#it is the kind of rage so specific to grief that the two are one in the same. do you know it?

[emilybeemartin]

A whopping, like, 2.6 people have expressed interest in my recent adventures in watching Bean films, which is all the encouragement I need to present to you:

An Incomplete Guide to Sean Bean Roles (Investigation Ongoing)

Our guy has a vast filmography, and I'm not even close to being halfway through it, but I've watched a lot of his significant ones in the past few weeks thanks to a perfect storm of illness, injury, and lapses in client work. Crucially, I have created superlatives for a variety of them and present them here for your benefit. Disclaimer: many of these films are violent! Or have butts and/or tits! Some have dick! Some have dated bits that didn't age well! So, if you have triggers or are watching with young viewers, do your research first! Also, these are just the opinions of one solitary millennial! Nothing is objective! Nothing is real! I care not!

Okay, CYA done, let's begin. I'll get the two most obvious ones out of the way up front, otherwise they'll dominate half the categories:

ACT I

Greatest Bean: Fellowship of the Ring. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he achieved more pathos with Boromir than a lot of his other roles have allowed for, and every note he hits just sings. No debate.

Best Bean for Your Buck: Sharpe. For the best confluence of quantity, quality, physicality, emotion, humor, and action, you can't beat Richard Sharpe.

Favorite Dramatic Bean: Time; he earned that BAFTA fr

Softest Bean: The first date scene in Stormy Monday, where Brendan shyly gets to know Kate, slow dances with her, lends her a shirt and strokes her back after she asks if they can just go to sleep instead of have sex.

Most Dashing Bean: Vronsky in Anna Karenina, that uniform cuts, damn

Swooniest Bean: I know I'm supposed to say Chatterley, and he is undeniably sexy as Mellors, but there are parts where his character is actually kind of off-putting. I'll lay a good chunk of the blame on the weirdly ominous score, the very of-the-time depiction of dubious consent, and Joely Richardson's tendency to look like she's having the worst time of her life while shagging the hot gamekeeper. No, I'm giving this category to Stormy Monday again. He's just so gentle and genuine in this one, without some of the obligatory "heartthrob" overtones of his nineties stuff. He never raises his voice at Kate or manhandles her. He really does feel like some kid who just wants to be sweet to his girlfriend.

Laddiest Bean: When Saturday Comes, specifically the strip club and bathtub scenes.

Favorite Sad Bean: As a collective, he has some great grief scenes in World on Fire, but! The railroad track scene in When Saturday Comes?! That was RAW.

Favorite Mad Bean: Black Death; there are plenty of movies where he doesn't smile at all, but unlike some others, his grimness and anger felt proportionate to the story, rather than just rage because he's good at rage.

Favorite Bad Bean: There are so many great Bean villains (Goldeneye, obvs), but I think my favorite is Patriot Games. Bonus points for all the different hairstyles he has in this film (long locks-shag-shag ponytail!-buzz-wet spiky buzz). Also HUGH FRASER AAAA

Favorite Dad Bean: Wolfwalkers, where Bill Goodfellowe literally turns his own convictions and beliefs upside-down in order to protect and support his daughter.

INTERMISSION

A note on GoT: I haven't watched it. When season one was first coming out, it was during a time where I really couldn't handle watching any kind of sexual assault onscreen, and while I have a higher tolerance now, I just... don't want to. I like seeing gifs of Ned Stark and appreciate that it's one of his great roles, but I just can't make myself take the plunge.

ilysm you grizzled dead wolf man

ACT II

Favorite Costumed Bean: Odysseus in Troy: curls, leather, thighs.

Favorite Un-Costumed Bean: He strips in quite a lot of his films, so let's give it to Lady Chatterley for sheer screentime, exertion, and the bonus of being naked and wearing a flower crown. Honorable mention to When Saturday Comes for the totally not homoerotic amount of butts and also dick in the locker room bathtub scene.

Hurtin'est Bean: Bravo Two Zero. Oof, don't watch this one if you have an aversion to seeing pain, although---you're a Sean Bean fan, and we all know one of his MOs is being GREAT at pain. This one was directed by Tom Clegg, who directed Sharpe. Also lol at the sickle-shaped wound on his shoulder, which is covering his 100% Blade tattoo (he gets a lot of sickle-shaped wounds on his left shoulder).

Best Inside References: The Frankenstein Chronicles, where he plays a former Peninsular soldier, and every reference to his service is a reference to Sharpe, including shots of his greenjacket, pistol, sword, and flogging scars. Honorable mention to The Martian for the Council of Elrond line.

Most Unsettling Bean: Cleanskin for moral grayness, The Frankenstein Chronicles for body horror

Most Inefficient Use of Bean: Black Beauty. Despite getting high billing he's only onscreen for about two minutes and I'm convinced the long shots are a body double. Criminal.

Biggest Missed Opportunity: We were robbed of a Sean Bean Odyssey. R o b b e d

Funniest Bean: Deploying Bean for comedy is woefully underused, but he made full use of his ~15 seconds in The Vicar of Dibley ("Spring" episode). He's also hilarious in Wasted, though I haven't watched the show, only the clips he's in on YouTube, where he plays a mock version of himself serving as a spirit guide for a stoner. IMO, though, Sharpe gives him the most room for humor.

Favorite Character Quirk: In World on Fire, when Douglas is having WWI flashbacks and really coming apart, he kept putting his hand to his mouth. My modern brain first read this as talking into a phantom radio, but of course that wasn't right, and then I realized--he was reaching for a phantom gas mask. CHILLS. AMAZING. (Honorable mentions to the Mouth Rub and the Tongue Thing [pictured above]).

Most Nostalgic Bean: National Treasure. The concept may be utter silliness, but you have to admit, this is a fun movie to watch.

Best Dismount from a Horse: Henry VIII, he goes pshwing out of the saddle

Best Swordplay: You may think there's no possible answer to this, but there is---two moments, specifically: the preparatory sword-spin he does at Balin's tomb just before the goblin attack in Moria, and the four lunges he does at 1:26:22 of Sharpe's Battle. It's just facts.

Prettiest Bean Film: Wolfwalkers, hands downnnn

Favorite Bean Death: All right, you knew we had to eventually end here. It's Boromir, obviously--- nothing tops that. But if we're looking at other roles, I think Patriot Games is my favorite, followed by Goldeneye.

So! That concludes this installment of Bean films, though I'll be continuing the labor, and I hope you will, too. What are your favorites?

#sean bean #fellowship of the ring #lord of the rings #sharpe #stormy monday #lady chatterley #patriot games #world on fire #goldeneye #bravo two zero #troy #wolfwalkers #black death #national treasure #anna karenina #time #gifs #flashing gifs

[akiizayoi4869]

The Southern Raiders

Been meaning to make my own post about this episode for a while now, so here it is. The main thing I hear about this episode is that Aang didn't understand Katara's pain at all but Zuko did. The notion that a genocide survivor doesn't understand another genocide survivor is certainly one hell of a take, and it's very stupid. Are we really going to forget the air nomad genocide?

Aang lost EVERYTHING because of the war. And to make it worse? He feels guilty because he wasn't there to stop it from happening (even though he wouldn't be able to do much since he hadn't mastered the four elements yet) because he ran away from his duties as the avatar. When Aang finds Monk Gyatso's body in the Southern Air Temple episode, he's overcome with so much grief and anger that he triggers the avatar state:

Katara herself even compares what she's been through to what Aang was feeling in this moment by saying "I know how hard it is to lose the people you love! I went through the same thing when I lost my mom." Certainly sounds like two people who understand each other perfectly if you ask me. Also, in the Lost Adventures comics, we're shown that the Fire Nation used a dirty tactic to smoke out any other airbenders that might have escaped from the genocide.

We see how happy Aang was to learn that some airbenders may have survived, only to find out that it was all a lie to capture any remaining survivors. At the end of the comic he looks disappointed and crushed knowing that the possibility that air nomads fell for this trick and were killed as a result.

A lot of people take Katara saying "I knew you wouldn't understand" to Aang as her saying that he doesn't understand her pain, but if you actually look at the context? That's not what she's saying at all. What she means is that she knew that Aang wouldn't understand her need for VENGEANCE. For her desire to kill her mother's killer. Because Aang was taught that revenge isn't the answer. Even though Aang absolutely understands how she felt, something that he says himself:

In both of those moments he felt extreme anger and hatred, both strong negative feelings that would have caused him to lash out and do something that he would regret later on. Who stops him in both cases? Katara. She calms him down (and can I just say that I think it's really poetic that in this specific episode, Aang's words are what calms Katara down in the end, and is why she decided to spare Yohn Rha?) in his moments of rage, something that he's grateful for.

Another argument that I've seen is that Zuko understands her pain more than Aang because he also lost his mother. While I can see why people make this comparison, those are two entirely different situations. Ursa was banished because she protected Zuko from being killed when he was a child. Which means that she's still alive (as we later find out from those horrible comics). Kya, on the other hand, was KILLED because she protected Katara by saying that she was the waterbender that they were looking for. This happened in a genocidal raid by the Fire Nation. Safe to say that Zuko can never understand what that feels like.

Also, it's pretty crazy to me how people can say that Aang was wrong in this episode, when Zuko HIMSELF says that Aang was actually right, and that what Katara needed in the end wasn't revenge. Aang knows Katara a lot better than Zuko does, and he knows that killing the man who killed her mom would have absolutely destroyed Katara because of the kind of person she is. Just like Aang remembering how he killed all of those Fire Nation soldiers in the North Pole while he was in the avatar state and being controlled by his past lives and the ocean spirit caused him to have nightmares and be terrified of what the avatar state can do. Both of them are alike in that regard. The closest thing I can say that Zuko understands about Katara is her anger. Boy spent 3 seasons being angry so he definitely understands that. But other than that? He doesn't understand her, which is to be expected since he just joined them a few episodes ago, and spent a whole year chasing them and trying to capture Aang. So he's just started getting to really know everyone on a personal level. In conclusion, Aang did indeed understand Katara, and his words were exactly what she needed to hear.

