#how can one little finite person suffer so much? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icharchivist · 4 months

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Ngl if I were in Lucilius's shoes back then I might have lashed out as well

He was happy being dead. He was fine with it. His suffering was over and he got to die at the hands of his favorite person. Lucifer rebelling against his creator was the last thing he saw so he died with vindication on his mind and a smile on his lips

And then all that was taken away from him and he was thrust back into this world, in a body that wasn't his and then learned that he would never get to see Lucifer again because he was killed to bring him back, even though he never asked for that

So he lost his peace and he lost his dear friend. Maybe that's why he's touching the scar like that in Rising

Belial is definitely to blame for his own misery, not because it's his fault, but because he keeps digging his heels in

They're super compelling in many ways. They're tragic characters from a lot of angles and interesting and raw and I can even see how you'd like to ship them, there's so much emotion there, it's like a powder keg

I get the rage from Belial fans especially, but yeah, Lucilius didn't ask for any of this. Now he's been brought back he has no choice but to either go for a murder-suicide with the whole world or die trying, because he just wants to hang in the void and not be here

Perhaps what they all need is therapy

Honestly??? yeah. completely.

I think the thing that strikes me with Lucilius's apathy, the reason maybe i'm a little defensive when the conversation on his apathy turns into this moral failing on him and all is that....

Lucilius' apathy, for me, is deeply suicidal.

The whole point of the difference between Astrals and Skydwellers is the fact that Skydwellers can find their meaning in the fact their life is ultimately finite - but Astrals have to move on, immortal, eternally.

If we can understand Belial's suicidal angst about how the ages are going to continue and he'll always be alone as a primal, i think we can understand that the same angst should apply to the Astrals.

And Astrals are not supposed to die. Astrals are supposed to keep going and living. And Lucilius himself lived this life with agony, always feeling like the life he was living was a joke, plagued with visions reminding him that no matter how he anchored himself into this world, there were stuff outside of his control robbing him of his own autonomy and agency.

And i think it's why Zero, the song, is so much more about how he prays for everything to return to the void, for Rebirth, pure white splendor, to restart the cycle.

the idea is that when the Omnipotent broke into two, with the astrals like this, this freedom in death was fully taken away -- and Lucilius wants this freedom back.

Ultimately, Lucilius' plan is all the suicidal wish of a man who cannot die, and as such, is driven instead into finding another solution that could replace death in this equation, without specifically doing anything to help him want to be alive. And Lucilius, especially, therefore wants to bring this exact salvation he's seeking to everyone. Not to help them, but to properly restart the cycle and to spite God.

The Primals are created immortals, because that's the only things the Astrals know how to do. Also Lucilius was creating the first primals of their kind. It's easy to project the Frankeinstein logic of "you should love your own creation and your own son" on how he made the primals - and it's the one reason people will never forgive Lucilius and i cannot blame them, because this is too relatable of a thread to let go of. But the point is still that... when you create the First Creatures Of A Kind, you don't exactly get to planify how things will go. Lucilius wasn't a parent who knew he was putting a new life into the world and should be responsible for it, he was a mad scientist who was trying to find a loophole to his inability to die by testing around and see if he could reproduce what God had done and eventually find an answer to himself. He didn't create the primals because he wanted to be a parent, a caretaker, or anything. He was making experiments to answer the bigger questions of his life.

He made plans using those in order to take down God, ultimately, his ultimate plan was to destroy everything, including himself. And then his beloved creation killed him. And i don't think he planned for that, but it gave him peace. It gave him the death his apathy has been seeking for his whole life. It gave him peace of mind that his rebellion was worth something, that there is something such as free will in the skies, that God couldn't control everything that was going on in his life.

Lucifer killing Lucilius was the achievement of everything Lucilius had worked for, and finally something that brought him the peace he had been working for his entire life.

And Belial couldn't live without him so he ruined all of that instead, and thrusted Lucilius right back into his previous plans, the others desperate outdated plans Lucilius had started before Lucifer gave him what he wanted in the end.

And it's not like it's untrue Lucilius had an impact on why Belial did all of this. Regardless to his reasons, he was Belial's creator, and the emotional neglect and its effects are still something that are on his hands. But it's clear Lucilius was never in a position to give Belial what Belial wanted or needed, and at this point, Lucilius never would have.

Belial brought Lucilius back, hoping desperately that this time, Lucilius would give him the love he always wanted. But in doing so he stole Lucilius' agency one last time, and he stripped away Lucilius' accomplishments. He brought back to life a man who only ever wanted to die, and just so happened to want to take the whole world down with him to make it worthwhile.

and it's why it's.... complicated, to me, when we see the scenes where he's not too hot about being brought back to life, how he ignores Belial's attempt at a hug in gbvs for instance, focusing on Belial's neglect while... Lucilius himself is being brought back against his will to start with yaknow?

And like. Belial deserves to have his emotional needs met, but Lucilius will never be able to be the one to give those to him. Belial is the one to ignore Lucilius' clear signs about it and still desperately asking him for this need and affection. He sets himself up to fail on that regard.

And it's sympathetic, and yes, it's something that can be heavily relatable for people who have been into abusive relationship, especially family relationship - the desperate feeling of coming back to a parent who was SUPPOSED to love you, but never gave you the love and yet you come back every time hoping for it, and they won't give it for you. And i know that this is the major reason a lot of Belial's fans will hold Lucilius responsible for it, and cannot blame Belial for wanting it this much. But aside from the fact that while the thematics echo those, Lucilius isn't Belial's parent and shouldn't be held on the same standard as a parental figure due to the specific of the fantasy system they're a part of, ultimately the conclusion to this type of thematic should be "you need to move away from the person making you feel this way. you can't keep asking them to give you water when all they can produce is oil.".

And meanwhile Lucilius has his own thematics to be accounted for, which i also think are worth compassion to a certain degree. "extreme level of alienation bringing you to a level of apathy for the world that lead you to suicide, destroying also everything around you you've ever created" is also its own tragedy that is worth the room to feel bad for. And on that level, someone constantly answering to someone being suicidal with "but you can't die because i need you, and i will make sure you will never be able to die because it's what I want, no matter what YOU want" is just as damaging for someone's psyche as the elements mentioned in the previous paragraph.

(also while relating to some elements, especially like that, is an important part of connecting with characters and everything, i do think it's really important to compartimentalize and understand that just because the situation is relatable, doesn't mean it has to be exactly in line with the way the reader got to live it. A story will first need to serve itself and its own themes before being a mirror. Relating to a situation is important, but ignoring how different the situation actually is because of that can lead to misunderstand the actual story being told.)

idk i'm kinda rambling now, i 100% agree with all of your ask over here though.

Ultimately both of them are super toxic with themselves, with each other, with everyone around them. They're deeply fucked up invidivudals who have reached a level of self destruction where all they can do is take others people down with them around them.

and they both probably just majorly need therapy. And if either of them wants to recover (which they don't), they need to be apart from each other because they bring the worst out of each other and they hurt each other by the fact they need extremely different things.

They make each other worse, and i think they both have reasons to resent each other for that.

There will always be the argument that as the creator, Lucilius has a powerdynamic though - which will always tip the balance in this conversation. But it shouldn't actually remove the fact that Lucilius is also suffering from it. Just the fact there is an imbalance at play doesn't mean that the elements which are pilling up outside of the imbalance aren't important to take into account to start with.

so yeah, team therapy.

#ichareply #ichafantalks gbf #anonymous

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oliversrarebooks · 6 months

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can i get your ocs' opinions on helle and beck?👉👈

thank you for the ask and for your response on mine!

Oliver: What Beck is going through is terrifying. I mean, in some ways it is nice that he still gets to continue his old life... but does he really? I don't think I could live anything like an ordinary life with a vampire constantly intruding onto my bookshop and my peace, and treating me so sadistically. I think Beck is stronger than I would be in such a situation.

Alexander: I don't get along well with vampires who treat humans as their playthings for sadistic pleasure. Helle might have a different personality than my sire, but as far as I'm concerned they're cut from the same rotten cloth. It's one thing to keep thralls -- we do have needs -- and quite another to treat them like that. Unnecessary at best, unethical at worst.

I do understand how spending so long being tortured by your sire erodes a vampire, though. It's not something I expect humans to understand. Human suffering is more keenly felt, but more... finite. Humans will never know what it feels like to starve for years.

That doesn't mean I find Helle's behavior remotely acceptable. There's no excuse for acting out your darkest urges.

Human Fitz:

The more vampires I meet, the more I think that Alexander might just be an anomaly. The way Helle toys with people... I like to think I could deal with it better than Beck does, though. Give Helle a little bit of hell back. Truthfully, I'd rather deal with Helle than with Alexander's sire any day. At least Helle gives you a break from being a puppet.

Beck seems like the kind of easy mark who falls for any kind of confidence game. That doesn't mean he deserves what he got. That's just what happens when you go through life that naive.

Vampire Fitz:

Yes, we all know that humans are powerless. Do vampires like Helle think it makes them big and important to torture some poor sap just trying to live his life? Why give humans so much pain when you can so easily choose to give them pleasure? Maybe I'm soft-hearted, but I don't see why humans need to suffer as part of this whole sordid process.

Beck, though. I'd take Beck as my thrall any day. I'd make his life easy street, too. He'd love me. I mean, who doesn't?

Lily:

I can't believe a vampire that old hasn't gotten bored into putting that much work destroying the life of one human. At least I'm getting paid for my effort.

Beck's a little treat, though. He'd fall over easily for just about any technique, and he'd sell for good money.

#vampire #ask #at my beck and call #beck #helle

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brokenmusicboxwolfe · 3 months

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So much to say, and no energy to write. Just as well. I always ramble on so much it must bore everyone to death, and I don’t want to be killing people.

I’m too tired for anything.

I haven’t sculpted since I ticked off making Mom a Valentine’s gift. I hadn’t felt like sculpting in ages, but I did it on auto pilot. It was my addiction, going literally years of sculpting without missing a single day. And now I suddenly don’t care.

Bad timing, because I just got some replacement tools** for my fave that I broke and I haven’t even used them yet?

Good timing, because I am almost out of sculpey and need to reserve it for making Easter and Mother’s Day gifts for Mom?

I dunno. Doesn’t matter. Don’t care.

Honestly, I can’t even watch a movie or tv show without my attention fracturing into a million pieces. I used to be a “don’t stop until the credits” person and now I take breaks to wander off and do stuff, or it still and research something.

Last night I watched a movie I surprised myself be loving.*** Sign I loved it? Only three fifteen minute or so breaks and not constantly looking away while it was on. And I loved it, so how little attention do I pay to things I don’t find delightful?

I have been to the woods three times this month. Once, racing against the darkness, the other two forced marches. While on one of them I did indulge in 15 minuted lying on the ground cuddled up to my favorite tree by the swamp, I was doing it mostly out of exhaustion. I noticed nothing interesting other than a hawk freaking out the other birds as it flew over head. Yawn.

I haven’t been taking pictures. Usually I recharge my camera every day, and now it’s once a week. Nothing feels like bothering about.

I dunno. What’s the point?

I go through the motions. I take care of the animals. I call Mom and read to her however long she wants. I fix meals**** and do laundry. I work on stuff that needs urgent doing. I am busy, busy, busy.

Busy until my body feels broken. I’d hurt if I were doing stuff I enjoyed, but maybe I wouldn’t feel so worn down by the experience.

There is no end. No progress. No sense of accomplishment. Obviously no acknowledgement for my efforts.

So what’s the reward? What’s the point? My life continues to erode with no hope of any improvement. Work your ass off to dig yourself out and still end up buried alive, just exhausted too.

Don’t worry. I get up everyday because the animals need me and Mom needs my call. The need me so I live.

Honestly though? I’ve gotten so I wake up early from a bad sleep, and then spend an hour or two just lying in bed. Until the day starts I don’t have to think about any of the worries crushing me. I’m cozy and let myself wander in dreams. I wait at long as I dare to break the spell…

Get out of bed and the dreams evaporate. The worries and anxieties climb onto my back. Pain of body. Pain of spirit. The gauntlet must be run so I can pass out in bed (unusually trying to write in my journal) at 2am. Because if I don’t get through the day I can’t wake up in the morning for my hour of pretending my life doesn’t exist.

I wouldn’t mind being tired if there was something to gain from it. I wouldn’t mind suffering now if I thought there would be an end.

