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duhragonball · 7 days

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End of Evangelion: 25'

Yeah... that's...

"You don't understand!" is pretty much Neon Genesis Evangelion in a nutshell.

Or "You do (not) understand! (true²) Director's Cut" is how the franchise would put it.

Let's just get on with this.

I watched End of Evangelion last night. Well, early A.M. I took a nap and woke up at midnight and it seemed like the right time to watch a thing like this.

I did not enjoy the movie. I'll explain this, of course, but I wanted to get that out of the way up front. There are positives, sure, but I went into this thing hoping for a more satisfying conclusion than what was presented in the TV show, and I didn't get it. Both endings suck. There you go.

Let me back up a bit. So the TV series ran from 1995 to 1996. The final episodes, 25 and 26, were controversial because they were expected to wrap up the whole story, but instead they went in a bizarrely abstract direction. Both of those episodes apparently take place inside Shinji Ikari's mind as he struggles to accept being part of a collective gestalt of every human mind on Earth. This is the result of the "Human Instrumentality Project" a concept mentioned in Episodes 1 -24, but never adequately explained. The final episodes just skip past the part where Human Instrumentality was achieved and shows the result, without bothering to discuss the background or the cause, or the long-term ramifications.

From what I gather, the main reason Episodes 25 and 26 were Like That was because the studio was short on time and money, so a more satisfying conclusion was not practical. But since the series turned out to be so successful, they were able to take another crack at it with End of Evangelion. The film is very clear about its purpose as an "alternative" to Episodes 25 and 26. It's divided into two sections, numbered 25' and 26'.

I'm not sure the viewer is expected to pick one over the other. The original 25&26 take place in Shinji's mind when Human Instrumentality happens. 25' and 26' take place in the outside world, showing the events leading to Human Instrumentality and the aftermath. There may be some continuity issues to iron out, but a fan could easily accept both endings as canon.

That's not my problem here. The problem is not that there are multiple endings, or that the endings are too "abstract", or that the endings aren't "happy". Fundamentally, my gripe is that the endings are confusing. Perhaps it might be said that the endings are pathologically confusing.

I think this is one of those Big, Emotionally Raw Works, where you can't really discuss it without revealing something about yourself in the process. So let's do that. End of Evangelion makes me feel stupid. There's parts of the movie where I'm just completely confused and I have no idea what is happening or why. It feels less like entertainment and more like I'm about to take a test I didn't study for.

Except I did study, because I've literally been taking notes on this thing for the past three weeks. I was looking forward to this, and last night I'm near the end of the movie wondering what the hell I'm going to write here, because I don't understand what the hell happened in the movie.

So I poked around a fan wiki for a bit, trying to get a handle on some of the major concepts, and as I read the articles, I realized that a lot of this information just stone cold never made it into the TV show or the movie. There was one thing I looked up that had to reference a Playstation 2 game that released six years after the movie premiered.

It's not that I'm too stupid to understand Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's that the franchise appears deliberately designed to hide information from the viewer. You're just supposed to roll with it, I guess. Or spend days researching all this side material. Read the manga, read the wiki, read fan commentaries. I hate this. I hate this so much.

So maybe I'm not stupid. Maybe the anime was just badly designed. That would be comforting, except I still feel stupid for investing so much time into trying to understand this thing that seems purposely rigged to defy understanding. It's not just the ending. That's what everyone talks about, but the ending is just a symptom of a bigger problem. The beginning is really slow. Then the middle starts to get weird, and there's a lot of mysteries and subplots and lore that gets set up with the implied promise that "we'll explain later". And the ending(s) drop that ball. The surgery was a success, but the patient died.

I feel stupid because I got a reply to one of my liveblog posts, I think Episode 12, in response to some comment I made about all the characters having the same backstory. Ritsuko has a complicated relationship with her workaholic scientist mother. Misato has a complicated relationship with her workaholic scientist father. Shinji has a complicated relationship with his workaholic scientist father. Is that a theme or did they only have one idea? My point is that eventually it stops being clever and starts being redundant. Later, we learn that Asuka has... a complicated relationship with her workaholic scientist mother.

"What, are you stupid?" asked the reply guy to my wry observation. They deleted it a few minutes after I saw it, so maybe they felt some remorse over the comment. Normally, I let these things slide. I might respond if I get legitimately hot about it. But this one got to me. "Am I stupid?" I asked myself last week. I seem to be complaining a lot about this show, but it's supposed to be a classic. Am I not giving it a chance? Am I missing something here? Am I just not smart enough to appreciate this thing? Am I just not trying hard enough?

If you're reading this, Reply Guy, please know that I didn't take it personally. I'm not upset with you at all, but I am trying to be honest with myself about this. This Neon Genesis Evangelion business has been frustrating me all month long. Now I'm at the end and it all feels very hollow, like I wasted my time.

I think that's my philosophy on life. I try to seek out new things to explore, usually stories, and sometimes they don't work out the way I wanted them to, and that's okay, because it's the journey that counts. Shinji Ikari keeps shutting down throughout his story, asking why he should bother doing anything, because he's too terrified of the possible outcomes of his actions. My thing is that bad stuff happens all the time no matter what, and you just sort of have to recover and move forward, because that's the only way to see what happens next. So I'm not sure if I can relate to Shinji or not.

Anyway, let's talk about Shinji masturbating in a hospital room over Asuka's comatose body.

I had heard about this scene, but I didn't realize how long and pathetic it is. Asuka had a nervous breakdown in Episode 23. This movie has to follow up on that, becuase Episodes 24, 25, and 26 each refused to pick up on her character arc.

Meanwhile, Shinji is wracked with guilt and dread over his battle with the 17th Angel in Episode 24. He had to kill Kaworu, but in spite of Kaworu's betrayal, he was still a friend to Shinji when he needed it the most, and he was such a good sport about getting killed, you know?

So this movie has to get us back to that moment, when Shinji and Asuka are at their lowest ebb, and I guess they decided that Shinji should go see her in the hospital because he's desperate to talk to someone about what's he's been going through. But Asuka's unresponsive, so he starts shaking her like he's trying to wake her up. Instead she just rolls over, which somehow exposes her half-naked body, and Shinji is so overcome with lust that he rubs one out right there and then. Doesn't even get a Kleenex, doesn't find a place to sit, he just whips it out and goes to town right in front of her.

I guess this is supposed to be a joke, but it doesn't land. It's not even a matter of the joke not aging well. Yeah, this is a 27 year old movie, but Shinji admits this is terrible behavior almost immediately. The "joke" didn't age at all. It was stillborn. This is like when you go to a graveyard and you see one of the tiny graves and the dates are from the same year. That's how funny this is.

The most charitable reading I can give this scene is that it represents the hypocrisy of Shinji's whole deal. He constantly insists that he can only do as he's told, because he's afraid of people not liking him if he makes a mistake or thinks for himself. But here he's doing some pretty disgraceful shit, and I sure as fuck didn't tell him to do this. did you? Did anyone? Of course not. He goes limp for most of the rest of the movie, but not here. Nossir. Seems pretty sure of himself in the minute or so it took him to finish his business.

The other aspect of Shinji on display here is that his ideal social interactions are one-sided. He's most comfortable with people when they can't see what he's doing, when they can't touch him back. That's why he wished for isolation in Episode 25. Here, with Asuka unresponsive, he's basically got the same thing.