#atla #aang #katara #zuko #atla meta #the southern raiders

[harrowharkwife]

thinking thoughts about how nona was so obsessed with crown, and crown specifically- not coronabeth. crown, with her boots and her cargo pants and her guns and her hair tied back, with all her charm and strength, all her rage and determination.

was that really just nona? or, walk with me here- is there a chance that that was actually alecto, too, bleeding through and rising to the surface?

alecto, seeing a kind of kinship in crown- in this big, tall, strong blonde with a sword strapped to her back, hot and lovely and kind and awful and powerful and perfect. this woman who refuses to give up- on her sister, on saving jody, on BOE's resistance. who's unafraid to throw one hell of a tantrum, if it means being listened to, for once. crown, who everyone thinks of as dumb, who everyone underestimates, who no one ever takes as seriously as they should, even though she's clearly capable of plenty of atrocities in her own right. this woman who's been described over and over again as someone who positively radiates life, and energy, and vitality, and strength. this woman who wanted nothing more than the chance to be herself, to be free, to serve as cavalier and guardian and protector, but was instead sentenced at birth to a life of being a princess and wearing dresses and looking pretty and loving less and staying out of the way and keeping her mouth shut and playing second fiddle to a necromancer obsessed with power and glory. familiar, no? this woman who was betrayed, left behind, left alone, and left utterly in the dark by the one person who's supposed to love her the most- only to then be told that being abandoned was in her best interest, really, for her own safety.

thinking about all the times we've seen ianthe insult crown's intelligence and praise her beauty in the same breath. you big dumb bimbo, what can you do? of all the times we've seen ianthe fussing over crown's appearance. thinking of the sister-lyctor makeover-montage ahead of dios apate minor, and how harrow hated every second of it, and how ianthe treated it like nostalgic second nature. thinking about the third house: fucked-up planet gossip-girl with all its betrayal and espionage and flesh magic and debauchery, three for the gleam of a jewel or a smile. thinking about the pressure that must have come with keeping up the double-necromancer ruse, about ianthe having successfully played the part of two necromancers from the age of six. exactly how much practice must that have taken? thinking about the casual, automatic, possessive, offhanded, violating nature of ianthe playing god and giving harrow a full head of fast-growing hair without asking, without even telling her, just to make harrow prettier, just to piss her off, just because she could. how she did it so easily, and without hesitation, almost as though she's maybe done that sort of thing before.

thinking about preservation. about a perfect body frozen in ice for a myriad, about ianthe spending all her downtime on the mithraeum figuring out how long she can keep an apple core in perfect stasis before the rot sets in.

thinking about corpse puppeting: a deceased world leader here, a trusted cavalier and friend you've known from the cradle there. about i picked you to change, and this is how you repay me? about she took babs. and who even cares about babs? babs! she could have taken me!

thinking about alecto, and hollywood hair barbie, and you have made me a hideousness.

thinking about crown, who's by her own admission boobs and hair and talk and a hell of a swordhand.

thinking about something as simple as stud earrings, and about how much grief ianthe gave her for daring to wear them.

nona loved crown.

something tells me that alecto might, too.

#the locked tomb #alecto the ninth #alecto #coronabeth tridentarius #crown him with many crowns #ianthe tridentarius #locked tomb meta #am i tagging this right? idk #nona the ninth spoilers #harrow the ninth spoilers #to be PERFECTLY clear i love ianthe. and i still think it's ENTIRELY possible that corona will turn out to be Badtwin in the end #but truly who's to say. women's wrongs and whatnot #also ik nona WAS alecto but like. she was also her own person. To Me. a study in 'would i be a different person without all the baggage' et #tridentarii #what a fascinating fucked up little dynamic with those two

[woodlaflababab]

Aang, Psychology, and the Concept of “Running Away” (A Breakdown Of Aang's Trauma Responses)

So, one thing that always kind of threw me off about atla was Aang's ignoration and dismissiveness of the things that have happened to him and continue to happen to him. He never seemed to have any kind of trauma response (besides nightmares).

Recently I've realized that the ignoration is Aang's trauma response, and it runs pretty fucking deep. Aang shows a lot of trauma responses but they are not as noticeable because Aang is also ridiculously good at emotional regulation, to a toxic point imo, and probably due to his upbringing by monks.

Aang, as is pretty well covered by the show, has a problem with trying to 'run away’ from his problems. This steadily stops happening as much throughout Book 2 (though he is learning in Book 1), but what's interesting is, while his tendency to physically run away from problems ends, his tendency to emotionally run away increases.

We go from Book 1 in which Aang confides in Katara about the separation from the monks, to Book 2 in which Aang literally actively rejects attempts at comfort in favor of an emotional shut down, to Book 3 where, after the failed invasion, Aang immediately tries just about anything he can to avoid talking about it.

He's not necessarily 'running away’. He still owns up to his duty and is right on the ball when Zuko shows up to teach firebending. It is not the work he shies from, it is specifically talking about the failure. This is Aang's main trauma response. Before I delve deeper into that though, I want to talk about Aang's other trauma responses that get bypassed thanks to his ability to ignore them.

Quoting ‘What is Child Traumatic Stress’, “Traumatic reactions can include a variety of responses, including intense and ongoing emotional upset, depressive symptoms, anxiety, behavioral changes, difficulties with attention, academic difficulties, nightmares, physical symptoms such as difficulty sleeping and eating, and aches and pains, among others.”

Aang shows almost all of these at one point or another, and typically they show themselves when he finds himself incapable of mentally 'running away.’

Intense and Ongoing Emotional Upset: 

I'm mostly eyeing the avatar state episodes. His immediate reaction to traumatic events he is helpless to is explosive anger, but it fails to be ongoing because it is immediately followed by a shut down. 

- Aang on Zuko's boat. In this episode, while fighting with Zuko, Aang shows some pretty intense fear and his first (technically second) experience with the Avatar state is for survival and driven by fear (also, notably, a repeat experience of the same thing that caused the actual first experience). Yet, as soon as Aang is off of Zuko's boat, he's melancholy for a hot second and then turns on a dime and starts talking about the adventures they can go on. Avatar State -> Shut Down/dismissing or ignoring the problem.

- Aang at the Southern Air Temple. He starts off in deep obvious denial, like this kid is so obviously blocking. Then he sees Gyatso's body, goes into a rage and grief induced Avatar state, gets pulled out, can no longer use denial as his mental defense, and so once again turns to shut down. He's expressionless as he comes down, and when he's fully out he's just kind of tired and speaks with a soft almost toneless quality. He's admitting to the trauma and yet there's a numb resignation to it. He's not emotionally connecting with it. We see him after with Momo and Appa smiling and just being like “we gotta stick together :)”. That's not the appropriate response to admitting there's only three survivors of your home. Avatar State -> Shut down/dismissal

- Aang and General Fong. Aang experiences an extremely distressing and helpless situation while he watches Katara, one of two whole people in his life, be buried. He goes into a rage induced Avatar state, again, and then literally 'nope's out of the situation with help from Roku. And when he comes back, he shuts down. He doesn't react emotionally, he once again speaks in that soft, even, almost dead tone, apologizes, and dismisses the event. I mean, the way he addresses General Fong, the person who just caused this whole thing, is extremely chill, almost uncharacteristic. Just a simple, “you're out of your mind” with a tone that could make you think he was having a casual conversation with someone who just suggested eating cereal out of a cup. And then he's good! Momo comes back and he smiles and everything is all good again. Avatar State -> Shut down/dismissal.

- Then we have the desert, one of the few times Aang does not shut down immediately, but then it culminates in the Avatar State and he stays like that for a bit but once he comes down, his faces changes again, to what is almost resignation, like he's given up on being mad, which really, he has as we see later. And then the next episode and he's playing in some water, but as soon as Sokka brings up Appa, we see the face and tone that's now kind of familiar: soft, dead, dismissive. He's once again refusing to emotionally connect and is downplaying it. Avatar State -> shut down/dismissal.

Depressive Symptoms/Anxiety:

He shows fits of both, though these aren't as evident because, again, most of the time he's in an emotional block and ignoring the problems. But when he cannot ignore the absence of his lifelong companion, he has a long period of anger followed by a numb depressive state, he literally talks about giving up hope. He is entirely hopeless at this point.

And then when he cannot ignore the Day of Black Sun coming in a few days, his anxiety goes through the fucking roof. 

However, these don't last long and that'll connect to me talking about emotional regulation later.

Behavioral Changes:

Aang changes A Lot over the course of the series. Book 1 Aang is very distinct from Book 3 Aang (though we still see the core traits of him throughout). He becomes more hyper focused on doing his duty, tends to fall to the background when he can, generally takes on a much more somber demeanor.

Difficulties With Attention:

This one's not really huge. He has about the same amount of attention focus in Book 3 as he does Book 1, if not improvement.

Nightmares:

I don't think I have to explain this. Aang goes through multiple fits of nightmares.

Difficulties Sleeping or Eating:

Once again, I look to Nightmares and Daydreams, one of the few times Aang is unable to shut down or block. He cannot sleep for the life of him. I have plans to go back and pay attention to eating habits in Book 3 in order to potentially add onto this joke meta, but I would not be surprised if there were signs of a lowered appetite, even if the writers did not intend it.

Aches and Pains:

He doesn't ever complain about this but also like, would he? Even if he was experiencing them? Kid tried to fight people and fly through a storm while newly recovering from a lightning injury. Aang gives no shits.

