#it's interesting that the one thing they have in common is their own destructive patterns-

[ask-neloth]

There's a famous account of how you lost possession of Mehrunes' Razor but how did you acquire it in the first place? What did you want it for?

Ah yes, the blasted Razor of Dagon. An artifact of immense value and importance that I loathe to have lost. Thank you for that reminder. Though, I’m sure you’re referring to the story with the acrobats? Pure fiction, as anyone with a modicum of common sense might have suspected. What Magister worth his robes simply leaves an artifact like that unprotected and lying out in the open? But that was not your question.

How I attained the Razor is remarkable in its own right, simply due to how unremarkable it really was. If you know the history of Mehrunes’ Razor, then I’m sure you’ve noticed a pattern over time. The thing seems to have a mind of its own, as many Daedra-forged artifacts do. But the Razor in particular does not stay in the hands of one owner for long. I believe this is due to the nature of its master.

I had come into a disagreement with a pesky young upstart in the House, (not that damnable Gothren, but another equally impotent bastard skulking around Molag Amur and amassing too much power for my liking), and in order to secure my position as Magister, he had to be dealt with. I recruited a modest contingent of battlemages to storm his settlement only to find it razed to the ground upon arrival. The mystery behind the ordeal was never solved, but in sifting through the charred remains of his tower, I found a peculiar shortsword, untouched by the destruction. I immediately had my suspicions as to the sword's origin, later proved correct.

It wasn’t that I wanted the Razor, for I do not believe that is how one comes to possess it. Moreso, the blade came to me. The spheres of Mehrunes Dagon are of no great interest to me personally. War, destruction, revolution… However, ambition I could understand and sought to unlock this particular aspect of the weapon's potential. I do not trifle with Daedric artifacts lightly. I held onto the Razor for a great many years, experimenting and testing its limitation, attempting to discover how to use it without allowing it to use me in return. Of course, as I have since learned, it is nigh an impossible task, and I was foolish enough at the time to think myself the exception to the Razor's usual plots. Though I can’t help but feel as though I was incredibly close to a breakthrough…

#neloth answers #ask neloth #neloth #morrowind #skyrim #mehrunes dagon #mehrunes razor

[tarotofzhivasmoon]

Pick a picture reading

What is your person’s shadow side?

Pause and take a big breath in, then choose the pile you feel the most drawn to🦋

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Pile 1

Your person’s shadow self seems to be characterized by a pattern of simply refusing to do their part, they’re not inherently expressing this on a really predominant basis, but it’s something that they have been struggling with and it might show within their relationships as well. It might be extremely easy for them to diffuse blame or responsibilities in a relationship and just pass them onto somebody else, but they’re not doing this in a conscious or active way, it seems like they don’t really realize that they are doing this to their loved ones because there hasn’t been a whole lot of introspection as their focus is completely elsewhere most of the time; they might be keeping their nose to the grindstone, probably putting a lot of energy into their work to a point in which they aren’t really there, the world seems lonely, quiet because they pop in and out of it without staying for too long. They love success, they love achieving and working towards a common goal but the downfall to that is that they can’t simply just sit still and be there in silence, without doing anything, without needing to occupy themselves with anything else because that moment of quiet and peace is simply enough. It seems to be very uncomfortable for them to sit still, and while they do love themselves a whole lot and they see the interconnection of everything, they want to experience that connection themselves, they seem to run away from it in a way; this person has been more comfortable with that kind of connection in the past, but as time went on and on, they changed into someone who’s really prefers to be out of it, to take part in it only when they choose to take part in it and not be in consistent connection with someone or something. They seek and focus on the connection with themselves, but when it comes to others they might tend to be a little bit superficial, for some of you this person may not be able to think beyond sex, they might say and promise a lot of things but then not deliver or follow through because there’s something else that catches their attention which in the end means that they are easily distracted by other things around them.

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Pile 2

Your person’s shadow self is really all about instability within themselves, either emotional or mental, they just have a really hard time balancing out their emotions when they go through difficult situation or they may even create or imagine a whole lot of negative scenarios that are going to create even more instability within themselves. They are someone who really seems to want love, they may be obsessively searching for it too in a sense that they might’ve been starved from love throughout their life, they haven’t really been through happy events or had experienced happiness within their connections with other people, romantic or platonic, and it seems as though this desire for love, this obsession with getting it maybe in attempts to balance out their own energies and calm themselves down, is just motivating a lot of their destructive behaviors. For example, you could see them as being someone who’s open, giving, caring, they show up for you and others but most of the times they do it to prove their worth to others, to show that they are lovable or even they might do this in attempt to become more likable, because they might’ve learned that if they show any type of negative emotion or don’t please others, they might not be welcomed or liked by others, or even they devalue themselves so much in the name of love, always chasing, always doing something or even the opposite of it, they might run away from it, pushing it away whenever they get love because they don’t know when they’re going to become a failure or they don’t really know if they’re going to be accepted for who they are, if they’re going to be enough and so it’s all about their mentality and who they are in relation to love. They truly want it but they always seem to engage in behaviors and thought patterns that might be disrupting the unity of your relationship because they don’t have this sense of unity within themselves, their self worth doesn’t seem to be the best that’s out there and so that truly allows for their imagination to go extremely wild with the endless possibilities that could happen in this relationship and they are usually negative by nature because they feel as though they need to protect themselves from that scenario, in case it will happen, they want to be prepared.

The full, in depth reading is available to read on Patreon. Thank you so much for your support💗

Heart and reblog this post if it resonated with you🦋

Thank you all so much for reading and I hope this offered you the guidance you needed! Much love xx

#daily tarot #love tarot reading #tarot reading #love tarot free #tarot cards #tarot deck #tarotblr #tarotcommunity #tarot #tarot reader #pick a pile #pick a reading #pick a picture #pick a photo #pick a card #pick a deck #pick an image #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo sun #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #love readings

[balefulbasal]

Why I Believe Miguel O’Hara (Spiderman 2099) Is an Autistic Coded Character

NOTE: I’m broke, so I have not actually seen the movie. I read spoiler articles, watched the limited clips available on the internet, and engaged in discourse online from casual fans all the way up to storyboard writers for Miguel O’Hara. Therefore, I understand that my perception of this has the potential to be incomplete and limited.

DISCLAIMER: IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT AUTISM, DNI!

TW: Autism, Neurodivergent, Neurotypical, term “Othered” used once, Depression, Mention of Psychiatric Conditions, Pattern Recognition, Misperceptions, Sensory Processing Disorder, Hyper Focuses, Special Interest(s).

QUICK NOTE: ND is an abbreviation for Neurodivergent. NT is an abbreviation for Neurotypical.

CW: I describe autism from my viewpoint because I am autistic. I DO NOT speak for all autistic people. While many of us autistic people have had nearly identical experiences, I choose to relate to Miguel from my own experience. I directly acknowledge specific aspects of my autism in this post in order to include those of us who do the same thing. We are all individuals, but that sense of community and understanding is very important to me, so I want to share that feeling. This was horrific for me to compile, but horrific in a way that has greatly helped me to face aspects of my own autism, despite how scary it felt writing this.

LET US COMMENCE!

Miguel O’Hara does not have Spidey sense: a “normal” aspect of all Spider persons. Miguel is a Spider person but is lacking a HUGE qualifier. Spider persons with Spidey sense can be likened to Neurotypical people, who are the majority of humans. Autistic (a type of Neurodivergence) people are known to “miss” many seemingly every day or normal things that Neurotypicals don’t have to think about. But NTs and NDs are both humans. But just like Miguel, NDs are a small minority of humans. Because of all the things we “miss” or “don’t sense”, we are “othered”.

MANY Autistic people are incorrectly diagnosed with psychiatric conditions, such as: OCD, ODD, and Generalized Depression. The deep sadness and desire for control in order to maintain inner peace is OFTEN confused with said psychiatric conditions. Miguel created the Spider Society to maintain control of what it is that he understands about how things work, so that he can rationalize the mistake he made that messed up the Spiderverse, while helping other people to not make the same mistake and mess things up even more. Miguel is operating within a trait common to autistic people called Pattern Recognition. I’ll explain it this way: If something has happened the same way MANY times over, and this thing began and ended the same way, no matter who the thing involved, then once I see Step 1 of the issue occur, I can warn/outline to people EXACTLY how all steps will carry out if they don’t do EXACTLY as I say to protect themselves. Miguel’s intense desire to HELP has been MISPERCEIVED as: aggression, control freak, irritability, and crazed obsession. No one is seeing things the way he is (NT and ND perception disconnect), but he still wants to help them at the expense of being PERCEIVED negatively.

In ATSV, we witness what happens when an autistic person (Miguel O’Hara) is trying to maintain control over a situation THEY KNOW will go south if they don’t DO SOMETHING TO STOP IT. The first step in a long list of detrimental events was Miles being an anomaly Miguel couldn’t prevent, and every step afterward is escalating towards the last pieces of the destruction that Miguel already anticipated and he is seeing that its beyond him now. NO ONE LISTENED BECAUSE NO ONE COULD SEE THE SITUATION THE WAY HE DID. When an autistic person loses their tight grip on the control they have consciously and intentionally curated for YEARS, they burn out. And while that is a figurative death for us autistic people, most NTs take this as an “overreaction as a result of overthinking”.

Miguel has sensory processing disorder (another trait common with autism): His suit is digital/holographic. Many of us with sensory processing disorder hate the way MOST clothes FEEL on us and we must choose between a long list of “evils” in order to figure out what we will be comfortable wearing. If I could have digital/holographic clothes, that would help me so much. He is sensitive to light. Bright lights overstimulate most people with sensory processing disorder. We love being in the dark, wrapped in a fabric comfortable to us, or not wearing anything at all!

