#its scary to not have a concrete sense of self

[youremyheaven]

Rahu & Ketu: The Mystery of Being

TW: abuse, rape, murder, abduction, childhood trauma, violence

The more I study Nodal energy, the more I realise how truly hard it is to remain within its influence, it escapes your grip or eludes you so easily and I think even Nodal natives feel this way, its really hard to have a stable/consistent self image or strong identity because with Rahu you are sooo many different things and your energy is dispersed completely (Rahu being the "head") and with Ketu, you're in the dark completely so you feel unable to identify with anything permanently i.e you outgrow things quickly (Ketu being the "body"). Both Rahu & Ketu are malefics and generally considered to be inauspicious but please don't be discouraged!!

The reason why they're considered inauspicious is because Rahu creates excessive immersion in the material realm as these natives are always looking out of themselves/seeking external things to centre themselves around. Since they're stuck in the head (literally) they're unable to be grounded or tethered. This causes overindulgence and gluttony. They might seem greedy on the outside but truly this is driven by their boundary-less nature where they literally do not know when to stop, nothing feels "enough" for them, they never feel "full". Since they're so vastly spacious internally, they can accommodate a lot, this makes them very tolerant and accepting of virtually every one and every kind of experience. But this internal spaciousness also means that they feel empty, just because its hard to "fill up" all that space and feel "fulfilled". This causes them to overexert themselves and go above & beyond. They do this just because they can. This is why they're such obsessive lovers. They have so much space, so much to hold, they need a great deal of stimulation just to feel normal. In social settings they may come across as very hyper, very loud, very extra, always doing the most, eager to please everyone (its similar but different to Jupiter energy). This over-attachment to the physical or sensorial realm means that its hard for them to transcend beyond it to attain true spiritual liberation. They can never fully let go because its very scary to be cut off that way. Its like floating in space, nothing to hold on to, no gravity, nothing to fall on, you can't stay still, its all very disorienting.

The reason Ketu is considered inauspicious is because it causes extreme detachment from everything. These natives don't have a strong sense of self, they feel themselves dissolve almost and they're always wandering in search of something to connect to. This complete lack of attachment to anything material or concrete means that these natives lack grounding. In order to care about something you have to be firmly rooted in reality and Ketuvians struggle with this because they're never fully here. They may intellectually understand or support social causes but its a torso without a head, which means they dont have the energy to be committed to sustaining interest in anything. They're the type of people who go through a lot of different "phases". One can only transcend if one is connected to life in the first place, these natives aren't. It DOES make spiritual understanding easier and Ketu is considered one of the most spiritual planets but it is difficult to be rooted or grounded in this or be disciplined about it because like I said Ketu is detached. They inherently understand certain spiritual truths but its very rare (unless other positive placements are present) for these natives to fully immerse themselves in spiritual pursuits.

(table by me😎hehe)

Its very interesting to me that none of the Nodal naks have the purushartha ("motivation") of Moksha (liberation). All 6 naks are evenly split between Artha, Kama & Dharma.

This again points to how even though Nodal influence helps one grasp spiritual concepts better and naturally embody certain spiritual truths, these natives are not motivated by it.

But often what happens is that these natives are unable to enjoy or benefit from their successes. Their lives are full of ups and downs. The shadowy nature of the planets and the fact that the lack of physical existence of these planets creates a very "boundary less" energy that makes them susceptible to every kind of influence, good and bad.

Pierce Brosnan- Ardra Moon

Pierce Brosnan’s hardships pretty much started at the very beginning. Born into a poor family in rural Ireland, he was swiftly abandoned by his father, who he would only go on to meet once. His mother was forced to send him to live with his grandparents while she worked as a nurse in England, then his aunt and uncle, and then onto a boarding house. His mother visited twice a year until he could move to England at age 11, at which point he became the focus of school bullies.

In 1980, Brosnan married Cassandra Harris and adopted the 3 children of her late-husband, adding one more to the mix for good measure. But in 1991, Cassandra died in his arms after a 4 year battle with ovarian cancer, which would later go on to take the life of their 41 year old daughter Charlotte in 2013. By then, he had become estranged from his son Chris, who had a major drug problem resulting in fights, thefts, and 2 drunk-driving crashes in 2 years. The crashes may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Brosnan had already narrowly avoided losing his son Sean at 13, after Sean’s cousin drunkenly drove off a 200-foot cliff. In 2015, the $18-million Malibu home he lived in caught fire and sustained $1 million in damages.

Kelsey Grammar, Shatabhisha Sun, Mars in Ashwini, Ketu in Ardra

Kelsey Grammer’s troubles started early in life, with his parents splitting up when he was just two years old. His mother’s parents took them in, and helped raise Kelsey until he was 12, when his grandfather died of cancer. The following year, his father was murdered by a home intruder who had started a fire, all in front of his new family.

Then in 1975, Grammer’s 18 year old sister Karen was abducted, raped, and murdered by four men who left her for dead. Sadly, Karen had enough strength to make it to a nearby house, where bloody handprints revealed she was attempting to ring the door. The house was empty. Kelsey identified his sister’s body one week later. 2 years later, both of his half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident.

Shockingly, Grammer has appeared at the parole hearings of the last remaining member of the gang who killed his sister. In 2014, he spoke directly to the killer at the hearing, stating “You could not have come to a better person in the world than me to advocate for someone who has made some bad choices. I accept your apology. I forgive you. However, I cannot give your release my endorsement. To give that a blessing would be a betrayal of my sister’s life.

Nicki Minaj- Mula Stellium (Mercury, Venus & Ketu)

Throughout her childhood, Minaj had to contend with her abusive, drug-addicted father, who would regularly beat her mother, punch holes in the walls, get arrested, and sell their possessions for drug money. At one point, he attempted to kill her mother by lighting the house on fire. Despite all this, the pair are still together, and Dad apparently isn’t too happy when she tells that story. To this, she says “It’s the price you pay when you abuse drugs and alcohol. Maybe one day your daughter will be famous and talk to every magazine about it, so think about that, dads out there who want to be crazy.” Nicki is currently married to a paedophile and convicted rapist so there's that as well.

Terrence Howard, Mula Moon, Ashwini Venus conjunct Saturn

Terrence Howard suffered physical abuse not only at the hands of his father, but his mother as well. When he was two, he witnessed his father stab a man to death, for which he was convicted of manslaughter. His mother raised him until his father was released, at which point they divorced, and he was sent to live with his grandparents. At age 16, Howard had himself legally emancipated, moved to New York, and lived off welfare while he tried to make it as an actor. While that was undoubtedly one of the hardest decisions he will ever make, it seems it was the right one.

Jennifer Hudson, Shatabhisha Moon

In 2008, Jennifer Hudson's mother, Darnell Donnerson (57) and her brother, Jason (29) were shot to death by her estranged brother-in-law, William Balfour. Hudson's nephew, Julian (7), was reported missing, but found three days later dead of multiple gunshot wounds.

Roy Orbison, Ashwini Sun, Jupiter in Mula & Ketu in Ardra

In 1966, Roy Orbison's wife, Claudette Frady, was killed when the couple were riding motorcycles. She was hit by a semi truck and killed instantly. Just two years later, Orbison's house burned down, killing two of his three sons. In 1973, his older brother, Grady, was killed in an auto accident while traveling to spend thanksgiving with Orbison.

Shania Twain, Magha Sun, Mars in Swati She was born into poverty with five siblings in rural Canada. Throughout her childhood, she endured and witnessed abuse to her mother from her stepfather, who lived with the family. Aside from the abuse, her family often didn't have money to have food for lunch or shoes for the winter. Even more tragic, her parents were killed in a car accident when she was 22 years old, and Twain began singing gigs to provide for her siblings. She told Oprah Winfrey in a sit-down interview, "Coming from where I came from, it was unimaginable to ever be wealthy. That was just too far out of my reach." She then went on to become one of the best selling female pop and country artists of all time.

Ashley Judd, Ashwini Sun & Mercury, Magha Jupiter & Ascendant

This actress comes from a famous family, with both her mother and half-sister being country music artists. Judd’s parents divorced when she was four, and she moved all around the southern United States while her mother sought success, attending over a dozen schools. Judd is the survivor of three sexual assaults, and one of these awful instances resulted in an unwanted pregnancy, which Judd terminated. The harmful treatment didn’t stop there. Judd alleges that she was also sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein, whom she later sued.

Christina Aguilera, Mula Sun

Christina’s father Fausto worked for the US Army, meaning that the family moved around a lot, even going as far as Japan. On top of this lack of stability, her father emotionally and physically abused her. Her parents divorced when Aguilera was six, and she subsequently became estranged from her father. Aguilera used music to escape her turbulent home life, and her talent was obvious from a young age. This talent took her far, and she is now one of the highest-selling artists in the history of music.

Reza Pahlavi and his wife, Princess Soraya, Ardra Stellium (sun, mercury & venus)

Soraya was his favourite wife and supposedly his "true love", but since she was infertile and he had no sons from his other marriage, he had to divorce her to marry another woman, Farah Pahlavi, Ardra Moon, Magha Rising (who did end up giving him 2 sons out of 4 children). Soraya lived in Paris following their divorce and did fall in love again but she did not live a very happy life (her partner died in a plane crash). Farah Pahlavi's reign as Queen was cut short by the Iranian revolution following which both Reza & Farah were exiled from their own country, they lived in many places, Reza passed away 2 years into exile and Farah has since lived in obscurity in the United States. 2 out of her 4 children committed suicide and it is widely assumed that the family has gone broke.

Tragedy can happen to anyone and no nakshatra or planet will protect or prevent it but Rahu influence creates sudden gains and losses. What is quickly gained is also quickly lost. This is why Rahu is deeply connected to entertainment because not only is the entertainment industry entirely illusory, it also does not guarantee anything. You're a glorified freelancer basically. If you're not wise, you can lose everything in minutes. There is so much temptation all around you, you're surrounded by so many false promises and its very easy to lose yourself in all of it. We often see celebrities and idolize their easy lives but very very very few get to be stars their whole lives and live lives of convenience and comfort. For 90& of people its a very scary, tragic, difficult experience of immense highs and lows.

Nodal success feels dissatisfactory because Nodal people are unable to ground themselves in anything solid (unless other aspects that can do this are present) its very very easy for them to lose themselves in Maya or to be so completely detached that they do the necessary "maintenance" work that it takes to be a fully involved human being in anything.

Many say that the reason Farah Pahlavi's life was so tragic was because she took Princess Soraya's rightful place and Soraya's sadness had "cursed" Reza & Farah's marriage. that's stuff of urban myth but don't you think its interesting that a woman who wasn't of noble birth, rose to the ranks of Queen at the age of 21, lived a life of luxury very few can even conceive of and produced 2 male heirs!! which is all that the King wanted🙄🙄but ultimately none of it mattered? Reza having an "heir" made no difference because the Iranian Revolution overthrew the monarchy, they had to leave their palace, their luxuries, their maids and servants and every kind of comfort behind to live like nobodies in exile. They watched their treasury grow smaller and smaller year after year and obviously, no one was used to "working" so nobody got a job to take care of themselves or the others (I mean Farah and her 4 kids btw). They can never go back to their homeland or regain what was once lost. They're in a position that very few (other exiled royals) can relate to. They are socially and culturally isolated. All of these are Nodal themes.

Another Princess with nodal placements and a similarly tragic life is Princess Diana, Ardra Sun & Mercury with Moon conjunct Ketu

There are many royals who've lived more moderate lives or less tragic lives. Having it all and losing it all is a very Nodal theme.

It reminds me of SUGA's Interlude by Halsey (Swati stellium) where she sings:

I been trying all my life To separate the time In between the having it all And giving it up, yeah (Hey) I wonder what's in store If I don't love it anymore (Hey) Step between the having it all And giving it up, yeah (Hey)

Success is a very illusory experience for these natives. Its like trying to build sandcastles on the shore. I am by no means suggesting that Nodal people can't be successful, just that if they depend on "success" to give their life meaning, they're setting themselves up for failure. You ruin anything you singlehandedly obsess over, its important to know when to stop, when to withdraw.

These natives tend to go to extremes just to feel something

Zayn Malik- Shatabhisha Rising and Gigi Hadid- Ashwini Sun & Rising

idk anything about their sex life together but if we're to go by the songs then its 👀 giving bdsm

After that horrendous Revati video that Claire did years ago (and has deleted since I think) people associate BDSM, sexual deviancy and all around freakish behaviour with Revatis but you know who is actually crazy in bed? Nodal people

pornography impacts the brain much like an addictive drug by triggering ever-increasing amounts of dopamine. Over time, the brain builds up a tolerance to the excess dopamine and requires either more access or more extreme content (or sometimes both) to achieve that same level of perceived pleasure. In short, when viewing pornography, your brain gets less pleasure while wanting more, often causing desensitization and an escalation in behavior.

Kanye West, Venus & Mars in Ashwini

Kanye West's first encounter with sexual desire came during early childhood, fueling a dependency on sex that would set in during adulthood. “My dad had a Playboy left out at age 5 and it’s affected almost every choice I made for the rest of my life," West told Elle in 2019. "From age 5 till now, having to kick the habit and it just presents itself in the open like it's OK and I stand up and say, ‘No, it's not OK.’” The singer also credited his faith in God with helping him overcome his struggles. James Franco, Ashwini Sun

Actor James Franco developed an addiction to sex while he was recovering from an addiction to alcohol. On The Jess Cagle Podcast, he admitted to sleeping with students who were attending an acting school he previously ran. “It’s such a powerful drug,” he said. “I got hooked on it for 20 more years. The insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time.” Since 2016, Franco has been in recovery from sex addiction and continues to work towards a healthy lifestyle.

Billie Eilish, Mula Stellium (Sun, mercury & ketu)

Billie Eilish went through her own struggles with pornography addiction after viewing her first pornographic video at only 11 years old. In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, the "Bad Guy" singer said she used to watch porn to feel like "one of the guys," but has since distanced herself from it entirely. "I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn,"

Charlie Sheen, Mula Moon

he is a pretty well known sex addict and sexual assaulter :/

Michael Douglas, Mula Moon

He's been candid about his struggles with alcohol and sex addiction. Michael even went so far as to say that his throat cancer was caused by performing oral sex on so many women.

Every good thing can be "bad" if its used as a coping mechanism and this includes sex.

Ketuvians are like black holes that absorb all the light, they have to suck everything in. They absorb easily but they don't feel rooted in anything beyond a short period of time. many say that Nodal natives have no moral compass or that they're thrill chasers or that they're not "good people" but honestly Nodal energies are just really hard to master. some people turn it into art, or work or something else where they can channel their obsessive energies fully without holding back. compartmentalizing things is hard for these natives so its important to have areas where you can go all out whilst exercising some modicum of boundary or balance in others.

Maladaptive daydreaming is another big struggle for Nodal people. they're also prone to nihilism and cynicism because they can't enjoy life in the same way as they need a lot of stimulation (they're desensitized to ordinary levels of stimulation of any kind). This means they struggle to find meaning in life. Apathy is their natural state of being. Its just hard to care because in order to care you have to be firmly rooted which Nodal people are not.

This is a quote by Werner Herzog, Ardra Moon who is a filmmaker known for his nihilism and scepticism.

Dos Passos did not have any major placements in any Nodal naks save for his Mars in Mula and Rahu in Shatabhisha but I thought his quote by him really explained things

The real danger of Nodal influence is the indifference and apathy that its natives experience. But Nodal influence is such that you have no place in reality, you exist in the shadows, you live behind the curtain, when your whole life is one long tunnel its hard to "care" or be immersed enough to fully take in their feelings. Nodal natives experience emotional impermanence which means that if you do not actively see proof of or feel a particular emotion, you believe it does not exist. they have to consistently see "proof" of your love for them to believe you. they seldom believe that the feelings others have for them are "real". they think they are the only constant in their life.

its hard for these natives to be passive and consume something without interacting with it. Moon dominants thrive in passivity whereas Rahuvians need to become one with that thing to truly experience it. Ketu also craves this sort of complete union but its different since Ketu pulls you into themselves whereas Rahu wants to pull themselves into you.

Nodal influence creates natives with a very nebulous self-perception and identity. They do not know who they are, they are a mystery even to themselves. Do you ever talk to a guy and think that he has no personality because its hard for him to list favourites or describe what he likes or dislikes etc? He probably has Ketuvian influence. Ketu people try on new aesthetics/personalities like its a makeover game, for a couple of months they'll have a hippie phase, now they're emo, later they're into retro glam or whatever. they like to try on different personas to see which one they like the best, i know this sounds kind of creepy?? but its truly because Ketu natives lack identity and rely on external things to give them a sense of self. This is why they're very uninvolved in the lives of others. They cannot give themselves too much because they dont know enough about themselves to "give" to others.

In vedic mythology, at the beginning of time when the devas and asuras churned the ocean of milk to extract from it the amrita (the elixir of immortality) Mohini, the female avatar of Vishnu, started distributing amrita to the devas. However, one of the asuras, Svarbhanu, sat in the row of devas and drank the amrita. Surya and Chandra noticed him and they informed Mohini; however, by that time, Svarbhanu had already become immortal. Vishnu, as Mohini, cut off Svarbhanu's head with his discus. Svarbhanu, henceforth referred to as Rahu and Ketu, could not die, but his head was separated from his body; his head came to be known as Rahu, while his body came to be known as Ketu. 

