#You can ignore the extremely long deep dive of my social life I think I went overboard but I literally can't tell a story and make it

[leejihoonownsmyheart]

WOOZI LIKES SEX SONGS??? WAIT WHEN WAS THIS AND HOW DID I MISS IT...and you're right he's so good at writing self confident songs wtf genius god of music woozi

OH... IT'S OKAY!! YOU'RE NOT A FRAUD YOU'RE JUST...AN IMAGINER.... WE DO NOT JUDGE AROUND HERE, ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU'RE AWESOME

omg okay choose the venue brie 🙄🙄🙄

UR RIGHJT 20s SLANG IS SO FUNNY...giggle juice reminds me of that meme that goes 'the bob got me crunk' IDK IF YOU'VE SEEN IT BUT THAT'S GIGGLE JUICE

OH MY GOD I DIDN'T KNOW GALLAGHER GIRLS IS A BOOK WHOOPS...it sounds so interesting tho??? i'm a sucker for spy books tbh...and who's zachary goode??? tell me more!! ALSO TELL ME ABOUT THE OC NICK. WHAT'S HE LIKE

ALSO WHERE CAN I WATCH DOCTOR WHO AND SUPERNATURAL??? IF THEY'RE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU TO HYPERFIXATE ON THOSE SHOWS, THEN THEY'RE GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

you like requests that are different?? whoops...sorry i just gave you something really generic...but i will keep that in mind!! i will think about asks that will lead to a relationship because that's actually the best ending hands down

I POSTED MY BEST FRIEND ON MY STORY (a guy) AND HE LEFT ME ON DELIVERED LMAOOOOOO WHY IS HE LIKE THIS?? (i might block him, thank you btw...) (treat you better plays in the background)

why is it fair for your friends to be mad at you??? not to pry but like can't you choose who you want to be friends with ?😭 don't get sick thinking about it wtf you deserve better

NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR GOING OFF ABOUT HTINGS THAT YOU LIKE??? I'LL GLADLY LISTEN <3

-🫨 anon

I keep a watchful eye of his spotify playlist…. Nasty by Arianna grande PLUS HE LIKES BRUNO MARS AND JUSTIN BIEBER and he used to really like fine by me by chris brown (he was jamming to it in a very old video) and while i digress the majority of these are kinda baby sex songs THEY ARE STILL SEX SONGS

AN IMAGINER 🥹

This is kinda lame but i’ve always kinda adored a forest venue kinda like in twilight i guess 😭 Imagine it.. a wedding, in the snow... bridesmaids in like sage and blush colors IT SEEMS MAGICAL

I LOOKED UP THE MEME AND I AM LAUGHING SO HARD THATS THE GIGGLE JUICE!!!!!!!

I DONT THINK ITS A SUPER POPULAR BOOK SERIES MOST PEOPLE I KNOW DON'T KNOW THE SERIES

Zachary Goode is one of the boys that goes to Blackthorne Academy and HE IS LITERALLY SO HOT the first time they meet HE OUT SPIES HER which is CRAZY if you read the first book because she is the best spy at Gallagher academy. i don't remember too much about him but he is a huge flirt and in the second book (when we meet him) he is just so respectful of her and obsessed with her.... He's perfect PERFECT.

YOU CAN WATCH DOCTOR WHO ON I BELIEVE HBO MAX they took it off netflix a few years ago... like what the fuck... AND YOU CAN WATCH SUPERNATURAL ON NETFLIX STILL. I miss that show, they're doing a con right now somewhere in... england I think I saw and I'm so jealous...

ALSO SHUSH. THAT WAS A PERFECT AMAZING IDEA AND YOU HAVE A PERFECT SEXY BRAIN I LOVE IT

HE LEFT YOU ON DELIVERED?! THATS SO ANNOYING you should be able to post your best friend in peace... I am very excited about this update by the way... I would live and die for every tiny detail about your love life so whenever you want to tell someone about it :))) it could be me :))) ^.^

ALRIGHT ILL GIVE YOU THE WHOLE TLDR this started when my friends moved to mornings. The two people I am closest to at work are my friends Sophia and Rachel and they are both directors at my store while I am just a manager. So ALREADY I'm jealous because they get to go to all these director's meetings together, and then they both move to mornings and not only does that suck because they get to see each other all the time and I see them maybe twice a week BUT THEY LEFT ME WITH ALL THE GUY MANAGERS So one of the guy managers I have spoken of before is Ben. And he is the one that I now work with the most. I used to be kinda close with him while he was dating one of the other managers but we kinda waned out of friendship after something happened on one of my leading shifts (it was not deep.)

We will remember Ben as the Capricorn I work with who broke up with his girlfriend because of a conversation he had with our boss about how she is not the kind of girl he wants to spend the rest of his life with (as she had been going to parties a lot???) and then he broke up with her at work right after her shift and as he started his and then he had sexual relations with a FRESHLY 18-year-old girl that he had been doing one-on-ones with for work while he was still sleeping with his now ex-girlfriend and she found out because she went through his watch text messages at work

DRAMA RIGHT AND I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING, brie he is a terrible person

mhm. So. he is a pretty good friend to have. He is very funny, and is easy to make fun of and he's actually pretty supportive. Working with him all of the time I have gotten closer to him. I used to go to the gym with him and my other coworker Blake but when all the aforementioned stuff happened I stopped. Anyways we all started seeing each other at the gym again and THEN my coworkers Nam and Blake moved to the same apartment 'neighborhood' as me. I joked with them that I would be at their apartment all the time cause we live so close

I've always been kinda friends with Nam since we both like anime and we're the same age, but we aren't actually that close. Anyways Blake was having his birthday party at Nam's apartment and I got myself invited because I am annoying :) And the people there are Daniel, Blake, Nam, and Ben. Somehow, that turned into this group of people hanging out EVERY tuesday. I left my sweatshirt and Nam's apartment on Blake's birthday and so everytime Nam saw me he would loudly be like WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK TO GET YOUR SWEATSHIRT (as if we had fucked and I like it there... humiliating) so I start getting invited to hang out with the group which has extended to adding Minnie, Cassidy, my friend Justin, my coworker Aaron and his friend Kellen.

This is a WEIRD group of people and my friend Rachel does get jealous pretty easily. They both HEAVILY judge me for my friendship with Ben (fair) and they really judged me when I told them about the hangout so I didn't show up like two weeks in a row but for some reason they always text me and call me if I don't show up so I've started going anyways

Rachel doesn't react to my bereals if Ben is in them

So Rachel had taken over the schedule and on the very few times that I got to see her I would joke that she purposely moved herself to mornings cause she doesn't want to work with me. Anyways I am mean when I joke. I know this. I tell people this because I'm really insecure about it because I'm so "nice" all the time no one believes me and then I hurt someone's feelings and I want to cry. So anyways she started crying because of these jokes and she said she felt like I was mad at her.

I wasn't but I also was a little because also we were supposed to hang out with some other friends Emilee, and Chelsea and my friend Dawn and Emilee said she couldn't hangout that day and they planned to hang out then anyways without even trying to find a different day that would work. That's shitty. And then she said that she just really wanted to hammer down a day because she had been trying to plan this since august but like that was just bullshit it was the ONE day Emilee couldn't hang out she just didn't try hard enough and didn't even care that she was leaving Emilee out of it.

SO I was really stressed cause I didn't know how to tell them I thought that was really shitty. And also during ALL of this I am really really depressed. I don't want to talk to anyone, every single shift I worked I would cry because it was so hard and then I ran out of my anxiety meds so I was having panic attacks every single shift.

Anyways Rachel tells me I'm mean, she cries, I cry and then try to ice them out because I don't want to cry and make it all about myself. I have a cute breakdown.

It's really confusing to have this weird group of friends who really want to hang out with me and then Rachel and Sophia who want to hang out with me but also know that Rachel is mad at me. And it's really stressful to remember that if I talk about the people I am hanging out with the most and who seem to want to talk to me the most then my other friends will be mad at me. But if I don't hang out with that weird group of friends I will be so lonely because the only other person that I want to talk to all the time is busy and I am definitely smothering them cause I'm so fucking annoying

So, also I have no one to talk to about work. Rachel and Sophia don't work with the people I work with. I complain about everything if I can and also when I complain about things that Ben do they immediately get him in trouble for it by dragging our store operator into things when they aren't that serious and I am already dogging on him for it so now it's like if I complain about ben it gets back to him and one of these days he is going to be mad at me for it

I always say I can't complain about things because there are always consequences so I stopped complaining about things at work and Rachel and Sophia get mad at me for not talking about work things because we basically don't talk like at all.

However case and point, I told them ages ago that I wanted to learn interviews and they pretended to be excited about it and I mentioned it to them more than once and then a month later they are training James. Not me. So I ask Rachel oh is James learning interviews as if I didn't want to immediately start sobbing upon seeing it. And she immediately said some shit about brittni (our bosses wife) wanting to make sure I wasn't too stressed with school. I ASKED TO LEARN INTERVIEWS. WHY WOULD I ASK IF I WOULD BE TOO STRESSED ABOUT IT BECAUSE OF SCHOOL.

so I complain about it in passing to Blake and my boss over hears that I am upset about something but I don't tell him because I am being a baby right. Well my boss follows up with blake and blake tells him the truth and then my boss thinks that I am upset at him over it. Which I'm not. my boss didn't know I wanted to do interviews. So after our cute little "you should have asked me" chat I cried and then because of that I think rachel got in trouble because I immediately got scheduled to learn interviews.

I DONT WANT TO DO IT NOW. I complained and now everyone things I'm a fucking cry baby. which I am.

and i just. am so greatful for the friends I have but I'm miserable everyday and people are mad at me cause I don't talk about my feelings anymore and I don't even know what they think I just can;t do anything without upsetting anyone.

I don't know. I just really need a therapist but no one will get back to me so I'm just stuck with a dumb psychiatrist who things higher doses of sedative medicine will cure my anxiety and thus minimalize my depression. Whatever. I just hate being a cry baby and being so mad at myself for being a cry baby and then having people tell me how nice and great I am, like I'm not you know what i mean? AND YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN narcissist. Oh boohoo a bunch of people want your attention and want to hang out with you that's so hard. And then on top of that I have to reject a 32-year-old anime coworker who hasn't even asked me out yet.

AND THAT IS WHY IT IS FAIR THEY ARE MAD AT ME and why I should choose not to be friends with my weird group of friends and why I am stressed about it every day sigh

ALSO PRY AWAY again I am such a baby narcissist I love talking about myself sigh

#You can ignore the extremely long deep dive of my social life I think I went overboard but I literally can't tell a story and make it #genuinely brief #a story about going downstairs to get mail can be a ten minute story would you believe #i am. Crazy #IN A GOOD WAY #since you'll see this when you wake up I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL #also you know those people who like... get tired of people and you know that one day they will get tired of you #sigh. #i just want to talk to them all the time every day but I don't think they feel the same anymore and it hurts.

[k--image]

Does deep work work? - Cal Newport review and new 100DoP!

I'm partial to self-help books that seek to inspire or motivate you, explore what you should do with you life, and particularly how to do it. When I was recommended the work of Cal Newport, I was apprehensive about his theory that passion isn't central to career building - like many others, I've grown up with the dogma that you should "do what you love". So instantly, I was intrigued.

In choosing to read So Good They Can't Ignore You first, I got the broader picture of the long-term approach you need to succeed in life. His principles are based on real-life case studies and presented in a simple but effective way. Regardless of what field you're in (himself Computer Science), the deeper meaning is applicable to everyone.

I often get in over my head with planning my future, but this book offered a framework to centre your efforts, focusing on building your skills now before 'cashing in' on the rewards later: people aren't the best by random chance, they've (probably) worked hard!

Speaking of working hard, Cal's follow-up bestseller Deep Work dives into the how of success that So Good hinted at - and I couldn't put it down! Written in a very similar style, it gives practical, start-now advice that - albeit controversial - is the most meaningful way of working and living. And for a serial procrastinator like me, it was extremely useful.

As the concept of deep work appears to be tried-and-tested, I've been trying to implement it into my life since reading about it. In terms of social media, I did what I call a 'critical downsizing' of who I follow and the notifications I receive (actually using the Focus and App Limit tools Apple gives me 🤦‍♀️). I then asked my mum to hide my phone until I'd done the tasks I needed to do for that day, and only had what I needed open on my computer (minimising distractions).

I had a personal statement to write for a job application, which with my usual approach would take me a whole day - done in a day, but nevertheless using the whole day...

One hour. When it was just me and the Word document, I had it done in one hour. I did feel myself entering a 'flow state' at times, and heard the cogs move in my brain, but an hour feels a lot longer when you're being productive versus when you're not: for example, the hours I spend scrolling Tiktok go by a lot quicker.

By then, my mum wasn't even back home (and I didn't know where she hid my phone, obviously) but I felt good enough to carry on (I know, right?). I completed the training for my new role as committee member for a society at my uni, and got started on re-organising my Spotify playlists which I'd been putting off for ages. All-in-all, a very productive day.

Productive day... That rings a bell... Oh yeah, I've been keeping track of a 100 days of productivity challenge since the new year, but to be honest it quickly became a list of things I had to do rather than things I wanted to do (not to mention I wasn't posting about it a whole lot on here...).

So, I think it's right to start over and see if I can do 100 days of deep work before the end of 2023. Cal says beginners can do one hour at a time (in my case the personal statement) and eventually work their way up to four hours.

I've got a lot of work left over from the past year that I want done before I start my second year in September, so hopefully I'll be posting more often with updates about this :)

If you read any book as a result of this review, please let it be Deep Work, but they really do come as a pair :D Thank you for reading!!

100 days of deep work #1 - 22/06/23

Personal statement for job application

Society committee member training

Spotify re-organisation

#psychology #study #studyblr #forensicpsychology #studying #studyspo #university #forensics #criminalpsychology #darkacademia #100dop #dop #productivity #productive #studentlife #bookreview #deepwork #bookrec #book #books #motivation #inspiration #careergoals #career #blog #advice #lifeadvice #uni #unilife

[funkymbtifiction]

Growing up, I had the bizarre experience of attempting to live like an Ni-dom but being bad at it, and only now that I've slowly embraced more Si habits have I felt like an organized and competent person (and eventually slipped into identifying as an ISFJ.) ...

... why do you identify with ISFJ? A lot of what you said sounds like Ni somewhere in your stack, so I would consider whether you have developed stronger Se in order to ground yourself better in the intervening years. Such as...

-I would "wait for inspiration to strike" and only start projects when I had fully planned them out in my head. Now, I'll create a general outline early on and let my imagination fill in the rest.

I need to know what you mean by fully planning them out in your head. If you mean you thought extensively and pieced it all together in your mind, like putting together a mental puzzle, and then just wrote it all down -- that's high Ni. That's my my INTJ friend writes her novels -- she lets it percolate in her mind, build around a single idea, form sentences and paragraphs and major scenes, and then just writes it all down.

-I was super focused on my future and would ignore day-to-day organization in favor of an overall "direction" to attempt to create more meaning in my life. I would slowly get ripped away from this life plan in favor of trying new stuff, and "remake" this imaginary future so that it retroactively made sense with my actions. Now, I don't really have plans beyond a "this seems like a suitable 5-year goal for now, and if I'm forced to change it I'll sigh and shake my head but then switch to something more realistic."

Again, I need clarification. SJs are focused on their future in a Si-driven sense (I want to make enough money to retire by age X, so I can do Y); NJs are focused on structuring a long-term future and in predicting what lies ahead of them and responding to it in advance. So HOW did you super-focus on your future? Why do you think it was important for you to have 'meaning' in your direction? What was the orientation of that meaning -- did you draw it from an N place of big-picture thinking, or an S place of 'meaning comes from creating permanence' (Si). An INJ can re-imagine their future; not all of them have a Life Goal. And a 5 year plan is pretty damn impressive. That being said, why would your plan be unrealistic, if you are a sensor?

-When talking to other people, I would focus more on abstract notions than on day-to-day relatability. Now I have a much easier time just discussing life (particularly in tying intuitive conspiracy brain to real-world examples.)

This could be Te development or Ti development (learning better social skills, that the world being full of sensors prefers more tangible conversations and examples). It's more likely for an intuitive to get more grounded, than for a sensor to start out in abstract notions -- sensors gradually discover there's merit in abstractions, not the other way around.

-I would assume that I'm terrible with matters of physicality, detail, and reality, rather than realizing that I have an extremely strong selective memory/ability to learn deeply, limited to specific fields.

This could be low Se or low Si, either one.

-I would hear others describe me as "mysterious," "deep," "wise," or "mystical" and assume that meant I was intuitive.

Nah, it just means you are interesting to them; which, btw, is often how a sensor finds an intuitive, since they know so few of them (who spends all their time thinking about stuff like THAT??? cool!).

-I had a complete lack of awareness about how I made my decisions and developed my preferences, assuming it was all subconscious. Now, I'm more conscious about how my preferences develop.

This is self-growth/self-awareness improvement.

-I would get easily frustrated with not being able to try new things, but then feel overwhelmed diving into new experiences regularly. Now I can revisit old memories and media without guilt, and when I try new things, I can compare them to my previous experiences to feel more comfortable in the moment.

Consistent with Ni/inferior Se.

-I would get annoyed when people were trapped in nostalgia or made the same mistakes over and over in favor of what they liked/what was comfortable, and assumed that made me an Ni/Se user. The past felt "dead" to me, not in that I no longer cared about it, but in that I'd never want to revisit it exactly as it was. Now it feels more like I can "honor" my previous experiences without getting lost in them.

An ISFJ would completely understand that person. Why? Because they are nostalgic, they like same-ness, they like repeating their experiences, and they like comfort (most of them are also 9s, so their desire for peace and comfort is twofold). The past is not "dead" to them -- it's a living and active part of their daily life.

I've heard of intuitives struggling to embody sensing-heavy roles in the long run, but haven't really heard of sensors assuming they were intuitives (subconsciously or indirectly) and taking on habits which didn't suit them. I'm not sure why exactly this happened. One possibility is because of intuitive bias on the internet, I assumed I was one and enhanced my already thought-heavy, internalized habits. Another possibility is I grew up in a very "academic" environment, focused on discussions and re-exploring the same ideas rather than developing practical skills. A final possibility is that I was imitating my parents, both of whom are Ni-doms. For example, my mom always emphasized the importance of having a life plan and making sure every decision you make brings you closer to it, rather than unintentionally driving you away, and would scoff at my dreams for not being "altruistic" enough. My father would regularly talk about just getting impulses to "do" stuff seemingly out of nowhere, knowing it would bring him to the outcome he wanted. I didn't have this deep directionality they seemed to, and felt the urge to force meaning into my life with excessive introspection and elbow grease. Or is that implausible?

I'd say those things were increasing something you're already predisposed toward -- being an intuitive.

#question #mbti

[nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice]

We don’t talk enough about “The Beach” in terms of Azula (long essay) 

Okay so, I have not stopped thinking about this episode and how it reveals Azula’s entire self image and how it foreshadows her breakdown. So here’s a deep dive: 

We start the episode off with this premise: for the first time in the series we get to see Azula as a normal teenager. We’ve seen her in combat, we’ve seen her as a political force to be reckoned with, and we’ve seen her within her messed-up family. But in this episode we’re seeing her on vacation. From the beginning of the episode, we think that it’s going to be Zuko on edge (”doing nothing is a waste of time, we’re being sent away on a forced vacation”) and Azula enjoying her time off (”lighten up, so dad wants to meet with his advisors alone, without anyone else around. Don’t take it so personally”). But that doesn’t exactly happen. While by no means does Zuko have an easy time on their ‘forced vacation,’ the episode reveals Azula’s weakness and hidden insecurities and foreshadows her breakdown in the series finale. 

The first thing to consider is what we already know about Azula: we know she’s dangerous, a protegee at firebending, politically charismatic, and ruthless. We know that people will side with her if she wants them to (Ty Lee chooses her over the circus, Mai chooses her over her family, the Dai Li choose her over Long Feng, and Zuko chooses her over Iroh). From her introduction, we know she’s the preferred sibling under Ozai and that she knows that. She’s confident because of that. She knows that she’s chosen over Zuko because she wasn’t banished or burned. And in season 3, she’s still winning because if the Avatar’s alive, then Zuko will be the one to suffer the consequences. She’s playing the game of Fire Nation politics and she’s winning. 

But in The Beach, all fire nation politics are cast aside from the first minute of the episode. While we think that Azula will be competent and charismatic here as she is everywhere else, that ends up not being the case and it reveals her hidden vulnerabilities. 

Another thing we know about Azula is that she’s competitive. Her whole life she was conditioned to think in these terms as her father schemed his way onto the throne and constantly compared her and Zuko (and when Zuko got banished it signified to her that she had firmly won that competition and she was worthy of her father’s ‘love’). And in previous episodes, this competitive streak has  worked in her favor. Her ‘eyes on the prize’ approach let her conquer Ba Sing Se, defeat Aang, and convince Zuko to side with her. But The Beach offers a new territory: one entirely dependent on her personality. And she still views it as a competition, but this time she’s not the clear winner. 

They arrive at the beach and for the first time in the series, people aren’t praising her as royalty or fearing her as an adversary, instead she’s treated like a normal person. We saw this with Zuko in season 2 when he was masquerading as an anonymous Earth Kingdom refugee in The Cave of Two Lovers or Zuko Alone (where people offered him their home and food when all they knew him for was his actions) and when he was masquerading as Lee/Li (where he was offered a position as a Freedom Fighter, treated as a normal tea shop worker, and went on a date with a girl all on the basis of his personality), but we’ve never seen this with Azula. In this episode, she’s relying entirely on her personality to navigate this teenage social world and she doesn’t get the results she expects. 

