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levmada · 3 months

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Thank you for responding!

I just remembered another question, you may have broached this topic as well, but I've seen a couple posts floating around that suggest Levi is (on some levels) illiterate.

Personally I don't think current canon Levi is illiterate, but what about Levi in the Underground? There's manga evidence (I believe) that he was at least somewhat exposed to reading (I think I saw a photo of him with Isabel and Furlan with a bookshelf in the background..??).

I can't imagine Kenny advocating for reading when learning survival tactics would be more important by his standards. I think the ability to read is something else that connects Levi to his mother (I haven't see much of anything that would suggest she was a reader), or it was simply a roundabout way of learning another survival skill? ("Knowledge is power"? I.e. having more power over his fate/current situation).

Some of these posts go on to assume the illiteracy spills over into how he writes reports (and that supposedly Hange has to either help him or redo them entirely)

I was curious about how you believe Levi would've approached literacy in his early years.

ugh i’ve gone back and forth on this a couple times😩😩in most of my fics, levi is illiterate when he reaches the surface.

at least, as captain, we know there’s NO WAY he’s illiterate in the present. (and besides, he's seen reading the newspaper in s3 at the end of the uprising. and the labels/books in the basement later).

for a canon reference, it’s said in a smartpass that levi diligently practices his handwriting so that no one knows he’s from the underground. that he has “newspaper level” handwriting. he gets defensive towards Petra when she compliments it😭

you’re absolutely right about the backgrounds. here’s some examples:

clearly farlan knew what he was doing at least😭😭both in the anime and manga, it’s eluded to that farlan is like the ‘co-leader’ that takes care of the money and logistics side of things.

it’s not clear whether levi touches any of that. he IS good (at least competent?) at math though, again like farlan; he did a bit of complex addition in a few seconds.

(sorry i’m just taking the opportunity to post acwnr panels atp…)

math is definitely more important than reading and writing in the underground right? i think the bare minimum reading ability would’ve rubbed off on levi.

KENNY however most definitely didn’t concern levi with that. i mean…😭

i’ve never heard or seen anything connecting kuchel to reading?? pls lmk where you heard that if you don’t mind!! i’m curious.

anyway, it’s canon that levi “learned many things” from erwin around this time of which i must imagine had to do with desk work, knowing levi’s life up to then.

(the account associated with that info has, frustratingly, been deleted since i posted it. i’ll go looking if anyone wants the source)

i’ve never heard the tidbit about hange helping levi with his reports either.

i severely doubt it's real. there’s so many “”””facts”””” out there in the aot fandom, recently i made a long post debunking many and after days of research it’s RLY begun to grind my gears. why can’t this fandom be normal😭that ‘fact’ also sounds like it has shipping reasons behind it, like many others…

anyway, all that said, i do think he was on some level illiterate before reaching the surface.

it’s a mystery for now… but i don’t think kuchel knew how to read. kenny didn’t teach him because it paled in comparison in importance compared to fighting, his image, and so on. if levi could recognize letters grouped together, for instance the names of bars, that was enough.

he picked up on basic math along the way, until farlan came along and it became very important to understand numbers - especially as far as income goes. if not for the sake of the, uh, business levi/farlan were running, in the anime, they were saving up money to go live on the surface with.

((((personal hc but)))) despite his talents, shadis never so much as promoted levi to squad leader during his time as commander. he was too stubborn and stuck in his ways, unable to get past the fact that levi was a thug, and yet had more skill than even their strongest soldier (mike).

when erwin was promoted from captain to commander, he gave levi his position immediately. (which honestly pissed levi off, since he didn’t like the idea of having the lives of a personal squad on his hands…. besides the reading and writing issue.)

erwin would go on to teach levi how to read and write, which levi would go on to master on his own. levi, it seems to me, is the type of person who masters everything he tries, and so with practice and determination, he learns quickly….

you can definitely say he overcompensates because he hates for people to know he’s from the underground. not because of the insults personally, but because it would hurt the SC’s image if captain levi was found out to be a thug before, yk?

that’s my take :)

#levi ackerman hc #levi aot #snk levi #levi snk #captain levi #levi hc #aot hc #levi ackerman headcanons #attack on titan hc #levi rivaille #rivaille ackerman #rivaille heichou

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melonteee · 6 months

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Found another interesting analyses post that I'm interested to hear your opinion on, though it is more of a meta-analyses: https://www.tumblr.com/purplehairedwonder/726685742550646784?source=share

It's a good read and full respect to them, but I'm somewhat unsure about this, since I never saw Law as ever wanting to protect Corazon I guess? He wanted to avenge Corazon by going after Doflamingo, but their entire time together was Corazon looking after Law fullstop. Law ended up caring about Corazon's feelings and person because Corazon showed him love, but it's more so Law finally let his walls down and allowed Corazon to look after him. Corazon melted Law's heart due to showing genuine love towards him, and Law - a boy who'd closed himself off due to the events of his life - finally realised he could be accepting and open towards Corazon.

I also personally don't see them as a father son relationship dfhjgkd I more saw them as a little brother, older brother kind of thing. But at the same time, I also don't think Corazon and Law's relationship equates to anything as simple as 'father/son' or 'big bro/lil bro' because it's so special in what it is, and I feel like labelling it with traditional family roles does it a bit of a disservice. So it truly does depend on ones own interpretation.

Law definitely has tendencies to want to look after people though, but the problem with Law is, he's so stubborn about it he doesn't realise people want to protect HIM as well. He didn't understand why Corazon cared for him, he left his crew behind in fear of them getting hurt, and he mostly did not understand WHY Luffy wanted to help him. Law has the heart of a big brother for sure, yet he's unable to understand the love people give him at times, and this kind of roundabouts into HIM being the one who needs protection a lot lmao. But, now that he's been saved by Luffy, and now that he's around people like Kidd, this childish immaturity he's always had is starting to show, and it's like his inner child is healing to me.

EITHER WAY it is a good analysis, but my own interpretation of Corazon and Law and how Law works as a person leads me to not fully agree with some of it. Which is a-okay!

#ask #melonask

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ofsavior · 10 months

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😊 Would my muse ever ask someone on a date?

👍 Does my muse prefer to be asked on a date, or would they rather do the asking?

😉 What are my muse’s fetishes/kinks?

💯 What is my muse’s ideal date?

🍬 Is my muse a sub, dom, or switch?

👮 Has my muse ever had sex in public?

💑 What are my muse’s requirements for a potential partner?

🎀 Who would my muse sleep with if nobody ever had to know?

💘 What are the ways my muse says ‘I love you’ without actually saying it?

(For Chifuyu! Also not for research purposes for Ryu, totally not 🤣)

intimacy & romance. || @protectivemuses

'not for research purposes.' yes, I'm very convinced.

😊 Would my muse ever ask someone on a date?

Yes. He might be a little roundabout though. The sort of thing that he won't necessarily call it a date and leaves it vague.

👍 Does my muse prefer to be asked on a date, or would they rather do the asking?

He doesn't have much of a preference necessarily. Chifuyu's a little dense to read signals though, and he doesn't have the most easily read signals himself. From a practical standpoint, the other person asking might make it a little clearer.

😉 What are my muse’s fetishes/kinks?

I wrote a whole headcanon post about this 😂😂

For Ryusei, I think Chifuyu views them on equal levels. I think Chifuyu would be more assertive in this ship (or take more ownership over his actions) because Ryusei has a tendency to drive him up a wall sometimes. It's a challenge/competition; a lot of back and forth exchange.

They're opposites. They communicate differently, but they communicate well. I think they'd be a lot more teasing, and Chifuyu would be receptive to that. Of the two, I suspect Chifuyu's more easily flustered. Although, I imagine they both make one another flustered rather consistently. It becomes a sort of game.

That blindfold art probably becomes a Thing with them. You can't tell me otherwise.

💯 What is my muse’s ideal date?

Answered here for his younger years.

As an adult, he appreciates going for drives or walks together. Nice dinner dates are always a go-to for him. Scheduling with a fulltime job can be hard.

🍬 Is my muse a sub, dom, or switch?

Sub-leaning switch.

👮 Has my muse ever had sex in public?

Not... yet. 😎

💑 What are my muse’s requirements for a potential partner?

Chifuyu's not needy, but he does have some important markers. He likes to play games. By that, I mean he has a lot of silly ideas that he wants to live out. Like, child-like wonderment? He reads a lot of manga and sees things he wants to enact sometimes. For instance, kiss him in the rain or teeter on the seesaw. Little romantics. He needs someone who's receptive to those ideas or he'll feel unsatisfied and somewhat insecure.

He also needs to feel like he can talk. Just talk at any point about whatever. Be it his weird ideas or his day or the cat he saw in the park that afternoon. He can't be with someone who asks him to censor himself or finds that annoying.

Calling him annoying would shatter him.

🎀 Who would my muse sleep with if nobody ever had to know?

Sano Emma.

He thinks she's cute but too much for him to handle in a dating way, and well... Draken and Mikey.

💘 What are the ways my muse says ‘I love you’ without actually saying it?

I thought we'd share, or Half's for you.

Alternatively.

I'll still believe in you.

#( h. Chifuyu )#( suggestive cw. )#( long post. )#protectivemuses

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caffeinatedopossum · 2 years

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I saw a post that said something about how we hear a lot of people saying "someone had it worse so stop feeling sad" but we don't hear them saying "someone has it better so stop feeling happy"- I didn't want to reblog the original post with my take just because I think that's a good message and this wouldn't be a productive addition- but you actually do get people saying both of those things. The latter is just what jealousy is and its usually said in a more roundabout way. Its whats all over adervtisements. It's actually very normal to compare your life to others to an extent, though this is a somewhat distorted view. For one, comparing *your* life to others is not the same as comparing *someone else's*. But if you never assess your life in comparison to what other people have- or only assess it in who has it worse or who has it better and not BOTH- you get a very detached view of yourself and the world. For example, a rich person might see only people who have it better than them and you can imagine what kinda behavior that leads to. But the same thing happens if you're really struggling and you only see people worse off than you- it's going to be hard to interact with people who can see that you have it bad. This is something I'm guilty of and now it's nearly impossible to socialize with anyone who isn't equally as sick, traumatized, and poor as me. Because I simply haven't considered how to interact with someone that has it better, or what that even looks like.

#hoo boy this was long. i hope this at least made sense because jts been rotting in my brain a while now #opossum rambles

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clockworksteel · 2 years

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Today I saw a post about writing the name of your blog with the first letters of song titles and that sounded fun. The rules are to do it in a new post and you’re also supposed to tag people or something but I’m not doing that.

As additional personal rules I didn't use the same source twice and only used things if I could remember at least some of what they sounded like. I did look up lists of songs I thought I'd be familiar with though (eg, looking up the Bastion soundtrack to remind myself what titles were in there). Also I decided not to use any songs starting with A or The because I didn't feel like making a call on whether they could be skipped and they didn't start with K anyway.

Round brackets (parenthesis) in the artist half of the song list indicate names of video games. For over half of them I had to look up the actual people. Also, even if it's not from the game I put it there if there's a specific game with the song in it that I strongly associate with the song.

Square brackets indicate whatever I want them to indicate.

C - "Can You Really Call This A Hotel, I Didn't Receive A Mint On My Pillow Or Anything" - Toby Fox (Undertale) L - "Leave Me Alone" - I Don't Know How But They Found Me O - "Organ Donor" - DJ Shadow C - "Curses" - The Crane Wives K - "Konga Conga Kappa" - Danny Baranowsky (Crypt of the Necrodancer) W - "Wow Wow" - Neil Cicierega O - "Ode to a Superhero" - "Weird Al" Yankovic ["Piano Man" - Billy Joel] R - "Robot Overdrive" - Takeharu Ishimoto (Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory) [I haven't seen Big Hero 6] K - "Kirby: Right Back At Ya! Theme Song" - Norman J. Grossfeld and Ralph Schuckett (Donkey Konga) S - "Senbonzakura" - Kurousa-P feat Hatsune Miku (Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX) T - "Terminal March" - Darren Korb (Bastion) E - "E" - Drunkenmunky E - "Everybody to the Limit (Live)" - The Brothers Chaps and Y-O-U [Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits] L - "Locked Girl" - COOL&CREATE [Remix of "Locked Girl ~ The Secret Girl's Room" and "Love-colored Master Spark", by ZUN (Touhou Series)]

Finding two K songs was a struggle. Like, why is the famous Flowering Knight remix called "Night of Knights / Knight of Nights" instead of the other order? I could've really used that one. My "know what it sounds like" rule blocked the use of Kairi from Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, Knight to C Sharp from Crypt of the Necrodancer, Knight Man Stage from Megaman 6, and Killing in the Name Of from Guitar Hero 2 (yes, I know it's not "from Guitar Hero 2", but that’s why I’m familiar with it). I guess I used another Crypt of the Necrodancer song for the other K so forgetting Knight to C Sharp didn't make a difference.

Honorable mentions to "Twister" - Takeharu Ishimoto (The World Ends With You), "Setting Sail, Going Home" - Darren Korb (Bastion), and "Wellerman" - The Longest Johns. Also, earlier versions of this list included "Canon in D" - Pachabel and "Roundabout" - Yes, but I wanted to stick with somewhat shorter songs in case I felt like putting together a Youtube playlist so I could put it on and listen to the whole thing or something. I like it when individual songs don't steal the whole show. I'd consider skipping the Kirby theme song if I did put it together as well.

Somewhat amusingly, I notice that I don't know what anything sounds like in the list of the person I copied this from (notahorseindisguise). I've maybe heard New Invention once, but from that group I pretty much only listen to "Leave Me Alone" and "Do It All The Time" and I don't remember any other songs. I'd probably like others but I don't have much of a habit of actively seeking new music.

...in fact, looking over everyone else's answers in the post I linked, I think there are only 3 songs I recognize as something I've heard, total. "Dragula", "YMCA" (although not specifically as played by their pep band), and maybe "Everybody Talks" (literally the words "Everybody talks, everybody talks, everybody talks" come to mind sung a specific way, but I have no memory of what the rest is like). Also, why so many in one thread? Did I maybe misinterpret the rules when they said "Make a new post"?

