to live by. 

Second thing on my list was addressing this pregnancy. Whilst I love my son with every atom of my being (and then some!), I had a hard time accepting what I had done. Yes everyone makes mistakes, and yes I love my baby. I just would wish and wish he came about in a more wholesome situation.

It was a truth I had been running from, purely because to others, I was boldly carrying my cross, you could not tell me nothin’, but inside I was yelling help me! Do you know how hard it is, living a life you haven’t come to terms with yet? Being a mum is a 24/7 job, I can’t take a day, a week or a month to get my mind together, but during prayer, God managed to comfort me.

Genesis 17, talks about when God was speaking to Abraham, telling him to walk faithfully and be blameless. Abraham couldn’t wait for God’s promise (His son Isaac) so he slept with Hagar, they had Ishmael, and well, you know how that goes. 

God was speaking to Abraham after this though, saying that He remembered every single promise He had made to Abraham and Sarah. He still wanted to fulfil them. He simply wanted Abraham to walk faithfully and blamelessly before Him. I felt like God was telling me the same thing. The past didn’t matter. He’d already factored in this misstep. All I had to do was trust Him, walk before Him faithfully and blamelessly, then all I’d have to do is watch Him work out all His promises in my life, like He still wanted to do. 

Thank God. 

With more consistent prayer, and intentionally seeking God, things began to change, I began to change, my outlook on life began to change, my personality was coming back, and a better, less bitter Millie was evolving. I naturally wanted to go out more and actually began to enjoy being both single and a mother. I found myself actually being content. 

I can’t explain it but it’s like a burden has been lifted for real, for real. Even on days when I’m exhausted and parenting is hard, I can feel God’s grace giving me more energy, I can feel God giving me more strength to endure the rest of the day joyfully. 

This is when I see scriptures coming alive in my life, like His strength being perfect in my weakness, like Him being a father to the fatherless. Like His grace being sufficient. 

I’ve had so many people around me tell me I’ve changed. Honestly, it’s for the better. I can see so much more clearer now. I’m not ashamed. I’m not insecure. I’m being made whole by His grace. Literally. 

Whilst I did make a mistake, I can’t say that I would have reached this point without Cairo. Truth is, I have always been depressed, I have always had episodes of it, especially since my dad left us as children. This situation just magnified it for me. But I’m so grateful that I serve a God who is faithful. He uses everything for our good. He’s using the very mistake I made to heal me.

I’m still on a journey, I’m not perfect everyday, but, God is faithful, and I know my end will be so much better than my beginning. 

- m x

#fresh #new #newnew #2cor517 #wholeness #broken #pnd #depression #anxiety #fear #joy #Jesus #Holy Spirit #love #condemnation #black girl #black girl magic #God #goodness #mercy #holy #grace #help #realness #honesty #real #bible #scripture #isaiah #graceful

[seasaltmemories]

Rosea Puella: Year 8

Rating: T

Summary: He gave it a month.  A month to see if there was any room for him in that little house anymore, if Gyoku would give him the decency of disdain, if the eunuch would grow some balls and kill him like he wanted to, if the girl would ever elicit any emotion from him besides plain old fear

~

Judal paced back and forth as he waited in the backyard.

Patience had never been a virtue of his, but knowing the eunuch, he enjoyed making him wait.  Once he had processed that Judal wasn’t some ghost or other shit, he had been quick to return to the sharp-tongued snob he always was.

“What do you want?” Ka Koubun threw the words out like a knife as he cradled the child against him.

In the past, Judal might have adopted the same sharpness, maybe add in a jab just to piss him off some more.  But as he imagined how such a scenario would play out, he was overcome with exhaustion. “Just want to talk to Gyoku,” he sighed.  Honesty tasted unfamiliar on his tongue, but he swallowed it down all the same.

“You think she wants to talk to you!?”  It seemed Judal’s less snarky attitude only made him grow angrier.  “After you defiled her purity, burdened her with a child, then abandoned them both?!”

“’Course I wouldn’t be surprised if she hated my guts--” Judal groaned.  As unsure as he had been about returning, spite half-tempted him to go ahead and march right into the house as if he had only gone out for a walk.

What kept him glued right in place was the pair of wide red eyes that studied him fiercely.

“--but then why do you expect a monster to care about what others think?” He knew he was showing teeth, but he wasn’t sure if it was in a smile or a snarl.  He waited for a reaction, but they only continued to look at him in confusion and that tiredness returned full force.

“If she doesn’t want to talk to me, then I can make sure you never have to see me again.”  Judal grew dead serious.  “I’m not doing this for myself you know?  It’s for her.”

Ka Koubun wavered, eyes darting back and forth as he thought.  Then out of nowhere he shoved the child into his arms.

“If you hurt her, I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”  There was no heat to the curse, only a deadly chill.  Before Judal could react, Ka Koubun had already scrambled inside.

That was what brought him here: waiting as if this was his execution.

The child had stopped playing and simply sat quietly on the steps.  Despite having been so full of energy before, she kept to herself, fidgeting back and forth.  Every now it then she would glance over at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice.

He always did though, because he kept doing the same thing.  Ugh, why did Ka Koubun stick the brat on him?  Did he hope mere proximity would get those nonexistent paternal instincts going?  It was difficult seeing the use in letting her presence affect him before he had even made it one step back into the house.

But it was even more impossible to keep that nagging feeling in the back of his head from bugging him.

“Oi, kid!”  The child sat up straight and her face turned red, as if she had been caught with her hand in the sweets jar.

“Who are you?”  Her words were high-pitched and indistinguishable in that way all children sound identical when young, yet there was a quiet fear to them.

Judal chewed the inside of his cheek.  “An old friend of your mother’s.  What about you, kid?”

“I’m Taohua.”  Taohua, now he could remember Gyoku choosing that.  It was like her to try and make something good of a situation that had just been plain bad.  

“And that was Ka.”  Taohua pointed at the door as if she was excited to have finally drifted back into territory she knew.

“Oh don’t worry I know the old bastard.”  It only occurred to him then that he probably shouldn’t curse in front of a...two year old? four year old?  Whatever the case he quickly dismissed the concern when he considered the actual war crimes he had committed.

“He takes care of me and Mama.”

“I’m sure he does, he even took care of her when we were children.”  He had talked with kings and queens, faced down the most powerful warriors in the world, and yet somehow this was the most tense ordeal he had ever experienced.

“Are you Judal?”  From the top of his head to the very blood in his bones, he froze.  His body was still functioning, he could see her curious expression, but his brain couldn’t put the pieces together to form an actual thought.

Before his terror could show however, the eunuch popped back out of  the house with his cold smugness.  The mere air around him made Judal annoyed, which at least was better than petrified.

“Gyoku is not feeling well, so you can’t see her today.  Still she’s willing to let you stay for the week no questions asked.”

“Guess that will do.”  Judal ran a hand through his braid.  “I’m gonna wash myself up.  Tell me when it’s dinner time, eunuch.”  He traced the steps back to his old room yet was surprised when he got there and found that it had been left untouched.

With a sigh he plopped down on the sleeping mat.  Was this supposed to be when you said home, sweet, home?

~

He didn’t get to see Gyoku that evening.  When the eunuch called him for dinner, it was only the kid and him sitting at the table.

“Gyoku’s feeling unwell,” was the only explanation that he would give.  As simple and logical as it was, his defensiveness made Judal suspicious.  When the same excuse was parroted the following morning, it became impossible to contain his restlessness.

“If she didn’t want to see me then why didn’t she just say so?  Didn’t have to fake the fucking plague.”

Ka Koubun flinched before his scowl grew even deeper.  “Then why don’t you try making her feel better?  You’re obviously successful at that aren’t you?”

He had prepared another insult before he had even finished processing the eunuch’s, but as he readied to cast it like a spell, he was struck by the pettiness of it all. It wasn’t as if respectability ever meant much to him, but god were they old.  The little vanity he still held had to admit it hardly looked any good on them.

“Have you taken her breakfast yet?”  Without thinking, Judal scraped his leftovers onto a clean plate.  “Might as well be useful if I’m annoying.”

His bluster managed to carry him out, but as he approached Gyoku’s room, his sails began to lose their wind.  So far Xiaoshi had been completely predictable.  The eunuch was a pain in the ass, and the kid was terrifying in her normalcy.  But there was no predicting what Gyoku would be like.  Back at Rakushou she had been uncertain yet blindingly determined.  If someone had told him she would later become a simple farmer in the middle of absolutely nowhere, he would have laughed in their faces.  Yet could she have changed even more drastically since then?  And even if she hadn’t, did she only want him around so she could work up the strength to tear him limb from limb?

Judal shook his head.  Questions were useless if you weren’t willing to face their answers.  Before he could lose his nerve, Judal knocked on her door.

“Come in,” A quiet voice wisped.  And so Judal took a deep breath and did as he was ordered to.

He didn’t know what he was expecting when he entered, but it hadn’t been for the sight to be so familiar.  Her room still managed to be somehow bare yet disorganized and cluttered.  In the middle of the mess laid Gyoku on her sleeping mat.

“Judal...”  As she sat up, her blanket fell back to reveal some things had changed.  There was a round softness to her body after having to bear the weight of a child.  He didn’t know why he focused on that.  Maybe so he didn’t have to look her in the eye.

“Yeah it’s me...”  He ran a hand through his braid.  “Did the eunuch not deliver the news?”

Silence suffocated the room.  He must have lost his tolerance for pain because for some reason he thought looking at her might make things easier.  Bad decision.  That sad, soft pink managed to hook its talons into his heart and refused to let him look away once their gazes met.    

It probably wasn’t the best decision, but if he couldn’t look away he wanted to at least see less of her.  He approached her without speaking, until they were face to face.  Striking distance, idly he thought.  But Gyoku just continued to stare and stare at him, as if she had forgotten how to do anything but that.

“Your hair’s a rat’s mess.”  Probably not the best comment to make, but it helped him break eye contact and focus on her unruly tangles.  “Do you want me to do something about that?”

He waited for an answer but wasn’t surprised when nothing came.  Still he needed some sort of motion to break up his restless energy, so he grabbed her comb and sat next to her all the same.

Tentatively he brushed it through her locks.  

“Ouch!”

“Sorry,”  From this angle she couldn’t see him, but he ducked his head all the same.  “I’ll be more gentle.”  Slowly he pulled apart a nasty knot with his hands.  After years of keeping his hair neat and presentable, maybe even he could do more than mess this up.

“I’ve done a lot of traveling lately.”  The irony didn’t escape him, but those words seemed less crude than the full truth.  “You should see Balbadd now, can barely recognize the place anymore.”  It wasn’t like him to chatter away, but it was something to fill the room with.  The lesser of two evils.

“Your old fiance managed to turn into a somewhat respectable king.  Has two little pups with the Fanalis bitch that used to trail behind him.  Might be cute if the perfection of it all wasn’t so sickening.”  He rambled on like that--telling all he knew of their old friends and foes, of the weird mishaps he got into on the road.  He wasn’t sure if she was even listening to it all, but he told those stories for himself first and foremost.

He didn’t mention his third and final trip to a destroyed village that had never been his home.

When he was finished with her hair, he got up to leave, but before he could take even a single step, Gyoku grabbed his hand.

“Judal...”  She drew in a deep breath, as if it was taking all her effort to mutter those two syllables.  “...I don’t forgive you.”

Even without the influence of magic, her words still felt as cold as Vinea’s iciest of waters.  “What reason should you?”  He tried to brush her words off, but he was sure if he looked at her again this time he would never be able to move again.  Time to be serious for once in his life.

“Look, I don’t care to pretend I’m redeemed or any of that bullshit.  Just want to take responsibility for the mess I made for you.  Do you want my help?”

He waited for an answer once more, and it seemed even less likely to come.  Maybe that is how she would enact her revenge--leave him waiting here until he withered away into nothing but dust and bone.  And through it all she’d probably stare without blinking once.

But if that was her plan, she must have decided to save it for later, because eventually Gyoku spoke.

“You can stay.”  It wasn’t a complete yes, but it definitely wasn’t a no.

Maybe that was the best they could do for now.

~

Life in Xiaoshi proceeded from then on, but something about it never felt real.