I suppose the flip side of this is when Asuka kissed Shinji in the TV series. Her hangups are kind of the opposite of his, where she wants to be in charge of everything and everyone constantly showers her with praise for her achievements. She wants to kiss Shinji but she can't be vulnerable enough to admit that, so she orders him to just stand there and be kissed because she wants to "pass the time". And she makes him hold his nose shut because she doesn't want to be breathed on while she does it. I mean, they both have intimacy issues, but at least Shinji had a chance to consent to her weirdness.

In the NERV base, the crew wonder why they're still on alert status, since the last Angel was defeated. There should be no more threats, and it kind of makes sense for NERV to be disbanded. The only business left is the Human Instrumentality Project, and none of these ham-and-eggers know what that is.

But Misato has some information about it, which she mulls over while she's in her car. I guess? Let me explain this in more detail, because the movie never totally gets into the "why" of it all.

Okay, so the SEELE group has access to something called the "Dead Sea Scrolls". According to the NGE wiki, SEELE got it from the two angels that came to Earth, Adam and Lilith, in the distant past. SEELE has used the information contained in the scrolls to establish themselves as the secret rulers of the whole world. And they founded NERV, and its predecessor organizations, to study the Angels and figure out how to preserve the human race.

They talk a lot about Second Impact on this show, but they never explain exactly what caused it. Second Impact was not a meteorite strike or a rampaging angel who self-destructed, or even a lab accident. It was caused deliberately by SEELE, as part of an effort to contain Adam, who lay dormant in Antarctica.

If I understand correctly, this was necessary because at some point, Second Impact would occur anyway, and then Adam's children, the fifteen Angels we saw in the TV series, would come looking for Adam's body and unite with it, triggering a Third Impact that would definitely wipe out humanity. This is all supposedly explained in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So SEELE's play was to trigger Second Impact deliberately, so that they could confront the Angels on their own terms. This gave NERV time to develop the Evas to fight the Angels, and to shrink Adam down to a more manageable size so he'd be harder to find.

Once the Angels were all defeated, SEELE could then trigger Third Impact. See, the TV series made it seem like the objective was to prevent Third Impact, but that was never possible. Third Impact is inevitable, I guess, so the only way to ensure humanity's survival is to evolve humans into something that can withstand the disaster. Thus, the Human Instrumentality Project, which will combine all human minds into some sort of disembodied superorganism at the moment of Third Impact.

However, throughout the TV series, SEELE has butted heads with the NERV Director, Gendo Ikari, about how this plan is to be implemented. Gendo wants to transform humanity into something new. But SEELE seems to want to retain their human nature and just use the plan as a lifeboat until the disaster has passed. At least, I think that's the disagreement here. Like I said, I had to learn about SEELE's agenda from the description of the PS2 game. It's not exactly a shock that the cabal of worldly oligarchs should want to save themselves and hold onto their wealth and power at the same time.

Gendo, on the other hand, seems mostly fixated on reuniting with his wife, Yui Ikari, who apparently died in 2004 during an experiment with Eva Unit 01. In the TV series, it was heavily implied that Yui lives on inside of Unit 01. Since Gendo's version of Human Instrumentality involves drawing up human minds into a noncorporeal union, I guess he figures that this will include Yui's mind, even if she has no body. It's unclear in this movie if Gendo actually intends to include anyone but himself and Yui in this merger, but in Episodes 25 and 26 of the TV show, Human Instrumentality is presented like it's all humans, even dead ones, and Gendo Ikari talked about it like that's what his version of Third Impact was supposed to be.

I suppose the only thing keeping Gendo and SEELE from turning on each other was the Angel threat, but now that this is over, SEELE attacks. First they try to hack NERV's supercomputers, but this is foiled when they recruit the aid of...

...Ritsuko Akagai, who betrayed NERV in Episode 23 when she destroyed all the Rei clones they had in storage. But she's the only one smart enough with computers to block the hack, so she crawls back inside one of them and uses her dead mother's notes to build a more robust firewall or something. I think she j-pegged a RAM or something, I don't know.

Ritsuko wonders why she's even bothering, since she already turned on Gendo. They had been banging on the down-low, but she got fed up with him when she realized he loved his dead wife more than Ritsuko or her mother, who also used to bang Gendo on the down-low.

With that cyberattack fended off, NERV now has to brace for an actual attack. Admiral Clownshoes notes the irony of NERV defeating all those Angels, only for their final opponent to be the humans they were trying to save.

Tactically, the entire battle is a formality. SEELE runs the whole world, and they can send wave after wave of soldiers into the NERV facility, which is already badly weakened after months of Angel attacks and budget cuts. NERV's defenses were designed for dealing with Angels, and their greatest weapons were the Evas, except Unit-00 was destroyed in Episode 22, and Unit-02's pilot has lost the ability to sync. Nonetheless, Misato wants the pilot kids secured, since she knows SEELE's goons will try to take them out first. She orders Shinji to deploy in Unit-01, and even though Asuka's in no condition to fight, she has her put in Unit-02 and then sent to the bottom of the lake. It's not much of a hiding place, but at least she'll be safer there than inside the base.

Where's Rei? Well, no one can find her, but she's gone down to the room where they keep Lilith and she's soaking in that orange goop they have down there.

Perhaps anticipating this, Gendo excuses himself and orders Clownshoes to take over the defense of the base. Clownshoes seems to know what he's up to, and sends his regards to Gendo's dead wife.

At this point, it's basically a race to see who can trigger their version of Third Impact first. SEELE wanted to use the Lance of Longinus and Lilith somehow, but since the Lance is in space now, they now plan to use Unit-01, the only Eva created from Lilith. That's what makes it special, apparently. Units 00 and 02 were made from Adam, I guess?

Anyway, Gendo plans to do it by combining Adam and Lillith together. He's got Adam's body within his own, and he wants to join with Rei, who contains some essence of Lillith. This was Rei's main purpose all along, I think.

Meanwhile, Misato leaves her post to find Shinji, who was sulking in some corner instead of reporting to his Eva like she ordered. She saves him from some goons, but they're cut off from Unit-01, so she has to find a way to get him where he needs to go. She also has to convince him to cooperate, since Shinji's completely gone to mush in the midst of this new crisis.

As she drives him to where they need to go, she explains (most of) the necessary backstory to him. Second Impact was triggered deliberately to buy time for Human Instrumentality, and humans are descended from Lilith, just as the Angels came from Adam. So in that sence, the human species is collectively the 18th Angel, just another candidate to inherit the future of Earth. Humans, like any of the fifteen Angels spawned from Adam, have the opportunity to trigger Third Impact and secure their place as the dominant life form of Earth, but we had to beat all the Angels first to do it, and then find a way to survive Third Impact when it finally happened.

And while Gendo plans to do with with Adam and Lilith, SEELE wants to use the Eva series, somehow, so it's vital that Shinji use Unit-01 to destroy all the other Evas.

Speaking of destroying Evas, Asuka finally wakes up in Unit-02, which is currently getting battered with depth charges. She still can't control the Eva, and she just keeps whimpering that she doesn't want to die. Eventually, she hears her dead mother promising to protect Asuka, and she realizes the truth: that Asuka's mother, Kyoko Zeppelin, was absorbed into Unit-02, much the same way Shinji's mom was absorbed into Unit-01.