You can endure a hell of a lot with hope. I am starting to realize just what a finite resource hope is.

Resignation will do if you can still find some pleasure in the moment, glimpsing clouds in the sky above the well you are drowning in. But what happens when you stop finding those moments?

I swear, people scoffed at my sculpting or carrying around my camera or walking in the woods or just watching so many movies. These were nothings and a waste of time. But you know what? These nothings made me enjoy being alive no matter how grueling most of it was.

I want want to enjoy things like I used to. My brother used to sneer “Simple things for simple people” about me liking things he found stupid or pointless, but you know what? I was always happier for it.

I miss “happy”. Hell, I’d settle for “fine” or “okay” at this point! LOL

**Don’t get excited. They were only $5 for the lot, so probably crap. To replace the one I broke would have cost a lot more, so I figured I’d make do.

*** A Scandal in Paris from the 1940s. A lifelong criminal becomes chief of police in Paris. Witty comedy with a dark side that turns up in the end, like cold water thrown in the face of a dreamer. Don’t worry, our hero still goes back to sleep I expect, just having rolled over to the other side of the law. I have never been keen on Douglas Sirk, but then if I hadn’t seen the credits I wouldn’t have guessed he directed it.

**** Meals for multiple days. To save money I made that bean soup, but jeez, by day 10 of eating it I wanted anything else.

#my day #venting #exhausted #another day another set of problems #I am so sick of problems #can’t I just get one thing done before the next crisis?#It’s all half done in a half assed way to get by while I deal with the next thing #Five next things before breakfast makes me sooo fed up

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allelvesarebastards · 8 months

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“I wonder– if nobody is listening to my voice, am I making any sound at all?” -Radio Silence

Each one of us is drifting through life as isolated blops in a cluster of billions of similar and dissimilar blops on a giant rock itself an isolated blop in a cluster of googolplex of similar and dissimilar blops in a (regardless of whether it is infinite or finite and whether we’ll ever find an answer to this question) relatively bloody big everything of a universe. To say our personal tiny existence within it is irrelevant and ultimately silent no matter how much noice we make (or do not make) isn’t the greatest reach.

And yet we seek to feel heard. We need it, even. For if my suffering truly is alone, why do I bother? And to no one is this particular curiosity of life as true to the not yet quite understood creature known as a teenager. Lost in a muddled sea of confusion and emotion and excitement and boredom and curiosity and apathy and love and hate and loneliness. Nothing and everything is everything and nothing to this creature that resembles a human but isn’t really yet certain what a human is and is still looking (or simply waiting for the arrival of) an answer.

But truly, isn’t this a simplification of the existence known as existence? Aren’t we all always just looking and looking and looking? Well, no. Unfortunately there are few of those who have deluded themselves that they have indeed already found the answer and regrettably for everyone sharing their space of existence they rarely do shut up about it. But the rest of us: the 20-year-olds who have been told we’re adults and should indeed grow up already (what ever that means), the 30-year-olds still remembering they are 20-year-olds whilst dreading the ultimate arrival of the haunting 40s (and still quite uncertain of whatever was meant by the so overused word adult), the lot of unmentioned ages who have accepted that they have truly grown and adulted up (and realised no one ever really meant anything by that anyways) but who are now caught for the first time with an understanding of the time passed in the memories of that time when everything was as ununderstandable as it still is but when the answer still seemed necessary and worth seeking, and frankly everyone else on this little big blop intelligent and unintelligent enough to seek for comfort and security.

And how does any of this relate to a Kentish author of colourful books who at the time of creating this narrative is a 28 years-old smily blop with gingery but not quite ginger hair? Well, it doesn’t, in the way that nothing relates to everything and everything relates to nothing. And in this confusing mess of nothing and everything this single blop has gathered a love around her for making millions of other isolated blops listen to her voice (thus making her voice into existence) and amidst these words of nothing and everything they have heard something they recognise. A relatable isolated existence, still and always still in search for comfort and security. In seach of the unanswering answer.

“I think the truth is that everyone in the entire world is confused and nobody understands much of anything at all.” -I Was Born For This

Calling a piece of art humane or honest has become as meaningless as calling it art. It answers everything, yet nothing. I leaves you with an unanswerable question: “and?” A piece of art that rips you apart and leaves your soul (a thing of inexistence) void – pyrrhic – can be called humane. (In the mind of a masochist at least.) And an honest book can be filled with lies as long as it makes you understand for the first time something you come to think is true (though it probably isn’t).

So if Oseman’s works aren’t humane or honest, what are they? Well, you already know the answer I’ll give: they’re comforting – another meaningless word, I know, but I think it has become clear enough that meaninglessness can ultimately be the meaning itself. Oseman doesn’t make people care about her characters because she makes them likeable (with the expectation of Nick whom if you do not like I can neither call youl humane or honest in any manner meaningful or meaningless). Certainly, the characters in her books can be likeable: I doubt it’s possible to read through their bibliography and assert that you loathed everyone. (Again, that would be neither honest or humane.) But I think rather the reason why we grow to care and like their characters so is because they’re (that meaningless word) relatable. Not everyone to everyone (because that wouldn’t be relatable to anyone) and that is precisely why no one relates to everyone within their works; for every character you swear your love to – whom you feel represents your isolated existence as a meaningless blop the best – someone else hates. (Well, besides Nick.)

But it isn’t reletability alone that makes Oseman’s works so beloved. It couldn’t be; in a sea of millions of blops reading millions of books, every book and no book is relatable. (Hence the meaninglessness of the word.) Why do then thousands and thousands crowd around her works? (A question I’ve asked and answered already but as we have discovered (or are about to discover) the is no answer.) So, what in particular is so calling about her particular brand of relatability? Comfort.

“I've learnt some things. Like the way friendship can be just as intense, beautiful and endless as romance. Like the way there's love everywhere around me – there's love for my friends, there's love for my parents, there's love for myself.” -Loveless

I named three things that we as lost drifting blops seek: comfort, security and the dreaded answer. One could also call them one and the same. Comfort leads to security which makes one let go of the need for the answer – at least for the time being. But it isn’t simply the comfort of a hot cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate or your non-hot beverage of choice that Oseman offers. It isn’t the comfort of a moment or a place but rather the comfort of the existence of another alike blop. The comfort of relatability.

In a world, where the most popular media about existence and finding ones self – whether that be surrounding teens or the inexisting adults – are ones of drama and pain and ecstasy, this is needed. Certainly one can relate to characters in Game of Thrones or Euphoria but one would doubtably call that relatability comforting. And some call that good. There is an unfortunate pretence at defining good art and good relatibility as the kind that is philosophical in a way that makes one uncomfortable. Because how could one understand the world better – ask the right questions – question the history, the present day and the future – if they felt comforted about their own existence? In this bubble of pretence, one nearly forgets that in the end, we also have to live in the world we wish to understand.

“I wish I could be as subtle and beautiful. All I know how to do is scream.” -Radio Silence

And here lies the sphere of Oseman. To say they write bubblegum fiction would undermine the need for security and the possible coexistence of comfort and pain within us. I have heard said that her books are written as if they are set in a better alternative reality to our own where people are better. Repeat that to yourself: a better alternative reality where people are better. Better how? You mean, good people? Or perhaps you mean a world in which homophobia, transphobia, eating disorders, bullying and depression doesn't exist? But this is not her world. Perhaps you mean a world in which despite all of those things we manage to find hope – our own bubble of comfort and security.

But it’s precisely because her works have been called unrealistic – and in that same breath, though perhaps unintentionally, unrelatable – that her works are needed, are beloved, and are necessary. They are for us the hope they represent. Because the comfort the characters find even amidst their pain is the comfort we find through them within those pages. Her relatability doesn’t stem from the fact that our own existence is bubbly and always comfortable, but because there is always a need for that – and because there is always a possibility of that in our own world – we simply need a reminder of that every now and then.

We are all lost and all alone. No one is listening. None of us matter. At least that is what the world has convinced us is the intelligent answer to the unnameble question we are haunted by. And so that should be the gravity behind good art. It’s certainly relatable, but one wouldn’t easily call it comforting. (And that isn’t the point, the intelligent critic cries!) Yes, each of us isolated blops can relate to that silent loneliness that we call existence but that doesn’t mean that must be the end of the road.

I started my incoherent narrative with a quote from Radio Silence: “I wonder– if nobody is listening to my voice, am I making any sound at all?” It should say all it needs to say that that is the most liked Oseman quote on Goodreads. Yes, we can all relate to the hollowness of lonesome existence. But to spoil the obvious, that isn’t the final statement of the book. And perhaps the hope Oseman gives is not always honest, but it is always necessary. Perhaps all our voices are truly silent but then there rings a chorus of nonexistent sound. In our isolation we’re all connected; we might be no one and nothing but we find that in the end even in that we are together – silent, loud, separate, not alone.

“Nobody is honest, nobody is real. You can't trust anyone or anything. Emotions are humanity's fatal disease. And we're all dying.” -Solitaire

#alice oseman #heartstopper #solitaire #loveless #i was born for this #radio silence #osemanverse #nick and charlie #nick nelson #charlie spring #tao xu #elle argent #darcy olsson #tara jones

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cor-ardens-archive · 2 years

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Have you ever read this interview with Hanya Yanagihara about A Little Life, where she says there's a limit to trauma people can suffer before they're irreparably broken, and Jude is too damaged to ever get a happy ending? That's usually where ppl (when it came out) drew their criticism, not the book on its own but the interview she did following its release. theguardian com/books/2015/jul/26/hanya-yanagihara-i-wanted-everything-turned-up-a-little-too-high-interview-a-little-life

I've read that interview, but have you? Because I think you're confusing it with another interview she gave to Electric Literature.

Here's the passage you're most likely referring to:

HY: One of the things I wanted to do with this book is create a character who never gets better. And, relatedly, to explore this idea that there is a level of trauma from which a person simply can’t recover. I do believe that really, we can sustain only a finite amount of suffering. That amount varies from person to person and is different, sometimes wildly so, in nature; what might destroy one person may not another. So much of this book is about Jude’s hopefulness, his attempt to heal himself, and I hope that the narrative’s momentum and suspense comes from the reader’s growing recognition — and Jude’s — that he’s too damaged to ever truly be repaired, and that there’s a single inevitable ending for him.

If you take issue with what she's said then that's your prerogative and I don't care, but it's just the story she set out to write — one about a man who never recovers from the years of brutal violence he suffered as a child, and who reaches a point in his life where he decides suicide is the best possible option. I personally don't find that offensive at all — some people do make the choice to commit suicide in order to put an end to constant suffering, and I don't think it's my place to judge them. At no point did Yanagihara say that traumatized people can never recover, or that we can't live with our trauma and still have a good, content life. That's simply not the story she decided to write — and like she said in the article you sent, she's writing a heightened reality designed to elicit emotion. It's an unhappy story, that's all. And maybe there's no "happy ending" for Jude, but that doesn't mean he never finds happiness or that his life held no meaning. He had many moments of happiness with his friends and family, and especially with Willem, and he lived a meaningful life, and had a positive impact on the people he knew. He commits suicide when the pain becomes too overwhelming, and he no longer sees a reason to force himself to bear that pain — but that doesn't render his moments of happiness and love and friendship any less meaningful.

I actually think A Little Life is first and foremost a book about suicide, and it's interesting to see the reaction it elicits. I don't think it's immoral to write a story about someone who ultimately decides suicide is the best option, and to explore how they reached that decision. I think Yanagihara wanted to write about someone who has everything people believe will "cure" someone: friends, family, love, emotional support, access to medical treatment, a stable income etc. But even then Jude does reach a point where suffering becomes unbearable, and where he decides he doesn't need to continue to live for others, especially since he's lost his partner and most intimate friend. It's sad, of course, but is it really unethical? I haven't seen any convincing arguments that it is, to be honest.

Like I said, if you have an issue with the story that's your prerogative; no one needs to like unhappy stories. But personally I'll take that over Flanagan's generic bullshit any day of the week.

I mention Flanagan because I suppose this message is in response to my post where I mentioned that Yanagihara gets a lot of undeserved criticism for her portrayal of abuse, while Stephen King and Mike Flanagan get almost none. It wasn't a fair comparison, and it wouldn't make sense in most scenarios, but I was thinking of how tumblr specifically engages with these different writers. There's a certain obsession with piling up on female writers, while male writers don't receive a fraction of that scrutiny. And it's just annoying how people take like, one line from an interview and reduce the entire book to that actually!