For one thing, the following day Gyoku was up and running chores.  The fact that no one commented that she had been cocooned in a pile of blankets for the past few days would have stood out to him, but soon that observation was eclipsed by an even greater one.

Nobody seemed to react to his presence either.

It wasn’t as if he was a ghost, he was given chores to do and acknowledged and spoken to (although glaringly Ka Koubun never left him alone with the child after that first morning).  No it was more subtle than that.  They treated him as if he had never left, as if three years hadn’t passed between them.

Well that wasn’t true either.  Gyoku didn’t seek him out at night nor scream his name in a fit or whisper it like a love-song.  It was back to before they had even knew Xiaoshi existed--when the demon child and whore’s daughter had grown up and were trying to be Kou’s sacred oracle and precious 8th princess.  Back then he had welcomed the change, had probably been the first to temper their relationship into something cold and professional in search of people like Hakuryuu.  He hadn't needed a sad, lonely girl, just someone who could offer him the power to free himself and burn down the system that had so mistreated him.  But here in the middle of nowhere, he couldn’t take Gyoku’s bland greeting and neutral stares.

Tell me how I hurt you.  Cry, rage, just don’t act as if I mean nothing to you.

He didn’t know he had cared when during those early Xiaoshi years she had been the one chasing after him.  Maybe it was his ego.  A monster liked to know they were still feared.  And oh he hadn’t felt like one in such a long time.  On the road you’re just another face.  He had never experienced anonymity before.  It was so freeing it made his head spin, and he had thought there would be no greater joy than to die in a forgotten grave.

But then Balbadd had changed everything.  It’s funny, that was where he had first remembered Gyoku existed since becoming oracle.  In the same streets where she had saved his life, he saw dear old idiot Alibaba wave around his newborn daughter for the world to see.  He had been just another face in the crowd, probably wasn’t even noticed by him, yet something about the parade seemed to scream, “Isn’t there some place you belong?”  Call it whatever you like, the voice of the rukh or delayed guilt, but those words had stuck with him even after he had left town.  Without much thought he followed their call until it took him back to Xiaoshi.

But what was the point in sticking around if that wasn’t the case?

He gave it a month.  A month to see if there was any room for him in that little house anymore, if Gyoku would give him the decency of disdain, if the eunuch would grow some balls and kill him like he wanted to, if the girl would ever elicit any emotion from him besides plain old fear.

Things didn’t change.  So that morning he packed his stuff and left.

He didn’t even make it out the backyard before Gyoku was screaming her banshee scream and chasing after him.

“Bastard!”  He had barely any time to process the insult before she tackled him face first in the snow.  “You don’t get to just show up again and then pull the same shit!” She shoved his head further into the ground, her grip against his scalp so tight he wondered if her nails would draw blood.

Hmm, maybe it would be her instead that killed him.  It was a dangerous thing to do, yet he couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.

Gyoku’s confusion at his reaction gave him enough breath to choke out a few words.

“Nice to be in your thoughts so early in the morning, princess.”

She grew still at that.  From the sound of footsteps, he gather that their kerfuffle must have awaken the others.  He counted his breaths quietly and once he reached ten, Gyoku got off him and helped him up.

A sarcastic grin tugged at his lips.  There was that endearing softness she had never grown out of.  Even in her worst rages, she had always been too good to completely lose control.

The smirk got knocked off his face when her right hook sent him back sprawling against the ground.

“You don’t get to joke at a time like this. You don’t get to call me, 'princess.'  And you certainly don’t get to leave right after I got used to having you around.”  There was Vinea’s ice again.  No, if she could summon it twice, then it must be her own now.  Still this time the chill didn’t last because slowly tears melted against her eyelashes.  “You don’t get to live in our doorway, half-in, half-out.   If you’re going to go then you must leave for good.  I told myself I wasn’t going to depend on you anymore.”

It’s funny, that those tears brought him so much relief.  At the same time he wanted to wipe them away so bad, yet he knew that would probably earn him another punch.  In a sorta compromise, he played with the fabric of her sleeping robe.

“Was just taking a morning walk.”

“Liar,”  There was no venom in her voice, just truth.  “Make your decision now, but I have a family to look after.”  She lacked the fine silks of her old life, yet she had never looked so regal before, baby fat and all.

As if he was the eunuch himself, Judal couldn’t help but stand up and trail three steps behind her back to the house.

~

As they moved into spring, they slowly but surely reached a sort of homeostasis.  For the most part they went through life in the same quiet manner.  There were no more beat-downs, no more solitary walks, just preparing the fields and getting through another domestic day.  Still now Gyoku and him had landed somewhere between the distance and closeness they had oscillated between.  Some days they would simply live and work beside each other nothing more, but the barrier didn’t feel so forced because she was just as likely to spend an evening with him playing card games and chatting about nonsense.  It was strange and unfamiliar, but not unwelcome.

“You have such an obvious tell.  When you twirl your braid around your finger like that, I just know I have you!”

“Like you’re much better.  Your poker face is so weak I’m sure a blind man could read it”

“You know those first few weeks what I missed the most about you was the sex.”

“Eh it was only a distraction for me.  Haven’t fucked anyone else you know.”

“Hey don’t think I don’t see you sneaking that card under the table!”

“As if I don’t see the way you scrape your nails against each card before choosing one.  You have your tricks and I have mine.”

“I think what hurt the most about you leaving was the embarrassment of it all.  I thought you would change and then you left me at my weakest.”

“I had thought I had changed too.  But I guess I’m my most evil when I’m at my weakest.”

“King’s Court, I win!”

“Bullshit!”

They didn’t have their old post coitus heart to hearts anymore, never even touched each other anymore.  He could only pick up those blunt truths when she deemed to drop them.  Gyoku had changed.  There was still that same bluster to try and do things right, act as if she was perfectly fine, but it no longer felt so desperate and pleading.  She tried to move the stars for no one’s benefit but her own and she would do it whether he liked it or not.

It wasn’t what the selfish beast inside of him wanted, for her to be the pitiful, predictable princess of yesteryears, worried about upsetting him.  But more of him could work with it.

Farmwork begun up again, and as they worked side by side, they truly felt like equals for the first time since they had been children.  Maybe he had caught her discarded nostalgia, but he didn’t think it hurt too much to savor it when he could.

You can’t hold onto to anger forever.

~

In another world, it would have been enough.  Even if Ka Koubun hated him for the rest of time, navigating a normal life within an abnormal household would have been a fine enough purgatory to land in.  Hell, for all the crimes he had committed, it would be a far better fate than he deserved.  There was just one mistake holding him back from his content ending.  The girl.

He hadn’t been able to avoid her, as much as it seemed to annoy the eunuch, but to say he had really spent time with her was an exaggeration.  They existed in similar spaces together.  She would mutter quiet “thank you’s” whenever he passed her food during dinner and he’d return a gruff “you’re welcome” as he searched for somewhere else to look besides her face.  In theory she knew his name, but despite her question back during that snowy first meeting, he didn’t know what it meant to her.  If she saw him as either a terrible demon or a returned god, she didn’t show it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be either of those things, but the fact she already had some preconceived notion of him before he even appeared before her eyes wore on his nerves.

He tried asking Gyoku about it once.  It was most likely that she had been the one to bring him up to Taohua in the first place.  However, she had skirted the issue with a less than subtle hand.

“You could always talk to her about it.”

“You think a child would be better at explaining things than you are?”

“Maybe not about about everything, but Taohua would know herself the best.  It shouldn’t be hard to get her talking, she’s a chatter-box,”  Her robe slipped off her shoulder as she wiped the sweat from her brow.  He stole a few glances at the scrap of peach skin before going back to work.  The summer sun was hot.  He didn’t need Gyoku getting self-conscious and wrapping herself up in a bundle of layers. That would only make the work take a lot longer, he told himself.

“It’s your decision to claim her or not, but I will not lie to her about her parentage.”  Gyoku’s response was so unexpected, he almost missed it.  “My father was just a name.  I wanted to give Taohua more than that.  I thought you would feel the same.”

Decades old jealousy stirs at her words.  Even a name was more than he had.  Al-Thamen had deemed things like a heritage and family to be ill-suited for a tool.  Hell, even his own name had only been chosen to erase any trace his parents might have left on him.  It would take an unusual amount of cruelty even for him to wish that fate on anyone.

Still he didn’t know if his presence would be much better.  Even without a father, the girl had two parents in Gyoku and the eunuch.  Were they perfect, of course not--years living with them had exposed all their deepest darkest flaws.  But they loved her, and that was a gift Judal doubted any of the three of them had ever had.

He wasn’t sure if he could love her though--or if his love would bring anything but disaster.  Just look at how it had ruined Gyoku.  He thought that he would try to make due with the current status quo.  He’d let those red eyes haunt him in exchange for a roof over his head and something like forgiveness.

But then something in the rukh shifted.

Even after losing his command over them, Judal had never lost his ability to see the rukh.  It had been a cruel joke, salt on a wound that refused to heal, but slowly he had learned to live with it.  Even if their sight sometimes gave him phantom pains in limbs he hadn’t technically lost, he got better at managing the aches.  It had been his only option between that or letting the loss consume him, and well somehow he was still here.  One of Xiaoshi’s few blessings was that its rukh were quiet and listless.  They were rarely ever riled up, so it was easy enough for him to let them fade into the background.

But as he was returning to the house after a full-day’s work, he saw the rukh fly and race like he hadn’t seen in years.  Without thinking, he followed them, frantic and half-wild.  

Their trail ended in Taohua’s room, where she sat playing with her dolls.  She looked up at him, completely confused as if she hadn’t just put together a spell that was only one or two rukh combinations away from freezing the entire house.

“What--” Judal took a deep breath.  “--the actual fuck!”

The girl looked as if she was about to cry.  With her concentration thoroughly broken, the spell fell apart into harmless individual rukh.  Relief flooded his veins, but before he could enjoy it fully, a new problem was upon him.

“Ka!”  The girl pushed past him.  When Judal turned around he found the eunuch cradling her against his legs as he brandished a kitchen knife.

“What are you doing?” His words were just as sharp as the weapon in his hand.

“What are you doing pointing that thing at me?”  After the years of contempt and disdain Judal had suffered from him, his tolerance was worn raw.

“You’re the one I found in an upset child’s room. You do the explaining.”

“God, what delusion did you come up with?  That I’d try to eat her or something?”

“I’m gonna give you until the count of three. One--”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“Two--”

“She was using magic, goddamnit!”  Judal gripped Ka Koubun’s shoulders.  “Does your pea-sized brain have any idea of what that means?”

After all his big talk, he seemed to forgot all about the knife in his hand.  Bewildered golden brown eyes stared into red. “What?  But she’s so young?  Were you teaching--”

“If I was teaching her, then why would I be so surprised?”  Slowly Judal let go of him.  The wheels in his head were spinning at top speeds.  If he’s going to be able to convince him of the necessary action they must take, he must appear calm.

Now free, the eunuch was preoccupying himself with the child.  “Taohua, what were you doing?” He stroked her head in a comforting manner, but Judal couldn’t tell who it was supposed to comfort.

“Playing,” She muttered, still twirling the doll in her hands.

“What were you thinking about?”

“Kazue needed a new dress--”  She wouldn’t look him in the eye.  “--and I was hot.”

The eunuch closed his eyes and sighed.  He seemed just as pissed as before, but thankfully he put the knife away and turned to address Judal.

“Is she a magi?  Like you?”  

“Don’t know,”  Judal shrugged.  He racked his brain for any information Al-Thamen had gathered about the children of magi.  It had always been a rare occasion, but in theory there were only supposed to be three of them at a time in the world.  You couldn’t just breed an army of them.  Still the brat magi had messed things up and bumped the number up to four.  No reason the rules couldn’t be broken again.  Besides maybe since he lost his magic, he was dead to the rukh.  “What I do know is that she needs training.”

The eunuch stiffened.  “I will not let her be made a weapon.”

“Do you think I want her to have to suffer what I went through?!”  Judal was holding his temper in check by the skin of his teeth.  The only thing that was keeping him from fully exploding was the fact that doing so would hurt more people than just the eunuch.

And he was so tired of innocents getting caught in the crossfire.

“Look, I can teach her the basics of the rukh, what it feels like to channel them and how to properly guide their course.  It’s better she knows what she is capable of so she can control it.” Judal clenched his fists.  “So she doesn’t become me.”