From her perspective, her friends and brother are succeeding in this environment way more than she is and that makes her extremely uncomfortable. From her perpsecive, Mai and Zuko are completely fine spending time with each other and Ty Lee is getting the attention of half a dozen guys at once. But Azula doesn’t fit in. She sees this whole ‘Being a Teenager Thing’ as a competition that she’s loosing.Ty Lee and Mai are invited to a party and she’s cast aside. Ty Lee attracts the attention of half a dozen guys and the guy she complimented just ignores her. People at the party leave her alone when in reality, she wanted to come in order to see what it would be like for people to treat them as normal. And in a normal setting, she’s rejected. 

Azula has her comfort zone and that comfort zone is winning. There are four instances in the episode where we see her comfortable and confident that reveal how she depends on her combat and political skills for her self image. The first is when she’s being ignore while her friends acclimate to the beach social scene. She demands that they play in a game of volleyball because one, she needs to be in charge in order to feel in control of the situation and two, she thinks that there’s a clear path from winning the volleyball game to gaining social acceptance. This is a thing she can do. She knows she’s physically capable and thinks if she can do this, then she’s succeeding at the whole ‘Being a Teenager’ thing. And she does succeed. We see the victory make her feel better about herself because she winning (”yes, we have defeated you for all time, you will never rise from the ashes of your shame and humiliation... well that was fun”).

The second time we see her comfortable is after she kisses Chan. From her perspective, part of succeeding at the whole ‘Being a Teenager Thing’ is attracting guys, like Ty Lee, and being in a relationship, like Mai and Zuko. This isn’t necessarily something she actually wants, but it’s something that she perceives as an element of winning. So she plays the part of ‘pretty girl who laughs at unfunny jokes’ and kisses the guy she wants to kiss. This is a win in her books and she has her moment of comfort: 

“Together, you and I will be the strongest couple in Fire Nation history. We will dominate the earth!” 

From the offset, this is just a joke at Azula’s expense like the previous one was, but it says a lot about how she views her self-worth. Her default comfort zone is ambitious, political, militaristic. This is her ‘normal’ and when she thinks she’s finally figured out this whole ‘Being a Teenager Thing’ by kissing this guy, she tries to branch over this false persona she’s constructed to please this guy to her actual self and when that happens, she’s rejected and it hurts her. 

The third moment of comfort is during the campfire scene where Azula sees that, no, unlike what she originally thought, her friends are actually dealing with their own issues and aren’t doing so well. What this means to her is that maybe she is winning. Maybe they’re better at the whole ‘Being a Teenager Thing,’ but they have these other issues: neglect, insecurity, and self-hatred and she tells herself ‘I don’t have those problems, so clearly I’m the one winning here.’ She drags out the issues of her friends because she wants to know that no, they aren’t doing as well as she thought they were. She slow claps and says “well, those were wonderful performances everyone” and we see that she feels better in this small group where she’s the one not screaming and crying about her problems. And this is mean, but it’s undeniably rooted in insecurity. Azula needs to feel like the most competent person in the room. She needs to feel in control because she’s grown up in an environment where being the ‘weak one’ meant getting your face burned off and banished. Azula can’t afford vulnerability. She’s never been able to afford vulnerability, so she surrounds herself by people she can control. And so long as she holds the reigns, so long as she’s perceived as the strong one, it means she’s okay. 

But the thing is she does have those problems. Because after those first two moments of comfort, she gets rejected for who she is. She’s not invited to the party because people think she’s intimidating and weird. Chan leaves after he kisses her because she reveals her true colors. There’s only one other episode where we’ve seen someone actively reject Azula’s personality and there’s a moment of vulnerability where she reveals how that rejection shaped her self-image: 

“I could sit here and complain about how our mom liked Zuko more than me, but I don’t really care. My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right of course, but it still hurt.” 

Azula hasn’t had to think of herself in terms of her personality in years because the last person who valued her as a person, not as royalty or a weapon, was her mother. And her mother saw faults in her. Her mother wondered aloud what was wrong with her. Her mother didn’t like her as much as she liked Zuko and that’s something Azula internalized, even if she was able to mask it up with apathy and cruelty. After Ursa left, she was the unequivocal favorite child. She was the talented one. She wasn’t dishonored or banished like Zuko and she held onto that victory because ‘winning’ the competition of ‘favored sibling’ was the closest thing to love that she got. It didn’t matter who she was as a person, it only mattered that she got results, so she focused all her energy there and came out victorious. Her friends stayed loyal to her out of fear for the most part and she knew it, that’s why she had the circus set Ty Lee’s net on fire and why she guilted Mai into not trading her brother for Bumi. She’s convinced herself that “fear is the only reliable way” because she’s never been shown that people can love her for herself. 

The fourth moment of comfort is when she’s commanding the destruction of Chan’s party. In this moment she said ‘screw these people, I’m superior and I know it. I’m the princess of the Fire Nation, I’m stronger, and they are nothing in comparison to me.” 

This is the mentality she’s been conditioned with for years and by the end of the episode, she defaults to it because it makes her feel strong whereas in reality, she failed at the whole ‘Being a Teenager Thing.’ People didn’t like her. She was rejected for the first time in a long time.

And her greatest fear is this rejection. We see it in the Zuko Alone flashbacks, we see it when Mai and Ty Lee betray her in The Boiling Rock, and we see it when she banishes everyone closest to her in Sozin’s Comet. She anticipates rejection and she acts to snip out the people who can reject her before it happens. 

And the tragedy is, it ends up not being enough. Mai and Ty Lee don’t choose her. Ozai decides to leave her out of the invasion. Zuko takes the throne. There’s no longer her father there to please and no more commands to give. For years she was confident and charismatic because she was in control and in the game of Fire Nation politics, she was winning. For Azula’s entire life, winning that game meant you were worth something and losing it meant that you were thrown away. While she was in control of those around her, while they feared and worshiped her, it meant she was winning. 

But the rejection she faces in The Beach foreshadowed her ultimate downfall because when all her influence and control was stripped away, she was all alone. 

#full disclosure I wrote this meta tipsy #oh well #azula #hot leaf meta #atla #zuko #mai #ty lee #the beach #his unroyal majesty bitchlord ozai #ursa #avatar the last airbender

[border-spam]

Does troy really have a split jaw or is that fanon?

It's total fanon!

The design of the split lines across his cheekbones and chin coupled with the cheek clips and v shaped hinge outline next to his ears lead to a lot of people coming to that same outcome, that there is something up with his mouth from a prosthetic/mod standpoint.

So much of his design is never mentioned once or referenced in any way (hightech spinal rig with tattoos under it, neuro connector, mech arm that's much older and doesn't seem related to the spine and neuroport, implants on bicep, face mod etc) that like Tyreen's scars and possible lower body Siren markings, fandom took over when it came to coming up with logical explanations for 'em.

This actually touches ground with some Ao3 comments I wanted to share as they are all Leech Lord compliant, so I'll list them here alongside links to the fics they were related to (note warnings!)

You leave no avenue for characterization unexplored. Troy's facial prostheses finally receiving backstory is amazing

- Maw (Gore/Bodyhorror)

I LOVE the idea of it being not just decorative shit on his face, but my MO for any content I make is always based around asking why, over and over, and trying to make sense of what material I'm using in the first place. The modded mouth is a popular piece of fanon but you know... why? Why would he do that shit to himself. WHY would he want to be grotesque, why would he be chasing the reaction people would have to it when canonically he seems to really not be interested in fan attention the same way Tyreen is, what's the difference to him between being adored as his persona or being lusted after as a monster, etc. I just love deep-diving into the logic behind character and world building? It's what adds meat to the bone for me.

Big 'ol character and worldbuilding / lore responses list under the cut -

He could afford better robots but these ones UNDERSTAND Ty, don't you get it?

- Good night in (tooth rotting fluff)

Hey just because it's mangled and broken, and can't perform its intended function to a degree expected of it by everyone around it... and it's got rusty sharp bits it accidentally hurts you with sometimes... and it's cranky but it doesn't mean it... and sometimes it errors out in a way that's mildly disturbing in a way you can't place.. uh.. doesn't mean you should just GIVE UP ON IT you know? He can fix them :) They will be fine :) No one should just throw away something that's trying so hard just because it's damaged... haha... :')

It's so hard seeing how much they tear each other down when they're the only thing they have left. And what a poor self-image Tyreen has beyond all that glitter and bluster...

- Wolf in sheep's clothing

The twins function well enough as a unit till tensions rise, and I was trying to seed in The Leech's influence on them in earlier work like this too - towards anyone else Ty would become MORE aggressively confident, more assured in her complete and utter dominance of the situation, her flawlessness, but against Troy who see's her for what she is, it turns inwards and eats at her instead of lashing outwards. He switches from relatively submissive around her to almost surgical levels of dissection, he knows exactly how to go for the jugular with words, and doesn't hold back. She's The Leech's mouth but he's its eyes and it's only when they lose control emotionally enough for it to claw to the surface of their psyches that you get an idea of how much it really affects them individually. GB had an absolute goldmine on their hands here of cosmic/body horror and the concept of toxic family when all you have is each other, there's so much to work with, and I figure it's a factor in why some people still really enjoy messing around with Calypso content.

I like how you allow Troy to be a disabled character, how his congenital defects and prosthetics colour his outlook and appear in ways big and small in all these vignettes. It's easy, I think, to see him as largely untroubled by his health apart from when he needs a charge from Tyreen in the game, but you allow him to struggle with his weakness.

- Chronic (Drug use)

I'm really glad to hear that's coming through in the writing because it's something I noticed a lot too. Very often when Troy, or other characters canonically disabled / chronically unwell are written it's "told" and not "shown". Chronic pain, illness, it's not something that is just a little tickbox in a life or some descriptive terms added to a character synopsis, it's something you live and deal with. There are bad days. There are times it is a negative that has to be worked around or faced in ways that aren't pleasant. It doesn't make you lesser or weak to have times where illness does leave you unable to function to a level you want to, it's not a failure for you to be unable to perform tasks when a disability or flair up means it's not viable. I feel personally that by showing scenes like this where his health and body issues do have a very visceral and impossible to ignore the effect on his ability to function, and going through his mental processes of dealing with and managing them, it brings the character across as stronger than if he never seemed to be shown dealing with symptoms or weaknesses. People are more than their disabilities and conditions, those aren't just kinda taglines to add onto a character's description and then never address. I feel like doing that in a way undermines what people deal with who manage chronic illness, pain, and who have disabilities that affect their daily lives negatively. Appreciating the effort it takes to manage them is important.

What I really like about these is that you can really understand as a reader how their dynamic must have evolved. How even before Leda's death Tyreen would have felt demonized while Troy got the attention because of his condition, because he was less willful.

- Starlight, Moonbright

Ah man, absolutely - and that shit stayed with them. It wasn't his fault and he never wanted it, but of course their parents would have had their extremely ill child at the forefront of their thoughts, especially during weeks when he was.. bad. Tyreen by nature even without The Leech's influence is a little attention seeker, she'd be the life of any party and she BLOSSOMS if she's got the spotlight, but as a little kid who's got literally no one but her parents and her brother, and who all three of which can't give her nearly as much time as she deserved? That's rough. That's really unfair. That coupled with The Leech's warping effect on their egos as they grew up and the bitterness and resentment they harbored in different ways created a reverse dynamic. She'd never be out of the Galaxy's attention again, and he'd have no choice but to take his rightful place in her shadow.

I love how you illustrate both how much more, and yet how much less Troy is now. How the blameless child, full of potential, is inextricably linked to the brutal, larger-than-life avatar he fashions.

- DeLeon ( Graphic Violence / Gore / Hallucinations)

He's molded the monster he is now out of the bones of the man he should have been - there's no going back really. There's nothing left to go back to. He broke Troy DeLeon apart to build the persona that acts like an iron lung now, suffocating him breath by breath while forcing him to still take them. That life is over, he killed it before it had a chance, but the idea of it is still there in his subconscious. Somewhere in the absolute trainwreck of Troy's brain is the tiny, flickering belief that maaaaaybe one day this will all be over and he can shuck off the bracer and spines, peel off all the shit he's covered his skin with, and just go back to not being Calypso. DeLeon here isn't some aspect of his mental state or his sins haunting him - it's The Leech, spitting venom at a host it loathes in something that's not sound or comprehensible language. His subconscious has just translated it into something it can understand - his greatest regret.

On if Borderlands Humans originated on Earth -

There's a really tenuous link between BL verse and rEarth, but it's there and can't be ignored. The cultures, accents, terminologies, so many are Earth specific despite these people being spread across galaxies, so hell yes - Earth as an emergence point makes total sense. The next question then, is why is it never mentioned - and you can cover for that with a lot of things like say, tt was so long ago that it's not relevant to anything that would ever be discussed, or it could be a mass evacuation from a catastrophe there is little record of now. I like to go with something along those lines, that the first human Siren host emergence on earth just absolutely decimated the planet. Like, we were doing fine till this random woman somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere develops weird markings overnight, then goes apocalyptic. The first Leech maybe, not understanding her powers and having them rip across continents in a spread of crackling electric death that only left husked shells of plants and animals in its wake, or the first Firehawk who went nuclear and burned the sky, or the first Voidgrasp who lost control and began to collapse the planet's core - some extreme shit that had humans fleeing en masse with barely any preparation and HUGE swathes of history and knowledge left behind. That would cover so many social things surviving into the BL verse, cultures, accents, cooking, that shit comes with us regardless of what we were able to throw into escape ships. Like so much data would be stored on any tech and data arrays within the vessels people would use to leave a dying planet even in an insane rush, but that shit waters down over time - if you're farming barely edible plants on some planet that smells like farts, are you really gonna be that stressed about teaching your kids history from a lost planet when your current concerns are not being eaten by something with 19 legs and 4 buttholes? Don't think so.

On if the other Siren entities are as influential to their hosts as The Leech -

I touch on it a wee bit throughout LL, but the others are FAR more passive and meld more to their host's whims. The Firehawk Siren wouldn't.. like.. care? If the host was burning down a planet or fighting off an evil corporation? They are removed from any nonsense happening on this side, they might not even really be able to tell, it's like asking an amoeba or a collection of sentient atomic particles what its opinion is on Brexit. That's not really its priority. The Leech is so aggressive in its control of the twins and desperation to drive them towards an outcome it desires only cause it's split, broken, removed from the song, and completely lost. We're talking a caged, half-mad animal removed from its natural environment and left totally isolated from its own kind for millennia. It's in pain, it's confused, it wants to find its way back to the song and the others and where it belongs, but it's stopped by a barrier it can't comprehend ( the twins and being ripped between them), so in its impotent rage it feeds back that hatred onto them. It's not really sentient in the way we would describe functional intelligence, but it wants, and craves, and FEELS. And it feels very, very angry.

Big thanks to @undergoingcalibrations for talking through so much of this with me!

Asks are Open!

#borderlands #borderlands 2 #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #sirens #leech lord #my hcs #my writing

[itsclydebitches]

The Crosshair stuff is a symptom of the lacklustre character establishment of it's main cast. Crosshair is the only Bad Batcher with a defined character to pull from, even if it's wrapped in the cluster fuck of the show being indecisive about the Inhibitor chips's abilities. The rest don't have a developed enough personality to draw from, they're archetypes who'll voice the position the plot needs them to occupy at the moment. What they'll defend in one episode they'll decry the next.

TBB characters are definitely archetypal, though I'm not sure I'd agree that this is inherently a bad thing and/or that it's at the root of the Crosshair messiness. Archetypes don't necessarily equal a lack of a character, just a character that we've seen many times before. Unless you prioritize novelty in your storytelling (which many people do), there's nothing inherently wrong with taking the "dumb," but emotionally intelligent brute, the socially inept genius, the stoic leader, and the "evil" asshole, cramming them in a small ship together, and letting sparks fly. The reason that dynamic works — as it has worked many times before — is because it pits such differing personalities against one another, resulting in both great teamwork and amusing conflict: such as when Wrecker is gleefully stuffing Lula in a pissed-off Crosshair's face. The contrast is fun and that contrast stems primarily from keeping their personalities simple and defined. Unless you really know what you're doing, the more you mess with those personality boxes, the less individualized your characters feel. See: the RWBYJNOR team who have, over the years, lost both their specialized skills and their distinguishing personality traits. The person who just blushed sweetly and awkwardly rubbed a hand behind their neck... was it Ruby? Oscar? Blake? Yang? Jaune? Even Nora? Could be any of them because at this point their core personalities have flattened. Though it's definitely not to everyone's taste, the black and white differences between TBB was kind of refreshing. Throw out a line of dialogue and you can easily figure out who said it. There's something to be said for that level of understanding about a character, even if the understanding itself is simple.

Personally, I'd say the problem lies not in creating another team where everyone has a distinct skill and a stereotypical personality to match, but rather in severely underutilizing the thing that shook that dynamic up: Echo.

Look, I ADORE Omega. I was cheering for my fictional daughter through every step of this season (quite literally during "Replacements"). But—but—if we wanted to push things in the character development department, I'd relegate her to season two. Omega's character serves as the audience surrogate/newbie/hopeful optimist archetype and that's great... provided that you ignore how Echo was already positioned to fill those roles. He became the newest member of TBB, but we skipped over his integration to instead introduce another new member. And, as much as I love her, Omega doesn't push TBB the way that Echo could.

TCW introduced a severe dislike for the "regs," something the first episode of TBB re-emphasized through the cafeteria scene, and then what do you know, the newest member is a former reg. I was expecting there to be a lot of tension stemming from that as the group worked to overcome their prejudice, a prejudice we now know is born of harassment and, interestingly, a sense of superiority. That's one of the few places where TBB does something unexpected: rather than suffering severe insecurity about being "defective," TBB is proud of their differences. (Or, at least, they've embraced pride to cover insecurity.) But unlike a reg's haircut, tattoos, or name, theirs isn't an individuality that they chose. The Kaminoans made them to be different. "I like to blow stuff up because I LIKE TO BLOW STUFF UP" Wrecker roars, but it's a moment that foreshadows his eventual fall to the chip: "No one controls me." Except, you know, he is controllable. There's a story there about characters trying to remain proud of skills and personalities that they know are engineered, trying to embrace individuality when they know they're controllable, who long for the stability and connection of their brothers, but reject the uniformity of "real" clones... and then there's Echo, suddenly on the scene, a former "real" clone who now is nothing like the majority of his brothers, whose differences were also forced on him by another, who should likewise be grappling with embracing his individuality vs. hating how it separates him from what he once knew... that's a lot. Echo could have — arguably should have — been the catalyst for a ton of self-reflection within TBB, mirroring his own development, and resulting in archetypal characters who nevertheless have a secondary layer of nuance.

But none of that happened because Omega became the focus instead, a character who forced TBB to struggle with taking care of a child, not struggle with their own identities. I'd thought for a hot second that the conflict would be whether soldiers could raise a child at all — whether they'd have to change for Omega's benefit — but instead she rather quickly became a soldier of her own, despite how often the dialogue insisted she wasn't. Here's her weapon. Here's her memorizing orders. Here's her first mission alone. Here's her almost never struggling with the horrors that she's experienced; she's as emotionally sturdy as the men bred for war. Omega develops, which is fantastic to watch, but the downside is that everyone else, our title characters, remain pretty static. I think if we'd had a season of Echo joining TBB, perhaps taking place a little before Order 66, and then Omega came on the scene, we would have seen a bit more depth to their characters, simply by virtue of Echo being a character whose personality and problems would inevitably push them. Omega doesn't push them. She's wonderful... and from a writing standpoint that's kinda the problem. She's always optimistic, always compassionate, doesn't take long to get good at these complex skills, never wavers in being satisfied and happy with this life. TBB never had to change to care for her, Omega just did them the courtesy of becoming another elite-soldier capable of keeping up with their dangerous, crazy lives. Her presence is a constant joy and benefit to the team, adding only good things to the status quo they'd developed. Echo? His arrival should, theoretically, have shaken the status quo like whoa. Here's this traumatized reg trying to become a member of a four-unit team who have an Us vs. Them approach to life. That's a recipe for conflict and development.

However, just because I can see other possibilities for TBB doesn't mean I think what we got is wrong. Yeah, it's simple in many respects and as said, the comparative complexity of Crosshair's situation might not end well, but beyond that, simple isn't inherently bad. I found it a lot of fun to watch a found family of extreme personalities take in a wonderful child and go on adventures together. I don't need every show — particularly every Star Wars show — to be a deep dive into complex storytelling. It can be enough to just embrace predictability, especially since the predictable became predictable because lots of people liked those choices.

#Star Wars #SW #TBB #The Bad Batch

[bisluthq]

I know this is preaching to the converted here but I genuinely don't understand Ks who think they broke up in 2019 while Lover was being recorded/ME! being filmed. Cause they say about the relationship breaking down around the 'fake wedding' but the wedding wasn't fake. I can sort of believe it if they broke up in 2018 with K choosing Josh for good but tbh given how they didn't interact from nov 2016 onwards + social media stuff I can't see it from then

I think I can actually understand it, it’s just not true. But I really am not here for dunking on people getting this wrong historically and in fact figuring out what happened here and why it went on for so long on main can teach us some valuable lessons so let’s go through this.