Now, at long last, Asuka can operate her Eva again, and she goes apeshit on the SEELE troops. They sever her power cable, but she doesn't care, boasting that five minutes is plenty of time to take out these creeps. This is honestly the best part of the movie, because they had reduced Asuka to a pitiful shell for so long, and now she's finally taking charge and whoopin' ass.

It won't last.

With the conventional forces beaten, SEELE sends in nine Eva Units of their own. These are units 05 through 13, but they all look the same, and I'm not even sure they have pilots. It's a pretty cool design for a "bad guy" Eva, but they don't figure into the plot very much. They're here to destroy Asuka and Unit-02, and Asuka has to destroy them to stop SEELE.

Meanwhile, Misato has almost gotten Shinji to the Unit-01 launch bay, but she got shot, so she tells Shinji he's on his own from here. Shinji continues to resist taking any responsibility here. He says he's not worthy to pilot the Eva because he hurts people. He killed Kaworu, and he "did something terrible to Asuka". So at least the movie recognizes that. I guess it was included just to show the audience that Shinji isn't exaggerating when he doubts himself like this.

Misato refuses to indulge his self-pity, and she doesn't care how much he cries or tries to use his past actions to disqualify himself. She tells him she's made plenty of her own mistakes, but she still learned something about herself anyway. Hey, I guess Misato kind of gets what I was saying earlier. I guess this makes her my favorite character?

Well, yeah, but I don't like how she gives him a long kiss goodbye, then promises they'll "do the rest" when he gets back. I mean, she dies immediately after he leaves, so I think she was just feeding him empty gestures to motivate him while she still could, but... that's kind of fucked up.

Meanwhile, Gendo and Rei reach the room where Lillith is to begin their attempt at Third Impact, but they find Ritsuko waiting for them. She pulls a gun on Gendo and tells him that she sabotaged the supercomputer while she was reprogramming it to stop SEELE's hackers. Except... when she tries to execute her plan, the computer doesn't do it. This is because it's been imprinted with the mind of its original creator, Ritsuko's mother, and apparently mom still carries a torch for Gendo, even after Gendo screwed both Akagis over. Gendo then pulls a gun on Ritsuko, and says "I truly..." but the sound cuts out as he says the rest of it, so we don't know what he wanted to tell her.

In any case, she calls him a liar after she hears it, so either he told her he loved her and she didn't buy it, or he said something really cruel and she knew he didn't mean it. Either way, Gendo shoots, her which normally would suggest his true feelings, except I think this Human Instrumentality business works on dead people too, so life and death kind of becomes meaningless in this movie. We see a ghostly apparition of Rei as Ritsuko falls into the LCL fluid. We also saw ghost Rei when Misato died, so this seems to be a thing now.

Meanwhile, Shinji makes it to Unit 01, but it's immersed in Bakelite, which Misato had ordered dispersed through the base to impede the invading goons. I'm not sure how it got here, though, unless the bad guys used Misato's own trick to secure Unit-01. So it looks like Shinji can't get in the robot, even though it's not a robot, and he doesn't even have to be inside the stupid thing to control it. He literally proved that on his first day on the job. Yo, Shinji, get in the robot, your mom loves you.

Meanwhile, Asuka seems to be doing just fine killing the bad guy Evas without Shinji, but just as she finishes the last of them off, the Lance of Longinus suddenly flies back to Earth and improbably stabs Unit 02 through the face. Uh... how? Why? What the fuck?

Also, all the Evas Asuka defeated suddenly reactivate. With her battery drained, Asuka is helpless to stop them as they crack open Unit-02 and eat it. I'm pretty sure Asuka herself is killed during this, but we don't see a body.

I guess this was the catalyst to get Unit 01 off its duff, as it finally breaks out of the Bakelite and grabs Shinji like it's gonna put him in. Unit 01 busts out to join the battle, and it's thig big impressive spectacle. It even has angel wings now.

But it doesn't actually do anything. Shinji just gets a look at what's left of Unit-02's mangled corpse and screams.

And that's the cliffhanger for 25'. There's a credits sequence, then a dedication note from the director, and then the second half starts as Episode 26'. So this is a good place to take a break.

If you're curious, the part where Eva 05-13 show up to confront Asuka is about where things ended in "Evangelion: Rebirth". But 25' is about twenty minutes longer than that, so I'm not sure what the significance of that cutoff point was supposed to be. I guess it works as a cliffhanger, but it's kind of dumb to have Asuka finally wake up and kick ass, only to get utterly destroyed a few minutes later. Then Shinji shows up to set up the real cliffhanger.

To be fair, this half of the movie is better than the second half. Mostly, it benefits from the parts where they actually show the characters recovering from Episode 24 and beginning to move to the next phase of the story. This was what the TV show failed to do with its Episode 25. Now, we get to see the SEELE vs. NERV battle that was only implied before, and we get to see how Human Instrumentality is arranged.

We also see why it needs to be done. In the original ending, it seemed completely arbitrary, like Gendo Ikari just decided this was a cool thing to try and he just did it to the whole world without asking anyone's permission. Here, it becomes clear that if Gendo doesn't pull the trigger, SEELE will, and it's just a race to see who can get their vision accomplished first.

And we actually get to see the other characters in this version. Asuka wakes up and gets her groove back, Rei's part in the drama is revealed, and Ritsuko and Misato get shot. Seeing this stuff makes me even more irritated that the TV series just jumped right past it all.

Still, this half of the movie has problems. For one thing, a lot of runtime is spent just showing troops slaughtering NERV personnel, and showing Misato leading Shinji to his Eva. Also, there's a healthy dose of Gendo and Rei just staring pensively at Lilith without actually doing anything. A lot of the footage doesn't actually progress the plot, and only Misato and Shinji's scenes are useful for providing exposition. Gendo and SEELE's words are too cryptic to be of much use.

The main point of this installment was to reinforce things we already knew: Rei's important to all of this somehow, Shinji is a sad sack, and Asuka is helpless. And maybe it needed to be reinforced in July 1997, more than a year after the TV show ended, but I don't think it needed to be hammered home this much.

And like I said from the start, this whole thing relies on a lot of ridiculous stuff that I feel like I should have been told about in the TV series. How did the Lance of Longinus come back? SEELE couldn't have arranged this, since they were the ones who were so upset about losing it in the first place. Why are there two methods to trigger Third Impact? How did Asuka's mother get sucked into the Eva and yet she remained in human form long enough to go insane and hang herself? Why did the bad guy Evas suddenly recover from their injuries when it was convenient for the plot?

Perhaps most critically: Why are they just treating Third Impact and Human Instrumentality like the same thing? Like if you do one, then the other one just automatically happens? Is that how it works? Then why were they so worried about the progress on that project? It could be done at will, right?

Oh, and how did SEELE figure out how to do all this stuff? They have their own fleet of Evas, which seem to work better than NERV's. They made their own Angel in the form of Kaworu. They seem to know how to make Third Impact happen, without Gendo's help. And however they got this far, they seemed to pull it off without anyone from NERV knowing about it. So why did SEELE even need NERV in the first place? As it currently stands, the only reason Gendo's ahead of them is because he's physically closer to what he needs to work with. SEELE could have nuked the base from orbit and hauled Eva Unit 01 from the wreckage.

Again, the whole movie just makes me feel like I missed an episode, except I didn't. I watched the whole thing, which leads me to assume that the next chapter will clarify everything, except it doesn't, as we'll see next time. See you there.

#neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog #end of evangelion #shinji ikari #asuka langley soryu #rei ayanami #misato katsuragi #ritsuko akagi #clownshoes

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t4lon · 1 month

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I'm very conflicted.

We were recently diagnosed with DID, but this was not a new discovery for us. We have been operating under the partial assumption that we have the disorder for exactly a decade this year.

I say partial because it genuinely never stuck. The nature of our trauma and resulting anxiety prevented us from seeking any sort of mental health treatment, in any capacity, which as you can imagine, precludes any hope of diagnosis. So, from the age of 14 onward, we existed in this strange in-between state, where we gained and lost insight at different times. We lack self confidence, and though we supported the right of others to self diagnose, we (particularly Moira and myself) believed it would be silly to think any of our research could possibly be adequate. DID is a heavy diagnosis, and it's very hard to feel justified in claiming the label.

We tried many different methods to be okay with existing as more than one; and this is why the existence of endogenic systems was NECESSARY for our mental health. As someone who absolutely could not get diagnosed due to abject fear, and whose low self esteem and lack of expertise prevented them from trusting their own judgment, the idea that there are people who just allow themselves to exist without needing professional validation seemed like the only way forward for us.

Ultimately, I still think it is. I would not be this far along in my personal journey without the existence of the wider plural community, and though the rest of our system does not share my personal anti-psychiatry sentiments, it has been extremely important for them as well.

But it hasn't worked yet, and this feels a little bit like a failure on our part.

We finally hit a breaking point fairly recently, and found a therapist who then quite promptly diagnosed us. Since then, it's been night and day. Alters are more active, we switch more frequently, we are capable of leaving the house on short notice (and at all!). Our social anxiety has largely vanished, at least for the time being. It's like waking up after ten straight years of a depressive haze dominated by our repressive persecutor-host, and she is finally getting the rest she needed.

But really, after all that? The journey to self discovery, the repeated attempts to convince ourselves that we CAN just choose to be this way, that we can just act the way we naturally wish that we could... the only thing that could break through the wall was still to validate it through the framework we were trying to escape.

We tried so, so hard to truly believe that it would be okay for us to just be, but it just... didn't work. We still needed a therapist to tell us it was okay, that we really are the way we think we are, and that it is healthy to embrace. And it didn't matter how many peers also told us this; we needed a professional. We just did not believe anyone else, even though we desperately wanted to AND deeply respected their journeys and experiences.

This isn't really meant to be a Sad Post or anything, I mostly just think we have a lot more work to do. We were deeply damaged by things like fakedisordercringe AND many anti-endogenic sentiments in online system communities, and it is not nearly as easy to shake the self hatred and doubt as I'd hoped.

I do, to some extent, resent the fact that we ultimately felt that we needed someone to give us permission to exist. But. Well. We do certainly feel like we are allowed to exist, now. Perhaps even a bit vindicated.

Strange.

#did system #syscourse #<- mainly for blocking purposes! This is NOT a syscourse post but I briefly mention it #🪐 post #also clarifying that I do not mind this ending up in the syscourse tags. I didn't forget

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copperbadge · 1 year

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I hope these questions aren’t offensive, you can just delete this ask if they are… Did it help you, mentally speaking, to be officially diagnosed as ADHD? Like, is it easier to know for a fact you’re neurodivergent and not just,,, weird? I’m pretty sure I’m autistic, and only undiagnosed because I’m a girl and I test well (my brother is autistic and has the same tendencies and reactions I do, but he got dx’d at 5), but on the other hand, what if I’m wrong? And I’m also a broke college student, so I’m kinda waffling on whether or not to actually pursue a doctor’s opinion, but I thought I’d ask your advice first, since you’re both a complete stranger and have gone through something similar

Anon, you sent this in SEPTEMBER, my apologies, it got pushed down a bit in my askbox.

The thing is...okay I'll talk about the psychological impact in a minute, but I also feel like it's the least relevant aspect, for me. Whatever a diagnosis did for my sense of self, what it also did was give me a document that impacts everything else in my life.

With a diagnosis I have access to medication that materially improves my condition (which is less the case with autism than with ADHD, admittedly). I have access, should I want it, to accommodations for my disability; those are imperfectly applied, you often have to fight hard to actually get them implemented, but especially as a student you would be given access to things like longer time periods for tests, study aids like audio recordings of your required reading, extra tutoring, pre-registration access to classes, etc. based on need.

This bleeds over into the mental health aspect a little, but I am also more confident in my research on ADHD because I have a medical doctor's opinion that yes I do indeed have it (and evidence of that from the efficacy of the medication).

In terms of whether it helped me mentally/emotionally...research is ongoing, I suppose. It didn't emotionally devastate me the way it did my mother, when she was diagnosed late with learning disabilities, but she came from a different generation and didn't grow up with a sibling who was diagnosed young, so she had different issues than I do. There is some bitterness about my late diagnosis, but that's situational, and I'm old enough to know how to work through/past it. I suppose it gives me more confidence in asking for informal accommodations -- recently at a party I asked someone if we could move rooms because I couldn't process what they were saying over the two conversations happening behind me -- but I was already pretty good at that. I'm having to re-examine some basic beliefs I held about who I am, but that's not a bad thing, just unpleasant to be in the middle of.

So now to the heart of it: "What if I'm wrong?"

First, almost nobody who self-diagnoses is whole-cloth wrong when it comes to neurodivergence. They might have the wrong diagnosis, or might not fully understand what's going on, but when that "Oh, I'm different" light flicks on, it's usually for a reason.

Second, okay, what if you are wrong? It's okay if you're just weird. You won't be punished for being Neurotypical-But-Weird any more than society was already punishing you, so you risk nothing in getting tested in that sense. You don't lose any ground, and you gain some self-knowledge. Might not be the self-knowledge you wanted, but it's not going to kill you.

True, there is the cost to consider, but as a student you should be able to go to the campus health center and at least get more advice on how testing would work, the costs etc. Your school's disability office, if they have one, may also have resources in that regard. It IS important to get adequately tested -- a lot of people miss a diagnosis because their evaluator's idea of testing was "asking combative questions and dismissing the answers" -- but more knowledge is always better than less.

The only downside to testing is that if you do get an official diagnosis, that can follow you for life -- earlier discussions I've had about this have brought up the fact that it can impact job placement, whether you're allowed to adopt or care for children, and other issues surrounding the way we punish people with disabilities for being disabled. A diagnosis of Autism can impact you legally. But I also think it's worth it to know and to have documentation that says you need accommodation.

I mean. This hasn't been the most fun process in the world, but I do think it's been one of the most important things I've done in my life. If you felt strongly about your self-diagnosis I'd say don't bother with the official, just live your life as if you had one, but it sounds like you have a lot of self-doubt -- so I'd work, as and how you're able, to lay that doubt to rest one way or another.

#sam has adhd

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sgcairo · 2 years

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About 2th dottore.. I like to think that dottore fell first and HARDER. First time meeting pantalone didn’t waste a minute straight up flirting with him, of course failed because he’s just..not flirting like a normal guy and pantalone has high standards PLEASE TELL ME

This is where the timeline absolutely wrecks me because there's two ways this could've gone:

1. Dottore is a new recruit, and spots the ever lofty Pantalone within the palace. First thought: Hot damn. He proceeds to try and talk to Pantalone, only to be waved off as Pantalone "doesn't have time to discuss paltry business plans right now".