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creacherkeeper · 3 years

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im getting a little too in my family feels today and so INSTEAD of feeling those im just going to ramble for a second about why i fucking love paladin!aelwyn because. im. just like this i guess im coping leave me alone

cw for discussions of child abuse, maladaptive coping, drugs and alcohol, self harm, destructive tendencies, basically everything we see in canon and the implications

aelwyn is ... SO interesting to me because for as much of her interiority as we see, as much of her as we think we understand, as much as i could ramble about her character for hours, we know ALMOST NOTHING about her in actuality?? (besides ... one key thing)

(this is like 2k and probably incoherent someone please stop me)

okay. listen. almost everything we see aelwyn do in s1 is maladaptive rebellion against her parents and home life. the drinking, the drugs, the partying, perhaps some of kalvaxus (though i dont think we fully understand how much of that was forced on her as well, kalina WAS watching her when she was talking to adaine about it). you can say like, oh aelwyn is a party animal, she's impulsive, she makes risky decisions, she's bitchy and rude, and its like. okay but IS SHE ACTUALLY. because under her parents thumb she had an EXTREMELY limited amount of freedom, and usually when people are suffering from very little control over their life, they WILL act destructively over the tiny bit they can, either harming themselves or their environment or people lower than them in the pecking order, because in a way, that feels like a reclamation of autonomy. saying "you have so much power over me but can you stop me from hurting myself and destroying what you havent managed to claim yet?". its just like, kind of what human brains do and frequently has little to do with a persons actual personality or impulses, its just. desperate brains trying to control SOMETHING because autonomy is a fundamental human need and when thats taken away we get. very bad off. (this is one big reason eating disorders are SO common with abused kids.) so i think a lot of the s1 aelwyn we see is like. this is a very desperate, abused teenager "acting out" in the only way it is possibly somewhat safe for her to do so because, on a psychological level, the self destruction is weirdly the only emotional tether and its either this or just dissociate all the time (something we do see she has problems with in canon)

and yes, she did treat adaine horribly in s1. she fully did. obviously what we get in canon is what happens but a moment thats interesting to me is in episode 1 where adaine has attacked aelwyn several times, who either does nothing or just bounces it back, when she says "i never cast spells at you" and siobhan immediately retcons it and says "yes you do, all the time" (i havent gone back and watched this bit so i might be wording this wrong). obviously its an improv show and the canon is built between performers as they go, but that was interesting to me. that brennan hadnt intended for her to have fought back in that way. she definitely feeds into the emotional abuse from their parents and participates in all the toxicity there, but we know in canon that she did that because of overwhelming fear and self preservation. and that her self hatred because of it just fed back into the cycle and made her feel like she wasnt good enough to even try to break free from it. this is very common in golden child/scapegoat sibling relationships where the golden child SEES what the parents are capable of and becomes a participant in the abuse out of fear for their own standing. in any way siding with the scapegoat child not only directs abuse at themselves as well, but frequently makes things WORSE for the scapegoat because the parents will take out the challenge to their power on them even more. so, if aelwyn DID ever try to defend or help adaine when they were small, she would have VERY QUICKLY learned that made things worse for everyone. and just. sectioned that part of her brain off, as she's done with so many other things. (and i dont think im reading too much into the forest scene with the abernants to say their parents were VERY QUICK to turn abuse towards aelwyn if she stepped out of line even a little. like, you dont flinch when a hand moves unless. you know. dont need to say it just something to think about. as far as we saw in canon, she had done everything they asked of her leading up to the forest, and we DONT KNOW what happened in it but we do know brennan specifically called out how in broken spirits she was when adaine was summoned, even though they did the ritual to avoid all of the nightmare bullshit)

(the house party is literally a whole separate post but i think its fair to point out that 1) she was super under the influence when that was happening which DEFINITELY is in no way an excuse for her behavior but worth remembering when trying to analyze that 2) her losing that fight did canonically have DRASTIC consequences for her and even if she didnt know exactly how that was going to turn out, i think she knew how bad it might be. and she did not know adaine or any of the bad kids were going to be there in the first place)

all that said, it feels in some ways counterproductive to say that aelwyn is an extremely devoted and protective person (yes we're getting to the paladin shit i know i've been rambling a while) but i think that thats strangely ALL WE ACTUALLY KNOW ABOUT HER. because we've established that her self-destructive and abusive behavior in s1 is almost entirely psychologically scripted for her by her parents, we dont know how much of her villain shit in s1 was LITERALLY UNDER THREAT OF DEATH because we know at least killing the oracle was and we dont know how much of the rest of it was mandated by either her parents or kalina other than that she probably was under orders not to tell adaine the truth, and we know participating in all of this caused extreme self loathing in her that she refused to show to anybody and was too terrified to act on in any way

so, like. what does that actually leave us?

here's what we do know about aelwyn:

- of all the schools of magic, she went into abjuration

- the entire bbeg plan from season 1 hinged on aelwyn's complete faith that her level 1 sister was the most prodigious diviner in the world

- right after (?) the house party, she locked her memories where only adaine could find it with a note basically saying "theres so much bad blood between us but i know only you could find this"

- she desperately wanted to protect adaine and the fact that she was too afraid to do so made her hate herself (and her knowing that adaine now knows this is the turning point in their relationship)

- despite everything, even in the nmk forest, she still loved her parents

- the SECOND she is shown genuine love and affection and care from adaine, and adaine says whatever you do, i am here with you, all her actions from there forward are just about protecting adaine from their father, very nearly at the cost of her own life

- with what she probably thought were her last words (and would have been if adaine hadnt given her the tincture), all she wanted to communicate was how to help adaine and the bad kids, and how despite everything she had always believed in her

- at five levels of exhaustion, unconscious, she used her first spell slot after nine months of torture to build a shield around adaine

NOW we get to paladin!aelwyn. because, once everything is stripped away, the abuse and the control and the maladaption and the threats and the torture, EVERYTHING we ACTUALLY can glean about aelwyn's personality and inner core is that she's protective and devoted. and of course classes arent locked by personality, but that just screams paladin to me. its her WHOLE THING. adaine even says "wizards dont have heals, we dont care about other people" and of COURSE that isnt true for either of them, but? mechanically? aelwyn chose the wizard school that DID let her protect, and DID let her help, but i dont think, at this point, going forward, thats really going to be enough for her (and we could also talk about the parallels between them, how often adaine uses her portents to help other people)

i think a lot of the different reads on aelwyn come from this fundamental disconnect between her actions and displayed personality vs who she actually is and what she actually wants. and i think there are very different interpretations of what thats going to look like for her going forward. but i think, for a girl who's most hated characteristic about herself was her self preservation at the detriment of others, her perceived selfishness, and her fear ... isn't choosing to be braver and more selfless and more protective and shedding that self-preserving instinct for the betterment of others ... and MECHANICALLY being able to act on all those things ... the logical next step? i think its going to be a LONG TIME before aelwyn can love herself, but what other way is there to try? if adaine loves her, and adaine believes she can be better, isnt being better because she trusts adaine kind of a form of self love? saying, i dont believe in myself, but i believe in the person who believes in me, and maybe, in a roundabout way, thats the same thing. she was never able to TRY to be better before, because trying to improve even a little, even when people arent watching, when a harmful force has so much power over you and your actions ... like, the mental dissonance is honestly TOO much to even try, thats WAY more terrifying than letting yourself be bad, to the point where thats psychologically impossible for a lot of people. but now she actually has space and freedom and CHOICE and she CAN embrace the instincts she always had to shove down, she CAN be the person she knows her sister needed her to be

i dont know, i think theres an inherent love letter to yourself in wanting to be better and wanting to improve, even if you justify it by saying its for someone else. and now aelwyn actually CAN improve, and thats probably going to be extremely awkward and scary and there will be set backs and backslides for sure. but. i dont know. i think she wants to make up for lost time. because she never wanted the time to be lost in the first place. and if a protector is who she always wanted to be, whats stopping her from being that now?

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #aelwyn abernant #WHO LET ME WRITE ALL THIS #does this even. fucking. make sense. who knows.#THE BRAINROT THE BRAINROT THE BRAINROT

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cheri-translates · 4 years

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[CN] Lucien’s Ordinary Date (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date (平淡之约) which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

This wholesome date graced the CN Server in late April 2020 🌸

The date begins with MC outside the Lucien Bioscience Research Centre™, where she overhears some of his students gossiping talking about him

Student B: Do you ever feel like although Professor Lucien looks amiable and approachable, he’s pretty cold sometimes? He never talks about himself, and doesn’t have close relations with the other teachers.

Student A: You’re referring to how he’s polite but keeps people at a distance, right?

Student C: Kind of. I’ve seen him standing by the window by himself a few times, and although I wanted to greet him, I felt that I’d definitely be disturbing him.

Student B: Sometimes, I really can’t figure out what kind of a person Professor Lucien is...

My footsteps pause slightly. After hesitating, I continue walking towards them.

MC: Pete!

Pete: MC, are you looking for Professor? He’s just finished his work, and should be taking a break now.

MC: Mm, I brought all of you some things to eat!

I hand a paper bag of food to Pete, and he takes it with a smile while scratching his head a little awkwardly.

Pete: About what we said earlier, it was just mindless chatter...

MC: Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you guys to Professor Lucien.

I laugh, though my heart is very clear -- even I myself once found Lucien’s coldness and distance elusive, so I can’t blame them for thinking this way.

For example, I don’t know what secret experiment he’s conducting this time. Since last month, I haven’t seen him much, and we have had less contact than usual.

Whenever I asked him about it in a roundabout manner, he would always change the subject. As such, I’ve been feeling uneasy.

Student B: Are you Professor Lucien’s girlfriend? We didn’t mean to have a discussion about the Professor - we just don’t really understand him, so we couldn’t help but talk about him a little.

He pauses, revealing an embarrassed smile.

Student B: It’s rare to see such an amazing and young professor, so he really piques our curiosity.

Student A: He’s not just amazing - he can even be written into a textbook!

As they continue talking, the topic shifts to Lucien’s recent academic research.

Apart from anticipation, the sense of fulfilment of working together with Lucien is written on their faces.

MC: He gets overly engrossed in his own world sometimes, so he might come across as unsociable. But there’s no need to worry about him being difficult to get along with.

I look at them, my lips subconsciously lifting into a smile.

MC: He’s a very tender person. The most tender person I’ve ever met.

MC enters the Lucien Bioscience Research Centre™ and finds Lucien looking deep in thought, and she thinks he looks exceptionally lonely:

MC: Lucien.

I can’t help but take a step forward, calling his name softly. He seems to be jolted awake from a deep contemplation, and the gaze he sends my way carries with it a hint of astonishment.

The moment our eyes meet, I can clearly see a smile brimming and surfacing in his dim eyes.

Lucien: Why didn’t you tell me before coming here?

I walk over to him briskly, lifting up the paper bag in my hand with a grin.

MC: I brought you breakfast. There’s bread, egg tarts, butterfly pastries and a sandwich...

I open the paper bag and present the food to Lucien, and he can’t help but laugh.

Lucien: It’s just breakfast - how could I eat so much?

I place the bag on the table, then walk towards the window.

MC: Breakfast is meant to be sumptuous. If you can’t finish them, you can have them as snacks during teatime or supper. How can you get inspiration at work if you don’t have something to eat?

She opens the shutters and light pours in. He notes that the weather is good, and that he would have brought her out for a stroll if it weren’t for his ongoing experiment

Lucien: Didn’t you say that you’ve been busy with a new program recently? Did you suddenly visit because you’re facing some difficulties?

I shoot him a knowing smile, taking out a notebook from my bag.

MC: It’s what I mentioned before, about inviting a logician to do an episode...

Before I finish speaking, Lucien shakes his head and releases a soft sigh.

Lucien: ...so you really didn’t come specially to bring me breakfast.

Stunned, I frantically deny it.

MC: Of course I specially came to bring you breakfast. It’s just that I happen to have questions to consult you about.

Even after hearing this, Lucien’s brows furrow, and his voice becomes heavier, as though he has suffered a great wrong.

Lucien: ...you had a question to consult me about, which was why you brought breakfast, right? It’s been such a long time since we last saw each other, but you don’t seem to miss me at all.

MC: ...hold on a minute! That’s not what I meant. It’s not that I didn’t miss you...

At this moment, Lucien looks up, a slyness flashing across them. Only now do I realise that I got duped, and bite my lip angrily and look at him.

But this person is suddenly in a good mood, and he smiles as he takes my hand into his.

Lucien: Let’s have breakfast first.

Under my “calm” supervision, Lucien finishes three egg tarts, two slices of bread, and half of a butterfly pastry before putting an end to this somewhat sumptuous breakfast.

When he can no longer stomach any more food, a happy smile hangs on his lips.

Lucien: Please let me off this time, great producer. I know that I was wrong. Now, I really know it wasn’t that you didn’t miss me.

He leisurely prolongs the last few words. After finishing the final drop of coffee in his cup, he rests his chin on his palm and looks at the notebook in my hand.

Without giving me time to think of how to retort, he shifts the conversation topic.

Lucien: And now, I should have a look at your difficult question.

Not knowing how to react, I simply go along with him, opening the notebook and placing it on the table.

Lucien: So you were stumped by this question.

Lucien retrieves a pen from his pocket. Just before the pen touches the paper, he turns to me.

Lucien: It isn’t convenient for me to write when we’re sitting opposite each other. Would you like to sit closer?

I nod, dragging my chair over and sitting beside Lucien.

Satisfied, Lucien smiles slightly and writes down the four characters, “AEIO”, before enclosing them in a rectangle.

Lucien: You can understand simply like this: “A” represents a universal affirmative. “E” represents a universal negative. “I” represents a particular affirmative. “O” represents a particular negative.

Lucien: In this, “A” and “O” are mutually exclusive, and “I” and “E” are mutually exclusive. Between the two, one is real and the other is false. For example, when you said it wasn’t that you didn't miss me earlier...

Lucien: You were rejecting a universal negative, which means that “E” is false. In contrast, this confirms that “I” is real, which then means -- you miss me a little.

Lucien: Correct?

His low and deep voice as he explains slowly is akin to a gush of sunlight. I grow flustered as I listen, and involuntarily smile along with the slight curve of his lips.

MC: Correct.

A familiar and refreshing scent lingers in the space between our breaths. I look into his eyes, his pupils rimmed with halos, and only afterwards do I react.

Lucien is holding onto my hand, and a vague smile appears on his lips. His eyes crinkle upwards slightly, and he leans closer.

Lucien: I attended a seminar two days ago, and coincidentally bumped into Old Professor Xu whom you invited for the previous program.

Lucien: He was full of praise for you, and said you already handed over the script two weeks ago. And that you had already completed the questions on logic he posed to you.

Lucien: Such foundational theoretical knowledge - they haven’t stumped you since a long time ago.

Lucien: Yet you used this as an excuse to ask for guidance...

MC: I...

Feeling guilty, I avoid his gaze. After hesitating, I release a soft sound of acknowledgement.

With a resigned smile, he lets out a faint sigh.

Bending his forefinger, he taps my forehead gently.

Lucien: Little Liar, only knowing how to bully me.

I hurriedly lean forward to tug on the cuff of his white sleeve, softening my voice.

MC: Which is exactly why I said that I specifically came over to bring you breakfast.

Lucien: I’m not just referring to this.

Pretending to be mysterious, Lucien stares into my eyes, as though he would catch my reaction, no matter what it may be.

Lucien: Over the past two weeks, Pete has been bringing me supper. Sometimes, it’d be hot congee, and sometimes it’d be dishes with rice. He said they were take-outs, but it didn’t taste that way.

Lucien: Before, the spider plant on the windowsill was wilting. I haven’t had the time to tend to them, but when I happened to look at them a few days ago, I realised they had been changed.

Lucien: When I enter the office of the centre early in the morning, I’d find a cup of green tea on the table, appearing out of thin air.

As he speaks, he wears a contemplative expression, his eyes having a hint of bewilderment in them.

Lucien: When did I bring up a Snail Girl like you?

[Trivia] The Snail Girl is a Chinese folktale of how a kind, young farmer saved a snail. The next night, he discovered that his house had been cleaned, and that a warm meal was waiting on his table. The same thing happened over subsequent days, and the farmer decided to find out who his benefactor was. One afternoon, he spotted a pretty girl cooking at the stove. The girl revealed that she was the snail he saved, and had wanted to thank him for his kindness. They got married, loved each other deeply, and lived happily ever after

He seems to have something more to say, but stops. He simply strokes my hand with his fingers slowly, incredibly softly, and incredibly tenderly.

I feel the warmth emanating from his fingers. I feel the slight ticklishness from his touch. I understand his silence.

MC: I knew I couldn’t hide it from you.

I respond calmly, and suddenly remember the small present I gave him before, and break into an uninhibited smile.

MC: But there’s one thing you missed. I left a humidifier at the corner near the coffee table. Did you notice it?

Lucien pauses, then lets out a soft sigh.