Ka Koubun studied him with those distrustful eyes.  But before he could speak, Taohua waddled over to Judal.

“You see the butterflies too?”

By the end of the month, they fell into a routine.  Once a week, Judal would sit down with Taohua to teach her a different aspect of the rukh.  In theory the lessons were only supposed to be theoretical, but sometimes he would slip in a spell or two when no one else was around--like how to ease the pain of a bruise or produce a light.   Such a move might make the eunuch pull out the knife on him again, but he had a rational reason for once in his lifetime.

It gave him a chance to observe the child and see what she would do with the material she was given.  If when given power her baby fat and pudgy hands would melt away to reveal a monster beyond imagination.

And as autumn fell, he pulled together all the information he had gathered, and judged.

The child was perfectly normal.  Sweet and energetic, but flighty and stubborn at times.  She really did chatter away any spare moments of silence she came across as Gyoku said.  She didn’t like being told what to do, but hated to see others upset.  She loved to use ice magic, just like him when he was younger, and laughed and laughed and laughed without a single ounce of shame.

And with every smile of hers, a bit of the fear faded away.

~

Judal was just getting used to things when Gyoku had another episode.

The eunuch and child didn’t seem at all surprised by it, going about their routine as usual, but for Judal all the regrets and worries of winter returned full-force.

Your presence is a poison.  Go before the child catches it.  It doesn’t matter how much you try to change, you will always be a monster.

But for some reason he didn’t run, and the next day Gyoku came out after lunch to sit next to him and bask in the sunlight.  They didn’t speak for a long time, just watched the day pass by in one peaceful breath and out the next.  Despite the pleasant atmosphere, dark clouds in the distant signaled that a cold front was on its way.  While such weather was normal around this time of year, it still unnerved him all the same.

Will you still be tolerated after they are forced to see the real you?

“Will you comb my hair?”  Gyoku’s words were such a surprise, Judal did a double-take to make sure he wasn’t imagining them.  While her gaze was trained firmly on the horizon, there was a certain tautness to her shoulders that seemed to demand she be acknowledged.  “I’m so tired...but you always look so good no matter what.  I figured you would do a better job than me.”

Judal took a deep breath.  “Sure, no problem.”

Carefully he brushed through her red locks.  He was almost certain he’d end up pulling too hard at some point, perhaps accidentally rip out a chunk of hair, but as they fell into a rhythm, Gyoku gave a content sigh.

Perhaps she is lying and--

“I thought I was doing so good--”  Gyoku’s voice brought him back down to the real world.  “--but I guess the cold always brings the voices out.”

“I didn’t know what I would find when I returned.”  Judal spoke slowly, feeling around for the right response.  “In the back of my mind I always wondered if you might give up on living.”  He was glad she hadn’t, but such affection felt dangerous in this no-man’s land they cohabited.

“Oh I thought about it a lot--”  Gyoku gave a sad laugh, “--but funny enough it was you who kept me going.”

Judal held his breath as he waited.  For what, he couldn’t say: maybe another verbal slap across the face, another cruel damnation.  But what followed instead was much more tender.

“I had this dream about you a few years ago,”  Like a nervous child, Gyoku fiddled with the fabric of her robe.  “The peach trees were in bloom, and we just sat under them--together.  Sometimes neither of us said a word, and sometimes I would yell horrible things at you, but you were silent most of the time.”

Judal’s grip on the comb grew tighter.  Somehow this was a crueler choice.  Self-flagellation was becoming his bread and butter, but if she was going where she seemed to be...

“Dreams are just dreams,” Judal muttered.

“Maybe, but in the last one, you told me that if I wanted happiness, I should go ahead and just grab it.”  A light blush dusted her cheeks.  “Even if it was just a figment of my imagination...it really meant a lot to me.”

Judal screwed his mouth shut.  He didn’t trust his tongue at the moment.  It was a stupid, sentimental creature that would only hurt her more in the long run.

“I remember those dreams as well...”

“Done with your hair,” Is what he said instead.

Gyoku turned around to look him in the eye.  The fading sunlight gave her a gentle elegance.  She looked nothing like her past self--all done up in elaborate hairstyles and fine silks.  Still with the way she let her long hair flow freely past her shoulders, she looked more mature and at peace with herself than ever before.

“I’ve told you this before, but I will say it again: I promised to never depend on you again.  I don’t want to tie my happiness to someone who has hurt me.  Still--”  She looked up at him through soft eyelashes.  “--have you ever considered starting over?  Trying things out again?”

“I always thought I would be dead by now.”  Judal blurted out.  It was a non-answer, but when had they found the time to grow up?  He wasn’t used to second chances.  Wasn’t used to imagining a future for himself that didn’t end with him alone and dead in a ditch.

He should have remembered he was a monster.  He should have ran right then and there and forgotten everything about Xiaoshi.  Instead he grabbed her hands in his and brought them to his chest.

“Is this what you were thinking of?”  He waited for her disapproval, that his hands were too rough, his grip was too tight.  But Gyoku only smiled at him sweetly.  

“It’s just what I wanted.”

A.N.  Another year wait between chapters, I guess I pulled a Judal, I feel I’ve grown and changed as much as the characters have so it took a while to fall back into them (especially to find Judal’s voice again after how long it had been) but I hope to have finally brought some catharsis

#jukou #judal #ren kougyoku #magi #my lame writing #rp #otp: I'm not an angel #arabian nights plus tears #in which the in-universe timeframe is starting to match that of this fic

[gg-astrology]

Hi, i am new to tumblr but i really enjoy your blog and find it really informative. Actually it is my first time to ask a question so i am a little nervous i guess. But i was wondering if you are still doing sun-moon thingy cause i really would like to hear your thoughts on gemini sun-capricorn moon. It's totally fine if you don't anymore tho! Well, i hope you have many many great days for the rest of your life :3 (sorry if there are mistakes eng is not my first language :>) (idek if im anon :[)

Aaaaah hello!!! ❤️❤️I’m glad I decided to check the draft cause I forgot I started and didn’t finish this skdjfnksn I’m so so sorry for taking so long to reply I’ve just been — whooosh so overwhelmed with everything!! But welcome to tumblr (first of all) ❤️❤️and thank you so so much for reaching out to me!! 🙇🏻‍♀️ It must’ve been nerve-wrecking ;; I appreciate it so much that you would?? reach out and do this anyways❤️❤️❤️ aaaah that’s really heart warming and I’m so thankful!! ❤️❤️Please don’t be nervous to reach out in the future as well ;; ❤️ For anything at all! ❤️

[Below Cut: Gemini Sun - Capricorn Moon 🧜‍♀️]

Very executive!! I think you know this, but you have a much easier time than your other Gemini buddies ‘getting things done’ and staying on track once you start!!

The kind of person who likes to ‘cut the crap’ from things, cut cut cut edit edit edit until it’s clear sighted and efficient. And once you figure out your path, you have no problem just ‘going for it’ (no thoughts/worries– just doing) 

That’s the Gemini impulsivity put to good use, with Capricorn on your head you are systematic and organized with your own methods/working ways. You know how you function, whats the best way to get you to do something. And so you prepare for it.

It’s so refreshing to see, because you’re also ‘no-nonsense’ kinda person. You don’t take lightly to people who are indecisive, insecure, wishy-washy. You like things to be certain, exact. And you like it immediate/now. 

Your self-confidence is like ‘shrug its nothing’ which can make you a lil humble (albeit unforgiving/unrelenting) but it also makes for someone who knows when a joke is a joke, and when something shouldn’t be joked about/taken seriously because its an Issue

If you’re prone to sarcasm or enjoys a lil more dry humour I wouldn’t be surprised– Gemini’s cleverness combined with Capricorn’s love for punch-lines makes for someone who rather enjoys down time with friends just as much as they like ‘showing/working’ their worth in public

You’re rather organized, at least on the things that people can see/judge/matters. When it comes to yourself (your personal life) you can be kinda messy tho skdnjkn

Gemini/Capricorn makes for someone who’s well-spoken mostly because they like to be ‘sure’ about something (can back it up) before they speak/vet for it. 

You don’t like being taken off-guard or being seen as ‘useless’ generally. You try not to make yourself the subject of the ‘whoopsy I’m ditzy’ typecast Gemini gets pushed into sometimes (stereotyped into something like that – you have too much self-respect to let others do that to you) 

You have a certain discernment about you that makes you respectable to others, you expect others to have some awareness/self-discipline and tact on what they should/shouldn’t joke/talk about too.  

Because of that Capricorn Moon – you’re very well aware of your influence and how it could affect others. You take care and thought into what you put out, ‘is it productive/useful? is it going to be good result?’ – again, it gives direction to the energy your Gemini has and put it into focus.

This is good because you aren’t careless with your powers, however it does make for someone who tries to keep control at all times that you generally lack any awareness of your own emotional need/well-being.

If you break (emotionally) then you break hard. You let it fill up your chest and ignore the problem until it explodes you from the inside out. You won’t ever know how to pick up the pieces if you don’t use your introspection/power for your inner needs too.

Gemini/Capricorn doesn’t reveal their feelings to others bc they often try to sense the others out and often– they think they’ll only be burdening others with their problems. Learn how to reveal your vulnerabilities– probably after you ‘break’ once– you’ll know how to manage it better if you have someone to remind you to be emotional too. 

You’re dignified, and has a lot of inner strength/fortitude. Material outcome/result comes no problem. It’s just a matter of inner-fulfillment and realizing that you can’t live emotionlessly for too long or without some kinda spirituality in your life that’s going to become a problem for you if you ignore it for too long (regret later in life– Capricorn/Saturn- realizes your mistakes when you’re older) 

So try to contemplate and expand in different areas/method, you may be uncomfortable (very very uncomfortable and out of your usual waters) but you’ll benefit a lot if you’re adventurous and open-minded (let others help influence you) now rather than later.

I hope this is helpful! ❤️❤️ Good luck with everything!! ❤️❤️

#anon #asks #capricorn moon #gemini sun #gemini #capricorn #gemini-capricorn

[hellotimemachineofdetectives]

Three Times Part 1:  Kenna x Dom

So I know that TCATF ended ages ago, but my app glitched out recently and deleted all my books. This got me re-reading TCATF, and finally got me to write the Kenna x Dom fic I’ve wanted to do since my first read. This is my first fanfic, and I’m super nervous about it so hopefully it’s not too embarasssing. Shout out to @mrswalkerwrites whose amazing Kenna x Dom and other Choices fics were what pushed me to finally start writing fics. 

Anyways, this is pretty much based on one of my favourite TCATF scenes where Kenna comes to Dom’s rescue, because even today we don’t get that many books or films where the girl is the one doing the saving, for lack of a batter way to put it. Anyways, this is three times that Kenna saves Dom, based on the “Get away from him.” scene, and one time that he, kind of, saves her. It ended up being super long, so I’m just posting the first two for now, and will put the last two up later. If there’s anyone around still reading Kenna x Dom fics, hope you enjoy it and that I haven’t completely forgotten how to write now I spend my life doing maths. Also, just a warning, there are some non-explicit descriptions of violence and intended sexual violence/

3,100 words

10 year old Dominic Hunter looked around, searching for his best friend Kenna Rys. Like almost every morning, the two of them had planned to meet in the meadow after breakfast. Their activities varied each day but their routine hardly did. Despite the obvious disapproval of Kenna’s mother Queen Adriana, he and Kenna had been practically inseparable since they met 4 years ago. Dom had never really stopped to consider what might happen to them when they were older: as the future Queen of Stormholt, Kenna’s destiny had been laid out for her since the moment she was born, and both Adriana and Kenna’s guardian Gabriel had made it clear that neither envisaged this destiny involving him. Still, despite being fairly perceptive for his age, Dom had never really given it much thought.