Then the article also covers childhood PTSD diagnoses which I'd also like to go over real quick. “the child continues to re-experience the event through nightmares, flashbacks, or other symptoms for more than a month after the original experience; the child has what we call avoidance or numbing symptoms—he or she won’t think about the event, has memory lapses, or maybe feels numb in connection with the events—and the child has feelings of arousal, such as increased irritability, difficulty sleeping, or others.”

Most of these I just covered, but I think it's notable that numbness is also mentioned here, the exact symptoms I've been talking about. Avoidant, won't think about it, numb in connection.

And just to be sure that everyone is on board let me go through some other examples of Aang shutting down:

Katara brings up the 100 years and Aang immediately blocks that shit. It's literally too big for him to conceptualize, so he dismisses it as okay because he has a new friend now and moves on and doesn't think about it.

The Northern Air Temple. I think most people agree that the lesson in that episode was wrong. Aang had every right to be angry. There's nothing okay about taking over and destroying 100 year old artifacts of a nearly extinct culture. We see Aang react to this with a numbness. There's even a moment where he's just frozen and uncomprehending. “This place is unbelievable.” “Yeah. It's great isn't it?” “No, just unbelievable.” He reacts with anger later (notably when he feels like he can do something instead of being helpless), and then when he can no longer do anything, he once again just rejects any negative emotional turmoil in favor of that “it's fine” attitude and accepts what the people have done.

Then the desert, one of the few places we don't see him shut down immediately. Except, literally the next episode is all about Aang's hardest shut down yet.

There are other examples but I think you get the point. He does this A Lot.

Okay cool, so we've covered the denial and trauma responses part, but how does emotional regulation play into this?

I'm glad you asked.

So, when I was first considering Aang and this whole thing, I thought Aang exhibited emotional dysregulation, especially in regards to the Avatar State, but then I actually did some learning on emotional dysregulation and realized, actually, no, he doesn't. Emotional dysregulation is mostly characterized by emotional responses being out of proportion with the event, but I think we can all agree, pm every time he goes into the Avatar State, that emotional response is uh, rather warranted. Now, Aang does, in these moments, show the lack of control that can come with emotional dysregulation, but also like, who wouldn't.

Considering Aang's behavior outside of the Avatar State Outbursts, he's actually very good at emotional regulation. Scary good, in fact. Number One in the reasons I say this is everything I said above. The ability to shut down is often an active choice. Aang does not like who he is when he is upset and, outside the initial outburst, has a pretty firm grip on his emotions. He shows anger at times, but they are in appropriate places with more or less appropriate responses. 

The Desert stands out so much because Aang loses the control he normally has. This is where we see him lose his grip on himself and he spirals.

He rarely shows grief. During his lessons with the Guru he passes all the chakras with amazing ease because he legitimately is that good at controlling and managing emotions which, like I said at the very beginning, I attribute a lot of that to him being raised by monks. I mean, he's a 12 yr old who is skilled in meditation. I don't think it's a stretch to think the monks taught him other such things.

He doesn't react to small things that would normally piss people off. Examples include The Headband when he gives absolutely zero shits about the bully, and The Southern Raiders where he accepts Katara trying to steal Appa and doesn't react to Zuko mocking him and his culture. 

Aang also, paradoxically, can be pretty good at expressing emotions when he needs to. He's typically very emotionally intelligent, with the exception being pretty much any trauma. He will react to basic things in the moment and is unafraid to show frustration or anger or uncertainty, as long as it's Not connected to a thing he is distinctly Not thinking about.

And one of the most damning examples of his emotional regulation skill, that is actually the scene that started me thinking about all of this, is the scene with Koh the Face Stealer. 

That scene threw me off so much because I felt like it was incredibly out of character for Aang, this incredibly expressive kid, to be able to show no emotional reaction. It didn't make sense and for a long time I dismissed it as just, the writers thought it'd be cool so he did it. But of course, I can't let things lay, so I never really stopped thinking about it until I realized, in context of everything I've talked about before, it actually makes perfect sense.

Aang is emotionally expressive by choice. He has the ability to control his emotions and responses to a ridiculous degree. He knows how to be emotionally intelligent with basic things, where to express emotion and how to do it. 

(Of course, he's not perfect. There are plenty of times he acts out, the Bato episode being the first thing to come to mind, but even there, after just a few hours, he has wrestled with his jealousy and responds appropriately to guilt, he owns up to it. He does try to explain himself but when Sokka makes it clear he's not going to listen, Aang does not continue to press the point. He accepts Sokka's decision, does not lash out, and for once doesn't shut down or exhibit happiness soon after. He is sad and expresses it without shoving his emotions onto others. For a 12 yr old, this is fucking impressive.)

Aang was taught well by the monks, but the one thing they couldn't teach him was response to trauma, and that's where he falters, but that emotional regulation means he's not going to respond in a typical way. Instead, he turns to denial as his coping mechanism of choice and uses those skills he learned to achieve a workable state of being but through unhealthy use.

Where am I going with this? Idk. Nowhere really, I just wanted to talk about Aang and psychology tbqh.

Anyway, I will finish this up by a fun delve into Things He's Probably Going To End Up Suffering From:

Denial can lead to memory blocking, where it's more than just not thinking about it, the brain actively suppresses and alters memory to cope. Adult Aang's recollection of the Ozai year is probably not going to be super accurate. Would not be surprised if someone was like “hey remember that time you were almost executed by a town for your past live’s mistakes?” and Aang just went “No???” and legit has no recollection of any such thing.

Selective numbing will eventually turn into collective numbing. You can selectively numb for a temporary period of time (which is how people fall into the trap) but eventually your brain will start to numb everything, not just the bad things. At the very least teenage Aang absolutely goes through a period of dissociative complete numbness.

Speaking of dissociation, if you're not going to react to trauma the normal way, dissociation happens. It starts as a coping mechanism but like with numbing, it cannot remain controlled and will develop into something. Aang will have a dissociative disorder, I'm telling you. Which one? Idk, but I assure you, it'll be there. I'm leaning toward some basic depersonalization/derealization and/or OSDD type four where trauma and meditation accidentally mix for the worse.

So yeah, there you go, a breakdown of Aang, his trauma responses, his emotional intelligence, and the consequences of those two things put together.

I'm gonna be a nerd here and add shitty citations but this is mostly in case you're also a psych geek and want to read things.

“What Are the Dissociative Disorders”. International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation.

“Developmental trauma: Conceptual framework, associated risks and comorbidities, and evaluation and treatment”. National Library of Medicine.

“What is Child Traumatic Stress”. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

#aang #atla #aang talks #woodlaflababab #avatar the last airbender #can you tell im a psych major

[saintsenara]

asenora i will listen to anything you have to say about these characters ever. please tell us what the tea is with dron

as i rummage through the backlog of messages in my inbox the thing that i have discovered is that you girlies [gender neutral] are absolutely clamouring for citizenship of dron nation.

[thank you to @spectral-kitty, @thesilverstarling, and two mystery anons!]

to which i say, the borders are open, baby. you just have to read the following manifesto:

why fandom needs to stop sleeping on dron

something i am continually banging on about, as regular readers know, is the harry potter series' fondness for assigning [male] characters to narrative mirror pairings.

exploring these pairings is interesting in and of itself without a romantic dimension being involved - i could talk for hours about the mirrored approach to guilt and grief in snape and sirius' characterisation - but it's also true that several of the most interesting ships which can be drawn [however non-canonically] from the text are between the two halves of each mirror pairing.

tomarrymort is the obvious one, snack [or starprince or snirius or whatever we're calling it] is starting to get the attention it deserves, but people are still sleeping on draco malfoy/ron weasley [and also, may i say, on lucius malfoy/arthur weasley and narcissa malfoy/molly weasley], largely - i fear - due to the sheer popularity of drarry and dramione.

i'll be honest that i really don't like dramione, and i'm generally ambivalent towards drarry, but i do love dron. and the narrative mirror aspect is entirely the reason why.

ron and draco begin the series as mirror archetypes within the genre conventions of a children's boarding school romp. ron is the loyal, humble sidekick of the everyman protagonist, draco is the everyman protagonist's posh, stuck-up rival. both are insiders to the world of the story - whereas harry, the reader surrogate, is not - who introduce harry to the positive and negative aspects of the wizarding world respectively.

as a result, ron and draco are mirrors in terms of personality, and are much more similar to each other than either is to harry or hermione. this doesn't, of course, preclude ronarry [a ship i adore] or romione [which i've defended here] or drarry or dramione [if ya nasty], but it introduces a specific - and very interesting - tension into the pairing which is absent from these other ships.

both ron and draco have shared positive traits - they're both loyal [and their loyalty is very practical and pragmatic - ron is not hagrid, whose faith in e.g. dumbledore is totally unwavering; draco is not bellatrix, whose faith in voldemort is the same], they're both highly observant, they're both quick-witted, they're both capable of doing the right thing - if not always immediately [which is, in fact, more admirable than being preternaturally willing to suffer and sacrifice], and so on.

they also have shared negative traits. they're both attention-seeking [ron fucking loves nearly being knifed by sirius and you just know draco was seething], self-aggrandising, insecure, sulky, and predisposed to jealousy.

and this is a gift for authors, because it means that dron butt heads in a relationship in ways which allow for real character growth... or otherwise.

one issue that i have with drarry is that it often feels like the change either one goes through within a fic is kind of out of character. for example, you have a harry who feels insecure and haunted by his ill-treatment of draco [this is a man whose response to committing attempted murder is to be raging that it reduces the time he has free to hit on ginny], or a harry who is chasing after a cool and sophisticated draco who eventually learns to open up [whereas if there's two things draco isn't, it's someone who keeps his thoughts to himself and someone who isn't a distinctly unsophisticated flop].