All of this to say I don't care, you do you etc.

#a little life

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writersus · 1 year

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About Kaitlyn's character pitfalls, I honestly interpreted her decisive nature as a little bit of a negative trait, but only in like certain situations? Like the campfire scene and how she dared Emma to kiss either Jacob or Nick; I think it was said later on that she wanted to help Jacob get back together with Emma, but it doesn't seem to me like she considered the potential cons?? Like her mind went "Yes this will work 100 percent and nothing bad will happen." Aside from that, as an aspiring writer who's struggling to come up with negative traits for my own potential characters, I do wish they'd shown more of her negatives, like with Jacob's clingyness leading to him stranding them, and how even a character's positive trait can backfire and turn into a negative, like they did with Ryan's steadfast defending of people he cares about - i.e. Chris - turning into a denial about the situation they're in.

I think this is a perfect example of the duality of certain characteristics being positive and negative. Realistically, there is no pro and con, it is all circumstantial. This duality of decisiveness is something I personally thought about too, but you put it into words so well, thank you SO much.

Regardless, as mentioned, the narrative itself doesn't explore any of these 'pros' as 'cons' later down the road for Kaitlyn or even introduce other more negative traits like being prone to panic or something as simple as being bad with directions or something. We're left with the coolest and most badass final girl ever which is excellent but even having an ending with a police investigation or something could have shown us how Kaitlyn handles stress and trauma after the fact and added a little oomph to her character.

Another character I think that suffered from being left behind in the narrative is Abi. She's the one-note shy artist, slight romantic which again, is ok. It suffices because that's all she needed to be to serve the story they made, especially with such a big cast, but when trying to flesh out a whole character individually and equally, it's a bit difficult. Now Abi is easier bc culturally, shyness can be interpreted negatively, especially in America and she is sort of shown to be prone to panic through her actions rather then verbally expressing her insecurities, but the point is:

How can you hope to flesh out so many characters to be equally complex with a finite amount of time in a game? Some characters are bound to fall through the cracks, and that's fine. Leaves room for people like me. Ready to overanalyze. Maybe project a little.

Anyway. You know what? More freedom for me. This is MY Kaitlyn Ka and I choose to make her a complex individual in such a way that fits with the narrative of my fic.

#I have decided that I will be writing character analyses for each character #And personal interpretations as they will be represented in the new fic #Bc I want to #the quarry #the quarry game #my stuff #kaitlyn ka #abigail blyg #abi blyg

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amelie701 · 2 years

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There’s something about endings that I can’t really define.

I just finished a short story. It was a sweet one, without hanging plots or eye-catching drama. It was a happy slice of life, two people happening upon each other and letting the world around them draw them together. It was sweet, I know I’ve said this already, but I can’t help the fact that this distinction won’t leave my brain. Because if it was so sweet, why does my chest feel empty? Why does it ache? What is it so hollow I can hear my heart screaming at me from another empty cavity to fix what I’ve just somehow managed to break?

It isn’t just the sweet ones. It never is no matter how much I fucking wish that were the case.

Sometimes it’s the action-packed ones. The one with so much blood and violence and anger that I’m always inclined to ask after the author but never do (it’d be rude of me to think the pieces were projecting anything just because my own works often suffered the fate). Sometimes it’s the scary ones, the ones where a good ending is uncertain, if not near impossible to expect. There aren’t many of those that I’ll read, but whenever I brave them I always hold out hope I’m too freaked out to feel the cracks reforming over where they always managed to heal over. The sentiment never gets me far.

Sometimes— sometimes it’s the painful ones. The tragedies. The ones that end in bittersweet or frustrated tears. Those feel almost justifiable, the growing pain behind my eyelids and my chest more easily explainable behind all the trauma I’ve just forced myself to ingest. But still, I find myself declining so rapidly after just about every story I complete. Every series or movie. Every comic or event. Every fucking piece of vaguely final sounding music I have ever heard. It feels a little like losing parts of myself I hadn’t realized existed.

I guess I recognize it is likely some combination of attachment and investment. That I easily connect with what’s in front of me and spend a large sum of time immersing myself in it that when it’s taken from me, I lose a part I hadn’t realized existed (because it hadn’t existed before I began what last piece of content had so wholly captured my spirit).

But it feels like more than that too.

Here’s something I learned early in life: We aren’t eternal. We’re put on this earth for a short amount of time before we leave it. Most of us won’t leave a large impression, others will. In the end, we’ll be forgotten. Because we’re a speck in the great cosmos or whatever existential bullshit or what have you. We’re inconsequential. We’re so horrifyingly fucking finite. And there isn’t some new story to find, some game level to restart to find a different path. There isn’t a reset or a try again button. Once it’s done it’s done.

We aren’t eternal. But I’ve been so conditioned by handheld perpetuity that I forget sometimes that it’s too late for me to go back a few levels in decisions and choose medical school instead. I forget that I can’t reread a chapter thats ended in my life because time doesn’t really work that way. I forget that there aren’t one hundred different versions of me that have lived and would get to live one hundred different lives. I forget that I’m just a person who’s lost their hope in eternity. In being anything more then a sad, angry, scared blip on the ever changing track of existence.

I so desperately want to pin down endings for myself. To give them some quantifiable weight that I can measure against the pressure in my head and arms and chest when I dissociate into a mindless heap at the sparse, but oh so encompassing, thoughts of finality. Maybe that’ll help me come to terms with my mortality a bit. Maybe I won’t cry myself to sleep wondering why I would never get to see the future, be that one tinged in the light of innovation or certain upheaval. Or wishing I could gaze into the past and climb the pyramid of Giza when it’s golden top still adorned it like a crown. Or becoming desperately hopeless in my realization that no, I wasn’t the “main character.” Or A character. Or a member of the background cast. Fuck, I’m not even in the audience. I was never written into the narrative because there isn’t one. There isn’t and as simple of a concept that must be for others, for someone who grew up consuming books like water I feel listless at the realization, even 6 years later. I would not be remembered, and if I would be, then not for very long. Not long enough for my name to see a future I would not get to explore with my own eyes.

I so desperately wish it were only the sweet ones that made me feel so hollow, but all endings did. All endings do and will probably continue to do so.

And, in a brilliant stroke of cruel irony, that’s the one thing I can’t forsee the end of ever coming to fruition. Not while endings, in whatever form they exist, render me so conscious of what I’ll be losing, what I’ve lost, and what I’ll never even get the chance to lose.

#personal vent #existential thoughts

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itsnogoblavatsky · 2 months

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ugh I used to have this diary esque side bold to just vent about my frustrations in life but I deleted it. Why did I delete it. Did I think my suffering had come to an end? Heh. Stupid to believe that sadness is finite and pain and has a beginning and a middle and an end like it’s a Greek tragedy

anyways what k came on here to say is this: am I a bad person? Do my friends hate me? Do they think I’m difficult or do they think me insufferable

I walked into a DND evening with a full blown anxiety attack the other day and I know they could tell something was the matter but iver the course of the evening I at least managed to play, and by that I mean I was being an asshole and a brat because my dice were very unlucky and unkind. I rationally know that this happens and that it isn’t my DMs fault or anything but I was a little bitch nonetheless. But I just felt so off and so bad all evening and I don’t think I’d have been as belligerent if it hadn’t been for that anxiety attack. I know I wouldn’t have. But it’s been days and none of my friends have checked up on me to ask me how I’m doing. Not a single one of them has asked me if I’m doing ok

So now I’m wondering whether they just thought I was being an asshole for no reason and that’s all. Whether whatever weird vibes off I may have given off initially they wrote off as soon as I was being a gremlin because they think that’s just who I am.

Do my friends even like spending time with me

Like I have to mask so much in my everyday life at work and I cannot

Count the number of times a day I have to tell myself “conceal don’t feel” like a frozen superfan because I know my emotions are volatile! I know i can be a lot!

But I always thought I ALWAYS thought my friends knew I was kind at heart and just sometimes abut nippy like a little dog whose ego is too big for his body?

But do they not?

Am I not? Kind?

I feel like a wounded animal right now. Call the vet or the butcher idc which one anymore

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kaigayoso · 5 months

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2023: too much

i used to think that my writing would suffer when i wasn’t depressed anymore and that turned out to be somewhat true. not that i was like debilitatingly depressed in the way that i used to be when i was younger but like the general feeling of depression that comes with a mass amount of instability in your life.

this might have been the first year post initial covid where i actually had the mental capacity to process what the fuck just happened in the last few years. i changed jobs, i moved across the country, i am a completely different person than i was in 2020 or 2021 even. and i love who i’ve become.

writing that feels somewhat foreign, and acknowledging it to other people even moreso. liking who i am feels like a betrayal to the persona that has gotten me through the past couple years - someone who pushes through amidst all of the self hatred and flagellation to achieve and earn that big, beautiful life.

i turned 30 this year and to be honest it’s been something i’ve been looking forward to for years. there’s a capricorn trope that we benjamin button as we age, meaning that after an initial set of hardship years in our youth, we learn to ease up as the fruits of our labor begin to flourish. we somehow act younger as we get older. whether as a coping mechanism or confirmation bias, i have believed that with my entire being. i don’t think i’ve ever spiritually felt this young and alive before.

for those of you that are new on this read, hey. this is year 5 of this format and year 8 of me taking the time in december to actually recap what this year meant to me. truthfully this has turned into a thing i cherish and love greatly so i appreciate anyone that reads these as it is incredibly personal.

i read all of my past editions before writing this year’s and it’s crazy to have a pretty accurate depiction of you in a single instance, i feel like i write these for future me as i do for present and past me. there’s something here directly correlative to some inner child work which we’ll get to in a bit but i don’t think i have an articulate way of phrasing why i love these essays so much except for the picture of me getting to share these essays with my future kids so they could see that their dad has had some really incredible memories, insights, and people he surrounded himself with. when my dad died, all we had left were his letters to us over the years and i remember thinking how sudden it was that these became finite. i think that’s when i realized that there is a set number of times to tell someone you love them. how can you create something tangible to embody that love?

here we are in december of 2023 and i will look back on this year as the year that i realized i was enough. and what a beautiful feeling that is.

i got coffee a few months ago with my philosopher friend ian (we met on twitter, whole thing) and we went back and forth a few times about the concept of peace. i waxed poetic on something and immediately felt the twinge of cringe, that i had boasted a little too much or was pushing too far on my friend, and apologized for the casual narcissism. he asked why i felt the need to add a caveat to my statement and i didn’t have an answer other than the honest one: i didn’t want you to think that i thought of myself like that.

there’s a need for the ability to be able to sit with your feelings and discomfort and work through them. as a compartmentalization king, this has been one of the more difficult things i’ve had to learn but think i have gotten infinitely better at it. i can sit in silence with myself at the table and have no anxiety about it. what no one told me about is how this needs to be learned for the good times too. mind blown! learning to stand still and be loved is the hardest thing of all.

everyone in my circle is incredibly ambitious, something that has really pushed me. you really are who you surround yourself with. i think my close friends has had multiple iterations over the years: proximity based when i was in various levels of schooling, history based as i transitioned into post grad life and began to build a life for my own in a city away from my closest friends at the time, and now this current version, one that probably is a mix of both but with my newfound identity permeating through it all. i get to look at my friends and see my favorite version of myself. isn’t that what friends are supposed to do? bring out the beautiful parts of you?

i’ve had a couple rough patches in the last few years but i’ve gotten through them with the help of my friends, both current and past. i think the funniest thing about 30 has been how my relationship with time has fully changed. i used to feel like i had so much time to do everything, that my life was moving at a clip that was wholly unsustainable but so fun and so full of color. this year, i couldn’t feel more differently. at some point in the spring this year, i felt it; i felt the switch flip. i was now acutely aware of just how fast time really is.

this dichotomy was a bit of a mental jungle gym for a bit, on the work side i could not wait to wake up every day. we’ve had a really incredible year at work and i think that’s reflected in just how excited i am to get to it every morning. weeks flew by this year because i was always building something that i was excited about and there’s no better feeling that seeing something you’ve spent so much time on begin to bloom. i felt it in my clients, the work we’re doing, my team, and even in myself. in the earlier years of range, the job felt a bit like a jacket that was a little too big on me and now it fits. i’m really proud. personally, it became important to treat my friendships and personal relationships as a priority which counterintuitively meant slowing down. when you factor in work travel, events, conferences, and a life in two cities, it becomes very easy to just be a passenger and engage with what’s in front of you.