Pertaining to this origin story, I have noticed how people with Nodal influence seldom benefit from "nourishing energy". This could mean they were neglected as children, lacked a good family environment, were abused or taken advantage of by others in their life (all of this is also subject to other placements in ones chart). Svarbhanu was a demon who temporarily became immortal because of a mistake. Like I mentioned with fame and success before, these natives struggle to "maintain" what they achieve, especially because their early lives were marked with deprivation of some sort. This could also mean absent parent figures. But there is a sense of "you shouldn't have been where you were".

Rahu energy manifests often as a very manic hyperactive energy

Ranveer Singh is the best example I could think of. He is known in the media for being an eccentric, hyperactive, loud cokehead lmao

He has Ardra Sun, Shatabhisha Moon

Ketu energy is more detached, more reserved, still weird and chaotic but overall less "hyper"

This interview with Lady Gaga is a good example, usually the people being interviewed are walking or moving around and trying to pretend its not scripted but she just sat there for the whole thing lol

Gaga has both Rahu & Ketu influence

She has Rahu in Ashwini in 1h as well as Swati Moon conjunct Ketu

i know i said last time ill make a post about the positive manifestations of nodal influence but its gonna have to wait a little longer 😬😬these are just some things i observed and i thought i should share them. hope this was informative.

#astrology notes #astrology observations #sidereal astrology #vedic astro notes #nakshatras #astrology #vedic astrology #astro observations #astro notes #astroblr #jyotish #rahu #ketu #ashwini #magha #mula #shatabhisha #swati #ardra #Youtube

[mishcrowncloud]

Destructive Desires: The Complicated Web of Toxic Love and its Detrimental Effects on Relationships.

I. Understanding Toxic Love.

A. Definition and Explanation of Toxic Love.

Have you ever had a friend who, every time they talk about their "awesome" relationship, it sounds more like a horror story than a love story? That's what we call toxic love—it's like a romantic dinner with a side dish of misery. Imagine love as a nourishing food for the soul, but in the case of toxic love, it's as though someone has spiked your smoothie with laxatives—nothing good comes out of it.

B. Identifying Characteristics of Toxic Love.

Toxic love shows up wearing different disguises, like a chameleon on a bad day. Here are some tell-tale signs: constant criticism (because apparently, you're always 'wrong'), domination (you're not the pilot of your own life anymore), and that sickening feeling of walking on eggshells (because who doesn't like being anxious all the time, right?).

C. Major Differences between Toxic Love and Healthy Love.

If healthy love is like a comforting hug, toxic love is like being in a headlock. Healthy love is all about mutual respect, freedom, and growing together. Toxic love? Well, it's the equivalent of trying to grow a garden in a bed of concrete; nothing fruitful can come out of it.

II. Types of Toxic Relationships and their Manifestations.

A. Emotional Manipulation: Gaslighting, Stonewalling, and More.

Picture this: every time you bring up a valid concern, your partner retells the story so that you start questioning your sanity. Welcome to gaslighting, the Alice in Wonderland tactic that can make you doubt your own reality. And stonewalling? It's the emotional equivalent of talking to a brick wall—but less productive.

B. Hidden Abandonment: Neglect and Isolation in Relationships.

Solitude can be sweet, but when it's forced upon you by your significant other, it's as sweet as unsweetened lemonade. Neglect is a silent killer in toxic relationships; it's the art of being there physically while mentally vacationing on Mars.

III. Why People Often Stay in Toxic Relationships.

A. The Psychological Factors: Stockholm Syndrome and Trauma Bonding.

There's a reason people stick around in relationships that seem more like a booby trap than a safe haven—our brains can trick us. We create strong emotional bonds, sometimes because of the trauma, not despite it. It's like rooting for the villain in a movie because you've spent the entire film getting 'close' to them.

B. The Allure of Intensity: Confusing Intensity for Intimacy.

Think of that one ride at the amusement park that keeps you coming back—it's thrilling, unpredictable, and a bit scary. But just because a ride makes your heart race doesn't mean it's love. The intensity is intoxicating, but let's not mix up a wild rollercoaster with the comfort of a steady train ride home.

C. Societal Pressure and Fear of Loneliness: The External Influences.

Let's face it; society is like that aunt who keeps asking when you're going to get married. The pressure can be overwhelming, and the fear of being the lone wolf can push people to choose staying in a toxic relationship over being single.

IV. The Detrimental Impact of Toxic Relationships on Mental, Emotional, and Physical Health.

A. Toxic Love and Mental Health: Depression, Anxiety, and Low Self-Esteem.

Dwelling in toxic love is like living in a house with mold—the longer you stay, the sicker you become. Depression sneaks in when you're not looking, anxiety becomes your new shadow, and self-esteem? Well, that has already packed its bags and left.

B. Emotional Consequences: Erosion of Identity and Emotional Exhaustion.

The emotional toll of toxic relationships is like running a marathon without training—it wears you down. Little by little, your identity starts to wear thin until you're about as confident in your sense of self as a chameleon in a bag of Skittles.

C. Physical Manifestations of Stress: From Insomnia to Illness.

It turns out, the heartbreak isn't just an expression. The body has a theatrical way of showing distress—cue insomnia's late-night performances and stress's award-winning role in inviting sickness to the party.

V. Moving on from Toxic Love: Recovery and Healing.

A. Recognizing the Need to Move On: The First Step toward Freedom.

Acknowledging that toxic love is about as beneficial as a chocolate teapot is the first monumental step towards freedom. It's okay to admit that what you've been guzzling isn't love—it's an elixir of chaos, and you want a refund.

B. The Role of Therapy and Support Networks: Seeking Professional Help

If your love life feels like a soap opera, it might be time to recruit a support crew. Therapy is basically the emotional Avengers; they're here to help you sort through the drama and emerge victorious.

C. Self-love and Setting Boundaries: Tools for Balancing Future Relationships.

Once you've dumped the toxic waste, it's time to refurbish. Think of self-love as your home's new security system—it's about setting up boundaries sturdier than your average fortress. It's about asserting, "My moat is deep, and my walls are high—tread carefully."

VI. Summary: Unraveling the Threads of Toxic Love.

A. Recap of the Important Points Discussed

We navigated the murky waters of toxic love, from its sneaky symptoms and unhealthy effects on the mind, body, and spirit to the escape routes leading to healthier, happier relationships. Remember, it's not just about surviving; it's about thriving.

B. The Consequences and the Path to Recovery.

Consequences of toxic love weigh heavy, but the journey to recovery? That's the light at the end of a dreary tunnel. It's a bumpy ride, but with the right tools and mindset, you're on your way to a love that uplifts, not undermines.

VII. Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)

A. What are the red flags of a toxic relationship?

🚩🚩Persistent unhappiness, feeling like you're never enough, your partner's my-way-or-highway attitude,not being yourself in the relationship, with fear of being criticized and more drama than a reality TV show.

B. How can someone start healing from a toxic relationship?

First, sever ties with Mr. or Ms. Wrong. Then, surround yourself with the loving support of friends, family, or professionals. And don't forget to shower yourself with the love you've been channeling into a loveless relationship. Remember, it is not you it's them.

C. Why is it hard to leave a toxic relationship?

It's tough to let go because of emotional hooks, fear of the unknown, and sometimes, the misguided hope that things will magically turn for the better. Spoiler: without change, it won't.

#Toxic relationships #Recognizing toxic love #Self-love

[amysubmits]

Hi! I have a question but if its too personal, please ignore!!!

I have been with my Dom for 4 years (we have been practicing DD and D/s for 3 years) and we are both at the point in our lives where kids is something we really want! We are a little curious/worried with how adding babies will affect our dynamic since we both don’t want to stop DD and D/s. Have you thought about how potential kids will affect your relationship?

Obviously we both know changes will have to happen but that is scary and unknown! I’m trying to not get anxious because I’m not even pregnant yet but with a major change comes worries:( Any advice?

Hi! I appreciate the consideration but this isn't too personal, no worries. :)

We've definitely thought about managing D/s after babies but of course, all we can do is daydream and guess, we won't really know what it's like until we get there. I can definitely empathize with how it seems scary and unknown.

When you compare it to other things, it really highlights how wild it is? Imagine having to decide to accept a job that you can never leave, and have to be 100% emotionally committed to for the rest of your life, without ever having worked a day in that job before. That would be nuts! But that's basically what parenting is...and it's the most important work that most people ever do with their lives, in my opinion. So, I don't know how anyone can be super duper confident that they're ready to be a parent. I think it kinda requires a big leap of faith...I feel like I have to go into it recognizing that I have only a really basic idea of what to expect..and even those basic expectations could be wrong. You never know what your baby will be like. So in my mind, it's a decision that I have to make while recognizing that we'll just find a way no matter what happens...but that's definitely scary as I'm not someone who likes risk-taking usually.

Anyway. That's kind of how I feel about the idea of planning to have a kid in general, and I guess I don't see D/s as that much different. CD and I have had some fairly significant life changes since we first started D/s. We've moved houses a couple of times, shortly after we started D/s I had a couple seizures, CD has been self-employed and has been traditionally employed, I've had some milder job changes too, I was a cancer caregiver for a few years, we had a disabled dog for about a year so we had that caregiving responsibility, both of our dogs died, my dad died, we've had mental health diagnosis' and trauma epiphanies and of course we've both just gotten older and experienced personal changes the last 7ish years, too.

So with some of those changes to our lives, our schedules or just ourselves, we've adjusted our D/s along the way. We try to look at our current needs and desires and structure our D/s around those, rather than trying to make life fit our D/s if that makes sense. This has meant that we've had phases with a longer list of rules/expectations/protocols, and other phases where we've had very few. It just depends on what we can do in the chapter we're living in, and what our needs are.

So, my guess is that we'll try to do the same with parenting. I wouldn't be surprised if we tweak our D/s during pregnancy, and again after a baby and as they get older their needs change and our schedules change. I can't really begin to guess exactly what that will look like, but I think that as long as we're able to communicate our needs and wants with each other as we go, we'll find a way. So that's what I put my faith in.

Sorry this isn't very concrete! People who have been D/s before having kids and after might have a lot better insight for you. :)

#asks #d/s #24/7 d/s

[circulars-reasoning]

What about “accidental thoughtforms”? Those are something that happens, from what I’ve heard paromancers/willomancers claim.

again, depends on what you consider a thoughtform. any system member could count as a thoughtform in how i see and percieve that word specifically (at least in this moment in time). any thought htat has a form, whether sentient or not, whether permanent or not, can count under it.

if you are using the term tulpa, as in a "consciously created headmate", i don't think that accidental tulpas are "real" in that sense, but from what i can tell, the word tulpa is (at this point) a synonym for the phrase "headmate that was more than likely created consciously but not exclusively". so the differences only really matter on "what is te term you are trying to shove this thing into, and what definition do you have for that term", if that makes sense.

to go back to your original points, a created headmate like debra would fall under the western tulpa definition, but not fall under the original tibetan definition.

That is COMPLETELY fair (your points about writing). I suppose this topic boils down to “if someone feels their brain occurrences is a thoughtform, then its a thoughtform.” Autism brain just always desires more concrete definitions, lol.

yeah, concrete definitions are good, but most definitions arent fully concrete and especially when relating to internal, unprovable* experiences like plurality... theres no true concrete definition ever.

(*unprovable as in we could never scan someones brain to say yes you have multiple thoughtforms/headmates/etc unless we figure out what consciousness and awareness really is. which will be years into the future if at all, ever)

I’m on the same page as you on the self-identified experiences honestly. I find the labels helpful sometimes, but experiences are so varied that its often far more helpful (when seeking advice) to label yourself as disordered or nondisordered, or to provide context of things like “It’s likely what I’m experiencing is due to trauma, does anyone have tips?”

yeah, which is what the shorthands like the genic labels are supposed to do, but the community makes it more stressful than helpful. plus, with the state of syscourse in the plural community, it's scary to admit you have any speciific origin at some points (although more scary for systems who aren't fully traumagenic at times, at least from my experience.)

This is somewhat unrelated to this whole topic, but that final piece about misgendering – I’ve noticed this is a major problem in system communities, from using only the host’s pronouns, to assuming collective they/them (despite corrections), to “you&” becoming a default pronoun for many people… It’s interesting, and something I want to look into more. I’m not too hurt by it, thankfully, though this encounter was the most interesting by far (particularly as my system dabbles with it/its).

as a system who has a host that uses they/them and we collectively use they/them and also don't mind you& as a term, i cannot really understand how that feels, but people should be more aware of what a system prefers and what terms they like. we all differ. accepting those differences, instead of assuming one way or another, is better

💙💙💙 Woohoo!! Thanks for the really great conversation, Anon. This definitely helped clarify for me what the community for created alters is going for. :) thank you for taking the time to explain your insights to me and address my points/questions!

#syscourse

[kneesdeep]

i was gonna write a long winded complaint in the tags of a post but i'll do it here instead.

DID/OSDD sucks balls and nobody can ever tell me this is fun in any sense. it's not even the switching that bothers me anymore, as it's been this way since i was around 9. it's the fact i can't hold hobbies, interests or accomplishment in any field or jobs i swore i used to love. there is no solid identity ever and i can't focus on one thing for a long period of time what so ever. i disassociate in the car, at work taking orders, walking, all of that. i get lost in my own town because suddenly nothing is recognizable to me and i have to use maps and notes and physical flash cards to help me navigate my own routine.

when i was younger it was so much easier. i was surrounded by so much of the trauma that caused me to develop this that it was almost distracting enough to not think about how badly my life is affected. the things i focused on WERE how my alters looked, sounded and acted to me, how they represented me and their interpersonal relationships with another crazy mentally ill teenager. what i focused on was so fictional and character-like that it was so easy to get lost in that daydream and not have to think about how the severe brain fog will never go away and i won't ever have a concrete memory of a day.

even days when i do not switch its so blurry still. i cant recall day to day things unless i explicitly write it down as it happens, or take pictures of everything. which causes my peers to think i am detached from the world (not too far from the truth) or shallow. i'm scared nobody knows who i am because i can't even tell half the time.

this disorder sucks and i'm venting about my struggles with it. i am irritated and angry at teenagers on the internet who view this disorder as a fun way to roleplay and vent out frustrations. it's bad. you don't want it. the commodification of fictional introjects and alters to take blame for inappropriate actions, using them as tools to describe your emotions, it's very very annoying because it's so wrong. you're intentionally convincing yourself of a horrible illness to play pretend and it's scary.

i'm not saying if you're not diagnosed or self diagnosed to die forever in hell. not even close. i'm saying that roleplaying with a mental illness is very scary and a way to irritate people with the disorder, and cause even worse problems for yourself in the future by furthering a delusion.

#if anybody argues here i'll kms leave my personal vent alone

[aioleis]

koʊroʊnzoʊn

"When you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you" --Friedrich Nietzsche The name of the Dweller in the Abyss is koʊroʊnzoʊn, but he is not really an individual. The Abyss is empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word—that is, meaningless but malignant, in so far as it craves to become real.

These forms swirl senselessly into haphazard heaps like dust devils, and each such chance aggregation asserts itself to be an individual and shrieks, "I am I!" though aware all the time that its elements have no true bond; so that the slightest disturbance dissipates the delusion just as a horseman, meeting a dust devil, brings it in showers of sand to the earth. Listen:

Infinity Symbol (666) by Aphrodite's Child

koʊroʊnzoʊn (/Choronzon/) is a demon or devil that originated within writing with the 16th century occultists Edward Kelley and John Dee within the latter's occult system of Enochian magic.

In the 20th century, this spiritual dark entity became an important element within the mystical system of Thelema, founded by notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, where he is the Dweller in the Abyss, believed to be the last great obstacle between the adept and enlightenment.

koʊroʊnzoʊn is described as changing shape, which is read variously as an account of an actual metamorphosis, a subjective impression of Neuburg's, or fabrication on Crowley's part.

Thelemites believe that if he is met with proper preparation, then his function is to destroy the ego, which allows the adept to move beyond the Abyss of occult cosmology.

'naked savage', forcing him to drive it back at the point of a dagger.

"Mass of koʊroʊnzoʊn" is a ritual with the purpose of casting the energy of one's ego into the universe to effectuate an unknown desire.

deluded search for a false Holy Guardian Angel, or anything which the magician would mistake for his own profound genius itself.

Yet, koʊroʊnzoʊn might merely be the whisperings of obsession borne from a misguided quest for a spurious Holy Guardian Angel, or any phantom mistaken by the magician as the echoing grandeur of his own hidden genius.

***

Hermetic Library, Chaos Magick Further Readings >

***

koʊroʊnzoʊn lurks in the Abyss, he is Lord of shadows and darkness. He helps you look deep into the dark parts of your personality and mind to free yourself from your past. In many paths his function is to destroy the ego, which allows the Magician to move beyond the abyss of occult cosmology. In truth we do not cross the abyss once but many times in life, whenever we under take serious shadow work and self-reflection, or go through an initiation or rite of passage. It's the rich and powerful cycle of spiritual death and rebirth.

Each time we cross we integrate more of our shadow, as we cyclically uncover profound truths and revelations as we reflect in the dark mirror of our soul. Here koʊroʊnzoʊn waits for us, to guide us through the Shadow Lands.

The abyss can be a scary place, it is meant to be.

"Everything is superfluous and resplendent. The filthy iridescent puddles of diesel, the wreckage plagued by rust, the desperate vegetation crawling with parasites in the cracks of the concrete."