I think several things happened that lead fandom into making this kritical error (over and over): 1) Taylor went dark in November 2016. Kar didn’t. People who thought they were together found it comforting to believe that they were together because Karlie was offering Tay’s fans a window into “their” life together. Which was... not a window into Tay’s life, obviously, because that makes no sense, but I think it was a nice fantasy that was actively being reinforced by a number of influential Kays. But like yeah a lesson here is private couples are... about an equal amount of private usually unless one is much more famous and therefore seen more. But the less famous half of a celeb couple isn’t going to be posting lifestyle content from the home of their famous spouse who only poses with blank walls. That’s silly.

2) Taylor produced Reputation and said she is going to keep her private life private (for that era - idk why hard Kays keep dredging that prologue out as gospel for the rest of time when it does seem like it was part of the whole snake era vibes) and let the music do the talking. She also then went and said all of the album was for one muse. The latter makes no sense at all, as I’ve explained before there are.... pretty visibly three separate romantic relationships being discussed on the album. We have something messy in SIG, DBM, DWOHT and Dress except for the bridge (like the latter is not just in terms of gay/straight readings but it goes from “pining and anticipation” anxiety to “one and only my lifeline” - it literally is about two people and two different points in her life). We have something good and new in CIWYW, Delicate, KOMH and NYD. We then have Getaway Car. And we also have the diss tracks some of which do seem to reference messy muse in some ways. But Tay said to fans “this is all about my angel boyfriend Joe” and instead of being like “oh okay so that’s an exaggeration obviously but Joe can still be real you wouldn’t want to formally talk about exes when you’re happy in something new” Kays decided what she meant was “this is all about my angel girlfriend Kar”. Both are stupid things to believe due to the actual lyrical evidence and the fact that there are, as I yelled into the void for the first three years of thinking this, at least three relationships discussed in the lyrics but both opinions are kinda rooted in evidence of some sort.

3) Swiftwyn were extremely private for the first few years of their relationship and whenever they appeared formally in the media it was to stunt for her promo (which is often the case, like this is why pap walks aren’t great confirmation of a relationship) which made it possible to sell it as a PR relationship even though it made no sense as one. “Proving” it’s real in some capacity required deep diving for the multitude of receipts that they’re regularly spotted together as @youareinlovees so legendarily did. And nobody wanted to do that because they liked the idea that he’s not really around and that Kaylor are still on because lbr it’s a hotter idea. Like it’s that simple. Also, given Joe wasn’t a household name prior to dating Tay (but let me just stress again that his biggest role was before he dated her and he consciously took a step back when they got together), nobody knew anything about him and so they could call him boring and shit and therefore dispute her attraction to him while pulling up a stunty and kinda cringey Vogue interview lmao as proof of Kaylor’s deep love for one another.

4) big blogs spread lies and nobody bothered to verify the veracity of things that were being said. Which is probably our biggest lesson to take away from them. Fact check shit, kids. Y’all kept repeating the Kissgate thing - that they went dark straight after - when that was literally a lie. Like I love being fact checked and I think my regular readers know that because y’all relish fact checking me (as you should 😌). And you all should like being fact checked too. Being wrong isn’t a crime. We all get stuff wrong and we all say dumb shit. What’s bad is refusing to admit it, ya know, and ignoring evidence in order to prove something or twisting evidence of one thing into something else. And both sides are regularly guilty of this. Like hets spent ages going on about how Kar wasn’t important to Tay and was just the “situationship” lesson from the Elle essay (when I think it’s pretty clear she was all that glitters is not gold). And Kays spent ages saying Kar is her soulmate other half type. And both sets of people were being silly and not being objective.

5) Finally, there is a lesson about inductive versus deductive reasoning at play here. If you’re going from a conclusion - Karlie and Taylor are together and are soulmates - it becomes possible to twist anything into supporting that. If you think Karlie and Taylor never had anything at all it becomes possible to twist anything into supporting that. If you think inductively and try put together actual evidence that you find into a picture that makes sense you’re more likely to be on the right track. Like you can still fuck up because you’re not those people but at least you’ll make sense.

Anyway I think the point is we should learn from this situation and not bash people who believed it for a long time because I can see how it happened and I’m happy many are seeing the light now.

[dreamingofscully]

5x07. “Emily” (part 2 of 2) - X-Files Rewatch

This... is an extremely long post. It not only involves "Emily" analysis but some creative thinking surrounding "Per Manum" from season 8, due to some inconsistencies surrounding the storylines in both. I think I have a fix though!

Scully's dream - walking by herself on some sort of desert - "Alone, as ever." I refuse to use the word that gets used in this series while talking about Scully's fertility here, even though I think this scene is is meant to allude to it. Gross.

It's one thing for Scully to have the knowledge that she cannot conceive and to think she has the possibility of adopting her sister's child. It's quite another to discover that Emily is hers, and possibly the only child that will ever be hers, and that she was created unwillingly out of trauma. 😥

She doesn’t hesitate to call Mulder. She needs to find out Emily's history, needs to KNOW to have power over it. She doesn't care too much about the implications - what led her to her daughter, hearing her sister's voice. It doesn't matter, all that she cares about is Emily.

I love that Scully told Emily about Mulder before he got there. He's important to her and will be just as much a part of Emily's life as he is in Scully's. I wonder what she told her?

The picture of Mulder seeing the two of them on the floor together. Emily's grin is eerily similar to Scully's. What must Mulder be thinking?

He's so good with kids, too. Wish we'd seen more daddy Mulder. Such a waste.

Mulder calls her out on why she didn't call him sooner. He's starting to push a bit more, be a bit more demanding and critical when she does things that don't make sense (but that he knows are pushing the boundaries for her in terms of her belief).

Scully wanting him as a witness in her adoption hearing. But Mulder says he should have declined because he doesn't want to see her hurt. 😥 He has a feeling this can only end badly.

Really shitty of Mulder to reveal the fact that he knew that Scully's ova were harvested during her abduction for the first time IN FRONT OF A JUDGE. Whyyyyy didn't he tell her this... oh, y'know... on the way over? So she's not sitting there with her mouth open completely vulnerable and exposed? it was necessary to tell the judge so that it would support Scully's adoption - that things were forcibly removed from her and then experimented with to create Emily. But he SHOULD HAVE TOLD HER BEFORE THIS. (I talk about this more in my analysis at the end.)

Scully looking back at Mulder in relief that Emily's still there, cut short by realizing she's sick. Mulder immediately taking her in his arms. 😥

"Are you two the parents?"

he subtle looks between themselves

then Scully saying she's the mother, even though its complicated - what else can she say without telling a stupidly long and complicated story?

Scully grasping Mulder's shoulder at the window & standing close, seeing what is happening with Emily in the room. Poor Emily, all alone in the room, causing someone else to be sick. 😥

Mulder going to Dr. Calderon and doing what he does (frustration manifesting as physical violence) while Scully stays by Emily's side.

"I want everything to help that little girl."

Scully in a mask. Her tenderness 😥 Her heart breaking when she has to put Emily in a scary situation - the sound of the machine.

The idea that she's found a child but now she's dying and will lose her. D:>

Threatening the social worker - ensuring she can still make decisions about Emily. Though she's not the most objective, she has the most knowledge about the strangeness surrounding her.

God Emily is so stinkin' cute. Scully makes cute babies.

Standing close outside Emily's room. Wanting to reassure Mulder despite what she's going through. HUG HER DAMNIT (though she'd probably not want him to right now).

He puts his arm around her, says he'll stay but Scully wants to be alone.

she doesn't want to be around him when she breaks down

this isn't about him, she can't spare any energy worrying about him

she can't let him in yet. Doesn't think he thinks of her in a romantic way and can't let him in out of pity. Needs to stay strong. Also she's pissed at him (see below).

At the funeral, Mulder wanting to comfort. Gazing.

Deep dive Emily analysis/fix. (Also “Per Manum” stuff.)

So there’s a contradiction in Emily/Per Manum. As written, both episodes contradict each other.

EMILY (Adoption Hearing for Emily) MULDER: She was missing for 4 weeks, that's documented in the file. JUDGE: And you found evidence that during this time, she was subjected to experiments where ... you say, they extracted her ova? MULDER: Yes, all of them. (Scully is stunned.)

(LATER ON.) SCULLY: Why didn't you tell me, Mulder? MULDER: I never expected this. I thought I was protecting you.

PER MANUM (Elevators of FBI Building) SCULLY: I was left unable to conceive with whatever test that they did on me. And I am not ready to accept that I will never have children. MULDER: Scully, there's, um, there's something I haven't told you either and I hope you, uh, forgive me and understand why I would have kept it from you. SCULLY: What? MULDER: During my investigation into your illness I found out the reason why you were left barren. Your ova were taken from you and stored in a government lab.

Events of Per Manum deal with the EXACT SAME CONVERSATION but in a MUCH LESS SHITTY manner (well, except for the use of the word "barren"). Mulder tells her what he knows in private, and is apologetic. The question being, which came first? Is Per Manum unreliable because it's a memory? Doesn't seem likely that Scully would forget exactly what happened, but it seems that it is the only possibility. Perhaps instead of telling Mulder straight out about not being able to conceive she only tells him about not wanting to accept it. Therefore Emily happens first then Per Manum. And once we get there in the series I’ll reveal when I think the flashback occurred (it’s within season 5).

EDITED/FIX’D PER MANUM SCENE:

SCULLY: I was left unable to conceive with whatever test that they did on me. And I am not ready to accept that I will never have children. MULDER: Scully, there's, um, there's something I haven't told you either and I hope you, uh, forgive me and understand why I would have kept it from you. SCULLY: What? MULDER: During my investigation into your illness I found out that your the reason why you were left barren. Your ova were taken from you and stored in a government lab.

(This also has the bonus of removing Mulder saying “that word” so yeah.

The reason for the extra stuff in Per Manum is just pure laziness, not wanting to re-explain to people who didn't remember stuff from Emily, not wanting to have additional flashbacks to the episode to save time.

The adoption hearing is where Scully shuts herself away from Mulder. She wanted more from him, wanted a second chance. With Emily, perhaps her priority shifted to her daughter, but she wanted Mulder included in whatever that relationship ended up being. When she learns that Mulder kept all of this from her, it is a very large step backwards. Scully won't initiate anything not only out of fear that Mulder doesn't feel the same, fear of a deeper connection, but also because he PISSED HER OFF. 

Hiding knowledge from Scully is very bad. She NEEDS TO KNOW, in order to have power over terrible things that are done to her. She goes into pathology to have power over death and dying. She focuses on finding out what happened to her when she was abducted, despite being recently returned, needing to know to have power over her fears about it. That he withheld these things from her takes away her power/her control over them.

At her brother's house, sitting on the couch unusually far away from each other.

Why didn't you tell me, Mulder? - Scully I never expected this. I thought I was protecting you. - Mulder

Anything else that might need to be said is interrupted by a phone call. Emily needs their help.

Scully wants to say more, wants to call him out for why his actions hurt her so much, but her focus switches immediately to Emily, on being there for her, instead of thinking too deeply about anything else. Also, Scully needs Mulder's help, and he did come from a place of wanting to protect her, so she focuses on who the "real" enemies are at the moment. These facts do not excuse the shitty things Mulder did, but provide a reason for her to ignore it for the moment.

Scully folds in on herself after losing Emily. It will be a while before she can open up to Mulder, to anyone. DISTANCES HERSELF because she needs to heal, needs to go back to the safely and familiarity of JUST work. She CANNOT risk any more right now.  She's be extremely hesitant to open up again. She's regressed emotionally to where she was before her cancer diagnosis, probably WORSE.

Scully's fears came true. Her fear of death/loss once she opened herself up.

She takes a chance on the little girl, Missy's voice and her instincts causing her to pursue the investigation - all she learns is that when she takes a chance, when she believes in something other than the expected, all she gets is pain and sorrow. (Although she wouldn’t trade having known Emily for anything, the experience is a terrible one to have to go through.)

#xfiles #x-files #x-files rewatch #x files rewatch #msr #msrheadcanon #mulder and scully #fox mulder #dana scully #season 5 #emily #vince gilligan #(+other writers)

[maleyanderecafe]

Inside A Yandere’s Brain

Hello again! I’ve talked a lot about different types of yanderes, their relationships and yanderes in different genres, but today we’re going to dive more into the psychological effects of a yandere’s thinking process. I’ll be going from the start of their infatuation to the end where they snap.

Obviously, when it comes to a yandere, there are a lot of things that can cause this sudden mindset, but one of the huge factors is often their childhood or upbringing. Like I’ve said in my Nurture vs. Nature analysis, a very common factor of a yandere’s upbringing comes from what they experience when they are younger. More often than not, a yandere will be brought up from an unhealthy household. In the worst-case scenario, a yandere will be brought up from an abusive household. A lot of yanderes are often placed in this scenario since it often explains a lot about a yandere’s behavior. If the household-they grow up is often in turmoil, then it’s almost certain that they will develop some sort of problems when they grow up. The most common thing is the absence of love. In a lot of cases, yanderes that are brought up in abusive households are not shown love in their family, and they might crave love or don’t understand how it works. They often have deep insecurities later in life when it comes to relationships with others, such as the fear of abandonment, not being good enough or paranoia of what others think of them. These insecurities are often a huge driving force when it comes to acquiring their s/o, since it’s likely that their idea of love often has roots in these kinds of thoughts. Growing up in an abusive household would also result in a lot of problems with emotions, such as mood swings, obsessions and the idea of power and possessiveness which is something that a lot of yanderes will struggle with when it comes to their s/o. Not all yanderes necessarily come from extremely abusive households. In a lot of cases, they might come from a perfectly healthy household but might have more emphasis on their value of love and what it means to be in a relationship. For instance, if the parents teach their kids that constant showers of love are what’s important in a relationship, then the kids will likely display that when they find someone they care about. This often appears in a lot more comedic and a slice of lifestyle stories, but they do have an effect on a yandere’s behavior, even if it’s not as extreme as others. This, of course, would lean more into the idea of learned behavior and would be something that would most likely be supported by the parents. 

When it comes to yandere behavior, a very central point of their lovesickness comes from selfishness. While selfishness is not inherently bad all of the time, it often goes into the extreme when it comes to yanderes. This is especially true with possessive yanderes, since they often are less likely to care about what the s/o thinks of them and more of what would make themselves happy, but also appears in obsessive yanderes as well. The thing that all yanderes struggle with is their selfishness of keeping the s/o to themselves. Even if they’re not outwardly very jealous, they dislike when others that might compete with them are near the person that they love. While a yandere might be selfish for different reasons, they always want to keep their s/o with them, whether they realize it or not. 

When a yandere does start to develop yandere behaviors, they will have two types of mindsets: All or Nothing and The End Justifies the Means. All or Nothing comes in the terms of the actual mindset that the yandere has. Yanderes will do anything to be with their s/o, anything to protect them, anything to capture their hearts. To them, a life without their s/o is meaningless, so they’ll do whatever is in their power to be with them. This is generally why yanderes tend to be so extreme since, in their mind, the world is often that black and white. There’s the s/o and them vs the rest of the world, or there’s the s/o’s loveliness in a world full of filth, etc, etc. A lot of times, this is caused partially by some sort of isolation the yandere faces. Being physically isolated, like if the yandere was never that social in the first place, these kinds of thoughts echo in their mind so much that almost nothing can change these ideals. If its a selective isolation, they might be more social and put up more of a front, but will not take advice from others if it doesn’t benefit their point of view. This form of stubbornness enforces the idea of All or Nothing and makes it difficult for them to ever really change their viewpoint. The other idea is the End Justifies the Means, which ties into the first viewpoint, All or Nothing.  Similar to All or Nothing, the Ends Justifies the Means plays more into the extremities that a yandere often has when they do something. This is more of a justification a yandere has to do something like murder or blackmail, especially if they don’t necessarily find it morally wrong. Even if they do find their actions wrong, they feel that obtaining the s/o will somehow mean that everything they’ve done in the past can be forgotten or at least put behind them. Similarly, with All or Nothing, everything they do is for the s/o and a lot of those actions are generally pretty terrible. Taking these both to the extreme, this often ends in a murder-suicide with the s/o and the yandere, with the idea of “If I can’t have you, no one else will.”

If the yandere does get called out or is in a troubling position with their s/o, they’re likely to have some sort of breakdown or snap.  In this state, they are thinking irrationally, even more so than before. The yandere is likely to be stuck in their own echo in their mind, and at this point is unable to think of any good outcomes. This is generally why after they’re caught, they often will either kidnap the s/o, kill the s/o and or themselves. In some cases, they might become extremely delusional and refuses to believe that the s/o would ever say such a thing, and either completely ignore everything they say or in some cases might not recognize the s/o and try to kill them. If they are able to hold onto their sanity long enough, they might go to an extreme depressive state, or even try to run away from the s/o to actually think about what they’ve done, especially if they’ve hurt the s/o unintentionally. 

Regardless, a yandere’s mind is often a cave that piles on top of itself, making it very hard to convince them otherwise.

#male yandere #yandere boy #yandere #analysis #writing #opinion

[lambourngb]

1 Hi! I saw the Michael wants a family w/ Alex thread & saw you're maybe planning a fic. First off I am such a fan and feel free to delete this if it in anyway offends bec i I swear it's never my intent. It's your fic and you can 1000% write w/ever you want. I can't figure out how to reply to the thread but I saw someone putting in a request not to shade M for not wanting kids. So I thought maybe it'd be okay to reach out too w/ a concern (i hope I'm not overstepping, if so ignore me please).

2 I get that the idea of including her in the 1st place was from a comment who wanted a fun petty moment (no judgement) but it grew to addressing Michael's passiveness. I just wanted to put it out there that I hope incl. her doesn't come off as if she's the 1st option for this. Given the OG text post, it'd be great if Alex is the 1st person Michael thinks of when thinking about a child. The idea of it being a last resort or that he went to someone else 1st just makes me so anxious and sad.

3 I feel like Alex deserves better & that Michael chooses him because he wants to not bec he has no options so I hope it isn't written like that. The show forcing things is tiring me out and it's making me anxious about things I'm usually pretty chill about. I don't even know if you will write it and I don't mean any harm. I hope you're not mad and I didn't offend & this isn't coming off as whiny or demanding, I was just rly hoping to reach out to voice a concern. Thanks for reading.

Hi Nonnie- first of all, thank you. I’m glad you enjoy my writing! That’s always nice to hear. And second of all, I’m not offended and I completely understand your anxiety about Alex being a second choice here with Michael. I’ve always believed that Maria has been Michael’s second choice in canon. He’s convinced himself that things are too hard with Alex and it’s best to give up. I hate that for Michael because it says a lot of things about his non-existent self esteem and his abandonment issues. Anyway, my “Michael wants a family” story is just a nebulous idea at the moment and is obviously something I won’t dive into until I finish off Last Year’s Wishes. I basically smack my brain with a rolled up newspaper and say “No! focus on the thing you started before you start another!”.

When I am ready to dive in- here’s what I’m thinking and hopefully this helps gauge your future interest in this story- like Last Year’s Wishes, I like to write from one limited point of view. I have only tried briefly to write from Michael’s POV, but I feel like this story has to be told from his and that’s intimidating as hell, haha, especially because I feel a deep connection to Alex.

What we know from canon regarding kids and a family is- Michael wants a family. Other than Isobel leaving the door open for herself in the future, he’s the only one who has definitively said he wants kids. I don’t know how Maria or Alex feels about kids, Maria I think I can guess on (more on that below), but Alex, other than saying that Roswell felt like home for the first time because of Michael (triggering Maria’s iconic line “Home can be a person”) hasn’t said much in the way of marriage and family. The fact he bought or rented a house in Roswell, instead of the cabin - maybe that signals he wants to set down roots? Maybe he just hated the commute from the cabin?

Maria is a little easier for me to make a guess over, and I could be wrong, but she’s been working extremely hard to support herself and her mother for many years. Did she dream about being a singer? Did she ever want to leave Roswell? We don’t know, but she is savvy with money and is constantly looking for opportunities to better her position in life financially. And that financial security is still shakey with her 24/7 hustle. Nursing home care in the US is so costly it could be considered a crime, and with Mimi not being old enough to qualify for social security or medicare, that cost is on Maria’s shoulders. From a young age- Maria’s entire focus on the future was based around the knowledge that she was going to have to take care of her mother. I don’t know if that leaves energy for the idea of taking care of a child. Maria also knew she too would face this neurological disorder at some point and become a burden herself. Now does the bracelet stop her decline? How long does the pollen’s keep things in check? And if she does keep her mind healthy and intact, what sort of thing would she be passing on to a more-than-50 percent alien child?

Again I could be projecting my own feelings here, but I just get the vibe that Maria has a lot of caretaker burnout still and is reaching for things that make her feel good in the moment but is in no hurry to take on another big future responsibility outside of making enough money to survive.

And what does that mean for Michael’s relationship with her? If he wants to have a long-term relationship with Maria, he would have to let go of the idea of kids. Here’s the thing, that Michael himself said, he’s good at giving up. He gave up college, he gave up on hope/people, he gave up on the idea he could have a happy ending with Alex- everywhere you look in canon, you see him holding up empty hands when it comes to things he wants and basically saying “I tried for a bit, it was hard, so I’m done trying” (and personally I think he tried for 10 years with Alex, the longest and most stubborn grab for happiness).