Most autistic people have hyper focuses where we curate our special interests, and we LOVE to talk about them. It is usually seen as “overbearing”, “too much”, “CHILDISH”, “TAKES TOO LONG TO EXPLAIN”. Miguel can go into the most scientific and thorough explanation of something that he’ll express directly and with the right amount of nuance for the given topic but is cut short because he “doesn’t look” like he “should” be saying, acting like, doing, and behaving in the way that he is. I’m a societally attractive Black woman who is an introvert with an extrovert’s personality. Being autistic, a few of my many special interests are: Spiders (Jumping Spiders to be exact. Miguel O’Hara is my favorite jumping spider of all) small containers, all aspects of human behavior (even though NTs still baffle me), and sex. I can overabundantly relate to Miguel in that he and I are considered good looking, but no one seems to “get” why we are “acting this way”.

Miguel created Lyla. She is a fun, bubbly, silly, little character. Seemingly opposite from him. Raise your hand if when you were a little autistic kid, you had that one imaginary friend who you called to mind any time you were overstimulated and needed to cope, survive, force yourself to think, etc. and they were the version of yourself you wish you were emotionally safe enough to be. I feel that Lyla is who Miguel is on the inside, but if he showed that, he’d be taken advantage of. (Masking our true selves for self-preservation reasons, anyone?) Lego Spiderman is technically a toy. Most autistic children have THAT ONE TOY (or any object!) we DO NOT let go of, even into adulthood. It’s a comforting, safe, and easy to hold object that we use to calm ourselves down. I had a small stuffed puppy that I protected with my life. No one could pick it up or even look at it without my consent. Her name was Emmy. (The Phantom of the Opera introduced me to Emmy Rossum, and I thought she was so cool.) Miguel has fused his inner self representation of an AI assistant (Lyla), and his emotional support/comfort object (Lego Spiderman) into this small mix of what he feels he has left, because he lost anything else that would have brought him comfort.

This list could go on. But I’ll stop here. All these aspects of Miguel feel so specifically Neurodivergent/Autistic. I don’t know if that was intentional, but if it was, I would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to the ATSV writers for this. And I am thanking all of you who took time out of you day to read this.

Thank you so much!

#miguel o'hara #spiderman 2099 #astv #across the spider verse #autistic spectrum #autism #autistic #critical analysis #autistic coded character #neurodivergent

[hikennosabo]

trimax vol 14 random thoughts (ch 5-8)

okay enough stalling... let's get this done... HOO BOY

chapter 5:

i love how vash is drawn in these panels... and vash waking up from hearing meryl's words... WAAHHHHH...

GET UP COWARD (<- lyric from my chemical romance's 2022 single 'the foundations of decay' which i may or may not be considering for a vash playlist)

oh, i LOVE this image of knives covering his face...

hmhmhm... the way knives addresses the other plants is... gentle, almost?

"sorrow and grief," huh... over the humans trying to communicate with them? those are the kinds of emotions this scenario is bringing out? there is something there but... i don't quite know what it is...

uwahhh... i do love this image...

"we were united in hatred" -> "i feel a murmur of fear"... hmmm. sounds like knives himself, who buried his fear underneath hatred... am i connecting any dots???

but fear in communicating with humans... fear because communication is scary in general? fear because of the abuse humans have put plants through? fear of uncertainty of what this communication will result in?

the tiniest merylmilly u can imagine...

they ask if it's safe, but it's not like vash cares if it's safe, he's been prepared to die for several volumes now, so... he's probably thinking "if i die i die," lol. (<- in pain)

this is a cute expression...

"don't touch me," he says...

knives trying to incorporate himself with the fused plants - now it's HIS turn to go "if i die i die" i guess LJSDKLFDS... both him and vash risking it all for their ideals. they really are brothers...

vash's "grant me that ticket"... it doesn't directly address god, but it feels like a prayer nonetheless.

chapter 6:

wah... meryl's strength gives vash strength... wahhh... is this the first time they've... well, "talked about it" isn't the right phrase, but is this the first time vash understands what meryl was going through that time when she flinched away from him?

"what matters is that you communicate. that you understand the person next to you is breathing and existing." ugh, fuck, i can feel myself getting weepy again.

the people getting good AND bad memories from the plants.. good! good! they said a few volumes ago that most(?) of the population has gathered in this city, so this really is everyone?! individual normal people couldn't do much about plant abuse, but now that EVERYONE understands, things can change! they can acknowledge what's happened, and they can change, and move forward!!

and vash being the bridge, the point of commonality between humans and plants... uaaghgh it's so interesting because for a long time vash's reputation among the humans was one of destruction. but in this moment everyone understands who he really is and what he wants. ueueeueueue....

also. this pattern of receiving traumatic memories via feathers, and to come out the other side not with fear and hatred but with increased compassion and understanding... sounds like what happened between vash and meryl, doesn't it?

"i've never made a promise like this before, but today i'd like to try" UAAGHGHHG.G U AHGHGHGHG.

haha. hey. why does it look like he's been crying. i'm going to throw up.

i don't know if the rest of this post will be comprehensible.

chapter 7:

what do i even say here.

hey remember the chapter title "king of loneliness." i'm gonna go eat rocks now.

even now, he's stubbornly clinging to his ideals, thinking he's in too deep, that he's gone too far to turn back...

oh, this is getting to me, the way it's worded. "caught up in something too big" and the panel of them as kids. they were just kids when this all started. this was too big for them. knives was a kid, a traumatized, scared kid who made a very bad, very destructive decision, and he has lived his life up until this point digging his heels in, growing more and more twisted, more controlling and violent, trying to justify his own actions to himself because how do you carry something like that.

"kill me, vash, there's nowhere else for me to go." literally two chapters ago vash said "where am i going? what's there left to see?" i'm fucking eating rocks.

"even though we were apart for so long, we were still brothers. but i was the one who broke away..." knives looks so pained when he thinks this. now, after all this, he's finally feeling regret, or letting himself feel regret. in the last possible moment.

...or so he thinks. vash has a clear shot, the opportunity to kill knives, and knives wants vash to kill him, he expects it - but vash protects him instead. with his last bullet. despite knives's blade going through his torso. despite everything. despite EVERYTHING!!!!! vash has EVERY REASON to hate knives, to KILL knives, and he STILL chooses not to!!!! i'm not okay i'm crying again

in 98, rem tells vash "take care of knives"... this is pretty much the same thing... i don't want to say this is necessarily another thing nightow took from 98 because of course this is what she said, what else would she have said at that time?

the beginning of the chapter had vash struggling to remember what rem said, but the preceding pages imply it's knives remembering her words... or maybe they both are...

this is fucking getting to me, fuck, i'm crying again!!! fuck!!!!

also, oh, chronica IS still alive... honestly i was (and still am) so caught up in the twins that that information just immediately left my brain the first time around LMAO...

i am so. fucking. unwell. about knives's expressions in this scene. he's feeling so many things at once. i just... the fact that vash protects knives and picks him up to haul him away... he ISN'T leaving knives on his own, even in the end, even after everything that's happened... and knives is just. what IS he feeling? shock, disbelief, regret... love, can i say love?? love for his brother?? the love between them that never went away, despite everything?? i am gonna fucking throw up

i don't know where to put this in the post because it occurred to me while i was proofreading, but knives stabbed vash, felt shock and regret, and then acted to save him... which sounds awfully similar to what happened between rem and vash, huh?

this, with knives's hair turning black... new hair, new outlook, right?

will you drive me back, can you take me home... (<- lyrics from gerard way's 'brother' from his 2014 solo album 'hesitant alien')

oh, the fact that they sprouted wings like this in the stampede s1 finale is gonna make it hit SOOOO MUCH HARDER once THIS scene gets adapted. this is such a beautiful spread, a beautiful moment... i'm gonna cry again...

LIVIO!!!! TO THE RESCUE!!!! also... that's not a double fang, whose gun is that?

WOLFWOOD!!!!! WWWAHHHHGHGHGHH!!!!! the "turn around and he's gone" scene is SUCH a cliche but FUCK!!!!!! IT'S GETTING TO ME!!!!!!

chapter 8:

i feel so normal i feel so normal (affirmations) (lying)

i can't. i can't type. i'm crying too much. this is love. it's just love.

his last act, knowing that it will kill him, is an act of love. love for his brother. so vash can eat. so the doctor and his kid can eat. and as time goes on it'll grow bigger and be able to feed more people. food as a love language. i'm crying and sobbing.

knives understands he has no place in this world, especially after everything he's done, and the world needs vash more than him... that vash can't live in the world as long as they're together... he doesn't even tell vash himself that he intended to disappear... it's his choice, he walks his path with pride... but i'd like to believe they were able to spend some time together before this. just being brothers. TALKING. eating together. sleeping next to each other. hugging?? apologizing?? knives finally being a good brother after so long and taking care of vash?? making up for lost time. i'd like to imagine it. let me imagine it.

i've been thinking this for a while but i actually do think that vash would forgive knives if knives expressed regret and asked for forgiveness. because vash is jesus and all, and that's how sin and forgiveness work in christianity, if you believe and repent you will be forgiven, etc... i don't know if vash would forgive knives right away - he is very, very human after all - but i definitely think he could. and maybe he did. maybe they had that talk.

phew. okay, i'm finished crying now, and BOY was it a big cry. not any easier the second time around. anyway.

does he really need a wig? if he doesn't spike up his hair, that would be effective by itself, since it's one of his identifiers according to the earth forces...

DOES THIS CONFIRM THAT VASH CAN'T GROW A BEARD WITHOUT EFFORT? like since his plant powers are completely drained he can no longer grow a beard???