a life in constant transit requires intention. i needed to slow down and make sure i was carving out time for relationships that were important to me. for me that meant being there for the small stuff, the random nights for drinks after work or running errands on the weekends. i was in nyc for the entire summer basically (a 32 day stint and a 28 day stint, two of my longest in one place in years) and i got to enjoy the familiarity of being around. i was always down for a drink or dinner or adventure and my friends knew it - i was reliable in that way and i cherished it.

something happened last year where i lost this exact cornerstone of my identity. i didn’t really know what was important to me. don’t get me wrong, last year was net positive and special for a number of reasons but that was not me there. i have an unruly habit of editorializing people and situations (i’m a storyteller at heart, that’s showbiz baby) mixed with a bit of intuition, i was so overly focused on preparing for whatever my mind could come up with that it put me at a distance from actually experiencing my life. i was so worried about losing people, i was convinced i was off my rocker, i was concerned with how i was being perceived, what my narrative was… it’s all very not me. well, actual me. i used to think i was psychic until my therapist told me that hypervigiliance was a trauma response and that i was just really good at context clues. last year i continued to get more of what i thought i wanted and it just kept feeling off. i chose to ignore the feeling.

i remember a conversation i had with my friend TJ years ago before life got really crazy where he praised my predictability. if there was a wedding or birthday or promotion or new relationship, i made it a point to be there for my friends. i was running a close circle of 50 people and it was what i wanted. a few years ago i realized i was so involved in my friends’ lives that i hadn’t really built a life for myself. i had a huge circle of friends and a great job but i was purposely neglecting building anything for me. i felt trapped by the weight of my own definition of “being a good friend/person.” i was starting to hate myself for not having my own life.

i’ve been selfish the last few years, there isn’t really a way around it. and i think it’s fine to admit that, i’m human. i’ve been known to have debilitating FOMO over the years and last year i began to have FOMO on what i was “missing out in my life” by going and doing the right thing and being there for my friends in their big moments. i missed weddings, birthday, baptisms, all because i had created this narrative that the life i was living would be negatively affected if i were to miss anything that served the narrative. i began to resent some of my friends for having lives that began to diverge from mine, the ease of commonality we used to share now replaced with other friends/relationships/priorities and catch ups now spent trying to find new ground other than old memories. in return, i began to weaponize my absence in their lives as my life continued to grow bigger.

seeing that in writing is pretty difficult honestly, it’s not that fun to see an imperfect side of yourself in writing no matter how obvious. i didn’t know who i was without my friends and to see them fall in love, start families, and enter a new chapter together was really hard. i read a long time ago that the true measure of a friend is the ability to be unconditionally happy for them, and i’ve actually never had an issue doing that. and now, all i could feel was left behind. so i did what i do best, and i ran. i stayed away for a while.

i moved to nyc because it had the greatest concentration of my remaining single friends and, we will call it what it was, it was a very drastic effort by me to run away. so many of my problems were LA-centric, the people i left behind or wanted to leave behind, a life that i had built from the ground up that used to bring me such effortless joy now felt suffocating. i went to where i could find predictability again at a cost that was just so high.

i’ve spent a lot of this year making up for what i did last year. i made up with a ton of my old friends, ate a lot of shit that i absolutely deserved. i moved without telling people or making a big deal out of it because i didn’t want to come to terms with the fact that things were changing. i’ve always hated change. it was embarrassing to admit that i didn’t know how to grieve the end of an incredible chapter of my life so i instead chose to prolong it by not admitting that it was over. i’d be back in LA a ton, it’s not like anything would change… ya ok brother.

it was important to me that i go back and make things right this year. i was going to make this life in transit thing work. i was committed to staying in nyc (i genuinely love it and view it as the best thing i could’ve done for myself) and i realized the only way for me to be able to enjoy it was to go back and deal with all of the damage i had caused. these were relationships that used to be the most important in my life and people i knew intimately well, if i wanted to keep them in my life then i needed to kill my ego and actually do the work.

there’s an amazing vogue article i read about talking to ex-friends and what you can learn from those talks about yourself. as a former people pleaser, this was pretty much the apocalypse - admitting that you let someone down and coming to terms with the consequences. for the sake of brevity (we’re on page 4 and i still got a few life lessons to go) i’ll summarize them as best as i can (initials changed):

A & B were my two best friends/former roommates in LA and were the last people i saw when i left for new york, things were great then. at some point in the months after, i had gotten it into my head that they hated me as they continued to post with our old friends and i distanced myself from them completely. when we spoke, there were issues we needed to discuss together but we were all surprised that none of us ever hated each other. we had all missed each other but they were never going to voice it to me if i had not taken the initiative to give them the forum to do so. my narrative about them turned out to be completely false. now they are two of my first texts whenever i have LA plans, we are actually in the best place we’ve ever been as friends.

C was my best friend during covid and is genuinely one of the greatest people i have ever met. our friendship developed so beautifully over the covid years going from a party friend to a hangout friend to a first call friend. we connected on all levels as sons of immigrants and wildly ambitious entertainment execs and had such fundamentally deep conversations that we had talked about being in each other’s weddings. he could’ve been one of my best men. naturally avoidant, i remember a story one of our mutual friends told about the only fight they had ever gotten in and the drastic measures he had to take to get C to talk to him about it honestly so they could work through it. as our friendship began to deterioriate with my move, he tried in his own way to get me to talk to our friends and i didn’t. we talked recently about appreciating the friendship we used to have but there wasn’t a way forward for us. i had hurt him deeply. he didn’t think the trust could ever be regained and i felt that too.

D was one of my best friends growing up and, at a wedding during covid, he and my old friends completely iced me out. a rare social situation where i ended up completely alone. that one hurt. we sat and he talked about how i made them all feel. like i was always going to be onto something bigger and better than them, that for how nostalgic i tend to be that i would never actually turn around and look back for them. i didn’t have an answer other than i’m sorry. we probably will never be close again but there’s no beef here.

there’s something inherently freeing about coming to terms with being imperfect. it was really important to me that i created a space for my friends to have a really difficult and honest conversation with me. i know i can get defensive and emotional and shut down and i wanted these to be productive because i wanted them in my life again. the commonality i found in all of these conversations was the acknowledgement of the love that was still there. it is really hard to look at someone you know everything about and see anything other than love in their eyes. these conversations were a result of our shared history and our future, or lack thereof, was not up to me. and i had to be okay with it. in the case of C, there had been too much time between now and then. he met someone he will probably marry. his life had moved on without me.

after these conversations, i had nothing left in LA to be afraid of. and i felt that. i had dealt with so much of the trauma interlaced with the city and my life on the west coast that I actually started to feel the passage of time move once again. in a good way! in the wake of these conversations, i had tapped back into the me that i wanted to be, that i had always been up to that point. i showed up for my friends. i did what i said i would. i have people i care about deeply and they care about me. with this newfound momentum, i started to try and do the things i’ve always wanted to do. i started standing up for myself and advocating for my own needs. i stopped saying yes when i wanted to say no.

at some point in the last few months, i started showing up as the version of me i wanted to be. my life started to feel different. i want to use every cliche in the book here because it is that beautiful to me.

i’ve spent a lot of my therapy sessions lately trying to come up with the right way to describe this so it’s a bit unfinished but i’ve landed on the idea of assured confidence. i don’t have many questions about who i am anymore. i’ve operated from a place of fear and abandonment in my personal relationships for so long and i finally can begin to enjoy the big, beautiful life that i’ve created for myself. there are people that really love me and now i can finally feel it without questioning it.

i wanted to end this with one of my favorite realizations this year. yes, i have a fear of abandonment. yes, i have a fear of change. but the greatest of them all has been the fear of being too much. this one has always cut a bit deeper given the code switch of growing up closeted, you learn how to audit yourself in real time so that you aren’t too crazy or emotional or dramatic or gay. you learn how to mute your own brightness for the sake of being more palatable to others.

moreso in the last 2 years than any other i’ve been called my most hated word: dramatic. and i am, just to be clear. i don’t shy away from the fact that sometimes things mean more to me and i have an emotional reaction that can be outsized. i’ve had that word weaponized against me in every way this year, from former friends to peers to people who honestly don’t know a single thing about me. i wish i listened to my gut in those moments, things were off and i was right the entire time. but what’s the point of being right if everyone is worse off for it. i was lamenting a few weeks ago about the most recent of these situations and jack started laughing, to which i had a totally reasonable reaction of having a complete meltdown. he goes “it can get dramatic but you aren’t dramatic. you just care. a lot. it comes with the territory. and to be cared for by you is one of the greatest gifts i have in my life right now, i wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

friendship is a privilege with a price. you need to be around people who understand the first part and are decisive on the second. whether intentional or not, i have spent so much of the last few months surrounded by only friends i can be my entire self around. and i can feel it. i go out and feel fully present, one of my best friends asks me to be an usher in his wedding so yes i will obviously cry at the bar, i make my friends text me when they get home and they appreciate it, i tell them i love them every chance i get and they say it back. for the first time, i feel like i can rest. like i am enough. like i am loved. because i am.

i can’t tell you what the meaning of life is but i can tell you the meaning of my life in this moment is making the people around me feel seen and loved. i love it and it makes me happy. i hope i remember this when it’s hard. i talk about grief all the time because it’s a feeling i know initimately well, it’s a feeling born of loss. this year i discovered the love in grief. it’s in all of the unsaid i love yous, the things you never got to do together, the song that reminds me of you, the quote that speaks for you. there’s a lot of people i have had to say goodbye to or have to love from a distance, it’s the nature of change. i hope they get everything they’ve ever wanted and i don’t hear a single thing about it. i’ve come to appreciate the collage of love that i am. i am everything and everyone i have ever loved.

dear orpheus had one job: not to look back. he could have had it all if he just hadn’t looked back. i think i will always look back, it’s who i am

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blue-jasmine2yas · 2 years

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For people in college.

some tips and pointers on how to live through school, if you are in it. how to use your energy where it is needed. let’s be real, we are not the most big brain. we are not. so here are some points how to ensure you survive.

- make a list of everything you have to do. EVERYTHING. from reading, note taking, annotating, planning. just make a list, and put it all in there.

- take all your stuff-- that you need-- and put it in one place. - textbooks, notebooks, pens, pencils, highlighters, markers. --this includes other stuff that aren’t writing utensils that you need to work-- so, fidget cubes, squishy things, earbuds, Earbuds! (this tip list is pretty obvious, now that I see, but some people don’t know these things, and they’re out there struggling. they just struggle to get things done. I know you’re out there, this is for you. I’m sorry you had to go through what you had to go through. you didn’t deserve it). just put them all in one place, so when you come back to your “working space” you don’t have to look for them.

- okay, did that? now start a timer. you can start at thirty minutes, say, or twenty-five. start it, and keep working. when you look over at the clock you can see the time going down, the time of your suffering is finite. once that time is over, you can be FREE. . . .. untill you have to work again. :/ but at least you got that thing done, ay?

- now if you are working on an essay or something like that, a project, what ever. and you need time not to do those little steps, like 💞*make a thesis💗*^^ but to just work on the Thing. then pick a dark academia playlist, or come kind of deep library shit, uninhabited by anyone😤. one of those, and just WORK on it. let your adhd mind (or your autistic mind,-- or nonfunctional mind, if you have both. sorry, it is what it is) free associate and flutter from one task to the next. this is where you give your neurodivergency take the reins and do the walking. this is your creativity.

> while that timer is on, or that playlist, you (I guess I am also writing this for myself) you are working on your project (so sorry if I sound authoritative) and not only that you are in the physical location of the working space. you are there you are confined. and when you get tired you can pause that playlist (make sure your history is on) and come back when you’re ready to work again.

- this is if you struggle with organization like me. make categories of working. like reading, note taking, reviewing, discussing, studying.

> I say this because--when you first get a piece of material (a textbook chapter) it is unlikely you will start taking notes straight off the 🦇bat!! you are more likely to read with a pencil. write notes in the margins, if you like, of what headers you want to use. section that shit off. anyway.