Other people get him to keep pushing past that impulse to give up - Liz when it came to curing Isobel, Liz again when it came to saving Max, and Alex- when it came to looking for some hope in a dark story (Nora and Tripp). So I want Michael to be the one who pushes himself past that impulse. I want him to come face to face with his oldest, most wanted desire (A family) and draw a line in the sand, and so no, “I want this, I want this for me” and not back away when it causes conflict with someone else.

But here’s the thing, Michael’s so used to “going where you want me” that I think even in the face of Maria saying “you know, kids aren’t in the future here” he would still try to make it work. I have long joked that I ship everyone on RNM with a therapist (except for Kyle, who is perfect) but I really want Michael to seek out help. I think he would go, but for entirely the wrong purpose- in my story, he would go see a therapist and say to them, “I can fix a busted transmission, but I can’t fix this. Can you help me with this? She doesn’t want a family but I do. How can I change myself”

And oh boy is that a pandora’s box for a therapist. Digging into the meat of you don’t think people will stay so you push them away- Alex, then when they do express they want you, you don’t believe it will last so why bother trying again. In the process of Michael trying to fix himself so he can preserve his relationship with Maria, he discovers though guidance - that he can’t be a good partner if he’s not good to himself, and letting someone else’s desires supersede his own isn’t healthy. Then finding the balance after you figure out you can say no- because compromise is also important.

Somewhere in this mess is Sanders, who after hearing that Michael’s ready to ditch the idea of being someone’s dad, shakes him by the shirt collar. Explaining to Michael that just maybe he should have tried harder all those years ago to be someone who could adopt him, that shame never leaves him. Trying twice was good but not good enough, who’s to say the third time wouldn’t have been successful? But somewhere along the line Sanders decided it was easier to be the old gin-soaked junkyard dog than be someone who was willing to do the work of sobriety. Does Michael want to follow in his footsteps? Leave some kid in a place they don’t belong if he has the ability and desire to provide a home? And Michael decides he is done telling himself it won’t work out, that he wants this with an impulse stronger than his self-defeatist instincts.

And that is the death knell on his relationship with Maria- incompatible.

Then, because I’m a Malex shipper through and through, there’s Alex. He’s shown up for Michael all through season 2. And in my eyes, they’ve worked on their friendship (drown in those 2x04 feels) and Michael calls him for advice, lays out what’s going on with him and Alex supports him on that path to being happy. Alex gently probing him about how long he’s had this dream of being a parent, hearing how it predated senior year, but after senior year Michael inserted Alex into the dream. Michael sharing even after everything, he still thinks of Alex of being there, maybe an uncle? And Alex, overwhelmed by how serious Michael was and maybe still is? Takes it slow, this can’t be a rebound, just urges him to take the small steps, like mentoring with Big Brothers/Big Sisters or through the YMCA.

Those logical steps get escalated when Michael discovers a hitchhiker stowed away in flatbed of his tow trunk after a stop at a rest area. He sees himself in this angry, but desperate kid. He doesn’t want to give the kid up and so he calls on Alex yet again, to do a background check to make sure the story is true and then pleads for him to help. Make Michael foster-parent worthy in the eyes of the law. I don’t know if this skirts the fear you have that Alex is the last resort? In my mind, his two oldest desires are having a kid AND having Alex, and once he works out he can have the first, he realizes that all is not lost with Alex as well.

Anyway my very long thoughts on this story I AM NOT WRITING RIGHT NOW: a take on ‘fake engagement because of CPS’ where Alex installs Michael into his house all so they could give a home to this stray kid. 

#anon ask #writing thoughts #wip #malex fic prompt #Anonymous #my thoughts on this predate that post i commented on #basically i spend a lot of time thinking up ways for M*luca to break up #i need a break up that leaves me not hating anyone #and if Maria just decides she's just not into Michael while Michael is all in? Yikes #dude is not good at trying again after defeat #michael guerin deserves good things #therapy is needed stat for this disaster #tags added after my commute to work

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told

(Note, if this post shows up twice or massively delayed or just looks weird, it’s because it was flagged for adult content [??!] because I had a picture of Willem Dafoe’s face in a gif. I am not even kidding. Do with that information what you will. I’ve removed it and I still don’t know if/when this can be publicly viewed, I’m kind of lolling. So if you see a blocked out photo that looks like porn in your post, I swear it’s just a gif from The Lighthouse!)

Hello, amazing people. This weekend, I’m putting the final touches on my last draft of Baghdad Waltz Chapter 39, which will then go to the beta for one more round of edits. I imagine I will have the chapter posted in 1-3 weeks, which is close to record speed for me, especially since it’s around 30k words. I’m going to be talking about my writing process (at unfortunate length) for one of the asks, for those who are interested. 

Please forgive me. I’m feeling quite verbose and a little squirrely. I blame living alone during lockdown. 

It’s also Memorial Day weekend in the States, which is when we are meant to honor those who gave their lives in military service to this country. This is often confused with Veterans Day (November 11), which is honoring anyone who has served in the military and is no longer serving. This gets further confused with Armed Forces Day (rotating date, May) which is to honor those currently serving in the military. I know, super confusing. 

There’s a wide range of opinions on how Memorial Day should be commemorated, which often involves gathering with friends and family for a barbecue or some other social activity. It’s the first major holiday after a huge holiday drought throughout the late winter and spring, which often makes people look forward to it immensely. Some people feel it’s inappropriate to celebrate Memorial Day with barbecues and fond social gatherings because it’s dishonoring the memories of those who can’t be here, people don’t take time to remember those who have died, people have no idea what the day is actually for, etc. Others, even some very vocal veterans, maintain that people died so that we could be here to celebrate in freedom, so why not relish this life we have? Many offer the caveat that it’s appropriate to at least acknowledge the purpose of the day, even if it’s just in a few minutes of quiet reflection. 

Anyway, I offer this as a little food for thought for this upcoming long weekend. 

(And in case you missed it, I posted a BW Timeline for your reference.) 

Contains spoilers through Chapter 38.

[Takes deep breath]

I’m so glad that you are enjoying the read and that you’re finding it inspiring for your own work. I think my dedication to research for BW is threefold. 1) As this story evolved, I decided that I wanted to create the most realistic depictions of military, civilian, emotional, and physical life that I reasonably could. I will fully admit to lapses in this, deliberate and unintentional, because sometimes the plot just needs to go and I can’t wait around for a year-long medical discharge process for my character. 2) I’m in an academically stringent occupation, and because research is such a prominent part of my work life, it’s bled to my hobby. (IS THIS EVEN A HOBBY ANYMORE?) And 3) I get very easily and passionately obsessed with things and delight in getting “into the weeds” with a subject. Almost every research divergence usually takes me off track for at least an hour. And you will never catch me without an MTA subway map open in at least one tab.

But that wasn’t even your question! Sorry. Are you beginning to get a sense of why BW takes me so long to write?? I cannot keep my shit on track. As for the bibliography, YES! I plan to include that in my author’s note at the end. I wish I had kept better track of all of my works consulted over the past three years, but I will definitely discuss the importance of some of the main ones. I’m so thrilled that you are interested, and I’m excited to share them!

Thank you. This is such a kind thing to say, and I’m humbled and delighted to hear it, especially because our fandom is so blessed with some AMAZING fics. And asks certainly don’t have to be questions! I appreciate them all (except the flaming bag of dog shit ones, which I haven’t had in a while, hooray).

(Re: Chapter 37) Good question! I imagine Claire would want to keep the 1:1 conversation somewhat limited, as she is treating the couple as a patient rather than them as individuals. If anything, she might have somewhat superficially checked in to see if he was okay rather than dive into anything regarding the relationship with Bucky not around. That could be seen as a betrayal of trust to Bucky and could be interpreted as favoritism, which Steve craves and which Bucky is probably terrified about.

I am always pleased when people re-read and enjoy it or get new things out of it, even if it’s sometimes a re-read is a function of my slow-ass writing. I really want a story with good re-read value.

You make an excellent point about Bucky’s relationships. His friendship with Jack also had no real closure. Sometimes this is a factor of circumstance and sometimes it’s because of his avoidance, like a self-fulfilling prophesy almost. He’s learned that people betray you, either by hurting you or dying, so he creates conditions sometimes (often unwittingly) for things to go sour and end poorly, or he will simply make himself disappear so that he’s not hurt and doesn’t have to wait to see if he will be abandoned or betrayed. He’s not a guy who is good with goodbyes.

As for Thor, I totally see how it would read that way. I think Thor started out fishing for longer-term possibilities in a romantic relationship but then realized Bucky is really not a guy who is comfortable settling (which, as we can see, is true). As for why it seems more serious, one thing is that Thor still wanted Bucky in his life as a friend, possibly one with benefits. They have a lot in common, and it’s hard for veterans - and, more specifically, special operators - to find people in their lives they can relate to with these very intense life experiences. I wanted this to be a real relationship, but maybe not necessarily one that was bound to become a RELATIONSHIP. I think Bucky was very intriguing and attractive to him, and he very well may have struggled with his own vacillation between whether to take it seriously or whether to remain friends+. This can lead to mixed messages.

And we also have to remember Bucky’s notoriously unreliable narration, where he will see what he wants to see. Our perspective comes from him. We see the details he zooms in on, miss the one he ignores, view the relationship through the lens of his own contentious desire for a real relationship, even as he consistently demonstrates the lack of capacity and his fear about getting serious. I imagine Bucky has having an extremely poor ability to distinguish friendship from romance, and why wouldn’t he, given the most recent bit of history we have learned about him with Jack? He’s had a series of friendships become sexualized, and I think this affects his capacity to be discerning. Bucky’s radar for relating, whether friendships, romance, or potentially dangerous sexual situations, is terribly mis-calibrated. How confusing for him and for the people in his life. Of course, everyone is free to interpret the dynamics of any relationship however they choose. These are just some of my thoughts.

I really appreciate observations from the re-read! Thank you!

I watched the video and you are right! This is definitely a Bucky song. Bucky’s sense of self is by turns profoundly distorted and lacking in grounding, especially now that he’s not in the military. He’s been in a low key existential crisis since he was a kid and has turned to drinking and sex and war to fill this horrible void, and although I can’t speak for what the artists here intended, I certainly sensed those elements here for sure. (Also, what an interesting choice for a music video…)

Thank you for sharing! I’ll add it to the unofficial BW playlist in the author’s note, which consists of various songs people have associated with BW and shared with me.

Good question! I started off this story picturing the actors who represent the characters in the MCU, because I figured we’d be picturing that when we read the fic anyway (though my beta told me she doesn’t see them as the actors, more like artists’ renderings of the characters, which I find interesting). So when describing their physicality, I tend to refer back to the MCU, since this is technically an MCU AU. But the longer I go with the story, the murkier the resemblance feels to me, especially when I think about Bucky, IDK why. I have also been considering doing something more with BW after I finish it (i.e., converting it into a proper not-bajillion-word novel, sunk cost and whatnot), in which case I would definitely change the characters’ appearance, names, cut MCU Easter eggs, etc. So when I try to think of who these people might be in future iterations of the story, things get even more blurred in my mind when I imagine them.

I wonder how other people see them??

So, with regards to PTSD clinical teams, there is some variation across VAs in the system. Some focus more on military-related trauma, whether it’s war, military sexual trauma, accidents, etc. as a way of concentrating their services and managing supply and demand. From talking with providers in these kinds of systems, sometimes you just NEED a military-related trauma, but you can be treated for, say, a childhood trauma if it’s more pressing. Other VAs are very open in their criteria, and you can see them for pretty much any kind of trauma that qualifies diagnostically for PTSD (or sub-threshold PTSD) without question. That’s why I love the expression “If you’ve been to one VA, you’ve been to one VA.” That said, it kind of doesn’t matter what kind of PTSD clinical team is at the VA in Manhattan, because Bucky has so much military trauma that he would very likely qualify to receive services in any PTSD clinical team. They just might focus on childhood stuff (if Bucky actually let them, which is another matter entirely).

This is a great question! Thanks for asking.

I love a snarky asshole Bucky so much, and I’ve tried to temper this version of him with enough hard-earned genuineness to offset it a little bit. It’s such a tender balance with him, because if you back him too far into a corner, he’s going to let you have it. But if you give him too much space, it’s hard to pin him down and wring something honest from him. He’s definitely learned to use humor and sarcasm to deflect from painful or uncomfortable situations, and it’s a very adaptive short-term strategy that makes him both endearing and infuriating to others.

But ugh, yeah, shit gets so rough around Chapter 28/29. I don’t know how to feel when people have really strong emotional reactions to this story, because one part of me doesn’t want to contribute to the crappy feelings people may already be struggling with — especially in the times of COVID — but I don’t want to be afraid to dive into the hurt these characters are experiencing. That’s why I recommend checking in with oneself before reading to get a sense of how much emotional bandwidth is available to manage the immense problems of two people struggling so much. I also think that for some people it can be cathartic or otherwise not-bad maybe (?), based on the feedback I’ve received. I also really try hard to balance out the painful stuff with growth, even though it can be terribly difficult to locate sometimes.

In comments to folks, and here, I often talk about adjusting the ticks on your measuring stick for progress, where instead of leaps of progress over feet/meters, we may be observing things on an inch/mm scale. This story is my most sincere effort at a “recovery is not linear” narrative, which I think is so much more reflective of real life for a lot of folks than a straight upward trajectory. Humans are such creatures of habit, and the lessons these characters have learned through their lives about themselves, trust, relationships, and how to manage emotions are very deeply ingrained — often through traumatic means. These are the lessons learned the hardest, with the greatest perceived consequences for change, and it takes real courage for us to be able to try new things even once, let alone to establish a reliable pattern of behavior. This can lead to a lot of frustration for us as readers/writer, and I come from a place of this being okay, because we are encountering a parallel process with the characters, who are frustrated with each other and themselves about the same things. I do hope the pain/progress/joy ratios are not horribly out of whack most of the time. That’s another reason I like long chapters, because if this was just blips of sometimes terrible episodes in shorter form, I think it would be very challenging to not lose hope entirely.

But I’m so glad you’re finding the read meaningful, even if it’s sometimes painful and difficult.

(YES.)

And FINALLY -- (this is all soooo long, I’m so sorry.)

Oh, thank you for this question! My spreadsheet ended up getting too difficult to manage, and I actually had a small crisis six months ago about how the fic was going to end, because it just didn’t feel right. I had to scrap it and go back to the drawing board and really ask myself - what would these characters really do? Naturally, as a factor of their psychologies and circumstances, how will they bring this story to an end? Some advice I once heard about a “satisfying” ending is that it’s the place where there’s simply nothing more to say about the characters. There’s no more story to tell. I had to abandon all of my desires  and ideas for a particular ending or concerns about making people sad or happy or excited or disappointed. I know that the only ending that will be satisfying is one that makes sense for these people. Anything contrived or backward-engineer-y wouldn’t feel right to anyone. I do have a couple of specific character arc things I want to happen, so I set those down as touchstones and said, okay, what would happen next? What would Steve do with this? And what would Bucky do with this? And what would they do with the thing the other person did? I take a very psychology and prior-behavior-based approach to plotting, almost all character driven. The rest is just figuring out what is supposed to go where and how to organize it.

I’ve converted everything to a Google Doc and have a very basic outline where I write plotty-plot stuff. I also have a “garbage dump” doc where I write certain lines I want to use or certain details I want to include somewhere. When I get into a new chapter, I’ll check the dump doc as I outline and write to see if I want to pluck anything from there. I have my outline open regularly to add to it. Sometimes I write scenes out of order, dialogue first, but that’s only if I really am excited about a particular scene and cannot contain myself. Otherwise, I write completely chronologically and have no buffer. I post things as soon as I write them.

As for your specific questions, I do have a “process” for getting into my characters’ heads. It helps to know them so very well and to have a firm sense of their idiosyncrasies and patterns of behavior. As you may have noticed, they repeat their patterns all. the. time, as humans do, but I also want to have them change their behaviors a little as things go and they progress. So I may wonder what they could do a little differently, why they would WANT to behave differently, and imagine what they would need to do to change their behavior. Do they need to take breaths? Do they remember the last time some shit went down? I really try to think of the “how” and “why” of every single action - from big blowouts to eye rolls.

So once I’ve figured out what they are going to do, I try to pinpoint the associated emotions I want to highlight. This is a whole separate process, because I have to think also about their internal versus their external emotional states. Steve, for example, will often have a discrepant inside and outside, because one of the truths about his character is that he is a chronic suppressor. There is also the issue of unreliable narration and interpretation of behavior. Steve might do something in a scene, but that doesn’t mean Bucky is going to interpret it the way it was intended. I have to think about their individual filters, which often reflect their internal beliefs about themselves. Bucky is more likely to read Steve’s actions as reflections of how BUCKY feels about HIMSELF (e.g., he’s disgusted by me because I’m disgusting) rather than imagine what Steve is really thinking based on his own experiences and beliefs about Bucky. I also attempt to convey some of the more second and third layer emotions that people have in situations, rather than only highlighting the primary emotion. Sad things don’t always just make people sad. Powerful emotions, for example, might make Steve feel out of control of himself, which could generate secondary emotions for him like frustration because he’s losing control. Part of the process in the construction of the narrative is also scrubbing what I’ve written for POV, because Bucky’s word choices aren’t the same as Steve’s, and in order to try to preserve the “voice” of each character, I often have to change the words I’ve opted to use, as well as the syntax.

So, as you can see, there’s a lot of layering that is happening all the time. As for the dialogue, I have no compunction about saying the lines aloud, “acting” them to see how they sound, to get a sense of what tone I want them to say things in. Now that I think of it, I do a bit of movement-based stuff, thinking about how people sit and stand, figuring how many steps it takes to get from A-Z, what it would look like to lean against something, how it would feel on the body, etc. I try to get the most felt sense of things as I can. If I’m imagining a scene, I try to put myself in the shoes of the characters to the point where I feel the emotions, just so I can know how it reflects in my body and my mind and behavior. I have more than once gotten drunk and drunk-written drunk Bucky then gone to clean it up later, as drunk writing can generate some great content I never would have been able to come up with sober, but the form, grammar, spelling, etc. is often rubbish. I also talk a LOT to my beta about all of this stuff, and I have certain friends and acquaintances in the fandom who are my consultants for various things.

So, I’m somewhat method I guess?? Is that a thing?? I dunno. It’s not hard to do when you live and breathe a story. It’s required a deep level of interest in - quite possibly an obsession with - the characters and their lives. I adore my characters, not in a self-congratulatory way, but because they feel so real to me. So it’s a joy to plan and write -- though I do hate first drafts with a passion.

OH - I also sometimes fast-draft chapters, which I did for 39. That is, write as FAST AS YOU CAN with no regard for how shitty the writing is. I wrote 10k words in a week, which was a finished fast-draft for me, and thus I had a very good felt sense of what was going to happen in the chapter, which felt amazing. It requires intensive outlining before, and nearly every word had to be rewritten, but one of the greatest frustrations of a story for me is having blank space ahead. Re-writing is way more fun than first draft writing. I have fluffed it up twofold with higher quality content, which I did all in less than two months…!! 

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Well, this is surely my most unnecessarily yammering YAIT in history. But I hope it at least conveys my enthusiasm for these wonderful asks! It’s so lovely to hear from all of you, even if I take an eon to get back to you. Hang in there, everyone!

@grimshady @hutchhitched​ @b0n3l3ssm1lk​ 

(And thank you to @bae-buckyaboveeverything​ for the shout out. You made my day<3)

#you asked #baghdad waltz #asks

[lelouche]

Orphans of the Storm: Attachment, Trauma and the Developmental Trajectories of Lelouch and Nunnally in Code Geass

Alternatively titled, Matt Has a Lot of Thoughts About the Lamperouges. 7000+ words of thoughts, to be exact. Some of them might even be semi-intelligent. Admittedly, much of this was written from a hospital office while procrastinating writing patient journals for actual patients who are real humans and not fictional characters. Thank you to my supervisor for not supervising me very much.

I. Introduction

First, let us first briefly set the stage. The story of Code Geass is set in an alternate universe where the social-darwinist, imperialist superpower The Holy Britannian Empire is ruling large parts of the world. Lelouch and Nunnally vi Britannia are born into the royal family as children of 98th Emperor Charles zi Britannia and one of his consorts, Marianne. After their mother is assassinated in a terrorist attack at the Imperial Palace, an incident which leaves Nunnally blind and paralysed from the waist down, the two are sent to Japan as political hostages. The Britannian Empire then invades Japan shortly after they arrive, and they must seek refuge with the Ashfords, a wealthy family with ties to their mother Marianne. Presumed dead by the rest of the royal family, they take on the surname Lamperouge and begin to live in hiding in the now-colonised Japan, renamed Area 11.

These events constitute what is to become Lelouch’s raison d’être through the entire series - finding out who assassinated his mother, and creating a safer, kinder environment for his sister to grow up in. Nunnally is an extremely, and I cannot stress this enough, extremely important figure for Lelouch through the entire series (to the point where it’s kind of a joke in most spin-off material). He’s her main caregiver along with their maid Sayako, and protecting her is his primary goal - often at the expense of his own safety, his friends’ safety, and/or massive collateral damage. In this essay, I will analyse their relationship with their parents and each other through the lens of attachment theory, and discuss how these dynamics shape their developmental trajectories as they grow up. I will focus on two domains of development in particular: (1) emotional regulation and (2) identity. Based on this analysis, I’ll make the argument that Nunnally, despite being the one experiencing the most trauma, ended up more well-adjusted than Lelouch. Furthermore, although the series places much emphasis on how Lelouch is the one protecting Nunnally, he is actually more dependent on his sister than she is on him. I will also discuss how these central themes tie into Lelouch’s goals and political ideology.