2. Dottore comes to request funding for the first time (because apparently you have to do that) and spends most of the time filling out papers and flirting with Pantalone at the same time, which goes straight over the Regrator's head.

But I'm going to go with the first one because it's a ride.

The first time Dottore sees him, he's still recently expelled from the academia and not at all used to having people look down on him. The Fatui are brutal in terms of rank, and if you're inferior in terms of status, you generally get ignored, brushed off, or shoved out of the way. Dottore didn't become the Second Harbinger in a day, no. He had to prove himself somewhat, and had to ascend the ranks by clawing himself up the Harbinger ladder.

He started at the bottom, looking up at those prized seats as the Tsaritsa's most trusted and with the most venerated power. At lot of his time was originally spent doing maddening amounts of research and experimentation, always dashing around the palace and frantically muttering his new theories. He wanted to get to the top. No, he needed to.

That's around the time that he encountered Pantalone for the first time.

It was, quite simply, humiliating. Dottore saw him, took a few moments to process his majesty, then just had to push through the crowd that surrounded the Ninth Harbinger, two measly spots above Dottore. Oh, but he was so much of a mess that as soon as the Regrator turned to look at him, the words flew out of his mouth in a horrible jumble.

"L-Lord Harbin-"

"I don't have time for pathetic half baked plans, I will not be giving grants without a proposal."

"I- Sir, that's not what-"

"Move along. If you want a grant, have the paper on my desk with an adequate proposal. Now leave, my patience grows thin."

And of course, Dottore was left red faced and with his mouth open, shot down before he could even say anything.

It was just a crush, at first. He occasionally saw Pantalone in the halls, but never engaged him after such a mortifying ordeal, more content to instead watch him from afar, hidden in the trickle of agents that were scattered through the halls of the palace.

In all honesty, he forgot about Pantalone for a while between that ignorant, pathetic stage and his ascent to being the Second Harbinger. His experiments were made in frenzies of madness, ultimately gaining traction and catching the Tsaritsa's eye. His talents boosted him up the ranks as he aged, segments joining him in his ambitions, his station quickly overcoming Pantalone's and heading straight for the top.

By the time he noticed Pantalone again, he had fully grown an ego and was not ashamed of it in thw slightest. Pantalone had changed somewhat, the man somehow got even more graceful with age. No longer soft around the corners with youth, but with hardened eyes and cruelty that only a bastard of many years could have.

And the Doctor professes that he'd cut out his heart and let Pantalone do some questionable things with it.

Let's just say that Dottore got the equivalent of blocked and reported for that one.

Pantalone has standards, and men proclaiming that they'd let him eat them like a gourmet dinner is not on the list. He always did desire a spouse of similar power and prowess, a good match for his business. They would have to be elegant, and match his tastes nicely. Good manners, no doubt a good manipulator, and not want anything outside of the mutual benefit the marriage gave them, Pantalone didn't have time for foolish things like romance.

And yet... seeing an upset and sniffling Doctor laying on the floor of his lab after having an experiment fail for the 54th time makes him change his mind a little, because he's just so pathetic. It's weirdly enticing, and Pantalone thought himself to be above that. But no, Dottore is loud, brash, and weirdly entertaining, especially in such a strange and amusing situation.

Pantalone has a thing for pathetic men. You heard it from here first.

Long story short, Pantalone has completely forgotten the pathetic mess that tried to approach him that day all those years ago, and when I'm he hears it from Dottore, he breaks down laughing.

"I always knew you were pathetic!"

"..."

"But that just means I get to pamper you to make you feel better, darling."

"...I hate you sometimes."

"I know."

#pantalone #dottore #il dottore #pantorre #dottolone #fatui harbingers #fatui headcanons #genshin impact #genshin impact headcanons #pantalone has a thing for pathetic men #and dottore can be very pathetic when he wants to be

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imekitty · 2 years

Text

Vlad sees Maddie and Jack about his returning ecto-acne. A twist on Masters of All Time.

I had a difficult time deciding how to make this one work. But suffice to say, Maddie is just. Awful.

Keep in mind that this would happen before Kindred Spirits!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14

-----

"How bad does it look?"

Vlad gave Maddie and Jack a dazzling smile, but all the expensive bleaching was not enough to distract from the ectoplasmic pus-filled bumps and sores covering his face.

"It looks pretty bad, V-man," said Jack. "Not gonna lie."

Vlad groaned and slumped on the examination table in the Fenton lab. "I know it does. I can't believe I did this to myself. I can't even blame you this time, Jack."

"What exactly did you do?" asked Maddie, poking a couple of the angry zits with a gloved finger.

Vlad winced at her touch. "I was doing some tests with ecto-gas and accidentally dropped a canister of it."

"And it did this to you?"

"Yes. It was immediate."

"What kind of gas are we talking about?" asked Jack.

"I can send you its chemical makeup, here."

Vlad took out his phone and tapped the screen. Maddie pulled out her own phone and examined the notes in the email Vlad just sent.

"But why did it affect just your face?" asked Maddie. "Before, the portal only hit you in the face, so it made sense only your face was affected. But I'm assuming your entire body was exposed to the gas this time?"

"I was wearing protective gear, but nothing heavy-duty, I suppose. Probably wouldn't have been adequate protection against gaseous substances," said Vlad. "I'm not sure why it affected only my face again."

"Do you think your ecto-acne was just dormant and the gas caused it to resurface?" asked Maddie. "Or do you think the gas just independently caused this breakout?"

"Hmm." Vlad frowned. "I suppose it's possible the ecto-acne was dormant this whole time. Like a virus latency."

"If that's the case, maybe we should start calling it ecto-herpes instead," quipped Jack, laughing.

Vlad narrowed his eyes. "Do you really want to say that you gave me herpes, Jack?"

Jack groaned. "Are you ever going to forgive me for the diet cola thing?"

"Not if this really does turn out to be ghost herpes," snapped Vlad.

"Boys, knock it off," said Maddie sternly. "I'm tired of hearing this same fight every time we get together like this."

Jack sighed and Vlad grumbled but neither said anything more.

"We need to do some tests to see if this is indeed the same infection or virus as before," said Maddie, again studying the sores on Vlad's face.

"But you know how to treat it, don't you?" asked Vlad, smiling hopefully. "Because I do have some important meetings tomorrow."

"Of course," said Maddie. "We have plenty of ecto-purifier. You'd be acne-free in just a couple hours with one dose."

"Oh, that's wonderful—"

"But I'm not giving you any yet."

Vlad froze. "You're not?"

"Not yet," said Maddie. "I want to test this a little more first."

Maddie headed over to her computer and started up some notes and research plans. Vlad looked at Jack, who only shrugged.

"You want to experiment on me?" asked Vlad, his voice weak.

"On the ecto-acne," said Maddie. "To find out what exactly it is. Jack and I weren't around when you suffered through the first infection on your own."

"I suppose that's true," said Vlad. "I didn't really want anyone seeing me at that time. I'm a little embarrassed to let you see me like this now."

"Hey, we're your best friends," said Jack. "No need to be embarrassed."

Vlad thinned his lips.

"Do you still have the gas?" Maddie looked up from her computer screen. "The gas that brought on this ecto-acne recurrence."