- And for bonus, you you want to get your stuff done (I know you adhd folk, - that reminds me of that post--I almost preemptively used the word honeybee-- about using the words y’all and folks, and how they said it was cringe, and the person said they don’t care they’d rather be using the word honeybee for all they care. can I use it?? it’s just rolling of my tongue today) (I know you adhd folk like telling your stories and telling about your day. it’s just so much more *interesting* when you do it. pick a person, a parent, friend, or significant other to walk them through the process of your working. ( so I did this, and then I had to look up the term, and so I wrote it down. then I took the notes, and wrote a whatever). you know there is someone on the other side waiting for you to finish the thing. --ooh! ominous. and also exiting cause you get to talk to them about them about the thing--especially if it is your favorite class your something you’re REALLY interested about.

- lastly, make sure you are energized when you study (you don’t have to, this is just bonus bonus). you know when people said at some point that resting is productive, this is what they meant. you are going to do so much better if you engaged in your hyperfixation. so do something that *inspires* you on a regular basis. and if you’re depressed, I get it, you could use the textbook material as a distraction. cuz-- if you’re reading about some random shyte, you Can’t be thinking. ay? okay. that’s it. Good loUuuUuck . . !

#study how to.#school.#humaning 101.#cuz we gotta learn how to be people.

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mbti-notes · 3 years

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hi i’m an istj. i fear the problem im going to describe is resolved by being more Te proactive and taking on more leader responsibilities and failing. just typing that out makes me feel burned out and miserable. anyway i get involved with groups that align with my values to get things done but it always feels like i somehow join things that aren’t as efficient as i’d want them to be or stagnate. at the same time that i have strong opinions about what to do i resent having to take on more responsibility to enact it. i want to be part of an established, moral, process/group but it seems like everything is in flux all the time. just making sure: is this Te-Ne dysfunction ?

Your question is about type development. An important aspect of type development is understanding the weaknesses and flaws of your type, in terms of the ways that your type tends to misuse functions. You seem to believe that your problem boils down to a simple lack of desire to lead in group situations (weak Te?), but it probably goes far deeper than that.

Si-Ne problems often manifest as a general aversion to change, specifically, unwillingness to change how one looks at a situation, which would then significantly alter one's approach to it. Imbalance between Si and Ne becomes a very unhealthy stubbornness when one is also prone to Si-Fi loop that thinks in terms of pure absolutes. In essence, you believe what you believe and you want what you want, and nothing and nobody can break through that mental wall. Perhaps not even you.

Auxiliary development is meant to help with Si extremes and Si-Fi loop stubbornness by making you care more about empirical facts (Te) than your frustration (Fi). It isn't always easy to develop the auxiliary function when you come to believe that it interferes with what makes Si feel most comfortable (e.g. "just typing that out makes me feel burned out and miserable"). If using the auxiliary function feels so "tiring", it doesn't mean that you should avoid using it. Quite the contrary. It's an indication that you haven't yet learned to use it properly, which means further development is necessary.

Te wants efficiency, that much is true. However, what separates immature Te from mature Te is how exactly one conceptualizes "efficiency". When Te is immature, one has a very rudimentary understanding of how to be efficient. For example, one is likely to believe that efficiency is achieved through assertiveness or even brute force, i.e., "making" things happen despite all the obstacles in the way. Is it any wonder that using Te feels tiring, then? You're essentially forcing yourself to swim against the current. Si doms are painfully aware that their energy is finite, so they quickly run out of steam.

However, Te isn't really about mustering up energy. This is not what makes TJs smart, strong, and formidable. Mature Te conceptualizes efficiency as reducing the amount of energy required whenever possible, which is why they have a lot of energy to take on very heavy workloads - some people call it "working smart". This is done through facing the empirical facts of a situation head on and learning to work closely with them, which makes it far easier to make them work in your favor.

Your problem requires a two pronged attack:

Are you able to change how you look at situations in order to improve your approach (to address Si-Ne imbalance)?

Are you able to face the empirical facts of the situation and work with them rather than against them (to develop better use of Te)?

Wanting to be part of a process/group that aligns with your values in order to enact some good in the world is an admirable thing to strive for. Presumably, the other people involved in the group have the same sense of mission, otherwise, they wouldn't have joined. However, what you fail to take into account is that people aren't generally single-minded.

Human beings are complex because they are motivated by a multitude of factors, whether they realize it or not. They are full of psychological conflicts, contradictory desires, irrational impulses, old baggage, and unconscious bad habits. And when you bring people together, all that stuff comes out and creates complicated entanglements. A "group" only becomes a "team" when it is able to overcome those psychological obstacles together, and it can be a very long process of learning how to maximize strengths and mitigate weaknesses in every individual member. That's why a lot of groups simply fall apart. While your intention to join the group seems simple and straightforward (because Si-Te is admirable in its ability to keep things simple and straightforward), other people's intentions might not be so simple. If you fail to take into account the irrational aspects of human nature, you will cause yourself needless suffering.

Your frustration with people is likely a manifestation of your unrealistic expectations of them. Perhaps you aren't able to understand people who don't resemble you, let alone work with them. And you will certainly be doomed to fail if the only way Te knows to deal with individual differences is to force everyone to become more like you. That's an impossible task, not because it requires the energy of a thousand suns as you assume, but because you're choosing to fight against reality. Mature Te would advise that you should first face down the empirical facts of how people operate if you hope to discover the most effective way to influence them. Your repeated experience of feeling disenchanted with groups tells you that you're missing an important piece of knowledge about groups and how they operate.

I'll give you a very simple example from my own life. I used to gather with a group of 30-50 people once a week to conduct planned discussions. The discussions never really started on time despite everyone being in their seats because people weren't focused enough at the start of the session. There was often whispering and sidetalking and such that would go on for about half an hour before the room felt settled and focused.

One method of addressing the problem arose organically. Whoever was the main speaker simply started shushing people and it became a thing. Sometimes, it would even escalate to calling people out, like a teacher scolding a student in a classroom. This definitely made the social atmosphere less inviting and more tense. Sure, people would shut up after being called out, but they became less focused due to seething with resentment. Power struggles aren't great for group morale, especially if it's supposed to be a group of equals coming together for a common cause.

It all sounds quite childish, but these kinds of judgments are useless. You can call people childish, inefficient, incompetent, etc etc, but it doesn't solve the problem. And, worse, being judgmental blocks you from understanding people better and working with them. Perhaps an ISTJ would see this as a "mess", an "inefficiency" that wastes time, and evidence of bad character when people break the rules.

However, if you change the way you look at the situation, you might not be so quick to make such judgments. Actually, it's kind of weird for a bunch of people who know each other well to enter a room and immediately sit down quietly. Humans have a natural tendency to socialize as a way to strengthen interpersonal bonds. Isn't group cohesiveness a good thing, since it encourages better cooperation? If you are able to see the benefits of their chatty behavior and how it contributes to group cohesiveness, then instead of fighting against it, you would think of ways to harness it.

The real problem wasn't inefficiency; inefficiency was merely the symptom. The more primary problem was that a lot of people joined the group not just to "get things done", but also to make friends. The structure of the event denied them from fulfilling that important need and then they were more likely to act out. This problem was discovered when people had a chance to talk about what was frustrating them, which meant that the group had to make space to conduct some uncomfortable conversations.

To address the problem, the group eventually decided that the first 15 minutes would be devoted to socializing and allowing people to catch up, with the explicit promise to get down to business when the time was up. Some people brought drinks, others brought snacks. Some even showed up early to have more time to socialize. It enlivened people and enriched their relationships. Being "officially" allowed to get the chattiness out of their system, they were better able to sit down and focus on the planned agenda. The meeting felt like fun rather than a chore. And if you're interested in a cause, don't you want to recruit more people to support it? Making things more fun is one good way to attract support. You can look at it as wasting 15 minutes OR you can look at it as a 15 minute investment.

Solutions to human problems require:

cognitive empathy: figuring out what's really going on inside people's heads (in Te terms it means working only with the empirical facts of the situation, rather than indulging negative Fi judgments)

strategy: taking the time to work with people and figuring out the best way to help them get over obstacles (in Te terms it means investing energy early and wisely to maximize your returns later, rather than putting effort into the wrong places or only stepping in to tackle mere symptoms of the problem)

creativity: harnessing natural human tendencies to produce something useful or worthwhile (in Te terms in means taking what's already there and transforming it into a NET positive, rather than getting too fixated on every little negative detail and losing sight of the bigger picture)

Te can be a great function for dealing with human problems as long as you overcome the immature aspects of it, such as impatience, bluntness, or inflexibility. Every person is unique, so every group is different. Let go of the idea that there is only one way to approach a problem/conflict and you will start to be more creative in your approach. By accepting the fact that things are always in flux and using empirical evidence to understand and predict how change works, TJs become much more effective and efficient at everything they do. When it comes to people, meeting someone different from you is an opportunity to learn how to deal with that kind of person. The more knowledge you have of human psychology under your belt, the better you get at dealing with people's weird or negative tendencies. If a strategy works, use it again. If it doesn't work, adjust it to fit their psychology better.

In your situation, you see the problem as people being inefficient, so your inclination is to step forward and do something to "make" them more efficient. Humans aren't built with the prime directive to be efficient. They're not machines. Their psychology is messy, so trying to force them to behave like a machine is to force them to go against their psychology. In other words, you're choosing the least efficient approach. The more efficient approach, though it requires more intelligent thinking on your part (you want to become more intelligent, right?), is to properly understand the more primary problem of what's really causing them to be so inefficient in the first place. That is the way to discover the right strategy. If you are able to target those obstacles at the very root, efficiency improves more naturally.

Oftentimes, working smart doesn't require you to step up and be THE leader for everyone. As an introvert, it's probably more comfortable for you to work behind the scenes to talk to people, get a better idea of what they need and/or what problems they're experiencing, and incrementally remove the obstacles that are preventing them from focusing on what they should be focused on. You can't fix everything all at once, so just do what you can to fix what you are able to fix at any given point in time. It's a process and some progress is better than no progress.

#istj #auxiliary te #fi loop #inferior ne #te #efficiency #problem solving #working smart #creativity #change #perspective #social skills #ask

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revenant-dumpster-fire · 3 years

Text

Warm (Revenant x Reader)

Theme: Reader comforts Revenant after a somewhat brutal loss in a duos match as Revenant becomes concerned with his image.

Warnings: Mentions of mania, mentions of depression, mentions of suicide, threats of violence, graphically described violence, pain, sharp objects, borderline sexual fluff.

Reader's Notes: Revenant (Apex Legends) x Reader, reader is non-gendered in this chapter, this is getting romantic but hasn't crossed the line quite yet, reader will eventually have to be gendered (but I'll hold off as long as possible).

Writing Notes: Compliments give me fuel. Lot of development this chapter, more characters. I feel like this is increasingly revealing of who I am as a person, so I'm glad I'm anonymous.

Navigation:

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The Apex Games are brutal. It's a miracle these people can be suspended in death boxes and sewn or pieced back together after what happens to them. You've heard murmurs that some of the visual brutality is simulated by an AI for the cameras while the much less damaged person is imprisoned in a deathbox, but you are not so sure of that. It looks too real, and the Legends seem way too accustomed to pain and morbid destruction for it not to be. You are desensitized to a lot of gore and snuff yourself, but you've come to know the Legends just well enough to shudder when they are disemboweled in front of you. When you first started volunteering to help, you remembered being endlessly relieved the first time you saw them all return from the medical ward.

Even though you know they will likely be fine, you whimper as Bloodhound takes an apparently fatal blow from the favorites for this duos match: Loba and Bangalore. It isn't very often that random chance creates such an iconic duos pair, but it's happening today and the cameras are loving it. The cameras have been so fixated on these two that you haven't seen night or day out of Revenant. According to the trackers on the screen, Revenant is still in the game, but his teammate--Fuse--was knocked out of the match early on. Knowing those two, they likely agreed to drop hot--in an area with lots of combatants. While it's a good way to get kills, it's also an ideal way to get killed. From previous matches, you have the impression Revenant will drop hot if his teammate or teammates agree, but he won't do so otherwise. Fuse is absolutely the type to agree to dropping hot. You worry for Fuse even though you are certain he will be back tomorrow or soon thereafter, ready for more.

Loba and Bangalore have used their combined skills to gather long-range sniper weapons and considerable kills so far this match. Bangalore is able to use her abilities to create confusion and draw combatants out from cover, and Loba could create or close distances with her warp band while also gathering excessive amounts of high-level weaponry, mods, and armor to make them all the more terrifying. They pulled ahead early in the game, and now they feel unstoppable. The cameras watch as they run across Olympus' beautifully groomed grass towards the next team to victimize.