Here the shadow lie we don't want to face but know we must to evolve. A Magician has to make this inner journey through their lives to be at their full potential. There is no turning back. This Powerful attunement calls on the practitioner to remove their ego and gaze at themselves without flinching to explore their own dark side. koʊroʊnzoʊn will work with you to fully merge with your shadow self and be able to explore your memories and emotions and transmute negative feelings into positive energies to absorb that will increase your personal power in the present. Work with him to destroy your ego, let yourself flow as a Magician. Experience the power of death and rebirth. For confronting your inner demons, with koʊroʊnzoʊn at your side, learn to accept them and forgive them and use their energies to make you stronger as he helps you heal your past wounds. As master of the abyss, koʊroʊnzoʊn is Lord of the Shadow realms. He will work with your shadow to integrate it back yourself and turns the shadows cruel whispers into positive reflections.

#katadesmoi #Spotify #koʊroʊnzoʊn #Aphrodite's Child

[jclemuss]

Analytical Application 4: Psychoanalysis and Subjectivity

Mirror Stage

The mirror stage is a bit hard to find in this episode because infants are not present in this show, but I wanted to see this word in a broader sense. Relating the mirror stage to fingerprints involves understanding the broader concept of identity formation. Just as the mirror stage represents the emergence of a distinct self-image, fingerprints also play a role in establishing individual identity. Fingerprints are unique patterns formed by ridges and furrows on the skin's surface, and they are formed during fetal development. Like the mirror stage, fingerprints contribute to the development of a sense of self, albeit in a different context. While the mirror stage focuses on visual self-recognition and the formation of the ego, fingerprints serve as tangible markers of individuality. They are used for identification purposes, distinguishing one person from another based on the distinctive patterns they exhibit. In this sense, fingerprints provide concrete evidence of an individual's unique identity, reinforcing the concept of selfhood established during the mirror stage. They both contribute to the broader theme of identity formation and self-awareness. They represent different facets of the complex process through which individuals come to understand themselves as separate, distinct entities within the larger social framework.

Disalienation

The scene I chose was when the interragation started to happen. They finally had caught their criminal but they needed more evidence to make sure that he was indeed the criminal. I chose this scene to represent disalienation or just alienation in general because the experience of undergoing a lie detection test can vary widely depending on individual circumstances, cultural factors, and the reliability of the testing methods involved. While some individuals may find the process empowering and affirming, others may experience it as invasive or coercive, exacerbating feelings of alienation and vulnerability. Additionally, the accuracy and ethical implications of lie detection tests remain subjects of debate within scientific and legal communities, further complicating their potential role in processes of disalienation. I mainly was thinking about self-image and how being under a lie detection test really makes you self-evaluate yourself the entire time. I think it is interesting we have a test that can sort of know when you are lying but is also based on the emotions you are feeling.

Uncanny and Unheimlich

The opening seen automatically made me feel a bit scared. The style of editing gave a thriller feeling but the shot I chose wrapped it up for me. The scene was from the person who was in the sewer and he was watching his next victim. The man just came from somewhere and was headed to work, but he did not know he was being watched by someone in a sewer. Being in a sewer evokes feelings of the uncanny due to its blend of familiarity and unfamiliarity, its subterranean environment, its association with decay and filth, and its symbolic significance. It also is just creepy that someone is underground watching people because people do not just do that normally. That is where I started to feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar because of how random it was. It felt unsettling because the poor man did not understand he was being watched. It also was scary because we could barely see the figure that was in the sewer. We could see his eyes that shined bright yellow, which made me think it was non-human. All of these aspects gave uncanny/unheimlich vibes because it just was not normal.  The creatures became uncanny because they embodied a complex interplay of familiar and unfamiliar elements, challenging our perceptions of identity, morality, and reality. The creature sort of taps into our deepest fears and anxieties, forcing us to confront the shadowy aspects of the human psyche that we often prefer to ignore. It was definitely a shot that was made to make people feel scared and unsafe, which applies to the definition of both words.

Heimlich

This scene is a bit complicated in terms of the storyline of the show, but I was more focused on just the definition. During this part of the show, one of the female detectives was assigned a case that took place in a parking garage. The vibes felt a bit unsafe, and she was the only one on the parking floor. It was so quite that small noises made a big difference. As she was keeping a look out, she heard movement, so she immediately took action. She walked cautiously, filled with fear, of course, because of the criminal she was trying to catch. She got scared by one of her coworkers, who was not supposed to be there, but she instantly felt relieved. This is what I focused on. A part of her brain recognized this figure, and she placed her gun down. Since she knew him, he became familiar. This was a perfect scene that would describe what Heimlich was because of the familiarity. Even as I watched, the intensity filled me up with fear, but as soon as I knew who it was, I felt at ease. It’s interesting how our brains can evaluate danger only to feel safe the next second. 

Sources

Freud, Sigmund. "The Uncanny." The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by James Strachey, vol. 17, Hogarth Press, 1955, pp. 219-256.

Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I." Écrits: A Selection. Translated by Bruce Fink, W.W. Norton & Company, 2002, pp. 75-81.

#oxyvisualanalysis #@theuncannyprofessoro

[0613magazine]

200831 Teen Vogue

BTS Talks "Dynamite," New Album, and ARMY Creativity

"We realized that without ARMY, who are always there for us, everything we do is meaningless."

In BTS’s new reality series In the Soop, the members of the Korean septet — RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook — relax at an Airbnb near the mountains. They immerse themselves in hobbies like painting, fishing, and playing endless games of ping-pong. As the sun sets, they prepare a meal together and enjoy it at a long picnic table, laughing and joking around as they celebrate a moment of rest.

It’s an extremely relaxing experience, watching In the Soop. The most intense drama so far has come when RM and V have to lure their remote-controlled boats back to shore after nearly losing them. But before that scary moment, the pair look on at the boats they steer, proud and happy; the camera pans out to show them as two small figures set against the vastness of mountains and open water. V asks, per translation, “Why is this so healing?”

ARMYs have latched onto that phrase in the days since the episode aired, in large part because it so aptly mirrors what BTS fandom can feel like at its best. BTS released their newest single “Dynamite,” on August 21, and along with more than 260 million YouTube views, the music video sparked near-endless fan creations: TikToks of ARMYs rocking roller skates and ‘70s outfits, making “Dynamite”-inspired makeup looks, and putting their own spin on BTS’s choreography.

“We always have so much fun to see what ARMY creates something based on our works,” BTS tells Teen Vogue over email. “They truly amaze us with their creativity and talent … and it’s been fun to see people all over the world covering the dance. We look forward to seeing more of ARMY interpreting ‘Dynamite’ in their own way.”

Fandom can be such an immersive experience; it’s often described the same way people describe falling in love. You fall down a rabbit hole, you think about them constantly, you trust them with your time. It’s a rush. “Even if you try to resist, you won’t be able to help it,” BTS sings per Doolset Bangtan’s translation of Love Yourself: Her track “Pied Piper.” “Not just an hour but a year or two would just fly away.” What starts as a song you’re drawn to or a funny clip you spot on Twitter or a live performance you catch on TV can become a whole universe.

Breaking records is BTS’s forte (they just became the first all-South Korean act to reach no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100), but no matter where they fall on a chart, and no matter how high the YouTube views climb, they know behind the numbers are people. A song like “Dynamite” — breezy, light, pop music made for dancing — can become part of someone’s memory forever.

“When fans connect our songs with their own experiences and attach meanings behind it, we’re amazed by the various experiences along with ways of life in the world,” BTS says, “allowing us to have fresh thoughts and perspectives that our songs can be interpreted differently.”

Map of the Soul: 7, which dropped this past February, oscillates between abstract examinations of the self in the Jungian sense, and concrete reflections from the members on how they got here and who they are now. In “My Time,” Jungkook muses that he “grew up without me knowing,” per DoYou Bangtan’s translation. In “Ego,” J-Hope imagines an alternate universe where he’s a non-famous Jung Hoseok, with a dream that went unfulfilled — the song itself is a relief valve: “The seven years of anguish are finally being confessed/The pressures, all being eased.” In “We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal,” BTS unites with ARMY, solidifying the fact that in the sum of their careers, they are more than seven.

The energy going into Map of the Soul: 7 felt special, though the album will likely not receive the traditional world tour that fans longed for because of the coronavirus pandemic. (BTS will perform MAP OF THE SOUL ON:E in Seoul and online in October.) Still, the album exists as the encapsulation of a moment in BTS’s lives as well as in ARMY’s. In the past few months, BTS’s music has continued to make new memories for fans who watched the nostalgic Bang Bang Con and its live concert sequel; when they performed “Spring Day” remotely at YouTube’s Dear Class of 2020 graduation ceremony, the song’s messages of renewal and looking ahead amid grief and loss held new meaning.

And so their relationship with fans continues to be inextricable from their larger career trajectory and the way they make music. “Dynamite” was an intentional outreach to ARMYs. “We decided to accept new challenges and be more flexible, especially with our music under these unprecedented circumstances,” BTS says. “Music is everything to us, and we can honestly say we are passionate about singing and dancing more than anyone. However, we realized that without ARMY, who are always there for us, everything we do is meaningless.”

Now, BTS is at work on their next album, set for release sometime before the end of 2020. They’ve been documenting the process on YouTube; this time around, they’re playing a larger role in the overall journey of making the record, divvying up responsibilities and taking a DIY, communal approach. (“For example, Jimin is in charge of the music as the project manager and V is responsible for the visuals,” BTS notes.)

“Each member has a significant share for this upcoming album,” BTS says. “An increase of direct participation in the album-making process allowed us to explore more aspects of our music and creativity.” That distribution of work doesn’t come without its challenges. “Because all the members are involved in the album somehow, there are more last minute changes being made than before, which leads to more uncertainties surrounding the finalization of the release date.”

RM, the leader of BTS, often gravitates toward the metaphor of a boat when describing the dynamic personalities and interests of each member. In the Break the Silence docuseries from earlier this year, he said, “The seven of us are on a boat, looking in different directions but going the same way. That’s how I describe BTS. Some might feel sad because I said we’re looking in different directions, but I think that even my parents... look in different directions at times.”

But as they work out their next album, RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook have turned their eyes toward ARMY.

“As of now, we’re all looking in the same direction,” BTS says. “We feel that we need to stick together more than ever and do what we do best, i.e. music and performing. We believe that the boat is now headed towards the point where we can meet ARMY again in person. No matter when, we bet our boat will reach there.”

Source: Teen Vogue

#2020 #bts #teen vogue

[yuna-writes]

The concept of existence

I’ve been contemplating about existentialism for about ten years and still haven’t found a concrete answer. I haven’t really discussed with anyone in-person because I know the person isn’t really interested in talking about these ideas. Or its ideas that other people don’t think about often. The only people I’ve engaged with philosophical discussion for a long period of time were other INTJs/ENTJs. Just a while ago, I chatted with another dude who had the INTJ type. We also had similar big five test result. He was able to articulate exactly what I was thinking about. It was actually really on point and kind of scary that we had the same thoughts lmao.

For example, how do we know that we actually exist? If you think about it. You know you exist because of your external environment. For example, your friends and family remembers you. However, you only exist in someone else’s memory. Let’s say nobody remembers you, then how can you prove that you actually exist? A person might create the concept of self through their external environment. Such as, your physical body represents your sense of self. The body takes up in a shape that is culturally influenced which creates perceptions and that information returns to your mind. So your identity takes up in the shape of your sex, race and age. The cultural influences of that image sends a message externally and affects you internally. The title of wife, mother or teacher creates an impact to your internal state of being and creates an emotional state of belonging into society. You exist externally in the physical world, but if that world doesn’t exist, then can a person exist consciously without the physical body? 

It’s a concept I thought about for years, but I came to a conclusion that our body is the single material evidence that we exist. No matter how we alter the body or discard it, the perceptions don’t go away. People will still see the physical self and form perceptions surrounding it, which then gets passed down among generations through communication. Even if one believes they exist in their mind and not in the physical world, it’s impossible to disconnect the two as long as people have the desire to interact with the physical world. Human beings want to be loved and socialized externally. The mind can’t exist without the attention, validation and affection of others. Ultimately, through those interactions, we start to develop a conscious of our memories and experiences. And this goes back to my conjecture if memories and experiences don’t exist, then the conscious won’t exist. Then we wouldn’t exist either. 

This is just a bare surface of what I’ve reflected so far. I don’t feel writing a book here but I do wonder sometimes if other people are thinking about the same ideas. I’m sure people do, but I rarely meet them so often to engage in these concepts. 

#notes

[ein-liebloser-wanderer]

⸸ Who is Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? ⸸

(A Yandere AU of Lobotomy Corporation where I turned a cartoon-looking wolf into a a walking dumpster fire. OOC and fanon to be expected)

Characters: Big and Will be Bad Wolf (Lobotomy Corporation), gender-neutral love interest (called 'N' or 'The Agent', and 'Meat' or 'Little Lamb' by the Wolf)

Warning: non-con (there is nothing pleasurable about this for the MC), erotic gore (the non-con is just gore with erotic subtext), explicit content

Contains: cannibalism, distorted sense of self, moral declination/apathy, angst, overwhelming fear of loss, non-human-compliant understanding of love, bitter with barely-any-sweetness ending

Description: F-02-58 had breached containment just after Agent N successfully suppressed another WAW-class Abnormality. Still badly injured from their last battle, they decided to hide among the deceased until the new calamity passes by.

They should have never underestimated the nose of a bloodthirsty wolf.

(Not directly related at all to my other snippet, "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing")

Viewer discretion is advised

"I can smell you all the way from here, Meat." His voice echoed down the long hallway. "Even with all these delicious food lying around...your scent is something I would never miss."

The Agent knew that, of course. With his heightened sense of smell, it would be surprising if he didn't.

"Just in case you have forgotten, I will have you know that I don't like sharing my food with others. How could you let yourself be beaten around by someone else?"

His tone remained cheery and joking, but N undeniably heard the grating hostility behind it. He must be snarling by now. Try as he might to hide his anger, his big sharp teeth would always betray his true nature.

“But all can be forgiven, Meat. After all, it isn't your fault you are so pathetically weak. I could only imagine just how scary it must have been."

It was an attempt to sound understanding, but how could he possibly expect them to believe that he wasn't fuming underneath that sheep façade? They could hear his ragged breathing. It sounded too slow, too controlled.

And how could they not notice the growl accompanying it?

"Come on. You are making it very difficult for me to understand you, Meat. It isn't fair that you allowed someone else to get a taste of you, when you won't even allow me the same courtesy."

I never asked to be hurt, you monster, the Agent wanted to say. But what would be the point of explanations to someone who thinks with their stomach rather than their brain?

"Meat~" he sang aloud. The clacking of his claws against the concrete floors were growing closer and closer. "I am becoming impatient with your game. Come out while I'm still feeling reasonable. Or..."

The clacking stopped.

"...Would you rather have me force myself onto you?"

That was when they were harshly pulled up by the collar of their shirt. They had been hiding among the many bodies strewn on the floor, lying face down, hoping that they would be mistaken for just another corpse.

In his grasp, they felt like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck. Abnormalities tend to be taller or bigger than regular humans. But F-02-58 wasn't in his 'sheep' disguise like he usually was in containment. At least then, he held some semblance to a human even with his eldritch height.

Now, with all pretenses of humanity dropped, the Agent could only scream as big, sharp teeth gleamed back at them.

The Wolf immediately slammed them onto the nearest wall, and the impact of it was enough to shut them up. Lightheaded, they could only listen to him laugh. He was smirking from ear-to-ear when he leaned down to breathe his hot, rotten breath against their ear.

"Scared, Meat?"

The only response he got from the human was squirming.

With a slow lick of his lips, he growled.

"You should be."

The Abnormality let go of them. The unexpected action sends them falling down to the ground, but before they could do so much as sit up, he grabbed their wrists and pinned them on the floor above their head. The Agent tried to squirm free, but that only made him growl. His grip which was already so tight only clamped harder, and now, his claws were puncturing into their soft flesh. So, they stilled, too hurt to move even more.

"Good...that's a good little lamb," he said with the sickest grin the human ever saw. There was something in his eyes. Something soft...and loving.

The Agent took this as an opportunity to get away.

The Wolf must have thought he had them under his control, because he didn't seem prepared to be kicked on the abdomen. He fell down on the floor beside them with a gasp, the air having been knocked out of him.

Even if it was just for a little while, this incapacitated state meant life and death, and they weren't going to waste it.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

Just as they were about to grab their EGO weapon, something strong and sharp tore through the sensitive skin on the back of their neck. N was just a hair's breadth away from salvation. But the monster pulled them quickly back to his maw, denying them of any safety.

"Aww. Did you really think you had a chance against me? How adorable."

And just like that, he had flipped them around to face him with their thighs spread out. With their legs wrapped intimately around his waist, it felt too much.

Like this, they were exposed. There was nothing to defend their vulnerabilities from him, nothing to protect them from feeling the growing warmth between them. His left hand was still holding their wrists up, and his other one—

Oh, god.

The Agent began to struggle with all their might when they felt his warm palm brush up beneath their shirt. When they didn't stop, the Wolf only growled as a warning before digging his nails hard into their wound.

"Yeah, it hurts, doesn't it?" The Abnormality laughed louder, angrier. "I considered being nice earlier. I wasn't even that hungry, now that I thought about it...But you just had to act the way you did, didn't you?"

He leaned forward slowly. This close, N could feel his hot, rotten breath against their cheek. With a tone so serious and ferocious, they knew this was the point that the Wolf would stop playing around.

