#because we all have different experiences and what is healing to one can be poison to the other
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Some things associated with New Age that aren't inherently bad
Since this blog can get kinda heavy sometimes, and because there's some people out there who think that anything remotely adjacent to New Age is evil and must be banished forever, I figured I'd write something on elements it includes that aren't necessarily bad.
Its general concept of God and divinity
New Age beliefs typically posit that God, or Source, effectively split itself into many different souls in order to have different kinds of experiences. There's nothing wrong with this model of divinity in itself, since it doesn't by itself imply anything hateful or suggest any kind of action that might lead to harm. Where it gets messed up is when people start claiming that if you're suffering, it's because you deliberately chose to have this kind of experience before you incarnated. That's just victim blaming, and it's wrong.
Energy healing
Energy healing on its own is a harmless practice, and many people do report feeling better for doing it. Dismissing energy healing as inherently bad in itself would be like dismissing prayer for recovery as inherently bad. It's really not. The problem is always when people start believing they should only rely on energy healing or prayer, or fall into the belief that pharmaceutical medicine is sinful or an evil conspiracy.
Listening to relaxing tones
No, those "healing frequencies" probably won't cure any serious ailments. But that doesn't mean they can't make you feel more relaxed or help you focus. You don't have to subscribe to any specific belief system to listen to these audios.
Glossolalia
The New Age practice of speaking in light languages is a form of glossolalia, which basically involves relaxing and speaking whatever sounds immediately come to you. Doing it can be cathartic and relaxing, and you don't need to subscribe to any specific belief system to do it.
Tarot reading
Reading tarot cards doesn't require subscribing to any specific spiritual belief system. Nor do you even need to be spiritual at all; you can read tarot cards with the perspective that what you're doing is prompting your own mind to consider things from new angles.
Meditation
Meditation is known to have beneficial effects, and doing it doesn't require subscribing to any particular belief system. Yes, it's a problem when somebody subscribes meditation as a cure-all, or use it as a form of spiritual bypassing, but that's a problem with the teacher, not the practice itself.
Eating more plant foods
Provided you don't have any allergies or intolerances, eating more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and the like usually isn't a bad idea. The problem with New Age is when it effectively moralizes food by decreeing certain foods "high vibrational" or "low vibrational," or when it's pushing conspiracy theories about modern processed food items being intentionally poisoned to block our psychic abilities or keep us dependent on the healthcare system. And obviously, it's appallingly ableist to tell someone that they could cure a chronic illness by switching to an all-natural vegan diet or something.
Belief in aliens
It's a big universe, and it's not unreasonable to think we're not alone in it, and that maybe there's beings who are observing us. The problem is when belief in aliens becomes part of a conspiratorial worldview that scapegoats certain groups of people for the world's problems, displaces real history, and misuses other people's traditions and beliefs.
Belief that things can and will get better
To paraphrase Terry Pratchett's words in The Hogfather, we sometimes need to believe in things that aren't true (such as justice and mercy) so they can become true. Believing that things can change makes people feel like their efforts are worth something. Meanwhile, when everyone's got a doomer attitude nothing will change for the better because nobody will even try.
One problem with New Age's optimism in specific is that they tend to believe that things getting better is contingent on converting a large number of people to New Age spirituality, which includes getting them to accept a large number of conspiratorial beliefs that target and harm vulnerable minorities, and/or distort and erase the actual spiritual beliefs of people from different cultures (many of whom are marginalized minorities and/or have been severely harmed by colonialism already).
Another problem is when you get the whole 5D ascension thing going on. 5D ascension is basically the New Age version of the Rapture, and just like the Rapture, it's always said to be right around the corner, but it never materializes. (If you'd like examples, here are predictions for 2012 and 2015.) Very concerningly, New Agers often list a number of physical and mental health symptoms as "ascension symptoms." They were claiming this as far back as the 2010s, when December 31, 2012 was supposed to be the big day. (Here's an example.)
Basically, hope and belief that things can get better is important - but it's also important not to hang our hopes (and medical decisions) on supernatural predictions that have already failed multiple times.
Wanting to promote compassion and understanding between people
This is a great thing to want! The problem with New Age isn't that they want to spread peace and harmony, but rather the way they want to do it without really listening to the people they supposedly want to help. You can't, for example, genuinely fight colonialism if you're engaging in cultural appropriation and misrepresenting their spiritual traditions - you're an active part of the problem. Promoting compassion and understanding begins with you shutting up, listening, and learning without imposing your own preconceptions or reacting from your ego. You're not doing this if you're looking for mythology to project aliens onto, or dismissing anything you don't want to hear as a conspiracy.