Lucien: How could I not notice it -- also, someone filled my originally empty tea box with new tea.

Lucien: I thought that since I couldn’t make time, you probably went to buy tea on your own.

Lucien’s eyes darken. He leans forward, his forehead on mine.

Lucien: Did something happen recently?

I shake my head subconsciously -- actually, there really wasn’t anything.

He’s busy with his own matters, and we had agreed early on that he’d take me out after he’s done with his current work.

It’s just that when I didn’t hear footsteps from across the neighbouring wall even after waiting the entire night, and when I gripped my phone, knowing that he was probably working and knowing I shouldn’t bother him...

I really missed him.

I feel Lucien’s breaths on my face - both warm and moist, akin to light rainfall in spring, brushing against my heartstrings.

MC: Actually... I didn’t just miss you a little.

Lucien: ...mm, me too.

A week passes since then, and MC’s program receives exceptionally good results. Wanting to share the good news with Lucien, she immediately goes to the Lucien Bioscience Research Centre™ after work

The moment I’m near his office, I hear the sound of Pete’s laughter wafting from inside the room.

Pete: Professor, I’ve been keeping a secret for a very long time, but I’ll tell you about it today! It has to do with MC...

Hearing my name, I put down the hand which was just about to knock at the door, and furtively look into the room through the gap of the door which has been left ajar.

Lucien and Pete are sitting opposite each other, and both of them seem to be engaging in idle conversation. Pete deliberately stops at this key moment to keep his listener in suspense, and I have no idea what topic he intends to bring up.

Pete: Actually, she was the one who secretly sent the supper I’ve been bringing to you. There was once when it rained, and we thought she wouldn’t come. But in the end, she still brought all of us freshly baked cakes and biscuits. There was also a time when she realised you had finished up your tea, and helped fill it up with new tea the next day!

As he speaks, he heaves an extremely big sigh.

Pete: It’s nice to have a girlfriend...

Lucien listens quietly. When Pete starts sighing and groaning, he can’t help but laugh.

Lucien: What, are you envious?

I reach out to knock on the door softly. Lucien smiles, standing up slowly.

Pete: Professor, someone is looking for you, so I’ll take my leave.

Pete pulls open the door just as I’m about to push it. Our eyes meet, and he scratches his head a little awkwardly.

Pete: MC, you’re here... I-I definitely didn’t reveal your secret to Professor. I have a thesis to write, so I’m off!

Before I can tell him that the secret had long since been discovered by Professor Lucien, he has already fled.

Resigned, I look at his receding form along the corridor. Before I can react, Lucien pulls me into his office.

Lucien: Since you’re here at this time, is the recording over? Were the results very good?

MC: Mm~ It just ended. Although I don’t know the results of the broadcast yet, it should be a success based on past experience... but how did you know I came here for this?

Lucien: Isn’t this the tacit understanding between us? Whenever you rush over to look for me, it’s mostly because you have good news to share.

MC: How’s your experiment then?

The light in Lucien’s pupils changes for an instant, but a smile continues hanging on his lips.

Lucien: It failed.

He releases my hand and walks to the file cabinets, retrieving a huge stack of papers with the words “Experiment Report” written in bold on the cover.

I’m slightly befuddled at that moment, not knowing if he’s kidding or telling the truth.

But Lucien inserts the report, one page at a time, into the paper shredder. A whirring sound quickly fills and persists in the quiet room.

When Lucien sees the astonishment and hesitance in my eyes, the faint smile on his face remains.

Lucien: In a hundred experiments, it’s true that the success of the hundredth experiment makes one happy. But this doesn’t mean the previous ninety-nine failures were of no value.

Lucien: Just as how you’d face difficult questions when making programs, receive poor ratings, have a decline in viewership, my work often has such discouraging moments too.

Lucien: But that’s all right. Failing isn’t the important thing. Knowing that you’ve walked down the wrong path is more important.

Lucien flips through the few thin sheets of paper in his hand, the smile in his eyes deepening.

Lucien: I hope I’ll also have good news to share with you next time.

MC: But you didn’t get results even after working so hard and for so long... If it were me, I’d definitely be unhappy for a long time.

As the shredder swallows up the final page of the report, Lucien walks over to me, releasing a faint sigh.

Lucien: Actually, I am a little unhappy.

After a brief moment of thought, I extend an invitation to Lucien.

MC: Why don’t we take a walk outside? The weather is good today, and we can go for a stroll. Sometimes, my mood gets better after feeling the sun on my skin.

Lucien lets out a laugh, and agrees softly. He entwines our fingers together, and leads me out of the research centre.

Now that the weather has become warmer, there are more people walking along the street. Even though it’s a working day, passers-by stroll past in groups of three or four.

Lucien grips my hand tightly, as though worried that I might get separated from him in the crowd.

He suddenly stops in his tracks while we’re walking, and cautions me solemnly.

Lucien: Next time, don’t come out late at night on your own.

Lucien: And you’re not allowed to use alleys as shortcuts.

I was planning to make a wry face as a joke after hearing his first sentence and simply agree. But once he mentioned “alleys”, my entire heart dipped.

MC: How did you know...

The main road from the research centre to home has always been safe, and there would be several people walking around even after 10pm.

But when it rained one day, I took a shortcut through an alley as I wanted to rush back quickly.

It only happened once.

Lucien stands in front of me, laying a hand atop my head.

Lucien: How could I let you walk home alone at night without worrying?

Lucien: It’s just that if I were to accompany you home, or speak to you, I probably wouldn’t have the mood to continue with my research.

Lucien: Which is why every time, I’d only send you to the floor of the building, wait till the lights in your window turn on, and return to the research centre.

Lucien: This way, I’d have the chance to take a short break, take a slow walk, and slowly tidy up my train of thought regarding the day’s work.

MC: ...

I think of him setting down the work on hand, secretly following and protecting me as I go home, then waiting downstairs for my lights to turn on, before returning to the research centre in the dimness of night.

My heart suddenly feels upset.

My original intention was to take care of him, but I didn’t expect to make things even more inconvenient for him.

MC: I'm sorry.

Lucien shakes his head and smiles leisurely.

Lucien: Silly girl, don’t apologise. You didn’t make things more inconvenient for me.

Lucien: I liked all the surprises you brought me. I didn’t just like them - I couldn’t help looking forward to them.

Lucien: Looking forward to what gift you’d bring next, and looking forward to seeing you after a long and exhausting day of work.

Lucien: It was the most interesting experience in all my years of dry and dull, yet ordinary research life.

Lucien holds onto my hand, casting a glance in the direction we came from.

Lucien: Would you like to have ice-cream?

Only now do I notice the dessert shop selling ice-cream in front of me. After hesitating without a word, Lucien speaks.

Lucien: I do want to eat it though. Will you accompany me?

Rarely seeing such a childish side of Lucien, I immediately agree, brisk walking to the dessert shop and purchasing two ice-cream cones.

MC: Here - I’m treating you to ice-cream. Next time, I’ll give you surprises in more thoughtful ways, so you wouldn’t have to worry. The account this time shall be written off!

I hand one of the cones to Lucien before giving mine a try. The cold, sweet ice-cream melts on my tongue, and the rich strawberry flavour makes one feel incredibly happy.

At this moment, Lucien leans over--

He draws near, his lips pressed together. Under my mildly confused gaze, he gently licks the tip of my ice-cream.

The soft ice-cream suddenly becomes a short mountain peak. His thin lips part, but his eyes never leave mine.

In a second, the clamour of our surroundings seems to draw to a temporary halt. My entire vision and heart are filled with a pair of clear, deep eyes.

Lucien: Mm, delicious.

He straightens up. In a considerably good mood, his eyes crinkle, and only now does he try the matcha flavoured ice-cream in his hand.

Even though his eyes clearly have a sly smile in them, the light breeze seems to be influenced by his breath, adding on a touch of gentleness.

It renders one never knowing what to do with him...

MC: Lucien, do you still have to return to the research centre?

Lucien: The experiment is over, so I should head back to rest.

MC: What a coincidence, we’re on the way!

The corners of my lips curl upwards, and I reach out towards him--

With a faint smile and without a trace of hesitation, he takes my hand in his.

Lucien: Mm, let’s go home.

🦋 MOMENTS: ONE 🦋

Lucien’s Post: There’s a new dessert shop at the entrance of the street. When I passed by over the past two days, I saw many people in the queue.

MC: I’ll treat you to it the next time I go to the research centre.

Lucien: All right, it’s a promise.

Lucien’s Post: There’s a new dessert shop at the entrance of the street. When I passed by over the past two days, I saw many people in the queue.

MC: I’ll add it to our checklist!

Lucien: Mm, after this busy period, we’ll take a look together.

Lucien’s Post: There’s a new dessert shop at the entrance of the street. When I passed by over the past two days, I saw many people in the queue.

MC: Many people in the queue? It must be very delicious!

Lucien: Even through the words, I can already see your expectant gaze.

🦋 MOMENTS: TWO 🦋

Lucien’s Post: I wonder what tonight’s nightscape will look like.

MC: The fountain under our residential estate is open, and the elderly grandfathers and grandmothers are dancing around it.

Lucien: Hearing what you said, I really want to see it for myself.

Lucien’s Post: I wonder what tonight’s nightscape will look like.

MC: There seems to be an exceptionally large number of stars tonight.

Lucien: Will you take a picture for me?

Lucien’s Post: I wonder what tonight’s nightscape will look like.

MC: It’s a full moon today~

Lucien: No wonder I can see bright moonlight from outside the window.

🦋 TEXTS 🦋

[ Scenario One ]

Lucien: Tea personality types? Is this a new interesting quiz?

MC: I saw it in a magazine and found it interesting, so I wanted to let you see it.

Lucien: So in your eyes, what kind of tea am I?

MC: You’re plain tea - modest and delightful.

Lucien: You think too highly of me.

Lucien: But I do like plain tea. It has a mild taste.

MC: In your eyes, what kind of tea and I then?

Lucien: If it’s you...

Lucien: You should be milk tea - a new world I had never tasted before.

Lucien: However, if we were to go outside the scope of tea, you could also be fruit juice, or a carbonate drink.

Lucien: Your personality shouldn’t be limited to a specific type.

[ Scenario Two ]

Lucien: Tea personality types? Is this a new interesting quiz?

MC: I saw it in a magazine and found it interesting, so I wanted let you see it.

Lucien: So in your eyes, what kind of tea am I?

MC: ...maybe green tea? It’s just has... a certain invasive feeling.

Lucien: Green tea preserves quite a lot of the natural substances found in the tea leave. For example, polyphenols, caffeine...

Lucien: The fragrance, the rich scent.

Lucien: So in your eyes, I’m like that...

MC: It seems like no matter which tea it is, it fits your personality.

Lucien: No matter which tea it is, the most important thing is that you like it.

Lucien: Actually... I can also be coffee, or milk tea.

Lucien: In short, it fits only if it suit your tastes.

[ Scenario Three ]

Lucien: Tea personality types? Is this a new interesting quiz?

MC: I saw it in a magazine and found it interesting, so I wanted let you see it.

Lucien: So in your eyes, what kind of tea am I?

MC: Black tea of course - it makes people feel warm, and smells fragrant.

Lucien: When I was in England, I learnt ways to prepare black tea.

Lucien: When there’s time, we can try it together.

MC: I should be a green bean cake then, or a macaron... In short, the best companion for tea!

Lucien: Mm, you are the best companion.

Lucien: I suddenly feel like having afternoon tea.

Lucien: There’s no need to wait for another day. Want to look for me?

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #mlqc lucien #officially my favourite Lucien date because Pouty Boys™ are delectable

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yunsoh · 4 years

Text

long headcanon post about kimi and kakeru’s relationship ahoy:

i love speculating what exactly kimi and kakeru’s deal is because like. we know off the bat that they’re friends, but we get small reveals from both of them that they’re actually somewhat close, and know more about one another than possibly anyone else in their friend groups (barring yuki eventually becoming kakeru’s best friend, but more on that later).

it’s one of those things that is completely up to interpretation. how and when they became friends, and how they both function together in such a way that they both end up revealing these parts of themselves that are more or less hidden from everyone else (whatever kimi’s true nature is, kakeru’s private life). and i personally headcanon that this all spurred on from one big thing: kimi’s unrequited crush on kakeru.

i’m not even sure that it’s a headcanon that kimi has (or had, or is trying to get over) a crush on kakeru -- the subtext is there, imo. though her character tends to be flighty with others, and her relationships with other characters are more of an unknown, touch-and-go situation, her relationship with kakeru remains fairly consistent. she seeks out his attention, is physically affectionate with him (patting his face, bumping his cheek with her hand, the like), and talks to him somewhat differently than she does everyone else (meaning, they tend to be on the same level; he’s really the only character she doesn’t talk up or down to).

but, this could also be read as them being close friends, which also brings me to the point that kakeru is possibly the closest thing that kimi has to a best friend. even though her “true” nature goes unseen, kakeru seems to be one of the few people aware of it.

moving on. kimi having a crush on kakeru, and trying to instigate that crush, i think could be a leading factor into them knowing so much about one another in the first place. this isn’t a “crushing on my best friend” scenario, but more like a “i have a crush on a boy that i’m kind of friends with” scenario -- something that preceded them becoming actual friends. when i say “crush,” for kimi that has somewhat different implications -- she dates around a lot, but never seems to hold really true feelings for the people she goes on dates with. she dates for her own momentary pleasure, and that’s it. a crush for her i think could be something more deep-seated. which, considering her nature of “i get what i want,” would make her more relentless in her pursuit for reciprocation in some form.

now, considering kakeru: kakeru isn’t someone who goes around touting that he has a girlfriend, especially not once he and komaki start going to different high schools (and i think especially after komaki’s father dies in the beginning of their freshman year). it’s likely that the people he went to middle school with knew about their relationship, but he keeps his relationship with komaki pretty much on the dl. he does have a line that he draws between his personal/private life and his life outside of home, and he’s been shown to be choosy about who he lets into that part of his life, and how much he reveals.

so, mix that with kimi trying to ask him out, and him declining but not giving a reason other than “i don’t want to” or “i don’t like you like that.” kimi being relentless because basically no boy has turned her down before, and she doesn’t know how to leave it be, because she likes him, dammit. bugging him about it until it gets to a point where kakeru has to tell her he has a girlfriend (or, she asks if he does and he says yes) to get her to drop it -- and then bugging him some more for proof.

there’s the matter, too, of whether kakeru is at all annoyed or put off by her prying, and honestly, considering the circumstances, i would have to go with probably not. kimi isn’t just bothering him for details about his life that he deems private just for the hell of it, but she’s bugging him because she likes him.

kakeru has exactly one instance on his track record to show how he responds to learning that someone likes him in that way:

(no, this isn’t the post where i go into what i think about kakeru and komaki’s relationship, but i will say here that i think kakeru was especially, immediately drawn to komaki because, despite his coldness and harsh edges, she saw something in him that she not only liked, but desired to be with. kakeru, for all of his self-confidence, i don’t think is someone who grew up with many, if any, friends, and i don’t think really understood what it felt like to be liked in that capacity until she offered it to him. he’s still someone who is shown to be cold and unkind at times, even if its hidden beneath his more jovial and outgoing personality, and i think being told that he’s liked or desired in some way is still something new to him. he doesn’t shy away from it, but rather holds onto it; he shows a certain loyalty to those who decide to like him despite his shortcomings.)