II. Ode to My Family: The Fundamentals of Attachment Theory

Attachment theory is a psychological theory originating from the work of John Bowlby, concerning the bond between caregivers and their children. Put simply, Bowlby proposed that children are biologically predisposed to form deep, lasting bonds with their caregivers, and this bond has an important influence on subsequent development. In the attachment relationship, the caregiver functions as both a secure base from which to explore (for example, a child feeling safe when playing knowing a parent is nearby), and safe haven to turn to for emotional support (if they get scared or hurt when playing). Caregivers, on their end, facilitate secure attachment through moderate and appropriate stimulation of the child, warmth, mutually responsive interactions, and other behaviours that promote ‘connectedness’. Especially interesting is a trait called mind-mindedness, which can be described as a caregivers ability to conceptualise their child as an independent person, understand their mental/emotional state and respond appropriately. Important to note about attachment bonds is that they’re not “horizontal” - the caregiver and child aren’t on the same “level” as mutual attachment figures to each other, but the caregiver (as the older, wiser, and more experienced person who is able to provide care) will be a figure that the child can rely on.

A healthy attachment bond has a variety of important functions. It promotes the growth of self-reliance (which promotes independency), increases capacity for emotion regulation, promotes later social competence (such as empathy and mutual relationships), and is important for later identity development. This happens through the acquisition of so-called internal working models, that the child employs through their life. To simplify a bit, think of attachment as the mechanism by which caregivers, through their behaviour, teach children what to expect from the world around them, and what strategies to employ to best cope with it. At its core, it is about seeking security and safety - a form of healthy and adaptive dependence that provides a solid foundation and sense of security from which independence can grow

There are three main classifications of attachment bonds - secure, insecure and disorganised. Securely attached children will develop positive internal working models, where world is a fundamentally safe place, they are loved and worthy of that love. Interactions with the caregivers are frequent, mutual and predictable. For insecure attachment, there are two subcategories: avoidant and ambivalent. Insecure-ambivalent attachment is associated with unpredictable interaction styles, where some interactions between caregiver and child may be warm and mutually responsive, while others are more detached or unpredictable. This leads to frustration and confusion, and an ambivalent relationship. Insecure-avoidant attachment, on the other hand, is typically associated with a non-responsive and uninvolved form of care, or an absent caregiver. In this case, the child may feel rejected and like they cannot rely on anyone. Disorganised attachment simply means there is a lack of any organised form of attachment, but that’s not going to be relevant here so let’s ignore that one.

In summary:

Did you really think you were getting through this one without at least ONE chart? (Note: ambivalent and resistant attachment is the same thing)

Also, important note before moving on from this bit: (1) Attachment is not the be-all end-all for positive/negative developmental outcomes, and (2) I’ll obviously be a bit quicker to assume correlation and draw conclusions than I would in real life, because in my mind applying this stuff to literary analysis vs. applying it to real people are two completely different things. Fiction consists of a series of deliberate choices of storytelling and elements you can easily pick apart and draw lines between (preferably with red string on a corkboard wall, while looking slightly manic), whereas people are, like, more complicated and stuff - nature and nurture and all that.

Now, with attachment theory in mind, let’s have a look at the evil Britannian disaster parents.

III. The Mother We Share: (In)Secure Attachment in the Imperial Palace

Before taking a deep dive into Lelouch and Nunnally’s relationship with one another, it’s essential to discuss their relationships with their parents. Unfortunately for me, there really isn’t much canon material regarding their lives prior to Marianne’s death and the subsequent exile in Japan. However, even with the limited information available, I think it’s fairly safe to say neither Charles nor Marianne deserve a parent-of-the-year award - a point cleverly foreshadowed by me when I referred to them as evil disasters just a few sentences ago.

As for Charles, I hardly need to even make a case that he probably wasn’t a great father. It’s never outright stated in the series, but I’m going to assume they had minimal or no contact with Charles. The main reason behind this is: why would they? He had 108 (!) consorts with whom he had many children, and was busy ruling the largest empire in the world. And as if that wasn’t enough, Lelouch and Nunnally weren’t even particularly high up in in the line of succession and would have been unlikely to ever rule in their lifetime (if it hadn’t been for, er, circumstances). Furthermore, because of his grand plan to fuse humanity into one collective unconscious through the Ragnarök Connection, none of this would matter to him anyway. Additionally, I think his lack of contact with his children is very apparent through the way Lelouch interacts with his father when confronting him about Marianne’s death, which I’ll get back to.

So, we can reasonably conclude Charles was an uninvolved/absent caregiver. However, things get a little more interesting with Marianne.

This isn’t relevant to the topic or anything, I just think it’s neat how they made Lelouch so visually similar to his mother. In addition to physical traits, Marianne’s dress here has a really similar structure to what would later become her sons rebellion outfit of choice. She even has a chess-piece-esque hat to go with. Then again, I suppose the alternative was making him visually similar to Charles, and that wouldn’t make for a lot of good fanservice now would it. Anyway, this image description is too long.

As mentioned, avenging his mother’s death is one of the most significant driving forces for Lelouch throughout the series. Her assassination impacted him greatly, both in and of itself and through the harm it caused Nunnally. Whenever she’s brought up, they both seem to get visibly downhearted, and there’s never any indication they remember her anything but fondly. In picture drama 22.25 (from their time as children in the Imperial Palace), the Britannian siblings find a commemorative plate that belongs to her in Euphie’s room. They start to bicker over it, because Nunnally wants to have it herself, while Lelouch thinks Euphie should keep it because it belongs to her. This all indicates that the royal children admired Marianne, and she was obviously an important figure to them both. Through this idolisation, as well as Lelouch’s obsession with what happened at the Imperial Palace, the narrative seems to want us to assume she was a good parent.

However, there are a few things that call into question how reliable of a narrator Lelouch actually is concerning Marianne. Towards the end of the series, it’s revealed that she is actually very much alive, and completely on board with Charles’ Ragnarök plan - making her one of the series’ main antagonists. During Lelouch’s final confrontation with his parents in C’s World in S2 E21, she is unable (or unwilling) to see how faking her death, traumatising her children, shipping them off to a country the Empire promptly invaded without ever making sure they’re still alive, and then trying to convince them to get on board with her human instrumentality plan is wrong. As her wiki bluntly states: “She only superficially loves her children and will not hesitate to kill them if they get in her way.” Taking this information about her character into account, I consider it more likely that the reason Lelouch and Nunnally idolised Marianne was either (1) because they based their impression largely on her reputation, rather than because she genuinely was a loving mother, or (2) she was a very good actor.

At least she provided some strategies to prepare her children for having to cope with the emotional trauma she was about to inflict on them.

How to make sense of their relationship with Marianne from an attachment perspective? I think this is largely up to interpretation due to lack of pre-series material. Lelouch and Nunnally both seem to like and look up to her, but that does not necessarily indicate secure attachment. I would argue they had an insecure relationship with Marianne, and that argument is based on two things. First, her personality traits and actions (rather than Lelouch and Nunnally’s accounts of her): she blatantly uses her children as pawns for her plan, and doesn’t care all that much that they were suffering as a result. Even though she does argue all her planning was well-intentioned, this act quickly fall apart when Lelouch challenges her. As C.C. tells her, “the only people you love are yourselves”. Calling this sort of behaviour “poor mind-mindedness” or “lack of parental warmth” is an understatement - I simply don’t see a scenario where Marianne would genuinely care.

Secondly, I’d argue you can infer it from Lelouch’s patterns of behaviour as he grows older. Many of his actions, and the themes surrounding him as a character, could be seen as a manifestation of insecure attachment - his attitude towards Nunnally, attitude towards his friends in the student council, his emotionality, and the general theme of a  fragmented identity, to mention some. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Point is, there is good reason to believe Lelouch or Nunnally had any form of secure attachment bond to either of their parents, and this has some implications for their development as the series goes on.

IV. Abandoned by the Empire: Trauma and Parentification

In addition to not having the best relationships with their parents to begin with, Lelouch and Nunnally were then burdened with more baggage after their mother’s death. In Nunnally’s case, her trauma from the incident was primarily physical (blindness and paralysation of her legs), due to her being literally in Marianne’s arms as she was shot. Lelouch was a witness, and escaped without physical injury. Afterwards, while his sister is still in hospital, he takes it upon himself to confront his father about what happened, and accuses him of having allowed, even facilitated, the assassination through purposefully neglecting security measures that day.

While Nunnally was by all means most harmed by the attack, it is here in the aftermath I’d argue Lelouch takes his “main blow” in the parental trauma department. When confronted, Charles gets angry and tells Lelouch that everything in his life has been handed to him by virtue of being a child of the royal family, and thus he’s never truly accomplished anything - he might as well be dead, and therefore has no right to doubt or disobey him. This is an especially cruel statement in the context of the social-darwinist Britannia, where the strength to survive by your own measures is seen as highly important, maybe even the only thing that truly is important. Lelouch then visibly flinches and falls back when Charles stands up, in a manner that seems outright terrified. Keep in mind, all this is happening in front of the Royal Court.

This scene in particular is the main reason I cannot imagine Lelouch or Nunnally having any kind of relationship with Charles prior to the incident, much less a secure and healthy one. You’d think the threshold for a young child to turn and publicly accuse his father of premeditated murder in front of the Britannian Royal Court would be astronomically high, especially if he actually liked and trusted him. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, one of the most important functions of the caregiver is being a secure base in difficult and unsafe situations, which means that children typically tend to turn towards their parents during situations where they feel scared. Flinching away (so severely he even falls back, with a horrified expression on his face), rather than seeking closure, is highly indicative of insecure attachment/parental neglect.

As if all this wasn’t enough, Lelouch and Nunnally are then separated from all their siblings to be relocated to Japan as political hostages. Again, the pre-series material is pretty thin, but throughout the series there are indications that they had good relationships with some of their siblings. For example, Lelouch recalls playing chess with Schneizel, and possibly had some kind of relationship with Clovis judging by their conversation before Lelouch kills him. Both Lelouch and Nunnally also seem to have been very close with Euphie - in Stage 22.25, they’re playing in her room and don’t want to go to sleep because they’re having so much fun. Lelouch even refers to Euphie as the first girl he ever loved (let’s just... not unpack this one). Point is, not only do they get traumatised by and separated from their parents (whom they already had an insecure relationship with), but they’re also ripped away from their entire network of social support, except for each other. 

This image is so fucking sad. Fuck.

So, when Lelouch and Nunnally arrive in Japan, they’re on their own. And because he is older, and because of Nunnally’s disability, Lelouch ends up taking on most of the responsibility. He carries her up the stairs when they arrive at the shrine, washes their clothing, buys their food, and so on. In addition to these practical tasks, he also tries to comfort his sister emotionally and seems to also feel responsible for her well-being - for example, when discovering their lodgings were small and quite sad-looking, he tries to shield Nunnally from it by lying and telling her it looks like Euphie’s room. When Suzaku first meets Nunnally, Lelouch instantly runs into the room because he heard a noise, and freaks out at Suzaku because he thinks he’s going to harm her. For all intents and purposes, he steps into a caregiver role for his sister - an attachment figure, one might even say. This shift in their dynamic becomes very apparent when comparing their relationship in Japan and onwards, to the aforementioned bickering-over-a-plate incident in Euphie’s room, where they were fighting and playing like siblings.

This phenomenon is sometimes called parentification, in which the absence of adult figures providing sufficient care causes one child to bear more responsibility than is normal for the age, and step into the role of “parent”. Parentification can be adaptive and healthy with concrete/practical tasks, in small periods of time and with plenty support, for example pre-teens babysitting their younger cousins. Suffice to say, Lelouch had none of those things. He is Nunnally’s sole contact, made worse by himself by being stubborn and not wanting to let anyone else in to help. Additionally, plenty of other risk factors for destructive parentification is present - the tasks are diffuse, all-consuming and way above the level appropriate for his age, he gets no sort of recognition, reward, or help, it lasts a long period of time (permanently), generational lines become somewhat blurred, and his own needs end up taking second priority to him. And, as you’ll remember from the attachment theory section, this kind of relationship is not horizontal in nature - Lelouch and Nunnally don’t provide each other mutual support of this nature, but rather Lelouch is the one providing a function for Nunnally.

In the beginning of this section, I mentioned that Nunnally’s trauma as a result of Marianne’s death was primarily physical. However, she evidently went through a great deal of psychological trauma as well. A novel detailing their childhoods in Japan states that Nunnally privately had a terrible time coping with the changes in her life and would throw tantrums when left to her own at Kururugi residence, destroying nearly anything she could get her hands on. However, unless she secretly throws tantrums whenever her brother is off screen, this doesn’t seem to be an issue during the span of the series. I’d argue this could be attributed to Lelouch functioning as a caregiver for her - she had someone there to help her, calm her down and provide external emotional regulation, which in turn helped her learn to better regulate her emotional states on her own. Lelouch provides safety and warmth, and, in doing so, becomes a buffer for his sister.

Lelouch, however, has no such buffers. Because of this, it’s easy to draw a line between his parental problems and trauma, and his subsequent maladjusted pattern behaviour when the siblings arrive in Japan. At the Kururugi residence, both him and Nunnally are offered both food and clothing, but he is insistent on providing everything himself - he washes all their clothes, and buys their food with coupons in town, despite being beat up by the other boys there for being Britannian. He’s distrustful towards everyone there (before later warming up to Suzaku) and hypersensitive for any possible threat to Nunnally’s safety. In my opinion, it’s evident Charles’ words had an impact on him. When Suzaku asks why he is so hellbent on refusing help, he responds with: “I’ll live by my own strength, and I won’t be dead any longer!” Through caregivers, children learn what to expect from the world and their own place in it - in Lelouch’s case, he clearly sees the world as an unsafe place with few people to truly trust, and considers himself only worth something if he is entirely independent. Although independence is often seen as a “mature” trait in children and therefore indicative of “good” development, healthy dependence and attachment in childhood is crucial for the facilitation of later healthy independence. And unlike Nunnally (who has him), he doesn’t have anyone to rely on and turn to for his security.

Diverting slightly from the topic at hand, I think this highlights the interesting narrative role of C.C. as the closest thing Lelouch has to a caregiver proxy. I am in no way trying to imply she is outright maternal towards him, but she’s of help and offers practical and sometimes emotional support - a role no other person in Lelouch’s life really fills. I already explained why Nunnally isn’t a possible candidate, and Suzaku, while an important figure in Lelouch’s life, has his own essay-worthy plate of parental problems to deal with. Additionally, their whole enemy situation doesn’t make him someone Lelouch can reliably turn to for comfort and support. C.C however, is older, wiser, more “stable”, and seems to know how to offer emotional support in a way that somewhat calms Lelouch down. In turn, he occasionally tries to reach out to her in difficult situations (or at least he gives into having breakdowns in front of her), which he doesn’t seem to do with anyone else. If only she’d intervened when he was a child instead of just standing there dramatically in the background. But alas.

V. Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Differential Susceptibility

Earlier, I briefly mentioned Nunnally being the one most harmed by Marianne’s death. She was younger when it happened, more directly involved, and experienced a greater loss of function as a result which altered her lifestyle significantly. Based on this, I could easily argue that the incident would have far more damaging implications for her long-term psychological well-being compared to her older brother. I could, but I won’t, because it didn’t. Despite all these risk factors present in Nunnally’s case, their mother’s death seems to have made far more of a long-term impact on Lelouch. We’ve already discussed the most important reason why: Lelouch providing Nunnally with protective care associated with a secure parent, thus functioning as a buffer for her trauma. In this section, I’d like to discuss another important factor, interacting with attachment security: namely, differential susceptibility (also sometimes called responsiveness for care).

When we meet Lelouch in the beginning of Code Geass, he feels stuck and utterly powerless in his situation. He gambles on chess to pass time, but feels otherwise bored, restless and detached from his environment. When he receives the power of Geass from C.C., it gives him what he claims he wanted all along - a tool to take control of his life, get revenge on those who wronged him and actually do something. Thus, a plan to overthrow the Britannian Empire is formed and set into motion. The main targets seem to be the royal family as he struggles to systematically take down the empire and search for information - once he meets his brother Clovis, he shoots him (seemingly) without much hesitation. As time goes on, he sacrifices more and more time and energy to his obsessive goal, while his web of lies and various interpersonal becomes increasingly difficult to manage. There is a reason his character is often compared to the likes of Light Yagami (despite them having completely opposing ideologies, but that’s an essay topic for another day) - his arc follows the same downward spiral pattern, where one thing leads to another and suddenly you’re up to your ears in civilian casualties. It’s obvious Lelouch hasn’t accepted, gotten over, or forgiven his family in the slightest, and takes this anger out on those he perceives wronged him in search of an answer.

Meanwhile, Nunnally doesn’t exhibit anything close to this kind of grudge. She seems upset whenever it is brought up, but otherwise seems to have made peace with what happened and ready to forgive her family. One might argue this comes down to a difference of opportunity - Nunnally doesn’t exactly have the power of Geass, or even functioning eyes of the non-mind control variety, so it might be a bit more difficult to get certain things done. Such as killing off most of the Britannian royal family. However, even before Lelouch got the power of Geass, he expressed a wish to destroy Britannia for what they did to him and his sister. So, unless Nunnally has some secret desire to kill that was just never mentioned (in which case this whole essay is null and void, I suppose), Lelouch seems to be coping with his trauma in a much more maladaptive way than his sister, turning his sadness and feelings of rejection into anger and resentment, which ended up staying with him pretty much until the day he died.

Reach your arm out and grab the stars or whatever that quote from LoGH is.

Based on this, I’d argue Lelouch is what one might call a flexible strategist. This doesn’t refer to his military tactics (although he seems pretty flexible with those as well) but simply means that, for better and for worse, he’s relatively sensitive to factors and people in his external environment. On one hand, he seems to flourish in environments where he gets support. During his childhood in the Imperial Palace, he seemed to mostly get along with and care about his siblings (as mentioned earlier). He was also by all accounts a very bright child - he did say he never managed to beat Schneizel at chess, but to give Lelouch some credit here, Schneizel at the time would have been an adult man in his early 20s, while Lelouch was, like, 7. The fact he even stood a chance is fairly impressive. I do not want to argue chess ability is the ultimate measurement of childhood functioning, but my point here is this: he seemed to be on a decent developmental path, both cognitively and socially, all things considered. On the other hand, he tends to react poorly whenever something goes wrong. I’ll talk about this in more depth in the emotional development section, but tl;dr: Lelouch is a very volatile character, who tends to have very high highs and low lows.

While Lelouch seems to be more “formable” by both positive and negative environmental influences, Nunnally is more of a so-called fixed strategist. She, like Lelouch, seemed to be in a decent place before the incident, had a period of acting out after her trauma (throwing tantrums etc.), but got “back on track” through Lelouch fairly quickly. She seems more forgiving of her family, for example when she is instantly supportive of Euphie’s special administrative zone (which Lelouch has a very ambivalent relationship with). Towards the endgame in S2, she even aligns herself with Schneizel. As her arc goes on, she shows herself more and more capable of functioning without Lelouch’s help, and make decisions of her own, based on her own opinions. Her outlook on the world seems to be much more down-to-earth and less black and white. Even when her own brother (the only person she’s been able to rely on for most of her life) geasses her and literally leaves her lying on the floor, she tries to reason with him. This is obviously just speculation, but I think had something similar happened to Lelouch he would have, psychologically speaking, completely lost it (in fact, he does lose it multiple times, which I’ll also get back to). Additionally, from the glimpse we see of Nunnally with Suzaku after Zero Requiem, it seems like she’s been able to cope relatively well with her brother’s death. In general, she seems to find her feet much easier than Lelouch and is more stable across situations.

To summarise everything so far: I’d argue neither Charles nor Marianne were secure caregivers for Lelouch and Nunnally. This is implied not only by their traits and actions, but can be inferred from Lelouch’s maladaptive developmental path. The reason we see this pattern develop in Lelouch but not Nunnally is that he, through parentification, functioned as a buffer for her. Furthermore, this difference in trajectories is amplified by their different underlying susceptibilities - Lelouch more sensitive/formable by negative events and loss in general, while Nunnally is more resilient. From this point on I’ll focus mainly on Lelouch, and discuss how this magnificent cocktail of risk factors explain his developmental outcomes as an older teenager - in particular, how it shines through when it comes to his emotionality, identity, and goals/motivations.

VI. Thunder in Our Hearts: Emotional Development and Interpersonal Relationships

Lelouch frequently throughout the series, for lack of a better term, loses his absolute shit. For example, in the scene where he plays chess with Mao in S1 E16, he screams and dramatically falls backwards when the last piece is thrown onto the scale. He’s completely devoid of expression, and is well and truly out of it until Suzaku arrives. He ends up in a similar state of mind when he thinks Nunnally is killed in S2, where it seems like he’s completely detached from his surroundings - just repeating that he wants to speak with her. In addition to these dissociative-esque states in response to extreme stress, he has lesser breakdown and outbursts as well, such as: after Shirley’s father dies, after the incident with Euphie, when he’s flipping out at Rolo upon seeing his phone locket, etc. Additionally, he’s been shown to take stress and anger out on other people in the (kinda hilarious) scene where he goes to an abandoned street to use his Geass on random people, making them dance as he stands there being angsty. These bursts of emotion don’t exclusively concern negative situations either, as evidenced by his multiple periods of manic laughter and monologues during battle.