dron, however, react to conflict in the same way - which means that the two of them finding themselves in conflict with each other absolutely slaps. they also have similar levels of emotional intelligence, and are likely - if they're inclined to - to be able to communicate with each other and work through issues surprisingly effectively. they can be a mess, or they can be a happy-ever-after, and i like that in a ship.

but, while ron and draco are mirror archetypes, they are specifically children's literature mirror archetypes. ron's role as harry's guide to the world diminishes in the later books, as the series' horizons move beyond hogwarts to think about wizarding society and voldemort's impact upon it more widely [he is replaced by characters such as dumbledore]; while harry becomes considerably less bothered by the pettiness of draco's rivalry with him [concerned as it is with things like being good at quidditch and getting away with misbehaviour at school] as the enemies he's focused on shift to being the resurrected voldemort and his death eaters.

which is to say that dron makes considerably more sense within a hogwarts setting than drarry.

as i've said elsewhere, an issue i have with drarry is that it's frequently written in a way which suggests that harry and draco have a mutual obsession with each other - while the actual evidence of canon is that, while draco is [as his archetype demands] preoccupied with what harry's doing, harry rarely gives the impression of caring what his rival is up to unless directly compelled to by draco's own attention-seeking.

ron, in contrast, spends a lot of time noticing things about draco unprompted - he can, for instance, recall overhearing him boasting offhand about what broom he owns in philosopher's stone - and retaining this information in order to deploy it at the opportune time to get a rise out of him. he delights constantly in his misfortune [him being hyped for days because draco's annoyed harry gets a firebolt is beautiful]. he's ready to throw hands with him at any given opportunity, often giving those of us who thrive on cheap innuendo plenty of material in the process [draco finds himself, for example 'on all fours, banging the ground with his fist' after having ron's wand pointed in his face... same, girl.] and he tends to consider draco much more integral to the various shenanigans which take place in the castle than harry does [ron is the main proponent of the 'draco malfoy is the heir of slytherin' theory in chamber of secrets - and he is shook when draco reveals that he's wrong].

and draco does the same. he comes into the trio's compartment on the train in goblet of fire and immediately starts telling ron how unfashionable his dress robes are. he obsesses over ron's position as gryffindor keeper for months - and, of course, makes up a song about it, which isn't exactly helping him pull off 'i don't think about you at all', is it? - and ron is profoundly affected by the taunts in way that harry, who doesn't really care what draco thinks of him, isn't. and he constantly goes out of his way to provoke ron into trying to punch him [him shoulder-barging ron in half-blood prince just after harry's essentially outed him as a death eater in madam malkins... exquisite pettiness].

all of which is to say, their interactions feel very teenage and petty and silly all the way through to the end of half-blood prince in a way that draco's interactions with harry and hermione don't, and - therefore - i sincerely think that dron can be made to work much more plausibly as a pairing in fics set while the characters are at school.

my final point in favour of dron is that they mirror each other in their approach to their other relationships, and the tension this causes is really interesting to explore.

both ron and draco have mirrored attitudes towards their place within their own families - something neither harry nor hermione can have with draco for obvious reasons. ron is one of many siblings and feels overlooked in the crowd; draco is an only child and feels overburdened by the visibility, especially once his father is sent to azkaban. they both conform to behaviours expected of them by family [they are both in the same hogwarts house as generations of their family, they share their families' political views etc.]. they are of the same social class and their families both have a reasonably similar level of political influence [despite what we're told about his insignificance, arthur weasley is known to everyone in the ministry and he's able to throw his weight around to influence policy even before the promotion he receives in half-blood prince], but their material circumstances are divergent. they both heavily resemble their fathers - to the extent that they are immediately recognisable as each man's son - and spend their schooldays defending family honour by playing out lucius and arthur's own petty feud [lucius and arthur - and, indeed, narcissa and molly - are also narrative mirrors, and we deserve many more enemies-to-lovers fics featuring them]. and the course their lives take during the war is dictated as much by their role within their families as it is by their relationship with harry - the scrambling post-dumbledore order operating out of the burrow is a mirror image of the ascendant voldemort operating out of malfoy manor.

they are also obviously defined by their mirrored relationship with harry - most interestingly by a major similarity in their attitude towards him: that both struggle with how jealous they are of harry.

this leads to lots of excellent tension which just isn't possible in drarry or dramione. how do both sets of parents react to the news their sons are in love? how do ron and draco's relationships with harry change as they find each other? how does draco cope with the hustle and bustle of life at the burrow? how does ron deal with having to have dinner at the manor [particularly interesting because the world in which draco lives is one that's familiar to him - he's not going to be shocked by any of the weird stuff in that house, he knows how it all works, so he can ruin christmas by deciding to have his dad arrest lucius for fun instead]?

it's messy, and fun, and it sustains me.

and some recs for the lads?

collateral damage by @danpuff-ao3, which starts out with both of the lads working out their... issues with harry and ends with declarations of going to lunch with each other's mothers.

dance the night away (aka it's true love, you bastards) by evandar, which has as its premise ron and draco ending up, largely by accident, going to the yule ball together.

this great stage of fools by @nanneramma, which correctly demonstrates how ron is charming enough that him being supremely annoying is actually loveable.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #dron #draco malfoy #ron weasley #asenora fic recs

[road-kill-eater]

What WERE those superfluous aspects of Tonitrui historical culture?

Before the death of their own creator, tonitrui culture was as vibrant and varied in custom and belief as any other you see among humans. Most of the hunter-gatherer tribes worshiped seasonal gods, with each population attributing different names and characteristics to these figures.

For some the winter was kind, a god of slumber and rejuvenation, of making tight knots and steadfast bonds, of art and music and story. For others winter was a god of trials, of enduring punishment after punishment like a rain of whips, this god could be the sternest of them all, but yet remained a teacher in how it brought light to shadowed flaws and weakness. And while it is obvious the gods of summer would often be distributors of bounty and respite, sometimes this god would also be a devil of its own, raising fiery tempers, striking blight and drought, and sparking wars and murder.

Each season demanded its own sacrifice, ofttimes in fall it would be hair, in winter it would be food (especially rendered fat to be burned in intricate conflagrations), in spring it would be flowers plucked before they could fruit, and in summer it would be blood of the unborn and born both. But the whims of these gods could change, they might demand a more indulgent gift one year, or an entirely different sort the next.

Those that traveled a solitary and nomadic path as soothsayer were simultaneously adored and feared and hated, and rarely spent more than a few years with one tribe before fortune drove them on again. The most renowned of them were known to have great wars fought over them, or were bribed with all the material gifts that could be offered, but they were never harmed nor threatened, for the lie of a soothsayer was the greatest of curses.

Pic: Nilgai wearing a reconstructed soothsayer mask and burning tallow candles. Amidst civil war, plague and famine, there has been an increasing resurgence in heretical practices

As the coastal tribes transitioned into more sedentary and permanent villages which gave rise to agriculture and monarchism, their spiritualism calcified into finite forms. A myriad of interpretations and faces and names for the gods all informed by the specific culture of a tribe as well as their history and the lands they hunted were progressively funneled and congealed until but one absolute form remained. Of course bitter debates and battles were raged over the particular aspects, but once the custom of kings began, the ever changing became shackled to the earth. It was known that each god had one name and two heads, one of ill and one of fortune, and when they walked upon the land, the kingdom must attract the attention of the glad countenance, and distract the cruel face so it looked away. Much was said on the folly of dividing the gods in this way, that the cruel aspects were just as vital as the supposedly kind, that it would make the kingdom weak if it was never tested with raging wildfires nor floods nor plague.

When their creator came to walk among them, belief in the divine quartet could hardly stand up to miracles made flesh. This centralized religion was quickly shattered, and the result was a cultural maelstrom, with the god-king standing within the center. After the murder of the tonitrui creator, there was a spiritual void. The very idea of worship became distasteful after such betrayal and grief, and for most it would have been hollow belief, and so the old gods became childrens stories, and spirits to sometimes wish to for luck, but little else.

Following this, tonitrui culture became far more imperialistic. Kings were gods unto themselves, their words infallible, their arms as long as the march of their soldiers. The remaining nomadic tribes in the southlands were eaten up by conquest, and a generations spanning war was held between the southern kingdom and the loose coalition of tribes in the north. After many years the kingdom won out and occupied the land, forcing its many customs upon the inhabitants and stomping down on the old beliefs, which were now seen as foolish heresy that must be replaced with complete obeisance and worship to the king. Seasonal sacrifices were replaced with taxes and military drafting, and belief in the quartet gods was limited to underground communities which met in secret, or the most isolated of northern tribes.

These three great shifts in tonitrui society progressively stunted the culture of its own people. Many customs were abandoned or stamped out alongside the gods, and only remain as sanitized vestiges, with little memory as to their original significance. Before tail docking became all but compulsory, marriage rites were taken by tying a couples tails together with an intricate knot that must be slowly unwound day by day for a week. Tail dancing or flagging similar to ribbon dancing was also commonplace, and some even had their tails broken and set in specific positions to indicate their role in society.

Pic: Newlyweds with tied tails

Horns, meanwhile, were always used as pedestals for artistic expression. The buds of children could be split down the middle to create the illusion of four horns as they grew, each one bearing its own prayer to a god of the quartet. They could be carved or notched or woven with thread between each horn to indicate social rank, or to display a number of feats such as how many lives a warrior had taken in battle, or how many children one had (by their nature tonitrui have a low birthrate, high infant mortality, and slow maturation, children aren't named until their first birthday, and fertility is seen as one of the most important aspects of ones role in society).

Pic: A woman with split horns

There were also snout flutes, made by carving holes through the nasal bone, and played through a series of snorts. Tonitrui are already predisposed to a number of nasal infections which can sometimes lead to flesh eating disease in coastal territories with high humidity, so this custom was thoroughly stamped out for fear of the necessary body modification exacerbating such a condition.