"Yes," said Vlad. "I could bring some over from my lab if you wish."

"I'm just curious about whether this really is a virus latency or not," said Maddie. "What if we exposed someone else to the gas? Would they also break out in ecto-acne, or does the gas only bring it out if you were already previously infected?"

"If we exposed someone else? Someone like who?" asked Vlad. "Like…Daniel, perhaps?"

Maddie again looked up from her screen. "Well. Yes. What if Danny were exposed to the gas? Would his skin also break out, or would he be fine since his DNA and chemical makeup were already immediately compatible and stable with his ectoplasmic mutation from the start?"

"Are you saying you want to try exposing Daniel to this gas?" asked Vlad.

Jack watched Maddie's face closely. She seemed to be thinking very hard about something.

"No," said Maddie. "Of course not. I don't want to risk permanently scarring his face."

Jack quirked a brow. "Really? Permanently changing his DNA and biology is fine, but permanently scarring his face is out of the question?"

"He's already struggling to get up the courage to ask girls out," said Maddie. "I don't want to make it any harder for him. I want him to go out on more dates. And plus, he has such a handsome face, I'm quite proud of it. Both of our kids are so attractive, don't you think, Vlad?"

"How could they not be when their mother is so beautiful?" asked Vlad, leaning forward from where he sat on the examination table.

"I helped out too, you know," said Jack, half joking but also an attempt to remind Vlad that he was once again trying to flirt with his wife.

"I do understand your concern," said Vlad, ignoring Jack and looking only at Maddie. "But wouldn't exposing Daniel to the gas give you that insight you're hoping for?"

Maddie stroked her chin. "Yes. It really would. If only there were some way we could test it on him without risking anything. Like if we could somehow test it on a clone instead…"

She stared past Vlad, her eyes glazing over, unmoving. Jack and Vlad watched her for several silent moments.

"Mads?" said Jack tentatively.

Maddie snapped back to attention, shaking out her head. "We can't test the gas on Danny. But we can test the gas on a full-ghost specimen. Jack and I have a few that we could use. But I also think we need to test it on non-ghosts without any ectoplasmic properties."

"Non-ghosts, like animals?" asked Vlad.

"I think humans would be best," said Maddie.

"Humans?" Vlad frowned. "But if not Daniel, then are you thinking of testing it on yourself or Jack?"

"Of course not," said Maddie, scoffing. "We're the researchers; we can't be testing anything on ourselves."

"No," said Jack derisively. "Just our son."

"Or perhaps his friends," said Maddie.

Jack stared at her. "His friends? Sam and Tucker? You don't mean…"

Maddie nodded.

"We can't do that," said Jack. "Experimenting on our son is one thing, but they're—we can't—"

"They'll be fine," insisted Maddie. "We have plenty of ecto-purifier."

"You're not concerned about them being permanently scarred?"

"They'll probably be fine as long as we administer the ecto-purifier quickly enough."

"Then wouldn't that also be the case for Danny?"

"I already told you, Jack. I don't want to risk it with Danny. And not with Jazz either."

"I hear you," said Jack testily, "but I don't get why you're okay risking it with Sam and Tucker. Do you just hate Pam Manson that much or something?"

"I can't believe you'd say that." Maddie glared at him. "I'd never hurt her daughter just because she and I don't get along."

"I can't believe anything you're saying right now!" Jack shot back.

"Sam and Tucker are also part of this experiment," said Maddie. "They have been from the beginning. It was Sam who convinced Danny to enter the portal."

"You knew she would," said Jack. "You set her up for that, just like you set up Danny."

"Right," said Maddie. "And that's why Sam and Tucker are both part of this now. They both understand the dangers of helping Danny fight ghosts, and they choose to anyway."

Jack stared at her, too stunned to speak.

"We'll have to come up with some way to expose them to the gas," said Maddie, turning back to Vlad. "Some story behind it. Something they'll believe."

"I could pretend that I need Daniel to find the cure," said Vlad, sounding excited. "It would be interesting to see how he tries to figure it out, wouldn't you agree?"

"That could work," said Maddie. "We could tell him that we need to know what the ecto-impurity is in order to make an antidote. We just have to hope the gas actually does give them ecto-acne so he'll be compelled to figure it out."

"Plus we can tell him it's lethal if you let it go untreated too long. Which is true."

"We'll be sure to administer the ecto-purifier long before that happens."

Vlad and Maddie continued chattering away about their plans for this latest experiment. Jack could only listen, unable to participate.

He knew he was letting Maddie go too far, involving Sam and Tucker in her research objectives.

But he was in this just as deep as she was. And if he couldn't stop her before, he definitely couldn't now.

Part 16

#danny phantom #maddie fenton #jack fenton #vlad masters #masters of all time #imekitty writes #planned au #i know i know maddie is the worst #and jack honestly isn't much better

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donuts4evry1 · 1 year

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slides into your inbox with soup and a blanket. do you have any fun jellyfacts on your mind rn?

omg thank you fluther, im going to devour them 🙏🙏🙏

the next ramble might be a little lengthy so I'll just put it under the cut

hmm... fun jellyfish facts, you say?.... Well I suppose I can talk about strobilation, since it's a topic that has interested me recently lol (ie. I was watching ponyo with a friend and we saw the beginning sequence together)

At first, when I heard the idea that jellyfish reproduce asexually and sexually, I thought "No duh, almost everything does" (because when you think about it, what are zygotes if not little balls of asexually reproducing cells?), but jellyfish don't just do that.

I'll mostly be talking about scyphozoan reproduction (since I don't know much about hydrozoan reproduction and box jellyfish reproduction could really be a post all on its own)

First, it all starts with fertilization. Most jellyfish are broadcast spawners, so they'll release eggs and sperm into the water indiscriminately. These will then develop into planula (rice shaped little guys that move with cilia). Generally, these eggs will be left alone, but the C. hysocella, or compass jellyfish, differs from this. The females are known to brood eggs under their bells until they develop into planula, which is pretty cool :). Brown banded moon jellies also have a brooding behaviour, btw! Researchers have seen them brooding planula in a special brooding organ lol.

Afterwards, planula look for adequately hard surfaces to attach to. This could be rocky substrate, a pier, a boat (this is how jellyfish become invasive around the world, generally, I think), or even a piece of floating trash.

They then develop into polyps- which are called scyphistoma. These duplicate themselves by budding (a form of asexual reproduction). Actually, thanks to this post I got curious as to what exactly induces budding so I just downloaded a cool research paper ab it. I'll read it when I'm able to focus again lol).

OOOk, so now at this point we've got a polyp.... what now? I'm glad you asked-

nothing.

Well- ok, that's not entirely true. Polyps need the perfect conditions to become strobila- or strobilate. This change can be caused by temperature, salinity, stuff like that. Indoles (a type of chemical compound) can also induce strobilation- though only for Rhizostomid, Scyphozoan, and Cubozoan jellyfish (sorry Coronate jellyfish, you will be missed).

Once they become strobila, the fun really begins !

The polyp changes colour, eventually segmenting itself into what is described a "stack of coins" in the process known as strobilation. On another note, the only organisms that are known to do this are a special type of worm. Hehe.

I used to equate this process to human birthing, but it really is quite different. In the end, it's just a polyp reproducing itself by cutting its body into individual segments and having them develop separately.