AHHHH... VASH'S BIG SMILE!!!!! and everyone's wearing their old clothes, and with a bunch of guys comically chasing vash around, yeah, this is really all for callback's sake... we've come so far, and full circle.

meryl's lecture to him is so typically meryl LOL... he DID NOT keep his promise LMAO

the fucking jojo sound effects are cracking me up HDSFKSFJDFS

also everyone who complained about stampede """changing""" meryl into a reporter owes me $100 right fucking now. that was a complaint i saw SO MUCH. i thought it was a bit strange myself, but i figured orange had a reason, and now i know. those complainers know NOTHING!!! NOTHING!!!!!!

meryl frantically reading from her script and milly's big smile... cute... also WHAT DO YOU MEAN WARDROBE MALFUNCTIONS LMAO?? are they planning on stripping him?? vash the stampede nip slip???

AAHHHHH LIVIO GREW HIS HAIR OUT AGAIN!!!!! and he's at wolfwood's grave... oh fuck i said i was done crying GODDAMMIT!!!!

okay. okay i'm done for real now. man. man. what do i say. what can i say.

"the same song of humanity still sang." and what a beautiful song it is.

i don't really know how to conclude this post... just. wow. what a journey this was. i don't think i've ever cried this much over a manga, lol... i... had a really good time!

#girl with plant twins icon gets emotional about the plant twins more at 11 #trigunbookclub #trigun talk #june speaks #how many onomatopoeias for crying can i insert into a post before it becomes incomprehensible #girl who isn't sure how siblings act due to being an only child: i want them to act like siblings!

[albeckett]

i need to go do my spanish flashcards so i'll get off my soapbox shortly, but in the last few years i've grown to really dislike the vast reach everyone has on social media and how a massive audience can distort things... let me explain. you are probably following me, of course, and i may even be following you back. i only have one voice, and i use it to discuss a number of silly things. you are probably personally interested in those things and wish to hear more about them, hence why you are here. cool!

but when i combine my voice with others the message is amplified, and perhaps you feel more pressure to conform. like... if you wanted to use your own voice and contribute to visible, public discussion (making a post in a popular tag, let's say) you may feel as if you have to say things a certain way, or stick to popular topics, so as to align with the discussions that have already been had. no one wants to stick out, right? i dunno, i feel like i see this all the time with memes or common terms of phrase that people repeat, or the same way we discuss characters/ships/motivations/etc. and of course you can draw deeper, darker conclusions from all this other than "people like to use prev tags"... it obviously applies to political or social messages. (btw i am not pointing this out with any sensitive message or topic in mind. i'm not about to go off about conspiracies or groupthink or how They are silencing me, i promise. i think it's all just human nature compounded with the destructive tendencies of social media, which i'll get to below.)

anyway, i really struggle with explaining it well, but this is why i don't want new followers and i turn off reblogs once a post starts getting big. i think past a certain point, when an online following gets too large, it gets very easy (too easy) to disseminate ideas and messages. and it gets out of control so fast when everyone has something to say, everyone has this reach. social media systems rely on constant growth and engagement -- it is profitable to garner likes, reblogs, views, all that. this is not new info to anyone, and i'm sure you can draw a parallel here with capitalism in general. but bro i do not WANT to contribute to any pattern of unchecked growth, i actively detest it. why should i constantly chase new followers or more notes? i get no real satisfaction from it. i get true satisfaction from directly communicating with people and sharing genuine ideas, but i feel like some elements of social media are so transactional and gamified (this is built-in, of course) that like... i dunno. i don't wanna buy into it. i'm good with where i'm at. i welcome genuine connection but it comes at such a cost, i guess?

i'm sure i sound like a weird asshole at this point and i'm about to make it worse but truthfully i fucking hate when people follow me just to interact with more fandom stuff. it's always about the consumption, about reblogging more and more. what does that DO? what are you signifying here? what are your own thoughts on the material? like, yeah, my quantum leap tag is 68 pages, but i like to think i make my own thoughts heard, and i enjoy the creative exercise of making gifs. i acknowledge that this is a contradiction in my own argument but maybe i want people to feel free to say whatever on their own terms? it's like once a community gets big enough we all become afraid to say something truly original. i think we should be weird but not in pithy, easily rebloggable ways that get 50k notes. uhhhh i don't really have a good way to end this but i hope it makes sense and thanks for reading

[creator-of-calm-queer-chaos]

Are Humans Inherently Bad or Good? A short essay

Homo sapien sapiens have existed for, as far as we know, roughly 160,000 years. Humans have survived through civilization collapses and renewals of life, through decade after decade of fighting and battles, through existence and extinction of other species. Throughout those years, throughout that continued existence of a single species, humans have helped each other survive, and have killed each other. Humans have been the ‘perfect’ helper, and the most ‘evil’ creature alive. We have birthed billions of others, and roughly that same number of people have died (excluding the ones that are still alive). As seen in religion, writing, painting, survival tactics, medicine, and philosophy, a common question has been: are humans inherently bad or automatically good? 

Humans have become one of the most deadly species on Earth (the only contender is the mosquito). Humans have driven many species to extinction, more than any other species. They are also the second most deadly predator – to their own species. They have completely changed the course of Earth’s natural warming and cooling, have nearly destroyed entire layers of the atmosphere, and have changed the entire land of the Earth. They are bringing about their own destruction, as they have been for centuries, ever since they stopped living with the Earth. 

Humans have refused to help their people in need, and discriminate on their own species depending on traits outside of their control. They have divided their entire population into two halves, determining that each has a purpose that the other cannot fulfill - even though they would be more productive if both ‘halves’ worked together for most things. Humans often follow a leader blindly for their own tiny gain, even at the sacrifice of others. They are willing to kill huge portions of their population because that group is different. Many of them take pleasure in hurting others. Humans have developed to manipulate their surroundings (other humans included) for their gain, even if it means irreparable damage to their future. Humans are evil.

All of this information being said, there are some very good things about humans. They do not follow survival of the fittest all the time, and will care for their disabled even at their own cost. They sometimes adopt other species into their own family to ‘give them love,’ and enjoy taking care of the other species. Some of them devote their entire life to helping others, even if the work itself is tiring or boring. One human may respond to another human’s brain chemicals being too high by pretending that their own chemicals are off, and imagining what they would want, and then doing that thing for their friend. They let their young stay with the adults for much longer than necessary. The young, especially in the first decade of their life, are completely dependent on adults. They sometimes prize education above everything else, and many elders force their young to spend most of their waking hours learning - even when the young clearly do not want to. They spend time trying to understand their world, even when they are completely baffled. Humans are good. 

There are also some things about humans that are neither good nor bad, simply strange. Their infants have developed to look ‘cute,’ and instead of developing to look ‘cute’ for longer, they have become much louder after they stop appearing ‘cute.’ They seem to have great fondness for ordinary objects that are small. Different humans have vastly different interests - some are fascinated with exploring space, others spend their life studying the ground. Humans, like birds, decorate their homes and bodies with things they find beautiful. Unlike birds, they are willing to hurt themselves for it, such as when they put holes in their body to put metal or plastic things in the holes, or when they inject ink under their skin to create patterns. Humans also get attached to objects that could be replaced or are useless; many of them intentionally give up things with worth for broken or useless objects because they feel bad for them, despite the object having no consciousness at all. Humans are strange. 

A human infant will be greatly impacted by its first few years in existence, even if it will not later remember them. If the infant’s surroundings are harsh to it, either mentally or physically, the infant is more likely to have a negative impact on its surroundings later in life. If the infant’s surroundings are kind and healthy, the infant is more likely to have a positive impact and a healthy wellbeing later in life as well as its childhood. In addition to being extremely impacted by their juvenile years, humans are extremely flexible. With enough convincing, propaganda, facts, threats, or reason, humans can completely change their viewpoint or beliefs on something. They are also willing to ignore what they have been taught and/or believe to make someone happy, or to accomplish something else later in life. Humans change. 

A human in infancy is very different from a human in adulthood. Even the same human can go through dramatic changes. Humans are not inherently good or bad, humans are inherently moldable. They will develop according to their surroundings, and their impact on the world and their surroundings later in life will often be directly connected to their infancy and adolescence. Humans are not to be trusted to act in any one way. They will surprise you at every turn - some of them will be raised in the most horrible environments known and will decide to make the world a better place; others will grow up in perfect comfort and happiness, and strive for more, even at the great cost of others. Humans have no automatic sense of good or evil, and because of that, they are a threat to their entire world. Humans are dangerous. 

#humans are weird #humans are evil #humans are good #human behaviour #essay #short essay #writing #not whump #im very proud of this actually #humans #homo sapien sapiens #homo sapiens

[limeade-l3sbian]

Sometimes I browse TV Tropes for new media to look into. In my journeys, I have noticed an "interesting" pattern, that surely none of us could have predicted (/s). Whenever I find media that specifically depicts TIMs as meaningfully being women, without question or doubt (as in, things that "only affect females" will affect them, and things that "only affect males" won't), the media in question is also undeniably fetishistic, specifically in a deeply misogynistic way, and often pedophilic.

