Thinking again about the end of CoM as a metaphor for repressing trauma vs facing it to heal and grow as a person and I really just
It really does feel intentional that what Sora goes through in CoM — losing his memories and almost losing himself — is a lot like what Sora describes being a heartless was like: “I was lost in the darkness. I couldn’t find my way. As I stumbled through the dark, I started forgetting things — my friends, who I was… The darkness almost swallowed me.”
Both halves of CoM are visual representations of what Sora and Riku each went through when they fell/almost fell to darkness in KH1. Riku’s memories are devoid of people because he cast them from his heart. Sora’s memories are full of people he forgets because he sacrificed his heart. And if we are supposed to see CoM as a near-death journey/an exploration of the unconscious, it is pretty on point for Marluxia to have a grim reaper aesthetic. Sora’s battling death.
Anyway, that’s why Data Sora’s decision to accept the loss of the memories of his friends and face that pain in Coded, live with it, is so significant.
Because that’s what the real Sora failed to do in the real Castle Oblivion. He never should’ve forgotten what happened there. He should’ve accepted those losses — and the pain attached to them — knowing that even if he can’t remember his friends, they remember him. Even if he doesn’t know them, he remembers caring about them. And even if he can’t recall specific memories, they’re not gone. He’ll remember them, some day. And in the meantime, the people he loves will help him shoulder the burden.
In a figurative sense, Sora has never left Castle Oblivion because he’s never accepted this pain. He has never moved on past this point, unlike Riku who decides to face Ansem, the representation of his trauma, and leave the castle, leave the darkness, to begin walking the road to dawn — the road to recovery. Sora’s still there, still under that dark night sky.
And now, after sacrificing himself again, there’s a very real chance he’s forgetting things and losing himself again, and surprise, surprise — look where he is.
Tied to a new character whose name means “night sky” to boot… Trauma has a way of biting us in the butt when we don’t deal with it properly. The past has a way of chaining us when we don’t move forward… Sora’s gonna have to do it right this time. He’s gonna have to face his pain and accept it if he wants to step forward into the light and exist again.
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“Tammy Thompson,” says Robin, voice choked.
“But Tammy Thompson is a girl?” says Steve, feeling the full effect of Russian drugs and not seeing what Tammy Thompson has to do with him being rejected right now.
“Steve.”
“Oh.”
So maybe he does see what Tammy Thompson has to do with him getting rejected right now.
Ok.
“Did you OD over there?” fear is audible in Robin’s voice.
He steels himself.
“You know… I was never looking back. At Tammy, I mean.”
“That doesn’t really- Thanks, I guess,” Robin sighs.
“No, I- hm. I wasn’t looking at Tammy because… because Eddie Munson sat in front of me in Ms Click’s class.“
“Steve?” Robin looks confused, but there is a hesitant kind of hope blooming on her face.
“And he always wore those rings, you know? And they’d, like, shine in the light. And he had all those fucking chains so even when he managed to shut the fuck up, he was never quiet and- and- fuck. “
“Steve.” Robin’s eyes are wide, understanding dawning on her face.
They sit, facing one another across a bathroom stall, smelling of blood, sweat and vomit. They aren’t alone anymore.
They never will be again.
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the thing is you have to get a good grade in being an art commissioner. you cannot be a bitch when paying for art. you have to be patient and nice. i have not been perfect in my years of paying other furries for art of my funny animals but i can, with confidence, say ive gotten a good grade. artist friends of mine agree im awesome and fankly the Keys to being Awesome at being a commissioner are just like. being nice and recognizing artists arent machines. theyre people who have their own lives and are not infront of their tablet drawing for everyone 24/7. youll find them posting about some game or movie when youve been waiting three weeks for something and thats fine. youll find them having difficulty getting something exactly like how it is in your brain because, like all people, they cannot read your mind. you gotta have everything ready and upfront and be ready to answer questions. its fine to be a little nitpicky and a little "sorry im not quite sure on this pose, could you do X Y and Z" and not be an asshole about it. after a certain number of "can you do X different" you have to realize its either not going to be exactly how you want it to be or the artist is going to want to kill you with hammers. and thats fine. i think artists have every right to want to kill you with hammers.
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I’ve been on a Soulmates kick today and just saw a fic where Steve has two marks - one for Robin and one for Eddie. And it’s got me thinking.
Of course, he doesn’t know who his marks are for. He only knows that they’re two people because they look so different. Soulmarks show up where you and your soulmate will have the first skin-skin contact, and they have the words they will say when that happens written in their handwriting.