"Fine, then. I will treat you like the prey that you act to be."

Without warning, his sharp teeth sunk deep into the crook of their neck. His Little Lamb's lips only parted slightly before he clamped his hand shut around their mouth to muffle out their scream.

"Shut it."

It wasn't that he didn't want anyone to hear. But with the state of the facility now, it would just be terrible if another one of his kind were to hear it, wouldn't it? No, their agony was only his, and his to relish.

"After the first couple of tries, it's not so difficult to break down those doors, you know. It makes me wonder if your Manager even really wants to keep us locked."

Pulling his bloodied hand back, he licked the tips of his claws clean. Just mentioning that human alone sent a bitter taste down his mouth, and he wanted nothing more than to be rid of it.

"But anyway, I escaped. And while I was at it, I made sure to release some of the...what do you call it? Abnormalities?"

His Little Lamb's eyes widened as the realization sunk in. Took them long enough. "What? You didn't think I was the only one that got out, did you?"

Everything around the Agent began to look blurry as their eyes filled with tears.

They had just successfully suppressed an ALEPH, and the price of it was the lives of their many colleagues. Now, it was all for naught because some WAW-class Abnormality felt jealous?

"Why?"

The Wolf tilted their head. "What did you say?"

There was a tight knot in the back of their throat. They felt like they were going to suffocate if they didn't force out the words strangling them.

"Why would you do that? I...We did everything we could just to send that thing back, and you just—" Their voice hitched, and the tears began to stream. "—How could you?!"

Crudely, he placed a bloody finger on their lips. "Shh...don't cry."

How could I not when you're giving me every reason to? Their eyes cried out.

"I don't know who you are talking about exactly, but if I released the one who did this to you, I would know." Your blood isn't something I could miss, he didn't add. "And believe me...I won't let them get away with what they did to you."

The Wolf leaned back down again, eyeing the red stain on their uniform. It was undeniably their blood, but he couldn't help but notice a faint stench.

It was from the fucker that caused it.

Slowly, he began to remember why he did this in the first place, and with his claws , he ripped their shirt open, exposing their clammy skin to the cold air. It only brought him slight relief to see that it was nothing fatal. Just a mere stab wound from...something.

Still, he hated to know that anyone other than him had hurt his Little Lamb.

Unable to hold back his desires any longer, he bit down around the foreign mark, hard.

His cobalt pupils dilated as sweet ambrosia seeped into his mouth. Truly, nothing tasted better than fresh meat.

Something hot was beginning to pool within him. Whether it was lust, hunger, or rage that someone other than him was able to experience this, he couldn't even tell anymore. But then again, did it really matter?

As soon as he got a good chunk between his teeth, he yanked back. He had to make it quick so he wouldn't cause any unnecessary tear to their skin. It was reasons like this why predators killed their prey first.

But his Little Lamb wasn't just a food source for him, no. If that was all they were, he would have swallowed them whole a long time ago.

Like he wanted, his bite had covered the mark entirely until it wasn't even there anymore.

He successfully chewed it out.

Being a carnivore, his teeth was sharp and jagged enough to tear through their skin and flesh with ease. Perhaps, his Little Lamb would disagree about the 'ease', but...heh. If only they knew just how painful he could make this.

The wounds were relatively clean. Uneven viscera poked out with their peachy hues, now revealed since the thin layer of skin hiding them had been ripped off.

Had he bit any deeper, he might have reached his Little Lamb's hip bones, or maybe something else that was crucial. Like intestines.

It would be a shame if I did, he chuckled darkly.

As he chewed and savoured the sliver of meat, he sat back and took this moment to study and observe every movement his Little Lamb made.

He drank in every crinkle of their face, every twist their delicate features made. They had been biting down on their lips so hard that it bled.

In that moment, he felt a strong urge to lick the crimson off their lips, but at the same time, something else was nagging at him. It chewed and nipped at his heart like a persistent bug, and it wouldn't relent.

He knew what it was, and that realization only served to fan the dying flames of his anger. It was guilt.

Feeling indignant, he scoffed.

In the war between the rational man and his inner beasts, he thought the former lost a long time ago. So, why did he decide to come back now?

Ignoring his human conscience, the Wolf lowered himself onto the small body beneath him before licking at the exposed skin of their collarbone. It seemed like a soft gesture until he returned to biting.

His Little Lamb instinctively began to hold onto them. He could feel their nails, small and pathetic as they were, digging in through the thin fabric of his shirt.

They were obviously trying to hurt him. When hitting him didn't work, scratching was all that was left for them to do.

But for the Wolf, who could only express his desires through controlled violence...he could pretend that this was their beloved reciprocating his love.

Perhaps, in a different world where he didn't surrender to his instincts, things might be different. That man might feel guilt and disgusted with himself for even thinking of doing this.

But as it was...he felt nothing. Only possessiveness, and satisfaction at the thought that he had reclaimed what was his.

By now, he had left a trail of large puncture wounds on their collarbone up to their neck. He made sure not to hit any vital arteries, but feeling them thrum and heat with life, it was very tempting.

The Agent could feel the Abnormality's eyes on them, studying their every reaction and response to the unbearable stimuli that was his 'marks'. Even with how burnt through their eyes were from all the fluorescent lights, they could see he still wanted more.

It was in the way his cobalt eyes gleamed brightly. The way he clenched and opened his fists around their hips as if he were torn between leaving and attacking.

And on their legs, they could feel it.

They didn't dare to look down.

The Wolf didn't stop until nothing but the scent of his darling filled his nostrils. It clouded his mind, muddled his judgement, and the only reason why he even stopped was because he noticed how eerily quiet everything was.

He sat back, eyes looking over their body. He knew for a fact that the human was still alive. Their heartbeat was still there. But with their eyes closed...ah.

He went too far.

In his daze, he became no different from a beast in heat, and he had pushed his Little Lamb past their limit.

The Abnormality couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of it.

With a tenderness uncharacteristic for the Abnormality, he lifted the unconscious human off the ground, remembering to be careful with their injuries.

Did he regret this? No. Did the human regret ever getting close to him? Maybe.

Regardless, he knew he wasn't the one at fault. He warned them since the very beginning, yet they kept drawing themselves closer to his mouth. Like a lamb to the slaughter.

So, if they had anyone to blame, it should be themselves.

Because right from the beginning, they should have been afraid of him.

Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you, love, for reading until the end~

Here is a cute video of three wolves!

If I missed any warnings, I deeply apologize. Please comment, so no one has to bleach their mind of my writing. （" ´▽ `)>

#yandere big bad wolf #yandere werewolf #yandere cryptid #yandere monster #yandere male #yandere x darling #yandere x oc #yandere lobotomy corp #yandere lobotomy corporation #yandere lobcorp #yandere project moon #yandere #yandere writing #yandere drabbles #yandere one-shot #love-eldritch #eldritch-nsfw

[flickeringart]

Libra Sun and Moon Combinations

Planets represent different energetic principals in the life of an individual – the signs show what filter these energies express through.

Having an inner planet (or luminary) in the sign of Libra gives the personality balanced, smooth and intellectual qualities. No matter what other placements the person has, the socially pleasant and amiable nature is going to come through.

To simplify;

The Sun represents the goal of individuation, self-expression and conscious self-actualization.

The Moon represents instinct, temperament, emotional nature and personal needs.

Libra Sun – Capricorn Moon

The path of the conscious self is to see other people and the role they play in one’s life. One is to find appreciation for the social fabric and ways to work with it to achieve something that is pleasant for everyone. The intellect should be employed to balance different qualities and understand a wide variety of personalities, their aims and wishes, their needs and cravings. With a Libra Sun, the path is that of the diplomat, a path in becoming a mediator that can cope with the cognitive dissonance of opposing perspectives. A full-fledged Libra Sun is someone who can stand up for both sides and exist in the uncomfortable realm of relativity. Paired with a Capricorn Moon, the personality gains an added ambitious quality that is used to putting emotions aside in order to achieve something concrete. There can be a marked sense of ambivalence and insecurity to this type of personality. On the one hand, the Libra Sun denotes the Achilles heal of being intellectually confused and uncertain because of the function of balancing opposites, on the other, the Capricorn Moon is unable to express overt weakness because there’s a feeling of having to be self-sustaining on an emotional level. This combo can be a recipe for a very insecure individual, because on the one hand, the conscious personality is set to achieve social harmony while the instinct is to struggle and limit spontaneity in order to “succeed” in the long term. However, this is also a combo of signs that is known for its ability to strategically climb up the ranks – the ability to please and the ability to be self-controlled is not a bad recipe for success in the worldly sense. The pitfall is that there might be little satisfaction that is gained through simply being oneself – there’s always a tendency to look to the external for assessment and approval. The instinct of the Capricorn Moon is to restrict in order to gain a sense of ultimate control and absolute authority on an inner level - to feel something that is due to one’s unwavering integrity. Unchecked emotional responses are scary to a Capricorn Moon – everything has to be calculated. The individual might feel as if there’s a lack of originality and spontaneity to their person and an incapacity for genuine feeling that is not modified or checked against the social rules of conduct. “Letting loose” is not a term that would be associated with a Libra-Cap, but, there’s probably a great skill of doing that which is socially required, being a decent person and sticking to the middle way, the middle ground, the non-biased intellectual judgment as a way of operating. Success is important to this person, both in appearance and actuality. Libra’s tendency to “fake it till you make it” is counteracted by the Capricorn Moon that wants something real at all costs – even if that means being without superficial satisfaction and present comfort for a long time.

Libra Sun – Cancer Moon

This combo is usually referred to as the epitome of a people pleaser. Both of these signs are relationship oriented and care enormously about being liked – Libra for the reasons of social harmony and aesthetic perfection, Cancer for the reason of emotional security. The person is consciously aiming to be pleasing because of the striving to hit the “right note” of intellectual pleasure, of actualizing a mental ideal. To do this, a person has to modify and judge appropriately, to develop an eye for beauty, to avoid extremes yet use them to put together something of refinement. The key word to associate with Libra Sun is smoothness – the person has aims and goals but they should be reached with grace and style. Another key word associated with Libra is love, specifically the feeling tone of love rather than the emotional attachment that is associated with Cancer. With this combo, the person has both the intelligent appreciation of other people’s qualities as well as a strong need to emotionally bond. It would be rare to see this kind of person strike out on their own for any reason – it is not in solitude that one thrives but in communion with others. Though both Libra and Cancer fall under the category of “relational archetypes”, the signs are in a bit of a conflict with each other. Air signs like Libra are cerebral and water signs like Cancer are emotional. While this person might strive for intellectually satisfying relationships marked by give-and-take and willingness to compromise in order to create harmony, the personal instincts only seek emotional containment and acceptance of the ups and downs in life. This conflict can be difficult to navigate – on the one hand there’s a conscious self that strives to keep things level, on the other, there’s an emotional nature that is protective and constantly fluctuating. The Cancer Moon aims to care and relate to others through offering emotional support and being supported in turn. The Libra Sun aims to be a judge that knows what to be done in order to restore social balance. The Libra Sun cares about being easy for others to talk to and approach while Cancer Moon might hide behind a veil of thick emotive fumes in order to keep from being hurt. These two opposing aims don’t easily merge. There might be a conscious judgment and distaste for the instinctual nature and frustrated emotional responses in turn, all happening within the personality. On a more positive note, this combo points to an individual that truly cares about others – perhaps even to the point of deprioritizing personal (selfish) urges if there’s no way to satisfy them in conjunction with what is best for the overall social climate. That being said, both these signs are cardinal and functions to initiate action, to move toward a goal. This combo is characteristic of effectively and non-aggressively navigating one’s way with a positive social image intact – perhaps through letting other, more martial personalities butt heads - conveniently the Libra-Cancer person sweeps in with the diplomatic grace and emotional receptivity to fix the situation in favor of everyone. Social advantages can be gained with this combo because there’s no desire to force or push or provoke. The person is much too sensitive to discord to let things get too ugly.

Libra Sun – Aries Moon

This is such a fun (or freaky?) combo - two complementing opposing principles existing within one individual. Libra and Aries are astrological opposites, The Lover and The Warrior, The Peacemaker and The Fighter, The Other vs. The Self. Because of these opposites in the personality, there’s going to be pendulum swings that might cause people to gasp. The path of self-actualization is marked with traits of pleasantness, charm and grace to achieve the height of social potential. The instinctual nature is impulsive, passionate and easily aroused, there’s the expectance of resistance and challenge, which makes the emotions highly charged and powerful. To illustrate, picture a person who’s effortlessly charming and intellectually witty, that gets along with everyone (or at least wants to)– but this person also likes to move fast, has an excess of energy, gets burnt out easily, occasionally participates in risky activities and is too quick for anyone to keep up with. The Libra Sun ensures that the person is consciously reasonable and level headed while the Aries Moon makes the temperament restlessness and easily over-charged. Though the individual consciously values forming social connections and making contact, the temperament does not lend itself well to make others feel at ease. The agitation that is felt in the background is not reassuring to people in one’s social circle and it can be very disruptive. The Aries Moon person instinctually has to move independently because that is the innate temperament, yet the conscious self-actualization lies in the complete opposite direction. “Passively” weighing pros and cons and coming to an intellectual conclusion of what is fair and right is the Libra way; yet somewhere along the line this attempt is going to be sabotaged by the Aries instinct. Some people who have civilized and social air Suns who have Aries Moons are accused of being “bullies” despite their conscious portrayal of themselves as detached and composed. “Back stage” when away from public view, there’s impatience and cockiness, anger and frustration that is displayed. I’m thinking specifically of Kamala Harris (Libra Sun, Aries Moon) and Ellen DeGeneres (Aquarius Sun, Aries Moon). On the one hand they are socially skilled, on the other they’re emotionally volatile and aggressive. That being said, an Aries Moon is quite the powerhouse and paired with the Libra Sun, there’s the potential to be diplomatic and nice while also being capable of facing resistance and doing things on one’s own – no matter what other people think. This is someone who needs speed and can go off the rails but strives to keep in line.

Libra Sun – Libra Moon

This type is a Libra through and through. This type is sensible, likable, accommodating, nice and respectful but also indecisive, unsure of the self outside of a social arrangement and prone to keep all things light and airy. The tendency to keep everything on the light and cerebral is a definite pitfall, especially when the Moon falls in this sign. With the Libra Moon there’s enormous sensitivity to subtle unpleasantries. For example, the person might be especially sensitive to faint odors and smells, the texture of food, the hygiene of other people, and the appearance of other people and their lack of taste or manners. All these things can be emotionally unsettling for Libra Moons as they crave beauty and refinement around them to feel at ease. While a Libra Sun is consciously self-actualizing through navigating the social plane with skill tact and grace, the Libra Moon is emotionally dependent on being able to secure aesthetic and social perfection. This need can be difficult to live with because other people might judge it to be vain and superficial to care so much about aesthetic beauty. Marie Antoinette had a Libra Moon, which is hardly surprising. She needed luxury and beauty on an emotional level to feel comforted and safe. While some people with this combo might realize that it doesn’t look good to be this “superficial”, it’s impossible to change one’s fundamental temperament, which is symbolized by the Moon. Simply put, Libra Moons feel the most nurtured and at home in an environment of class and sophistication. The less polished the surroundings, the more the person will suffer. Because of the strong need for beauty, these people tend to spend money on what some may deem trivial, like design, art and pretty little adornments that doesn’t make much of a difference practically yet is of high importance for the Libra Moon. These people can’t deny themselves the experience of fine things for long – it’s what they live for. Unfortunately, there’s always disappointment of things not living up to the perfect idea one had of them. The Libra Sun on its own doesn’t usually give an overwhelmingly strong desire for these experiences, but coupled with a Libra Moon there’s little to get in the way of the “easy and breezy” life that these people aim to live. Being so lovely inside and out makes people want to be around them, they are light and bright, non-aggressive but purposeful leaders in their own way. When everyone else is up in their own business it is possible to get through to these people through reason and through appealing to their idealistic nature of what is socially appropriate. They will always want to adjust and regulate the social climate. These are not spineless people, they will attempt to change the outcome of situations but in a way that doesn’t ruffle any more feathers than necessary. They can’t hold a grudge for too long or hold an overly negative opinion of anyone. They will put their foot down, but through appealing to people’s sense of fairness and desire for harmonious co-existence. Friendliness and charm often go a long way and these people are masters at this specific tactic – it’s natural to them.