In each of these pieces of media (none of which are considered porn), I have found at least five (but often more) of the following concepts having a fairly consistent presence: BDSM, women dressed as young and effeminate dominatrixes (regardless of their character), women and girls being made to worn (often exclusively) fetishized outfits, mind control, women's attractiveness to men being framed as a deliberate "trap" or lie, humiliation (always targeting the women and girls more than the males), depictions of incest, fetishization of incest, fetishization of little girls (often via manners of dress, ways of speaking, mannerisms, or interests associated with them) depictions of female suffering being given much more attention and (often intimate) detail than depictions of male suffering, female characters being made to suffer far more than male characters (in general), rape as a major plot point, pregnancy through rape as a major plot point, author's obvious urination kink, author's obvious scat kink, depicting prostitutes as "empowered over" and "in control of" their Johns (even if their Johns are men in positions of power, such as president of the country) while still having sex with them and enacting male fantasies, magic that stops women from aging, magic that stops girls (children below the age of 18) from aging, fetishization of lesbians, exoticism fetishes (racism and xenophobia), women (and even girls) being depicted as either Madonnas (typically either mother figures or female characters who can be seen as some gross combination of a daughter and a wife) or wh*res (typically depicted as evil), instances of male violence being justified or excused by the narrative, female on female violence being depicted as more prevalent or severe than male on female violence, and females regularly enacting (often outright sexual) sadism on other females in day to day life.

Additionally, I have noticed regular themes of mind/body dualism, individual exceptionalism / "One Great Man" / "chosen one" narratives, thematically xenophobic narratives (the "evil" force is some undefinable "outsider," or maybe multiple different kinds of "outsiders," none of which are framed as comprehensible or worth anything other than total destruction; "white savior" narratives are also common, although, this occurs in Japanese narratives with Japanese protagonists that are equally framed as more moral and sensible than "outsiders," as well), and tokenization of minorities.

I understand that this will likely be seen as my own derangement, by people who still believe in trans ideology. They will believe I'm cherry picking, or maybe that I'm actively seeking out degenerate media for my own purposes, and projecting onto a group I "unreasonably dislike." It's worth remembering that I found this information through TV Tropes' "Random Media" button, and I began noticing this trend well before I "peaked," as it's called (which is to say, when I still believed in trans ideology, myself). If I'm wrong, it's because of confirmation bias, and nothing else. I obviously doubt that's the case. The correlation has been to constant, from my observation, and it carries over to the interests of the "trans women" I have met. They, themselves, have told me they have these "interests"--And the ones that haven't clearly correlate femininity with womanhood by overperforming femininity in misogynistic and often infantilizing ways. Maybe I am deranged, but I believe it's worth looking into, if nothing else.

1/2

#ask

[ilikekidsshows]

Love your Kwami Compatibility answers and the character analysis you do along the way, they're always a good read. Thanks!

If I may ask, how do you see Adrien with Butterfly miraculous, do you see it happening in canon? And I've been wondering about Nooroo's powers being used for good for a while now, who is likely to use the brooch?

I’ve previously mentioned that I’m not too keen on the “Adrien gets one of his parents’ Miraculouses instead of Gabriel/Emilie getting it” concept. I see Butterfly Adrien often interpreted as a pretty ironically sad character, where he finally gains power, but can only use it to empower others instead of himself. This doesn’t go against Adrien’s personality, he’s immensely helpful and consistently puts others above himself. In that way, him gaining magical powers that make him capable of helping others by giving them the strength to help themselves suits him. Even so, I also feel that such a power would cause Adrien to stagnate and get caught up in unhealthy behavioral patterns of self-destructive selflessness.

Here’s the rub, constantly giving of yourself without ever asking for anything in return, especially when you actively need help or support yourself, is unhealthy. It wears down at your mental well-being, being constantly stressed about other people in addition to yourself and never receiving any relief to it. This is why Adrien having a Kwami partner who encourages him to be selfish is a good thing; sometimes your mental health requires you to put your own needs first. Nooroo is just as selfless as Adrien is, he’s still trying to offer Gabriel sympathy in the show, and they’d just enforce each other constantly putting aside their own needs until they break down.

Still, there are things Nooroo could help Adrien with. Nooroo has empathy powers and is, therefore, highly attuned to the emotions of those around him. This is why he feels so sympathetic towards Gabriel, after all. Adrien has been abused in a way that discouraged him to have any interests of his own, so Adrien often doesn’t know what he feels, wants or needs. Nooroo could sense how Adrien was feeling and help him work through his emotional illiteracy and learn to self-reflect, which is an important skill for the sake of self-improvement.

Adrien has also been isolated his whole life, so he can’t always accurately analyze the emotional signals he gets from the people around him. This is why he interpreted Marinette’s mixed signals as her not even liking him as a friend in ‘The Puppeteer 2’. Nooroo, however, has magical empathy abilities and he grants these to his holder as well, so a partnership with Nooroo could help Adrien learn to associate signals with emotions more accurately.

Adrien definitely has things to learn from Nooroo and the Butterfly Miraculous, but the ‘Origins’ Adrien, who has never known empowerment, would ultimately suffer from a deteriorating emotional state, at least until something else could grant him the empowerment he needs. As such, I see Butterfly Adrien as inherently a sadder story than the canon.

However, I absolutely adore the concept of Adrien getting the Butterfly Miraculous after his father is dealt with. The idea of Adrien and Nooroo supporting each other while they try to get past the ways Gabriel manipulated and used them is really good hurt/comfort fuel. They have a great deal in common in how they’ve been treated by Gabriel, isolated and taken advantage of. And an Adrien who’s already been Cat Noir knows empowerment so, after being liberated from Gabriel, it would make sense for him to enjoy granting empowerment to others as well.

In fact, if you’ll pardon a shameless plug, may I point you towards my personal Canon Divergence AU fanfic where Adrien becomes the new Butterfly Hero in a post-Hawk Moth world: 'Lost and Found'? Specifically chapter four, which covers Adrien’s and Nooroo’s partnership?

#miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #ml meta #kwami compatibility

[m0tel6mxzzy]

femcels vs being a woman who is single

ngl i think there’s a difference between “femcels” and being a woman who just genuinely knows based on past experience it is in your best interest not to be in a relationship atm, but also feeling bad you’re single and referring to yourself as some sort of group label to cope. and there is nothing wrong w being single. esp if you have been in a toxic relationship before, and now start to value who you are as an individual w/o that person. there are benefits to being single bc you don’t want to rush into relationships, make the same mistakes as in a previous one, or just prefer spending time by yourself.

and when i say femcel i genuinely mean the unhealthy parts that link itself to incels despite the stark contrasts—the thing is femcels are usually attracted to ppl providing them toxic or unstable romantic relationships because they have this want to be wanted, and may or may not be aware that this is self destructive to do to yourself, and that you are much better off learning slowly how to cope with being single and that a relationship is not worth it if there’s an unhealthy power dynamic and/or your partner does not respect you.

i’m not talking abt the ones who use the term “femcel” unironically bc they’re making jokes abt being single (it’s often socially unacceptable for women to be) i mean the ones who share patterns of miscommunication in relationships and defining their entire life based on who they date/want to date and responding negatively to having to process their emotions, often blunting them, and seriously consider themselves “femcels.”

and it is so hard to leave a toxic relationship if you are convinced you cannot leave because “no one will love you like they do,” whether the person you’re dating plants it in your head or the relationship is so codependent that you genuinely feel that way. or if it is a crush where despite not at all communicating your feelings for this person, you are doing everything to dress and act in a way to get them to like you romantically when the only way to know is telling them how you feel and facing possible rejection. especially if they themselves know the relationship risks their professional integrity (ex: that crush is a professor/boss/co-worker.)

but you have to remember that you were an individual before this person and will be after. and the common theme here is often refusing to process your emotions and finding distractions from them consistently (a relationship can be one of the most all-consuming forms of that) when at some point you do need to acknowledge that feeling what you feel is not a bad thing, nor does it make you an immoral or shameful person. but you do have to try to take control of how you treat yourself. are you being kind to yourself? letting yourself feel what you’re feeling without demonizing yourself for it?

and incels tend to be sexist toward women and self defeatist, femcels are self defeatist and take their fear of rejection and vulnerability in relationships out on themselves. and that’s kinda why i don’t think femcel = female incel, incels have it in their heads women are inferior gold diggers when that’s mostly just a product of their own insecurity that attacks women instead of the system at large making it so they feel inferior for not being able to afford those flashy things they align with social status.

femcels are usually women with mental issues affecting their relationships who do not know how to cope w that, and a lot bc of society planting it in their heads that they need to be in a relationship to be worthy of value (ppl treat u differently when you’re dating someone.) it’s predominantly based on how society treats “deviant” women too—mental illness is seen as making you “glamorously” sad, which may make you feel better than being outright stigmatized for having it, however you’re still being treated like on object that does not exist over have very much agency outside of how others perceive you.

in a culture where you are called “weak” and “over sensitive” for expressing how you feel, it does make sense to try to shut your emotions out, especially at any sign of rejection or a relationship being something you need to leave. but you need to listen to how you are feeling and not shame yourself for that to begin the process of valuing yourself as an individual and know your thoughts and feelings do matter and you are worthy of boundaries and saying “no” to situations that drag you down mentally.

#relationships #and my knowledge is based both on tumblr and reddit #mazzy makes a giant ramble #mxzzy.txt

[abri-chan]

Vincent & Gilbert, a short analysis

A thing that interests me is the question of what makes siblings siblings, or how can you tell two characters are siblings? For example, an easy one, unrelated to PH, may be sharing the same eyes, maybe as one parent.

What I think these two brothers have in common, or the essence that gives out they are brothers, is what I will call "happiness in waiting."

It goes as follows:

First, they are both the last two(?) (one of the last) characters left alive to wait out the ending of the manga, as Baskervilles live longer than the avg human, and possibly everyone else is dead, at best by natural causes, by now.