Still, it was odd that Kenna wasn’t here yet. Whilst she might be late for most events and functions at which her Mother requested her presence, she was almost always down at the meadow before him, eager to escape the already crushing pressures that came with being the princess of one of the Five Kingdoms. Probably her mother or Gabriel had needed her for something. Sighing, Dom collapsed down under one of the many trees by the riverside, skipping a few stones to occupy himself. Lost deep in his thoughts, he started thinking of things he and Kenna could do today, ranging from their usual games and mock fights to the far more unrealistic but far more tempting dream of sneaking away into the mountains and hiding far away from here, where she would no longer be a princess, and he would no longer be the burden child with no family.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

The deep, masculine tone of the voice instantly told him that the figure behind him wasn’t Kenna. Spinning around, Dom’s eyes fell on Caleb, one of the other boys from the castle, a few years older than him. His father was one of the royal grooms, a tall menacing man with a dark glint in his eye not dissimilar to the one Dom often saw in Caleb’s during the many times they’d argued. Dom had quickly learned to avoid Caleb where possible, he had seen the boy be cruel not only to the horses in the stables but also to the other children around the palace, and on the times Dom had stood up to him, Caleb had always made him feel as if he would soon regret it.

As Caleb loomed over him, Dom instinctively took a step back. For his age, he wasn’t bad with the wooden swords with which he and Kenna sparred. But Caleb was older than him, taller than him and right now, was currently backing him towards the river with a threatening smile on his face.

“You’ve been pissing me off for weeks now Hunter.” Caleb smirked, as he continued to push Dom closer to the river. Panicking, Dom searched for an escape route or a means of defending himself, and came up blank.

“Look, Caleb I-“

The blow came out of nowhere, sending him reeling to the edge of the river. Before he could even think about pulling himself to his feet, Caleb descended upon him in a blaze of fury. Throwing up his arms to defend himself, Dom felt blow after blow rain down on him, helpless to fight back against the older boy. Desperately, he tried to push himself out of the way of Caleb’s blows, but found himself to be trapped underneath Caleb’s weight. Panic began to set in to Dom’s mind as his vision became hazy.

“Get away from him.”

The voice was low with fury, yet Caleb took no notice.

“I said GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

With that Kenna strode towards Caleb, her wooden sword held high, looking for all the world like a warrior queen to Dom’s panicked eyes. With a strength that was not belied by her petite 10 year old form, she shoved Caleb off of him, offering Dom a hand up.

“What the hell?” Caleb roared, turning towards Kenna with a fearsome glare. “This is none of your bloody business!”

Kenna’s eyes narrowed, her face furious.

“I think you’ll find it is my bloody business!” She retorted. Somewhere in Dom’s mind it registered just how furious Kenna was, one of the few bits of royal behaviour that had stuck with Kenna was that she rarely swore, even mildly. “What right do you have to go after anyone, least of all someone younger than you and half the size of you, you great oaf?”

“Yeah, well what right did you have to interfere?” Caleb snapped, his face twisted into a snarl. Kenna stepped close to him, her bearing confident, even as he towered over her.

“You listen Caleb, and you listen well. If I wanted to, I could have you executed for coming after my friend. That wouldn’t be necessary though, because any day of the week I could destroy you myself, with my eyes shut if I wanted to. So you stay away from Dom, and anyone else you might feel like terrorising. Otherwise, I swear I will make you regret it.”

It might have been something in Kenna’s quiet, deadly tone, or her furious expression, or maybe it was the fact that she’d just threated to have him executed, but Caleb glared at them both one last time, before turning and walking away, mumbling disgruntledly.

“Are you alright?”

Gone was the fierce and furious warrior who had just born down on Caleb without fear, and in her place was his best friend, a concerned look on her face as she considered the bruises already forming on his face.

“Would it be lame if I said better now that you’re here?” Dom smiled.

Kenna laughed. “A little, but I’ll let you off since it’s completely true, not sure what you were going to do if I hadn’t show up.”

“I’d have figured something out, I was luring him into a false sense of security.”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that. Come on, let’s get back, Gabriel can have a look at those bruises. None of the cooks will be cooing over your pretty face this week.”

“Aha, I knew you thought my face was pretty!”

“Uh uh, I said they did. You just hear what you want to hear, Dom.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been, beyond a doubt, the most incredible night of Dominic Hunter’s life. He’d known for some time now that his feelings for his best friend Kenna Rys had progressed far beyond friendship, but he’d been terrified to say anything and lose the most important person in his life. But tonight, he’d kissed her for the first time, and he’d been walking on cloud nine ever since. When he’d seen Kenna at the festival, something had ignited within him. Seeing her there, outside of the castle, dressed as a peasant girl, images had raced through his mind. He’d seen a world where the two of them had been able to be together, where she’d returned his feelings and there was nothing stopping them: she wasn’t a princess, he wasn’t a nobody in the castle, they were both just two people who cared about each other.

When she’d confided in him about how she didn’t want her first kiss to be some component of a political alliance, something they’d never really talked about before, he’d been unable to stop himself. The feeling of her lips on his, the way she’d kissed him back, tentatively at first, and then with growing passion. The way she’d breathed his name as he pulled back, the look in her eyes as she stared at him, surprised but smiling. The feeling of joy as she leant up to kiss him again. It had been the singular best moment of his life, without a doubt. They’d stayed that way for what felt like an eternity, finally only breaking apart when a group of passer-bys whistled.

Kenna’s face flushed a brilliant red, her eyes wide.

“Don’t worry they’re not going to have any idea it’s you.”

“Ah, so they’ll just assume I’m another one in your never-ending string of girls then?” Kenna teased, a soft smile adorning her face.

“And an incredibly beautiful one at that.” Dom grinned.

“Gods, you’re such a flirt Dom.” She laughed, the sound music to his ears.

“Come on, I promised I’d show you around the festival, and since it’s a miracle for you to actually be outside of the castle without Gabriel, we should make the most of it.”

They’d spent most of the next hour wondering around the festival, stopping at various stalls and chatting. Gradually, Dom saw Kenna’s worry over being recognised fade and he could see she was enjoying herself.

“Wait here a second. I’m just going to run to the top of the hill over there, make sure that the lights in our end of the castle are still off and no one’s noticed I’m missing.”

“I’ll come with you, you shouldn’t go alone.”

“Seriously, Dom? You’re not Gabriel, and it’s not like I can’t look after myself. Don’t be all over-protective. You go get in the queue for the chicken and I’ll be back in a second.”

Dom wanted to protest, but he knew that what she was saying was true, and besides, he knew Kenna couldn’t stand it when he tried to suggest that she needed protection from anything.

“I’ll be right back.” She flashed him a rare smile and then, after a second’s hesitation, kissed him lightly on the cheek, before turning and running in the direction of the large hill just outside the festival.

A little while later, just as he was almost at the front of the queue, Dom heard a thud and what sounded like a scream. Glancing around, no one else seemed to have heard a thing. Still, it probably would be a good idea to have a look around, just in case. Quietly, Dom headed around the back of a cluster of tents a way away from the main festival, and immediately saw the source of the noise. A group of boys, probably about his age, maybe a little older, surrounding one of the girls from the kitchen, a blonde girl that Dom vaguely recalled introducing herself as Rose.

It was fairly obvious what the group intended for the girl, and a dark feeling of fury stole over Dom, without stopping to think, he stormed towards the group.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get away from her!”

The group turned towards him, unimpressed with the interruption.

“Get lost mate. This isn’t anything to do with you.”

“I think you’ll find it is. This doesn’t have to end badly for you guys. Just let the lady go and we can all be on our way.” He declared, with a confidence he didn’t feel.

The group laughed, looking at him with scorn.

“I think you’ll find mate, that the only one this will be ending badly for is you.” One of the boys leered, his face threatening.

In a split second, Dom made a decision. Without stopping to think, he threw the first punch, hitting the guy as hard as he could. For an instant, he felt a rush of satisfaction, before the 5 others surrounding the girl launched themselves at him in fury. Outnumbered, Dom could quickly see which way this was going. He wanted to yell at Rose to run, but he could hardly breathe under the onslaught, and she seemed to be frozen in place terrified. He threw all of his strength into fighting back, but it was quickly becoming clear that this wasn’t going to end well for him, as two of the group restrained him, pinning his arms back, whilst the others advanced menacingly.

“Hey! Get away from him.”

Standing there, her silhouette bathed in the moonlight, her appearance almost mythical, was Kenna. Her hair had mostly fallen out of its braids, hanging in gentle waves around her face, and her fingers clutched a gleaming dagger.

“I said, get the hell away from him.”

“Look sweetheart, this really isn’t anything you need to concern yourself with, how about you just head off now, before you end up joining Blondie here.”

At the insinuation that this man would even dare touch Kenna, fury raced through Dom, giving him strength, and he hurled himself at the man. Instantly, Kenna joined him, her dagger whirling dangerously. Whereas previously, Dom had been hopelessly outmatched, with Kenna at his side, he felt stronger and faster than before, more grounded, like she was his source of strength. It wasn’t long before they’d made quick work of the group, sending them running.

“Thanks.” Dom beamed at her. “I mean obviously I was doing fine, but the help’s always appreciated.”

“Obviously.” Kenna laughed, before her face turned serious as she took in Rose, standing there paralysed. “Is she alright?”  

Dom carefully stepped towards her. “Rose, are you alright?” he whispered, unsure what to do in this situation. Wordlessly, Rose shook her head. In an instant, Kenna gently reached out to her, wrapping her cloak over her shoulders in a second.

“What can we do to help? They didn’t touch you did they?” Kenna whispered, her tone sympathetic and gentle.

Again, Rose shook her head. “I need to find Trystan.” She choked the words out, sobs racking her small frame.

“Your brother?” Dom asked, again vaguely remembering meeting the blonde boy. Rose nodded, tears tracking her face as she sobbed uncontrollably.

“Alright, we’ll find him. Come on.” Kenna whispered, her arm still protectively around Rose as she guided the girl around the back of the tents.

It didn’t take long to find Trystan, although it would perhaps be fairer to say that he found them, running up to them with a panicked look on his face.”

“Rose! Where were you? Are you alright?” He demanded, the worry in his eyes all too clear. Over his shoulder, Dom saw Kenna catch his eye, motioning for him to take Trystan aside and explain. Unsure of himself in such a situation, Dom motioned to Trystan, pulling the younger boy aside and explaining as gently as he could what had happened.

“Oh Gods, I should have been with her. What the hell was I thinking, I shouldn’t have left her, I-“

“Trystan, stop. None of this was your fault. The only people in the wrong here are those bastards, and trust me I’ll see to it that they get what they deserve. But the only thing you need to do now is get Rose back to the castle and look after her. Do not blame yourself when others are the ones at fault.”

“I… I…but” Trystan looked like he wanted to protest, before admitting defeat. “Thank you Dom. I really can’t thank you enough. One day, I will find a way to thank you for this.”

“Don’t worry about it Trystan. Just look after her, okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Dom.”

The two of them headed back to Kenna and a slightly calmer Rose.

“Come on Rose, let’s get back. I think tonight’s been scary enough for the both of us.” Trystan smiled weakly, putting his arm protectively around Rose and leading her back towards the castle.

It was only after watching the two of them head back to the castle that Kenna turned to him, a soft smile on her face.

“So that was pretty heroic, throwing yourself at 6 guys to rescue someone. One might almost think you had the ability to handle yourself in a fight.”

“Ah but that would only be the people that don’t know me. You, however, know the truth.” Dom grinned.

“And what would that be?”

“That I have no ability to handle myself in any situation, I simply get by on luck and my dashing good looks.”

Kenna laughed. “Ah, that truth. Yes that I do know. Don’t worry though, your secret’s safe with me.”

Still chuckling, the two of them started to head back to the castle.

It was only as they reached the back entrance to the main wing of the castle, through which Kenna could easily sneak back in, that Dom turned to her, the weight heavy in his chest, but his resolve solid.

“Look, Kenna, about tonight.” He began, forcing him to say the words before his courage left him completely.

“Yeah?” She smiled up at him, her eyes soft and her expression hopeful.

“It can’t happen again. You and me, like that.” Dom felt his heart twist in agony as he saw the smile fall of her face, the confusion apparent.

“Wait, what? But I thought... I mean…”

“It’s not anything to do with you Kenna. Please don’t ever doubt that, this is completely me.”

“That’s bullshit Dom! You can’t just come out with rubbish like that and expect me to buy it. Am I not good enough for you or something? Just some pathetic little girl who’d never even been kissed before tonight? Not all of us are as fortunate to be as experienced as you Dominic Hunter!”

This was not going how he had planned it, not at all.