You feel like you're not doing what you should be doing. Did Revenant really just want you to watch the match today? Shouldn't you do something helpful?

You get yourself to the edge of the bed, hop up, and start to make it. It was so perfect when you hopped in yesterday, you want to try to make it equally as perfect. Your legs no longer hurt, and you feel well-rested despite Revenant's creepily watchful eyes. You take a deep breath, stretch backwards, and get to making the bed. You will have to go to your volunteer bunk and change soon. You wonder if you will have to move out of the volunteer area--even though it's small and cramped, it's been your home for a few years now. Your coworkers feel more like roommates, varying from cool but introverted to outgoing but overbearing. You like all of them, and you have the unusual standing as one of the longest-running volunteers, staying through off and on seasons to keep things functioning. You don't want to lose them, or the only home you've known for a few years.

Gunshots ring out on the television, Loba and Bangalore are taking shots at another team fight from afar. You see the symbol for Lifeline pop up as knocked, then eliminated. Caustic's name pops up next. Finally, Revenant came up as knocked, but not eliminated. You can't help but panic just a little, but Revenant apparently had a self-revive and is moving again, fleeing the area as Loba gives vicious chase trying to make up the distance from sniping. Revenant is in bad shape, he has been fighting solo for a while, and Loba knows he is practically a free kill at this point. You're afraid this is going to turn into another Loba versus Revenant fight, a favorite of the audience due to how ruthless they both are with each other. You don't like them fighting. You don't like seeing Loba be nearly beheaded or gutted, and you don't like seeing Revenant be slowly but surely tortured to death. There is no alternative ending with those two. It's always violent, and Revenant doesn't stand much of a chance at this rate. He clearly knows that.

You stare at the television breathlessly, trying to make the bed without looking away. Loba is hunting, and Revenant is unable to keep enough distance. In a last gambit, Revenant manages to break line of sight, launching his silencer into the doorway of a bunker and then intentionally running into the opposing bunker. Loba falls for it, as she makes an immediate path for the bunker with the silencer, opting to take the back door. It buys Revenant enough time to use a Pheonix Kit, a piece of equipment that restores his shields and health completely for a much fairer fight.

Hell is about to break loose.

You plop down on the bench having finished the bed, unable to look away. Loba and Revenant meet eyes from within each bunker through the small windows on each side. Loba looks infuriated at his newly rejuvenated state. Revenant's look is too intense to be smug, it truly is a mechanical malice undescribable by any other terminology. These two loathe each other. The spectators roar in excitement at another bloodbath between the lovely but deadly master thief and her mechanical antagonist, the commentators giving a short review of the last time these two met on the battlefield.

Revenant, now unafraid of the odds, immediately dashes to close the gap between their bunkers. Loba flings her warp band in his direction, landing behind him, and immediately getting two Mastiff slugs in his back. You cringe at the sight. Revenant turns to meet her fire with his Volt, but Bangalore's lobbed smokescreen fills the area before his shots meet. Bangalore had been lagging behind Loba, but she was close enough now to take shots again. You hear Loba's Mastiff take a number of more shots in the smokescreen, the Volt returning fire. Bangalore calls in her Rolling Thunder, cascading aerial bombardment all throughout the smokescreen. Revenant manages to break free of the now-fading smokescreen, trying to escape the explosives, but it was clearly Bangalore's intent for him to do so. With her well-equipped Longbow, she manages to snipe Revenant, knocking him to his knees.

Loba was soon looming over him, waiting for the camera to catch up. The crowd chants and screeches waiting for the gore. There are no microphones on the Legends themselves, but you can tell that Revenant is cursing her as she comes over to finish him. You wince, you don't want to watch this, but you feel you have to.

Loba kicks his head hard enough to knock out any human opponent, sending him to the ground. His mask is cracked open, revealing the copper lining underneath and the wiring for his optics. He stays grounded, glaring at her with an unspeakably vicious hatred. He faces his demise with just as much malice as he had moments earlier, perhaps even more. She goes in for a direct stomp, plunging the five-inch tall heel of her shoe into and through Revenant's left optic. You grimace at the horror of it, wanting to cover your face to escape the imagery. Revenant's body lurches backwards and writhes in pain, grabbing aimlessly at his face, screaming so loudly that the drone camera picks it up as his vocalizations crack and become inundated with static.

Revenant isn't eliminated. Revenant is treated differently than the human and more finite combatants. His deaths are of no consequence, so he isn't protected from them. He can just come back, over and over. So the cameras roll and he's left to suffer whenever it makes for better television. The most bloodthirsty fans have always loved this double-standard, but you are beginning to revile it more by the moment.

Loba spits on him, taking a moment to parade to the crowd her triumphant moment. Revenant's last remaining optic is dimming uncontrollably, but is still locked on her when she returns to finish the job. They lock eyes for a moment. You don't know the details--nobody does--but it's clear they have some kind of history where all the hatred stems from. Revenant looks away in acceptance of his defeat, and his neck is immediately clamped down on by her heels. With a single twist of her leg, the cracking noise of his head being forcibly freed from his torso rings out. You want to vomit.

Revenant is only now considered eliminated, his husk of a chassis lying nearly in two pieces, his head twisted perpendicular to his torso. The crowd is absolutely ablaze. Loba reaches down, tearing the scarf off his head and holding it triumphantly in the air, looking as if she just scalped her kill. Bangalore shies away from the cameras herself, she's clearly ready to move on. Loba revels in the violence, just like Revenant does, but there is something especially malicious between them.

You feel the nausea taking hold even stronger. Revenant is someone you know now. He's shown you kindness, and you've become very fond of him. You can't say you know him extremely well, granted, but well enough to feel empathy for his pain. Watching him essentially have his skull broken, eye gouged, and neck severed is a lot to take. You could literally see the excruciating pain in his body language when his eye was stomped out. They shouldn't allow it. The moment a human life is in danger they get deathboxed. Only now that Revenant's body is dead and vacated of all living code, as well as the audience thoroughly satiated, does Revenant's corpse get deathboxed. He managed to fight his team all the way to seventh place alone. Loba and Bangalore continue on, the cameras lovingly cataloging their sweep.

You get up and turn off the television, sheepishly use your new ID to leave the room, and head to the volunteer bunks. It's the middle of the day, so nobody is around. A note on your bunk reads "Worried about you! Let me know when you get back. -Sherry". You scribble back, "Sorry Sherry, had a special request I had to run, need to talk later. Text me." and place it on her bunk. Sherry is the de facto leader of the volunteers, here since day one of season one. You know each other well. She doesn't pry often, but disappearing for a night is really out of character for you, so you don't mind it this once. She will know if you're allowed to stay in the volunteer bunks or not. You gather your things, just in case, and haul them to Revenant's room. You only have a single duffel bag of clothes and toiletries to your name. It has been that way since you found yourself on the streets years ago. It's easy enough to carry, but some amount of sadness still lingers in you as you haul your only worldly possessions in a single bag. The Apex Games gives you year-round work in exchange for a place to live rent-free. The Legends who tip well basically keep you at a decent wage for the hours. So despite not having much to your name in terms of assets, you now have a bank account with enough value to move on if absolutely necessary.

You use the badge to open Revenant's door. It dings satisfactorily, and you dump your bag on the floor. You're not leaving the area until he's back. You already decided. You're in some stage of denial after watching him die, but simultaneously you cannot be in denial if he always comes back. You shake your head, the nausea fights for its throne in your gut. You grab a change of clothes out of the bag and head to the bathroom in the far left corner of the room.

As you enter, you see a mostly untouched bathroom, spare for a strangely out-of-place comb, shaving cream, an old-fashioned razor blade, and the mirror smeared opaque with dried suds--likely from the shaving cream. None of those items make sense. Not a single one. Why was the mirror so filthy? Why did a simulacrum have shaving or hair brushing tools? You consider that it might be a coping mechanism, but that doesn't explain the mirror. Whatever, you'll clean it in a second. No need to make a big deal out of it all.

Halfway through changing, you lose your battle with nausea. You don't have anything in your stomach, a fact you quickly realize as you lurch over the toilet. Just stomach acid. What a violent and terrible death. You know he feels just as a human does, it's not his fault he isn't as fragile. It's so unfair. You stand tall, having expelled the worst of it. You finish putting on your "I'm not feeling it" shirt, and make a quick orbit to the duffel and back, picking up your toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash. You clean out your mouth thoroughly, trying to fight off the taste of acid.

You finish up, leaving your oral care items behind to take your dirty clothes to the laundry room and grab some mirror cleaning supplies while there. Since you know how to fully clean down a room, you figure it is within your ability to completely clean Revenant's room. Maybe Fuse's too, these cleans tend to be quick and efficient when you perform them.

• • • •

"Hey, oh my gosh, where were you last night?" The text comes in as you're hauling the cleaning supplies to Fuse's room. It's early afternoon, you'll be done with this before it even begins to get dark.

"Hey, sorry, I had a special request. I didn't mean to worry anyone. I'm cleaning Fuse's room now." You text back, hoping Sherry will meet you here and help wrap up even faster.

"OMW" The text comes in only moments after.

After a few minutes, you hear Fuse's door open. Sherry is a petite blonde woman in her early twenties. Despite her longer, curly hair, she is otherwise not too dissimilar looking from Wattson, her favorite Legend. They have a good relationship apparently, Wattson regularly jokingly adding "request for mon Sherry" to her requests, a play on "mon cherie" in French.

"I didn't see a request for Fuse to have his room cleaned, did you delete it from the system?" Sherry was always on-task.

"Oh, sorry, no, I kinda needed something to do." You look up from changing the bed sheets, "Do you mind giving me a hand?"

"Sure, but there are tons of requests you could have taken, why make one up?" She walks to the opposite side of the bed, nabs the sheet, and looks up, locking sights on your ID.

Her shock is immediate and silent. You notice that she has noticed.

"How did you get that..." She trails off, her head clearly running at max capacity with various theories.

"Revenant gave it to me." You answer blankly. "I don't know what to do."

Sherry stares, her expression becoming increasingly appalled and concerned.

"What... what happened last night? You didn't like... "earn" that, right? I mean, you didn't trade for it, did you?" Her expression grimaces further. "Does he even have the parts for that...?"

You suddenly realize what she's saying, and wave your hands to snap her attention.

"No! Nothing like that! He sees me so often he wanted a personal lackey instead." You see her expression soften for a moment before it snaps back.

"Then where were you last night?"

"Wha--?"

"You heard me, where were you then?"

You stare at the floor, unsure if you can lie so blatantly to her. She stares at you for a moment.

"One moment you're depressed, then next thing I know you're manic, then you disappear for a day and a half. Is this some kind of new suicide plot you have? Seduce a murder robot?" She seems genuinely worried.

"I promise it's not like that! I was exhausted! I accidentally fell asleep when I brought him water--"

"Why did nobody call the paramedics? If you passed out, you should have been given a health check! Why didn't that robot call anyone?" She genuinely cared about you, she was a good friend, through and through.

"Uh, well, I kinda slept in his bed."

Her face went from worry to one of shock and morbid concern. Her knees buckled for a moment and rectified themselves as she cartoon-ishly tried to process her thoughts.

"You see, I guess he's taken a liking to me, and he saw how tired I was, so--"

"So you slept with him just so you could get a break? You should have just asked for time off! You never take it! I would have given it to you!" She was clearly upset.

"It didn't happen like that!" She had a tendency to catastrophically think, so her mind was already five steps ahead of you in the worst possible timeline. If you could stop it now, hopefully it wouldn't continue.

"Wait, why are we changing Fuse's sheets? How many robots and people have you slept with?!" she dropped the sheets at a complete loss. Too late to stop her mental train, it was already off the rails and burning in a ditch.

"Sherry! Pay attention! I didn't do anything with anybody. I just passed out in Revenant's bed, and he decided not to kill me but promote me instead because he's Revenant and he does what he wants, even when it makes no sense to anybody. I didn't even see Fuse yesterday, I just figured I'd clean his room since both him and Revenant took a heck of a loss today." You didn't often get loud, so when you did it tended to garner attention.

Sherry sighed.

"Yeah, that sounds more like the truth than my insane theory." She rests her face in her palms for a moment. "So, uh, I guess you and Revenant are friends now?"

"Subordinate or lackey is probably a better term, but he actually is nice to me! Aside from all the threats..." You trail off, wondering if he means it or if he simply is keeping up his persona.