I once read this Geass analysis claiming Lelouch is an unemotional character. As evidenced by these screenshots, that was a correct take and not inaccurate at all. Emotions? Where?

In addition to being fairly emotional, Lelouch’s character is also very centered around the people in his life. His mother and sister are the primary motivation through the series. He uses Nunnally’s well-being to justify his actions. He let’s C.C. comfort him. He cares greatly about Shirley, and is devastated at her father’s death (though one can only assume he feels a bit better after punching a wall in the shower), to the point where he erases her memory to spare her the suffering he’s bringing by getting her involved. He obviously deeply cares about Suzaku (again - essay for another day), and orders him to keep on living no matter what, despite him being the number one obstacle for Zero’s plans. If he expresses this affection in a reasonable way is another question entirely - his main way of expressing his love for Nunnally seems to be killing thousands of people for her sake, Shirley by erasing her memory, and Suzaku by forcing him to live on at any cost, which is the exact opposite of what he wanted.

He also has a recurring pattern of requiring a lot of external emotional regulation through other people. Nunnally is the most obvious example of this (obviously) -  whenever something goes slightly wrong, he usually defaults to screaming about her, and becomes absolutely devastated whenever she’s unsafe. If Lelouch functions as her buffer, I’d say she’s her crutch. He heavily leans on her for justification and a purpose in life. But, these maladaptive ways of leaning on people also occurs with other characters, such as in the scene with Kallen in the warehouse where he’s about to inject himself with refrain. Kallen takes the needle from him and throws it on the ground, and he reacts by walking towards her asking her to console him - saying “there are things a woman can do for that, right?”. Kallen promptly (rightfully) slaps him, and he seems to regain his senses.

The most frequently repressed scene by all Lelouch fans.

In summary, I’d argue Lelouch is the complete opposite of an unemotional or uncaring character. He often seems to struggle with controlling his (plethora of) emotions in healthy ways, and copes with them either through completely shutting things out, having frequent breakdowns, lashing out on others, or using people as emotional crutches. He’s also very centered around other people, but tends to express it in less-than-appropriate ways, and goes on about things in an almost childish way, at times. This, I think, is indicative of his insecure attachment and lack of sensitive caregivers. In contrast to Nunnally, who had him, he didn’t have anyone to provide safety and externally regulate his emotions, meaning he was never able to internalise such strategies. Thus, there is a pattern of unhealthy (lack of) regulation of emotional states, leading to these stark contrasts between high and low points, and the quite bad ways he deals with them. Years of stress, repressed restlessness and unhealthy coping mechanisms for trauma certainly didn’t help either. Put simply - he’s a bit emotionally immature, and this is a significant aspect of his character.

VII. Reflektor: Identity and Projection

One of the most prevalent motifs in  Lelouch’s arc, save for the chess symbolism, is the theme of masks and a fragmented identity. Throughout the series, he uses different identities to fill different roles in his life: Lelouch vi Britannia the prince, Lelouch Lamperouge the student, Zero the terrorist/freedom fighter and eventually Lelouch vi Britannia again, the tyrannical 99th Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire. This switch is the most obvious display of the fragmented identity theme, as he is quite literally changing his name and masquerading as different people. With his Zero persona he even puts on a literal mask to conceal his face, but he also uses subtler, figurative masks for his other personas in order to achieve various goals. Additionally, there are also subtler role shifts at play within these identities: Lelouch Lamperouge exists  as Nunnally’s caregiver, a student council member, Suzaku’s childhood friend, etc. (as with all people, fictional or not).

It is here his main ideological conflict with his parents arises. Charles and Marianne wants, through their Ragnarök plan, to abolish all “masks” and fuse mankind into one collective unconscious. Their reasoning is that if everyone were honest and there were no separation between people, the world would be a better place. Lelouch, however, finds the concept of identity masks useful and even defines himself by them. This is clearly shaped by his own experience - in order to survive in Area 11 and protect his sister, he had to change his name and lie. In order to gain real power and influence to overthrow Britannia, he had to change his name and lie. This modus operandi goes straight to the heart of his identity, because it is the reason he is able to exert his will over the world in any meaningful way - which, as we discussed earlier, is the reason he is “not dead any longer”. His core idea is that those who are privileged enough to be able to tell the truth about themselves, have no right to deny others the right to lie for their own survival or to achieve their goals.

Carl Jung arguably had a much more significant impact on anime than he did psychology. Actually, this isn’t even arguable.

Another, subtler way the series conveys the theme of fractured identity is Lelouch’s projection of desires and wishes onto others. This is shown quite literally through how the Geass gives him the power to command anyone to do anything. But not only does he impose his will onto others through verbal command, he also projects his more abstract goals and desires into the people in his life. Again, Nunnally is the most obvious example of this: Everything he does, he claims is for the sake of Nunnally. It’s interesting he never outright says that he wanted to do any of this for any personal reason - it’s all about a kinder world for Nunnally, Nunnally’s smile, and how their parents abandoned them. In the final confrontation with Charles and Marianne, Suzaku asks him if he used Nunnally as an excuse to justify his actions. Lelouch confirms this, and then says he fought to protect everything he wanted to protect. Still, he never mentions he feels rejected, or that he would want to grow older in a kinder world, even though it’s obviously more his own wish than hers (as Nunnally mentions during Zero Requiem, she would have been happy just being with her brother). In a way, he considers himself two steps removed from his desires - only working against Britannia on the basis of what he imagines the people in his life would want him to do.

Lelouch also has a tendency to view his own identity(-ies) through abstract symbols, rather than as a concrete human being with a backstory, grudges and motivations. In exile he expresses frustration at being a pawn of Britannia, as Zero he functions as a faceless symbol of Japanese liberation and a rebellion against the establishment, and as Emperor he aims to become a symbol of people’s hatred towards their oppressors. Even the orchestration of his life’s ending is primarily a symbolic act to him; with the world’s hatred focused on a tyrannical Emperor, the world can be peaceful when that symbol disappears. Lelouch seems very aware of this himself: that he is past the point of no return, and destined to become someone who will bear the burden of sacrificing his own identity, morals and character to play a part. He, in a way, seems more comfortable in this realm of abstraction - in being more of a symbol. However, if we try to strip away his rather grand narrative for a second, we’re left with a person committing suicide at 19 because he thinks the world will be a better place for it.

Black king captures e1, checkmate.

VIII. Pity the Child: Politics and Spite

Lastly, I want to make the argument that the parental abandonment Lelouch and Nunnally experienced, and the subsequent cascade of issues is the most important aspect of the series. Even more so than the central ideological conflict of working against versus within systems of oppression. As I’ve already touched on a fair bit, I think Lelouch’s circumstances growing up and the experiences arising from that was the very foundation for his later ideology and hatred for Britannia, rather than his ideology in and of itself being the reason he hates his parents and the system they represent. This is best represented by the climax of the scene with Charles and Marianne in C’s world, where Lelouch speaks not of systems of power, racism, oppression, politics, etc. - he speaks of abandonment and hurt.

In my opinion, there’s reason to question whether he would have gone to the same lengths to destroy Britannia if he’d not been exiled from the system himself. In one of the picture dramas from his summer in Japan as a child, he lectures Suzaku on Britannian and Japanese foreign trade policy, making the argument they’re both unethical. This indicates he already knew of and disagreed with the actions of Britannia, but it’s only after he’s exiled and war is declared on Japan he begins talking about enacting revenge. Additionally, he has some truly magnificent displays of hypocrisy throughout the series that (in my unpopular (?) opinion) puts Suzaku to shame. Even the very act of him using Geass is contradictory to his fundamental belief: that opposing a well-intentioned act upon others is no different from an evil act. During their confrontation, he is very concerned with expressing this ideology to his parents, before promptly turning around and making his brother a geassed slave forever, two episodes later.

Not to completely undermine his ideological streak; I do genuinely believe he is anti-Britannia, and I do genuinely believe he values personal freedom highly. However, based on everything discussed so far, I’d argue he would perhaps not have cared as much, or at least been more open to a more Suzaku-esque approach, had he not had deep personal trauma connected to the whole situation as well. So, his main motivation isn’t to “bash the fash”, as it were, but rather bash these few specific fash who traumatised him and his sister before shipping them off to a foreign country they then immediately declared war on. Revenge, spite, and pure, childish anger towards a family that wronged him is a much more useful lens through which to view the series, rather than an ideological conflict per se.

IX. The Conclusion Bit, Finally

To summarise this entirely too long essay, Lelouch and Nunnally both suffered from insecure attachment and later trauma and parental abandonment. Nunnally’s main protective factor/buffer for this trauma was Lelouch, which gets her “back on track” towards becoming an emotionally stable and independent girl. Her brother, however, doesn’t have anyone to fill this role, and this cascades into dysfunctional behaviour and strategies across different domains: his trust issues as a child, obsession with revenge, immature emotionality, poor handling of stress, projecting onto others, and a fragmented concept of his own identity. Lastly, I think these personal issues constitute the crux of his motivation throughout the series - Lelouch’s arc is about trauma, parental neglect and spite more than it ever was about politics.

#code geass #lelouch vi britannia #lelouch lamperouge #nunnally vi britannia #@ everyone who's ever wanted to read a Long essay on code geass and developmental psychology: you're welcome #I hope some of it is understandable or even interesting #my essays #.........that's a VERY optimistic tag but I feel like I have to tag it with Something #analysis

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 109: Last One Out of Beach City

“What if I told you that the world was gonna end, and you had fifteen minutes to spend with me or your friends?”

Steven and the Stevens and Hit the Diamond are my two favorite episodes of Steven Universe for reasons I’ve written about at length, but beyond encapsulating the essence of the series and characters and all that, it should be noted that they’re just plain fun. Last One Out of Beach City is smaller in scale, zeroing in on one of the show’s earliest defined relationships and basking in its evolution from a feud to a deep friendship, so it’s harder to use as a stand-in for the show as a whole. But even if it isn’t my third-favorite episode of the series, it stands hand in hand with my top two when it comes to the charm factor.

Last One Out of Beach City is a delight from start to finish. Jesse Zuke’s legendary “Bad Pearl” sketch comes to life in the best way imaginable, and Deedee Magno Hall solidifies her place as my MVP of a killer lineup of voice actors. Actual human being Mike Krol gets tossed into this alternate universe like it was nothing. Crimes are committed. Swears are censored by screeching tires. Juice is spat. Cups, spilt.

This is the promise of Zuke’n’Florido’s brilliant opening sequence of Beta fulfilled: Steven and some Gems hanging out not for half an episode, but an entire one. It’s got sight gags aplenty, supplementing some of the best comedy writing in the series, mixed with the soul-warming joy of watching characters we love getting along. So lest I just turn this review into gushing about individual jokes and lines and moments, let’s dive into why each character we see is terrific, starting with the scofflaw herself.

Last One Out of Beach City does for Pearl what Back to the Moon does for Amethyst and Mindful Education does for Garnet: we see the result of her character growth in Act II, and even if the Mystery Girl looks a lot like Rose, it’s still a huge step forward for our lady of perpetual mourning to develop a crush on someone new (and to be so low-key polite to Greg). The romantic subplot alone could drive an episode, but Pearl gets so many more hats than “girl with a crush” here: she’s a nerd, a badass, a criminal, and a middle-aged mom all at once. She vacillates between genuinely cool and desperately uncool until she fuses these extremes together to become a confident square; it’s perhaps Deedee Magno Hall’s best Pearlformance that doesn’t include singing, and that’s saying a lot. Between her voice acting, the lines themselves (“This is why we buckle up”), and the sheer sense of catharsis from seeing her choosing to move forward with her life, this is my favorite Pearl episode. And that’s saying a lot.

Pearl has always had a weird relationship with humanity. She's distant from modern culture compared to Amethyst, and her misunderstandings about human stuff is often played for laughs, but she’s also a crack car mechanic and is enamored with human concepts like knighthood. She’s not completely removed from society, but chooses not to engage unless something in particular catches her fancy. So it’s fascinating to see her associating moving forward with performing more human activities; she’s embracing Earth as it is, not as it was when the Gem War was raging, and she’s not letting lingering envy from Rose’s love of humans like Greg get in her way.

The reason this works so well is that it’s clearly performative, rather than an actual sudden personality shift. She’s still a homebody who likes puzzles and hanging out with her kid. She’s still snooty, both with her friends (dismissing the idea that anyone could be nostalgic for something as “new” as suburbs) and with her crush (“By the way, I saved your planet and your species and you're welcome”). And she’s still nervous as all get-out, but brave enough to push forward anyway.

Pearl’s maternal nature isn’t ignored, but used as fuel for her attempt at rebirth. There’s a huge difference between an awkward person putting themselves out there for the first time and a semi-retired hellraiser who, after settling into a comfortable groove, seeks to relive her glory days. She’s been dwelling on the negative for so long that she feels out of touch with her adventurous side, to the point where wearing pants and drinking juice is adventurous, but because we know Pearl so well by now we can actually appreciate how big of a deal these minor accomplishments are for her.

While it’s refreshing to see Pearl moving on from Rose, it’s perhaps even greater to see how far her relationship with Amethyst has come. While their longstanding rivalry softened during the Week of Sardonyx, we haven’t gotten them alone together since, and it just feels so nice to see Amethyst ribbing Pearl with that extra burst of sisterly affection, and Pearl loosening up enough to not take every slight personally.

As with Pearl, Amethyst works here because her personality hasn’t been erased; again, she’s still ragging on Pearl. The plot gets rolling because of Amethyst’s well-established fascination with humanity, and Pearl’s decision to see the show is prompted in part by wanting to impress Amethyst, something she never would’ve cared about in Season 1. And for all her teasing, Amethyst encourages Pearl every step of the way, not just out of solidarity but because she’s legitimately impressed.

And in a world where Pearl and Amethyst are egging each other on, Steven has to step up and be practical. I appreciate that his sense of responsibility and realism doesn’t make him a jerk or a brat, but more of a peer than ever among his fellow Crystal Gems. When pointing out the pink-haired elephant in the room, he’s not condemning or teasing Pearl: he’s just clearing the tension, and showing that he’s more aware of the situation than a younger Steven might have been. In this episode, Steven is the friend who looks for a gas station when his buds are freaking out about running out of fuel.

By now Steven feels comfortable with his place in the team, and with his relationships with Amethyst and Pearl as individuals. A version of this episode placed earlier in the series might’ve been about Pearl and Amethyst fighting for his attention, or Steven vying for attention from either of them, but by now he’s happy to do a puzzle with Pearl and to go to a concert with Amethyst, and there’s zero conflict. Immaturity shouldn’t be a go-to character beat anymore, and I love that Steven is acting his age.

Mystery Girl turns out to be more of a device than a character, as we never see her again. But I honestly think that’s fine; what matters is that Pearl is willing to put herself out there, and the result isn’t a new relationship with a new love interest but a new relationship with humanity. The Pearl of Bismuth Casual, hanging out with a posse of human friends and showing off her Gem powers with glee, owes everything to the Pearl of Last One Out of Beach City, and thus everything to Mystery Girl. Perhaps they had a thing at some point. Perhaps they still do have a thing. We don’t know, because Pearl has new hobbies outside of being a Crystal Gem, and that’s the victory.

An in terms of the show’s greater plot, if our new friend never gave Pearl her number, Pearl never would’ve gotten a phone, so A Single Pale Rose never would’ve happened. Perhaps one day he would’ve learned the truth, but certainly not before Yellow and Blue Diamond arrived to wage war on the planet. So thanks for saving the world, Mystery Girl!

The use of music from our universe lends Last One Out of Beach City a uniquely realistic tone compared to the rest of the series; perhaps any such music would do the trick, but a garage rocker is an apt choice for setting a grounded mood. We get a glimpse of Greg’s life outside of being a dad, as he socializes not only with Amethyst but Barb and Vidalia. The car chase lurches to reality when we learn that Pearl doesn’t have a driver’s license, and explicit references are made to the DMV and Pearl’s citizenship. It’s like knowing Steven’s exact age, or having Greg break his leg in Ocean Gem instead of getting a nondescript injury, or hearing Dr. Maheswaran describe PTSD using terms like “cortisol”: these concrete details make these characters feel more like real people. And considering this is a character-centric episode in a show where characters are pretty much always at the center anyway, that realism gives us a deeper connection to what our heroes are going through.

Pearl is by no means a teenager, and the critical element of reclaiming her mojo muddles direct comparisons to a teen protagonist, but the emotional honesty of Last One Out of Beach City makes me feel nostalgic, and not just for the suburbs. Driving around, not quite following the rules, and bouts of chasing meaning when you’re not as interested in traditional adolescent social activities? Those were my teenage years. I don’t always miss them, but this episode brings out the best of my memories.

There’s really not much else to say. I could spend another few paragraphs incoherently gushing about the writing and the animation and the voice work, but I promise the time you’d spend reading that would be better spent rewatching the episode. While I maintain my comparison to Beta, Last One Out of Beach City does stand in opposition to Peridot’s first Meep Morp: it has no functional purpose, it just makes me feel good.

Future Vision!

I already brought up how Mystery Girl’s number prompts A Single Pale Rose, but that episode itself shows that Pearl’s a lot slicker than she thought she was. That’s a lot of codes!

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

Not sure why we get a Halloween-themed promo for an episode that has nothing to do with Halloween and aired in early September, but this is me not complaining about that. (Apparently it’s actually a reference to a Japanese tradition but I don’t watch enough anime to know more about that.)

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It’s not my third favorite, but this episode is really high up there. The cream of the crop are episodes that give me the purest emotional reactions: Mirror Gem nails dread, Lion 3 and Alone Together embody two different kinds of wonder, and Steven and the Stevens, Hit the Diamond, and Last One Out of Beach City just make me unspeakably happy.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

When It Rains

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

#last one out of beach city #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

[malmor3-blog]

Vipassana

I participated in a vipassana meditation course at the Kancana retreat center in western Thailand in Khao Laem National Park. I applied through dhamma.org a couple months in advance, as courses fill up quickly. From what I experienced, it was basically a crash course in the Buddha's practice and teachings. The course is 10 days of complete devotion to the meditation technique; in silence with no eye contact or physical contact with anyone else (besides the staff when necessary), no writing, reading, music, or personal sacred objects (amulets, crystals, rosaries, pictures of spiritual figures, etc.), separation of sexes except in the meditation hall, no offensive or disruptive clothing (long pants and at least t-shirt); just you, your body, and your mind - just as the Buddha had. Every 10-day course around the world is the same, with audio recordings from the course's creator, S.N. Goenka, that guide and instruct participants of what to focus on during each meditation. The course is designed to imitate the life of a monk for 10 days which is why all Goenka courses are free, as monks don't interact with money to avoid the distraction and impurity of greed (among other reasons). We were spoiled with incredibly delicious vegan meals for breakfast and lunch with wide diversity of flavors, ingredients, and styles including rice dishes, noodle dishes, soups, satays, salads, deep fried and steamed tubers, fresh fruit (papaya, watermelon, mango, banana, etc.), desserts, coffee and tea, and much more. Every participant got their own dorm style room, each with a toilet, shower, and fan.

5 precepts every participant must agree to during vipassana:

1. no killing any being

2. no stealing

3. no lying

4. no intoxicants

5. no sexual misconduct

No killing was really the only difficult one for me, it was difficult to trap the mosquitoes in my room and release them outside, and with so many ants it's near impossible to not squish some on occasion. I think it's intention that matters here.

The technique:

Every meditation session had an underlying motivation of becoming aware and witnessing the immediate physical sensations and thoughts that enter the body/mind (whether uncomfortable, pleasant, or neutral), recognizing the truth of their nature - impermanent, passing, changing - and keeping an 'equanimous' mind as to not react to their stimulation with wanting to hold onto them (craving) or wanting them to go away (aversion). The reaction to these sensations and thoughts are seen by the Buddha as impurities of the mind, bred from fear, hate, anger, or greed, all of which spawn from ignorance of the truth. The first 4 days were dedicated to quieting and sharpening the mind to prepare for the final 6 days of the actual vipassana meditation technique.

0 day - orientation, deposit phone/wallet/books, night sit and begin noble silence

1 - bring attention to the natural, uncontrolled breath to concentrate the mind

2 - bring attention to the sensation of breath moving through the nose and nostrils

3 - bring attention to the sensation of air moving past the area where the nostrils meet the upper lip

4 - continue sharpening the mind, focusing on upper lip area, then learn vipassana: bring attention to sensations on every area of skin, starting at top of head, moving around scalp, face, neck, shoulders and arms, hands, fingers, chest, torso, back and sides, legs, feet, toes, and all other areas

5 - practice vipassana, scanning body for sensations top of head to toe tips

6 - scan body from head to toes, then toes to head. Introduce "strong determination" - 3 times a day during group meditation do not change seated position for 1 hour straight (do not unfold legs, open hands, or open eyes). STONE BUDDHA MODE!