It is the clearest for Gilbert, as he openly states he will wait for Alice and Oz to be reborn; and that's his way of being happy: waiting on a miracle. Because as Vincent says, whole souls are reborn/reincarnated in this world, there's no guarantee they will even meet (White Alice saying to Cheshire: let's meet again), let alone be born with same looks, or partial memories of a previous life. I also kinda saw Gilbert as an asexual character (not that it matters, bc you can have a sexuality, but prioritize something else in life), so it seems waiting on Alice and Oz, his friends, without a partner, was a happy life for him. In his waiting, Gilbert possibly either writes down the story somewhere to tell after, or collects items for the ones that survived the "action" ending of PH (as opposed to epilogue) for proof of Oz's and Alice's existence, and a way to bring back their memories.

Vincent on the other hand, is happy in waiting for his own disappearance by rewriting history in a way that he never existed. Yes, he is a sexual character, who sleeps around for power and allies, but what he fantasizes about the most is his own wish of disappearances. He is happy in planning how he will disappear, and waiting along for his plan to come together, to the point of obsession where he won't even hear Gilbert that he wants his brother alive and with him. In a way, Vincent is selfish and thinking for himself, as he won't consider Gilbert's happiness over his own self destructive tendencies and the happiness or high he gets for waiting on the final day to come.

However, when the waiting is done, and he can finally die, even tho he tells himself he is fine with it, Ada physically opens the door, and suddenly he realizes that it was all a lie, and what he wants the most is to be forgiven. Because there's no more waiting; it is time for action, and he's not ready to take action. In a way, despite Vincent being the "bad" apple of the two, he is noble in how the waiting is for others, and we see the same pattern as applied to Ada, who is now important to him. He waits for her to find someone to truly make her happy, content with confirming from afar, and then finally leaves. Possibly spending the rest of his time chasing for Alice's and Oz's reincarnation, as he waits out on Gilbert's miracle, and possibly being the one to find the miracle and bring the two kids to Gilbert.

***

Adding my own take on why one is happy waiting: waiting is a lot like sketching for an artist, which as an artist friend of mine told me, is infinite possibilities (or all the possibilities are open), and that's why artists often dislike the final product as opposed to the sketch.

The end (of waiting) confronts you with the task or duty of selecting a possibility, or even coerces you into it, and a person used to waiting, is not prepared to choose.

#anime manga rambles #pandora hearts

[the-single-element]

Good morning. Did you sleep well? If not, try to fit in a nap today. It's Sunday, after all.

...and not just any Sunday. We're officially halfway through Lent, which makes this one of the two pink (technically "rose") Sundays in the Church calendar, where the hope of joys to come manages to brighten the normally solemn and penitent purple of this season.

It is a bit strange, then, that on such a day as this, we begin our readings with such a dire excerpt from the TaNaKh. We've been talking about God's covenants with humanity through the years... but those covenants have always been on shaky ground. After all, humans are fallible. Humans don't always hold up their end of a deal. Our relationship with God, especially through his covenants, has been rocky, and we've been hearing about those rocks all Lent - Noah's flood, Abraham's cruel obedience, and now the Sinai covenant, a contract which we hear had been in default for generations before the consequences could be held back no longer.

Where is there any "joy" to be found in that story?

John's Good News today might give us a hint.

After cleansing the Temple, Jesus has his first interview with a top Jerusalem rabbi who's trying to understand the underlying logic of Jesus's sermons. In the middle of that (somewhat frustrating) conversation, Jesus evokes an image from Torah of another rough spot in God's relationship with the children of Abraham. The way the story goes, is that during the Hebrew conquest of Canaan, they had to make a long detour around Edom, and people's frustrations at God over the whole situation boiled over, into the old rhetoric of wishing they were back in Egypt. Apparently as a result of this, they fell victim to a plague of venomous snakes. When people repented, God told Moses to make a bronze statue of one of the snakes, and put it up on a pole; everyone who saw the bronze serpent was cured of their snakebites.

So if we're afraid of the consequences of a broken covenant - the dire consequences in these excerpts from the TaNaKh, or the equally dire worries of John - the common thread here is to show the possibility of changing that dire fate if we can get our relationship with God straightened back out. And those changed fates, that healing and mending, take an interesting pattern: God tends to use the very thing that inflicted the consequence as his instrument to heal it.

The first destruction of the Temple - that first exile at the hands of the King of Babylon - is ended by another king of Babylon, inspired by God to let the Israelites go home and rebuild what was destroyed.

The bronze serpent is almost a metaphor-made-literal on its own - something horrible (a poisonous serpent, and more than that, an animal idol like those of Egypt) turned into something beautiful, that destroys the danger it once represented.

And in his letter to Rome, Paul argued that this same pattern applies to the Messiah, as a sort of anti-Adam, undoing what went wrong in Eden.

Perhaps we should take this one step further. In this second half of Lent, we begin to see - and will see again, next week - that the new paradigm Jesus came to establish is a change in the script from the past breakups and reunions that litter God's relationship with humanity. If covenants can't work long-term, then something else is needed. If it's human nature that keeps reviving the curse - as John argues today - then, just like the bronze serpent, God's way of solving that problem is to destroy the curse using human nature as the instrument.

That's the life of Jesus, who chose, for our sake, to live a human life. That's the death of Jesus, now less than three weeks away, to which he alludes in this conversation. A death which will destroy the logic of this world that would normally doom imperfect creatures like us.

And that is reason to hope. Time may be short - time may be running out - but if we can get our relationship right with God, then God can fix this. God can "turn our morning to dancing, our tears to joy", and often does so more literally than we probably imagine. And it's in that hope for the Resurrection - the one that happened at Easter, and the resurrection of our own personal relationships with God - that can keep us going through this last stretch of Lent toward the Cross.

[filagrafxtplus]

How To Break Bad Relationship Pattern?

Here Are A Few Of The Most Common Bad Relationship Patterns:

 Choosing emotionally and physically unavailable people     in relationships.

Picking people who treat us poorly by being punishing,     critical, controlling or demeaning

Losing interest in our own personal interests and     activities and become enmeshed with the one person and their interests.

Remaining in or returning to unhealthy relationships.     make your next relationship better with the help of Filitra 10 mg.

Beginning sexual relationships or becoming emotionally     attached without really knowing someone. it might also affect your     erection issues, take help of Vardenafil Filitra 10.

Below Points, Will Help You Break The Destructive Pattern Of Relationship

 Why Date One When You Can Date Two?

Explore options. You can be in an open date scenario and date a couple of people at the same time. Of course, tell your partner about this.  Dating more than one person will help you know what kind of people you actually like or go along well. If you are not able to maintain your erection even while having intimacy with multiple partner, then it is better to consume Filitra 10.

 Start A Fresh 

Do not let, old hurt, emotional baggage, negative things hit you for this new relationship. Start a new life without any mention of the past person or the bond you had with them. In case there were some problems like impotence which made it very difficult for you to enjoy your intimate life then for this new start you can consume Filitra 10.

 Know What You Want

If you want your partner to last longer then ask him to consume Filitra 10. You can make a list of the kind of person you would like to date. Making a list of what you want it to be, and how you want to feel when involved with someone will help you find the right match for you. And when you expect, be ready to give the same kind of love back. Do not let any sexual disorder come in between. For treating issues such as Erectile Dysfunction (ED) consume Filitra 10.

#filitra 10 mg vardenafil

[sofiastefanisacademicblog]

The Rehearsal: Anxiety and Autism

In my previous post, I talked about The Rehearsal and how it relates to reality. Another aspect of the show that I am interested in is how it relates to anxiety and autism. As someone who has social anxiety, it really resonated with me and I found it really relatable. I think it resonated so much because the way that Nathan simulates situations and tries to prepare for them and predict outcomes is similar to thinking patterns that are common in people with anxiety (that being said people who don’t suffer clinically from anxiety can also fall into these patterns as everyone has things that might make them anxious sometimes)

Early on in the show, as well as in the trailer, Nathan is quoted saying: ‘‘I’ve been told that my personality can make people uncomfortable, but I’ve learned that if you plan or every variable, a happy outcome doesn’t have to be left to chance." (Fielder, 2022) This is a mindset people with anxiety can have, at least from my experience, and one that a lot of people on the autism spectrum are familiar with as well. Tamara May, states that ‘for many people with autism, The Rehearsal won’t be that different to everyday life, where rehearsing and practicing future scenarios is a way to cope with the anxiety of unpredictable social interactions and life events’. (May, 2022) Another common phenomenon is masking, where autistic people learn to hide their real feelings and reactions and act in ways that are socially acceptable, and the way they practice masking can be similar to what is seen in the show. (May, 2022)

In the first episode of the show, Nathan helps a guy named Kor practice for coming clean about a lie that he told a friend of his when they first met.  To do that he helps him rehearsing different scenarios with different outcomes so that he can be prepared. While helping Kor, Nathan has his own rehearsals where he practices talking to Kor with an actor. Kor ends up confronting his friend and coming clean, without there really being an issue, showing that he didn’t really have anything to worry about. 

At some point in the episode, Nathan deceived Kor in a way that could be quite upsetting if he found out, but wants to come clean about it. When it looks like he is about to come clean, it’s revealed he was just practicing with the actor playing Kor, who reacts in a very negative way. This scares Nathan and he decides to omit the information from Kor. 

This feels very similar to a pattern of thinking that a lot of people with anxiety experience, called rumination. Rumination according to the American Psychiatric Association is ‘repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences’, and it can create a vicious cycle that gets worse over time and is difficult to get out of. (2020)

This first episode serves as a microcosm for the rest of the show, and in following episodes we see how Nathan’s tendency to avoid the real world and dive deeper into the simulations he has created, gets amplified. 