"Well, congratulations on becoming the homicidal robot's plaything?" She wasn't wrong. Actually, her term was probably more accurate. "Please don't get murdered. I didn't get you out of that homeless shelter just to deliver you into the hands of a bloodthirsty robot with a fascination for evisceration. I'll feel so bad if you die..." She trails off, catastrophic thoughts ablaze. "Just quit!" She perks up with her solution.

"He's not going to kill me, and if he does, it's not your fault. I'm choosing to do this."

She sighs, and starts making the bed with clean sheets, unsure of how to argue, or if the argument is worthwhile.

Sherry was the one you reached out to when you heard that you could work for the Apex Games in return for a bed, bathroom, food, and basic healthcare. She picked you up at the homeless shelter, and helped forge some fake credentials on your resumé at the time. She cleared you herself, pretending as if she never met you before and calling your previous "boss" who was actually just a very confused telemarketer, resulting in getting you the place and position you have now. You've always thought she's an upstanding person; her maternal instincts sometimes getting in the way of her letting people make their own choices freely though. She felt like an older sister to you.

"Please tell me you're at least getting paid. Without the tips from the other Legends, how are you going to keep saving up?" She asked weakly, finishing up by fluffing the pillows.

"Uh, well, I haven't asked yet... I actually meant to ask if I have a room still." You answered, a bit dumbfounded you hadn't considered that before.

"What?! Did you think this through at all?" She burst, but quickly softened, "Of course you still have a room, there should be a door in the back of every Legend's room with the same kind of bunks as we have. Those are for you special folks. It has a bathroom and everything."

"Ah, good, I kinda wish I could stay with you guys, but..."

"...but your new robot-boyfriend is calling you?" She breaks her melancholy with ruthless teasing, just like an older sister. "Yeah, I'll need the space for a new volunteer, definitely."

"I figured as much. Always running on short-handed here." You're a little relieved the choice is made for you.

"So, I'm guessing you now have all Revenant requests, now and forever?" She chuckles a bit. "You somehow take the biggest demotion and consider it a promotion. I can't believe you like dealing with that guy."

You banter back and fourth, finishing up Fuse's room. It'll be nice for him to come back to a clean room, especially considering how his match went that morning. Sherry promises to come around this part of the building more to keep an eye on you, swearing she will kick Revenant's ass if he does "whatever murder-bots do". You go your separate ways, laughing at each other's stupid quips.

• • • •

There is a door at the back of the room. Sherry was right. It is intentionally made to camouflage into the wall, as well as the scanner that opens it. You hold your ID up to it, hear the positive chirp, and the door slides open to reveal a nice small room and bathroom. It's a private bedroom embedded within Revenant's. The door now freely slides like a pocket door to open and close, apparently you only need to activate it once to get access. A nice little bed, a nice little dresser, and a nice little bathroom! It reminds you of a super tiny hotel room, everything is compact but still a notable step up from shared bunks. You breathe deeply, inhaling the smell of a fresh new room. You haul your duffel bag in and toss it into a little cubby under the mattress, and boom, you're moved in! So easy!

Revenant still isn't back yet though. You wonder how long it will take for his new chassis to activate and return here. You wish so badly to know how he is doing, but it is impossible to know. You grabbed some snacks from the kitchen alongside dinner with Sherry, so you have food to stress-binge on if necessary. You figure laying down for the night can't hurt. So you hit the lights in Revenant's room, leaving it to only be lit by the rising moonlight overhead through the skylight. You sneak into your little cubby of a room, flipping the lights off as you slide the door shut behind you. You don't have any skylight, in fact, your ceiling was about 6 feet or so shorter than his, making it much more average. Granted, his room is massive, but you are happy with your tiny private closet. It is so cool.

You fall back in the bed. Soft as can be. Same as his.

Sleep takes you very quickly.

• • • •

You wake up to an inhuman screeching. You jolt up, making yourself panic further as you check your surroundings and recall where you are. You're alone in the little bedroom, the screaming is from the other side of the door, in Revenant's main room. It echoes in a uncanny valley between human despair and mechanical detune. You leap out of bed and rush to open the door to see what is wrong.

The door slides open and you see Revenant, his mask and jaw tilting in opposite directions to replicate an open mouth, revealing a disturbingly black void where his mouth would be, no headscarf, howling in some kind of agony under the moonlight. It sounds so sad, so sorrowful. The pocket door clicks as it reaches its full open position, and Revenant's eyes lock on as soon as the sound is registered. His instincts are instantaneous. His howl slowly fades as he uses up what's left in his artificial lungs, his eyes never breaking from yours. The sorrow leaves him, his jaw slowly closes, and his stature returns for a moment.

"Are you okay?!" You ask him.

He hides is face and his body motions like a person who is sobbing for a few moments, but he doesn't. He couldn't even if he wanted. He regains himself quickly, walking up to you blankly.

"Hey, uh, are you oka--?"

"Keep me warm, skinsuit." His voice shakes as he pulls you into him in an embrace.

He is extremely cold, but his metal parts start to sap your body heat immediately. He is alive. He is new, but alive. You wrap your arms around his small abdomen, slipping under the pistons that hold up his large torso. You squeeze harder than you mean to, giving away that you are genuinely worried about him.

"I thought you left." He admits shakily, still not wholly able to hide his emotions. "I didn't..." He trails off. He places his hand on your head, messing with your hair a bit, until you gaze up at him. He looks down at you in the eye and you see something familiar. Disbelief. "You stayed."

You don't have words. Words mean nothing anyway in moments like this. You squeeze him tighter and he winces a little. You realize his abdomen is probably the least protected area of his body, and even you might be able to hurt him with the wrong touch. You lean forward and bury your face into it anyway, you're pretty sure you can feel a pouch through the leather skin that acts as a stomach receptacle, but you're not sure.

Revenant's body shakes a little like he cannot hold back tears, but as a simulacrum, he has none. You hear a sorrowful moan instead that is quickly stifled. Despite his persona, he has a very human personality.

"Come, keep me warm." He pulls you away for a moment so he can move again, then grabs your wrist and pulls you to the bed. The bed he never used. "It's easier with insulation." He rips the blanket off of it, wrapping it around you both in one sweeping movement, and sitting on the edge, pulling you down with him.

Your face flushes hot red. This is unlike him. He notices, and you swear you see a little bit of a pink glow on him too. He definitely had been flush during his stunt on live TV before joining the games. Insane to think they built that functionality into a mask. He grunts and breaks eye contact.

"Don't look at me like that, I'm just cold." He pulls you into his lap before you can say anything in response. "I have an easier time cooling down with fans than I do heating up. I'd have to run really stressful code to do that and using you is so much easier."

He redirects you to face away from him, and as soon as you do he sucks you in as close to him as you can. You're practically inside of his giant, looming frame. His breath rattles a little in his artificial lung pumps. His hands grapple around your hands while holding the blanket taut, holding them in balled fists and trading his cold for your heat. His vocalizer sounds as if it's giving a deep growl, closer to a purr, almost too soft to be heard, but not quite.

His new chassis smells a little more like plastics, metal shavings, and leather than the previous one, which had been muddled with the scent of dirt, grass, and polish. It's so cold, he must have only just made it inside. You wonder how far he had to run to get back here.

His head lowers to rest his face into your shoulder. You rest your head back on his. For a moment, this creature is just the same as you. Human.

He stays there, humming and purring and enjoying the moment. His body is no longer cold at all, he is now reflecting your heat back at you and feels warm himself. You carefully turn your head and push your face into the side of his mask where his ears would be. His head perks up a little for a moment, just long enough to catch his dumbfounded expression and pinkening cheekbones before his face retreats into your shoulder again. He squeezes you close, grappling your fists as if to never let go.

You sit there for a while, until finally you feel his cooling fans click to life. He lifts his head off your shoulder.

"Thank you." He says as he releases you. He looks away, clearly trying to hide from your gaze. You don't get up. You keep staring in his direction, hoping he will give in and turn to you. But you are both stubborn.

After a long while, you stand up in surrender, but place your hand on his unclothed head, petting it once, just for good measure. His hand rises to cover his face.

"Please go back to bed, I'm sorry for scaring you." He says in an abnormally low baritone, trying to hide himself further.

You surrender. It isn't worth prying away his façade when he isn't ready. He had already shown different colors than he did most of the time. This was scary, but in an unexplored territory sort of way. You weren't giving this exploration up after a single expedition. So it is best to rest up and not overextend.

You retreat into your little closet of a room, sliding the door gently shut. The moment it shuts completely, you hear Revenant move around rapidly. He's normally so silent. You recline into your bed, happy to be as warm as you are. You fall asleep almost instantly.

• • • •

You wake up, no idea what time it is. The room doesn't have a clock, maybe a bit of an oversight on the decorator's part. You get up, lurk over to the bathroom, and start performing your daily routine. Brush the teeth immediately, get the gross overnight flavor out of it. Strip and shower, thankfully there are already towels in the bathroom. Brush your hair while still damp after trying to get it as dry as possible with your towel. Deodorant. Grab your clothes. You put on something a bit nicer than yesterday. Finally, you're ready for whatever.

You waltz over, and knock on the door to make sure he won't be startled.

Instead, you hear a surprised grunt, scraping metal, and hushed curses against the door. You quickly go to open it, thinking he may be hurt, but the door is locked. You hesitate, dumbfounded. The Legends can lock people in like prisoners if they want to. Your attention snaps back as you hear the lock disengage, and the door flies open before you can move it. Revenant faces you, somehow looking a little disheveled.

"Were you outside my door the entire night...?" You ask, still fairly shocked.

"Doesn't matter." He absolutely was. He spoke hurriedly, potentially a little embarrassed. But he recovers his slow speaking pace quickly. "I should have just let myself in, I feel like I missed a great episode. Do you know what you said last night? Some pretty exciting gibberish."

"So you were against the door all night."

"Dammit, skinsuit!" He throws his arms up and turns away from you, towering over the doorway too short for him to enter comfortably. "You should have just slept out here. You know I get bored."

"I didn't think you wanted me to, you acted like you didn't."

"Well, I didn't really care!" He cared immensely, apparently. "I just needed something entertaining to keep my mind off yesterday." He crossed his arms, and began to meander over to the computer desk.

"I'm sorry, I wish you had told me."

"I was in a bad mood, just forget about it. It's fine." He tapped away at the computer, letting out a depressed sigh. "That scene from yesterday has all of Loba's fans riled up. They're posting it everywhere." He covers his face with his hands for a moment, motioning in embarrassment. "I can't believe I let that happen. I would have been better off letting Caustic gas me earlier."

"You were outnumbered, you did the best--"

"I'm getting my damn scarf back." He refused your comforting words, flinging himself to his feet and trudging out the door in a huff. You go to follow, but he whirls around, pointing straight to you, locking you in a glare. "You stay away from Loba, understand?"

He pauses, waiting to hear your reply.

"Uh, okay, I'll try to stay away from her."

While not an entirely satisfactory answer, Revenant whips back and disappears from sight. You sigh aloud. If those two have some kind of long-running hatred for each other, it would probably be best if you didn't get in the middle of it.

You peer over to the computer. He's right, Loba standing over his dead chassis holding up the scarf is everywhere. Loba fans are absolutely enamored by the triumphant image. Revenant fans openly mourn, swearing revenge. Loba and Bangalore apparently took the win, finally fighting down the second place team of Wattson and Rampart. Sherry will be miffed that Wattson had the spotlight and win taken from her. Although, now knowing you're on team Revenant, she probably will spare you any of her rants.

You stare at the image. It makes you overwhelmingly sad. Right before that snapshot was taken, Revenant was in unspeakable pain. The scream you heard on the broadcast echos in your head. It was one born of pain: strong, violent, and sharp until the static began to overwhelm it. The screeches you woke up to last night were not the same. They were mournful: hollow, airy, and almost melodic in their melancholy. Revenant can feel great pain, but clearly has some kind of appreciation for warmth and a kindly embrace. Why didn't others see that? Why does he have to suffer so much more, just because he is a simulacrum?

You close the browser. It messes with you. The imagery makes you upset. You feel you might vomit again if you're not careful.

You're snap back to attention at a commotion outside in the hallway. You peer out in the general direction of the other Legends' rooms.

"Fuck. You." Revenant's voice is so low it could rattle someone's bones. Fuse is standing in front of him, but Revenant is speaking beyond him to Loba, holding the scarf.