7 - scan body symmetrically, simultaneously head to toe, toe to head

8 - move attention quickly throughout body in 'free flow' including inside of body, piercing awareness through the body from front to back/side to side, then scan body each individual part

9 - same as 8th day, aiming to experience 'bunga' - dissolution of the body/mind

10 - join in meditation hall for 3 group strong determination sits, learn "metta" meditation (developing love for all beings), socialize and go to book store, donate to retreat center

 Daily schedule:

4am wake

4:30-6:30 meditation in hall or room

6:30-8 breakfast and break time

8-9 mandatory meditation in hall

9-11 meditation in hall or room

11-1 lunch, questions for teacher, break time

1-2:30 meditation in hall or room

2:30-3:30 mandatory meditation in hall

3:30-5 meditation in room or hall

5-6 tea break

6-7 mandatory meditation in hall

7-8:30 teacher discourse

8:30-9 practice new techniques

9-9:30 questions for teacher, bed

 Every night after practice, there would be a talk by the creator of the course, video recordings of Goenka from the 80's to bring context and intellectual understanding to the courses. Although he is no longer with us, Goenka is an extremely gifted teacher and speaker, full of compassion, humor, and wisdom. I found incredible value in the discourses he provided, almost as much as the practice itself. I learned that Buddha is not a specific person, it is a title meaning "enlightened" or "awakened" one. From what I gathered, being enlightened is to be permanently free from the craving and aversion of the human mind, free from suffering, from the mental impurities of greed, hate, anger, fear, and ultimately ignorance; someone in full and constant awareness of the truth of the impermanence of all matter and has nothing but pure, unconditional love for all reality. Many people have attained Buddhahood and many more likely will. 2500 years ago, in India, Gautama used this specific technique of vipassana meditation to reach enlightenment at age 35 and out of pure compassion, devoted the rest of his waking life to teaching the technique to everyone he could to relieve their misery and suffering. I learned that even lying on his death bed at 80 years old, he used his last remaining breaths to teach a man his technique, even when there was a massive line of people waiting to say goodbye and give their gratitude. Buddha didn't want people to just blindly trust that his words were true, he wanted them to put his truth to the test, like a scientist, and properly practice vipassana meditation to prove what he claimed was true. Vipassana's promise is a progressively peaceful and harmonious life, a path to freedom from the negativity associated with the constant discomforts and stresses of life, a path to true happiness through acceptance of the reality of the world right here and now.

 My experience:

I wanted to try a vipassana for many reasons. I saw it as a challenging and novel experience that would benefit me in the long run of my personal and professional life, as a means to experience consciousness from the most extreme sobriety and natural clarity of mind I could imagine, and to learn how to more clearly focus and better manage procrastination and distraction so I could better accomplish the goals I have for my life. I heard from many well-respected people of its significance and I wanted to put their compliments to the test. I had also been wanting to explore southeast Asia and figured if I did vipassana, I wanted to do it in an area with a majority Buddhist population (Thailand is ~95%). The timing and resources lined up perfectly so I took the opportunity to make the trip happen!

There were about 35 men and 65 women at my course. We had 3 primary facilitators and 2 teachers we could ask questions to. The vipassana center was located in the middle of the jungle on a beautiful landscaped slope, surrounded by dense greenery and the constant buzz of wildlife. It rained only a couple times while I was there but mostly was hot and sunny, and even though there were many fans in the meditation hall, almost every sit had me drenched in sweat. The ambient heat was the least of the difficulties though, as the internal heat was much more powerful. The heat of friction from my impure mind against my will to remain equanimous was a constant struggle (especially near the end of the sits, it was often like climbing a mountain, it gets steeper and more challenging the further you go). The heat in my joints as they ached to reposition. The heat in my muscles as they flexed to keep my back straight. If I let my back relax, my legs would get relief, but then my back would start to hurt. If I corrected my posture, my back pain would be relieved but my legs would start throbbing; it was a comical hell on many occasions. I did my best to not develop hate and anger at the situation nor develop greed and craving for pleasurable sensations, as the teaching requests.

 Although the teachers encouraged us not to torture ourselves, I wanted to push myself to withstand the discomfort, believing that maybe if the sensations were more intense, it would give me an advantage to dive deeper into the practice. On one sit, I experienced such excruciating pain I couldn't even focus on the practice, but I forced myself not to move until the end. After that sit, I asked the teacher if it was beneficial to make the practice more challenging and painful - she told me that any sensation can be used as practice to not react, so it does not matter the intensity or frequency of the sensations for improvement. After having that talk, I decided I would no longer try to induce pain and torture on myself, but make my sits comfortable enough to make it to the end while being able to effectively focus on the technique. It was after this that I experienced some real progress, entering into 'bunga' on one occasion - I rose above my body, all thoughts stopped, and I found my awareness in a space of infinite, timeless blackness; no noise, no sensation at all, just calm, still, unspeakable peace. It lasted probably about 5 minutes before the audio recording of Goenka's happy Sanskrit melodic singing erupted into the hall's silence, which brought me back to the room, although I still experienced a 'lifted' sensation above my body and outside of  the pain in my legs until the end of his 5 minutes of singing that concluded the meditations.

During a couple sits, I was able to reach a state of mind of authentic equanimity, where I was truly able to witness my painful joints and see the truth beyond them - that the pain is temporary, a type of illusion. Just by observing the pain and not taking it seriously, I watched it dissolve. It was like my pain was a raging fire and I was pouring water on it simply by looking at it with the eyes of fully present truth - not running away or trying to escape it, but fully facing the reality of the sensation and accepting the fact that I'm experiencing it, while fully understanding it will not last. This dissolving of pain didn't happen every time I tried by any means, but I found the more I practiced, the better I got at it. It was like I was untying the subconscious attachments and assumptions I had to keep my body safe while developing trust that I am safe regardless of the past fear conditioning of my mind that I’m in danger. Realizing what was taking place the first time I experienced this dissolving of my pain, I cried. I realized this is a tangible, legitimate, undeniable method to setting people free. I felt that I wanted to share it with everyone, everyone should know this peace, this true relief, this real psychological medication. I realized that we all suffer, we're all caught in the thrashing seas of craving and aversion, all day, every day, and if people knew what this practice could provide, they would benefit enormously and the world would be ever increasingly peaceful, loving, joyous, compassionate, tolerant, accepting, balanced, open, honest, harmonious, and healthy. This is true wisdom, which leads to true salvation, but it is only possible by continuous self-work.

 I cried many times throughout my stay. Some of joy, some sadness, bliss, confusion, compassion, frustration, gratitude. On the 2nd day I cried from missing my family and friends, their laughter and smiles. It was difficult realizing the daunting 8 more days ahead of disconnection from people. I felt alone and empty, but I knew I was in for the long haul no matter how I felt. I was open to feeling anything and I was able to even find joy in my sorrow, knowing that I had the quality of love I do in my life to miss so many beautiful people so greatly.

 I cried on the 3rd day from realizing that I had impurities in me. When I was 19, I experienced a period of existential terror for 9 months - constant panic attacks, falling asleep terrified of being alive and waking up equally fearful that I 'was' again. I have learned much about life, fear, and peace since that episode, and thought I had extinguished panic in me, but during one sit I experienced panic that I wouldn't be able to relieve the pain I was experiencing. That fear shook me. I went to my room and reflected on those months of my life and had to deal with the fact that panic still lives deep within me and I still have work to do to fully eradicate it from my being. I cried realizing my humanity, I was victim of all the impurities the Buddha had claimed. I had fear that the negative sensations wouldn't pass, I had anger and hate for the uncomfortable sensations, and greed for pleasant sensations. This reflection allowed me to prepare for the challenges ahead, I knew I would have to face these impurities every time I go to sit, but the sits are training for life, as life constantly brings up our impurities. I accepted my situation and had clearer direction of how to handle my emotions and impurities moving forward.

 During the discourse on the 5th night, Goenka talked about the moment the Buddha reached enlightenment and the first words he said coming out of his meditation were something like *taken from a google search*:  "Seeking but not finding the house builder, I traveled through the round of countless births. Oh, painful is birth ever and again! House builder, you have now been seen. You shall not build the house again. Your rafters have been broken down; your ridge-pole is demolished too. My mind has now attained the unformed nirvana and reached the end of every kind of craving." The Buddha basically found the root of his rebirths and decided he didn't want to be reborn again. This really broke my heart. I went to bed crying and was miserable and quietly sobbing to myself the entire next morning. I couldn't understand why a being of ultimate love, understanding, and bliss wouldn't want to experience earthly life again. I love being human, I love life here, I think this is the greatest gift imaginable, why would the mind I hold in the highest respect and trust not want to keep experiencing this? What do I not know? What could be better? I know this place is painful and disappointing, but I feel like that's a necessary condition for joy and peace; everything created must have an opposite. I felt like I would rather live with hurt and loss than to not live at all. Was this world not good enough for the enlightened one? I just couldn't understand. I talked to the teacher about it after lunch and she told me I'm thinking too much, that we're not enlightened so we don't know what exactly it means, just to focus on the practice and we may understand one day. I took it with grace and let my assumptions and confusions go and got back to work.

 On the 8th day, before tea break, I got the urge to leave the hall and go to my room. Now, I had tried practicing in my room earlier in the week but found I wasn't nearly as successful as practicing in the hall - I would end up laying down to raise my legs and end up falling asleep or getting distracted too easily, so I decided to keep all meditations in the hall. For whatever reason I followed this intuition to leave the hall and found myself in walking meditation, pacing outside my door. A couple minutes went by and it began to rain. Hard. Harder than I've seen in a long time. It was so intense, I was captivated by it, realizing that I was in the rain forest in Thailand and I'm experiencing the raw, living world before me. I was overwhelmed with joy to the point of tears, the pure beauty of it, enraptured in the experience of being a human, an animal, an observer in this ancient kingdom. I just wanted to dance in the downpour and celebrate its majesty. The rain’s intensity subsided and my emotions followed. I took a long time pacing to reflect on what the Buddha would have thought of that moment. Was what I just experienced bliss? It was a fleeting storm, yes, but I was completely found in awareness of the present moment there. My emotional state was intense, but it was in full acceptance with no craving for more rain when it passed. I thought that surely I was witnessing the event with Buddha eyes, as I had truly felt alive and truly IN that moment; but then again, my assignment was to be meditating in the hall and paying no attention to the outside world. I must remain agnostic to what the enlightened would have done, thought, or felt in that situation, but I'm extremely grateful to have had the experience.

 On the 9th night, we were taught about "metta" meditation, a short (approx 5 min) conclusion to each meditation that is intended to transform the challenging internal work one does during vipassana into pure compassionate love for the well-being of everything external to you. This is the other major benefit of vipassana - not only does it aim to bring true inner peace and harmony, but also recognizes that only through limiting the self of impurities can we better bring peace and harmony to the world. We work on bettering ourselves so we can better work with all of life's challenges. It was during this first metta session I felt the power of the peace I had cultivated in myself over the past week and fully embraced the mission to give my life to self-improvement with the greater mission to serve and improve every being, place, and situation I encountered. ‘The elevation of consciousness for the evolution of our species’, I thought. My hands in prayer position at my heart, tears falling down my face, I gave my highest gratitude for the dedication and contribution of the Buddha for undergoing such an incredible journey and spreading his findings, for Goenka's ambition and charisma to share Buddha's findings with the modern world, and for myself for taking the leap to experience it all.

 In all, vipassana was a wholly beautiful experience. I struggled to find the words to say on the 10th day when we were allowed to talk again with the group. I decided the words: 'ow' and 'wow' were the best representations of the week. It was strange talking again, and I hadn't had that much difficulty singing for as long as I can remember. Due to the rigid schedule, all the sweat I processed, the super clean vegan diet, fasting 18 hours a day, and the constant attention to the present moment, I can conclude I have never felt more sober and present in my life. Walking away from the vipassana I felt changed, and I wanted to continue the progress I had gained and keep practicing every day. The truth is I have not kept up on the hour every morning I ideally want, although I do make the time every once in a while, and when the thought comes to my head throughout the day, I'll focus my attention on my breath then do a little body scan to bring awareness to the present moment. I thought of a little mantra during one of my meditations that helped (although mantras were not allowed, I couldn't help it sometimes): ‘Posture, nostrils, thoughtless, watchful.’ I realized 'thoughtless, watchful' was kind of redundant, but I liked the rhyme. Simply 'posture, nostrils' taps my mind back into the meditation mode and I'm more easily in tune with this moment. Try it some time! Right now! 😉 I'll never forget Goenka's repeated lines of "anicca, anicca, anicca", which means 'passing' or 'changing' as a reminder that all physical sensations pass, and "equanimous mind, equanimous mind" to remind us to stay calm and non-reactive in the face of any change, craving, or aversion. Anicca is the truth, and peace comes when we accept the changing nature of reality. We must accept the truth of change or else we suffer. It's that simple. Do not run away from what you have in reality. We must openly face our fears, our past, our pains, our traumas, our emotions, our ignorance, our responsibilities, lest they conquer us and lead us to non-truth, suffering. Also, do not crave that which you do not have in reality (especially what you CAN'T have). Another body, a different family, past, or status, extra material objects, other emotions, lest they deplete your ability to find peace here and now. I'm still trying to find the balance and meaning of 'craving' and 'desiring'. We all have desire, we need it to survive and, actually, to do anything in the world. I read in a book along my travels through Thailand that the object of meditation is to align with the HEART'S desires, not the desires of the MIND. Food for thought. I think it's about happiness/joy; don't desire something so strongly it takes away your happiness. I call this 'conditional happiness': "I'll only be happy IF ______". "I'll only be at peace IF (insert external condition)". Buddha supposedly had infinite, ever constant peace and happiness, peace and happiness NO MATTER WHAT. Pure, unconditional love for all of reality. It may seem impossible, but that's the goal, and vipassana meditation is A journey to obtain it. The more practice, the closer to the goal you become. The Buddha said (something like), "don't take my words as truth, practice what I do and you will eventually say the same things." He was a type of spiritual scientist, observing the nature of mind, the nature of self with the microscope of awareness. No dogma, no rituals, no stories or metaphors. Just the observed human experience will lead you to the truth. It has to. We are nature, we are God, we are the Truth. Look hard and long enough and all will be revealed to you. That is the beauty of Buddhism. It does not put salvation in the hands of another; rather, it is ours to behold, our own responsibility to realize, here and now, but it takes time, effort, and grace to attain. Salvation, thusly, is not about believing that someone or something else will save you from suffering after death, but about saving yourself from your suffering here and now. You don't have to suffer in this life; in a way it is a choice, but we are ignorant to other possibilities. We CHOOSE to get angry, to fear, to crave, to avert, to react. The conditioning and mental wiring is deeply rooted from our past experiences and even the evolutionary scaffolding of our brains, but the truth is, with practice, we can change. We have the power to reconfigure the brain, our perceptions and assumptions of reality, our instilled unhealthy/negative thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and habits we've deemed appropriate; we can return to Eden before the initial craving took place, we can knock down the Pearly Gates and see heaven on Earth. You have the ability, you have the power, you just need the will.

 I’d highly recommend everyone try a vipassana course. You will see results: your mental health will improve, your relationships will improve, you will develop greater self-respect, self-love, inner peace, and compassion for your fellow sufferers. It doesn’t matter what age, religion, gender, identity you are, you will benefit. With great love and appreciation for your time and interest, I hope you enjoyed the read, may you and all beings be freed from their suffering. Let’s celebrate this incredible gift of life!!!

[theunderdogwrites]

Ghislaine Maxwell: Co-Conspirator or Victim?

There are a few things in this world that gross me out to my very core:

-          Children eating ice cream. Just no. More gets on their face than in their mouths and it activates my gag reflex and I must look away in horror. And someone get the hose because I am not touching any of it come clean up time.

-          Feet.  There are no words

-          Bestial older men who terrorize young women and under-age girls with sex and those who help them engage in lascivious behavior. Should this not be something that disgusts everyone?

My zodiac sign pegs me as more of a leader than a follower. I find this laughable, but some around me might argue that I am capable of taking the reigns, but not always the best at adhering to authority exerted by others. If I am challenging you for your position, it’s because you’re either a bully or a fucking senseless shitbag and I don’t want those around you subjected to your vast lack of insight. Because in reality, I am super happy to follow intelligent, respectful human beings and even behave myself. It means I can just smile and nod and day dream – my favorite pastime.

If you are not familiar with the name Ghislaine Maxwell, I still hope you cringe at the name Jeffery Epstein. Convicted sex offender and all-around sack of malevolent slime. Also, a coward. Also, unfortunately dead (either by his own hand *I don’t believe it* or snuffed out by some frightened people of great power *I believe this*) before he was able to be made someone’s bitch in prison. Such a tragedy when sex offenders / sex traffickers don’t live long enough in prison to be passed around and used like a cum dumpster. Sometimes the punishment SHOULD fit the crime.

There is plenty of information out there about Ghislaine Maxwell. Here are a few key points on her:

-          Her father was Robert Maxwell. He was a British media proprietor, a former member of Parliament (MP), a suspected spy, and a fraudster (having misappropriated the pension funds of his employees). Just to give you a good idea of who Robert Maxwell was: he was the inspiration for the villainous media baron Elliot Carver in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. I. Am. Jealous!

 -          Her father died in November 1991. He had boarded his 190-foot yacht, aptly name, Lady Ghislaine and found the next morning naked, spread-eagled and afloat in the Atlantic. Two autopsies could not conclusively prove a cause of death, but most say suicide because he was set to answer questions surrounding his corporation’s billion-pound debt load that was distributed among at least nine different international banks and investment firms, and the massive hole in its pension reserves. In simpler terms – he was fucked

 -          Robert Maxwell left his family in ruins. Ghislaine, his favorite child whom he groomed in his image from a young age, was understandably crushed

  -          Ghislaine is best known for being a socialite with immense connections among the international elite. It’s been stated that she was quite personable, a little bit quirky and therefore often a standout at parties; with many people being drawn to her. (Side note: I recently watched the HBO documentary on her titled, ‘Epstein’s Shadow’ and the tagline under ALL of the people they interviewed who knew her on a social level read, “former friend of Ghislaine Maxwell”. This just made me laugh. I’ve tried to envision the conversation where these people demanded that FORMER be included. Yes, quickly distance yourself from the stink less they think you too might smell bad)

  -          Depending on who you listen to, Ghislaine met Epstein in either the late 1980’s when her father introduced them (how apropos) or in the late 1990’s at a party in New York following a difficult breakup with a Count. I wonder what breaking up with a Count looks like, feels like. A Count is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, generally of average rank in the hierarchy of nobility. So basically, he’s not THAT special. But probably feels he is because, well, he has a title. Just imagine the insult you could hurl at him during the break-up: “Count von Count has a bigger penis than you!” *If you do not know who that is – just leave now because you’re shameful*.

 -          Epstein and Maxwell started out as a couple, but that morphed into more of a companionship / friendship / let’s rape young girls together type situation. You know, how most connections organically evolve.

 -          Ghislaine Maxwell has been accused of befriending minors and attempting to build a relationship with them, then later delivering them to Jeffrey Epstein to abuse. Maxwell would allegedly lure the young girls to Epstein’s residence under the guise of paid massage work. She’d target disadvantaged minors who she thought wouldn’t be able to refuse the money. Maxwell & Epstein allegedly lured slightly older women into their gross lives with the promise to assist in their careers.

 -          Additionally, Maxwell and Epstein have been accused of trafficking some of these girls out to their friends and associates among their extremely elite circle. Most notably, is Prince Andrew. Investigators have identified as many as 36 girls that were victims of Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking ring. Some of them - as young as 14. It’s believed there are many more victims yet to be identified.

 -          Following Epstein’s arrest in July 2019, the FBI started looking for Ghislaine. She went into hiding. Eleven months after Epstein’s “suicide” in prison on August 10, 2019, Maxwell was located. She was arrested in New Hampshire, where she was living a life of seclusion on a sprawling ranch.

 -          Ghislaine Maxwell faces federal charges including transporting a minor for the purposes of criminal sexual activity, and conspiring to entice minors to travel and engage in illegal sex acts. She is awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail. A trial that was to begin July 12, 2021 but has been delayed till the fall at the request of Maxwell.

 You now know all you need to know about Ghislaine Maxwell for the purposes of finishing this piece.

The HBO documentary poised a question and instead of answering it, they’ve pretty much left this viewer with repetitive thoughts and disrupted sleep while trying to answer that very question… ‘Ghislaine Maxwell, Co-Conspirator or Victim?’.

Victim: a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency / a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency

My first thought when this question came up: “Wow HBO, if I was a victim of Epstein’s depravity, I’d be so pissed at you right now. Daring to group in the woman accused (several times over) of basically being a fancy pimp and securing playthings for her rich, giant-faced brute and his pals, with the young women whose lives and brain chemistry (yes, I said that: see TRAUMA) have been forever altered by Epstein’s fuckery… BOLD”.

But that thought took me to this thought: “Ghislaine was a Daddy’s girl. And as we know, her dad was a fiend. It is repeated many times in print, that Robert Maxwell conditioned his daughter and corrupted her character. In some twisted way, there might be a case in which she is in fact, a victim. A victim of a severe patriarchal environment that started at a young age and was instrumental in forming her concepts of success, decency and love (given and received)”.

My mind then went straight to this:

 She was raised by a plump, rotten human being and most likely, wanted to please her dad… as most daughters often do, and perhaps never thought to question anything. How many of us are guilty of that?

Robert Maxwell passes (Ghislaine has maintained that he was murdered, but with no evidence to support her claims) and the now lost, without a compass Ghislaine, finds her way to Jeffery Epstein.

I think there is something to be said for what and who we attract into our lives. And for what and who we allow to stay in our lives. I’m just going to assume that the majority of people in this world do not willingly desire to attract destructive, soul sucking wankers into their lives, but have had to expunge a number of them from their existence. Full vision doesn’t always mean you are not blind. Love can be murky and really fuck up those rose-coloured glasses.