Libra Sun – Taurus Moon

This is the ultimate Venusian combo. Venus the goddess of love and beauty rules both signs. They differ quite significantly though, Libra is an intellectual masculine sign and Taurus is a practical feminine sign. With this combo the conscious self-expression is characterized by sociability, intelligence, sophisticated taste and preferences, sensitivity to discord and a desire to balance opposites to achieve ease and refinement. The instinctual nature is more geared in the direction of tactile sensation, to be able to possess material value and enjoy one’s physical environment. The Taurus Moon temperament is grounded, slow and steady – emotional stability depends primarily on being familiar with one’s environment. Libra Moons are very picky and sensitive to taste and smell because the physical is never as refined as one wishes it could be. Anything that’s real in an earthy sense is fundamentally flawed to a Libra Moon. Taurus Moon, like Libra Moon, also has sensitivity to crudeness but there’s a whole other comfort with the messy, imperfect physicality of life. Emotionally, Taurus Moons need to feel physically comfortable which means wearing flattering but comfortable clothing, live in a place where they can touch and feel nature, where they can take their time. Taurus Moons like to do everything in their own pace without rush. They’re comfortable with taking things step by step in order to fully feel their way through the process. Because this combo is a sucker for the nice things in life, there can be a tendency to spend too much money. However, unless there are other factors playing in, Libra-Taurus can justify this to themselves. Venus as an archetype is vain and thinks she deserves the finest the world has to offer – a life without beauty and pleasure is no life at all. If this type attempts to restrict and lead a modest existence it will backfire quite badly, usually through increased appetites and desires for sensuous and self-gratifying experiences. Money is of great importance to these people because they can’t stand scarcity or lack of any kind. While people with other combos could “thrive” on breadcrumbs, Libra-Taurus would be completely miserable. Although the Libra Sun doesn’t want to stand out or in any way display controversial behavior, the Taurus instinct to have things might occasionally go against better judgment. Food is a particular temptation with a Taurus Moons, they really know how to enjoy and savor sensory experiences. They love to feel the substance of physical things, to touch and possess the physicality of something. The conscious self-actualizing through the sign of Libra might find the sensuous nature of the Taurean instincts hard to deal with because of its “repulsive” earthiness. Consciously, the person wants to rely on the intellect and identify with the capacity to mentally assess the social climate in order to balance and regulate it to one’s liking. Instinctually there’s a need to be sure of one’s value and worthiness to be beautiful and have all the things one desires.

Libra Sun – Scorpio Moon

This is truly the combo of the social charmer with a powerful emotional nature. Consciously, the person strives to be cooperative, willing to let the intellect lead and decide how to show up in social situations. Emotionally, there’s strong radar for undercurrents and more primal and dark facets of people’s personalities. Although this type can be pleasant, respectful and consciously appreciative of other people and their qualities, there’s an instinctual need to be in control at all costs. These types expect crises to happen, and need to be on their guard for it. Pretty words and idealistic strivings don’t cut it when push comes to shove – people’s true nature is revealed when they’re put under pressure and this person knows it. A Scorpio Moon needs to know that people can be trusted on a much deeper level before beginning to relax a little, and even then it is probably best to play one’s cards close to the chest. Although the person might consciously claim to just want to live a life of ease, the innate temperament is emotionally intense and overwhelming – even socially taboo. There’s an emotional urge to kill or be killed, not necessarily in a literal sense but experientially. The power of the emotions might cause this type to withdraw and isolate because of fear of exposure, which contradicts the intellectual Libran ideal. The person might want to actualize the self as levelheaded, socially skilled, “partnership material”, sensible, fair and gracious but will find that they can’t soar on the surface of life with ease. The emotions are deep, all consuming, savage, primal and too much to handle. Reason has no place in Scorpio’s realm; the depths of emotion consume it. Scorpio is a sign of emotional intensity and extremes and Libra is a sign of social and intellectual balance. Though the conscious self might enjoy socializing with other people and benefitting from the company, the instinct is to protect the emotions and one’s vulnerability. The Scorpio Moon emotions are usually so raw and non-conducive to civilized existence that these people fear their own instinctual responses and feel the need to protect themselves from them. No matter what they do, it seems like they will self-destruct, either through suppressing emotion or expressing emotion. Their vulnerability and their strength are so total. The Libra Sun aims to be liked, and this becomes a difficult task with such an intense emotional nature. However, the Scorpionic instinct to control and bury emotions can be beneficial in the short term. Scorpio can give the impression of being very calm and collected although there’s certainly fear that something might erupt and overwhelm. If it does and these people have to withdraw, the Libra Sun can be effective in smoothing over it and winning back the social esteem that is desired. This combo can cultivate quite strong bonds with people, on an intellectual and emotional level. There’s an aim to be just and fair, but also to be open and allowing and understanding of the “darker” and destructive instincts that exist within human beings.

(Buy products with my art here)

Libra Sun – Leo Moon

Charm is taken to new heights with this combo. The conscious strife for social and relational harmony and justice is combined with a demonstrative and bold temperament. The person is striving for the Libran ideal of intellectual satisfaction and ease in social interaction and the temperament partly lends itself to greater likability because of openness with personal emotions and needs. However, the Leo Moon can be excessively temperamental and overly identified with emotional responses to the point of exaggerating and making a big deal out of small matters. Once something has upset these people, they brood and puff up in order to let everyone know what they feel. Leo Moons take pride in their emotional responses, whether they’re positive or negative. They’re rarely shy about displaying their instinctual reactions. Even though people might perceive leonine emotions to be a bit dramatic (and possibly attention seeking), they have the endearing touch of a child-spirit that can’t be condemned because it’s so genuine and passionate. The dramatic emotions are a byproduct of the desire to be important and unique which is not bad or wrong in and of itself. It only becomes a problem when the Leo Moon completely dominates and diminishes other people’s feelings on the basis of them not being as demonstrative or loud. There’s a marked selfishness to Leo Moons because they need attention and appreciation on an emotional level. They like to be seen, sometimes at all costs. The conscious self-expression of a Libra Sun might help to counteract this compulsion by intellectually distancing the self from the exuberance and energy that a Leo Moon generates. A Libra Sun doesn’t want to do anything at the expense of other people unless it is the only way to restore equilibrium. Childish enthusiasm or temper tantrums are accepted but it must be reasonably managed as to not become a nuisance to other people and oneself in Libra’s perspective. If the person can get enough attention and recognition for emotional reactions and responses in the proper setting, there should be no problem letting other people have their sense of importance as well. The Leo Moon needs love more than anything – the kind of love that is based on the love of the Self. They want to be recognized as important for their emotional experiences and be seen as special and one of a kind. To trivialize their emotions or pass them off as something “everybody goes through” is deeply hurtful to these individuals. With a Libra Sun, specialness is sought through skillful modification and adjustment of the social sphere through personal intervention. Leo Moon doesn’t care about perfection in a social sense, what is needed is a sense of innate significance and talent.

Libra Sun – Aquarius Moon

With a double air sign setup this type of person is primarily relating to life through concepts and the deductive mental functions. The overall life path as characterized by Libra revolves around relating to other people, which includes accommodating for individuals possessing different traits, temperaments and opinions in a way that is easy and non-strenuous. This type wants to create a smooth interactive experience and does this through mentally assessing and adjusting accordingly. The emotional temperament of the Aquarius Moon is likewise very lightweight. Emotions are not felt as much as they are conceptualized of. Reactions are based on what the person has decided is the identity of choice, for this reason, reactions can be very unpredictable and not what would intuitively be expected in any given situation. People often have a hard time relating to the emotions of Aquarius Moons because of the unexpected and unique deductions they make, how they interpret common phenomena and respond to events. It can be impossible to foresee the reactions of an Aquarius Moon. While this makes these people exciting and stimulating, it also often make them loners and outsiders. This is not very pleasant for a Libra Sun that strives to relate to people and be common enough for people to find it easy to stick around. While there’s no shortage of quirks out there, people are rarely quirks for the same reasons. Being unique to the point of no one being able to relate to one’s inner emotional climate is not easy– though independence has its upsides it doesn’t ease the pain of not being able to share commonalities. The conscious Libra expression might do much to counteract this loner tendency and the Aquarian Moon lends itself well to understanding and accepting everyone’s unique needs and habits. Even though emotional closeness might not come naturally to this Moon, a broader belonging can be felt in universal principle as opposed to personal matters. This is truly the gift of an Aquarius Moon – to be able to have unconventional responses and to find comfort in the principle of diversity. The closeness that can be achieved with an Aquarius Moon is through mutual recognition of the diverse nature of humanity as a condition that all of humanity shares. It might sound very abstract and strange to establish closeness in this way but this is the way of the Aquarius Moon. The conscious self is more socially inclined than the temperament, which is more conducive to that of independence since there’s little need for closeness in the conventional sense. The emotions can be too erratic and unintuitive for people to keep up with – the unpredictability might make people cautious to engage on a deeper emotional level. The ability to converse and have intelligent discussions are however not a problem for this type, the person enjoys engaging with all kinds of people and associate with wide variety of characters. In this sense, they are never “lonely” in theory, but there is an innate sense of detachment that might plague the person. This person can have many friends but in a very loose sense of the word – some might claim that there’s too much space and time between the Aquarius Moon person and the “friends” to be any reality to the bond. Individualism is both a gift and a curse granted these people.

Libra Sun – Virgo Moon

In simple terms, this combo could be labeled “the social worker” or “the skillful artist” or perhaps “the social analyst”. These labels are not to be taken to seriously but they capture a little bit of the essence of these two signs co-existing. The conscious self as represented by the Libra Sun strives to cultivate the ability of being impartial, of objectively contrasting phenomena and aiming toward some kind of balance in life. The Libra Sun strives to spot perfection and excellence and modify the personal expression to fit the bill. It is not really the end that is important; it’s the process of achieving refinement. In alchemy, Libra is the process of sublimation, which is the immediate transition of a substance from solid to gas-state. In other words, Libra is the sign that is responsible for making substance light and airy, to conceptualize of people, events and things, to bring solid substance to the level of the mind. The Virgo temperament is contrasting this conscious Libran pursuit, but it also works with it in some ways. Virgo denotes an analytical and processing temperament that can be irritable and anxious. There’s a strong need for order and structure with a Virgo Moon that can sometimes kill the glamour strived for by the conscious self. The body has to be healthy and life has to be executed a specific way in order to avoid chaos from taking over a Virgo Moon’s existence. The emotional receptivity to detail and an acute awareness of cause and effect is denoted which makes these people pragmatic, sometimes to the detriment of fun and relaxation. These people are usually quite high-strung and mentally active. They truly care about doing things right; questioning, analyzing and dissecting components of a process in order to manage life as effectively as possible. There’s no necessity of aestheticism to a Virgo Moon but routines and methods should be purified and designed to maintain a well-oiled cogwheel. In alchemy, Virgo is the process of distillation, which is essentially to separate components from a liquid mixture through selective boiling and condensation. In other words, Virgo is the sign that is responsible for analytical dissection in order to discover all the components and their function in life. When the Moon is in this sign, the temperament is sharp but delicate, precise yet susceptible to worry and insecurity of not being able to take all the details into consideration. These people manage moods through sticking to routine and managing little tasks – they usually treat themselves and others with respects but can also be fussy and critical of minor things. Not being able to see the forest for the trees is a typical Virgo syndrome and if one tree is dying, one might just think that it’s the end of the world if one cannot discover a way to bring it back to life through going about it the right way. There’s an emotional need to understand the process of nature in order to work with it properly. Security is primarily felt through confidence in personal skill.

Libra Sun – Pisces Moon

With an airy and intellectual conscious self-expression and a receptive-imaginative emotional temperament this type has all the prerequisites for being able to relate to people, both on a conscious plane and a subconscious plane. The emotions of a Pisces Moon are strong and fleeting but they are essentially impersonal because they are universal. The person doesn’t feel like emotional experiences are their own, they are everyone’s and no one’s simultaneously. The breadth, width and depth of the Piscean temperament can be extremely fascinating to other people because of the allure of immortality and timelessness. There’s something sacred about these people’s inner lives. Combined with a conscious Libran strife for social and aesthetic harmony the overall personality becomes very loving, beautiful and ethereal. The social awareness and the importance of relationship pertaining to the Libra Sun are somewhat antithetical to the needs of a Pisces Moon. A Pisces Moon craves a height of love that is almost destructively ecstatic – it’s the stuff of fairytales and dreamscapes. There’s a need to escape “real life” and spend time in Wonderland on a regular basis. The Libra Sun shares the aim for refinement, but it’s through realistic intellectual assessment and adjustments of superficial conduct and style in social contexts, not through enmeshment with fantastical imaginations and unattainable dreams. The Piscean temperament can be very creative and paired with a Libra Sun, there’s great potential for artistry. The conscious self can offer an eye for what is aesthetically pleasing in in terms of common taste while the Piscean emotions can add imbue the creation with a universal timelessness that speaks to people on a soul level. The pitfall of this combo lies in being too passive and non-assertive. Although a Libra Sun certainly aim to live in accordance with some kind of ideal in terms of conduct and social behavior, there’s difficulty in knowing how to be oneself without insight into the social norms of a particular social constellation. When Libras are insecure, they tend to become suck-ups or go along with the crowd, adjusting along the way – there’s seldom any radical stances made. With the Pisces Moon there’s no solid sense of emotional boundaries and the receptivity can sometimes be overwhelming as to make them follow the path of least resistance. Sometimes this works to one’s advantage, sometimes it doesn’t. There can be a deeply unsettling sense of having agreed to too much and lost personal integrity in the process. While it’s all the same to a Pisces Moon because of the innate knowing of transience, the Libra Sun might judge this slip up to be unfortunate and might be very annoyed about letting the scale tip too far one way or another. That being said, this is truly a love type inside and out which always guarantees some kind of popularity. Personal relationships matter a lot to these people, not only for the intellectual satisfaction but also for the emotional merging that is possible.

Libra Sun – Sagittarius Moon

This type certainly has a tendency to enliven and blend in smoothly in a social setting. The Sagittarius temperament might occasionally cause a bit of a stir because of blunt honesty and casual frankness, but overall this person is very likable and friendly. There’s little concern with details and petty factual knowledge, the temperament leans in the direction of seeing the big picture and the potential of life rather than the borders and boundaries. Sometimes this can lead to clumsiness and insensitivity in one’s immediate environment, but overall the person wishes to uplift rather than bring people down. The person is open in the emotional expressions and perhaps even a bit loud. The temperament is restless but not nervous – one instinctually takes the high road and looks down on people who are concerned with what one would term “trivial details and minor mishaps”. The tendency is to “just move on” which sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t. A Sagittarius Moon can’t stand dwelling and would much rather find something to distract from the unpleasant situation at hand. When the present becomes too demanding, the instinct is to escape – to move on to a new topic, a new social circle or a new life all together. Overall, the Libra-Sagittarius combo means to live on the surface of life while getting the best of it at the same time. The Libra Sun wants to employ intellectual judgment to achieve interactive ease; the Sagittarius Moon needs to experience life in all its shapes and forms in order to derive intuitive knowledge. Although the conscious self would never attempt to brag or boast in an obnoxious manner, if the person’s feelings get hurt, there’s always an “exaggerated” response or an inflated sense of self-importance that ensues. It can be difficult for other people to get this person off the “high horse” within the context of an argument, but Sagittarius Moons forget slights quickly even though the reaction might have been big in real time. Although Libra and Sagittarius go quite well together, there can be a lack of an innate need for moderation that is not in line with the Libran aim to stay level headed and detached enough to be able to assess a situation. The Sagittarius Moon can be impulsive and demanding, seemingly non-attuned to the needs and deeper emotions of other people. The easy-going, happy-go-lucky temperament doesn’t easily lend itself to forming intimate bonds and might even wreck any chances of staying faithful and committed in a partnership. This tendency of the Sagittarius Moon is not supporting the Libran desire to form a lasting partnership, which can be frustrating. If one is to cultivate healthy relationships there needs to be a good amount of freedom to do whatever one wants because otherwise, the restlessness will kick in and demand that space is made. The Sagittarius Moon is not designed for confinement.

Libra Sun – Gemini Moon

With an airy temperament like this, there’s enormous playfulness and creativity, an ability to discuss and handle arguments and contradictions with extraordinary skill and tact. This is a very social and interactive combo and the person is inclined to have many friends and contacts to exchange ideas and opinions with. The person needs variety and stimulating topics to thrive, although anything of sufficient complexity could serve to satisfy the emotional needs, it also has to be socially relevant in order to combine nicely with the conscious self-aspiration. There’s a marked light-heartedness to this combo because of the ability to detach, but there can also be stress and confusion when things can’t be solved conceptually. There’s only so much that can be dealt with on a purely mental level – some things has to be intuitively managed and this is not the strong suit of a Libra-Gemini. Although there’s no shortage of ideas and collected info based on keen observation, some things require gut responses rather than intellectual method. However, in society, the ability to think and learn quickly is highly valued and one should have no problem pursuing education or work that requires socialization, mingling skills, organization, structuring, planning, networking and so on. Partnership might be successfully pursued, but it will be based on mutual interest, humor, wit rather than deeper emotions. The Gemini Moon is more often than not equating thinking with feeling and might have a hard time actually feeling something without sublimating it into a concept. The temperament is restless, changeable, playful but also skittish and avoidant of going into unidentifiable experiences. The person relies on mental quickness to feel comfortable in any given situation – however, this can be very draining and there’s often a need to “rest one’s mind”. Whereas some people might be prone to experience emotional exhaustion, Gemini Moons exhaust their minds because they are instinctively coping with life through the mental faculties. Gemini Moon people can drain themselves and become very depressed at their own lack of speed because it’s the mental swiftness that makes these people feel safe and protected. When mental agility begins to decline, great despair and vulnerability can be felt. However, most of the time there’s enough energy to go around and the Gemini temperament cooperates nicely with the Libran strife for easy and harmonious social existence, with the exception of occasional cheeky mischievous playfulness. Libra is not a passive sign that is unbothered by the personal expressions and activities of other people in society; Libra is a cardinal sign and consequently a sign of initiative. There’s intention and activity behind the goal of beauty and refinement – the social climate is always changing and fluctuating and Libra Sun has to constantly assess and ponder how to show up on the social arena.  

#libra sun #libra #astrology #sun and moon combos #sun and moon combinations #sun signs #moon sign #libra sun capricorn moon #libra sun aries moon #libra sun libra moon #libra sun cancer moon #libra sun leo moon #libra sun scorpio moon #libra sun taurus moon #libra sun aquarius moon #libra sun pisces moon #libra sun virgo moon #libra sun sagittarius moon #libra sun gemini moon #the scales #air sign #air sun #sun and moon in astrology #sun and moon placements

[scott-mccall-the-hot-girl]

my ultimate guide to thiam fic !!