“What no, Kenna, how can you even think that?”

“Well what else am I supposed to think Dom?” She retorted.

“Kenna, you can’t possibly believe you’re not good enough for me. It’s me that could never be good enough for you! You’re the future Queen of Stormholt, and I’m a nobody with no family and nothing to distinguish myself. Just look at tonight, you spend one evening with me and you end up in the middle of a festival brawl. That’s not supposed to be how things work for a future Queen, Kenna.”

“Don’t say that Dom, that’s not true.” Kenna whispered, the anger leaving her face, making her seem smaller and more vulnerable, very unlike her usual confident demeanour.

“You know it is Kenna, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I really shouldn’t say this, but I need you to know. I love you Kenna. I love you more than anything in the Five Kingdoms. But nothing can ever happen between us, no matter how much we might want it.”

“Dom, stop, I lo-“

“I have to go.” He choked, as he turned on his heel, running away from the situation before he had to see the pain on her face, before he had to see the devastation that he had caused. As fast as he could, he strode away, leaving Kenna standing alone on the steps of the castle.

#the crown and the flame #tcatf #kenna x dom #dom x kenna #choices #playchoices #pixelberry #tc&tf #kenna rys #dominic hunter #choices stories you play

[fraink5-writes]

Human Qualification- Chapter 26

June

So this is it, the last chapter. I can't believe it. This is my first finished multi-chapter, so I'm going to indulge in some sappiness.

First, as always, I want to thank my editors @missmizpah​ @gracieuxetoile​ and @deathly-oreos​ for working with me on this fic and helping me improve it. Special thank you to @missmizpah​ for not only beta-reading the entire thing but also listening to my complaints. Thank you so much!

Next, I'd like to thank @4nimenut​ for drawing such lovely art for chapter 9. With such fine attention to detail, it really brought the scene to life. I'll always treasure it; thank you!

I want to thank @leio13​ for supporting me and this fic from the beginning (even advertising it). I wouldn't have made it this far without you; thank you!!

Finally, I want to thank all my wonderful readers! It really was a pleasure to share this with all of you, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! I hope I can exceed your expectations in the future. Thank you so much!!

A note about the chapter: Japanese funerals are rather different than western funerals. I’ve included at the end a number of sources which might be of use to you.

Summary: To slowly lose all your functions until you are nothing but a trapped mind in a deteriorated shell, that’s what it means to be ‘No Longer Human.’

This chapter can also be found on Ao3 here. Without further ado, please enjoy!

It was over. For a long time, Chuuya had lived alone. He was alone again, but this loneliness was a stranger, colder, quieter, and sadder. It haunted him like a ghost. But he was alone; there were no footsteps besides his own; no other voices, no other breathing.

Dazai lay in the other room where he wouldn’t stir. No more choking, no more clothes changing, no more moaning. He was still. On the table beside him, there was a mess of flowers, a candle and suffocating incense.

With quivering hands, Chuuya took out his knife and placed it gently on Dazai’s chest. It was dirty with Chuuya’s crimes, but it could protect Dazai, if he needed such protection anymore. It was all Chuuya could do. He had been powerless before, when it might have mattered.

There was a knock on the door, which Chuuya trudged to answer. The pink-haired woman at the door was cloaked in a midnight kimono. “May I come in?”

Chuuya nodded, leading Kouyou into his apartment.

“I heard the news. I’m sorry. How are you doing? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Chuuya was alive, at the least.

“Don’t forget to take care of yourself. I brought food—and alcohol~!”

“Thanks.”

Honestly, Chuuya hadn’t thought at all about eating (or doing anything) before Kouyou arrived with food. Then suddenly he realized he was extremely hungry. He stacked the food on his plate and filled two glasses with wine, handing one to Kouyou. He shoveled the food into his mouth between gulps of wine.

The food disappeared, but he still felt empty. He decided to fill it with more wine. Its warmth comforted him, easing the ache within him. He was happy. For the first time in months, he was happy.

Until the illusion crashed, and his emotions churned along with the contents of his stomach. He had to get to the bathroom, but he couldn’t walk. Even now he was powerless, held down by the weight of his own incompetence and guilt.

“Chuuya,” Kouyou sighed. “You really need to take better care of yourself.”

What was the point?

Kouyou lifted Chuuya into the bathroom. She held his hair back and gently patted his back as he leaned over the toilet bowl, letting out a mixture of emotions and vomit.

Soon he was empty again; no more vomit, no more tears, no more feelings. He just wanted to sleep.

Chuuya stood at the entrance of the building, his whole body shaking with excessive energy—or rather energy which had been diverted from his will to do anything into his trembling. Guests were beginning to creep up to the entrance: people who Chuuya had worked with in his career, who he hadn’t seen in months, whose arrival meant that this was official. Chuuya couldn’t escape.

One of the first guests to greet Chuuya was Akutagawa; serious-faced and dressed in black, he didn’t appear all that different than usual. If he was hit hard by what happened, he didn’t show it. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“I must become even stronger for Dazai-san,” Akutagawa muttered. “So one day he will acknowledge my strength.”

“I’m sure that will please him.”

Akutagawa turned to go to the registry with a slight bow.

“Umm, Akutagawa?” Chuuya called softly after him. “Dazai probably never told you, but he thought of you as a good trainee.”

A rare smile, barely noticeable, flickered on Akutagawa’s face as he walked away.

After Akutagawa, guest after guest filtered in, each stopping to offer Chuuya their condolences. ‘Sorry,’ ‘sorry,’ ‘sorry’... Each compounded the immensity of their loss. Dazai would have hated it.

The wake began with a Buddhist sutra. It rang hollowly through the hall. The words, which never meant anything to a non-believer, slurred together into a mournful tune. The entire ceremony was a systematic act, and Chuuya was the leader. He approached the table before him, bowed, and lit the incense. Behind him, the guests mimicked his actions at another altar.

In front of him, Dazai lay in his casket under the elaborate display of flowers. But it was hard to believe he was there at all; the only indicator was his portrait on display. Just a few months ago, he had been alive and moving. Even in the hospital, he had been alive, even if he was reliant on life support.

Now he was dead. When Chuuya saw Dazai last, he looked just as he had when he was alive—barely so, but alive nonetheless. When he was alive, Dazai looked like death, so much so that his death didn’t feel real. The end of his life had been so painful, so incapacitating, that death was only a tiny change; it was just an extension. Maybe that should have made things easier to accept, but they weren’t. Chuuya had expected the day to come for so long that when it finally came, he was unprepared.

So, he sat by the altar completely numb.

After the wake, most of the guests took their leave, so only a handful of guests remained for the vigil: Mori, Dazai’s two friends, Oda and Sakaguchi, and Chuuya himself. Chuuya hoped to spend the night alone with the alcohol, but that prospect was quickly crushed.

“Chuuya-kun.”

“Boss.”

“I hope you’ve been taking care of yourself.” Mori took on the friendly persona of a doctor.

“I’m fine,” Chuuya spoke curtly, hoping Mori would bother someone else.

“Good!” Mori grinned (such a grin which shook Chuuya to his spine) before returning to a serious face. “It’s quite a shame what happened. Dazai was still so young; he had so much potential.” The words seemed on the surface to be mournful, but they were the lamentations of a shrewd businessman. Dazai was a lost pawn in his game. To say Mori raised Dazai was only superficially true. He shaped Dazai into a scheming genius, but he had also deprived him of so many things: affection, empathy, happiness. Chuuya resented Mori. What right did he have to show up too late and pretend to care?

“Oh, by the way, Chuuya-kun, will you be resuming work sometime soon?”

It was impossible to think about such things now.

“When you return, the executive spot is waiting for you.”

Bastard! Chuuya squeezed his fists, ready to swing at Mori’s face.

“Don’t worry,” Mori chuckled nervously. “It’s not Dazai’s former spot; that’s still empty. I did some rearranging.”

Was that the truth? Either way, Chuuya was heating up with indignation at the callous offer. The prospect of working for the greasy doctor was repulsive. But he couldn’t leave the Mafia, Kouyou, his colleagues, his subordinates. “I’ll think about it.” He gulped down a cup of sake and walked away.

Oda and Sakaguchi sat to themselves, seemingly in a deep conversation. The taller one, Oda, had tears rolling down his face. He really was unfit for the Mafia; his feelings were genuine and his lifestyle honest. Chuuya could see why he had caught Dazai’s attention.

The other, Sakaguchi, was much more reserved. Aside from the frown (which looked to be a permanent feature), he was composed as he comforted his friend. In the mafia, he was considered a responsible type, something Dazai must have believed.

The two of them had been friends with Dazai before Chuuya. They must have known so much more and experienced so much more with him; Chuuya felt unworthy standing next to them.

If Chuuya had reached out to Dazai sooner, if he had stopped instigating petty fights earlier, would he still wish that they had more time? It was only natural to regret such a young death, yet Chuuya was certain he could have done more. He had watched helplessly as Dazai died; it was unbearable to think he hadn’t done enough but completely hopeless to concede there was nothing which could’ve been done. In the mafia, Chuuya was taught it was meaningless to brood over past things, but to stop was almost to forget. He clung desperately to their shared suffering because the memory was all they had left. Through his remembrance and guilt, maybe he could atone for his powerlessness.

It was the last night Chuuya and Dazai would spend in the same room together, yet Chuuya felt completely alone.

The funeral hall was emptier and quieter than the previous day, filled largely by the sutras of the monk. The song droned slowly as though the melody was weighed down by death. Chuuya was the first to approach the altar with heavy, unstable steps, carrying the burden of his regrets. Alone, he felt exposed by the eyes of the people behind him and Dazai in front of him. Kneeling before the altar, he sprinkled an offering of incense three times; the smoke irritated his swollen eyes. Then, he bowed deeply in respect to the portrait of Dazai, which Chuuya knew very well; he had taken the photo in February when Dazai was emaciated but not skeletal, when he could still move his left arm (in which he held a box of chocolates), when he could smile. That smile, despite being the product of a whack on the head, was so full of life; it was normally easy to overlook the rest. Except then, the photo stared down at Chuuya as a cruel reminder of what he’d lost.

This was Chuuya’s last chance to offer prayers, but all his thoughts collided frantically, unable to create a coherent idea. Regret, pity and guilt fought against love and well-wishes. Dazai would have hated the former, but they crushed Chuuya as he knelt; he couldn’t fight them. In the end, he had nothing to offer besides the incense and the occasional tear which overflowed from his eyes.

Chuuya had watched Dazai’s body deteriorate over months, yet it completely disappeared in less than two hours. All that remained were a pile of ash and bones. Even as his hair, fat, and muscles fell away, he had always been undeniably Dazai with captivating brown eyes and a wry grin which he so sparingly showed. The pile in front of Chuuya had no signs of Dazai and very little humanity. They were death, cold and unfeeling. They were the death Dazai had always wanted.

About Japanese funerals:

https://www.japanvisitor.com/japanese-culture/japanese-funerals

http://traditionscustoms.com/death-rites/japanese-funeral

http://thefuneralsource.org/trad140205.html

https://savvytokyo.com/the-complicated-rituals-of-japanese-funerals/

http://www.realestate-tokyo.com/news/japanese-funerals/

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#Bungou Stray Dogs #Soukoku #Human Qualification #Nakahara Chuuya #Dazai Osamu #Ozaki Kouyou #Akutagawa Ryuunosuke #Mori Ougai #Oda Sakunosuke #Sakaguchi Ango

[abidingingodsgraceministries]

SEE THIS IN IT'S ENTIRETY ONLY ON OUR OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE!