Monarchistic tonitrui culture is quite focused on preserving the body as a tool for society, either in its role as a soldier, for procreation, or production, all with the goal of keeping a healthy population for which to secure and expand its territory. As such there is a cultural preoccupation with cleanliness, nutrition, and general health, with a strong distaste for anything considered too indulgent or gratuitous. The body must be kept whole, for there is no veil between the physical and mental self, and when one harms their own body in any permanent or unnecessary way, they also alter their own nature. Scars and significant injuries are seen to fracture the wholeness of oneself, and can lead to unstable temperaments. These traits are only admired in soldiers, whose physical sacrifice to the state purifies any subsequent metaphysical harm. The body must be kept healthy specifically so that the monarchy can choose when it can be broken. Thus the oldest tonitrui tradition of sacrifice is perverted, stripped of its intrapersonal narrative.

#tonitrui #i did not proofread this

[thisstormbringsstrangeloyalties]

okay so I’m having a lot of feelings about the parallels between Anakin and Bode’s fall to the dark side and I need a place to scream about it so here it is

putting the rest under a cut because I already KNOW I’m about to go off

alright and before I go any further, I want to clarify that I don’t imagine the writers for Survivor sat down and went “hmm what kind of character can we make to rival the tragedy of Anakin? I know! we’ll just make the same character… but different…” I just think that the general path to the Dark Side tends to be similar for a lot of people. there just happens to be a lot of overlap for these two characters specifically. and if the similarities WERE intentional. well. honestly that would be very Star Wars-core of the writers. the overlapping rings and parallels between trilogies has been important to the storytelling of Star Wars from the beginning.

moving right along tho. I think it’s impossible to say when their actual journey to the Dark Side TRULY begins (I imagine Anakin growing up a slave and Bode living through the Purge might have been the whisper of wind that eventually blew over the first domino) but I think it’s safe to say that the Big Moment for Anakin was when his mother died in his arms. and his heart was so filled with grief and anger that he was driven to revenge. not just the men… but the women and children too. we all know the story.

and it’s harder to know for sure with Bode, since we don’t actually see his reaction, but I’d wager losing his wife had a similar effect on him. even Kata herself says that losing her mother changed her father. and we know from the post-game Force echoes that, aside from protecting Kata, Bode’s work for Denvik was also to learn the identity of the Inquisitor who killed his wife. he’s been living with this burning seed of rage in his heart, this desire for vengeance even though revenge is not the Jedi way.

so then you just have these two people, living with the GUILT of not making it in time to save the one they loved. these two people who have been so traumatized by their loss, that the thought of losing anyone else is unbearable. the love that these two hold for those still living that are closest to them— for Anakin it’s Padme, for Bode it’s Kata— is corrupted by fear and turns into attachment. slowly but surely, they are consumed by one impossible goal: protect Padme/Kata AT ALL COSTS.

enter The Cost. at a certain point, Anakin becomes convinced that Palpatine is the only one who can help him save Padme. he’s willing to throw away EVERYTHING ELSE for that one chance. he’s willing to kill younglings, he’s willing to execute the entire Jedi order for it. he’s willing to break Padme’s heart. meanwhile, Bode becomes convinced that Tanalorr is his one salvation for Kata and he’ll do whatever he has to in order to get her there. he’s willing to kill Cordova, he’s willing to lead the entire Hidden Path to their doom for it. he’s willing to trap Kata in a life of isolation— as long as she’s still ALIVE.

and all throughout this, these two have formed this brotherhood with a certain someone. a bond formed through the hell of fighting a seemingly endless war. for Anakin, it’s Obi Wan. for Bode, it’s Cal. it’s so interesting to me to think about the last interaction these two pairs had with each other before Everything Happened. Anakin seeing Obi Wan off before he takes on Grievous. Dooku was already dead. after all this fighting, the war was SO CLOSE to being over. Obi Wan tells Anakin he’s grown to be a greater Jedi than he could ever hope to be. and then contrasting Bode’s last night with Cal. after all this fighting, they’re so close to finally being SAFE. the guilt of what Bode’s about to do weighs so heavily on him, yet Cal can only see a brighter future. he tells Bode that they couldn’t have done it without him. these quiet moments of connection before they lose everything.

then everything just comes to a head when these brother figures finally confront Anakin/Bode. Anakin flies off to a fiery hellscape. Bode flies off to a lush paradise. they both believe they’ve left their brother behind for good. and then Padme unintentionally brings Obi Wan to Anakin. Kata very deliberately takes Cal to Bode. I think it’s at this moment where both Anakin and Bode go from agitated to full on enraged. there’s such a clear moment where the both of them snap and it’s no longer about “protecting” their loved one, it’s about destroying this one person who stands in their way. Anakin Force chokes Padme. Bode lashes out with the Force at Kata TWICE. (At one point, Kata may have even fallen to her death if Merrin hadn’t been there to save her.)

the tragic ending to both Anakin and Bode’s story happens when they lose themselves and fight to kill their brother. the tragic ending to their story happens when they become the very danger they fought so hard to protect their loved one from.

I think there are two main differences between Bode and Anakin’s story. the first is from an audience perspective. I mentioned before that we don’t actually SEE a lot of Bode’s story leading up to his fall. Anakin, however, we see from the very beginning. except we KNOW he’s doomed. we KNOW he’s going to end up as Darth Vader. we just don’t know HOW. and it’s heartbreaking in its own way to see Anakin be so fundamentally GOOD knowing how he’s going to end up. Bode on the other hand…

from the beginning, Bode is just a guy. he’s Cal’s new friend. he’s a great fighter and he immediately fits right in with Cal’s family of strays. you have no idea what’s coming. personally, when I first played, my only suspicion of him was that he was beginning to doubt Cal’s vision of Tanalorr. and I thought maybe he’s right? a running theme of the game is that Cal just doesn’t know how to STOP FIGHTING. perhaps Bode just thinks this supposed safe haven from the Empire isn’t the place to… continue the fight against the Empire. and even after Bode blatantly betrays everyone, the extent of his motivation wasn’t clear to me until the confrontation on Nova Garon. before then, I was doubting everything he’d ever said. did he actually have a daughter named Kata? was his name even really Bode? these kinds of questions never come up in Anakin’s story. we know everything about him and WHY he’s doing it. but I think this unknown factor around Bode is what makes his betrayal just… sting more. it makes US want to shout, “you were Cal’s brother, Bode! he loved you!”

and finally the second difference which is from a narrative perspective. and it’s the fact that, at the very end, Anakin DID return to the light. Bode never got that. and I think it mostly hinged on the fact that people still BELIEVED in the good in Anakin. it was one of Padme’s dying words. there’s still good in him. Luke was ready to DIE for that belief. Luke absolutely REFUSED to give into fear, to strike down the Emperor or his father in anger. at the most critical moment, Luke resisted the Dark Side. he chose love and THAT’s what saved Anakin and brought him back to the light.

for Bode… he didn’t have that. I’m not sure if anyone really believed in him by the end. which is… understandable. as I said earlier, I myself was questioning everything about Bode after his betrayal. I can’t imagine how Cal, who trusted Bode with HIS LIFE, would feel. Merrin herself told Cal it was kill or be killed. Cal even admitted that he has so much hatred for Bode. hell, he even straight up “embraces the darkness” to win his fight against Bode. Cal gave Bode multiple chances to surrender, but his motivation to give those chances were all about Kata. it was all about how Cal and Merrin know what it’s like to lose their whole family and don’t want Kata to go through that. not once does Cal say “I know this isn’t you, Bode. I know there’s still good inside you.”

this isn’t a criticism on Cal, by the way. he’s walked a very different path than Luke. he’s at a very different point in his journey than Luke was when he confronted Vader. Cal was (understandably) in the middle of battling the Dark Side in HIMSELF at the time. he wasn’t in a place where he could pull someone ELSE from that path. and honestly, I think it just makes this story that much more heartbreaking. maybe there WAS a chance for Bode, but the stars just, very tragically, weren’t aligned for him.

I don’t really have a conclusion for all these thoughts, just that it’s so fascinating that their stories are so similar despite such different circumstances. it’s so fascinating that they still somehow ended the same yet so differently. I’m really going to be thinking about Bode’s story for a long time. I haven’t felt this way about a character’s arc in… awhile. it’s such peak Star Wars to me, to be honest, and it’s really disappointing knowing that the audience for this story is limited to just gamers and people who enjoy watching gaming videos. it really deserves the attention of a mainstream movie, in my opinion.

#star wars #jedi survivor #bode akuna #anakin skywalker #cal kestis #star wars meta #oops sorry for standing on a soapbox for a hot second there at the end #it’s fine #kata akuna

[dankmaths]

god fuckign dammit i cant stop thinking about thefucking hospital scene

just rewatched it and i don't want to spend 5 hours formatting a long unhinged twitter thread so here we are. i am mishmashing the game and anime and manga scenes together in my personal canon blender. p4 spoilers of course

cause like, naoto is the one to suggest they throw namatame into the TV. and kanji's on board with it too. but the one yu has to fight over it, the one yu has to think carefully about and talk down, is fucking yosuke hanamura.

of course everyone has a personal stake in it considering namatame was going around kidnapping everyone, but yosuke specifically...

he phrases it like "we have to stop him before he hurts anyone else," but it seems like a big part of his motive is revenge. saki's kindness meant a lot to him, regardless of how real it was, or selfish his motive is, and it wasn't fair she had to die. so now he's gonna kill namatame. and it doesn't matter if that goes against his morals, or if no one else is willing to do it. he is absolutely dead set on killing namatame (pun intended). the only thing stopping him from doing it is yu.

it's ironic looking back. because like yosuke, namatame also lost someone important to him, and is trying to use his power to do what he thinks is right in his own way... just like yosuke wanted to be a hero, namatame wanted to be a savior, but yosuke is too blinded by rage in the moment to see that. the big difference is who got to them first. yosuke's had yu with him the whole time to keep him grounded, and eventually, the whole investigation team- namatame got adachi.