kimi learning about komaki, and kakeru turning her down, i don’t think is something that deters her from him. it aggravates her, though, and i think this is where we see more of this roughhousing, harsh side to kimi that she subjects kakeru to. but kakeru thinks this relationship is actually kind of interesting and fun, so he completely rolls with it. (somewhat related, but kakeru is drawn to people who have no issue with beating on him. if you can’t knock his ass to the ground, or if you can’t get more than a little combative with him, he won’t bother being associated with you. it’s like a self-inflicted karmic debt for being an asshole.)

it’s in this roundabout way that kakeru rejecting her actually brings them closer -- he starts hanging around her more, she continues to like him (and starts to really get into her whole “him?? you have a crush on him???” self-loathing phase in an attempt to just move tf on), and i think they just start to bond more over the fact that they have fairly similar personalities. they’re able to have fun together, and seek out each other’s company because they’re actually, genuinely friends.

now. a short moment to consider how yuki fits into all this, because we do frequently see the three of them together:

kimi is, of course, more than happy to relentlessly flirt with yuki. it pisses off the prince yuki fanclub girls, it makes him flustered and uncomfortable, and she just finds fun in getting a rise from people. but i think it’s also fun to consider that a part of her is more than a little petty, and that she does it to “get back” at kakeru.

i say “get back,” but it’s more like trying to show that she’s over him. this culminates in her giving more and more of her attention to yuki over kakeru -- resulting in this repeated joke where kakeru does his whole “what about me” thing, and kimi loudly and deliberately brushes him off to give her attention to yuki instead. kakeru, of course, isn’t bothered literally at all by her flirting with yuki, because she does this with a lot of people, and he’s yuki, but i think he would at least be a little privy to the fact that she’s trying to squash her feelings for him. which, kakeru being kakeru, finds a little funny, and probably isn’t at all sensitive about. even though he highly enjoys being liked, he’s also of the mind of “i said i didn’t like you like that, and you know i have a girlfriend, so literally what’s the problem?” (it’s not something he’s empathetic about; he’s never been romantically rejected, so he literally just can’t relate.)

there is the matter, though, where kakeru starts to be more open with yuki. he becomes best friends with yuki in a different manner than he became close (if not best) friends with kimi -- yuki and kakeru start off with a tumultuous relationship, but kakeru wants to be friends with him (yes, this in part motivated by yuki’s ties to tohru, but i think that’s pushed to the backburner as they start to actually get to know each other). yuki doesn’t start off liking kakeru in the slightest. kakeru, here, is shown for the first time really having to work to earn his friendship; it’s not like komaki and kimi, who liked him despite his meaner and colder side. he has to prove to yuki that he’s someone worth hanging around with.

this all results in kakeru opening up even more to yuki than he did kimi (i don’t believe kimi knows that kakeru and machi are siblings, even; i don’t think kakeru would have found a reason to really divulge that to her, or even really trusts her enough to tell her), and we watch kimi’s position as kakeru’s friend kind of slide back a little. while they’re shown to be devilishly close, especially in the beginning, later scenes often show kimi feeling out of the loop.

but, of course, she’s still going in on her “ignore kakeru because he rejected me our freshman year of high school because he sucks and i swear i don’t have a dumb crush on him anymore i’m too pretty for that” act, so she never even shows real concern to kakeru about this. she hangs onto giving yuki her attention as a means to metaphorically step on kakeru, but beyond that, she does it as a means to get her attention from kakeru, too. she plays the game of ignoring him and his feelings in order for him to give her attention. (this isn’t to say she isn’t friends with yuki, but the girl has her own agenda.)

kakeru, of course, doesn’t seem very hurt by her acting this way, and sees straight through it because he gets how she functions. again, he’s not incredibly sensitive to the fact that she has/had a crush on him, so he just goes along with her game and doesn’t take it seriously. he and kimi end up having this relationship that is largely predicated on them trying to mess with each other’s feelings, and playing this game that only they know the rules to. it’s fun, it’s aggravating, it’s strained, and ultimately they just enjoy the bit of senseless drama that they both bring to each other’s lives.

#fruits basket #kakeru manabe #kimi toudou #yuki sohma #meanwhile once komaki dumps kakeru's dumb ass he goes 'oh i get it' and then tries to rebound w kimi MGHSDHJ #all 'boo hoo komaki dumped me..... kiss me :('#kimi starting to and then absolutely annihilating him by interrogating him about his crush on yuki lmaoooo #oh my god this is what happened before two skeletons. shit.#ANYWAYS #headcanons #fruits basket spoilers

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incarnateirony · 4 years

Text

Another DM oriented question.

So I’m continuing the path of, once I answer DMs, posting the results of the question for the room. I will continue to maintain askers as anonymous unless they choose to “DAT ME” again, like the last one, but sometimes these questions help other people have things “click.”

Here was the central question:

So about that, I saw you saying more than once that your DMs are open for people with questions, and I actually have one about a thing you wrote a few days ago. You were answering an anon who was comparing the "TFW splitting" ending to that of Fast & Furious 7, and a couple times you mentioned the philosopher's stones in relation to some of the characters getting them. I have absolutely no recollection of the philosopher's stones ever appearing in SPN, and I don't think I've ever read one of your previous posts where you talked about them in connection to the series. I tried googling it but came up short, probably because I'm very new to these things and didn't really know what to search for (mostly just found a bunch of Hogwarts!AU fics lol). So, am I missing something here? Could you please point me to some sources of information, maybe one/some of your older posts I might have missed? Thank you so much in advance! ^^

Okay so, if you track through my #pagan life tag, I've been breaking down the esoteric symbolism through the season; some of it is very overt--like using the Occultum verse from the Art arcana in the Thoth deck -- "loosely translated" as Castiel put it, in a way that removes a number of asterisks; others are somewhat more obscure, such as the putrefaction of the leviathan in purgatory (reduction, The Blackening, parallel to the shadow) that leaves room for growth into new (The Whitening, represented variably by the blossom or the moon). Some of these pathworks are told in quite literal forms, such as in my 15.11 post I had been talking about the next step being the moon leading us to the inner sanctuary of the soul and the sun -- and the son as Jack -- and a direct ray of light from the so/un being what saves the heart of the family, for example -- all of which became very visible in 15.13.

We even have Rubedo, the final stage and process before gold, in Rowena who threw herself into the red to take what she wants, and was reborn in red, telling them to fix it and claim what they desire.

(here’s that damn chart again, but I need you to look at this and recognize these are literally the process to making ones’ own gold, even if Chuck keeps beating on them that nothing gold can stay:)

FUCKIN FAMILIAR? RINGING SOME BELLS? I mean hell if the Shadow and Blossom or whatever else don’t do it, I point to Rubedo and remind you that Rowena was literally unbirthing hell while throwing herself into it to take what she wanted.

This may be a roundabout way to begin answering, but absolutely crucial, as understanding these formative steps--Amara in Citrinitas, the Yellowing, the often lost and forgotten step leaving in identical frame to castiel walking out and taking the warm family light from the bunker with him -- on the processes the characters have been waxing and waning through. These processes are what make the philosopher's stone. Does other media cover it, yes. But honestly I feel SPN is doing it the most justice.

While some alchemists sought literal gold (as above, so below, if you can do it in involution you can do it externally too if you learn how to exert the right parts--see: the large hadron collider turning lead into gold before), the general essence of it is the growth from the Shadow (*hits the bell gong noise*) into the purest and independent self, but how even as the independent self, that self interacts with others to form their truest and greatest selves (such as the path of the Empress I speak of with Cas, she who carries the blossom, who feeds young from her own heart, who looks to the moon as a reflection of the sun that her emperor also represents even if in truth they birth the new aeon of Horus together).

The nativeness of gnosticism to SPN modernly is similar to christianity in S4-5, they are fundamental truths driving the show, but this involution of the characters is actually the true driving plot rather than an external revelations plot that the characters navigate through for their growth. Be that things as blunt as the occultum verse or the good ol "What Jack did wasn't evil, it was the absence of good" with the soul as the One True Good and One True Thing in this entire mindset, with life itself only a commentary on how to expand it, and its true place as god--with the demiurge and logos, or Chuck in our instance, being the often bungling antagonist who fancies himself lord because he made the playbox. Like. All of this.

So these fundamental steps and processes coming in and out across the many posts are actually stages towards the philosopher's stone or gold. These come in several forms: such as the cancelled union of 15.09 that Sam failed to carry out, or later the Occultum itself in 15.13. Both of these passed from our Emperor, to Empress, and then to the Aeonchild -- first Sam, then Jack, essentially united in this position together. The "Promethean Era", as Chuck even called it, prefaces the age of Horus, but it fundamentally aligns them one after the other. In this, Jack is our Young Horus, our sun, and the son.

There is a reason my meta is soul-centric. That is to say, since I keep drawing the connection of the soul and the sun (as gnostic stuff does unto itself), think of it as reminding people: The world revolves around the sun, the sun does not revolve around the earth. This also was once a hard mindset for people to grok, but if you take the fundamental reminder that he who has the most souls is god, collect the many things from my soul and heaven metas, and come to realize: Chuck's world actually orbits around the soul, not the other way around. In its fundamental structure, his world is nothing without souls. And I point to the many times I’ve pointed out the occultum meaning, with the earth being symbolic of both the physical world and the body--the body is just a vessel orbiting around the soul, but so too is the world.

But specifically in regards to the philosopher's stone question, the two instances visible are in 15.09 and 15.13, though I suspect we will have one further one. Also along the way I've banged on about the foreshadowing of our fusion of the elixer, which the Art Arcana itself that 15.13 quoted for the occultum itself represents--soul and grace if you will, or some representative mixture (heart of a man, blood of an angel, etc) -- these are our two halves for the union, called the union by which life exists, which also can be seen by the framing IN 15.13 of how Dean and Castiel stand in the shadow of Joseph and Mary as they pass the stone, where Jack is essentially immaculately reconceived.

The true verse of the Occultum is "Visit the interior parts of the earth, so as to find the hidden stone." But this needs a bunch of asterisks on it, because "earth" is symbolic of the body (again, as above so below) and the hidden stone is, essentially, the perfected soul. However, "hidden" in the latin verse is where the very name Occultum comes from, so Castiel's "Loosely translated, in order to be the occultum, the occultum must be in you," was a very succinct synopsis of this without having to take two minutes in asides explaining advanced gnostic thought on screen. But it was quite literally a passing of the philosopher's stone, the second in the season, and final attainment waits for us closer to the end with a truly perfected formula.

Hope that helps.

#supernatural #spn #philosopher's stone #pagan life #15.09 #15.13 #meta #my meta #amaah #hues of involution #gold #occultum #souls #art #lovers

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themilky-way · 4 years

Text

paris {s.r}

gif credit: sincerelycalum on tumblr

pairing: spencer reid x female! reader

summary: while working on a case in paris, you and spencer realize that there may be more to your friendship than you think. how long until the city of love casts a spell on you? based on this song.

warnings: none i think it’s just fluff (like everything I write lol)

author’s note: this long af bc this was supposed to be a series and this would’ve been the second part but the first one i posted didn’t do well lmao. so instead, just enjoy this one shot and maybe i’ll post the first one again if u guys want but idk. also we a lil bold in this fic bc we love confident queens

grabbing your go bag and cell phone from the charging port, you quickly made your way to the jet that was already waiting for departure. the team was ready to make their way to paris, france on a case for a serial killer that migrated from california. it had been difficult for everyone, considering the unsub wasn’t leaving much evidence.

despite it being for work, you and the team were excited to explore one of the most beautiful cities in the world. if you thought about it, it was kind of like killing two birds with one stone: the opportunity to finally catch a gruesome killer and a vacation. morgan was practically shaking with anticipation as he kept getting up from his seat and bothering garcia every five minutes and then going back.

“just think about it, baby, all the smokin’ hot people we’re gonna meet. I mean, it’s called the “city of love” for a reason!” derek rambled to penelope as she typed away rapidly on her computer.

“this isn’t a vacation, sugar, but yes I’m aware of all the potential babes we might encounter. and for that, I prepared another bag,” she giggled as derek started to laugh along with her. he raised his hand to high five her and she lifted hers too, lightly patting it.

“oh you’re bad bad aren’t you,” he laughed, and they both continued to talk too rapidly for the others to understand. meanwhile, you had grabbed your seat next to emily and right across from you was spencer. you and emily were talking about god knows what, the range going from guessing the types of desserts paris had to perhaps renting a motorcycle for your stay. the banter between the both of you was endless, and you even started watching a french movie to get some pointers on the language.

between the jokes and wondering remarks, you didn’t really notice that spencer was observing you the whole time. sure, he could play it off as if he were judging both of his coworkers for their lack of knowledge on french culture and linguistics, but he wasn’t really doing that, was he? no, in fact, he was watching you in such depth, the way he’d look at the pages of a book, and taking in every aspect that you had to present. he was, in the most simplest way it can be described as, mesmerized.

the day spencer realized that he looked at you this way shocked him. to be completely honest, it scared the hell out of him. he never pictured you as anything more than a friend, and he always thought you were too relaxed for a job like this. he told himself that he’d leave the matter alone, that their would be no thinking or second-guessing of any kind. but the second he’d lay his eyes on you, it’s like the rules he made up never quite existed. however, the more he looked back on it, there was one question that urged this matter forward: am I gonna find out why?

he shook out of his deep concentration to look up at the voice that was now speaking to him. his eyes focused again and he stared at you confused.

“reid, you okay? you’re spacing out on me, buddy,” you said, head turned slightly from the position you were seated in. you had shifted in your seat to face emily, your left leg bent on the cushion and your right giving you stability on the ground.

“sorry, I was busy thinking.”

“well, try not to use that big ol’ brain of yours too much yet, we’re gonna need it when we land,” you said, giving him a small wink. he gave you a small smile while a tiny smear of rose-colored blush crept its way onto his cheeks. it was a friendly gesture; everyone on the team did it so you thought, “why the hell not?”

reid opted to read a little bit while on the plane so that he could get in some new interrogating tactics for when they met the unsub. you and emily continued to watch french movies and spot all of the hot actors and actresses you thought would be fake, penny and morgan, well they were on a whole different level of fun. the only ones quiet and doing some work was hotch, jj, and rossi.

the plane slowly began to descend, butterflies erupting in your stomach from the fall, before the captain announced, “we are now ready to descend and are getting ready for arrival.”

when the captain finished, hotch began, “alright, listen up, team. the location of this case was by chance and we shouldn’t get distracted by anything or anyone. do your job quickly and efficiently as you’ve always had.” he spoke sternly, his shoulders were straight and his face emotionless and heavy with sleep. to any other person, hotch would be a zombie who helped solve murder cases, but to the bau team, he was their leader and they admired him.

“oh, come on, hotch! if we work extra hard these few days and have enough time by the end of the wee-” you began before getting cut off.

“yes, we can stay a while and explore the city. the unsub and the evidence altogether looks promising, so hopefully we can wrap it up quick. but don’t stray from your path in the meantime.”

everybody nodded and “yes, sir’d” before standing up and grabbing their luggage from the compartments at the top of their seats. everyone walked out in pairs and headed for the taxi cars that were waiting for them. you took emily, morgan took reid, jj and penelope partnered up, and of of course rossi and hotchner stuck together. at different paces, the team agreed at a nearby hotel closest to the paris police department that had called them. getting your bags in the car, along with the rest of the girls’, you made your way to the hotel to check in and drop your luggage off.

at first glance, it looked like a simple building; a cream color adorning the walls and some very intricate, sophisticated street lamps aligned on the perimeter of the parking entrance. before entering, there was a sort of roundabout you had to pass in order to reach to valet parking, and in the center of the roundabout, was a water fountain. it was simple, yes, but to parisians only. to outsiders, like the bau, it was already quite elegant. the ladies, including you, pitched in a little to pay for the ride and once you got out, there was a young man who offered to take your bags inside.