"It's my trophy. I'm a master thief, I don't just give things back." Loba proudly holds it in front of her face.

Fuse tries to keep Revenant at a fair distance from her, but Loba is standing her ground, completely unafraid.

"Woah now, come on, we don't need to settle this here and now." Fuse is attempting to keep the peace.

Revenant's growls can be heard from down the hallway, a number of volunteers have stopped to avoid getting too close, and a couple Legends are peering out their doors. The extra attention is displeasing to Revenant.

"Fine, but you will regret this." He starts to back off, prepared to fight another day, but Loba is relentless.

"Not if you want anything from me. Including that source code." Only now is she content to click her heels and turn away, Revenant suddenly looking like he lost the fight.

"Geeze, mate, do you really have to be so aggressive all the time?" Fuse gasps in a sigh of relief, addressing Revenant. "And I think I come on strong--you're a whole 'nother level!" He is already beaming a smile from under his moustache again, chuckling at his own joke.

Revenant shoots him a scowl for a moment, then turns back to you and begins to come back to the room, scarfless.

Fuse keeps pace with him as you retreat back inside, not sure if you should stay out of their way or not. You instinctively dive in behind the bed, staying low as not to be seen. You hear them come around the corner.

"Wait a minute, mate, I wanted to apologize." Revenant is already in the room, turning around to face Fuse who is standing in the doorway. You stay hidden behind the bed, nearly on the floor, listening in on their conversation. "That wasn't my best work out there yesterday. I feel like if I had been there, maybe you wouldn't have, uh..." He trailed off, his point was clear. "Listen, I'll talk to her, see if I can get 'yer scarf back. I don't want there to be any hard feelings."

Revenant's breathing pattern and low growl sounds like he is about to explode, and Fuse knows it too.

"Oh hey! They cleaned your room too!" His diffuses can be surprisingly effective. "Heh, I didn't even ask and apparently they decided to be like mum and make sure it got done whether I liked it or not."

Revenant hadn't actually noticed until now. He turns to look into the room. He peers across the way, seeing the bathroom mirror is reflective again.

"You're right." He sounds surprised. You swear you can hear another sigh of relief from Fuse now that the anger is gone.

"I was told it was that runner who seems to have a bit of a thing for 'ya did it. Seen 'em around lately?" Fuse asked. "I like to tip everyone, they do such a great job and they're not getting paid."

Revenant ignores him, walking into the middle of the room, peering around. To your recollection, he had never asked for his room to be cleaned as long as you have been volunteering. His room was very dusty. Now light is shining through all the windows, the television is clear, the bed sheets fresh, the carpet vacuumed...

"Yeah, where are they?" Revenant finally asks aloud. Is that your invitation to reveal yourself?

"Um, hi, sorry." You slowly pull yourself up from the floor, revealing your truly mediocre hiding spot.

Fuse gives a surprised stare, clearly catching a glimpse of your red badge, then laughs it off.

"You picked a cute one, didn't 'cha Rev?"

Revenant turns to face him in an absolute fury.

"Listen, I'm just telling ya to play nice." Revenant gets in Fuse's face immediately, but Fuse doesn't budge and meets him eye-to-eye for his next words. "You seem pretty defensive of 'em. Keep it that way."

Those words take Revenant aback just long enough for Fuse to break away and waltz up to you.

"Cheers, thanks for bein' my mum for me." He hands you enough money for a month of groceries, so generous!

"Thank you! That's very kind of you!" You chirp back, very happy to have more for your savings. Revenant seems shocked by the genuine joy in your voice.

As Fuse walks by Revenant to leave, you hear a short exchange:

"I'll try to get the scarf. Don't go killing anybody, and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary." Fuse murmurs.

"...thanks." Revenant sounds genuine.

Fuse gives him a side-hug on the way out, Revenant leaning away to escape it, but failing. Fuse laughs at Revenant's bashfulness. Getting a thanks from Revenant is a miracle unto itself, worthy of such a small celebration. Fuse is a genuinely good person. He is universally loved by the volunteers for his generosity and positivity. A lot of people have crushes on him, and you can understand why. One swift set of finger guns at each of you and Fuse is gone out the door, closing it behind himself.

"He's nice!" You say very matter-of-factly to Revenant.

"Sure, whatever you say, little skinsuit." He mumbles, seeming a bit exhausted by all the exchanges this morning. "What did he give you?"

"Money!" You hold out quite the wad of cash. Revenant chuckles a little under his breath at your happiness.

"What are you saving up for, anyway?"

"Well, for when this gig ends, I guess." You think aloud. "I just never want to be homeless again."

"Homeless?" Revenant looks at you with concern, "You were homeless before the Games?"

"Yeah, it's terrible out there..." You trail off your own words a bit sadly, but in seeing his concern for you, you decide to end on a high note. "With everything I save, I'll make sure I always have enough to live off of, and with the experience I'll have an easier time finding a job."

"Would it help if I paid you?" Revenant asks, plainly.

"Well, yes, but you don't need to."

"You should have told me." He almost whispers. He sounds a little sorrowful again.

You walk up and give him a quick hug.

"Sorry, I didn't know you would want to."

"If you keep getting too close to me, one of these days you're going to end up in a body bag." He sneers, trying to regain his vicious demeanor.

"Sorry, just keeping you warm, boss!" You play along, for now. You release him. "I have to actually get some food, go by the medical ward for some medicine, and then I need to leave the facility to pick up some new clothes. Do you need anything?"

Revenant stares for a moment.

"I'll be here when you return, bring me something alcoholic though." He answers, studying your eyes.

"Yes sir!" You rush out the door.

• • • •

When you return in the evening, you find Revenant's chassis laying like a corpse on the bed, his headscarf back on his head. His eyes are glowing dimly, staring at the ceiling with little interest.

"Oh hey." You address him.

"Oh, hey." He addresses you back, but slower. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling.

"You okay? You got your scarf back." You acknowledge, hoping he will perk up.

"Yeah." He sounds... depressed?

You put the bag of medicine on his computer desk, along with your bag of new clothes. You walk over with the remaining bag, which has the largest bottles of rum, whisky, and vodka the store sells. It is heavy and expensive, so you carefully place it on the end table next to his bed.

"I got you a ton of alcohol. It was kinda expensive, I'll probably need to be paid back." You carefully request, unsure how he will react. He gives you a thumbs up before his arm collapses onto the bed again. "What happened while I was gone?"

"Nothing much, I just got my scarf back." He sighs.

"Well, how did you get it?"

He moans audibly.

"Fuse got Mirage and Caustic to help him. Apparently it was an absolute mess. Mirage had to make tons of fakes to play keep away with my scarf, and Caustic gassed Loba's room with... zinc chlorides...? Something like that. It set off the fire alarms, everyone had to evacuate--"

"You didn't evacuate, did you?"

"Absolutely not. Anyways, in the chaos my scarf somehow ended up with Artur and Bloodhound."

"Oh geeze, what happened then?"

"They cleaned it, brought it to me, and gave it to me folded up neatly."

"Oh. Well... that last part isn't so bad."

"They were kind." His eyes tightened with discomfort, "And they left me with this." He holds up a single crow feather, perfectly dainty and undamaged.

"Aw, Artur!" You chirped; Artur was the sweetest bird you have met, not that you have met many.

Revenant sat up suddenly, his eyes getting bright again.

"Why would they do that?" He studied the feather in his hands, like he is completely bewildered with the concept of kindness. "They didn't owe me anything." He puts the feather down in front of him on the bed, pulling his hands up to hold his scarf in his grip on the two sides of his head. "They don't owe me this."

"Are you alright? You seem to not want to accept that Bloodhound is a nice person." You wanted to feed him the answer inside the question.

He stays silent for a while, taking the feather and handing it to you.

"Artur said this was for you, specifically."

"Wait, what do you me--"

"It's Bloodhound. It's in their name." He sighs, as you recognize concern in his tone, "They know who you are, they know you're here, and they recognized your scent on me." He lays down on his back, exasperated. "I can't let more people know." You hold Artur's feather, twirling it in your fingers. "They can't know. I am not like this." He seems genuinely upset.

"You seem cold." You prompted.

"I am very cold." He responds, overanalyzing each word for their deeper meaning.

"Do you want to be warm?" You put the feather down next to the bag of alcohol.

He pauses to sit back up before answering.

"Yes, but I can never let any of them know that." He answers plainly, but seriously.

You sit down next to him and are quickly grabbed and enveloped in his cold body, pulling you deeper onto the bed and directly under him. He almost instantly rests his head on your shoulder. His breath slows to a relaxed pace, rattling a little in his chest. His vocalizer hums at a low purr, and he moves his hands to feel your pulse, one at your chest and one to your jugular. He presses in, studying your inherent tick.

The television is on in front of you, but you haven't noticed it until now. The commentators are going over the edits of the "Loba the Scalper" image they found on social media, having nothing more important to talk about before the upcoming trios match. Revenant sighs a bit in your ear, still clearly bothered by his very public execution. You wrap your arms behind you to hug his waist. He holds you tighter for a moment, clearly understanding your intent is to comfort him.

You begin to massage the leather and the mechanisms underneath, unsure of how he will react; but he almost instantly squeezes you again, endorsing your idea. As you work into his back, his eyes dim and his breath quickens and deepens at strange intervals, relating to each long, deep stroke you perform. He slowly but surely relaxes his grip on you, potentially not realizing it. His mask digs into your shoulder, possibly trying to stifle his abnormal breathing. You keep at it for a few minutes, revelling in how sensitive his chassis is. Simulacrums were truly amazing.

Revenant's body melts under your touch, his chassis making odd movements clearly out of pure enjoyment. He's completely warm now, actually turning a bit hot as his code runs trying to keep up with your inputs. You worry that perhaps his circuits are being stressed too hard, but he also seems to be enjoying it so much.

He suddenly seems to shut down. His eyes go black, his weight falls on your shoulders, and his arms dislocate and slump out of his shoulder armor. You struggle to hold up his weight, his torso must be nearly two hundred pounds alone. No wonder he needs pistons to hold it up with his skinny waist.

He roars back to life, literally growling like a beast. His hands open and stretch like talons, the tips sharpening into claws. His legs cross in front of you, and his arms cross in front of you, and they pull you up against him in a nearly-crushing manner. His talons press into your flesh where they land, causing you a minor amount of pain. More concerningly, his jaw pulls open and he immediately goes as if to bite you, pushing your neck into the void of his mouth. He doesn't bite down though. His eyes are needle-thin, and brightened to a nearly red color. You gasp for breath in complete shock.

"You're mine!-Mine!-Mine!" His vocals are skipping as his hoarse, aggressive voice practically screams. "You belong to me!" He falls silent for a few moments. His shoulders refit themselves into their sockets as he slowly relaxes and retracts his claws from you. His softer voice returns. "Mine..." he calmly finishes. His jaw removes itself from your neck and closes. "I'm sorry. Emotions load faster than logic. It's hard to control myself after a reboot."

You had been holding your breath, and finally exhale and inhale, feeling faint with fear and deoxygenated blood. You slump back in his grip, putting your hands on your diaphragm to steady your breathing. You let yourself completely melt onto the bed, allowing yourself to look up at his face, gazing down at you.

"So, that's how you really feel then?" You pant, still catching your breath.

"Only a bit." He tries to comfort you, taking your hands in his. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to scare you. Being a simulacrum is complicated. Even more complicated if you don't learn humanity while you're still human." He looks away, apparently not necessarily sure what he is missing in himself. "But I cannot deny there is truth in that emotion."

"It sounds like 'if I can't have you, nobody can' isn't off the table yet." You are slowly catching your breath.

"I would be very upset. I don't handle being upset well." His words are foreboding, but you're unsure if he is uncertain himself or trying to hide the truth. You want to sleep; you feel like you're going to have a heart attack. He squeezes your hands, noticing your weariness. "Sleep out here tonight."

You give him a weak thumbs up, fully expecting to just sleep right where you are. Revenant releases your hands, throws a blanket over you, and pulls you by your torso into a better sleeping position, up against a pillow. You throw out another thumbs up in approval. He snickers in response.

"I'm getting drunk. So sick of today. I'm going to create a scene so gruesome next game that everyone forgets about this little fiasco." He grumbles. You hear him cork something as you drift to sleep. "Have a good night, little skinsuit." Sleep was taking you rapidly.

"Thank you for the warmth." is the last thing you hear.

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