After that episode Nathan has more minor rehearsals but the new focus is a participant called Angela who wants to simulate the experience of raising a kid. She is unable to find a partner, so Nathan volunteers, and as the show goes on he gets increasingly more obsessed with it and takes things to more and more extreme lengths. He gets so wrapped up and lost in the simulation, that in the end of the show he completely looses his sense of reality, deluding himself into believing that he is the kid’s father. 

This reflects the dangers of getting lost in in a rumination spiral and shows that even though planning for situations can be good and helpful when taken to extreme lengths it can be really damaging and self destructive. 

When someone is in an anxiety spiral, their thinking seems reasonable from their perspective, but, because of the nature of the show, with its absurd and ridiculous scenarios, it feels like it’s turning a mirror on the viewer and their patterns of thinking. 

This is also relevant to masking and autism, as May describes how masking can be very tiresome for autistic people as well as invalidating and can make them lose their sense of self. There is a growing movement where autistic people are encouraged to unmask more where they feel safe to do so and creating more spaces where that is possible (May, 2022) and the ending of the show seems to support that as well.

I don’t want to assume that this is what the creator intended, but the idea that this feels like a representation of anxiety seems very plausible. It feels to me, as someone who at least partially experiences the issue of anxiety like a very good way to represent it, as it never really makes Nathan the butt of the joke, as he said in the show, ‘no one is the joke, the situations are funny but interesting too’. (Fielder, 2022) It feels like a very empathetic cautionary tale that is very entertaining too, and I would love to see more things like it in the future.

Bibliography:

Apocalypto (22AD) The Rehearsal. HBO.

Rumination: A cycle of negative thinking (2020) Psychiatry.org - Rumination: A Cycle of Negative Thinking. Available at: https://www.psychiatry.org/News-room/APA-Blogs/Rumination-A-Cycle-of-Negative-Thinking (Accessed: January 10, 2023).

May, T. (2022) Nathan Fielder's new comedy the rehearsal will be familiar to anyone with autism, The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/nathan-fielders-new-comedy-the-rehearsal-will-be-familiar-to-anyone-with-autism-188071 (Accessed: January 10, 2023).

Rumination: A cycle of negative thinking (2020) Psychiatry.org - Rumination: A Cycle of Negative Thinking. Available at: https://www.psychiatry.org/News-room/APA-Blogs/Rumination-A-Cycle-of-Negative-Thinking (Accessed: January 10, 2023).

The Rehearsal | Official Trailer | HBO (2022) Youtube. HBO. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fjPFt8cpic.

#Youtube

[flickeringart]

Planets in the 8th House

Like all the watery houses, the 8th house is mysterious and potent, yet it’s difficult to fully get a grasp of. The area of life that this house represents are usually summarized by worn out key words; death, transformation, regeneration, rebirth, sex, shared finances, the occult, hidden complexes, power struggles, trauma, crisis and the list goes on… from these words one gathers that the 8th is not a light-hearted sphere of life – it signifies struggle and emotional intensity. Having planets in the 8th, strong Pluto or Scorpio influence usually revolves around the same themes – paranoia, the striving for control and a tendency to keep things private and buried in order to sustain power.

I’m not going to discuss the difference of having strong Scorpio-Pluto placements vs. having planets in the 8th house in this post, but since the sign, planet and house are linked and are symbolic of the same themes, there’s a lot of overlap that is to be expected.

A person with planet(s) in the 8th will not act out the planetary principles consciously. Usually, the energy is felt through their aura, quiet but evident, as if the planet makes its presence known without revealing itself. For example, someone with Venus in the 8th might not openly declare affection and love, except in the most intimate of settings, but it’s unquestionably there. Picture the goddess of love living within a person as a body of water. She is there, but she is slippery and unable to manifest through conscious expression in daily life. The reason for planets in the 8th house “hiding” usually has something to do with fear of losing control, of exposing something taboo and risky that could have dire consequences.  We see this phenomenon in movies all the time – a person isn’t conscious of the fact the he or she is in love with a person but it’s obvious to everyone else – this would be typical of Venus in the 8th. One doesn’t dare to express it because it would alter the way of things, it would violate the sense of self-control and expose one’s vulnerability. Pain accompanies planets in the 8th, however benefic, because they impose themselves on the person and puts everything on the line. It’s a little bit like opening Pandora’s box – one can never go back to how things were before one fell in love, yet one resists the power with which one is pulled into a relationship. Even Venus and Jupiter, the most “positive” planets are operating in a way that makes the person feel out of control. Sure, it’s probably more positive to be invaded by love and abundance than anything else, but it can still be shocking and fearful to a person that doesn’t want to acknowledge the autonomy of the planet and has put up rigid defenses against it, only to have them be shattered. In the case of Venus in the 8th, personal love and affection is very private and usually has some kind of trauma or complex tied up with it. Looking at astrotheme’s database of people with Venus in the 8th , Miley Cyrus pops up at the top of the page with this placement. In some of her more personal songs, lyrics hint to her being afraid of love and intimacy. Even in her famous song “Wrecking Ball” she sings about falling under love’s spell and slowly seeing a relationship turn to “ashes on the ground”. If this isn’t typical symbolism of transformation through love I don’t know what is.

With the Moon in the 8th house, the person doesn’t openly express emotion – the emotions erupt volcanically from time to time, and it’s very uncomfortable for the person because there’s a feeling of being exposed and threatened that accompanies this release. Because of the fear that is tied up with emotion, the person might show dislike and defensiveness when faced with other people’s emotional expressions and needs. Sigmund Freud had his Moon in the 8th, which is very telling. He was obviously interested in uncovering the complexes behind certain reactions, presumably because he didn’t feel himself to be in control of his own emotions and inner life. He was certainly motivated to transform and free himself and his clients of the tight grip of the unconscious patterns of the 8th house. He explored the underlying mechanisms of repression, formulated the Oedipus complex and postulated the existence of libido – sexual energy with which the mental processes are invested. The Moon’s placement in the 8th would point to deeply rooted emotional and possibly sexual ties with the mother. The Oedipus complex is after all a desire for sexual involvement with the opposite sex and the presence of repressed incestuous instincts. Freud noted that he had wanted to marry his mother as a child to rival with the father and understood that it must be a universal principle among all boys in all cultures. This has not been thoroughly empirically proven, but it’s certainly reveals something about Freud’s own psychology. In any case with Moon in the 8th, the emotional and instinctual nature is accompanied with a sense of it being taboo and shameful. The emotional nature is experienced to be powerful beyond personal control.

Mercury in the 8th is a another story. Mercury is the planet of communication, thinking and deductive reasoning. When looking up people with this placement, it seems to me that it is common among people who speak up about uncomfortable topics, that which would be considered “risky business” to talk about. Prince Harry has this placement and he has been very open recently about his mental health struggles. Emma Watson has this placement and she has been an advocate for feminism and equality – preaching and advocating strongly with emotional investment when giving the famous UN speech in 2014. Lana Del Rey has this placement and she writes lyrics based on her own personal experiences, not shying away from dark topics like death, heartbreak, destructive and passionate relationships. It seems as if Mercury in this house gives the person a propensity for talking and thinking about that which in uncomfortable, for revealing difficult power-imbalances and dynamics taking place within the psyche. There’s usually a feeling of being cautious of what one reveals, of sitting on information that holds emotional power and that involves other people. With any planet in this house there’s a strong impulse to be aware of other people, in case of Mercury it’s what other people know and don’t know, what they say and don’t say. Mercury in the 8th might be indicative of a person who is controlled by what other people say and feels at the mercy of other people’s opinions – positively and negatively. The narratives and stories of other people might merge with the person on a deep level and fuel one’s own opinions. One might be exposed to challenging, discriminative and harmful opinions, even indoctrinated in them. When speaking one’s mind, one might have to summon a lot of bravery because more than likely there’s a bit of a chokehold that is being felt and effort that is required to break free from deeply instilled thought patterns. This placement could be indicative of a person that likes to think and communicate about deep and taboo topics, reveal and keep secrets.

With Mars in the 8th, one simple interpretation would be “someone who is prone to experience physical violence in intimate relationships”. Either one is the victim of it or the perpetrator, perhaps even a bystander or a protector. The violence, albeit linked to physical action, might just manifest in the form of acting without another’s best interest in mind. There’s usually a sense of being at the mercy of other people’s actions with this placement, but also of having no conscious control over one’s own motivations for doing things, one’s own drive to make things happen. Princess Diana had this placement, conjunct Pluto-Uranus, and she was far from feeling in absolute control of her direction in life. With Pluto-Mars the drive is buried and tied up with the primal survival instinct and latent rage. Her relationship with Prince Charles was anything but smooth and she felt like a victim to greater forces (Pluto-Uranus) making her act in a way that was, most certainly, driven by emotional complexes and not out of conscious will. She also behaved in a way with her compulsive eating and independent streak that was not favorably looked upon. J.F. Kennedy also had this placement, he too had difficulties on the relationship front, mostly because he had a compulsive sexual drive and had a lot of extramarital affairs. This is typical of Mars in the 8th being tied up with emotional complexes – he couldn’t stick to his wife; he had to prove himself and his masculinity through conquering women (he has Jupiter conjunct his Mars and we all know how faithful Jupiter was in mythology). His sexual appetite caused moral problems among the Secret Service agents who were employed to smuggle women in and out of the White House. His behavior was altogether inappropriate but somehow he survived politically as it was kept in the shadows. Diana certainly had her own extramarital affairs as well, perhaps to revenge Charles for his strong tie with Camilla and subsequent declining interest in their marriage. Mars in the 8th is undoubtedly indicative of action taken out of the need to retain emotional integrity, sometimes with unfavorable consequences. Notably, both Diana and J.F. Kennedy died suddenly, Diana in a car accident and J.F. Kennedy through assassination by a bullet. The 8th house is the house of death, and Mars here usually indicates a violent and sudden strike of “fate”.