(side note- i more often think about yosuke+adachi parallels; how they're both bored with everything, but yosuke has the team and adachi pushes everyone away, but that's not really relevant rn lol)

there's also the scene where yu goes to confront the true killer alone, and yosuke's waiting outside when he comes back. and at that point he's not angry anymore, just… disappointed. (feelsbadman) but i don't think it's because he changed his mind.

after you calm him down in the hospital, he's STILL thinking about doing it:

(another side note- the va in this scene is top notch. this line gave me chills rewatching it. first time i saw the hospital scene i was getting a little scared lol)

and after learning the true killer's identity he fucking hates adachi. even after defeating him he never really forgives him. he still gets pissed and tries to attack adachi when he shows up unexpectedly in ultimax:

yosuke was 100% willing to kill someone, and he'd 100% do it again if his partner gave the okay. but as much as he hates adachi, he understands that he's important to yu, enough to know yu would break their promise and sneak into the TV alone. and despite how he might feel, he doesn't want yu to lose someone important to him too.

there's also the scene in the anime after the hospital, where after yu tries to send everyone home promising he'll be okay, yosuke comes back to comfort him. he's still upset, but he's deferring to yu's leadership and more importantly, making sure that his partner is okay comes first.

that's why i think it's great the anime puts the fist fight after the hospital scene. cause he spends his whole social link struggling with his grief and insecurity and jealousy; and then, in december, with tensions running high and these nasty revelations about himself and awful feelings swirling inside, it all finally comes to a head. and he tries to get it all out in the only way he knows how: two dudes beating the shit out of each other. Thats True Love Babey.

not much of a point to all this, except that i really love yosuke's character (and souyo) lol. something is wrong with him. I Know What He Is. he's like the team mood maker and he's always joking around (and i think golden especially looooves to play him up for comic relief), but perhaps the moments when he lets the veneer slip are the moments where he shines the most.

#p4 spoilers #“i like it when yosuke stops joking around” #(draws almost exclusively yosuke joking around) #“i dont want to spend 5 hrs formatting a twitter thread” #(spends 5 hrs formatting a tumblr essay) #Welp #i usu keep the musings to myself cause saying all this shit out loud makes me feel delusional #persona 4

[kujakumai]

Just thinking after you mentioned a Yugioh is about Identity meta. Even after it's pretty clear Atem/Yami is NOT actually a split personality of Yugi's, he still calls him 'other me'. Do you think that means YUGi himself has identity issues, perhaps pertaining to lacking confidence compared to Atem?

Okay so the original ygo-identity meta is here and the most straightforward basis of it is that ygo says that stealing or erasing someone else's identity for your own use is bad. This is most obviously displayed by Yami Bakura, the big bad, and his sinister parasitism; but it's also laid out by Yami Marik, whose intent to inhabit Marik's life in his place is a more direct act of violence, and more subtly by Gozaburo's partially-successful attempt to reshape Kaiba in his own image, and a few other smaller places. It is wrong, says ygo, to put yourself in someone else's place, to replace what is "them" with what is "you," to blur those lines.

This is, of course, what Atem spends the entire series doing, and I've written a thousand posts about how he knows what he's doing and feels horrifically guilty about it; this is why the climax of YGO is Atem getting his own name and learning his own history, because it is when the identity theft stops. When Atem says no, I am a different person, I was never you, and from now on I am going to be only myself. This is when he finally triumphs over evil, and the evil he's triumphing over is very specifically his contrast with Yami Bakura, who has not only spent the entire series identity-thefting Bakura but has had his own original identity as Thief King already erased, used, and discarded by Zork.

The question of "How does Yugi fit into all this?" is like. A chewy one.

Yugi's presence marks the biggest difference between Atem and every other parasite in this story. Yugi consents. Yugi says "You want to use my identity? You can have it, then. I will share. I will let you have everything."

I think there's a reading of ygo that goes "Ah! That's the difference, then. Yugi consents, which is what makes everything fine!" which isn't implausible, really, but it's not one I buy. The ultimate message is still that Atem can't triumph over evil until he knows that he is himself, and that Yugi can't become the king of games until he separates Atem from himself. Atem's "borrowing" of Yugi's identity, even if consensual and pleasant, is condemned by the narrative as unsustainable. Per the last two arcs, while their bond is everything and they may save each other, Atem cannot be Yugi because Atem is Atem, and this saves the world; Atem cannot be Yugi because there cannot be two Yugis, because Yugi has to be strong enough to fight for himself.

Then we get to, okay, but why does Yugi consent? And why does the narrative still insist they be separated, if it looks like a positive relationship for both parties?

On a higher narrative level, I think Yugi's cheerful willingness to have someone else stand in his shoes is just another example of the forms possession takes in this universe. The Mariks want to kill each other, YB takes more of a simmering slow-roll that victimizes Bakura more over time, and Atem and Yugi are apparently happy codependent symbiotes. It helps cover our bases and presents an example where identity theft can be done willingly but still be ultimately unhealthy.

On a character level, it brings us back to the themes and character notes introduced in the very earliest chapters of the manga: Yugi Muto has poor self-esteem and poor self-preservation; he is so lonely he thinks his bullies are his friends; he is bottomlessly kind to others and has a deep-set sense of justice; he feels powerless to fight back against those who harm him or his friends; he has trouble handling his negative emotions--rage, grief, loneliness--almost certainly in part exactly because of how powerless he feels to act on them.

Yugi’s defining introductory character moment is, remember, throwing himself in front of Jou and Honda, two people who have been nothing but cruel to him, in order to protect them from someone even crueler and meaner, and getting the shit kicked out of him. It does not shock me that Yugi would offer Atem everything he has. Yugi is kind, even at his own expense. If he thinks that to share his very personhood is what Atem needs, then he will give it.  

Letting Atem temporarily Be Him appears to solve a lot of his problems. “Other Yugi” can act on his rage; he is cool and powerful and liked; he can dole out justice and protect the people he loves. At the end of the day he can go home content that “Yugi” has accomplished everything he wanted to. Letting someone else do all the hard parts of your life, is, obviously, detrimental, but it’s a very passive, comfortable detrimental. It hits hard against your self-actualization and sense of accomplishment in the long-run, but it feels pretty great at the time. It is burying your issues with yourself the same way he buried all the feelings he didn’t want to deal with for so long that Atem ended up setting a bunch of people on fire with them.

So Yugi’s bottomless kindness combines with Atem’s desperate need to cling to a sense of identity. Yugi throws a band-aid on all his issues and eagerly says okay, you need it, you can have mine. 

I wouldn’t say Yugi has “identity” issues, not in the same way Atem does. Yugi has, and always has had, ignore-his-problems-and-sweep-everything-under-the-rug issues. Yugi knows who he is. I think on some level he understands that Atem is not and never was him. But acknowledging that Atem is not him is admitting everything that got us here in the first place--that Yugi Muto, the one and only, isn’t cool and isn’t powerful. That none of those accomplishments are his. That Yugi Muto is small and weak, that he can’t hurt back all the people who hurt him, that he can’t make friends or get a date on his own. This is terrifying and difficult to think about, so he won’t. Atem is lost and confused and won’t assert himself as separate, so Yugi never has to. 

It suits Yugi’s self-esteem to let everyone think Atem is him, and it suits Atem’s sense of purpose to pretend he is Yugi, and neither of them has to deal with the mortifying ordeal of being themselves. They will continue in this ouroboros of projection, enablement, and self-abjuration until the last two arcs force them to stop. And it will--because YGO is about identity; because Yugi and Atem’s cohabitation prevents either of them from fully asserting an individual identity. Because the narrative of YGO insists, demands, that the only way forward is to be yourself and nobody else.

#sorry i answered your ask a whole year later with a thousand word essay #meta

[couchtaro]

!!

from the OC introduction ask! (Sorry followers this is long but its worth it i prommy there are even pictures)

This is my little dötter Basil, a D&D PC of mine! She only saw 3 sessions of play 3 years ago but she is getting a second chance at life because @eaudecrow picked her up from the shelter and gave her a lovely yard to run around in.

Basil is a little tiefling girl whose large family runs an apothecary and surgery in a tiny little backwater town called Tarnygee. Basil’s brilliant mother developed a strain of magical herb that when processed can cast (without spell slots or prior magical ability) Lesser Restoration, thereby curing any disease instantly.

While traveling to heal a local noble, Basil’s mother disappeared and a bigshot inventor came forward claiming her panacea as his own. When Basil’s oldest brother tried to confront him and wound up dead, it became clear there was nothing they could do to get justice on their own. So, fueled by grief and rage, Basil took a job as a part-time warlock at Seelie Corp., a fey megacorporation with mysterious motives. In return for her working as their errand girl, Basil gets to be distinctly less killable and more tricky as she tries to find the inventor and extort him for the good of her destitute family.

Things aren’t working as well as she would like though: due to being basically a middle schooler, she’s got to keep her work under 40 hours a week and gets limited pact benefits. Her supervisor (a weasely pseudodragon named Keith) is dismissive and unhelpful, and her small town upbringing has kept her deeply unprepared for taking on the wild world of men and magic on her own.

Luckily, she’s found some unexpected help! While submitting her weekly report through the postal system of Fey portals, Basil’s paperwork went awry and found its way to another world: specifically a bunker in a war torn parallel version of the material plane. This bunker is the home and prison of Crow’s Aaren D’Cannith.

As a youth, Aaren invented a mechanical race called warforged, but seeing their potential for war and servitude, his family seized his blueprints (AND HIS ROBOT DAUGHTER) and disowned him as soon as he came of age. Aaren spent a few years as a vigilante trying to free his creations, but was trapped in his secret library when a magical-chemical fallout steeped his homeland in a volatile and toxic arcane gas. There he stayed, trapped and utterly alone, for three years.