Anyways, once they are finally finished developing, each segment will break off the strobila in a horrifying, yet oddly satisfying manner. I love it. You can see this beautiful process in the opening of Ponyo, but they simplify it a lot and also make it less terrifying by showing the liberated ephyra simply "popping off" the strobila. Like. Ephyra have to struggle to get into this world. It's not easy. It's honestly a little criminal when I think about it. But the moon jellyfish aren't entirely accurate in the movie either, so I suppose I shouldn't be mad haha.

Um. Yeah.

I mentioned it in a post earlier, but polyps can strobilate multiple times throughout their lifetimes (which is why scyphozoan polyps generally leave behind residue after they strobilate lol, as opposed to cubozoan polyps)

um gosh i didn't mean to ramble so much about general jellyfish stuff but boy do I have an appreciation for strobilation

// (ngl, i haven't focused much of my energy on jellyfish for a while. I think i am tired and on a mairuma high. dw though, i'll be back with my bs soon hehe)

#jellyfish #mun rambles #ask #i'll probably use the information in that scientific article i downloaded to figure out how to make jellyfish family size a reasonable size #lol #i don't want clones to be running around everywhere. Sighh. ;-;#anyways thanks for hoppin in my ask box jestie this was fun :>>

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saver64 · 5 months

Text

Can't work, can't sleep.

My little self-indulgent alarene... something. A short little story.

Summary: Alain has been trying to work on this new project but things are just not going all that well. He's been losing sleep. Rene is here to help him out

Tags: Alternative universe: noone dies, fluff, nsfw as a joke, but nothing actually happens, established relationships (they are like. friends with benefits or something like that. Not- not dating. Kaveh: "it's complicated" you know, scientists stuff, the usual)

English is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes,,

"Alain, please." Rene sat on top of the other's bed while Guillotin was studying some kind of lock. He was struggling to open it because it had a detector that required to use elemental reactions which was very unusual... and hard to achieve without a vision. Meanwhile Petrichor was bothering him with some unrelated questions.

It's not like they had a lot in common when it came down to the things they were interested in. Alain studied technology and kinetics while Rene - mostly biology and alchemy. It is more interesting that way, Rene once said to him, something about experiencing the world through different lenses and what not. Alain didn't wear any glasses except for the ones to protect his eyes while he was working but that was probably one of those things they call metaphors...

"No. Isn't it obvious I'm a little preoccupied right now?"

He hears humming.

"Why can't you put it aside then?"

"Why should I?" That was his answer.

Rene stood up and walked up to him, his hands landing on his shoulders. "I haven't seen you in a few days and when I come back you're busy. Is it so unlikely that I would miss you?"

Alain sighed. "Three days is only 72 hours. That's an adequate amount of time. But... I have to admit that I'm not qualified to comment on the latter."

Rene furrowed his brows. "I don't think you can calculate how long it would take for somebody to start feeling lonely without an important person in their life. You would need to consider a good amount of variables in order to even estimate such a thing."

He then grinned and leaned in a bit, their noses almost touching. Alain averted his gaze, blush making his face look a bit more healthy.

"You look like you've been losing sleep. A case of insomnia or sleep deprivation as a result of working on a new project?" said Rene and kissed him on the cheek, something brief and light.

"None of your business." Alain closed his eyes and put his little lock on the table. He then stood up and went right to his bed, shaking his coat off his shoulders and getting rid of the gloves.

"Alright then. Surprise me."

Rene smiled at him, amusement obvious on his face. "Weren't you busy, Monsieur researcher?"

Alain nodded. "I was. But it is indeed quite dangerous to work non-stop and I've only managed to get two hours of sleep last night."

Rene sat down next to him, taking their hands and clasping them together. The way Alain's skin felt under his fingers... it put his mind at ease. "Insomnia then? Have you tried taking any medication?"

Alain shook his head. "Nothing quite managed to help. Made me sleep longer but approximately only for 13 minutes and 44 seconds."

"Hm... alright I'm not sure if this will help but we can try it anyway."

Rene stood up again and started taking off his clothes. Alain looked at him, a tired expression on his face.

"I don't think I'll be able to hold on for long enough..."

Then it was Rene's turn to look at him with confusion.

"Whatever do you mean by that?"

Alain shrugged, pulled his pants down and took of his shirt. He was about to take everything else off when a hand stopped him mid movement. "What are you doing?"

They stared at each other for a bit.

"Nothing."

Alain removed his hand from his underwear. Rene just laughed to which the other also smiled, even if a bit embarrassed. Rene then rolled to the middle of the bed. Alain crawled up on top of him which looked quite interesting from an outside perspective.

"Hi." said Rene. Alain giggled, a rare but beautiful sight. He looked so carefree for once, nothing heavy weighing on his mind. Rene pulled him closer by the neck and connected their lips. He kissed him slowly, enjoying this moment they were sharing. Alain, tired as he was, closed his eyes and completely relaxed in his arms, his worries melting away. Rene tangled his hand in his hair and started brushing it, his fingers running through the strands.

"Thank you..." Alain said after a while. "I think this was very much necessary. I've been stuck on this lock for a week now. Maybe I need some time to just... not think about it."

"Perhaps. I might try to help you in the morning if you want, maybe all you need to do is to look at the problem from a new perspective."

"This sounds reasonable..."

Alain closed his eyes. Rene wrapped his arms around him. Alain then, with his eyes still closed, pulled out a blanket and gave it to Rene who then covered both of them with it.

"Alain."

"Hm?"

"Sometimes I think about cutting your head open and looking at your brain"

"That's a very bad compliment."

"It isn't."

"Yes, it is."

They spent a couple of hours arguing over some different topics such as human autopsy and the necessity of morals but soon enough Alain fell asleep, his face in the crook of Rene's neck.

"I thought I should bring you some medication to help with your insomnia but maybe you just need some company instead"

#fanfiction #narzissenkreuz #narzissenkreuz ordo #alain guillotin #rene de petrichor #have some alarene #yes again.#I am very much not ok about them #kinda OOC in my opinion #this has been collecting dust in my notes for some time now #I have like. Full on personalities figured out now in my head #and some of that is just not here #headcanons are missing

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sally-mun · 2 years

Note

Any general tips for someone who is about to get into writing Sonic related fiction?

Know your lore without being a slave to it.

Writing, in general, necessitates a lot of research before you get started, whether you're doing a fanwork or not. There's a reason the adage goes, "To write well, you have to write what you know." Trying to write about something without adequate research will obviously open you up to things like misinformation and personal bias, but beyond that it also means your work will be incredibly shallow and flat. Readers will bounce right off and probably not come back for anything else you write, either.

This goes for fandom works just as much as it does for original works. You need to know the canon to expand upon it, or else your work won't come across to your readers as authentic or sincere. We're all familiar with how it feels to consume a piece of media (including official sources) that clearly came from writers that didn't know what they were talking about; depending on how important that story is to you, even one uninformed writer can make a work feel downright offensive for so badly disrespecting the source material. No one wants to give that feeling to their own readers, so I BEG of you, do your research before you even start.