“avez-vous besoin d'aide, madame?” the boy said. all of you looked at each other a little confused because even though you thought it might’ve helped, watching french movies for nine hours with emily wasn’t doing it.

“he’s asking if you need help with these. here,” penny clarified before putting her tiny hello kitty handbag in yours, “let me handle it.”

she walked up to the somewhat tall boy, looked him over once, and said in the thickest french accent there was, “oui je fais mon doux muffin merci beaucoup.” she did a tiny hair flip to her blonde curls and came back to where the rest of you were standing.

“penny, uh, what exactly did you tell that boy?” emily said, stifling down a small giggle.

“nothing, i just said “yes” that I needed help and “thank you very much.”

“no, no, the other part. there must’ve been another part to it. tell us!” jj said, grabbing penelope by the shoulders and shaking them lightly.

“what other part?”

“the one where you made a boy dressed in victorian era clothing blush like a maniac over some luggage,” you laughed. to this, garcia started to laugh too and then even harder. you and the rest of the girls had puzzled grins on their faces, but the inkling of seeing your friend laugh so hard was reaching your guys’ throats too.

when she finally caught a breath to speak, she said, “I called him my sweet muffin!” at this, you and the girls broke into heaves of laughter, and couldn’t stop. you and jj had to bend down and place a hand on your stomachs’ to stop them from hurting a little. after a while, there was no words just the intake of small breaths and exhaling them out for control. when the fun comedy was over, you guys followed the boy and his friend inside the hotel lobby. `you took turns registering, and when you were all done, you saw that the rest of the team had beat you to it. they were sitting down in a cushion area near the front desk and were waiting for you guys.

“okay, now that the rooms are ready, you all can pick a partner to dorm with. it doesn’t really matter, but just choose wisely. I know some people get too crazy when they’re together,” hotch announced, flashing a look at you and garcia before handing out keys. you and emily teamed up per usual, and the rest pairing up in the same order they had been in before. once everyone was ready, you started to make your way up to your rooms while making small chatter with the rest of the gang. emily inserted the key into the lock of the door, and as soon she opened the door, your eyes’ were met with the most delicate and luxurious room you both have ever encountered.

on either side of the room were two king sized beds with victorian style bed sheets; the design on them were floral, the pastel shades of the roses tracing the outline of the bed beautifully. the ends of the sheets were long, but shabby, which added a nice, elegant, and almost romantic feel to it.

in the middle of the two beds was a small isle that allowed one person to walk on it at a time. at the end of it, was the entrance to the balcony, which gave view to the famed Eiffel Tower. the small cities, parks, and lakes, that made up the ground portion of the tower were now completely lit up, giving way to an entire new feeling for you. you set your bags on the bed, pushing the cushion down with your hand to feel the softness of it, and made way to the balcony.

“i’ll be right out here, em, if you need me,” you said, waiting for the small “yup” that came from her before proceeding. as soon as your leg crossed the small threshold to the other side, the fresh, cool breeze of the night flooded your senses. you smiled and took in the emotion it gave you, fully crossing over to stand against the railing now. you took in the sights first. the trees that shaped the parks swiveled against the current of the wind, couples of all ages walking hand in hand, admiring how the moon and the stars matched so well to their love. the lights of the tower gleaming brightly and almost seemingly looking at you, as if they asked you, “don’t you realize, (y/n)? don’t you pay attention?”

paris, and everything it was offering you at that moment, put you through a trance. one where you began to actually speak to the lights, the very same ones that millions of others had fallen in love under. “realize what? I do pay attention, i always have, but what is it I need to notice?”

you kept staring and looking around, if the lights actually were talking to you and this wasn’t a dream, and that you weren’t crazy. you looked around the balcony and walked on it to spy a tiny clue your instincts informed you about. soon enough, you noticed that the balcony was shared by the room next door. you placed your right hand on the rail to kneel down a bit and see if you could figure out who the room belonged to.

“maybe it’s penny, oh god please be penny. i’m not in the mood to see rossi in scooby-doo underpants...” you whispered fairly. just when you saw a dainty silhouette about to exit the restroom, you turned around to your end of the balcony.

“(y/n)? are you spying on- (y/n), we’ve been here one hour! our hot, paris boyfriends can wait until we catch the unsub,” emily, whose head was the only part of her body on the outside of the balcony, whispered. “come on, get changed into some comfy clothes. we can take a look at the victimology together.”

standing up, you made one quick glance at the room and the figure was already gone and so was the light. thanks for that, eiffel tower lights, you thought. you crossed to you room again and took a shower before arranging your clothes according to the days of your stay. you put your pajamas on and climbed onto one side of emily’s bed to wait for her to come out of the restroom, since you guys took turns brushing your teeth.

after about a half and hour of rearranging victimology statements and connecting photos from the crime scene, the both of you were ready to go to sleep. emily turned off her lights and you took one last glance at the view before doing the same.

and then you heard footsteps on your balcony.

----------

“you guys think I can woo a french girl tonight?”

“honey, with those shoes? not a chance,” garcia pointed out. morgan made a pout at her response and then acted as if he was offended. the team laughed and then raised their glass in unison and took a sip. the case, overall, went well. you guys managed to catch the unsub in an isolated tunnel and brought him over to the parisian authorities. you and jj had taken the only victim left alive to the station to make one final statement to the news. the rest of bodies were given proper burial and the families were finally given closure.

because the team had performed beyond excellent, and there were still a few days left before your departure, the team opted on celebrating on a night out. currently, you and your friends were seated around a small circular table inside a local bar, chatting away at whatever came to mind.

you chose to only drink mineral water, mostly because you knew that you were technically still at work and you didn’t want to risk being drunk in case of an emergency. reid, in a similar manner, chose a glass of soda to toast with. but while doing so, he found himself looking at you in the same way he did on the plane. he hadn’t been able to take in your features that night, but as everyone was so deeply distracted, he began to notice everything.

he looked over your outfit for tonight, a red, plaid mini skirt with a black turtleneck. the shirt itself was fitted to your body and allowed your angles and curves to be accentuated perfectly. the skirt permitted your legs to be highlighted in a decent, and elegant manner. your hair was loose tonight, and with every breeze that made its way through the bar windows, it caused small strands to caress your face lightly and some to stick to your lip gloss. the heels, oh god, the heels. it drove him crazy; the delicate way in which they clicked when you walked on the concrete, how they would sometimes cause you discomfort and force you to stop and fix it, how your gentle hand had grasp his shoulder for balance or else you’d fall.

everything about you tonight was immaculate. no matter how hard he forced himself to look away from you, to stop thinking of you in any other way than a coworker, and to just drink his soda which was becoming less carbonated with every passing second, he just couldn’t. and it was scaring the hell out of him.

you on the other hand, were still trying to decipher what the tower lights had asked you. what was there to realize? you were here, in paris, the city where millions of people fall in love, to fight a serial killer. the chances of you finding love, especially on a balcony where you had spied on a stranger, were slim.

by the time you finished your thought process, you noticed that hotch was looking at you with a puzzled expression.

“everything alright, (y/n)?” he softly asked you.

“yes, sir, just thinking. is it okay if I head back to my hotel?”

“yes, of course, you might even catch reid on the way there. he left a couple of minutes ago.”

“thank you, sir. good night,” you spoke and got up from your chair, adjusting your skirt as you did so. huh, he left? weird, you thought. you left a tip for the waiter and bid farewell to the rest of your companions before grabbing your coat and clutch and exiting the bar.

it was rather close to your hotel, so within a few minutes you had reached your dorm and set your things down. sitting down on the edge of the bed, you bent over slightly to unlatch your heels and slip them off your feet. you set them aside and you laid on your back for a few minutes. the only light in your room was the bathroom’s as you didn’t like strong lights shining during the night, so these dimmed ones would do.

you closed your eyes for a little while and just let the sounds of the city flow through you. you had one opportunity to experience paris, and you weren’t gonna take it for granted. for a while, only your small inhales and exhales of breath were audible, the aura of the room peaceful.

it wasn’t until you heard footsteps, the very same ones from that other night, on your balcony. your eyes flew open and you pushed your body upward to look back at your window. this is my shot, my chance, you thought. could it be a super old man who was here on vacation? yes. could it rossi, who might’ve gotten the dorm next to yours? maybe. were the possibilities of who the hell was on your balcony in a parisian hotel endless? again, yes.

but you had to see for yourself, figure out what exactly the universe, paris, was telling you. so you got up from your bed and creeped quietly to the window and slid it up. you crossed the threshold, and even though your light was limited, you were able to make out a tall, thin figure. you inched a little closer, hands crossed over your chest to appear somewhat like a normal human. you wouldn’t have figured it out until he spoke.

“(y/n)?”

his voice sent shivers down every inch of your body, and no, it wasn’t the cold air of the city, it was him. it was spencer. it caught you by surprise, the feeling his voice gave you, but you tried to play it off. he never made you feel this way, why now?

“(y/n)? you okay?” he spoke again. this time you lightly shook your head and walked closer to where he was standing so you could lean on the railing now. his body followed yours, and now you were able to make out the perpexled look on his eyes.

“hi, yeah, I’m good. just didn’t expect to find you here, that’s all,” you spoke quietly, unsure of yourself. he noticed, obviously he noticed, it’s spencer.

“yeah, same here. I heard footsteps the other night here but I had just taken a shower so I didn’t come out until later.” you glanced up at him when you realized that he was the figure that was in the restroom you’d seen. the one you had spied on and probably would’ve seen naked if emily hadn’t interrupted. a tiny blush made its way onto your cheeks, and you were quite thankful the dark covered the rosy color a little.

but spencer wasn’t dumb, much less stupid, and if he noticed every little detail about you tonight, he saw how you became around him. and god, he sure did like it. “oh, well that’s good, i guess,” was all you could mutter. so you turned your body now to face the tower, elbows on the railing and hands folded together. he saw the shift in stance and he followed, so now you were both side by side and looking at a view that somehow resembled your emotions for one another.

“hey spence?”

“yeah?”

“have you ever fallen in love?”

his voice hitched a little and he felt his throat tighten. he let out a small cough to mask the impact of your question, but he found the strength in his voice to retort.

“what makes you ask?”

“no, no reason, i was just curious, ya know. being in paris and all,” you answered. you began to feel intrusive for asking such a personal question, but it had seemed easy for you to do so because of your friendship. you were looking at him as you replied, but then looked back towards the view again. the both of you stood in silence for a couple minutes, your guilt seeping in more at this point.

“only once. it didn’t end well for the both of us,” he broke the silence. you turned your head to look at him, and you were about to open your mouth to say something when he spoke again.

“but it happened a long time ago. i don’t think about her anymore.”

you straightened up a little and you continued to face him, prying a little deeper than you should be. “so who do you think about now?”

he glanced at you, his face quickly returning back to the nature displayed in front of him and then looked back to you. a small grin began tugging at his lips, as if he meant to ask, “is this your way of playing with me?”

you gazed up at him and took this sudden swerve of confidence to glance at his lips, and then back up to him, your own smile forming.

“she’s standing on a balcony with me in paris.”

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albatris · 4 years

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Sorry in advance for the potentially dumb question, but: do you suffer from psychosis/schizophrenia? I’ve seen you reblog a lot of posts about it, of course, but i was curious. Also, if its not too personal, if you do, how much does it impact your writing/the weirdness glitchiness factor?

Not a dumb question at all, you’re all good!

So this is kinda…….. not something I’ve spoken about in a great amount of detail or specifics on this blog? And talking about it directly is actually kinda weird! I wasn’t expecting this to feel weird, but it totally does! So please excuse how long this answer took me hahahahaha

So I mean YEAH psychosis is a thing that I possess, this is a thing that resides inside my brain and occasionally outside of it………. I’m not schizophrenic, I’m more in the schizotypal realm of things, which is like….. I mean, that’s a label that best encompasses my experiences and so far it’s the only label that’s been vaguely and tentatively applied to me that’s ever really made me go “oh hey yeah that would actually explain a whole fucking lot” but like. Bits of it are still kinda wonky. Mental health is wonky, I think, generally speaking…………….

I was gonna talk a bit here about my specific experiences but, like, I really had no idea where to start with those and I don’t actually know how relevant it’d be to this question aside from being vaguely tangential in terms of psychosis………… so uhhhh I’m gonna jump ahead and talk WRITING which is WAY more in my comfort zone apparently

and oh my god this was so many words, I’m so sorry in advance, I have no idea if any of this is actually like………… super interesting? But I enjoyed the opportunity to talk about it so cheers for that! I think!

(and I’m sorry if you were expecting like………… a really short sharp sweet answer, I don’t really deal in shorts or sharps or sweets, I mostly deal in, uh………. rambling)

Rest of this post, under the cut, which I hope actually works on mobile, for the sake of your dashboards -

So this message was an adventure for me into how the questions “How does it affect your writing?” and “How does it affect the glitchiness/horror factor?” are actually two entirely separate things. I mean, they’re two separate things because I’m assuming by “glitchiness factor” you’re thinking specifically of the stuff in my recent ATDAO posts about body horror and the unreality? In which case………… let me get to that in a moment

And since this post got super long, I’m going to start with my extremely short summed-up answer, and then elaborate on it………

In terms of how it affects my writing? In lots of direct ways!

In terms of how it affects the glitchiness and horror aspects? In some weird roundabout ways! It’s not where the horror stems from, but it’s where the response to the horror stems from and where a lot of my descriptive choices stem from! It’s not the horror, but it’s kind of the lens through which I explore the horror!

AND NOW HERE WE GO………… WORDS AHOY

So in terms of how it affects my writing, generally speaking

boring straightforward answer first:

It’s something that crops up in a super literal sense, just in that I’ve got a fair few characters who are psychotic to some degree or another, and it’s something that plays into how they relate to the world and their specific character voice and how they respond to the situations they find themselves in.

somewhat irrelevant, it’s, uhhh….. something that I feel interacts with themes in a different sort of way, too. ‘Cause a lot of times there’s, like….. stories about people going on cool magical sci-fi quests, and there’s Stories About Psychotic People, and there’s not an awful lot of overlap between the two unless it’s in the context of “and the whole magical quest was a delusion all along!” which, ew

and for fucking REAL there is so much interesting ground to cover and opportunities for different perspectives and new avenues through which themes can be explored, like, in that overlap of stories. It’s something I wish I saw a lot more of in fiction! Which is another huge driving force in, like, why I write stuff the way I do

and now slightly more interesting:

Worldbuilding! It’s definitely something that plays into worldbuilding and like…. my love of creating stories that are kinda just……. “reality but a little bit to the left” if that makes sense?

Whether this is something like Undertow, where there’s a degree of magic woven into the fabric of the universe, where things are connected by invisible threads, where I can give opinions to objects and feelings to the weather and the streetlights, where the earth itself has a voice? Or whether it’s something like ATDAO, where reality is coming undone at the seams and the fact that everything is just a little lopsided and haywire is a Mundane Part Of Everyday Life? That’s something I find super cathartic and quite lovely to play around in! I’ve always experienced the world as Just A Little Bit To The Left, and writing was one of the first avenues I found to kinda…. channel and explore and expand on that and put my feelings of strangeness into words?

It’s kinda, like, I like being able to share that kind of vision with others in some sort of way, and not necessarily in a frightening or horrible way, y’know?