Co-Conspirator: A co-conspirator is a fellow conspirator - someone engaged in a secret plan by multiple people to do something evil or illegal

By this definition, Ghislaine Maxwell should be spending a great deal of the rest of her life in prison.

She saw bad stuff. She blinded herself to bad stuff. She facilitated bad stuff. She became the bad stuff.

If I was the prosecuting attorney, I might end with those four sentences. But make it all dramatic… throw in a brief pause after each one… maybe do the Bill Clinton “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” thumb gesture:

 On second thought, considering how intertwined he could be in all of this… I’d most likely just use the classier karate chop into the open palm to bring my points home:

 (Side Note: if you really hate your life, try a deep dive on active hand gestures and how they often provide social leverage)

 So, to finally answer HBO’s question: ‘Ghislaine Maxwell, Co-Conspirator or Victim?’…

As I was told numerous times in counselling… “You are not at fault for the things that happened to you when you were young and had no control. But as an adult, you can’t let those past experiences define you and your actions. If you do, then you are responsible for the things you do now”.

Fault is past tense. Responsibility is present tense.

Ghislaine is not at fault for how she was raised or groomed, but if she lured just ONE girl/woman into Epstein’s clutches to be raped and trafficked, then she is absolutely responsible and should be held fully accountable.

She was a victim who turned into not just a co-conspirator but also a lying coward.

I believe ALL the women.

#ghislaine maxwell #jeffery epstein #bill clinton #hbo #epstein's shadow

[teddy-bear-surprise]

Chapter 8: Agent Not Found

|| Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 Part 1 || Chapter 7 Part 2 || Chapter 8 || Almost The End || Chapter 9 ||

No warnings this time, I decided to take it easy because apparently 'SpeNCeR dEseRVEs A brEAk'… anywayyyyyy please enjoy this chapter that took way too long to write and that I'm too lazy to proofread :)

It had been nearly three weeks since Spencer had disappeared. The BAU was on high-alert, searching everywhere for their beloved boy-genius, but they seemed to be out of luck. Even with Garcia’s unparalleled digital tracking skills, they had found no trace of Spencer or Ophelia… anywhere.

What was even worse was that both Rossi and JJ were stuck at home pending reinstatement. Ophelia definitely wanted to do damage, there was no doubt about it, but not even the BAU had expected her to do this much. More than half of the S.W.A.T. team had died and JJ almost went along with them.

The only good thing that came from this mishap, was that they were now certain that Ophelia was the one they were looking for. Her face was plastered onto every TV screen, every social media ad, and every billboard across the Western seaboard. People called in every few hours telling them about how they were certain they had seen Ophelia. One minute they’d be called about a lead in Washington and moments later there would be a supposed sighting in San Diego. Every time, the same result confronted them: Failure.

In reality, she had been staying in Arizona the whole time. Her connections just happened to be so good that she never had to leave home or worry about traitors. Every man that worked for her was wrapped around her finger. They either owed her big-time or had something that they were terrified of losing. Ophelia had her ways of manipulating the people around her– one of the many perks that came with being what her mother used to call a ‘social genius’, but a larger portion of her talents could also be attributed to her ex-partner, Cat.

Back in Los Angeles, Hotch was incessantly going over the case. He felt like it was his fault that Spencer had been targeted. After Hailey took Jack with her to Pennsylvania, Spencer practically became a surrogate son for Hotch. He spent every waking moment ensuring that Spencer was both physically and mentally prepared for each new case, petrified that someday Spencer might relive the same pain he felt when he lost Maeve. Aaron blamed himself for everything that happened to Spencer, after all, Hotch was the agent in charge of the BAU and Reid was one of the many agents who worked under him. If he could not even protect Spencer– one of his own men– how could he protect anyone at all?

He felt like a failure for not asking Penelope to look further into Ophelia’s background or asking Spencer why he seemed so stiff when they were preparing to raid Ophelia’s homes. He should have dug deeper, all it would have taken was a question along with a few minutes and he would have discovered the years of history between Ophelia and Spencer. He would have realized that Spencer’s immaculate, eidetic memory was trying to suppress the time he had spent with Ophelia, hoping that she would have forgotten him. Now, however, the only things that Hotch could see in front of him were his own mistakes. Mistakes that he could have prevented.

As soon as they discovered that Reid was missing– and not dead as he had originally been presumed– they did a deep, deep dive into his and Ophelia’s past. The first connection that Garcia found was that they had attended the same high school. Initially, it was assumed to be a coincidence, but Emily– never believing in coincidences– asked Penelope to dig deeper into the matter.

They soon found mountains of records and articles that painted a picture of an inseparable duo. A duo that was bonded by their intelligence and trauma.

Two and a Half Weeks Ago

Prentiss spoke up in the silent conference room, directing her comment to Penelope who was waiting for instruction back in Quantico. “Hey, Penelope. I know we’ve all been having a rough time with Reid being gone for almost a week, but we figured it might be best to start at the very beginning. Since Ophelia had a very accelerated timeline, it might be beneficial to look into her high school or middle school years, those tend to be extremely marking… especially when someone’s as young as she was.”

To cover up the pain of missing her favorite genius, Garcia chirped. “I like the way you think, Em!”

Garcia began tapping away at her keyboard, not only pulling up Ophelia’s high school records but also comparing them with Spencer’s. “Okay, so there’s no overlap in middle schools, they attended middle schools on completely opposite sides of town. But, you know how our kid genius went to Shadow Ridge High School? Well, he wasn’t the only kid genius graduating from there in 1994… Ophelia did too, at the age of thirteen. Also, why do you guys think Ophelia went to the same public high school as Reid? It doesn’t really make any sense if you think about it… it could just be a coincidence, right?”

The whole team stopped in their tracks to look at Garcia’s face plastered on a big TV in the conference room. They were stunned, their eyebrows raised high and eyes widened.

“Penelope, can you try to pull up any records from the school? Local newspapers, scholastic competitions, all of that? It’s a long shot, but I think they knew each other.”

She looked up at Emily with hope in her eyes, “Yes! Of course, your wish is my command.”

Garcia searched frantically, unearthing piles of information that she had ignored before. She even discovered an article that explicitly described their friendship.

Las Vegas’ Own Mini-Einsteins: The Story of Spencer Reid and Ophelia Sutton

The article detailed how they met on their first day of high school, how they both tested out of higher-level arithmetic courses, and became the school’s best– and only– Science Olympiad team. They were both interviewed for the article and spoke about how life as child prodigies did not leave much room for childhood or friendship. They spoke of how miraculous it was that they were able to endure the situation together, a one in a million chance. By the end of the article, the interviewer was even privy to the details of where each of them was committed to college and how that decision drove a stake through their friendship.

Soon enough, Garcia had discovered dozens of the pair’s research papers ranging from topics of law to theoretical mathematics. Children who conducted research on the weekends and spent weekdays helping local teachers were not exactly the most likely contenders for murder, but Ophelia proved that assumption to be very wrong.

How did she miss something this big? All of the signs were so clear and obvious, but Penelope had missed every single one of them.

“Uh, Sir, please don’t get mad. But, they definitely knew each other. They had a looooooong history, and even if Ophelia didn’t realize it was Spencer, he surely would have remembered her.”

Hotch spoke sternly as he inquired, “Garcia, why did we not know this sooner?”

“I’m sorry, Sir. There was so much information about Ophelia that her high school education seemed trivial at the time. She had already done so much by then… I just… I-I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“From now on, every minuscule detail is relevant. Nothing is irrelevant. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” She looked down at her keyboard and felt guilt coursing through her mind.

Spencer would still be here if she had seen this sooner, wouldn’t he? Was it not her job to find every connection between the unsub and the world around them? It was. It had been her job to do the same with Ophelia and she failed.

Garcia lifted her perfectly manicured hand and hovered it over the call button before firmly pressing down to end the connection between herself and the rest of the team.

“I did this? Spencer’s gone. And it’s my fau–” Before Garcia could even choke out the last syllable, she burst into tears.

Despite her best efforts to quell her sadness, the tears only flowed faster and harder with each waking second. Her breath shuddered and echoed into the dark corners of the control room as tears splattered onto her keyboard. The perfect makeup that Garcia had done that morning was now ruined with dark mascara running down her cheeks. She rubbed her hands against her eyes to dry them, further smudging her eye makeup, and dragged them down her face, forgetting that she was wearing bright pink lipstick and it now covered her entire chin.

Garcia was, by all definitions, a mess, but she refused to let that stop her from finding Spencer. She got him into this mess and now she was going to fix it. She typed rapidly, checking off every missing box that she had originally failed to account for.

She pulled up employment, travel, and spending records from 1994 and beyond. Though there was not much information due to the lack of digitalization back then, Garcia was able to construct a much more detailed photograph of Ophelia’s past than she had before.

Pulling up a page on Ophelia’s Freshman through Junior year roommate, Garcia got to work.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Hi, Miss Glas? My name is Penelope Garcia. I’m a technical analyst with the FBI and I need to ask you a few things about your old college roommate, Ophelia Sutton. But first I do have to go over some routine questions.”

“Of course, whatever you need. And please, call me Margaret, what’s going on? Is Lia okay? Has something happened?”

Garcia, in her best attempt to be professional about the sensitive situation, spoke very officially to Margaret, “I’m afraid that I cannot tell you much about the situation at the present moment.”

The truth was that no one knew if Spencer was even in danger, but with no signs of life, they could only assume the worst. Worst case scenario, Ophelia was not going to stop killing or spare Spencer’s life and that could not happen. The team had already suffered so much loss in past years that losing their Reid was not an option, not today or tomorrow.

“So, Margaret, have you been in contact with Miss Sutton within the past six months? And if so, what was the nature of this contact?”

“Uhhh… no, actually. I haven’t spoken to Ophelia in years. I believe the last time we communicated must have been in 2000, it was a long time ago.”

“Wonderful. We can now get into the details and I can provide you with some more information on the situation. You should know that Ophelia is the primary suspect in a series of murders in California. I know that you both graduated a very long time ago, but any information that you remember about her, any details, could save many lives.”

“Oh my. That’s… that’s serious. Yes, of course, I’ll help. Is there anything specific that you’d like to know about Ophelia?”

“Let’s start with her general behavior and habits. So, basically, how was she as a student? Was she responsible? Was she a night owl? That kind of stuff.”

“Right, um. So, Ophelia was always a standout student, I mean she would stay after class to help professors all the time and ask them questions. They always loved her. She wasn’t very social though, she stayed in a lot. She would get up really early to do personal studying, though I never found out what it was that she was studying. Ophelia never was the kind of person to get into conflicts either, from what I could tell, she was a very morally upstanding kid. I’m just shocked that she could ever kill someone.”

“I understand, it’s a very tough thing to imagine. Especially when you knew the person. Did Ophelia ever talk about traveling? Or possibly extracurricular interests? Anything like that could also be very helpful.”

“She always talked about Alaska, Arizona, and Arkansas. I don’t remember the details, but I always figured it was just something to do with the names… they all started with ‘A’, that’s why I remembered. Other than that, she didn’t seem too interested in traveling. Extracurricular involvement for Ophelia was pretty sparse. I think she tried out Quiz Bowl for a few semesters, probably got bored after winning every time. I can tell you that the guys she competed against were not happy to lose to a teenager… She also opted to take the pistol course for her athletic requirement. I thought it was a strange choice for a 14-year-old, but I didn’t question it. Do you think she’s been planning this since then?”

“We don’t know at this point, it’s a bit too soon to jump to any conclusions, but I’m just trying to fully understand what she might do next and where she might be.”

“Yeah, I understand. Is there anything else?”

“Do you know if Ophelia kept in contact with anyone from outside of MIT during her time there?”

“I remember that she would call her best friend every Monday and Friday night, never got a name, unfortunately. I think they stopped talking after Sophomore year though, don’t know why.”

“Thank you so much, Margaret, you’ve been a tremendous help. If you remember anything else please don’t hesitate to call me back at this number and I’ll also keep in touch just in case. Have a great day.”

“No problem, you too.”

Garcia put down the phone, feeling slightly lighter and less stressed. It was barely any information, but it had already helped a great deal. She now understood Ophelia better as a person, and while there was not much to know, she hoped it would help her locate Ophelia and Spencer soon.

With the holidays coming up, Penelope wanted to ensure that Spencer would be able to celebrate with the team just like they always did. Together, like a family.

She swung her chair over to another monitor and started creating a digital evidence board. Garcia began with the obvious: Alaska, Arizona, and Arkansas. It was a weak lead, but it was a start.

“If I were trying to run away from the feds… where would I go? Arkansas is obsolete, but it’s too far to get to quickly. It would be too risky.”

She tapped her feathered pen against her chin as she thought. “Same thing for Alaska, it would be an ideal spot, but it’s not feasible, not on such short notice.”

“She has to be in Arizona. If she’s in any of these places, it has to be Arizona.” Bringing up a large map of Arizona, Garcia examined it carefully.

“If I were a murderous mastermind, where would I head? Not to a large city, I might get spotted. Too far into the desert and I might run into other problems. The suburbs–”

Garcia searched all Arizona suburbs, compiling a list of the most secluded ones. Arizona had over 90 towns, however, and the list of neighborhoods was even larger. Narrowing down each section by population density and available land, Garcia was able to suss out a few dozen contenders. The majority of them were located near Sedona, Bisbee, or Prescott. All of these towns were perfect for Ophelia, small enough that she could isolate herself, but still large enough for her to satisfy her distinct needs.

Kicking back in her rolling chair, Garcia stared at her computer screen. It was not often that she got stumped, and this case was one of the few that was getting to her. Garcia slipped her hands gently through her hair, frustrated and irate. One more clue and she would probably be able to pinpoint their exact location, yet that last, crucial clue seemed to evade her mind like oil in water. Knowing that she was on the brink of cracking the case drove her wild, and the rest of the BAU felt similarly.

Honestly, she was so close to the case– and Spencer– that she knew she should not even be working on it, but she also could not trust Kevin to find Reid. Sure, he was a good technical analyst, but he had nothing on Garcia’s years of experience on both the dark and light sides of the web. She knew that no matter what, she had to be the one to find him. At this point, she could barely even tell if this desire existed purely because she wanted to help spencer, or if it was to save her from the heaps of guilt that consumed her.

Garcia sat there for what seemed like hours contemplating life, death, and fear– all in the context of Reid’s capture, of course. She was drawn out of her trance, however, when she heard the line ringing on her headset. Assuming that the rest of the team would be on the other side, she composed herself and spoke with her usual, cheery voice. “Garcia speaking, how may I assist you?”

“Hey, Babygirl. How’s the search comin’ along? We just wanted to check in and see if you found anything that we can work with to narrow down our geographic profile.” She was ecstatic to hear his voice. Every time that they spoke, Garcia felt like she was being enveloped in a warm hug. He just had that kind of effect on her, he was the home she never found after her parents’ death… in summary, he was her person.

Garcia immediately felt her tension and stress being relieved and even became excited to share her newest findings. “Ohhhh, my Chocolate Thunder! It’s so good to hear your voice! I’ve compiled a list of places where I think Ophelia may be. They’re all in Arizona, and before you ask, there is a good reason for me choosing Arizona. One. Her old roommate said that Ophelia had an obsession with Alaska, Arizona, and Arkansas. Now, which one of those would make for an easy getaway from California? Arizona. Two. These towns are all isolated enough for her to keep out of the media’s view but large enough for her to replenish supplies and keep Spencer without drawing attention to herself… assuming that he is– as I hope– still alive. I know it’s a bit of a long list, but it’s the best I could do right now.”

The team’s tablets all chimed as Garcia sent over the file. It was a list of nearly sixty neighborhoods and they were scattered all over the state. Considering Arizona’s diverse topography, sending teams to check all of those locations would be nearly impossible so they still needed to narrow down the list. Luckily, that’s what the profilers were there for.

“Alright, Garcia. We’ll take a look at this list in a bit, before we go, is there anything else that you’ve found?” Hotch inquired.

“I have a few tidbits of extra information from when I spoke with Ophelia’s old roommate, but I’ll just send you a summary over email. Let me know if you guys need anything else, Garcia out!”

She hung up abruptly and with a flourish. If there was one thing about Penelope that was always constant, it was her energy.

Present Day

The team was constantly distracted, falling apart piece by piece. As much as they hated to admit it, after Garcia and Emily’s big break a few weeks ago, they got stuck. No progress had been made since then and Barnes was threatening to take them off of the case. She wanted to replace them with some amateurs, but they would never let her. Getting Reid back was much too important of a job to pass over to inexperienced agents. This was something they would have to themselves, whether Barnes approved or not.

After their second week of searching turned up with no results, they were forced to leave LA and move back to Quantico, reuniting the remaining members of the team once more. Despite Garcia being more than happy to see the rest of the team again, the toll of the case had exceeded everyone else’s happiness and they spent every waking second working. Hotch had taken a spot on his office couch while Morgan, Garcia, and Emily slept at their workspaces.

They worked tirelessly, chasing even the smallest leads. Unfortunately, they were still much too afraid to start searching the neighborhoods on Garcia’s list– fearing that they might tip off Ophelia prematurely, leading to her fleeing, Spencer’s death, or both– and were stuck searching for breadcrumbs.

“Agent Hotchner, I need to speak with you,” Barnes called down to him from outside of his own office’s door as he stood next to Morgan in the Bullpen.

“Yes, ma’am, just give me a second to sign this report for Agent Morgan and I’ll head up.”

Hotch quickly signed the remaining sheets of paper that Morgan was holding out towards him and clambered up the stairs where Barnes was already waiting inside. She had taken his seat, leaving him to sit in the guest chair across from her. He could not help but feel a pit forming in his stomach as sweat accumulated on the back of his neck.

Barnes crossed her hands in front of her and stared at Hotch intensely. “SSA Hotchner, do you know why I’ve called you in today?”

“No, ma’am. May I ask what the issue is?”

“The issue, Agent, is that you and your team have directly disobeyed my orders to abandon the Sutton case. Not only have you undermined my authority, but you cannot keep sleeping here. It’s unprofessional and disgusting. We have other agents who are more than happy to take over while you’re all out, if there are any breaks in the case, you would be notified immediately… but you already knew that. Didn’t you?”

Slightly worried that it had been a trick question, he hesitated before speaking. “Ummm, yes. I do know that, but we’re not clocking in any overtime hours so I don’t see why it’s an issue for us to stay here on our own time to work on the case, Director.”

“I’ll tell you why. First off, the case is no longer yours, all cases are confidential and none of you have clearance to work on it anymore. Second, since you’re not logging your hours, you’re trespassing, and on top of that, you become a liability for the agency because for that same reason. Not to mention how you’re also unofficially wasting government resources. So, Agent Hotchner, either get your team under control, or you will all be demoted before you can get to your apartment. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, Director. I’ll speak to them now.”

“Good, tell Prentiss to clean up her cubicle while you’re at it, it’s uncharacteristically messy over there.”

He got up from the chair, letting out a long sigh as he walked out and straightened his tie. Reaching down into his pocket, he pulled out his phone to message Morgan, Prentiss, and Garcia.

“Conference room. Now. We need to talk.”

Hotch stepped into the conference room and assumed a position at the front of the room, a position of power. After speaking to Barnes, he needed it. He needed to feel powerful again.

Slowly but surely, the rest of the agents trickled in. After all, there were only three of them and it did not take long. As usual, Emily arrived first, followed by Derek, and then Penelope who walked in rubbing her eyes groggily. Hotch glanced at his wristwatch when he saw Garcia’s state and realized that it was already two in the morning. They had evidently become accustomed to working odd hours and today was no exception.

“I’ve just spoken to the Director about our team, and she has brought up some issues that need to be addressed immediately,” He spoke clearly and concisely, not sparing a moment to elaborate.

“One, we will no longer be working on the Sutton case. I understand that it will be difficult, but we’ve already been working behind the Director’s back and gotten caught once. I don’t want to wait around to see what will happen if we do it again. Two, no more staying overnight at the Bureau unless absolutely necessary. The Director was less than happy to find out about our sleeping arrangements, and again, I don’t want to have to speak with her about this more than once. Lastly, just get some sleep. Lord knows we all need it. Go home, see your families, visit JJ and Rossi, whatever it takes to get your minds off of the Sutton case.”

With that, everyone got up to go home. However, Hotch spoke up just before Prentiss left, “Emily, stay back for a moment. There’s just something minor that I was asked to mention to you.”

“Sure, what’s up?” She turned around briefly and stood in the doorway.

“This is not coming from me, these are not my words, but the Director did say that– and I quote– ‘tell Prentiss to clean up her cubicle while you’re at it, it’s uncharacteristically messy over there.’”

A small smile broke across Hotch’s face as Emily laughed at what he had said. Part of it was attributed to sleep deprivation, but it had also been the most nonchalant thing that they had spoken about in a while so it felt as light as a joke. Of course, Emily knew that it was not a joke and kept his words in mind as she turned away.

“You’ve got it, boss.” She brought two fingers up to her forehead and pretended to salute him as she walked off.

As they filed out of the Bullpen, however, their faces hung low again. They were burdened by the anticipation and guilt that surrounded the case, but they could do nothing about it. Prentiss offered a sleepy Garcia a ride home and Morgan and Hotch left in their own cars. Soon, the BAU had been deserted with only a tired Barnes lingering behind.