Steve has one covering his palm, the handwriting is small and sharp, all angles and no rounded edges. That one says “Steve, we need to run”. It seems scared, the wording, but he refuses to think about it. The other mark he has is covering his left hip, curling like someone was holding him from the side. This handwriting is completely different from the other one and is best described as chicken scratch. It’s big and messy, letters flowing into each other like the writer didn’t even pick up their pen between each stroke. That one says “I got you, just lean on me”. It seems less scared but there’s concern laced in the words that helps Steve feel less alone when he’s laying in bed late at night. That’s the only time he ever lets himself think about his soulmates, during the day he avoids it like the plague. His parents are soulmates and they barely speak, so soulmates can’t be all they’re cracked up to be. After Nancy never makes one of his marks tingle and burn he tries to give up on the idea entirely, figuring he can go on without a soulmate and be with Nancy - but then she breaks his heart and those late nights are all he has.
His first soulmark changes when he’s stuck underneath Starcourt mall the summer after he graduated. He had been working with a girl, Robin, who barely tolerated him on a good day and now she’s been sucked into his shitty world. When the alarms go off in the bunker he barely has a second to react before Robin is grabbing his hand and yelling at him, “Steve, we need to run!” His feet start moving and he yells back for her to be careful with his arm, even as he feels the tingling burn cover his palm and in that supply closet, leaning against the door next to Robin they make eye contact. In that short second of connection he knows that she felt it to, that he’s just found his soulmate and despite his fear he’s so happy that it’s her. Later, after they had both puked up their guts and he had confessed to having a crush on her, Robin told him about Mrs. Click’s class and Tammy Thompson and how she’s sorry that he’s stuck with a soulmate who can never love him back. Steve blinks and suddenly his two soulmarks make so much more sense.
“Robin, I have another soulmark. I don’t… I don’t think you were ever a romantic soulmate for me.” He watches the relief and, maybe even, joy cover her face and she launches herself at him in a hug, squeezing him tight and he returns the favor completely ignoring his own pain.
The other soulmate comes over 8 months after meeting Robin. He was so grateful for having her in his life but he still wanted that other piece, he loved Robin and she loved him but he wanted romantic love too. Unfortunately for Steve, just like with Robin, his other soulmark was triggered when he was fearing for his life. He had just been dragged through Watergate and made into a chew toy for a bunch of demobats. Steve was just trying to catch his breath when they all heard the bigger hoard approaching and he knew he had to run. He made it surprisingly far before the pain of each step started to settle in, his feet dragging more and more and his pace slowing when someone moved in beside him, wrapping one arm around his back to settle his hand on his hip. Eddie grabbed the arm closest to him and dragged it over his shoulders, giving Steve a grin. “I got you, you can lean on me.” This only made Steve completely trip; the sudden onset of tingling burning at his side so close to his currently bleeding wounds had his left leg collapsing under his weight.
“Why does this always happen when I’m in danger?” Eddie froze and then a laugh burst forward.
“That makes so much sense with context. C’mon let’s get you somewhere to sit and we can talk more when you’re not bleeding over me.”
When he and Eddie got to Skull Rock, he and Robin made eye contact and he watched her eyes flit down to where Eddie’s hand was on his side. Her eyes grew about three sizes and he just shot her the best grin he could. He didn’t care that he had been bleeding all over his soulmate for the past few minutes - he had gotten blood on Robin when they found out that they were soulmates, so it seemed fitting for him to be doing the same to Eddie.
Years down the road he would look back and laugh at the drama surrounding him finding both of his soulmates. Eddie even joked that the universe gave him two to make up for his shitty parents, and Steve wasn’t going to argue.
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quotes from alex turner's favourite authors that make me want to put my face through a wall:
"although i have never been an actor in the strict sense of the word, i have nevertheless, in real life, always carried about with me a small folding theatre" - vladimir nabokov, despair
"there is a terrible emptiness in me, an indifference that hurts," - albert camus
"there is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself" - raymond chandler
"at eight, he had once told his mother that he wanted to paint air" - vladimir nabokov
"no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge" - joseph conrad
"everything i've ever let go of has claw marks on it" - david foster wallace
"we're all lonely for something we don't know we're lonely for. how else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we've never even met?" - david foster wallace
"i turn over a new leaf every day, but the blots show through" - keith waterhouse
"the truth will set you free. but not until it's finished with you" - david foster wallace
"curiosity is insubordination in its purest form" - vladimir nabokov
"i'm me and nobody else; and whatever people think i am or say i am, that's what i'm not, because they don't know a bloody thing about me" - alan sillitoe
"we live as we dream; alone” - joseph conrad
"i liked, as i like still, to make words look self-conscious and foolish, to bind them by mock marriage of a pun, to turn them inside out, to come upon them unwares" - vladimir nabokov, despair
"whatever you get paid attention to for is never what you think is most important about yourself" - david foster wallace
"i continued to stir my tea long after it had done all it could with the milk” - vladimir nabokov, despair
"i remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind" - edgar allan poe
"all the information i have about myself is from forged documents" - vladimir nabokov, despair
"how odd i can have all this inside me and to you its just words" - david foster wallace
"you will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. you will never live if you're looking for the meaning of life" - albert camus
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