Last but not least, let’s take a look at the Sun in the 8th house. The same people who shows up when searching for Mercury, Mars and even Venus, also have the Sun in this house; J.F. Kennedy, Lana Del Rey, Emma Watson and Prince Harry, which is not surprising considering that the inner planets never stray too far from the Sun. The Sun represents the ego, the sense of self-knowledge and self-awareness. The Sun is representative of the conscious center of the personality. This suggests that the people with this placement are painfully aware of death and violation, of the destructive nature of reality. While the Moon in the 8th might indicate that emotional reactions or lack thereof stem from deep seated autonomous complexes rooted in survival, the Sun might indicate a sense of self and self-expression that stems from the difficulties and hardships one has gone through. This placement can be understood in the sentiment “who am I without my trauma?”. There’s the tendency to identify with the ordeals of one’s life and how one overcame them (or didn’t). This dynamic is evident in all the people listed at the top of this paragraph. Prince Harry being a very obvious one that people make fun of nowadays – he’s coming out as a survivor of past down ancestral trauma, attempting to work through and shine a light on his personal struggles growing up within the Royal Family, attempting to separate himself from the curses of unconscious programming. Lana Del Rey certainly enjoys identifying and expressing the darker side of herself, illuminating the theme of death and emotional hardship in her songs. Emma Watson also seems to identify with the hurt and injustice present in the world and is a spokesperson for collective movements (Sun in the 8th, Leo in the 11th). J.F. Kennedy has the same Sun –Leo house setup as Emma, channeling his experience of personal hardships into his career and public life. In a sense, people who want to appeal to the masses and make a change on a large scale must be personally invested enough to fuel the movement. In the case of the 8th house being involved with Kennedy and Watson, they might feel as if their sense of self is dictated by other people’s values or that they would have to fight to remain in control of their sense of self. As the Sun relates to the father, the father figure might’ve been quite controlling, demanding and dominant. If the Moon in the 8thsays something about a mother complex, the Sun in the 8thdefinitely says something about a father complex.

#planets in the 8th house #mars in the 8th house #venus in the 8th house #mercury in the 8th house #astrology signs #8th house in astrology #moon in the 8th house #sun in the 8th house #personal planets #house placements #houses in astrology

[mbti-notes]

INFJ. Processing past Fe failures. Want to get better at socializing / having deeper relationships/friendships. Muddling through Ti development - desiring to get better at self-awareness + communication. A lot in my brain and it'd be a lot to share the entirety of recent exchanges that have ended up in failed relationships, so I'll try asking this and hope it's enough to get critical thinking help from you, thank you much in advance. (1/2)

[con't: I notice a pattern of me trying to communicate and express myself to be understand by, or be emotionally met by Fi users, and them responding by saying things like "I don't know what you want from me", "I don't know how to help you," "I'm sorry you feel that way" or them even saying variations of "Maybe you're not used to my communication style" (ENTJ) if I express that I feel dismissed, uncomfortable, or disrespected.

This isn't ALL Fi users thank God & I'm in therapy now to address my downplaying of my emotional needs, being willing to work through anything even though the romantic relationships I'm attracting are woefully incompatible or unhealthy. But I want to get better at doing my part to increase the chance of relationships building. What am I doing/expecting/judging in my communication with Fi users so they respond that way or has me feeling being unseen/misunderstood? Is it the basic INFJ recs?]

You point to Fi specifically. Fi doesn't require outside validation, so perhaps what you're encountering is their lack of concept of outside validation, in the manner that you're seeking it with Fe.

All of those example statements sound like they could be taken sincerely. "I don't know what you want from me" could be an opportunity for you to better explain what you need/want. "I don't know how to help you" could be an opportunity for you to provide better instructions. "I'm sorry you feel that way" could be a helpless admission that the two of you don't see things the same way. "Maybe you're not used to my communication style" could be an indication that there is a need to investigate the big gap between what was perceived and what was actually intended.

Not everyone is going to see eye-to-eye with you, not everyone is going to agree with your version of events, not everyone is going to care about your needs and feelings enough to address them kindly and patiently. This should all be okay with you unless you were walking around expecting everyone out there to have the capacity to meet you emotionally or validate your emotions (unhealthy Fe)? That's simply not gonna happen, so it's an unreasonable expectation. That's why it's so important that YOU be the first to take care of yourself and own your emotions, set proper personal boundaries, and navigate interpersonal boundaries more gracefully.

If you feel someone has violated your boundary (i.e. you feel hurt by them), the answer isn't to violate theirs in return. You're trying to fix a problem in the relationship, so further damaging the relationship isn't going to help. Whether you are right to feel hurt is not the main issue. Feelings themselves are always true and tell you something true about you. However, what you DO about the feelings isn't always right. There are two main ways people deal with negative feelings: 1) bottle them up, which amounts to self-harm, or 2) express them, which opens up the possibility of doing harm to others, if they don't have the means to process your feelings. Neither way is ideal.

If your main approach is to expect people to change (when they can't or don't want to), expect them to give you more than they are capable of giving (due to not having the means or resources), expect them to understand something that they are not really capable of understanding (when they just don't think in the same way as you), etc, your expectations are easily perceived as "demands". You're essentially pressuring people to be what you want them to be, which amounts to dishonoring them and violating their boundary. This approach is usually met with submission or resistance. If they submit to you (because they care for you), they will be unhappy for having allowed you to violate their boundary, and the problem will recur because it was only swept under the rug. If they resist you, conflict ensues, and the relationship bond will be tested and possibly threatened, especially if the conflict recurs without resolution.

There is a way to honor your feelings while also honoring others' feelings. It requires you to have good emotional intelligence and be a good communicator. Good emotional intelligence means respecting your feelings and taking full responsibility for them. Instead of seeing yourself as the victim (i.e. "you made me feel this way"), you see yourself as an agent with the power to decide what is best (i.e. "I feel this way and this is what I should do about it"). Positioning yourself as a passive or helpless victim means that you cast blame and eventually demand reparations. Positioning yourself as an active and influential agent means that you survey the situation objectively and then try to act in the best interests of everyone involved. This is what healthy and confident Fe should look like.

For example, when you feel dismissed, maybe you bottle it up for awhile, until you can't take it anymore (because the problem remains unaddressed). Then you confront people and say, "I feel dismissed". This implies that the other person has done something bad to you. You are the victim, which puts them on the spot, feeling like the bad guy, and then they can't hear you, due to becoming too preoccupied with not wanting to be the bad guy. Communication is likely to stall there, unless they have the wherewithal (emotional intelligence) to keep their focus on you and your concerns.

Instead, you could say to yourself, "I feel dismissed". You take full responsibility for your feelings and validate them for yourself. When you are good at validating your own feelings and emotions (something you admit you really struggle with), you'll eventually find that you won't need to rely on others to do it for you.

What does it mean to feel dismissed? It means that you believe you're not being taken seriously, or something to that effect. Not very difficult to understand. What to do about it? The feeling of disharmony is a message to you that you have to do more to advocate for yourself and make space for yourself within the relationship/group (it is good Fe advice). There are many ways to advocate for yourself without stepping on others. If you choose the right way, in terms of honoring everyone involved, the feeling of being dismissed will dissipate naturally. If you choose the wrong way, in terms of honoring yourself but dishonoring others, you'll encounter the problem again, because you haven't addressed the underlying problem of you positioning yourself as the victim in every relationship conflict. Chronic victim mentality is often an indication that you depend too much on outside validation of your self-worth.

Unless you are stuck in a very toxic social environment, the majority of people are not malicious for no reason. Before accusing or blaming, are you absolutely certain that they INTENDED to dismiss you? If not, wouldn't it be wise to gather more info? For instance, you could ask something like, "Have you had the time to give my idea serious consideration?" No blaming, no battling, no victim-victimizer dynamic. Do you understand how communicating without blame, through genuine inquiry, avoids trapping the both of you in a vicious cycle of seeking emotional reparations? You give people the benefit of the doubt. You give people the chance to clarify or explain. You give yourself the chance to grasp the FULL picture so that you can make a more informed decision about what to do (based on their response to your question). But this presence of mind isn't possible when you can't accept your feelings/emotions and they run wild as a result.

One common misapplication of Ti is the tendency to jump to illogical conclusions or make up illogical stories about what is motivating people's negative behavior, all the while believing that you're being completely logical. It's a destructive way to deal with negative or disharmonious feelings. Once the false narrative infects your mind, you can't help but perceive the person as attacking you, even when they're not. This misuse of Ti is a major impediment to relationship building.

The problem with victim mentality is that you are hyperfocused on your perspective only, so you only have half the picture, which means making ill-informed decisions. If you are prone to Ti loop, you need to get to the bottom of why you're so quick to position yourself in the passive position of victim. A healthy relationship should be an equal partnership based on trust, which means that you should always try to 1) give people the benefit of the doubt, and 2) gather the facts of the situation before drawing a conclusion about what they intended or what kind of character they are.

If the fact of the matter is that the person really doesn't care about your feelings, then you know not to seek validation from them, and perhaps distance from them for your own good. Don't play around in toxic or abusive relationships. If the fact of the matter is that your perception of the situation doesn't match up with what they intended to say/do, then it's up to you to straighten out the situation in your mind before proceeding.

Trust your feelings, validate your feelings, but don't act blindly on them (i.e. without fully grasping what's happening with the other person). Figure out why exactly you're feeling what you're feeling, then take it up with the person in a way that addresses the root of the problem and in a way that doesn't immediately put them on the defensive. Conflict is sometimes unavoidable, but being more skilled at communicating your concerns will certainly reduce the amount of pain required to reach a resolution.