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT TO SAY that anything I write is, like, 100% a direct mirror or my own life and how I see the world lmao. A lot of my writing takes experiences and feelings and little facets of how I experience the world and works them into something that’s often more literal and concrete, or it’ll start out as My Thing and as I’m writing, it sorta blooms into something totally different. But bits of it are in there, sure, although they change shape a lot! And it’s definitely in there with a lot of the general overarching feelings and concepts! Yeah!

One other thing that kinda leads onto my next topic is, uh…… that a lot of how I interpret events and meanings in the world around me can be kind of frightening and threatening, and that’s not reeeaaaally something I want to delve into too much in my writing from a worldbuilding perspective? So generally the parts of ATDAO’s “reality but a little to the left” that start to twist into horror and unreality are things I’ve constructed specifically to serve that purpose, more so than things I’ve pulled directly from my experiences.

AND NOW IN TERMS OF GLITCHY HORROR STUFF HELL YEAH

so again I’m assuming by “glitchiness factor” that’d be all the unreality and all the body horror stuff and weird horror? Which, fuck yeah! Despite my squeamishness when it comes to horror, this is one odd little corner of ATDAO that I’m extremely fond of hahahaha

And, like, initially when I considered this question I was like…. oh, this is not something that really has any of its roots in psychosis or my experiences of mental illness. And that’s…… kiiiiiind of true? My construction of the unreality and its contents is a lot of me just me sitting at my laptop going “Hahahaha that makes me physically nauseous! That’s the worst thing I’ve ever come up with!! I’m adding it in immediately!!”

But yeah, it definitely does factor in, though! Maybe not in as interesting a way as you’d hoped?

So first off, my experiences are something that sorta plays into my word choice and the specific way I use language in those scenes. And I’m also gonna go ahead and say that dissociation and specifically derealisation are also things I draw from pretty heavily for those kinda……. more glitchy horror-ish parts? So for me, my experiences factor more into HOW I describe the content more so than any of the horrid glitchy gory content itself.

‘cause it’s kinda, like, a specific kind of fear, I think, it’s a little bit off-beat and weirdly-worded and disjointed and it hits your senses all wrong, it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense but it’s still extremely real. There’s a lot of weird or unsettling bullshit that goes on in the unreality that there’s no convenient Real World Descriptive Equivalent for. Like, cityscapes made entirely of soundwaves, the aforementioned body horror stuff in earlier posts, places that are a complete and total lack of Anything where there’s not even space or colour or texture or light, senses getting all tangled up into each other, something being simultaneously bigger than the sun and smaller than an ant, voices unravelling like twine? LOTS OF WEIRD, BASICALLY

There’s no nice neat right way to describe that, and if there was, it probably wouldn’t pack the punch it needs to, yeah? But I love that kinda shit, I get to pull from a bunch of really weird sensory experiences and feelings I have no real way to articulate and I get to use language in creative ways to evoke the same feelings, the same experiences, the same sense of fear and wrongness? I get to draw from weird shit to describe a bunch of weird shit that makes NO fucking sense whatsoever and that can’t realistically be tied up with words

Point is, they’re experiences I draw from in order to Get Real Fuckin Weird With Words

and getting weird with words in this specific way is CATHARTIC as FUCK dude it’s so good, it’s one of my favourite things. This is, like, the dark edgy version of what I talked about earlier in regards to worldbuilding and me painting a nice odd vision for people to share in hahahaha

“let me take you on a nice gentle stroll through my imagination” vs me supplexing you to the ground and beating the shit out of you with a bat

And one other thing is just……. I’m sorry, I’m super tired, this bit is probably gonna be jumbled and wordy and maybe not super relevant but uhhhhhhh

So the unreality is not something I initially drew from any particular place in my psyche, but it IS something I’ve come to construct in a specific way, and a lot of it is something I build with the questions of like…… “How does a psychotic character respond to this input?” and “What does this scenery draw out in my character and how does it challenge them?” in mind, so I guess………… in that sense, there’s definitely still a fairly big impact? But kind of in a sideways way. The unreality is not so much based on psychosis, but it’s something I use to highlight specific elements of it, I guess, but mostly in terms of the skills it draws out

‘cause like. in ATDAO the only characters who kinda get to butt heads with the unreality aside from that one random dead car driver who may or may not be vaguely half alive in a state of horrific limbo are Jacob and Tris, and like

I don’t ever really frame Tris’s psychosis as some horrible terrible thing he’s burdened with that makes life a terrible living hell 24/7 but it is, like………. something he struggles a lot with over the course of the story, both in general terms and in terms of people not taking him seriously about the Extremely Real Fantastical Nonsense that’s going on and in general being hesitant to trust his perceptions of reality. And ALSO I guess in terms of just…….. the way he relates to the fact that he’s been dragged into some Extremely Real Fantastical Nonsense? And him wrestling with how he’s supposed to believe in something like that when no one else can see the evidence and everyone is telling him he’s just crazy, and how “ridiculous interdimensional dumbass sci-fi quest” is something that’s reserved for other people, because he’s already been there like four times already and it has extremely different implications for him

In terms of mental illness, all my protags have patches of the story where they make it through kinda “in spite” of their struggles with mental illness (though that’s a sentence I fuckin hate) and other patches where mental illness is just a thing they deal with alongside whatever plots they have going on…… but their experiences with mental illness are also something that gives them specific skills and perspectives and ways of understanding the world that are invaluable, and some of the most important parts of the story are the parts where they make it through specifically BECAUSE of those skills and perspectives

Which is kind of the Whole Thing With The Unreality, that’s its whole deal

The unreality is a fucking huge turning point for Tris as a character, because it’s specifically because of his experiences with psychosis that he’s able to navigate it so effectively, it’s because of the specific skills he’s developed and the practice he’s had in similar circumstances

not, like, the SAME circumstances, but things from other contexts that kind of, transfer, circumstances where the same skills are applicable

‘cause like, turns out, he’s really good at navigating confusing frightening hellscapes where nothing makes sense and mis-stepping can get you killed, because he’s had a whole lot of practice just like. existing as a person with psychosis in a weird apocalypse world where reality is collapsing in unpredictable ways. He spends a lot of his life trying to make sense of reality and figure out the rules and developing countless systems for navigating the world safely, which he often needs to adjust at a moment’s notice, or completely scrap and reconstruct. He’s had a lot of experience of just sorta waking up and whatever bullshit is going on he’s just gotta be like “ok cool so this is what we’re doing today, I have to deal with this, so how can I deal with this”. He’s used to grounding himself and problem-solving even under intense pressure and when he’s terrified and regardless of whatever objectively horrifying nonsense is happening around him. He’s used to sorting the horrifying things that are not dangerous from the horrifying things that are extremely dangerous.

He’s basically the one character who can get tossed into the unreality and actually work with it and figure out the rules even though everything is screaming and glitched out and trying to kill him, he’s spent most of his life developing the perfect skill set for it

(and like, this is the first point in the story where he sorta realises that his specific way of viewing the world is going to be a strength rather than a weakness, but like. despite the fact that Tris is basically a walking panic attack he’s actually always been the one of the team who’s been the most adept at navigating daily life with the apocalypse, it’s just not something he’s ever really picked up on)

and uh

that’s kind of a vaguely irrelevant note to end on, actually

HEY THAT WAS SO MANY WORDS I’M SO FUCKING SORRY

I DON’T EVEN HAVE A NEAT WRAP UP TO THIS POST

MY WRAP UP WAS THAT SUMMARY AT THE START

IF YOU READ THIS FAR I HOPE IT WAS AT LEAST SOMEWHAT INTERESTING

#Anonymous #to clarify: i'm not at all opposed to talking about my own personal experiences with psychosis but also #i feel like that would just make this post too rambly and rambly in the incorrect direction #atdao #undertow #psychosis #schizotypal #long post #probably also not as well-edited as i'd like there's bits of this that i've missed and bits that are just real poorly worded #also in terms of like. characters?#there were super super super early versions of tris i wrote when i was much much younger where he like #clearly experienced psychosis but it wasn't something i registered at the time cuz i just assumed #that level of paranoia was a totally normal thing that everyone dealt with #lmao #anyway. well. that sure was some words!#i'm going to go sit in the dark now #i'm so glad that kit is still hilariously underdeveloped in terms of his plotline otherwise i would have probably #gone on a several paragraph ramble about him too #djhfdfkjhgskdfjg #''hi i'm logan what the fuck is a filter''

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seven-oomen · 4 years

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Hi Ben! I see you’re still enjoying the absolute insanity that has gripped tumblr the last couple of days XD . As someone who’s been a tumblr lurker for a number of years, this is hysterical enough from my side. I can’t imagine the sheer ridiculousness of seeing it firsthand. Virtually every blog I check, no matter if they’ve ever seen a SPN episode or not, has been posting about it. It is WILD.

I feel like I’m at least a little lucky that I always skewed more ‘lock’ than anything (mainly because my 'who’ took a hard dive into Torchwood and never really recovered), so there’s less emotional flashbacks/richochets/rollercoastering/etc. (Yes, I did in fact see the news about Sherlock season 5, but I never saw season 4 because of some of the feedback I heard before I got the chance to watch it, so it’ll take something truly impressive to draw me back now.) Although in a roundabout way Sherlock is what eventually led me to Teen Wolf because of multi-focus blogs, so I guess I can thank it for that.

Work was one of those super fun days where the manager leaving not long after I got there was all “Yeah, it’s been really calm, and both deliveries so far have been small and should be easy to deal with." So of course, about an hour after he leaves, four more pallets full of stuff show up, so I spent pretty much my whole shift trying to get everything checked in. On the one hand, yay, less customers, on the other, hauling that shit around in a mask gets hot.

That dish sounds delicious, and definitely better than my sad lunch/dinner at work. Ngl, I’m extremely jealous.

And omg, the last line post now has me nervous again because there are multiple options of who is saying whatever it is to whom, and all of them hurt. XD Also very here for the idea of a pack of three year-olds trying to pull a Parent Trap on their respective dads. Is there a treehouse or playhouse they can lock them into to talk? A moment of Jax and Stiles pointing out that they both agree on this, so they should know that it’s serious? Trying to make them draw or write down why they’re sad, or whatever similar coping skills the dad usually has the kid use? Trying to take away a treat of some sort/ground them from doing something/etc until they agree to talk to each other? So many possibilities.

I cackled at that coffee shop guy post, because the sheer obliviousness demonstrated by the op throughout the story is almost the exact energy being displayed by Peter in my fake dating fic and seeing a story of it happening in RL about took me out. XD

Also, I’m super curious what kinds of rituals you’re planning for the fic. Good, bad, druidic, wolfy, pack, wedding, birth, sexy, friendship, binding, warding, ??? Inquiring minds want to know (whenever you are ready to share of course. Inquiring minds can also be patient. ;D )

Oh, a funny moment at work! I was picking up one of the pallets after I’d emptied it, and there was a knot in one of the boards that I almost knocked out as I grabbed it, and my brain’s immediate thought was "Whoops, almost just popped the knot on that wood”, immediately followed by the thought “Oh god, no, jesus christ, PHRASING, tonight of all nights, no." (I am super sad that there is no one I work with that I could scream about this with.)

Anyway, I should wrap up because I need to leave for work soon. Enjoy the continuing thrill ride that is this site, and best of vibes for any writing attempts today! Take care! *Hugs!*

Okay I’m gonna add the preview to your fic from your last message to this one so I have it all in one message here. Because after writing over 3K yesterday my brain is just really tired and I keep wanting to nap today. Haven’t done much and replying to two messages is a bit much.

On the flip side, I did update Final Masquerade today and that chapter is almost 7K long. So yay!

Also, my fucking feelings while writing that. Jesus christ on a pogo stick.

And in the spirit of “Oh, did you say enemies-to-lovers? Sorry, I heard idiots-to-lovers”, here is another preview from the fake dating fic, because I love this part, and it features the first appearance of Fashion Consultant Peter:

“Peter, what the hell are you doing in my closet?” Noah’s voice sounded like it was thankfully more bemused than annoyed, but Peter knew that it could be a fine line to walk.

“Trying not to cry in despair, for the most part. Why is everything you own at least a size too big and some shade of brown?” Peter called back over his shoulder, still staring at the somewhat neatly organized rainbow of dull, listless neutrals in growing dismay.

“I’m wearing a green shirt right now, asshole, and not all of us are interested in looking like we got squeezed into our clothing by force. Some of us actually acknowledge our age, and try to dress somewhat appropriately. Some of us also understand the value of blending in.”

“Okay, firstly, age, as they say, is just a number. Secondly, there’s trying not to stand out, and there’s just giving up. Though frankly, I’ve never quite put much stock in either.”

“Color me shocked to hear that from someone I’ve seen wear a cardigan like it was an actual shirt on more than one occasion.”

Peter shrugged as he continued to rifle through hangers and peek into storage containers, though he wasn’t certain that Noah could even see him from within the depths of the walk-in. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” The sigh that answered him held a level of long-suffering, begrudging patience that Peter was far more used to hearing directed at Stiles than himself.

—–

Why yes, there is indeed a trip suit shopping in the story. Basically, I am cramming in every random obnoxiously trope-y thing I can remember from the few rom coms I’ve seen. Also, there is so much food in this story. Like, it’s ridiculous how often there someone ends up eating something. I’m not even sure where it came from.

I’ve been reading this multiple times in the last few days, it’s just so cute!

He’s in the closet huh? Is he gonna come out?

Sorry, sorry, I’ll can it XD

And honestly, I think Tumblr’s 2012 insanity streak is the only thing keeping me sane right now. Because holy shit what a week.

I never really got into Sherlock myself or Doctor Who. I think I saw one episode of Dr. who (with David Tennant I think) and three episodes of Sherlock because my mom used to watch it.

I saw 12 seasons of Supernatural though, I definitely had an obsession with Destiel and particularly Dean Winchester. Fun fact; Cosplaying Dean made me comfortable enough to come out to my friends as transgender. Because I realized that I couldn't hide my gender even if I tried so hard for over 23 years.

And it was Supernatural that eventually led me to Teen Wolf. Well, that and Grimm, which was also a really fun show and really interesting.

Oh boy, yeah whenever a manager told me that I knew I was gonna be in for a very interesting night. For sure, sucks that you had to do that in a mask though. But on the other hand, no customer interaction does sound like it was a nice break in a way. And OMG I snorted!

It’s a good thing we don’t work together, I feel like the jokes wouldn’t have ended. My god I’m still snickering.

I do have a bit of an idea to have them go to the cinema with the kids and make them watch the parent trap, which of course leads to all sorts of shenanigans back at home where Allison and Malia are constantly trying to lock the dads in a room together, aided by Derek and Laura because Malia can’t reach the door handles just yet. Meanwhile Stiles and Jackson are coming up with increasingly elaborate schemes for two three-year-olds that involve their dads being locked in tree houses, sheds, and other places. Not to mention, the kindergarten pact.

And I like to think at some point the wives and Melissa start helping the kids as well. I mean I’d really like to build one giant polyamorous family for this fic.

#ben says stuff #my convos with anon #B #submission

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ephemeral-afterlight · 5 years

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a personal analysis of deceit, deception, lying, and morality: an essay that’s literally almost 4k words for no reason other than that i like to make my sentences as obnoxiously long as possible

i just want to preface this post by saying i’ve been working on this for a little while, and then it got deleted, so i had to start all over. it is a huge weight off my shoulders finally getting this posted.