( as a new teen wolf stan )

-

the classic post war, long ass (multi chapter) fic !!with great development that genuinely made me laugh out loud, they have the best friendship in this & i love it very much. ( like theo teaches liam to drive and i just *happy sobs* ) a fundamental in thiam fanfiction !! all stans have probably already read it but if you haven’t this is in fact a threat ,, go show this vv iconic story some love !!

Airplanes - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: After the Anuk-ite and the hunters are dealt with Liam needs a break. Cue Theo and a road trip that Liam should know better than to think will be peaceful.

Not Rated, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, 43/43 Chapters, Words: 236,875 (236k)

-

okay okay so this one is also post 6B !! but ,, now we introduce fighting monroe & the hunters again ,, so we get the boys & a new mission !! so if you like an intresting plot 11/10 would recommend !! just to be clear this ISN’T complete ,, if that turns you off i understand but definitely give this one a read !! it litterally have theo doing crossword puzzles & fighting zombies

Vacancy Signs - LovelyLittleGrim

Summary: Theo and Liam are in Manhattan negotiating a pack allyship when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. Now, the two of them have to find their way back to Beacon Hills without getting eaten by zombies or killing one another.

Rated: Explicit, Graphic Description of Violence, Not Completed, 15/17 Chapters, Words: 89,605 (89k)

-

Royalty AU !! I REPEAT ROYALTY AU !! a fantastic au where i stan their moms more than i stan them !! genuinely so good at the childhood rivals to lovers trope !! i’m genuinely obsessed with this one. has made me cry more than once ,, hurts in a good way <3 the ending is just *chefs kiss* also one of the tags is genuinely: # theo and liam make bad choices for over 130k straight !! if that doesn’t sound appealing i don’t know what does !!

Artificial Love - songbvrd

Summary: Prince Theo and Prince Liam are forced to spend every Summer together from age five onwards. They hate each other, and usually find ways to make each other miserable as much as possible in their six weeks together. But when they're reunited because of intended unions as adults, things change. They're both supposed to be married to noble women, but neither of them is as interested in anyone else as they are with their childhood rival.

Rated: Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, Chapters: 32/32, Words: 172,935 (172k)

-

so if you are in the mood for a crack fic that’s not explicitally a crack fic this is for you !! okay so i’m really hit or miss with AU’s ,, sometimes i feel like they don’t quite capture the characters right but this story have the BEST dramatic liam i have ever seen in my life !! basically they all live in the same apartment building & it’s fantastic !! i saw this one floating around a lot but the summary didn’t really unrest me until i have it a shot !! so go read it rn !! also nolan & brett are genuinely fantastic and make me wheeze ,, LIKE ACTUALLY VERBALLY LAUGHING !! all i’m gonna say is that my fav characters are scott & the beetles but that won’t make actual sense until you read it !!

The Neighbors Song - TheodoreR

Summary: “I always hear you singing on your balcony every morning, but suddenly you’ve stopped?”

Or the one where Theo annoys Liam every morning with his awful singing until he doesn’t anymore and Liam is even more annoyed. Liam hates every single thing about his mornings -the fact that they happen in the morning alone is enough. The thing Liam hates the most about his mornings though is the terrible voice of the guy who lives below him. He can’t sing for shit and Liam tried to politely let him understand that by throwing flour and water on his balcony, and also by shouting it to him, you can’t sing for shit!, and then by writing it into a note he proceeded to attach to his door, but this Raeken guy just keeps doing it, every single morning, like a fucking rooster. Liam did nothing to deserve this. He probably didn’t do anything to deserve better either to be fair, he doesn’t expect to open his window and be welcomed by some angelic voice singing him good morning, he’d just be happy with nothing. Silence. That’s something Liam can appreciate in mornings. Just some bark from his dog and the sound of his misery and that’s it. But no, god forbid the new guy lets him have that.

Rated: Explicit, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Wanrings, Completed, 8/8 Chapters, Words: 42,814 (42k)

-

me: i’m not a big fan of AU’s ,, proceeds to talk about ANOTHER au… OKAY BUT THIS ONE !! it’s not complete but the author has been updating regularly ,, vv slow burn !! but in a REALLY intresting way !! i lOVE LIAM IN THIS SO MUCH ,, he is such a diaster of a person and it’s wonderful !! they have a great dynamic & i’m sucker for general puppy pack content ( and erica reyes being a badass ) !! also theo plays lacrosse in this & i really like it ahhhhh ,, also liam is just being an artic monkeys stan the whole time & theo is like *que confused repressed gay noises*

Inglorious Roommates - honeyscape

Summary: A roommate is defined as “a person with whom one shares a room.”

Theo would say a roommate was more along the lines of, “The person who's the bane of his existence. The weirdo that sleeps for days. The spaz that exercises at 3am. The guy with a revolving door of annoying friends. An insufferable human being that Theo has no control over living in his room.”

Example: Theo hates his roommate Liam.

-

okay okay i hate myself but i have another WIP for y’all !! this one is jUST FANTASTIC. i’m genuinely so upset it’s most likely not going to updated again *incoherent screaming ensues*. for this story ,, it’s very theo-centric bUT thats bc it ends right before liam becomes a concrete member of the story !! ANYWAY: basic plot = theo & acquiring not one but two children ,, so #dad theo but he is still crusty & homeless and i love him very much. it’s just so GOOD !! just read if you want to experience my fav theo coming out story & him etching high school musical

Look who's talking - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: Theo had been labeled many things in his life. Evil, failure, monster. He'd never thought Father would be one of those things but as he looked across the table to a six year old with blue smears of bubble gum icecream across her face trying to coax the first words out of her sister. Finger jabbing towards Theo's face as she repeated 'Daddy' again and again he couldn't bring himself to dispute the label.

(Theo accidentally adopts two young werewolves)

Not Rated, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings, Not Completed, Chapters: 16/?, Words: 48740 ( 48k )

-

so here me out: post-canon ( poetry like angst ) summer get away !! just the boys doing cute little domestic things together whilst pining !! theo’s guilt in this is just so powerful & aGjffkgkkfkvkdlv !! i think it’s so interesting to see how they interact in this one, it’s just very heart warming !! and it features one of my favorite niche teen wolf tropes of theo being great with like seven year old girls- it’s just so good ,, very much a wonderful little one shot that just makes your heart happy.

(next time i see you you'll show me) a hundred different ways to say the same things - cherrysprite

Summary: “...You deserve good things,” Liam says eventually. He makes sure not to look at Theo even though he can feel his eyes turn on him. Somehow he can already tell that Theo doesn’t believe him.

Liam instantly makes that the goal of this summer - making Theo believe him.

Rating: Teen and Up, No Archive Warnings Apply, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 28875 ( 28k )

-

okay so this next section of fic recs is a bit different !!

two of my favorite authors !! and a compilation of fics i’ve read by them both !!

for context: these two have written some genuinely gorgeous fics, like pure poetry, they explore the real gritty & scary side of our boys relationship in such a wonderful way. they’ve both used some of my favorite tropes & i love them very much !!

whenever i need something soothing but so genuinely intresting & enticing these are my go to !! ( also they both write a lot of good nolan angst & some vv good fics with hayden )

go check out:

eneiryu

as well as fallingforboys

here are some of my favorite fics by them ~

darling i want you here in my arms (kiss the pain away, i know you can) - fallingforboys

even before you touched me, i belonged to you (all you had to do was look at me) - fallingforboys

memories linger like tattoo scars (but your touch on my skin is just as permanent) - fallingforboys

skin, bones, a stolen heart, and an ugly creature lurking underneath -fallingforboys

i don't know how to breathe in the place i called home - fallingforboys

whisper your gossamer truths into the shadow, maybe you'll find the answers you're searching for - fallingforboys

between the mountains and the valley we built a monument to our regret - eneiryu

cracked the hinges of the cage and waited for you - eneiryu

-

okay and finally: since i am a self centered whore

my own fic: an rendition of the # elevator scene

it’s basically my version of post canon if we did get the kiss in the elevator. we got a classic liam pov in which he is has 12/10 for extreme bi diaster energy even whilst being shot at !! so go him ig…

Fuck Off, Fuck This & Fuck It! - nefelibata_peach

Summary: Liam thought to himself heart rate climbing, they were bound to be dead by morning. So he thought with everything but his brain and he kissed him.

Where Liam Dunbar is very confused, slightly traumatized, and just a bit scared but hey, aren't they all! Bad decisions ensue as two boys fight in a war they never did sign up for.

Rating: Teen and Up, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 3558 ( 3k )

#this took me so long #please go read these or i’ll cry #fan fiction #fan fic recs #teen wolf fic recs #thiam fanfiction #thiam fic recs #thiam #theo raeken #liam dunbar #theo x liam #teen wolf fandom #teen wolf gay #teen wolf #ao3 #fuck you fuck this & fuck it #thiam fanfic rec #thiam fanfic #thiam is endgame

[zintranslations]

Kaleidoscope of Death, Ch. 70

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu Link to Chinese / Link to ongoing Taida Translations

Chapter 70: Appetite

Can't help it anymore. When he heard Qin Budai say this, Lin Qiushi felt a chill deep in his bones. The person before him wore fresh blood on his lips, and stared at him with a pair of silent, red-veined eyes. The look that was so clearly stifling something lifted a light layer of goosebumps along Lin Qiushi's arms. All of Lin Qiushi's instincts were ringing the alarm—that the person in front of him was very, very dangerous.

Qin Budai gradually got closer and closer. His footsteps finally halted before Lin Qiushi, and he slowly called out Lin Qiushi's name. His tone was both cloying and cold, sending very mixed signals.

At that moment, Lin Qiushi wanted to turn and run. But he also felt that the instant he left his back open, something completely out of his control would happen. So he thoroughly smothered that urge to escape and hide, and instead said, "Qin Budai, are you alright?"

Qin Budai smiled eerily at Lin Qiushi. "I'm fine." It probably would've been better if he hadn't smiled at all; it only made his expression seem more twisted.

Just as the two stood in stalemate, Chen Fei's voice came warily from outside the kitchen. "What are you two doing?"

Chen Fei reached and flipped the light switch on the wall. The entire kitchen lit up, and he got a good look at the scene before him.

"Qin Budai— What are you doing?" His gaze fell on that slab of meat Qin Budai had been chewing on, and the moment after he asked this question, he seemed to comprehend exactly what Qin Budai had done. There was a brief hitch in his breath. "You just came out of a door?"

Qin Budai slowly nodded.

"Hungry?" Chen Fei sounded very calm, like he saw nothing wrong at all with the scene before him. "Let me cook you something to eat."

Qin Budai didn't speak, just turned and left.

Watching him go, Chen Fei didn't stop him, just sighed lightly.

"What in the world happened?" Lin Qiushi wasn't as experienced as Chen Fei, and couldn't understand what was going on with Qin Budai. Honestly, Qin Budai’s current state reminded Lin Qiushi of the monsters inside the doors.

"He's probably been affected by the door world." Chen Fei went to the fridge, and pulled out a steak. He really was planning to cook it for Qin Budai. "The human psyche is a fragile thing. After a strong shock, it can be prone to disorder." After saying this, he glanced over at Lin Qiushi. "Not everyone can accept things as calmly as you can."

Lin Qiushi didn't know what to say.

"The worst situation is when everybody else is dead, but the door and the key haven't appeared." Chen Fei lit the stove, heated the oil, and set the steak into the pan with a sizzle. "You're trapped alone inside the door, not knowing how long you'll be stuck there…"

His voice got lower and lower.

It was indeed nightmarish.

To be trapped inside alone. Just the thought of it sent chills throughout the body. Lin Qiushi leaned against the threshold. "Qin Budai… will be okay, right?"

Chen Fei shook his head. "I don't know."

Lin Qiushi, "what do you mean you don't know?"

Chen Fei, "I mean that I don't know if he'll get better, if he can separate reality from the world of the doors."

Lin Qiushi frowned. "If he can't?"

Chen Fei's motions paused, and a self-mocking smile appeared across his face. "If he can't? If he can't… Then he's done for."

Killing people inside the door was fine, but in reality, there were laws and sanctions in place.

Plus, people like this became very dangerous. They may not murder, but they still may commit some other drastic crime. People who could not distinguish between the inside and outside could not continue staying at the mansion. Of course, this wasn't something Chen Fei told Lin Qiushi, because he didn't think it necessary.

The steak was done. Chen Fei plated and brought it to the dining table outside, handing it to Qin Budai.

Qin Budai cut the steak apart with a fork and knife, but his peripherals lingered on Lin Qiushi. He still felt hungry, and the steak before him was incapable of satiating that full-body, anxious gluttony he felt. But he didn't dare make it apparent—could only keep his head down, pretending to be happily chowing down.

Chen Fei watched from the side. Lin Qiushi noticed his brow furrowed in a knot, and a certain scrutiny in his eyes, like he was in the middle of diagnosing Qin Budai's condition.

Chen Fei asked, "what did you see inside the door?"

At the mention of the door, Qin Budai couldn't help a whole-body shiver. He opened his mouth, but said nothing even after a moment, like words couldn't possibly describe the world he'd seen.

Chen Fei, "hm?"

Qin Budai's reply was vague. "It was a very scary world. There wasn't much to eat. I was hungry the whole time."

Chen Fei didn't speak, sinking into thought.

Qin Budai finished the steak, and very politely bid them good night, returning upstairs to sleep.

Lin Qiushi stayed where he was, watching him go. He still felt there was something off with Qin Budai, but he couldn’t concretely say what it was.

Chen Fei said, "I'll ask Ruan-ge tomorrow."

Lin Qiushi, "ask him what?"

Chen Fei sighed, "which world Qin Budai went into, of course." Qin Budai was a newbie, still entering the first round of doors right now. He didn't have Lin Qiushi's luck—the group only took him through a couple of doors, and left him on his own for the most recent one.

Lin Qiushi nodded his agreement.

That night, Lin Qiushi didn't sleep very well. His mind, as he tossed and turned, was filled with the image of Qin Budai eating that raw meat. To tell the truth, after seeing that scene, even his sense of distinction between reality and the world of the doors felt blurred. It was an awful feeling, and left him filled with unease.

The next day, Lin Qiushi went downstairs sporting twin bags under his eyes.

Cheng Qianli had just come back from walking Toast, and Toast was twitching its fat little butt around, chasing and playing with Chestnut.

Cheng Qianli saw Lin Qiushi's severe lack of sleep, and said, "what happened? You look like you haven't woken up yet."

Lin Qiushi yawned. "It's nothing. I stayed up too late last night."

Cheng Qianli, "oh. Come eat breakfast then. My brother just cooked."

Cheng Yixie made porridge, along with a few small dishes. He was sitting and slowly eating at the table. Lin Qiushi went over to say good morning. Then he also grabbed a bowl to eat.

The people inside the mansion all began to gradually wake. Lin Qiushi saw Chen Fei. Then he also saw Qin Budai.

Qin Budai no longer had that scary aura from last night about him. He'd changed into a fresh outfit, and wore a smile. He approached Lin Qiushi and said, "good morning."

Lin Qiushi, "good morning."

"Sorry to scare you last night," Qin Budai said. "I'd just come out a door, and hadn't quite gotten myself together." He smiled, eyes rainbowing in a friendly expression. "I really am sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Lin Qiushi said. "You've… gotten yourself together now?"

Qin Budai nodded, indicating he has.

Chen Fei sat next to them, watching the two interact. He was examining Qin Budai without giving anything away, clearly not completely believing Qin Budai's excuse.

Not long after Ruan Nanzhu also came down. He maintained his typical aloofness, and made to head out after eating, before Chen Fei stopped him.

"Ruan-ge," Chen Fei said. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

Ruan Nanzhu nodded, and the two went off into a corner.

Lin Qiushi knew Chen Fei was likely telling Ruan Nanzhu about what happened with Qin Budai. To tell the truth, the current Qin Budai didn't seem off at all. It was difficult to link him to the person manically consuming raw meat the night before. But however his psyche was actually doing, if he'd gotten better, Lin Qiushi couldn't be the judge. So he thought this matter was better left to Chen Fei.

Lin Qiushi finished eating, and returned to his room.

Spring had just ripened. Sunlight spilled in brilliance, a cool breeze caressed, and Lin Qiushi sat at his window, turning on his computer to browse that forum open only to people who'd been inside the doors.

There were lots of interesting posts on this forum. Lin Qiushi had already developed the habit of reading through them daily. Casually, he plucked a piece of candy from his table and popped it in his mouth. He moved the mouse and began browsing the posts.

The posts were a mess, and full of strange tales.

Some discussed the world inside the doors, others mentioned urban legends. Others still organized same-city meet-ups.

Lin Qiushi read through them with fascination.

Because they'd just come from a door, Ruan Nanzhu hadn't organized any activities for Lin Qiushi, just letting him rest.

Lin Qiushi thought that wasting away a day like this actually felt quite comfortable. He ate lunch, took a nap, and let the day pass by just like that.

After Chen Fei spoke to Ruan Nanzhu that morning, the two left the mansion. Nobody knew where they'd gone off to.

But Lin Qiushi was already used to them appearing and disappearing at will, and wasn't curious at all.