Until Basil.

The two are corresponding via letters that we actually write each other, and it’s SUCH a fun and interesting method of storytelling to me aah. Despite being little more than strangers separated by a barely permeable divide, and despite Aaren struggling to believe Basil was even real at first, the two have formed a very sweet bond that makes me so unwell, you would not believe.

Both are grieved by how much of their own misfortune they see in the other. Through Basil’s letters, Aaren can tell that she is young, inexperienced, lacking support, and actively in danger as she allows herself to be used in exchange for power. He sees her situation with the eyes of someone who has been there and thus liberally (almost desperately) shares what little he can: his own arcane study materials, what he’s learned about survival and avoiding arrest, and, not the least, assurance that despite her perceptions, Basil is clever and kind and she matters.

Basil in turn is Aaren’s one connection to other people, and to a world that, while imperfect, is not ravaged and desolate like his own. After years of incarceration and tedium, he now has the exhilarating privilege of small talk and an audience for the terrible, terrible jokes he’s cooked up in isolation. He has a way to not only talk to someone outside of himself, but to help. He has something productive to do, and a reason to do it, not to mention the interesting puzzles of how their letters are finding each other and what else might be going on with Basil’s work. Basil is truly grateful to him, and returns his kindness in what little ways she can—most recently by interdimensionally mailing him his first real food in years.

Currently, Aaren and Basil are working to craft a pair of sending stones for daily artificer/botany jokes and (real reason) so that Basil can have some sort of emergency contact if she needs urgent advice. 25 words once per day is frightfully little if she ever runs into real trouble, and the limitations of their contact are never more haunting than when one considers how little Aaren could truly do in an emergency. I’m sure this frustration is only worsened by the unfortunate atrophy of his knowledge and skill caused by fog exposure. But he’s a clever man, and Crow had some ideas that seized my brain for weeks. Goodness.

Anyway in conclusion

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk

#my OC #blorbos in law #Basil D’Pothecary #Aaren D’Cannith #Basil #answered asks #art: Basil #my art #TENDERNESS MAKES ME BONKERS AND THERE IS SO MUCH TO HE HAD WITH THESE TWO #thanks crow…. 😭💐🥺

[beevean]

As a writing prompt here's a neat idea: Imagine Soma having dreams about his previous life. More specifically of Isaac and Hector :)

Soma may have had rejected his fate, denied his nature as the reincarnation of Dracula, but that didn't mean his own soul didn't insist on reminding him of what he had turned his back to.

He had learned how to distinguish irrational dreams from real memories of his past lives, as confused and fragmented as they were. In his sleep, he felt all those emotions as acutely as he was reliving them again, and it turned out that Dracula felt everything with the intensity of a burning sun: love, hatred, grief, disgust, delight... A few times Soma would wake himself up by cackling, or shouting in rage in a voice that he could not recognize.

He dreamed of women, blonde women with kind eyes who made his dead heart soar, and made his eyes sting with tears he could not shed. He dreamed of horrible, fearsome men holding a whip - Julius' clan, and Soma could see something of him in their posture and stare, while Dracula was overcome by nothing but the thirst of death. He dreamed of a young blond boy in his father's lap, giggling with his little fangs shining, and it came naturally to Soma to love him as his son, despite not even knowing his name.

Soma would tell everything to Arikado whenever possible. The agent wanted to be kept updated on Soma's "condition", and Soma... well, he just wanted to vent to someone who wouldn't think he had lost his mind, or worry about him like Mina or Yoko, which didn't help his nerves one bit.

"Oh, you saw the Devil Forgemasters, Hector and Isaac," nodded Arikado one day, when Soma told him that two boys not much older than him had visited him in his dreams.

Soma raised an eyebrow. "Wow, for once you didn't play coy. Did you know them?"

"I did. They were Dracula's students of dark arts, and I crossed paths with them in the castle. What did you see in your dreams?"

Soma struggled to put the memories together. "Uhm, we were in a... laboratory of some sort? Full of potions and machinery and stuff. And I... Dracula was assisting them, I guess. The one with silver hair conjured a whole devil from a basin of pink water! I remember I felt pride at the sight."

The vision creeped Soma out, to be honest. He assumed that demons would simply... appear out of nowhere. He would have never imagined that they could be created from simple matter. And that was Dracula's magic? (He refused to think "his".) Creating life, on top of absorbing souls? Just how powerful was a Dark Lord?!

"Hector was Dracula's star pupil." And this time, Soma could have sword he had seen a corner of Arikado's lips twitching. "But both of them were formidable alchemists. They were born to dwell in the darkness and grow powerful from it. It's no wonder Dracula invested time and effort in training them."

If Arikado's words didn't bother Soma, he would have paid more attention to the twinge of jealousy creeping in his flat tone.

"But... they were human, weren't they?"

"They wouldn't be able to give you one answer."

"What do you mean?"

"Isaac prided himself on being inhuman. Being born cursed, mankind had shunned him, and so he sought solace in the realm of the devil. He was honored that Dracula had infused him with his magic, and believed that it made him something other and beyond mere humanity."

While Arikado explained, Soma could picture more and more clearly the redhaired man clad in black, the sneer he reserved at his companion, and the pure adoration that Dracula could nearly smell on him. So, Isaac saw himself as not human, because he was born with dark magic, and for him it was a source of joy. Soma stared at his own hands, suddenly very uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.

"And the other one? Hector, you said?" he asked, not able to mask the nervousness in his voice.

"Hector fled the castle, eventually." At that, Soma raised his head. Arikado was adjusting the handkerchief in his breast pocket, averting his gaze. "He, too, had been chased away from the land of man, and his potential for dark magic was even greater than Isaac's... but he chose to reject it and stay true to his humanity. And I eventually learned, from the Belmont records, that he slew Dracula himself when Julius' ancestor could not."

"I think I dreamed that one too. I had no idea holy magic cast by a cute mage burned so badly!" Soma laughed, chasing away the memory of the indignation Dracula felt that day. Right, they were nothing but memories. "I think I get what you mean. Thanks."

#castlevania #soma cruz #genya arikado #okay this was fun :) #thanks! #i have no idea how to write soma lol i just went for 'relatable teen' #beev's writing #akumajou dracula

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I just wonder if why this album is leaving people in a tizzy is because it may be one of the first times (if not first time) where Taylor is so specific about events and subjects?

Assuming, of course, she is, since we don’t know yet.

But as much as people have said she writes diss tracks or whatever, her songs really are more.. idk abstract? Like, hardcore swifties can pick up references and know who she may be talking about, but other than a few instances, she doesn’t name names or direct her ire so overtly. (Part of the “making the specific feel universal” that I said in a previous post.)

She likes to write in metaphor and emotion and painting a picture with words and I’m sure this album will too. But the vibes is that this will err on the side of public autopsy, tracing the evidence to make it make some sense why the wound was bleeding for so long (ahem). And because it’s almost assuredly mainly about one person — or I guess, two people, her and Joe. There’s likely to be less room for speculation, and more reckoning with whatever it is she chooses to share about herself.

For however awful her breakups have been in the past, she’s by and large protected her exes (and ex-friends…), even in situations where they may not deserve it. She rarely goes explicitly cutthroat, or at least in the past. I’m not saying she will here too, but I think the veil of protection has lifted and I wouldn’t be surprised if that feeling of “protection” was at one point tied to feelings of shame (you kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath has entered the chat) and she’s shedding those hangups too as she distances herself from some of those past experiences.

I just feel like it’s going to be less Red/Last Kiss/Clean/Cruel Summer and more… Dear John/Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve/You’re Losing Me/Mad woman in terms of introspection and bubbling rage/grief/resentment/etc.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this but I think it’s just because it’s kind of uncharted territory even for someone as prolific as Taylor.

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department

[docholligay]

LOVED Mercymorn. To the point that I know I will think of her long after every other bit of this book has passed from my mind. I don't know if you saw my post, that I made while I was reading the book, about that monologue, but I understood her so keenly in that moment, i have had this EXACT experience standing in front of the city council or whatever. I will be sitting in my Purim committee next week, and I know the phrase 'I have learned not to do any of these things, because I hated the acid you put on me' the whole thing makes me laugh, 'I often think about this' echoes through my head in such a specific way that I cannot describe to another person.

But when she DESTROYS for me is at the end, when she kills God, and you see all grief that has been converted into anger, and resentment, and it's this clear, beautiful, rage that burns so hot it's not even ANGER anymore, it's been clarified into a simple, clam, need to destroy, paired with this knowledge that is not now nor will ever be the best loved of anyone. I love her SO much.

I definitely do not like Gideon at all, and it made the first one basically unliveable for me. I would consider reading on if I knew for sure that she was the real kind of dead and I would never have to hear her stupid memeing bullshit anymore ('I often think about this') This one, I don't like Harrow, but I don't hate her anymore. I don't have deep emotional feelings about her. I like reading about her! But I don't...cherish her or anything, but I actually don't feel like I had to, in order to get something out of the book. So in that way, it was a really different experience from the first one.

I haven't read the whole series, obviously, so i can only speak for these two books, but: Not liking Gideon and not being the slightest bit inclined to feel bad for Harrow hurt my experience of the first book. I mean, it made it not work for me. Not liking Gideon annoyed me minorly in this book, and the narrative seemed fine with me not being inclined to feel bad for Harrow...which ironically made it easier for me to feel something for her. So, I can't speak to the whole series, but for me it's a little bit of a coin flip, whether you need to feel for them or not.