PLEASE please please take heed of the trigger warning: if you are triggered by talk of domestic violence, abuse, or alcoholism, do be wary of this post. i go somewhat into depth about my experience with abusers, and there are quick mentions of things such as strangulation, so this post is not intended to be light-hearted or funny. this post is serious, and very important to me, enough to want to post it, so please proceed with caution if you feel like you may be uncomfortable reading about these things. the rest is under the cut, so make sure to read the tags to know if this one is a skip for you! now, onto the analysis!

first off, i’d like to say that i personally don’t jibe with using “redeem” or “redemption arc” in reference to deceit, because that implies that dee has done something that needs to be redeemed, and he hasn’t. a redemption arc is used to right a wrong, if you will, and dee hasn’t done anything that can be classified as a wrong, at least nothing more than the other sides have also done (such as passive-aggressive teasing).

in my opinion, some fanders’ perception of deceit and “the dark sides” is somewhat skewed. there seems to be this overarching theme and/or agreement that they’re all bad and/or evil purely for being either 1. stuck with their purpose (that they didn’t exactly choose—it’s quite literally their job. who’s to say that dee likes lying, or remus necessarily enjoys his intrusive thoughts despite having the heavy and frequent impulses to act on them? they can’t easily control their dishonesty and impulsivity respectively, after all, but feel free to discard that notion if it’s too hypothetical for you) or 2. labeled as a “dark side”.

as for the latter, the name is purely something roman made up to further separate the two groups, but imo it’s quite easy to separate each side into a “moral group” based on their actions and behaviour at the time that is very different from the one roman (and the others by proxy, given that they go along with it’s usage) has imposed upon everyone, so that shouldn’t be used as an unchallengeable metric to determine which sides are either purely good or purely bad; everyone has their strengths and their flaws, and you could argue some more than others, but that is also subjective to one’s own perception of each side’s behaviour. pure good and pure bad just… doesn’t exist.

now, onto deceit. something i’ve noticed when briefly delving into sympathetic/unsympathetic dee discourse is that most people who say that dee is interminably bad/evil usually bring up the fact that dee lies as their main point; he lies, and lying is bad, so therefore he’s bad, which in my opinion is a woefully simplistic view of the sides and the world in general. i think a lot of fanders and people in general don’t realize that lying is not the only form of deceit, and you don’t necessarily need to lie to deceive someone. to deceive someone, by definition, is to lead them to a conclusion that is not true or not comprehensive of the truth, and that’s where it starts to get a bit muddled. by definition, deceit typically implies that the conclusion you’re leading someone to is a lie, but that’s not necessarily always the case; colloquially, deceit is much more than that, and it doesn’t just mean falsifying the truth, it also means concealment of the truth, which i don’t think is talked about near enough in these discussions. deceit’s main function isn’t necessarily to get thomas to always lie, but rather to cause someone else to draw a specific conclusion about something using any means possible. so while yes, deceit can often involve lying, the main purpose is to cause someone to draw an intended conclusion; the means to get there are not inherent, which is why reducing deceit’s purpose down to “just lying” is somewhat ignorant (i don’t mean that in a hostile way or to offend, i mean it in the basic sense of the word), and doing him a great injustice.

the discussion of whether lying is good or bad is an extremely difficult one, and a lot of arguments from either “purist” side of the spectrum are already out there, so i don’t really feel the need to go in-depth with that aspect of it. for this, i’ll just go with my own experiences and perspectives, to sort of bolster my main point about deceit and his purpose and how he should be treated, as opposed to how he’s being treated now.

now, in my experience, lying is not an inherently bad thing, nor should it be completely disregarded and viewed as something that makes you a terrible person. in fact, for me, lying has been mandatory, and something that quite literally meant the difference between potentially getting hurt or even dying. i know a lot of people haven’t had to deal with extremely volatile situations or grow up with abusive people around them, so let me explain this as clearly as possible: when you’re dealing with an abuser, in almost every instance the best thing to do is lie or be as submissive as possible to diffuse the situation and avoid being hurt. i know it doesn’t sound ideal, but especially when dealing with someone who has very manic, spastic mood changes or are severely alcoholic, making sure the situation stays de-escalated can quite literally save your life. lying to reassure the abuser and placate them is one of the safest and most efficient ways to prevent them from getting angrier or lashing out. in a lot of these cases, you also lie to stop an outburst or argument before it even starts, because once an abuser gets set off, there is little to nothing you can do to stop their chaotic rampage; they will try to destroy everything in their way, and that includes you.

domestic violence is something i’ve had to struggle with seeing from the sidelines and up close on an endless assembly line of abusive, toxic, manipulative users all my life, and although my mother tried her best to keep me away from it, there were times where i couldn’t stay out of it. there were times i’d get into arguments with the one i consider the worst of the bunch (let’s call him j), and those arguments ranged from me hatefully antagonizing him in response to his alcoholism and terrible decisions to screaming matches in which i genuinely feared for my life. i was an idiot, and i’m lucky that he was never stupid enough to try to hurt me physically. but the common denominator in this was that once i learned to shut up and remove myself from the situation, the arguments lessened in frequency for a while. whenever i sensed that j was irritated (he was irritated when he was drunk, and he was always drunk), i would hide things. if i had to lie, i would. if i had to lead the conversation away from what he was angry about, i would. if i had to stow away in my locked bedroom until he passed out, i would. because that was all i could do. and when i didn’t do that, j got angry. and violent. near the end, in one of the worst arguments we had ever had because my mom didn’t lie well enough or misdirect his focus, he blasted loud music (to purposely spike my anxiety), pounded on my locked bedroom door where my mom and i were hiding from him until the frame cracked, and he smashed a bunch of lightbulbs in front of the doorway in a drunken attempt to keep us from leaving. he snapped, because my mom wasn’t successful in deceiving him, misdirecting him to diffuse the situation. i found out later that on the last day she ever saw him, they had yet another an argument about something. j flipped from normal to hateful and vicious like a light switch, and he tried to strangle her. my mother could have almost died because she couldn’t diffuse the situation. because she couldn’t deceive him.

i know this is a heavy example to use, and it’s hard to read for me even now, but i can’t be satisfied with myself without putting my and so many others’ reasonings for lying in this post. lying isn’t always to pull yourself up at the expense of others. sometimes it’s to save your life, and i heavily empathize with people who are unfortunate enough to have to do so. you are strong, and you will get through it, and it’s okay to do whatever you have to do to keep yourself safe. even if it means lying or fighting back.

that was long, and i know i went off on a bit of a tangent, but my point is that lying isn’t always used in selfish ways, and even when it is, it doesn’t mean those selfish intentions are always necessarily bad or wrong or immoral. self-preservation is not inherently immoral. it is a basic human instinct to keep yourself out of danger, to excel and succeed, and to live the best and safest life you can.

i personally am very neutral on where i stand with how often you employ usage of deceitful means to get what you need. while yes, i do believe that lying should not always be used in every situation/altercation nor be used to always get what you want at the expense of others, i also think that lying is an essential part of a human being’s survival, and it deeply troubles me that it has become a necessary tool to keep yourself safe in the modern age. and while i did it in a roundabout way, this brings me back to my overarching point: deceit is not inherently bad or wrong or evil for wanting thomas to deceive people to help himself, it’s just the matter of regulating him that needs to be addressed and changed. this can be made very abundantly clear with virgil and how he fits into this whole narrative.

virgil and deceit are different in what exactly they want for thomas, but i don’t think they’re different at all in terms of their intentions. while virgil wants to keep thomas alert to danger and his control of the fight or flight reflex is testament to how thomas impulsively handles those situations, with logan’s influence, that impulsive reaction is tampered down, leaving virgil as almost an alarm system. he identifies problems and possible dangers, and then suggests a way to subvert said dangers (whether those suggestions are viable options or not). deceit, on the other hand, is who comes out when thomas decides to confront that danger. he’s thomas’ filter in every sense of the word, and therefore is an important variable when thomas is met with a potentially dangerous situation that can only be resolved verbally (and whether lying is employed or not is subjective to the situation). he is also needed in less intense ways, such as not letting every single thought that pops into thomas’ head get said aloud (remus would have a fucking field day with that one), which also brings us back to keeping yourself safe from volatile people and dangerous situations. you can’t always be completely honest and transparent with them, because that can set them off, and then they can hurt you.

in less dangerous matters, such as the wedding/callback scenario, deceit truly believes that he’s doing what’s best for thomas. (i agree that the callback is the obvious choice here, but that’s a whole other essay.) while yes, it could be argued that deceit wants thomas to gain at the expense of others, i’d counter that by positing that that’s not the point of the whole dilemma. deceit believes that doing something that would hurt you just to placate others and strictly adhere to your overbearing sense of morality is a terrible, harmful choice. it was acknowledged and brought up multiple times that it’s not just that thomas doesn’t want to go to the wedding, it’s also that he would hurt himself by doing so, and deceit doesn’t want thomas to do something that would cause an “increase in depression” because it harms thomas.

yes, deceit wants thomas to lie to get out of it, but you could also bring up the point that deceit is actually being kind by doing so. he’s sticking with what he believes is the right thing to do, and suggesting a means to do it in a way that would spare mary lee and lee the potential disappointment or hurt of thomas choosing the callback instead. after all, “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.” and yes, while logan is right, knowledge is extremely important and you should always strive to remedy your own ignorance, that doesn’t mean you’re always ready for that information, or that it’s safe for you to know such things, especially when they’re deeply embedded in a highly emotional and impulsive reaction.

you can debate whether it’s better for mary lee and lee to know the real reason why thomas wouldn’t be going to the wedding or not, but it still doesn’t change the fact that going to the wedding would not only harm thomas mentally and emotionally, it could also cost him a huge opportunity to better his life and reach new heights, and they would understand that. if mary lee and lee are as good of friends as patton says they are, they would not prioritize their wants over thomas’ needs. and that, folks, is the big misconception that i feel a lot of people don’t address—it’s not just about thomas wanting to go to the callback, it’s that he needs to, to prevent a worsening mental state or bad emotional reaction. any good friend would never force someone they care about to do something that would hurt them, no matter how much you want them to do said thing. this is where patton is going severely wrong right now; like i’ve said a million times before, patton is holding thomas to an impossibly high standard of purity and perfection and selflessness, and it’s the most harmful thing to thomas right now. just as extreme selfishness isn’t good, extreme selflessness isn’t good either.

that was another tangent, but i’d like to get back to virgil. now, i do agree that virgil’s arc is different from deceit’s, but in different ways, and they’re far more similar than i think some people realize. virgil’s arc was all about being viewed as a terrifying villain, the monster in the closet, the one who weighs you down and prevents you from moving forward. he was viewed as wrong and bad purely for his purpose, and ostracized because of it. he was treated badly by the others, not listened to, and disregarded. he was misunderstood, and forced into a box, so he lashed out in fear. the only way to get them to listen to him was to be scary, to force their attention just long enough to get his point across. and when they others finally realized how much he actually did for thomas and how important he is, they learned to work with him, and virgil learned to work with them.

referencing the yerkes-dodson curve, and even to basic concepts such as yin & yang, everything has to exist in a balance, and having something too much or too little can and almost certainly will be detrimental to the thing it affects. in this case, virgil can be over the top and scary and irrational at times, but his input is sorely needed, and an important tool to keep thomas safe and alert to potential dangers around him. with the help of the others, especially logan, they can sift through any of virgil’s more extreme reactions and lay out the condensed version that has the information and perspective they need without a lot of the panicky and overbearing aspects that can come with overwhelming anxiety. they found a balance, a way to work with each other, and the result settled a certain disquiet in thomas. it bettered him as a person to accept his anxiety and listen to what it has to say rather than push it away and suppress it.

now, look at deceit. he’s portrayed as a scary villain, the ghost underneath the sheet. he’s the mysterious sinister force that controls the flow of information from thomas’ subconsciousness to his consciousness, and therefore holds power. he’s being treated as a bad, dark part of thomas purely for his purpose, and has been separated on the other side of the “black and white” line between morality and immorality, pushed away from the others and from thomas. they’re constantly antagonistic and hostile towards him, doubly so in virgil’s case (which is where a lot of the hypocrisy comes out that i can’t ignore, because virgil treats deceit exactly how the others sides treated him before he was accepted, and virgil obviously hated being treated like that, so why in the world does he think it’s okay to do it to deceit?), and they disregard his opinions and very valid points backed up by painstakingly thought-out arguments (that i have a feeling deceit took a lot of time strengthening so that he could convince thomas to do what he thinks is right and to show them that he’s not trying to hurt thomas, he’s trying to help him, which could be why logan was benched during svs. deceit knew that they’d listen to logan, but if he had let him take over the conversation, they wouldn’t be hearing deceit’s points and opinions, they’d be hearing logan’s, and it wouldn’t bring deceit any closer to being accepted or listened to than before) just because oooOoOooOoOO scary dark side! he’s a liar, so everything he says is wrong and invalid! oOooOoOoooO he’s so edgy and extra so we obviously shouldn’t listen to him! he’s just dramatic oooOoOooOOoOOOOOOOO /s

sound familiar? deceit and virgil’s arcs are so painfully similar, it baffles me how people insist that they’re completely different. i think the worst argument i’ve ever seen for this is that virgil is just a pure soft uwu boy and he never deserved what happened pre-aa, but deceit is terrible, awful, evil, and abusive and he deserves to get cut off and isolated from the others and told his opinions don’t matter and his valid concerns and fears are just him being edgy. that one almost made me fly off the handle in a salty rage, but i have suppressed it until now, where i can vent my points in a more logical, organized manner than just me screaming internally.

what needs to happen with deceit is nearly the exact same thing that had to happen with virgil: the other sides and thomas need to understand that he doesn’t do the things he does because he wants thomas to be this bad, horrible, immoral, extremely selfish awful person who takes what they want when they want in the express intent to harm others. he is self-preservation (albeit in a different way than virgil exists as self-preservation), and just wants thomas to always make the best decisions to keep himself healthy and safe, even if it means doing something like lying to skip a friend’s invitation to a life event. this comes right back around to virgil and how they learned to work with him; they need to work with each other, and balance everything out. they need to take into account deceit’s opinions and concerns and suggestions, and consider each one carefully between themselves, vetting ones that have been thoroughly picked apart and shown to be flawed, just like what they do with virgil and every other main side.

(apart from patton right now, but that is also a whole other essay, and i won’t derail this just to talk about that.)

this post is getting really long, so i’m gonna try to start winding to a close. generally, i know that the debate on whether lying is good or bad can be tedious, and complex, and seems almost looming at times, just because of how much you can take into account. there are so many arguments and reasonings and examples and evidence and thoughts on the morality behind lying that finding a way to satisfyingly come to a conclusion can be difficult for most, and even when you have a somewhat set belief on where you stand with its usage, certain points and expostulations can shift your view on lying very quickly. morality is also a very nebulous thing imposed upon us as a society, a set of values to believe in and adhere to, but things that are viewed as moral, immoral, or somewhere in the middle can change their standings very quickly, and can be influenced harshly by society and how we grow as people over time. things like being gay were viewed as immoral and wrong and terrible many years ago, but now, people realize it’s a very normal thing and it doesn’t make you a bad person to be different.

because like logan got cut off from saying, morality in terms of good and bad is nearly impossible to quantify given that each person imposes their own subjective rules of good or evil on actions, words, and behaviours. there is no way to objectively say that someone or something is morally good, morally evil, or morally grey without also having to also assert the fact that your view of morality is, in itself, a subjective opinion based largely around your upbringing, environment, presence/non-presence of religion, and many other factors. what you view as morally grey can be vastly different from my definition of morally grey, and that comes to light very easily when i find myself torn between agreement and disagreement when reading more in-depth analysis posts on the sides and their intentions with what they do and represent.

not every opinion here necessarily applies to everyone. i just wanted to add as much as possible from as many opinions and perspectives i could find that would help to contextualize my points and hit as many bases as possible with this one post. i thought it would be beneficial to put down the thoughts of a person from a different walk of life, so to speak, and how that greatly impacts the perception of the sides and their purposes/intentions. i know that a lot of this stuff is more in-depth and less in relation to the sides, but i think it’s really important to go into deeper discussion on these topics and themes, and relating them to the sides and what they represent is only a plus because it makes them easier to understand and sympathize with, whether you accept my interpretation of them or not.

anyway, sorry this turned into an actual essay (i can write nearly 4k in a couple hours about philosophical perspectives on the innate morality or immorality of deception, but i can’t write a single paragraph of the draft fics i’ve been working on for months? i see how it is brain), but hopefully you got to the end without getting grey hairs in the process! i’m not trying to invite the Disc Horse™ with this one, but i’m always open to discussion, and i’m in no way saying that my interpretation is a fact, because it’s just that—an interpretation—and it’s up to you to research and understand and to ask yourself those complex questions about what you believe. thanks for reading!