Cheng Qianli and Cheng Yixie though, were gone as well. Lin Qiushi guessed Cheng Yixie had brought Cheng Qianli into some lower level doors for training.

There was still Yi Manman, Lu Yanxue, and Qin Budai inside the mansion. The four of them ate a simple dinner, and Lin Qiushi retired to his room to rest.

After a shower, Lin Qiushi lied on his bed playing sudoku. This inconsequential game was always quick to calm his mood, and also had the benefit of making him sleepy.

As he gradually filled the boxes, however, he heard a knock at his door.

"Who is it?" Lin Qiushi went to door and pulled it open, to find Qin Budai standing there.

Qin Budai said, "hi. Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Lin Qiushi blinked. "Right now?"

Qin Budai nodded.

Lin Qiushi hesitated. "Sure… Let's go talk in the study. Give me a second, I'll come over after I change." He was in his pajamas after all.

Qin Budai quietly watched Lin Qiushi. Currently, Lin Qiushi was dressed in white cotton pajamas, and his long elegant neck and his pretty collarbones were all on display. Lin Qiushi was handsome, with a gentle temperament. He looked instantly easy to get along with. He also looked… tasty.

Qin Budai suddenly licked his lips.

Lin Qiushi eyed him warily. "Qin Budai?" He felt there was something off about the person in front of him.

Qin Budai said, "I only need five minutes. I'll be quick." As he spoke, he squeezed his way through Lin Qiushi's bedroom door.

Lin Qiushi noticed his motions, and took a step back, moving into a defensive position. "Do you need something?"

Qin Budai watched Lin Qiushi. In his eyes surfaced an indescribable hunger.

Goosebumps. Lin Qiushi, "Qin Budai?"

Qin Budai, "I…"

But before he'd finished speaking, he was already lunging at Lin Qiushi.

Though Lin Qiushi had been prepared, Qin Budai still ran into him straight on with great force, knocking Lin Qiushi flat onto the bed.

Lin Qiushi, "Qin—"

Just as the name left his lips, Qin Budai's fingers gripped tight over his mouth. This wasn't the strength of a human at all—Qin Budai could force down all of Lin Qiushi's struggling with a single hand. Lin Qiushi's eyes widened, watching Qin Budai's covetous gaze fixate on his neck.

"Just one taste," Qin Budai spoke lightly. "I'll just have one taste…" He bent down, and began lapping along Lin Qiushi's chin.

Lin Qiushi remembered the slab of meat that Qin Budai tore apart the night before, and began struggling anew with all his strength. But Qin Budai's strength made his efforts seem like a mayfly throwing itself against the trunk of a tree.

Qin Budai, staring at Lin Qiushi's throat, swallowed. He parted his lips, revealing the white rows of teeth, and went to bite…

"Mmph…" Lin Qiushi continued to fight.

Just as he felt the cold touch of Qin Budai's teeth, there came knocking at the door. Fear peering through his expression, Qin Budai glanced at the door.

Dong, dong, dong. The knocks continued.

Lin Qiushi met Qin Budai's gaze. He'd thought that now somebody was here, Qin Budai would release him—but instead, there was resolution in Qin Budai's eyes.

"Sorry," Qin Budai spoke lowly right next to Lin Qiushi's ear. "You look too appetizing. I really… can't help it anymore. Even if I'm discovered, I don't want to let go…" His teeth remained on Lin Qiushi's neck, and began to apply pressure.

Lin Qiushi's eyes shot wide open as he felt the dull pain spread along his skin. He didn't think Qin Budai would actually bite.

With a loud bang!, the locked door was kicked open.

Qin Budai, lying over Lin Qiushi's body, was seized by a pair of hands, lifted up, and brutally thrown against the wall. Qin Budai shouted in pain, while Lin Qiushi fumbled to sit up in bed. He saw Ruan Nanzhu, with a chilly expression.

Ruan Nanzhu didn't speak. He approached Qin Budai, taking a green bronze ornament off a side table as he went, then grabbed Qin Budai's chin to pry his mouth open.

Terrified, Qin Budai was trembling all over.

Ruan Nanzhu's tone dipped to cold frost. He said, "if you like eating so much, have at it." Then he shoved the thing right into Qin Budai's mouth, breaking off two of Qin Budai's teeth along the way.

Qin Budai completely fainted from the pain. It was only then that Ruan Nanzhu released his hand, and returned to Lin Qiushi. There was a deep furrow in his brow, and he seemed to be in a terrible mood.

"Alright?"

Lin Qiushi, "I'm fine."

He said, "I was careless."

He hadn't thought that Qin Budai would attack him under circumstances like this. Though Chen Fei had already warned Lin Qiushi, he'd still underestimated the effect the door had on Qin Budai.

Ruan Nanzhu stared at Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi was made horribly self-conscious by his gaze. He noticed it was fixed on his neck, and so reached to touch. It was only then that he noticed the teeth mark Qin Budai left on his throat… Though no skin had been broken, it still hurt.

Did this need a tetanus shot or what… As Lin Qiushi was thinking this, Ruan Nanzhu suddenly bent down over him.

Startled by Ruan Nanzhu's motions, Lin Qiushi was just about to ask what he was doing, when he caught Lin Qiushi firmly by the arms—the next moment, the spot where he'd been bitten was being roughly rubbed at. Lin Qiushi's first reaction was that Ruan Nanzhu had somehow been infected by Qin Budai's abnormal condition, and so shoved hard and shouted in pain: "Ruan Nanzhu—calm down!! It's me, it's Lin Qiushi!!"

Ruan Nanzhu bit. Only after staying there for a handful of seconds did he release the bite, looking down with satisfaction at the mark that was now covered over by his mark on Lin Qiushi's neck. Likely because he'd heard Lin Qiushi's shouts, he spoke evenly, "I know you're Lin Qiushi."

"Were you contaminated?" Lin Qiushi clasped his neck, hissing at the pain. "What did you bite me for?!"

Ruan Nanzhu spat out a single word: "Disinfection."

Lin Qiushi, "…" What the hell was wrong with Ruan Nanzhu.

After saying this, Ruan Nanzhu dragged off the fainted Qin Budai and left. Lin Qiushi looked over the mess of his room and the broken door, and for a moment didn't know what to do at all.

Qin Budai's bite hadn't torn skin, but Ruan Nanzhu's had. Lin Qiushi inspected his wound, warily wondering he needed to go get a rabies shot or something. He'd never been bitten by a person before, and so searched online for what to do.

Turned out he should've left it alone. The search left Lin Qiushi scared out of his wits, thinking he was likely going to kick it that very night.

And so bright and early the next morning Lin Qiushi rushed to the hospital. After taking a look at his wound, the doctor said, with meaning, "you youngsters need to control yourselves."

Lin Qiushi, "…" Control what, control their diets?

The doctor said, "you don't need a vaccine, just a disinfection should be fine. As long as the person who bit you doesn't have any infectious diseases there shouldn't be any problems."

Lin Qiushi, "but the search engine said…"

The doctor slapped the table. "Can you all stop going to the search engine when you're sick? Don't you just feel more terminal the more you use it?" The doctor looked maybe thirty-one, thirty-two—still quite young. He prescribed Lin Qiushi some bit of medicine, and waved him off in disgust.

Lin Qiushi returned to the mansion.

After Qin Budai was taken away last night, Lin Qiushi didn't ask what would be done with him. Today, he was nowhere to be seen. Lin Qiushi didn't see Ruan Nanzhu either, and so went to ask Chen Fei in private.

Chen Fei looked at the wound on Lin Qiushi's neck, and sighed: "It was my fault, I shouldn't have left him on his own. I thought he'd at least be able to bear it, but who knew his self-control would be so awful?"

Lin Qiushi, "so where is he now?" The way Ruan Nanzhu dragged him off last night looked like he was being taken straight to the crematorium.

"He's been sent somewhere else," Chen Fei said. "There's a place dedicated to people like him. After being affected by the doors, the way he acts in reality will be off, so he needs counseling."

Whether or not the counseling would work was another story. But this sort of person was dangerous wherever they put him. Had Ruan Nanzhu not shown up last night, Qin Budai might have straight up bitten Lin Qiushi to death.

Lin Qiushi, "oh…" He thought for a bit, before asking quietly, "and Nanzhu? How come I haven't seen him around?"

Chen Fei, "I think he went out for an errand."

Then he asked, "is your wound alright though? He broke skin. Did you get it checked out at the hospital?"

Lin Qiushi thought that no skin would've been broken had Ruan Nanzhu not given him that extra bite. And he'd claimed it was disinfection, but his bite was way harsher—it was ridiculous. Not that Lin Qiushi said any of this out loud. He only shook his head to indicate he was alright, and that he'd already been to the hospital.

After that, Qin Budai disappeared from the mansion.

With great synchronicity, nobody asked where he'd gone. Even Cheng Qianli, who was least capable of reading people, didn't mention him again.

They all seemed already prepared for sudden goodbyes.

Only three days after the incident did Lin Qiushi see Ruan Nanzhu again. At that point his wound had scabbed over. He came in from walking Toast with Cheng Qianli, and saw Ruan Nanzhu sitting in the living room eating some fruit.

Hearing their footsteps, Ruan Nanzhu only glanced up, looking them over with a placid gaze.

"Ruan-ge, you're back," Cheng Qianli greeted happily.

"Mh," Ruan Nanzhu replied. Then he looked at Lin Qiushi.

For some reason, Lin Qiushi felt a bit self-conscious. He'd felt that Ruan Nanzhu had been off that night, and was still a bit strange today.

"It's healed?" Ruan Nanzhu spoke.

Lin Qiushi knew Ruan Nanzhu was asking after his wound, and nodded. "It's healed."

"Oh," Ruan Nanzhu said.

Maybe Lin Qiushi was overthinking it, but he thought he heard a hint of disappointment in Ruan Nanzhu's tone.

Lin Qiushi continued, "thank you for that night…" Had it not been for Ruan Nanzhu, he would likely be dead already.

Ruan Nanzhu, "don't worry about it."

Lin Qiushi hesitated. "Qin Budai, will he get better?"

Ruan Nanzhu slowly chewed the fruit in his mouth, swallowed, and then answered Lin Qiushi's question: "I don't know. He determines his own fortune."

Lin Qiushi, "things like this had happened before?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "like clockwork."

Lin Qiushi didn't think he'd get this sort of answer.

"Out of a hundred newbies, ninety-nine will develop mental conditions." Ruan Nanzhu stood. "The last one is Cheng Qianli."

Hearing this off to the side, Cheng Qianli looked confused, and asked, "what do you mean the last one is Cheng Qianli?"

Affectionately, Lin Qiushi petted Cheng Qianli's head. "Nothing, Ruan-ge's just complimenting you."

Cheng Qianli, "oh. Heheheh."

Lin Qiushi thought that to be on the same level of foolish as Cheng Qianli was actually not so easy…

"Prepare yourself," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Cheng Yixie's ninth door is opening soon."

Lin Qiushi's heart jolted. "I'm going too?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "you don't want to go?"

Lin Qiushi, "I… I don't know…"

But Ruan Nanzhu didn't force it, only spoke evenly, "it's fine if you don't want to. You have three days to think about it."

Lin Qiushi nodded in acceptance.

Once he'd said this, Ruan Nanzhu turned and left. Watching him go, Cheng Qianli said he didn't know why, but he felt that recently, the feeling Ruan-ge gave off was different than before.

Lin Qiushi asked, "what's different about it?" To tell the truth, after going through the Qin Budai incident, he realized he was too complacent in the real world. Had this been inside the doors, he'd have never let Qin Budai in.

"I don't know." Cheng Qianli scratched at his foolish head. "I can't really say…"

Lin Qiushi eyed Cheng Qianli, and for a moment fretted how the boy before him was supposed to pass through the rest of those doors. He could too easily imagine Cheng Yixie, with his heart completely broken with worry for his foolish younger brother.

Author's Note:

I'm taking advantage of the good weather today to wash my cat. Everybody wish blessings of peace upon me.

[Ch. 69] | [Ch. 71]

#kaleidoscope of death #xi zixu #cnovel #chinese translation #死亡萬花筒 #this is mido food

[mr-entj]

how do you deal with rejection?

To start, I don’t really believe in rejection-- I only believe in redirection. 

If something doesn’t work out in life, I have this unshakeable (and admittedly irrational) belief that another better thing is always waiting for me right around the corner. Due to my intense work ethic and the good faith effort I put into my life, that mysterious better thing tends to actually happen. If I get rejected, I have faith that I’m being guided towards a better opportunity and I work extra hard until it presents itself. Looking back at my life and all its ups and downs; college, career, relationships-- that’s absolutely been the case:

I was rejected from my dream university after high school, then was accepted into a better one with a full scholarship so I graduated 100% debt free

I was rejected from Google the first time I applied, then got an offer from Airbnb which IPO’d two weeks ago at $100 billion valuation (and got into Google eventually anyway in a higher level)

I’ve had relationships with women I was close to marrying explode in my face, then met my amazing wife who is a much better match

I wasn’t rejected, I was redirected.

Concretely, if you’re asking about dealing with rejection in a personal sense (like relationships, friendships, etc), the answer is self-confidence and perspective. I’m far from perfect but I like who I am and I’m comfortable in my own skin. I also acknowledge that people are individuals with personal preferences, I don’t like everyone I meet so I don’t expect everyone who meets me to like me back. I take the bird’s eye view that there are 7+ billion people on this planet and chasing someone who won’t reciprocate is wasting the opportunity to be with someone who does. 

If you’re asking about dealing with rejection in a professional sense (like career, academics, etc), the answer is analysis. I’ve been consistent throughout my life with reviewing my failures and successes using a mental scalpel to extract lessons from them. Why did I get rejected? What could I have done better? But also, what did I do well? 

For example, I’ve screwed up public speaking engagements more than once. To recover from them, I started watching recordings of myself publicly speaking and analyzed them closely to understand what I did well, what I didn’t do well, and how I could be more effective. Then, I practiced some more, recorded myself some more, and analyzed myself some more. Spoiler alert: this process isn’t fun, it’s actually really embarrassing and uncomfortable at the start, but it was necessary for me to grow. The more I confronted the bad thing, the less scary it became, the more I practiced, and the more I improved.

This process is empowering because it accomplishes two other crucial things: it kills the shame associated with rejection and it turns a negative into a positive. Over the years, I actually grew comfortable talking openly and honestly about my rejections and failures to the point I regularly laugh about them now. Explore this blog and you’ll see me write about all the things I’ve screwed up in my life, but also all the lessons I learned that I’m able to now share with other people to help them become successful in their own lives. 

The two answers below may also be helpful for you, the first one especially, so I’ll link them here:

Hi Mr ENTJ, How do you deal with doubt? That gripping feeling that you're just not enough and you should be better? How do you look for answers from the inside rather than just patch in on from the outside? Thanks.

Do you have any advice on dealing with rejection? I'm currently doing graduate position applications, and I understand that rejections are inevitable, but I think I'm taking them a bit too personally - do you have any advice?

#life #rejection #failure #success #grit #resilience #wisdom #experience #luxy-liu #faq

[wildfey]

Anon from yesterday back again! About the set-up, a post on twitter explained the theory much better and I gotta look up the name. The gist is that Phoenix could've proved that he was set up. He did not have the time to have a forgery done since he got the job for defending Zak only the day before. Plus the money. Instead, there is no evidence at all he even tried. Why? Because he'd seen the courts' corruption before and decided it didn't matter anymore, plus too dangerous.

(continued) You could even point at his reply to the Judge's words and wonder if Phoenix has nothing to say because he knows it's useless to argue. Hidden powers have already decided that they will attack him and try to drag him down.

okay, okay, hello again anon, good to see you back with another excellent ask.

I always think that there are two ways to look at Phoenix's disbarment:

a) that the problem was straight-up with bringing forged evidence into court, no matter what the circumstances were.

b) that the problem was that Phoenix was assumed to have created the forged evidence and bought it into court intentionally.

Ace Attorney really flips around on which of these is true in universe (it's a plot point to some extent in 1-5, 3-3, 4-1, and 4-4) but considering that Phoenix gets his badge back almost immediately after it's proved that the second wasn't the case, I'm going to assume that presenting forged evidence accidentally is either not an issue or less of an issue. This tends to be the fanon majority stance too. (It's worth noting that Edgeworth is implied to have pulled some strings irt getting Phoenix's badge back. Ymmv and so on.)

With our framework safely in place, the question arises: If Phoenix could have avoided punishment, or at least public shaming, by revealing the set-up, why wouldn't he? As you point out, the forgery doesn't make sense once you start to look into it and we know that Phoenix did put a lot of these pieces together. Hell, he could have made these arguments when Misham testified during the Gramarye trial. But he doesn't. (Warning: this is a more headcanon-y meta than my last one, because the 7yg is... a gap and we have very little concrete info on what the fuck Phoenix was up to. He got a kid, worked on jury trials, played good poker + bad piano, and had some sort of frenemyship with Kristoph. That's pretty much all we've got).

Firstly: Corruption. The AA court system is ridiculously corrupt, and at the point that Phoenix is disbarred, he becomes emblematic of this - he's a man with a history of revealing injustice - notably Von Karma & Gant, but even without them he still won some high profile cases - and once he's disbarred, it's implied that the narrative is flipped, turning him into a figurehead for that which he fought against (dark age of the law, etc). The obvious conclusion is that his disbarment was a convenient way to discredit him - powerful and corrupt figures (and in AA there are many) don't need to fear Phoenix Wright if he isn't a lawyer and his reputation is ruined. The counter argument is that Phoenix... has always done some questionable things with evidence (1-5, 2-4, and 3-3 stand out to me). But no more so than anyone else in this fucked-up universe. Either way, Phoenix has always worked in a system stacked against him, and it's very possible that he suspected there to be manoevering behind the scenes (and there was! We know Kristoph existed and was purposefully working against Phoenix.) HOWEVER, I don't believe that any of this would stop him on it's own, because it's been long established that Phoenix Wright does not give a shit about bad odds.