#infj #infj relationships #emotional intelligence #auxiliary fe #ti loop #communication #self worth #victim mentality #boundaries #relationships #conflict #ask

[maxwell-grant]

Red of Overly Sarcastic Productions once said :"If you can imagine your Batman comforting a shared child, then congratulations, you're righting Batman. If not, you're just writing the Punisher in a funny hat". This got me wondering: could the Shadow comfort a scared child?

Could he? You forget who was there to lift young Bruce to his feet at his first brush with death (sadly far from his last).

But it's an interesting question to pose still, because children were straight up not in the pulps, not in any I've read, and I can't recall any episodes of the radio show that feature them much (there's gotta be at least a few, because they had everything in that show). The most interaction I think The Shadow's ever had with children (from comics that I can discuss here, because Marshall Rogers' "Harold Goes to Washington" is way, way too much for me to go into right now, and the less I talk about some other DC comics, the better) is in the Street & Smith comics.

There's Jerry from the Devil Kyoti arc, a kid who was traumatized by an encounter with the villain who Sayre's looking after and who ends up having some kind of hidden power that allows him to see The Shadow and defeat the villain. There was a blonde Jerry who showed up later in the Monstradamus arc, but he isn't a kid so much as he's diet Jimmy Olsen or a replacement for Harry, but he had weird eyesight-based powers and a familiarity with The Shadow, so I assume it's the same character.

There was also Donald Jordan - Shadow Jr, and okay, I may have to talk more about this weird little failed experiment some other time, but the basic gist of it is that The Shadow had a friend in Tibet named Harry Jordan (and someday I'm also gonna write about the weird prevalence and significance of the name "Harry" in The Shadow's mythos in and out of universe) who was murdered, leaving his son orphaned and with nowhere to go. And, I'll admit that I have a real weakness for The Shadow calling people "son", which he does a lot in this story.

And as you can expect, it then turns out that the kid's also learned how to cloud minds and has basically the same powers The Shadow has in these comics, and they solve the mystery of his dad's murder together, and yeah, you can absolutely tell that they are setting up this kid to be The Shadow's Robin. Although, interestingly, they don't have The Shadow actually recruit the kid, instead it's Jordan who asks The Shadow if he can go with him and join his mission, and Cranston even states he's going to have to "earn" his way

"Must I stay here, sir? It will always remind me of dad - I'd like to devote my life to your fight against evil and evil doers!

Now, "Shadow Jr's" career was incredibly short-lived, it only lasted for about two other issues, and I have no idea what happened in his final appearence called "Snake Eyes" in Shadow Comics #77, I cannot find that issue anywhere and I really want to. But the one other solo story of his I've read was...well, I think it kinda illustrates why the idea of The Shadow having a Robin was doomed from the start.

...Yeah. Even The Shadow at his most sanitized and family friendly is still The Shadow, and there's no room for children in his network, obviously he shouldn't and wouldn't have children be in those positions or make decisions expected from grown-ups who have already had encounters with death and danger, why would anyone do that-

The only instance I can think of The Shadow interacting with a child in the pulps was during The Prince of Evil, when he has to rescue a young boy from Stark's thugs.

Cranston, dazed, tried to stagger to his feet. Before he could do so, the thug had picked up the limp figure of the boy and was darting out into the street. There was a scream of horror from pedestrians.

A heavy truck was racing at top speed along the avenue. Straight into the path of the truck, the thug threw the senseless boy!

The driver of the truck jammed on the brakes. But it was too late to halt the heavy vehicle. The broad-tired wheels rolled toward the limp head of the lad on the pavement.

An instant before it could crush out his life, Lamont Cranston dived headlong into the path of destruction. His shoulder struck the boy, rolling him toward the curb. A quick wriggle, and Cranston swerved aside from the grinding death that loomed over him.

He picked up the boy. One glance and he knew there was no time to lose. The attempted killer had leaped into a waiting sedan and had already made his escape.

The boy was all Cranston could see or think about. Brass knuckles had fractured his skull. He had suffered a concussion of the brain. A glance at his bluish lips and the fixed glaze of his staring eyes told Cranston that unless the boy was operated on immediately, he would die.

A leap, Cranston was in his car. He laid the boy gently on the seat beside him, then headed the car toward the nearest hospital. Traffic lights were ignored.

The boy was taken to an emergency operating room and a skilled surgeon went to work. When it was over, Cranston asked only one question: "Will the child live?"

"Hard to say. We'll do our best."

"Spare no expense. Put him in a private room. Engage day and night nurses."

Cranston's face was pale. He knew that he himself was indirectly responsible for the boy's attack. A supercriminal had made a prompt answer to Cranston's message over Jackson's telephone. That telephone must have been tapped. The attempt to kill the boy was a vicious warning for Lamont Cranston to mind his own business about the Harmon family. It was a follow-up of the attack on Jackson's dog.

Cranston felt a surge of hot anger. He kept it under control while he answered routine police questions. He told all he knew - which was nothing.

He had only one angry thought. He intended to drive straight to the office of David Chester. He'd get the truth out of the sleek Chester, if he had to batter him with vengeful fists!

Cranston was actually halfway to Chester's office before common sense returned to him. He realized he had lost his sense of balance. He was behaving exactly as the crooks wanted. He was playing their game, not his!

He parked, and the hot rage drained slowly from him. He stopped thinking about the limp figure of a young lad on a white operating table.

This is definitely because Tinsley writes the character differently than Gibson, but I actually cannot think of another occasion where we got to read about The Shadow actively wanting to hit someone with his fists. It's very, very rare to read about The Shadow actually getting mad in the first place in such an undignified way. And I think with this passage, you'll start to notice a pattern.

The problem isn't that The Shadow cannot interact with kids or that he can't comfort them, he does it to his agents and adults he wants to help just fine, he knows how to address people in their language, or any language. The problem is, The Shadow is constantly surrounded by danger everywhere he goes, because he is The Shadow. He can be any number of things at any number of occasions, but usually, when The Shadow shows up, it's usually because people are going to die, and people are going to kill, and it's his job to address that and work the scales.

Children should not be anywhere near this, and if The Shadow's interacting with a child, it usually means that some grave danger or tragedy fell upon them, and he's here to either prevent greater tragedy or address the fall-out, and he'd be the first to agree that neither of these options should be happening at all. It doesn't mean he's not gonna do what's right and give life and limb to protect them, but, it shouldn't be up to the Boogeyman to look after them in the first place. Maybe it shouldn't be up to the Boogeyman to protect us.

But then again, as I mentioned when I talked about my own reasons for liking The Shadow so much, there are many kids who would like nothing more than to have the Boogeyman by their side to protect them. There's comfort in knowing that the scariest man in the room is unconditionally there to protect you, and that is the comfort that The Shadow gives best. Not as Cranston, not under a friendly face, but as what he is.

Due to a lack of scenes from the pulps or satisfying scenes from elsewhere, I will instead be pulling one from a fan story written by Kimberly-Murphy Smith, editor and writer of The Hot Cornerm where The Shadow rescues a child who was kidnapped for blackmail. I couldn't care less that it's fanfic, and if you do, come back in 20 or so years after The Shadow's been made public domain and it's gonna be just as official as anything licensed (on my “to write about” list: how fickle the separation between “official” and “fanfic” is, and the many times it plainly didn’t exist). There’s aspects of her writing I don’t care for, but I really like this scene and I do think The Shadow’s more gentle interactions with people are necessary to getting the character.

Annabelle.

She stopped crying for a minute. "Who's there?" she said, her voice choked.

A friend. Your mommy and daddy sent me to pick you up.

"Mommy? Mommy's here?"

Sh-h-h. Annabelle felt a gloved hand gently stroking her hair. She's waiting for you at home. So, we need to hurry up and leave.

"'kay." She looked around. "Where are you?"

It's kind of hard to see me. It's dark in here, plus you've been crying so much your eyes probably hurt.

"Yeah."

Don't be afraid. I'm here to help.

"'kay."

The implicit trust of children was simply amazing at times. Adults trembled in fear of The Shadow's wrath, but children somehow seemed to understand that he was there to help them, even if they couldn't see him.

Sit up, Annabelle. I'm going to pick you up. Be very quiet.

One hand took each of her arms and guided them around a neck she could not see. "Why are you wearin' a blanket?" she asked as the fabric of his cloak brushed against her shoulders.

Sometimes I get cold at night.

"Even in the summer?"

Even in the summer. He gently stroked her cheek and wiped away her tears. Now, you need to be very quiet so those bad men in the next room don't hear us. I'll bet you're tired.

She nodded.

He rocked her on his arms, projecting a very gentle hypnotic relaxation into her with his powers as he did. You probably didn't get your nap, either. Poor thing. Lean on my shoulder and go to sleep. And when you wake up, you'll be back with Mommy and Daddy.

She yawned, then snuggled against his shoulder and went to sleep.

The Shadow sighed with relief. Now to get past the men out front. He gently pulled the pistol out of its holster under his left arm and slipped it into the belted waist of his overcoat within easy reach, then secured his grip on Annabelle and draped his cloak over her.

She clutched the edge of his cloak in her hand like a security blanket and snuggled against his shoulder again.

(Art by Jill Thompson)

#replies tag #the shadow #pulp heroes #fanfic #I think about the -Sometimes I get cold at night- response a lot #and how superhero capes can easily be likened to oversized blankets #and The Shadow is one of the main reasons why capes became so popular among American heroes #seriously you can see how practically overnight so many heroes at the time imitating The Shadow acquired capes #and what is a hero if not a childhood fantasy manifest #they are all just wearing blankets to battle #I think my posts are turning into too much of rollercoasters