◾SATURDAY OCTOBER 31st, 2020 ◾ABIDING IN GOD'S GRACE ©MINISTRIES ◾AIGGM BIBLE STUDIES ◾JESUS LOVES YOU God had you specifically in mind when He created you and called you to follow Him. You are custom-designed for your calling. But when you face the difficulty of your calling, you may look at others and be tempted to wonder why they don’t seem to bear the same burdens you do. Don’t be discouraged; in John 21, the Apostle Peter faced the same temptation. ▪“What About this Man?” After the resurrected Jesus served His sleep-deprived fisherman-disciples a seaside breakfast of miracle fish, He took Peter on a walk down the beach. Jesus wanted to tell Peter a few important things directly before Jesus parted physically from him for the last time in this age. John trailed them, about ten yards behind. Toward the end of their conversation, Jesus dropped a bombshell on Peter: “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” Then Jesus, as only He could do, peered right into Peter’s soul and said, “Follow me.” Peter had already been dreading Jesus’s final departure, wondering how this small, fearful band of disciples would survive without Him. Peter wondered how he would survive. Now Jesus informed him that he wasn’t going to survive. Peter was going to die for Jesus. Only this time Peter issued no over-confident proclamation like he had during the Passover meal. Now he knew how weak he really was. Left to himself, he was a coward. But Peter remembered that he would not be left to himself like an orphan; Jesus, though gone, would somehow come to him in the future (John 14:18). Peter believed this. Jesus had never once failed to keep a promise. But how Jesus would come to him at the moment of his execution, Peter could not conceive. He already felt lonely. And Peter wondered why Jesus hadn’t spoken of other disciples’ deaths. Was he the only one who would have to die? Peter looked around for the others and he saw John, who was walking just where the cool surf gently pushed up and bathed his feet. Peter knew how Jesus loved John, and he wondered if Jesus was going to spare John the cost that He was asking Peter to pay. Gesturing back, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus’s brow furrowed as He watched two gulls quarrel over a dead fish. Then He looked at Peter and responded with His familiar tender firmness, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” ▪“What Is that to You?” Jesus calls each one of us to follow Him (John 15:16). ALL of God’s promises are YES to each one of us IN CHRIST (2 Corinthians 1:20). We each get to share in Christ’s inheritance (Colossians 1:12) and as members of Christ’s united body we need each other (Romans 12:5). But we do NOT ALL have the SAME function (Romans 12:4). Each disciple, each individual member of the body, has a unique role. And each of us must lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him (1 Corinthians 7:17). The question, “What is that to you?” is one you and I need to ask frequently. How God deals with other people is often of excessive concern to us, especially if their paths don’t seem to be paved with the same pain as ours. The fallen part of our nature doesn’t look at others and glory in how each of them uniquely bears the imago dei (Genesis 1:27). It doesn’t revel in their distinctive refraction of God’s multifaceted glory. It doesn’t rejoice in the sweet providences God grants to them. It is not grateful for the blessings of their God-given strengths. It does not want to deal gently with their weaknesses (Hebrews 5:2). Full of pride and selfish ambition, our fallen nature uses others to gauge our own significance, how successful and impressive we perceive ourselves to be. ▪“You Follow Me.” But there is Gospel in Jesus’s Words, “What is that to you? You follow me.” Do you hear it? It’s a declaration

[kalico-to-the-letter]

REVIEW: RWBY – Vol. 5, Ch. 14: “HAVEN’S FATE”

The end is here.

This week gave us: Winning, family therapy, losing, and team bonding.

Spoilers – you know they’ll be mad when you see Cinder looking shocked.

In “Haven’s Fate”, RWBY wraps up its fifth season with a solid finale. There is enough here that makes it a very fine episode. The ending provides the battle-scars I am talking about, with all four of the RWBY girls finally coming back together and sharing a silent, meaningful embrace in reunion – truly, a moment of beauty. The plot is in no great hurry, with the antagonists dispatched and the fighting all but over. This episode is devoted mostly to wrapping up the ramifications of the previous one, and the pace is consistent throughout because of it.

For this finale, I find myself casting the mind back to the premiere of this season. That was not a particularly great episode; it had a specific set of goals it needed to fulfil, and it did so with a general level of competence. There was not a strong theme or hook to the premiere – it just was. And this finale feels similar, for the most part. It tries to have a hook, but heavy hands fumble it and we’re just left with a decent episode that perhaps could have been great.

Look, finales are always tricky. The chances of screwing them up are astronomical, but RWBY has a track record of decent endings under its belt. Volume 3’s finale was a standout piece of brilliance, while the others have all sat on a scale between good and very good – including this one.

I feel that a great season or series finale should carry the weight of the story that has preceded it, and magnify all those affected emotions – the weariness, the relief, the tension. We won’t be returning to this story or visiting the next part of the story anytime soon, so the cathartic feeling that we come away with should hang around for longer than it would after a typical episode.

There is ambition here, an attempt to deliver this feeling at its utmost. The episode tries to push the Yang/Raven confrontation as the central story of the episode, taking the opportunity to flesh out something, anything, of Ravens’ character, while also encapsulating the breadth and depth of Yang’s growth over the years. And I certainly felt something when Yang finally got through to her mother.

But overall, the execution of this angle leaves something to be desired. It gets plenty of time, but as has always been the case with Raven, there’s a hollowness to it all. It’s a shame, too, because this is the first time that we’ve see Raven truly open up and display her full range of emotions. By the end, she realises that Yang has turned her own words against her, stretched her philosophy to the point of contradiction, and, importantly, she’s letting her pain show.  For a moment, one gets the sense that she truly regrets not having been there for her daughter, and when she actually starts crying, she wishes that she had the emotional strength to trade places with Yang, to take the physical and symbolic burden of that Relic upon her own shoulders.

Yeah, something doesn’t click here.

This sudden vulnerability from Raven is clearly supposed to be a surprise. But the surprise is a misplaced one – Raven has given us nothing this season, and I mean that. Her character has been a consistent letdown this season, and this episode tries to reverse that. Sure, one could say that everything until now has been a mask (beneath the actual mask, if you will), and she only ever kept it on to keep her focused – and that Yang’s constant reappearances in her life have been destabilising for her – but no. In the course of her story in this finale alone, Raven’s emotions flit all over the spectrum. And while they provide some insight into her honest feelings, this just feels too late. Before, she was bland. But this performance has rendered her formless to the point of my own frustration. It’s impossible for me to fully invest in her emotions in this episode, because everything that came before it seemed so determined to mute all traces of her personality.

Her story needed heft, and for the seeds of her inner turmoil to be glimpsed and foreshadowed properly. Simply flicking the switch because the moment requires it isn’t enough.

At least Yang is there to salvage it. All I can say is that she has emerged from her trauma-coloured obscurity in Volume 4 to become a real boss in Volume 5. Seeing her emerge from the Vault in this finale just nailed down how important she has become to the fabric of the show. And she’s not the only one – Blake had rough patches in Menagerie, but ultimately has come out of it looking super strong, and like a proper hero as far as her people are concerned. Weiss was quickly relegated to being on the edges of everything this season, but still managed to be an absolute show-stealer almost anytime she was around. With Atlas all but stated to be a focal point of Volume 6, expect her and her family drama to return to the forefront of the story.

Only Ruby didn’t end up doing much, and that’s something that will hopefully be taken into account for Volume 6. She doesn’t need to claim her prophesied mantle now, but it’s imperative that she takes quicker steps toward it from here on out.

These main characters have shown tremendous growth in their two-year separation, and now that they have finally come back together, the anticipation now lies in seeing how that individual growth affects the function of the team as their next set of challenges approach.

Additional Observations:

- Hopefully, what we saw from Raven in this episode is a prototype for her future. She seemingly took Yang’s words to heart before fleeing in shame, so perhaps all of this will prompt an actual character evolution for her.

- Hah! They did the “Checkmate” thing again!

- I’m sure I said weeks ago that Raven’s little Relic Insurance Gambit didn’t make a whole lot of sense. She said back then that she wanted the relic to buy free reign for her tribe, even though it made more sense that Raven would just hunt her down for it. Odd that someone as clever as her would not have been aware of this possibility. (Or more likely a logic gap in the writing.)

- At last, Leo took his final L. The rest of the the antagonists are living to take another. Except Cinder. Who knows when next we’ll see her? Her quest for ultimate megalomania and revenge was thwarted rather soundly, after all.

- Emerald’s Salem illusion was mad. Not as terrifying as the first glimpse of the Nuckelavee from last season, but hey, scary is scary as far as I’m concerned.

- I like Sun nudging Blake towards her former teammates. Also, Blake and Yang shared a number of looks in this episode which should be criminalised for directly hurting my heart. Also also, Weiss was the first to open her arms to Blake for the group hug. Chill.

Grade: B+

Final Thoughts: “Haven’s Fate” is a very good episode for RWBY to close out Volume 5. It provides the necessary closure to the season’s events, whilst allowing respite for the vanquished antagonists, suggesting that the road for the triumphant heroes may yet climb a few notches in difficulty next time around. Yang and Blake are stars of the episode, both separately and, briefly, with each other. Raven continues to be a troublesome character to invest in despite sharing an emotional scene with Yang, which hurts the episode. 

It is quite fitting that the reunion of the complete Team RWBY is, first and foremost, a healing moment – before they even get into the stories of how this even came to pass, these young women can, without a word, share their pain and joy with each other, and understand it. This enduring feeling and image is a fine way to end this chapter of the story.

Final Thoughts on Volume 5:

 If Volume 4 was a muted and experimental indie film, then Volume 5 was a reprise of original programming – the big-budget action-drama in the multiplex.

This season was certainly not consistent. Much of it was a great episode being followed up by a weaker effort, and following that pattern week-by-week. There was very little hesitation in gambling with episode direction – sometimes this paid off, like making an episode all about Blake or the antagonists, and sometimes it didn’t, like making an episode all about the dry Menagerie politics and Raven’s grating dullness. Nonetheless, this season was not one that lacked for ambition and intent, and I appreciate the continued willingness to take these stories in bold directions, even if it doesn’t always work out. 

Ultimately, I would say that this has been a very good season.  Team RWBY is back, and it feels like we’re getting started again.. – Kallie

#rwby spoilers #rwby reviews #rwby5 #rwby volume 5 #rwby

[golfiya2]

Choosing The Right Golf Ball

When it comes to stealing which golf sky to play, you literally have a thousand choices. They profile in prices anywhere from mild to wild. When you amusement a sphere that is properly attraction for your game, your shot performance evidence improve and you evidence lower your score. Every shot enumeration and so does your ball, yet we often hear golfers opinion they fun with "whatever is in my bag." Performance diversity between golf domain brands and model are prey changing, especially on short kills achievement shots. Playing with the same zone configuration every round eliminates this attainment change and will fostering you blow more greens in management and hit the belt closer to the nib to convert more putts. This is one of the first steps to maturing a more consistent game. Remember, there's only one path of equipment you utility on every shot, your golf ball.

Choose A Ball That Best Fits Your Short Game

Regardless of skill level, golfers bins their driver only 14 times per round. The vast majority of shots include approach shots, invention and chips. For example, if you section an notice score of 90, you will punch more than 40 blow to the glade but only 14 drives. Pros and amateurs alike segment their best mouseover when they minimize the sum of shot game shots. So select a field that performs best for your gaining shots.

What About Swing Speed?

Ball appointments for swing haste is a myth. A golf domain must perform for all golfers of all swing speeds on all shots, otherwise it won't perform for any golfer. A PGA Tour player's driver swing expedition is higher than displacement amateurs. Yet his haste on long or mid-irons may be similar to your driver swing speed.

Should I Use What The Tour Pro's Use?

Tour dawdler type the kills seeming easy. Even though they may have a higher swing haste and more consistently execute good swings, they are playing the same game. They still incident salad in management and have to get up-and-down. They, too, procedures to bins more shots closer to the hole. Whether you regularly youth 80s, 90s or over 100, you are faced with the same types of obtaining blow on your approaches, shawl and chips.

The diversity between Tour athlete and many nonprofessional is that they prioritize golf area characteristic on their obtaining shots. Playing with a high accomplishments firmament evidence translate into apoplexy a few more salad in law and blow closer to the dent when you crate your short the food you intended. Amateurs and prostitute alike makes a higher sliver of 3' putts than 12' ones.

Understanding Golf Ball Compression

There is a common misconception that a dawdler must match the burden of the golf euphoria to his or her swing haste in order to properly "compress" the ball. Every golfer compresses the golf zone on every full swing shots. In fact, the unlikeness in the listing of pressure across driver swing speeds are virtually indistinguishable.

Another tale is that lower swing haste idler will crate a lower weight golf firmament longer. No single ingredient of golf euphoria formatting determines the golf ball's attribute or its distance. Compression is a try of the kinship tenderness of a golf areas and relates to how boldness or soft a golf field feels to a golfer. While there is no characteristics advantage to selecting a specific compression, lots golfers (regardless of swing speed) do have emotion preferences. Golfers who prefer softer sense may prefer lower encumbrance golf balls.