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gloss-glass-ash · 5 years

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Mutual Muses

Request:

Summary: Every artist has their muse. Even fan artists. Final installment of the famous reader collection.

Tags: @cal-pal-cuddles

Tumblr. Michael was familiar with the hell site-platform, he meant platform- dating way back to his early emo days. He kept his personal one just that, personal. The boys knew he had it but couldn't ever figure it out. Luke personally wanted to know if only for leverage against Michael when Luke's MySpace is brought up again.

Nevertheless, they boys had the group tumblr and knew in a roundabout way what the fandom did on it. For the most part, they were successful in avoiding what they wanted to avoid (though Calum did fall asleep on several occasions listening to an edit of boyfriend!Ashton but that is neither here nor there). The boys, especially Michael, stayed mostly on Twitter where it was a little safer.

Snuggled up in bed, Michael scrolled through his mentions. His laptop was warm on his belly but he didn't mind. It seemed like all of America was in a freeze, L.A. included. In the middle of the night when it was just a bit too cold made him feel just a little bit lonely. To fill the void, he read through countless tweets that expressed how much 5sos meant and how full of love there is for the boys.

Eventually the tweets became the same , it was of a picture of him. Or at least that's what he thought. Go follow @yoururl on tumblr!!! She's soooo talented @michael5sos

Various comments and replies followed all along the lines of "She's the best artist in the fandom!"

Talented? Artist? His face wasn't edited was it? He followed the link, mouth dropping. It took him straight to the post where she had written in detail the colors and brands of chalk she had used. That wasn't a photo, that was art. Shit.

Michael was in a deep dive now. The girl, Y/N according to the bio, had drawn and was in the process of painting every member. She'd also done Harry Styles, a lot. So she liked green eyes, not that Michael cared. Nope.

He hadn't realized he was logged into his tumblr when he accidentally liked the post. Michael was somewhat relieved. His internal struggle was quickly resolved when he went to the ask box.

Hey! Your art is fucking amazing!! You should definitely tag the band sometime I'm sure they'd love it xxxx

Feeding the fandom was his speciality. Michael switched tabs and liked the tweet with her drawing. He retweeted it too, adding a cheeky "holy fuck you guys are talented". Then, because he's a little shit, he logged off for the night deciding to let the fandom do its thing.

The next morning, a sleepy receptionist in a shoebox apartment woke up to a fuck ton of notifications. Her inbox was flooded. She had more comments, reblogs, and likes than before. Her follower account doubled. "Oh my god."

Her tumblr group chat was blowing up. The squad sending screenshot after screenshot of Michael's tweet. This was more than just being recognized by her favorite person ever, this was recognition of her work.

Y/N spent a good deal of the morning responding to everything. Most were easy, just a gif would do. But one stuck out that suggested she tag the band. Her insecurity was already creeping back in.

I don't know, it's fluke Mikey even saw it. My stuff isn't that great anyway. Just a hobby.

She hit answer privately before she rambled anymore and went to work. Her lives were compartmentalized for now.

Michael made a noise similar to a squeak when he saw the response. You're stuff is amazing, you should feel proud. And I loved it by the way.

Y/N didn't respond to the ask right away. "And I loved it by the way" was odd. Because they weren't Michael...right? Right. So she replied. Glad you liked it...what's you're name bub? That was safe.

Oof this is like an episode of Catfish, he thought. Michael responded quickly. You won't believe me... I'm Michael.

Don't fuck with me.

Here's my US number... And my skype just do what you need to do.

Y/N was going to vomit. Some asshole was fucking with her but more importantly her art and by extension her feelings. So she downed some liquid luck and skyped him.

Michael answered immediately maybe a little desperate. He didn't know why, he just found the girl a two days ago. In the grand scheme of things she shouldn't matter. But she painted him. She spent time and effort on him. "Hey."

Y/N was ready to unload, ready to cancel whoever thought this was funny until she wasn't. Michael Clifford stared back at her with fluffy hair and sparkly eyes. He waved revealing his sleeves pooled around his hands.

"Oh my god, it's you!" She rubbed at her eyes. "You, I, oh my god."

"I should be saying the same to you. You're incredibly talented and tumblr famous."

"Being fandom famous isn't necessarily something I would put on a résumé."

Michael snorted a laugh that was a little too loud but she only smiled brighter. One call turned into two and somewhere along the way he was flying her out to California. One trip turned to ten and oops she was moved in.

At Michael's suggestion, she created an Instagram for her art. The boys and their significant others immediately followed it. Fans flocked to it with suggestions. All kinds of rich and famous started asking for commissions. Everything changed but Michael. Michael gave her a studio in their house. Michael bought supplies. Michael made her quite that no good dead in job so she could live her dream.

Fans eventually caught on. Michael was spotted everywhere with this girl who was beautiful in the way all women are. She might have had bigger thighs and dents in her skin where chicken pox left scars. She was beautiful and she made Michael happy. They quickly identified her as Y/N, surely that couldn't be the tumblr artist Y/N?

Michael answered their questions soon enough. Ashton had taken the photo when he'd been over. Michael sat with his guitar on his lap, the fondest smile on his face as he watched you paint. The canvas was visible, it would be him with his instrument. He fed the fandom once more, posting it to Instagram with the caption, Mutual Muses 💕 an left the fandom to do it's thing.

#Michael Clifford imagines #michael Clifford imagine #michael Clifford blurbs #michael Clifford blurb #5sos imagines #5sos imagine #5sos blurbs #5sos blurb #5 seconds of summer imagine #5 seconds of summer imagines #famous reader collection

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diskwrite-ffxiv · 5 years

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Character Astrology Charts

I saw @tiergan-vashir post character astrology things, and I was immediately reminded of how I worked out a huge freaking astrology chart ages ago LIKE A NERD, but I don’t think I’ve ever shared it with Tumblr. THEREFORE--

Ojene Suinuet

Scorpio Sun | Capricorn Moon | Scorpio Rising

Jophoix Suinuet

Aries Sun | Cancer Moon | Sagittarius Rising

Full details follow! Descriptions from Cafeastrology.

Ojene Suinuet

Scorpio Sun (Who you are)

Scorpios are known for their intensity. They are determined folk that absolutely throw themselves into whatever they do -- but getting them to commit to something is rarely an easy task. In fact, it's better not to even try to "get them" to do anything. Solar Scorpios absolutely have their own mind. And, their primary motivation is unlikely to be prestige (like their Capricorn friends), or even authority (Leos can have that, too)--it's realpower. Their power can absolutely be of the "behind the scenes" variety, just as long as they have it.

To others, Scorpios seem to have plenty of willpower. They probably do. Scorpios do know what they want, and they won't go out and grab it at the wrong moment. They simply sit back, watch (quite expertly), and then get it only when the moment is just right. This apparent patience is simply their powerful skills at strategy at work.

Scorpio isn't afraid of getting their hands (their bodies, their minds) dirty. The darker side of life intrigues them, and they're always ready to investigate.

Scorpios simply never give up. They have tremendous staying power. They're not in the slightest intimidated by anybody or anything. Confrontations are not a problem. In fact, talk to any Scorpio about their lives, and you'll probably be in awe at all they've gone through. Trauma seems to follow them wherever they go. When Scorpio learns optimism, instead of expecting the worst, they'll find that they possess amazing regenerative powers -- the power to heal, create, and transform.

Capricorn Moon (Your Inner Self. Your base Reactions, Instincts, and Emotions.)

Being useful and productive are basic needs for Lunar Capricorns. Because they generally keep their emotions under check, Moon in Capricorn people come across as competent people.

However turbulent their emotions may be under the surface, Lunar Capricorns keep cool-headed—and they come across as steady and reliable people.

This position of the Moon suggests a desire for clear boundaries and realistic goals. Not much for taking risks in life, Lunar Capricorns look for safety and security in most everything they do. Most of them respect authority and tradition, and many are planning well ahead of the rest of us. You likely won't have to remind them to protect their interests, plan for old age, or keep fall-back money in their bank accounts. These things come naturally to them.

Calm, cool, and collected—these words sum up Moon in Capricorn natives well. Messy emotions and "leaky" souls are a bit frightening for most with this position of the Moon. Truth is, they can have plenty of mood swings and some dark emotions now and again. Lunar Capricorns are often quite hard on themselves, and would benefit from letting their guard down once in a while. They quickly garner reputations of being mountains of strength, and they easily hide their sensitivity behind a sarcastic manner.

You may have read that Moon in Capricorn natives are a bit cold and calculating. The fact is, they are unlikely to be any less emotional than the other 11 sign positions of the Moon—they simply aren't comfortable "letting go" when it comes to emotions. They keep their emotions under control. Wherever Capricorn is found in the chart, there is a desire for structure and control. Capricorn is the sign of organization and efficient management; so, when the Moon is found in the sign, the world of emotions are well-managed and handled in an efficient and practical manner.

At the heart of Lunar Capricorns is a powerful need to feel worthwhile in the real world. There's a basic need for respectability and a big attachment to the world of the senses. Lunar Capricorns put a lot of value in all things tangible and real. And, perhaps more than anything, they need to be respected by others in order to feel secure.

Scorpio Rising (How You Are to the World. Natural defenses and how you cope with day-to-day issues)

Scorpio Ascendant people have a lot of presence. There is something about them that tells the world that they are not to be pushed around. Their manner commands respect, and in some cases, fear. Scorpio rising people can be quiet or loud, but they always seem powerful and determined.

You either love or hate Scorpio rising people— they are rarely people who go through life unnoticed. In fact, some of them are confused when faced with the fact that they get such strong reactions from others. They seem to look right through people, seeing through superficiality. This can be quite intimidating to some, and intriguing to others. Scorpio rising people, in their dealings with others, look for answers by reading between the lines. Surface details are discarded when they are getting a feel for people and situations around them.

Scorpio rising people value their privacy so much, it can border on paranoia. They have a strong need to control their environment and are experts at strategy. Rarely people who will blow their chances with impatience, they plan out their moves carefully and deliberately, relying on their awesome ability to feel out others and situations.

Scorpio rising natives are drawn to down-to-earth, natural partners. Reliability in their partner is very important. They generally look for complete commitment and have little patience with flighty partners

Jophoix Suinuet

Aries Sun (Who you are)

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and Aries natives are the first to start—and the first to finish—whatever they set out to do. Aries is an active, energetic sign. People with Sun in Aries are direct, straightforward, and uncomplicated. They expect the same from others, and are baffled when they don’t always get it.

The body comes first with Aries. Sun in Aries people are natural athletes. At the very least, their natural inclination is to use their bodies to get things done. They’re not given to long, drawn-out emotional moments; nor are they big on planning ahead. Instead, they live their lives simply. What is happening right now is most important to Aries. Impatience is a definite vice, and innovation is a huge strength. Aries loves to start anything new, and they have trouble sitting still. They are pioneers in whatever they do, and there is a very basic quality of bravery in these people that is unmistakable! Aries generally knows what they want, and they know the quickest route to getting it. They take shortcuts if they must, but generally everything is aboveboard. Underhanded just isn’t their style. Some Aries people are bold, but even the quieter ones are brave and even plucky in their own way. Independence is their birthright. Nothing gets them going more than a fresh slate, the promise of a new day, and a brand new start.

Aries enjoys a challenge, and Aries Suns are happiest when their lives are moving forward and active. There’s a childlike quality to all Aries Sun people, and it’s often quite charming.

Cancer Moon (Your Inner Self. Your base Reactions, Instincts, and Emotions.)

This is the most subjective position of the Moon. The Moon is “at home” in the sign of Cancer, as the Moon is the natural ruler of the sign.

Moon in Cancer natives have a large potential to be able to get in touch with the feelings and moods of others. Often, they are quite wrapped up in themselves. Their memories of the past are outstanding, especially for all things emotional. Moon in Cancer people are rarely detached—they cling to things, their home, and people they care for. They seek out security and familiarity in all they do. They look for peace and quiet. Their attachment to all that is safe means they are a little leery of change.

These peace-loving souls dislike superficiality in all of its forms. They are devoted and accommodating. The insecure ones accumulate things in an attempt to feel secure.

Because of their strong attachment to, and memory of, the past, others may complain that Moon in Cancer natives tend to whip a dead horse. They may dwell on hurts long after everyone else has moved on. When they feel they have been taken for granted (which may be often!), they don’t always confront others directly. This is when they can use roundabout ways to get your attention. In fact, these natives, when they are insecure, can become quite manipulative. They can also be victims of habit.

These people can have a hard time compartmentalizing their lives, simply because their watery Moon tends to know no boundaries. Sometimes, as a result, they may act irrationally.

One of the most delightful characteristics of Moon in Cancer people is their loony sense of humor. These people can be extraordinarily funny. Their moodiness can baffle others, but their unique outlook on life is something most people can appreciate.

When treated with tenderness and understanding, Moon in Cancer natives return the favor with warmth and protection. Give them security, and you’ll take the crabbiness out of the Crab, at least for awhile.

These people are wonderfully dependable overall, despite their occasional mood swings. Make a friend of Moon in Cancer, and you will be taken care of for life.

Sagittarius Rising (How You Are to the World. Natural defenses and how you cope with day-to-day issues)

The world is filled with adventure, new things to experience, and, most of all, hope, with this Ascendant. There is an unmistakable faith and enthusiasm with Sagittarius rising people. Grand schemes, big promises, and a willingness to explore and experiment are themes, although follow-through is not a strong characteristic of Sagittarius.

These individuals are somewhat restless and often active people. They always seem to be looking for something that is just out of grasp — and many do this their entire lives. They can be quite direct at times, yet they are likable enough to forgive for their faux-pas. Most have a lot to say and offer. Their insights and opinions are usually interesting and exciting, although sometimes lacking in details.

Sagittarius rising people have opinions about everything, and they just love telling others exactly what they are. Not all people with this position are outgoing folk, but they all have a way of moving about that at least exudes a certain level of confidence. Some might even call them naive or overly optimistic. Even the quiet ones don’t shrink from life and from experience.

One of the most obvious and endearing traits of Sagittarius rising is their willingness to keep up a sense of humor. Even when they’re feeling low, they manage to find humor in life and have fun with whatever they do have. The placement of Sagittarius’ ruling planet, Jupiter, will give more clues to how they go about expressing themselves. Jupiter in Capricorn, for example, might give a more sarcastic approach, but underneath there lies an unmistakable hope and spirit for living.

#ojene suinuet #jophoix suinuet #character memes #astrology #astrology charts #ooc

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