I am interested in, and do like, the idea that this is a story about devotion and what that can look like, and what it drives us to do. I would have to reread these with more intention, now that I have the storyline itself, but I don't dislike as an idea, and i don't see any reason off the top of my head that doesn't work (excepting my lack of knowledge about the third book, obviously). As always, I am more interested in the side characters than the main ones here, but there's a lot of good possibilities.

Also, I think it is a kind of violence you do that we will never see that.

[fluideli123]

Considering I'm a big Starscream lover due to analysis videos and specific fanfics (*Stares directly at Emporer Kumpkuat and megadoomingir*/pos) it comes as no surprise that I have thought of my own Starscream fics. Though, most are ideas instead of fleshed-out concepts and plot planning. So, I'm making a post to talk about all three of them, and yes, there are THREE.

The first is, of course, based on megadoomingir's fanfic Stop Me. (A true art piece, I have never in my life dedicated my entire fucking life to a fic for an entire fucking WEEK due to being unable to STOP READING and TALKING ABOUT IT and JUST- GRRRRRR.) While I do not wish to use any direct concept, the idea of Starscream's Outlier Power and World Bunner status keeps me up at night. I cannot for the life of me stop imagining how it must have presented itself before.

What other concepts of power could he unlock during death or at another time in the show? After his first universe jump, does he just continue to hop universes after each death and doesn't allow himself to get close to anyone? Does he change other universes? And if his powers differ depending on the concepts, how does this change the story, Starscream, and so much more about him and what others know about him?

Considering the idea of using different Starscream characteristics, SO much could be used and unlocked. Such as Starscream and Jetfire, Shattered Glass comic, IDW, G1, and other happenings all smooshed together. NOT TO MENTION A POSSIBLE EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE KIND OF CONCEPT??? HELLO????? I HAVE ONLY FOUND SOME STARSCREAM-CENTRIC FICS!!! I NEED MORE!!!

I have, however, tried to dive into this idea a little and wrote this:

"I'm sorry, but that was not my fault."

"Nothing is ever your fault!" The femme grit out from her denta, servos clenching at her sides as her small form began to tremble in rage. Her tone darkens, optics piercing brightly into the former Decepticon’s as his expression morphs from unfazed to brittle agitation. "And you're rarely ever sorry."

The words bite harshly into the air between them as acid would in a scraplet wound. 

Starscream narrows his optics, wings twitching sharply behind him, a sneer forms, the blue two-wheeler’s words resting heavy on his shoulder plating and digging into his protoform, his tanks churning uncomfortably. It takes more effort than Starscream would like to admit to keep his knees from shaking as he swallows down a growl. 

No one is oblivious to the sudden tension between the strangely-painted seeker and Arcee. There was so much here, so many unsaid words and unanswered questions. 

“I don’t have time for this,” Starscream hisses, swiftly turning away. “I do not have time for this–”

“Don’t turn away from me!” 

The seeker whips around, yanking his arm away from her sudden reach, wings shooting up above his head, “I am not the same Starscream who killed Cliffjumper! Do not place your grief on me!” The words bounce across the wide valley, echoing into the chilled morning air. 

Arcee’s expression flickers between unreadable emotions as Starscream takes a stabilizing intake. “I have already gone through this. Not only am I the wrong Starscream for this conversation, but we don’t have time to argue over his murder. We have to stop the Vehiacons before they reach your Megatron. If he gets his hands on this device, slag will get much worse.” Starscream meets her optics, “I cannot help you.” He huffs before marching forward toward the direction the Vehicons went. “Now let’s get going.” 

The second Starscream fic idea is an Optimus and Starscream-centered fic across multiple lives/near-death experiences. I love the familial and platonic dynamic of Starscream and Optimus, and their relationship in general, in all honesty. So, why not mix together a reincarnation AU and dive spark-first into the idea of Optimus' finding Starscream throughout their many lives because he is devoted to being the seeker's friend, for he has been used and hurt so many times. Optimus cannot STAND to let that stand by.

He cares for Starscream deeply and understands him, and after Redeem the Stars, Stop Me (megadoomingir), and Unburied (Elindae), I cannot even THINK of them not having the dynamics shown through all three stories; they are truly so well made and heartwarming as well as heart-wrenching. So, adding more to that kind of world has become my favorite daydreaming pass time.

And lastly, as on-brand as this will be for those who know my writing.

#fox speaks #transformers #transformers prime #tfp #tfp starscream #tfp optimus prime #plurality #plural starscream #wip #writer rambles #I have gone through so many fandoms in such a short time don't look me in the eye and tell me I am everywhere I KNOW I AM

[theenderwalker]

i wanna talk about c and exception and spectre because like ok if you’ve seen their designs they’re very obviously related and like. yeah they’re kind of technically the same character.

C has like, their own whole thing going on leading up to this but ultimately what it comes down to is that after having basically abandoned their job/getting stuck in the dsmp they’re chased down by an ex-coworker that he has a Very weird relationship with, who is very very resentful of her. Said coworker, in short, kills him and dies in the act. C’s at the time partner captures her soul in a soul jar but because this is dsmp (and specifically C is attached to ranboo’s story) he’s dealing with the soul/mind dichotymy

so 800813, his partner, has the soul while the mind is trapped in the currently dissolving corpse that gets fished out of the river , a ghostly rotting mess. this part, the mind, is SpeCtre. spectre has stolen the ex coworkers veil. it remembers everything, and it is angry. without its soul, it’s almost exclusively acting on this rage.

800813, himself a robot with a human soul, had been building a robot body for the case in which C ever died. Because. well in the time they’ve been together there had been… at least a couple attempts on C’s life. They’re really really good at making enemies.

And 800813 puts the soul in the body, and it powers on, and it remembers nothing. It has no access to any memories of ever being alive, and in fact makes the assumption that it’s, effectively, an AI. 800813 does nothing to challenge this assumption because for the first ~~100 or so years of them being a robot, they had believed the same, and C was the one that had made the connection that he had a soul in the first place. It was an intensely traumatizing experience when C had the capability to restore their memories, and in this situation 800813 doesn’t know why Exception doesn’t have its memories or any clue of how to restore them. By all accounts, it should have worked, but 800813 doesn’t yet know about the ghost.

So 800813 makes the decision to let Exception believe what it believes and let’s it be its own person, as much as they’re capable of separating them while processing their own grief, etc etc .

& so the arc is like about . exception developing into it’s own person and spectre making a lot of assumptions about seeing 800813 with a new robot it never saw while it was alive, a sort of comedy of errors leading to the two never being in the same place at the same time

there’s a lot more to it and a lot of important characters i omitted for the sake of brevity and clarity but these are my special little guys and i care them a lot

(ex coworker, O, played by @oraclemilf and 800813 played by @hispanicin)

#eyestrain #<- for exceptions ref #i wanted to share bc i want to tell more ppl about them so if u want!! more detail or anything shoot me an ask!!! #i love them and i love talking about them

[snekverse]

Kindly asking you to hand over your ideas/hcs for the Divine Warriors NOW 🤲🤲

FUCK yeah now we're talkin!! Full disclosure before I get started I never watched mcd s3 so idk any of the dw canon lore so I just kinda made it up lmao <3

Irene got the moniker "matron" bc she literally made the other divines. She's essentially god, has existed since the beginning of time, and will persist long after

Her power comes from her relic (heart)

Over time she got really lonely watching everyone die all the time so she split her relic into 5 different pieces. She kept one for herself and created 4 “gods” to inherit the rest of her power (Esmund, Enki, Menphia, and Kulzak). It did weaken her immensely, but now she had people who wouldn't die on her

Shad was unique in that he was a human person before becoming a “god” 

Irene's weakened state made her appear less monstrous (more human) and she sometimes wondered what human life was like

Enter Shad, they met and fell in love, even had a kid that Irene was insistent on turning into a relic so that Shad could be by her side forever

This is where she accidentally reveals her true nature as an out-of-touch God at best

She gives him the relic, he accepts, and then sometime later realizes what she’d done

There was a war between Shad and the other Divines

Irene tried her best to stay out of it, but that’s kind of hard when your enemy’s beef is with you specifically

Tension had been building between the two of them long before he discovered the origin of his relic (bc of her status as out of touch god), but that was the final straw

Immediately after finding out he goes on a grief-stricken rampage, destroying anything Irene had even the smallest part in. Temples, villages, even entire regions were burnt to the ground in his rage (hence how he got the moniker “destroyer”

This went on for decades before Irene finally got involved. Both mortals and The Divine begged Irene to end the feud, so eventually she gave in. She couldn't bring herself to kill Shad, so instead she created a new dimension the sole purpose of which was to imprison Shad. 

Shad's relic was fragile, having been created from a partially human source, and Shad’s fully human body couldn’t handle the partial divinity; whenever he used the relic’s power/exerted too much power fragments would break off and shoot out kinda like shrapnel, and they’d get left behind

By this point his body was so dependent on the relic that without its power he lost his body, leaving only his soul behind (“shadow lord"). He was incapable of opening the rift, especially in his ever-weakening state and was successfully imprisoned up until the events of MCD

All of the Divine (sans Shad) were given their own pocket dimensions, all created before Irene split her relic. Irene obviously had the "Irene dimension", Esmund had the "dream realm", Enki had the End, Kulzak had the Aether and Menphia had the wyvern dimension (before it was given to the wyverns)

sorry this took a minute I wanted to add a little more to what I already had but it got,, wildly long and out of hand so for now this is just the Divine Warrior lore for my rewrite and I’ll go a little in-depth with the individual DWs in a separate post

#god.... #i spent so long adding to this AND I ALREADY HAD THIS MUCH DONE VKNJDK #n e ways i hope u like it!! be expecting a part 2 soon! #aphmau #aphmau minecraft diaries #minecraft diaries #irene the matron #shad the destroyer #esmund the protector #kulzak the wanderer #enki the keeper #menphia the fury #divine warriors #asks #requests #headcanons