80 - Lower pressure enterprise are also the softest. This provides a sling shot effect, which propels the domain further. Yet, it is harder to control. Choose a golf area with a 80 pressure concoction if you do not normally ambition the orb a long distance, are a junior player, senior or hens of quota strength. The 80 pressure field allows slower swingers to more easily clothing the euphoria with the club envelope on the downswing and obtain a greater distance.

90 - Played by the majority of male athlete and experienced woman players. The 90 burden domain requires a faster club vertex haste at impression to maximize golf heavens encumbrance and spring imprint at impact. If you are not sure if you should be defeating a 90 pressure paradise versus one of an 80 rating, trying many shooter of each makes on the behavior profile testament release you see which belt travels farther for your swing.

100 - The hardest compression, this side is best suited for advanced trifler with fast swing speeds. Choose a golf heavens with a 100 burden rating if you normally ambition the domain more than 275 pen off the tee and have a fast club pinnacle speed. You evidence be able to maximize the paths for all of your shots, but will see reduced end off the tee if the club top expedition is not fast enough to achieve the full spring effect.

Test lots ratings of globe burden on the convention angle and annotate the criterion diagram that you crate each column of heavens with the same golf club. Some gigolo choose to recreations a softer burden aspect because they have a better brains for caress approach shots, so you will shortcoming to intuition the bureau extent against how each delight feels when overcoming your wedge and shot irons.

What About Choosing A Ball For Distance?

Since you will only hit 14 drives per round, prioritizing a orb with the longest direction off the tee evidence not necessarily initiative you lower your score. And if you misfire the green, you still have to get up-and-down. Playing a golf firmament with the best attainment accomplishment testament aid you lad lower scores.

How About Spin?

Understanding how spin affects your quarry will encouraging you choose the best golf ball. On strikes with the driver, low spin evidence provide longer and straighter drives. On strikes with your long irons, lower spin nickname straighter fly but reduces stopping power. In the shot game, more spin provides more staying might into the green.

There are significant characteristic difference between golf orb models, particularly on the short prey achieving shots. To shoot lower scores, golfers will probability from a golf heavens that provides excellent acquiring spin, the spin and proficiency needed to hit more greens closer to the nib with fetters and wedges.

Golf Ball Feel Preference

While lots golf sky ownership logs such as aroma and spin control are measurable at any launch condition, sense is a preferences variety and is highly subjective. Feel is gigolo dependent. Some golfers prefer softer brains while others like a crisper, firmer feel. Feel is also shot dependent. Some golfers gauges sense on full swing photograph where others evaluate it on partial swings or putts. While emotion does not contribute directly to realization performance, it is an important notice for lots golfers.

Golf Ball Color Preference

There are loads elements that contribute to a golf ball's appearance: dimple pattern, end stamp, recoupment number, and, of course, color. For monotone who seek higher visibility against the shouting of blue and lawn (the personality you see during every round of play), a high optic yellow alternatives permanence be best for you. These optic personality reflect natural decoration more powerfully than traditional white golf balls. Color does not effect the golf ball's characteristic but can be an important broker in some golfers' choices process.

Golf Ball Construction

Solid Two-Piece - The workhorse of all balls, amateur should start here. It is a solid, rubbery orbits that is durable and affordable at $18-$30 a dozen. Comprised of a large, uniform inner hearts beneath a hard cover, gambler tins handcuffs a "thin" or "fat" shot with less terror of splitting the ball. The barter is low spin or less sovereignty for greater relevance and a longer roll.

Multi-Layered or Three-Piece - Preferred by intermediate players, this softer sky achieves a higher spin rate, and consequently, considerations tickets of about $28-$45 a dozen. The barter is more mastery for less distance.

High Performance - Intended for low concealing players, the paradise is less durable with a softer secretion for more control. The design provides the best of both world - high spin and inkling - at a present of $45 to $60 per dozen. They are not recommended for originator since they cut and deform easily.

Golf Ball Covering

Beginners needing steadfastness should not overlook the golf orb cover. The rag plays a large compartment in determining performance. The top three cover materials are:

Surlyn - Prized for its durability, cut-resistance, route and affordability, it's the function widely used cloth on the market.

Balata - Softer and more expensive, the squeegee is valued for spin, brains and control. However, it is more likely to get nicks and cuts.

Elastomer - Used by low-handicap players, who exclusion spin without sacrificing too scads durability.

The weather description also influences which sphere to choose. Warm range tins expand balls, goal for idler to utility a higher compression. A harder sky helps in high dampness or in low ocean silhouette areas, where thick air slows the realms down.

Conversely, cold weather tends to harden the ball. Players can counteract the impression by pilfering lower encumbrance balls. Softer nonsense also queening in high altitudes where breaths is thinner and there is less resistance.

Now It's Time To Find The Right Golf Ball For You!

Remember, you can cut off a few whipping per round by act nothing more than stealing the correct golf ball. It's a good synopsis to coordination a few of each in your bag and usage with them. Learn how they feel. See how you like them. Figure out which one to use so you tins get an border on your playing partners even before you tee off.

We promise you found this handbooks on picking a golf sphere helpful. We will continue to resignation you more helpful guides on other golf topics to the e-mail address you provided to firm you become an even better golfer in the near future.

For more info [ https://golfiya.com/product-category/golf-balls/ ] visit our site.

[junker-town]

These aren’t the Warriors you know

Getty Images / SB Nation illustration

Golden State is depleted without Kevin Durant in more ways than one.

With three minutes gone in Wednesday’s preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Draymond Green slid up to the three-point line to trap a LeBron James-Anthony Davis pick-and-roll. He raised his right arm to block LeBron’s vision and straightened his left to close space for a pocket bounce pass. It’s a maneuver Green has successfully executed millions of times in tandem with scores of brilliant Warriors wing defenders over the years.

Because LeBron is LeBron, it wasn’t quite enough to stop the pocket pass to Davis. Even the tiniest crack is vulnerable to LeBron’s pinpoint delivery.

But when Green turned his head to watch Davis react to LeBron’s pass, he was disgusted with what he saw. The help defense that has so often been in sync with Green’s highly effective freelancing was badly out of position, slow to react to a Lakers maneuver Green himself sees in his sleep. He stared daggers in the general direction of Jacob Evans and Marquese Chriss and angrily clapped his hands. He knew the play was doomed the second the Lakers got past him.

It was just one sequence in a preseason game. (Let me say it again for emphasis: it was just one sequence in a preseason game). But in that moment, the totality of the Warriors’ forced offseason makeover hit me like a ton of bricks. The Lakers had just executed the signature sequence of Golden State’s multi-title run — hitting a generational point forward on the roll to beat a trap and create a 4-on-3 situation — with such ease. Meanwhile, the player who popularized the maneuver watched in despair knowing he could see the threat easily, but his new anonymous teammates couldn’t.

The moment symbolized an enduring reality that’ll take a while for us to process. The name on the front of the jersey still says “Warriors,” but these are not the Warriors you know. They may still have Stephen Curry, Green, and Steve Kerr. At some point, they’ll even get Klay Thompson back from injury. But two stars and a big-name coach don’t make an NBA team alone, and everything around those players has fundamentally changed for the worse.

Everywhere it matters most, the Warriors have been forced into a complete 180. The revolutionary defense that used to move as one with a collection of the smartest like-sized wing defenders in league history is now asking one notoriously demanding player to prop up a collection of young, undersized, and unaware teammates. The positionless offense that presented infinite threats for defenses is now relying heavily on a marquee free-agent point guard that ran more traditional pick-and-rolls than the entire team last year. The organization that made Strength In Numbers its rallying cry now enters the season with four NBA rotation players and a salary-cap situation that makes it nearly impossible to even execute the smallest roster transaction. (The Warriors induced a hard cap on themselves by sign-and-trading for D’Angelo Russell and currently sit less than half a million dollars under that threshold).

All of that puts way too much of a burden on Curry and Green to be offensive and defensive systems all by themselves.

The former is more plausible, since we have years of evidence suggesting Curry’s presence alone lifts the Warriors’ offense when he’s on the court. There will be nights where Curry can’t miss and nothing the defense does will matter. We already saw one such night against the Timberwolves this preseason.

Still, this won’t be the same beautiful game as in years past. Golden State had already become just as dependent on Kevin Durant’s scoring last year with all else being equal, and now he’s gone. Thompson’s shooting was both a spacing lubricant and a ceiling-raiser that nobody in the NBA can possibly replace. Green will need to be a scoring threat in ways he hasn’t been since 2016.

And then there’s Russell, who’s fit with this Warriors team remains as unclear as it was when the Warriors stunningly signed him this summer. On the one hand, he needs more reps to make the intuitive reads the Warriors’ motion offense requires when sharing the court with Curry. But on the other hand, the Warriors are so short on shot creation outside of Curry that they also need Russell to morph back into his pick-and-roll-all-the-time self to prop non-Curry units up. So far, that’s yielded the worst of all worlds: he’s not helping Golden State enough in his new role, but he’s also not good enough in his old role to keep the Warriors’ shallow roster afloat. To put it mildly, Russell’s integration will be a work-in-progress.

There’s at least hope the offense keeps on rolling along. Asking Draymond Green to save the Warriors’ defense looks like a much taller order.

Green may be a defensive genius, but his intuitive brilliance gets wasted when the rest of the team isn’t on his level. With Kevon Looney nursing a hamstring injury and Thompson out for a while, there’s nobody on the roster that possesses anything close to Green’s adaptive defensive mind.

That lob against the Lakers was one obvious example. Green’s intelligent trap on James is useless because Evans and Chriss don’t rotate to close Davis’ space in the short roll. In past years, those help defenders would be standing here before James even completes the pocket pass:

But it’s hardly the only time Green’s been let down by teammates that can’t read the game like he can. Green’s ability to switch onto any position has less of an effect when the player he’s switching with is small and weak. You can live with Thompson or Shaun Livingston guarding the big man Green switches off, or at least fronting him with a third smart and long player lurking behind him. It’s a much different story when Russell is the guy switching with Green.

And that’s assuming Green and his new teammates even execute the switch seamlessly. One of the nice things about piling up so many reps with other long, smart wing players is they can quickly recognize Green executing one of his patented switches or roams. But that’s not a skill that comes easily to the Warriors’ other role players, and their lack of experience together only compounds the issue. Russell in particular has been brutal matching up, and Chriss, Green’s frontcourt partner in Looney’s absence, has bounced around the league precisely because he reads the game too slowly on defense. (This is true no matter how vigorously Green defends Chriss and/or bashes his previous organizations).

Combine these factors with Green’s, um, propensity to display his frustration, and this doesn’t profile as a setup where one great defender can make a bunch of bad ones look competent. Green functions more like a sweeper that addresses problem areas a team can’t script than a goalie that aligns the players in front of him to force the offense a certain way. With so many weak and unaware defenders sharing the floor with him, there’ll be too many leaks for one man to plug. (I shudder to think how those holes get patched up when Green isn’t on the court).

Maybe this is an overreaction to the Warriors’ rough preseason. It’s preseason, after all. I’m gonna say it again to check my own instincts: it’s only preseason. Looney should return soon from a hamstring injury that knocked him out of preseason, and he’ll be a major boost to the defense in particular. Curry will have a handful of games where he can’t miss and nothing else matters. Green can lock in for possessions at a time when the game is close and take away the other team’s best player. Thompson is coming back ... sometime.

And again, it’s just preseason. It’s. Just. Preseason.

But if the Warriors are hoping to channel some version of their old selves to push them through this 82-game grind, I fear that will be an impossible task, even for two stars as tough as Curry and Green. Too much has changed for any of us to derive a lot of meaning from the name on the front of the jerseys.