So, what would make him accept it? Anon, you mention danger in your ask, and I do see that as partially true - Phoenix isn't concerned about danger to himself, but he has a kid to care for. I would say, however, that especially when we come to Kristoph, as much of a bastard as he is, Phoenix had no evidence that he could be violent to the point of murder until 4-1. Before that, his influence was long-distance life ruining, rather than active threat (though long-distance life ruining is pretty scary on its own when you're raising a small child with low funds). I do see that as a cause, but one of many, and this is the point where I'd like to go back to the conversation on motivation.

I am going to make the argument here, as I did in the other answer, that Phoenix, in the 7yg and possibly elsewhere, is depressed, and that one symptom of that is a loss of motivation. It's implied by the game itself, and makes more sense than most of the alternatives.

(I won't get too personal, but the years of my life where I dressed like this... not good years lol)

My headcanon has always been that by the point that Phoenix had sorted out his guardianship of Trucy and got himself out of that initial low that came from having his life ruined, it was too late to fix his disbarment and he had to change tracks, and that's when he became interested in MASON. (Not to self-promote, but I'm realising that a lot of what I've said here is rephrased ideas from The Path Once So Clear, so if you want 15,000-ish words on the subject, it's there). Of course, when talking about Phoenix's 7yg depression, I think it's also important to mention that Phoenix in AA4 is very much implied to be putting on an act (which is pretty common in AA4 in general. Most characters in that game have both a public and private face). Being 'Beanix' - eg. the piano/poker player with no prospects who works in a shitty restaurant and takes nothing seriously - is a convenient cover while he works on the things that he doesn't want to be targeted for (and here we come back to the corruption angle).

As to how far the depression helps that act... well, that could be a whole conversation on its own. Once again, I'm very much coming into headcanon here, but I'm reminded of the phenomenon where someone with depression will deliberately exacerbate it, either as a form of self-harm or as some attempt to fit a role (artists are especially prone, due to the 'depressed artist' stereotype. I see it most in the emo scene). Beanix has always seemed to me as someone who is deliberately messing up his own life - he repeatedly provokes Apollo, essentially sabotaging their relationship, he puts himself into dangerous situations for no real reason (this is a general Phoenix trait), and despite the fact that we KNOW Maya and Edgeworth were supportive of him during this period, we never actually see them around, presumably because he's keeping them at a distance. How much of this is for the act, and how much is real?

Again, we've come very much off topic (whoops) but I see a lot of this as another aspect of Phoenix's low self worth - is there a difference between the image he projects of a man who has given up due to being disbarred, and the real Phoenix who is still actively working behind the scenes but is very obviously not doing well because he can't 'save people' - the thing which so much of his identity relies upon? I think there is, but I also think the image too often becomes the reality, and AA4 does carry this underlying theme of how wearing these masks of a public persona can affect your 'true self'.

As always, I genuinely love to see other people's takes on this, either in the tags, in reblogs, or via asks. This one is very headcanon-y, and I know there some entirely different perspectives out there, some of which I really like. (Also this one got to be heavy. Look after yourselves guys.)

#my post #ace attorney meta #Ace Attorney #Phoenix Wright #depression cw #a big one too #and minor mention of #self harm cw #Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney #replies

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Patient 0″

I finally had a day where I was motivated to write something! :) yay, hopefully I am getting back into my stride. I hope you all enjoy!

Dr. Kell examined the brown soil before him, and the little red plants that sprouted up around it. There was definitely something important here, something that the others definitely didn’t know about. The thought made him almost giddy with anticipation as he took samples and began to bag them in little clear tubes with bright labels on the side.

He had been teaching for as long as he could remember, a geologist in the fourth city of the Vrul inner ring, and in all that time he had neer once received a commendation for his work. The thought made him bitter as he plunged the little digging tool into the soil for another sample. Years and years of hard work and not once had it ever been acknowledged. That was because the Vrul didn’t value teachers like they should. They only valued those people who made important discoveries. 

When he had originally approached the head of their college in an effort to remind him what kind of important work he did, sure that they had just forgotten, though the reaction he had received was one of derision and even derisive laughter.

You’re a teacher not a researcher. They don’t make medals for mediocrity.

The thought made his antenna tremor in absolute rage.

The nerve.

He was not mediocre.

Ok granted, everyone on this planet had a doctoral level knowledge of their specific field, but that didn’t mean that his contributions weren’t important! He had even heard rumors that he was being considered for termination! The thought scared him, and so he had gone out to do something no Vrul had ever done before.

He had walked out of the city wall and taken a transport out into the surrounding countryside.

It seemed strange, the wall was very thick, and the ground around it was shored up with concrete and a very thick foundation. 

 The outside of the wall was very smooth.

He knew that they kept the wall there to keep the wildlife out or something…. But as a geologist he knew that a wall twenty feet deep was a little bit overkill, and forty feet high? No known animal species on their planet was dangerous over about ten feet.

But he just rattled his antenna and kept going.

Bitter about his situation.

Not everyone could be some great genius about a subject, not everyone would have opportunities to do stupid irrational things. Not everyone was like the “legendary Dr. Krill” and his stupid and useless papers about humans. 

He huffed, yeah dr. Krill, some doctor. Mister SO important that the council had a termination order out for him, and not for the same reason there was a termination order out for Kell. Apparently the population wasn’t ready for what Dr. Krill was spouting off, apparently it was TOO revolutionary, and threatened to change the social fabric of the Vrul nation.

Yeah right.

Like some paper on a two legged snot nosed carnivore was nearly as important as the study of the very earth beneath them.

It was ridiculous.

Outrageous.

He was the one who deserved some real recognition, and not that Dr. Krill.

He had seen the pompous little creature speak once at some sort of medical conference he had been forced to attend during his younger years, and he honestly thought the little creature was a self important, pompous little lecturer.

Yet no one else seemed to have seen it.

Everyone else was fascinated with his work, and though they thought his bravery was strange and overdone, they still admired him!

Yes, “admired” him, a complete and total nutcase braggart with an inflated sense of self importance, and the audacity to refuse his termination order, the nerve of him.

And now here he was standing under the hot sun of mid morning on dirt that no one had stood on in over a thousand years.

The council said that the city walls were for their protection, and no one ever questioned leaving their walls. It wasn’t illegal or anything but most Vrul had a survival instinct so intense it verged on cowardice. Generally he himself would be in that category, but his anger and obsession had driven him to take a step outside the city.

Looking at the ground, and examining the local wildlife, he honestly couldn't see why they had needed to build a city with such intense fortifications. The largest animal he saw was a surprisingly vrul-like creature with eight stumpy legs slowly trundling through the undergrowth.

WHen it made it to a nearby patch of sun, it opened up a large fan on it’s back and hunkered down to sit and soak in the radiation.

Nothing inherently scary.

He wasn’t even sure why the outside of the city had bothered him so much.

His confidence grew as he kept walking.

Maybe he would talk to the council about that at a later date, tell them about his time outside the cities and let them know how safe it was. Maybe then HE would be the one changing things, maybe then HIS name would be something important to be remembered. Imagine that, Dr. Krill, coming home and expecting the cities to be walled off, but instead find spreading metropolises like there were on his precious Earth, and not because KRILL said anything, but in fact, because Dr. Kell had been the only one brave enough to walk outside their own city walls.

Wouldn’t that be the ticket.

He stepped into a thicket of bushes and trees. They weren’t much taller than he was, about six feet in height maybe, but they still provided him with some shade as he worked. THey had large transparent orange orbs on the end of their branches, full to the brim with hydrogen. That was one thing that might be a little bit dangerous out here…. The trees had the potential to explode.

He would have to keep that in mind.

Still, the way the light filtered down through the orange orbs and fell on the ground below him was quite something to behold leaving behind a dazzling array of glowing orange spots to create an ethereal and delicate pattern over the little thicket floor.

Working here would be fine for the moment.

He set down his case of tools in a little clearing in the middle examining the dirt and placing it away in test tubes. The dirt was pretty cracked and rather dry, most of the planet’s water being stored in underground aqueducts which the Vrul had been smart enough to tap into. This was the equator of the planet after all, and their climate tended towards desert, though it wasn’t nearly as extreme as the Rundi home planet. He could see most of that from the dirt that he picked up, dirt that hadn’t seen water in a very long time.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched a few creatures pass outside his little thicket of trees, though they tended to avoid him, skirting around the edge of the trees and not daring to venture in.

He didn’t see himself as much of a threat to them, but he was glad anyway. The last thing he needed was an encounter with some kind of animal.

He moved his case, feeling the vibration over the ground as he did so.

He put a small slide under his travel microscope and found there to be an unusual amount of organic matter in the soil. Not in the way of worms or bugs or some other small creature but…. Animal matter it looked like. He couldn’t really distinguish what kind of creature it had been before it began decomposing but, there was something, strange about it. He took another sample of dirt, his little collection tool piercing through the top soil and sending a wave though the ground.

He looked at another sample.

That all seemed very strange. The ground her was very fertile, and surrounded in these strange trees, but for some reason, no trees were growing here? He couldn’t see why not, the seeds would generally fall here, and there was enough sunlight coming into the clearing  that it would be a perfect location for growing.

Overhead, a flock of kinlits took to the air squalling.

He heard a high pitched chirp, and turned to look as a few passing animals turned on their tails and ran off across the ground.

Dr. kell stared in confusion, not sure what to think.

And then the soil below him began to vibrate.

He looked down in shock and surprise stepping back from his work as the soil below him began to churn.

Fear overtook him, and he turned to go in the other direction, back to his transport, but no…. He needed his equipment.

He hurried forward and began to gather up his things as the ground before him continued to churn. 

And then that churning set off more rumbling and more churning right next to it, until the entire clearing was unstable. 

He tried to step away but as he did, something shot up out of the dirt and grabbed at his leg. He screamed high and shrill, dropping his case again, which thudded softly on the mulched earth.

He dragged his foot away from what looked like a hand!

The hand continued to wave and wille in the air, grasping for him, as it slowly emerged from the soil below.

He staggered back as, all around him, hands began bursting from the soil and into the air.

THe first hand that had appeared had now clawed its way far enough out that kell could see the joint of an elbow. The hand was grey and covered in dirt, and as kell watched, a shoulder broke through, followed by a head.

He was frozen in shock and fear at the tree line as the creature heaved itself from the dirt.

It…. it was a DELTA, or at least it looked like one, with four thick legs and a set of just two arms. The creature was big, almost a foot taller than he was and very heavy around the torso. It lurched forward over the ground it’s feet not used to walking. It lifted it’s head, and its eyes were a strange glassy white. Little yellow bulbs, like pockets of infection under its skin pulsed in the morning light.

It’s head turned and then stopped locked on to Dr. kell.

They stood there staring at each other for a long moment before it jolted forward, rushing towards him at incredible speed. Dr. Kell screamed, turned and ran. He had never ever tried to run a day in his life, and his legs soon got caught up in each other, he pitched to the ground listening to the thudding of scuttling feet behind him on the cracked earth. In a panic he inflated his helium sack, and shot into the air just as the creature reached for him.

He floated upwards but was stopped in the upper branches of the tree, maybe only nine feet into the air his feet dangling only two feet over the clutching fingers of the THING.

It’s grasping fingers clasped at his feet.

Kell continued to scream, though no one could hear him and those fingers still clasped at him. The creature did not speak, and the white overlay of its eyes made it clear the thing couldn't see either, but it knew exactly where he was.

Slowly a few more of its brethren began to filter in from the trees clustering together below Kell as his screamed and screamed, but then when his screaming intensified one of the creatures began trying to climb up the back of another. It’s fingertips brushed the bottom of his feet and he screamed even louder, clawing his way through the branches of the trees and towards the clearing where his communicator was.

If he could get back he could call for help.

Behind him the strange pile of creatures flopped back to the ground and slowly began to follow him through the trees.

He was almost to the clearing when.

Something snagged against his Helium sack.

There was a sharp pinprick of pain, and then.

He slowly began to sink.

Cold hands reached up for him as he flailed and kicked desperately trying to plug the hole that had been torn in his helium sack, but it was too late.

Hands clasped his feet and pulled him downwards. 

***

The Betas stood on the wall staring out at the open plane that ran for distant miles in every direction. Everyday they stood here from morning until night when their shift ended, and every day there was nothing to see. The Alphas thought it was ok to leave them up here in boredom, even despite them having cognitive abilities enough to do more meaningful tasks.

Most of them were bitter about it, but the Alphas were smarter than them, and had turned back every attempt at making some sort of fair arrangement.

So they were mostly negligent in their duties. 

It’s not like anything happened here anyway.

There was a visiting Alpha today, walking the walls with them. They were pretty sure this one was some kind of psychologist, and was likely looking for signs of mental distress in their demeanor. He was alright as far as Alpha’s went, he talked to them like they were intelligent beings and asked how they were, which is more than they expected from most visiting Alphas.

“Anything of note this morning?” The psychologist asked.

They shook their heads, “No, well accept for that professor.”

“Professor?”

Yeah, guy dropped down over the wall and took a transport into the middle of nowhere.”

“You didn’t stop him?”

“Leaving the city is ill advised but not illegal.” They pointed out, and the Alpha just nodded. It was a strange bodily expression, which demonstrated that this particular Vrul had spent some time with humans, how much time that had been was questionable, but they had still managed to rub off on him.

Humans tended to do that.

Looking out into the desert, the Alpha stopped, “hey, isn’t that him?”

The turned to look over the wall.

Well it did seem to be true, though he appeared to be walking rather than using the transport, and the couldnt be sure, but from this distance, it didn’t appear that he was carrying his case either.

How strange.

The alpha moved forward a little bit to watch him as he approached, perplexed and unsure what he was looking at.

Even the alphas could see that something was…. wrong . The way he moved was ungainly almost disjointed, and he stumbled from side to side in a manner of confusion. As he got closer, they noted the clear fluid glistening on his shoulders.

The Vrul equivalent to blood.

Sweet Nebulon the Alpha said, and then inflated his Helium sack, floating over the side of the wall and slowly lowering himself to the ground to intercept the staggering form.

He grabbed the doctor by the shoulders, “Dr. kell, are you alright, Dr. Kell?”

The head jerked up, and Dr. Kell stared at him with glassy and confused eyes. Looking up the psychologist watched as five more forms appeared on the horizon. Something about them seemed very wrong.

“HELP US UP.” He ordered, and a small platform was lowered down to them. He hurried the catatonic Dr. Kell onto the platform and they rose into the air just as the forms solidified themselves on the horizon.

Dark grey, glass white eyes, and the lumbering forms of Deltas.

“What in the hell.” The psychologist muttered not noticing his use of the human language as the creatures clustered at the base of the wall looking up towards them with wide white eyes.

“What the hell are those things.”

“I don’t know.” he said, “But call for a doctor, and an isolation unit.” He stepped back from Dr. Kell who stood wobbly at the center of the platform staring out into space with glassy eyes.

***

“What did I tell you!”

“I know-”

“What did I tell you!”

“I know, I know, but in my defence, it was an underwater plant.”

“It WaS aN UndERwAteR PlaNt.” 

Krill looked up at the Admiral with an expression of derision and scolding, “Have you BEEN to EARTh at any point, sea urchins, coral reefs, poisonous fish, what made you think that touching an UNDERWATER alien plant was going to be any different. You big, stupid idiot! 

The big stupid idiot in question just sighed and gave up on his argument. He wasn’t going to win this one and he knew it. Krill turned back town to the human’s swollen hand, skin stretched glistening and red over joints that had swelled up to twice their normal size. Looked like some sort of contact allergic reaction, and luckily it hadn’t spread to the human’s body while he was underwater.

The sheer stupidity.

Though a  little medicine would do him just fine.

He pulled up the sleeve of the human’s shirt and depressed the plunger on the syringe with great malice.

The human winced, but krill thought it was only fair.

“You moron.” He muttered

Admiral Vir rubbed his arm with his good hand, “Ouch, vicious little creature.”

From where she leaned against the wall, Sunny looking up from examining her knife, “You are kind of an idiot.”

“Thank you Sunny, that is very helpful of you.” he muttered

Krill turned back and was about to finish with his lecture, when there was a sudden pinging on his implant. He had gotten one only a few months ago, and had found it to be relativity more convenient than taking calls in his office.

He held up a hand to the other two as he took the call.

“Dr. Krill here.”

“The council requests your presence urgently.”

Krill frowned, “I do not deal with the council. You know how I feel about my termination order.

“Your termination order has been dissolved. We need our help immediately. Bring the humans.”

“Bring the humans?” He was a bit shocked at that,. The council was not particularly a great fan of humans, but this seemed rather serious, and he knew if anything were to happen to him they would have hell to pay.

And they weren’t that stupid.

He turned to look at the other two who stared at him very curious.

“Admiral, I think the Vrul homeworld is in need of our help.”

The Admiral nodded and stood holding his swollen hand to his chest, “Very well, i will go make the roder.”

Krill nodded and watched him go.

He wondered what this could be all about.