HOWEVER, familiarizing yourself with canon does not mean you've been handed a rulebook. At the end of the day, you're the only one that can decide what does and doesn't help the story you're trying to tell. If there's a piece of canon that's in your way, don't feel like you have to write around it (or worse, forcibly incorporate it); you are completely free to yeet that shit into the wild blue yonder if it's not working for you. I literally can't even tell you the amount of things I've outright omitted from my stories because I decided they were unnecessary, nonsensical, out of character, a deus ex machina, conflicted with other established info, or just plain boring/stupid. Canon's not your real dad, it can't tell you what to do. Provided that you clearly establish early on to your readers 1) what you have changed, and 2) why you have changed it, they'll usually be willing to go with you on it.*

That said, though, it's very important to be well-read on the fandom you want to write fiction for. Even if you're not directly drawing inspiration from or utilizing a piece of canon, there are countless ways you can incorporate bits and pieces of it to fill in fine details and give your story more depth. It can be as simple as a particular item turning up as a set piece. Those little references are the things that make readers go "Ah, I see what you did there!" and pats them on the back for recognizing the same bit of lore that you did. Small acknowledgements like that are little ways in which you can indirectly thank your reader for spending their time reading YOUR story as opposed to anyone else's.

If you're working from a fandom that has multiple branches of canon -- as the Sonic series is well-known for -- it would be in your best interest to have at least a passing familiarity with as many of those branches as you can, by the way. Lots of readers are going to be familiar with more than just the specific branch you're drawing from, so that's extra opportunities to reward them for giving your story a chance! More importantly, though, you'd be surprised just how much inspiration you can find from transferring a piece of lore from one canonical branch to another. It prompts you to think more deeply about your existing story and ask yourself questions that may not have otherwise crossed your mind before. Even if you don't end up using that transfer in the end, it's still a great exercise to engage in, because you can still uncover new ideas that DO ultimately make it into the prose.

---

*As far as establishing the what and why of the changes, this can be done in-story or simply be a notice in a description. I personally prefer establishing these things in-story with context clues or this-therefore-that events, but if that doesn't work for you, a brief explanation outside of the story itself is perfectly acceptable.

Also, keep in mind that not all readers are going to be interested in the changes you've made -- and that is NOT a reflection of the quality of your work, so don't take it personally. We all have specific tastes in our fiction, and not every story is going to work for us. Likewise, the fandom you're writing for isn't a monolith, and the individuals that make up that fandom also have their specific tastes and preferences. Your story isn't going to be for all of them, so just focus on the audience you are writing for and give them the best story you can craft.

#writer things #this one's been a long time coming #I've been trying to get to it for the last few days but didn't want to tackle it until I knew I had plenty of time to get it RIGHT #because this is important stuff #and I hope it helps someone

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thenightlymartini · 1 year

Note

Hey I'm back again! (Most recent anons) I've been muling over ideas for the last week and I think I finally was able to put the idea into words. I'm still not quite ready to post any of my own Commieburger content [because I'm in the process of trying to create my own N!Korea OC, and because this idea fits more with the version you use.]

After being in a relationship for some while, the stuff they say to eachother around other people start to have double or even triple meanings. Alfred doesn't quite realize it until he picks up the very slight difference in the way that North was yelling something at him, and he immediately understood that there actual meaning. Neither of them meant to do it, and no one has caught on yet, but it becomes the only way they can seem to communicate while around other nations.

Congrats on deciding to make your own OC! Just remember to do lots of research and, especially since this is N. Korea, you need to make sure you are not glorifying his government nor the human rights atrocities the country is doing. If you are looking for inspiration or need an example of how to go about that, I recommend looking at @circlique's OC of N. Korea, the same one I use for my headcannons. You can find the dedicated blog for N. Korea under ask-north-korea. I believe they do a very great job at building his character and answering questions through the OC's perspective while also being respectful of the people and culture and critical of the actual country's government and history. Always important to take as much time as you need!

For your idea, it reminds me a little of what I've done before in some of my fanfiction, as well as some of the writing by circlique on their AO3 account. Though, mostly both writings focus on keeping up the act of America and N. Korea hating each other. I do like the idea of some of the things they say to each other having a double or triple meaning, like some things they would say to a passerby may sound condescending or they are trying to rub salt in the wound, but between the two of them it is a subtle way of checking in on each other. Two ideas I got while reading your idea was one about America doing his own way of making sure NK is alright and subtly displaying his love and affection and NK very subtly consoling America, and they show their real meanings through very small physical movements or tonal shifts that they honestly didn't realize they ended up doing until much later.

America would be really cocky and essentially looks like he is mocking NK for his government not being able to feed his citizens adequately, but in reality the way he structured his words and changed tone ever so slightly indicated he was checking to make sure NK was eating properly and that he would make sure the other got something if he needed, maybe even discretely paying for delivery to NK's hotel room later if he couldn't be there with him. NK, likewise, especially after witnessing or hearing about America being called fat or someone being critical of America's health or diet, would sound like, to anyone else, he's mocking America for being so nosy about what other people do or say that he should learn to back off or that he deserves what people are saying about him, but the subtle way of how a finger or hand slightly reaches for America's and the way his tone indicates he's dialing back on his annoyance or meanness actually tells he's trying to comfort America and tell him don't take those words to heart and carry on being himself otherwise he's just going to get more depressed if he thinks about it for too long.

I think they eventually pick up on these slight changes and differences as they progress and date for longer, as they have more time to really analyze and see each other as people and figure out the little quirks each have. In the end, I think they take it as a way to develop themselves, too, such as America learning to be more tactful with his words and tone, as well as learning to not be as pushy and just learning the art of subtlety in general, while NK learns to dial back on his general mean sounding-ness and sarcasm/snark when he's trying to be nice and to be more open in private or when one-on-one.

Thinking back on one of my more popular stories on AO3, I got the idea of NK being more subtle with physical displays because, despite being so attention and touched deprived that any sort of attention he gets he will cling to whether it's good or bad, he is bad at initiating physical touch himself unless he's really passionate. He also doesn't communicate wants that clearly since he's not used to opening up that much and his brain is so used to suppressing his own wants and desires for the sake of putting everything and everyone else first that he has a hard time letting himself be free to act on his own desires and wants, so if he wants to cuddle or hold hands, his fingers or hand act just ever so slightly quicker than his brain, but his brain catches up before any full action is made, thus looking like a twitch or subtle hand shift. NK, if it is just America and him alone, is prone to pouting as well, though it mostly comes when he isn't getting what he wants and he himself doesn't realize he's doing it unless America pointed it out.

I've left a few excerpts from one of my stories to help kind of clarify what I'm talking about with the changes in how America and NK act around each other:

"America quirked an eyebrow at the Korean, unused to the other relenting that easily. He was about to leave to fix up the couch when he noticed the subtle pout on the smaller man’s lips. The one thing he can say for certain about the past year of their blossoming relationship is that he started picking up on North’s quirks; including when North was trying to express what he actually wanted. If the pout weren’t present, he would have just figured the other was nervous, but North never pouts unless he isn’t getting what he really wants." "He glanced over to his left and noticed North opened his eyes again, this time seeing the conflicted look. America raised an eyebrow, then saw the twitch of one of North’s fingers reaching out towards him. After a year, he had learned that sometimes North was too scared to verbally ask for something if he felt insecure about it, and he took the hint. 'If you want, you can cuddle. Think of it like we do normally on the couch watching a movie.' America coaxed the hesitant Korean, opening up his arm so his side was exposed." - Excerpts from "First Night With One Bed"

#hetalia #commieburger #analysis #anon ask #aph america #hws america #aph north korea #hws north korea #alfred f jones #im sang kyu #writing

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