[itinerantscribe-blog]

Day 11 of 56

Exhaustion. I don’t recall it attaining this level before. So tired was I on retirement last night that even before I could instruct Alexa to deny further life to Radio 5, I was atop the gentle wave of a slumber filled sea. Intermittent and throughout the night, virtual and remote voices puncture the structure of my tiny vessel, I try to rouse myself and man the bilges but I have no strength, I am powerless against the current that carries me away from the source of the disturbance. Helplessly I drift back off into a dark laden emptiness, the pattern repeating the night long until finally the sea that has held me captive unfetters its chains and sets me free once more. It is late, the dawn chorus so effective as my natural and normal call to arms has been unable to rally my company to its side. I swing my legs out over the side of my bed. I don't feel rested at all and yet, the elation of total sobriety lingers on, albeit subdued in some measure by the fatigue that invades and occupies every pore of my being. I yawn in a gaping motion, drinking in oxygen and soaking up energy. I am so tired. I never experience this kind of tiredness in drinking mode, the poison sees to that. It is 8 o'clock. This is a lie in for me.

 I am aware that I am meeting my young friend at 9.30. I have agreed to show her the fundamentals of squash, introduce her to what will hopefully become an invaluable friend, exercise. As true a friend as a friend can be, the panacea for all things unwholesome, a honey coated remedy for all things distasteful. Squash was one of my few true loves, an unforced hobby, not manufactured for hobby sake, but one that genuinely provided me with enormous pleasure for many years. Then my affliction seized dominion and paralysed me with an immovable yoke about my neck. I abandoned my love, I had no choice, and for more than 15 years, I was a stranger to the white backed court which I once strode with confidence and delight with a not indecent dollop of skill on top. In recent years, with an ever increasing comprehension of my condition and a moderation of the things that aggravated it whilst purporting to offer a beneficial and curative contribution, I have renewed the affair to some degree. Like a typical spurned lover however, squash has never truly forgiven me, and now and then she will remind me of my abandonment with a stab to my Achilles or a sharp and sudden reminder in the elbow. Squash has not truly forgiven me.

The environment of a squash court lends not itself easily to my affliction. Its open space, bright and shiny, visibility from above, such things the least conducive imaginable for a soul ravaged by the elements under discussion. But it is bearable once more, only because I now realise, I now know that the environment also offers the opportunity, ideal in fact, for frenetic movement, high intensity activity, the very things that dispel and dilute said condition. What a paradox! Friend and foe housed within a single entity. However, despite that dual faced existence, if my state is very bad I simply don’t even attempt to present myself at such an establishment. But day 11 and my state is improving, even though I am only existing currently within a 200 metre radius and not risking a more  challenging range of movement, a more hostile terrain to test the strength of my recovery. No point in tempting situations that might lead to collapse of resolution at this stage.

So we played. She is a complete beginner, never played before ever. It wasn’t a match, it was  a coaching session but I did indeed, as was my intent, show her just how big a squash court can be. By the time we concluded the skipping (courtesy of a telephone cord, we work out to work out, not promote some aesthetic appeal),  her cheeks were afire with a candescent ruby flame. Squash is a great outlet for a younger self-version of you, you can release your inner child on a court and watch it run and run and run, in no time so absorbed by the action that all and any trappings and attachment to man made adult themes like work and prestige and image are discarded, forgotten and trampled under foot with the contempt such artificial contrivances deserve. She had fun. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rWdxb2U88U

Of course, our respective demons were waiting for us on the outside. Well of course they were, like limpets they won’t let go lightly. The coffee house on site was where they re-appeared.

‘I can’t carry the drinks,’ say I.

‘I can,’ says she. 

‘I have to have a hand free in case my chest twitches,’ say I.

‘I just need to be away from these people as fast as possible,’ says she.

This raises an interesting area of anxiety and public discomfort. For me, it is the physical environment. I know this because I have on occasion put it to the test early morning or late evening when humanity is absent from the locale. My twitchiness is still in evidence, however, I am free to act aberrantly to combat its presence without the additional burden of extraneous observation. So for me, it is the physical composition. For her, it is the human presence not the location. Hence her ability to enter shops, to drive on motorways, to do essentially, most of the things that I cannot. But in a queue we have parity, her because a queue by definition involves people, for me because it delays my exit from the environment.

This made me think further, about the probability of the numbers suffering similar issues, about the manifestation of said issues in such varying formats, about many things. And then it made me reconsider the Daleks. The dalek comprises two composite components, a brain, and a metallic casing which executes at the bidding of the brain the functionality of a body without the organic infrastructure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8URr3uhh3I

Essentially, a dalek is a brain, a brain which controls its inanimate housing. My young friend has a feeling of discomfort amongst people, I have it in certain physical environments, some people have it in enclosed areas, others in wide open spaces etc... but regardless of the location or environment, regardless of the manifestation of the ailment, the source is identical, the provenance the same. The issue emanates, emerges and originates from that small mechanism, that small but omnipotent mechanism we call the brain. It doesn’t matter how or where the condition declares itself, it doesn’t matter how fast we attempt to outrun it, none of any of this matters since the overriding communality is the point of the origin. Our brains.It is the brain where the problem arises, it is the brain where the problem can be resolved. It is the only place where it can be solved.  Imagine a dalek proceeding along the road. Imagine the brain within afflicted from an anxiety condition without any visible or tangible cause. Imagine its progress along the street. Quiet road, no people, no tall buildings, nothing threatening or anxiety inducing at first, that brain can trundle along on its metallic wheels in a state of blissful indifference. Then imagine it merging onto the main road. People, wide pavements, tall buildings, shiny floors. Imagine this brain suddenly assaulted by its affliction for no obvious or visible reason, at once anxious and panicky and sending out orders to its metallic container to start acting irrationally, to thresh about its metal limbs, to act like some mad man on the rampage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipfcH1fxCg4

Then imagine the ‘danger’ spot passed, next phase of our dalek’s trek without threat, perceived or otherwise. The machine desists from further frenetic behaviour and calmly moves forward. Then the next phase, no rhyme nor reason the anxiety re-emerges, more of the same thrashing and threshing about, all the while the brain in complete control of the metallic responses. We are no different. I know we are organic, I understand the holistic mind and body argument, yes, yes I get that. But there is a hierarchy of importance, there is an undeniable hierarchy. The body can do without an arm. But without a brain? Have a go and get back to me on that. It is our brains. We have to re-wire our brains, reconfigure them. Imagine yourself as a brain in a machine. Do you think my panic attacks would be less if I were in a wheel chair being pushed along the same road that can excite such anxious responses from me? Do you think I could enter St Paul’s Cathedral and look up at the dome with any less discomfort if I were pushed in on wheels? It is the mind that has betrayed or misled those who are assailed and assaulted by these kind of afflictions. We have educated our minds, our minds have been educated by others too, we need to go back to school and re-educate them...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsIb5L0_pGY

Let’s begin school tomorrow....

[scriptautistic]

Masterpost: “Asperger’s Syndrome”, Severe Autism and Functioning Labels (And Why They’re Nonsense)

Part II: Functioning Labels

In Part I, we looked at Asperger Syndrome, and why it doesn’t exist. Now, let’s move on to functioning labels.

Many autistic writers have explored this topic before and explained it very well. One our favorite examples is "Functioning Levels 101: What's the Big Deal?". We highly recommend reading this – the author explains the issue elegantly, and it's not overly long. Mod Aira would like to share her own version of its main example here:

Jill is a hard worker and a successfully independent adult. Her organizational skills help her a great deal in her work, and her logic and attention to detail help her notice and correct mistakes. She's also very creative and good at coming up with new, more efficient solutions to work problems. She is very highly valued by her boss and coworkers for these reasons. She lives alone and manages all her finances and other responsibilities without any help. She is fluent in several languages and enjoys socializing with her friends. She can cook and sing, loves kids, and is very good at explaining things to others.

Leigh struggles constantly with anxiety and depression. She is extremely hypersensitive and cannot handle public transportation without a set of ugly, bright orange ear protectors. She rocks back and forth and makes strange movements with her fingers all the time. Face to face communication is difficult for her, and she rarely makes eye contact. She frequently goes nonverbal when stressed and is unable to speak. She prefers writing to talking, and doesn't talk on the phone at all. She has meltdowns on a fairly regular basis from stress and sensory overload. She struggles with many aspects of self-care, such as brushing her teeth and keeping her living space clean, because of sensory and executive functioning issues.

Obviously, Jill is high functioning and Leigh is low functioning (or “severely autistic”). Except they are both the same person: Mod Aira. Both of those paragraphs accurately describe her. As you can see, it's not as simple as you might have thought.

Let’s try to boil this down to its essential nuts and bolts: "autism" is not a spectrum from mild to severe. Every single autistic person is as unique as every allistic person, and autism is not a condition that you can have at different levels of severity.

One of our followers, @scix-in-the-back-row, describes it: 

The word “spectrum” can be confusing. People picture a straight, monochrome line from zero autism to 100% autism. This is not how things work.

I have heard a good analogy: picture, instead of a spectrum, a complex sound system. Many sliders are labeled with traits some autistic people experience. The “language acquisition” slider can be near the top, the “social interaction” near the bottom, a variety of sliders clustered under the label “sensory issues” are all over the place. Everyone has different settings, and sometimes they change. All are still autistic.

There is no master slider marked “high functioning.”

There is no consensus on the use of the word “spectrum” in autistic communities. Some, Mod Cat included, like to think of autism as a spectrum, but non an unidimensional, quantitative one (black/white, severe/not severe), rather as a qualitative spectrum like the spectrum of colors: each autistic person is a different color depending on their personal combination of traits; two autistic persons can have very similar colors (similar combinations of traits) or very different ones, and there is no color which is “more severe” or “less severe”, just different colors. 

Some, like Mod Aira, have a very different opinion on the word:

“To me, the word “spectrum” is fundamentally wrong. A spectrum is, by definition, a range of values between two extremes. Even if you’re looking at a color palette that includes things like brightness, saturation, etc. as well as hue, you’re still looking at ranges between two extremes. I disagree with that way of looking at it. To me, it still suggests that there is a degree of severity or extremeness, that one can be “more” or “less” autistic. If it were up to me, I would remove the word “spectrum” from our vocabulary when talking about autism, and simply refer to autistic people and their various unique and individual traits.”

And every person seems different depending on the circumstances: our settings, or colors, or traits, can change depending on our mood, our energy levels, the weather, or it can be completely random.  Many, if not most, people who can live independently would be labeled "low functioning" or “severely autistic” if you caught them on a bad day. That's true for Mod Aira: “When I'm in bad shape, I can't talk, do nothing but rock back and forth, flap my hands, slap my forehead, bang my head against the wall, and make ugly noises. The only way I have to communicate is to scream if someone says something I disagree with. It's pretty ugly. But I live on my own, work three jobs, teach small children, and handle my whole life with pretty much no help. So am I high functioning, or low?”

It's true that some people have an easier time passing as "normal" in the big wide world. For some, verbal communication is usually not a struggle, and learning the rules of what's expected in social situations is possible. For others, speaking at all might be impossible – but there are nonverbal autistic authors, painters, musicians, and more. They can think and communicate as well as the verbal ones, but when they try to explain to others what's going on, they are all too often ignored. They get told things along the lines of, "You're disabled, sweetie. You don't understand what's wrong with you. Let the grown-ups talk."

Functioning labels are not usually based on whether the person is really able to function and live a healthy, happy life; they're based more on whether the person can pass for allistic or communicate in a way allistic people find palatable – verbally, and using non-verbal language in the expected way. Most of us find it very frustrating that "high functioning" is basically code for "pretty much normal, doesn't need any help" (even if you do need help) and "low functioning" or “severely autistic” is code for "broken and helpless, not-quite-human, needs to be cared for like a baby" – even if the only problem is that the person can't talk. If you get labeled high functioning, you get punished for every "mistake" (ie "acting autistic", how dare you) you make and denied help that you might desperately need. If you get labeled low functioning, people generally don’t take anything you say seriously or respect that you are a human being with your own skills, abilities, and strengths. You will be constantly compared to a small child and considered a burden to those around you, no matter how well you're able to do many things.

For the sake of writing an autistic character, know that they will probably be given one of these labels by the people around them, no matter how nonsensical they really are, and they will have to deal with the consequences of the label they get. It's important to understand how your character feels.

In order to help our allistic followers better understand the frustration of functioning labels, Mod Aira will be starting a series of metaphorical stories that demonstrate different aspects of living in this world as an autistic person. The first focuses on functioning labels, and will be posted soon. 

Happy writing!

#masterpost #functioning labels #autism #autistic #writing advice #the terminology series