And here's some critical thinking tips before you go
When you're evaluating any belief system or practice, it's always important to remember that belief and practice are not the same thing. Most of the time the practices are harmless in and of themselves; the actual danger comes from the conspiratorial and morally polarized worldviews many practitioners also subscribe to. Nobody's ever died from putting rose quartz in their room or getting a reiki session. They have died from refusing evidence-based medical care because someone convinced them that the health care industry is a scam and will also separate them from Source.
When it comes to beliefs themselves, ask yourself what kind of narratives they're upholding. If they basically promote the same kind of conspiratorial narratives used by Nazis, witch hunters, or far right Christians to justify their hatred and violence, that's a pretty strong sign that this belief is bullshit. But of course, there's a pretty stark difference between believing that aliens could be out there, and believing blood-drinking reptiles have invaded the Earth.
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I love the idea of leafling scars!! Such a cool idea but I’ve never seen anyone draw anything life that! Maybe I’m biased because I like Bernard.
Had this idea brewing since the game came out and there are SO many ways it could be applied to imply extra stories for Bernard and the castaways! I have no idea when else I'll be able to talk about this in length so thank you for sending this I can finally ramble!!!
To summarize:
Cured castaways are left with vine stitches that protect and keep together any internal or external injuries (may or may not disappear once the injury is fully healed)
The pikmin parasite potencially focuses on the head to control the host
The longer they're a leafling the more vibrant the hue left on the skin is. (I wasn't sure how much of a tomato Olimar would be)
Flowers can bloom in their leafy coats
Despite being brought into the same Onion they have different types of leaves/vines/flowers
I left it ambiguous whether or not castaways are still being healed after they've been turned into leaflings
Other info and ideas I didn't include:
A lot of times the plant grown will be poisonous ie. a yellow leafling grows buttercups. This is to protect them from predators.
Marks resembiling their leafling eyes might be visible on their corneas
Drinking nectar gives them a similar effect to the pikmin; blooming flower, faster speed (maybe strength? forgot if that's boosted), they also get "extra lives" but their pain receptors are more sensitive than the pikmin so they get temporarilly incapacitated for longer
Keeping it ambiguous if castaways are straight up revived from the dead or need to be brought in while they're still hanging on (there's so much story potential if theres a time limit tho!)
They might be able to use the vines as a second limb (I accidentally drew Olimar's vine too low so he probably has a vine tail now)
Dunno if I did Yonny's speech pattern justice here (still experimenting) but-
I REALLY wished we could've gotten notes from Yonny about this since he got to see them up close. And dang it I'm really curious about how the leaflings work, I get that they're all dandori n stuff but what if the pink ones can fly or the purple ones are stronger. Maybe all of them except blue leaflings get hurt by water.
So many questions and no answers, and so much design and story potential!!!
I cut the image in case tumblr's compression kicks me.
This was a pretty fun way to start drawing the castaways too. Now I'm really tempted to draw everyone's leafling forms (I may have already picked flowers for the rescue corps team based on their symbolism)
#pikmin 4#pikmin 4 spoilers#yonny pikmin#bernard pikmin#fan art#captain olimar#leafling#castaway#kamatha answers
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The Power Of Adora
Episode 4 of She-Ra, Flowers For She-Ra is the first war story in the series. It depicts the cost of war on people and places, and if it wasn't for how obnoxiously lovable the citizens of Plumeria are, it might be genuinely harrowing to watch (Let me know how it went for you if you didn't find the Plumerians endearing)
But I would like to focus on something else. Adora herself. Up until this point, the series has been showing off how powerful She-Ra is and how she is so useful and so strong and bla bla bla. But this episode focuses in on Adora herself, and what she can do.
Let me explain.
SPOILERS AHEAD
"Can Adora do this?"
I would like to examine how Adora reacts to danger. She runs towards it, she is determined to be useful, and she sees She-Ra as her way of helping. What I'd like to focus on is her vernacular. She refers to the form she is not in as a separate person, and how she refers to each facet of herself is pretty obvious. She-Ra can do things, Adora cannot.
So what happens when She-Ra can't fix the problem? That's what this episode explores.
In this episode, we see Adora's experience of the Horde in full effect. Turns out, having someone who understands the enemy on your side is useful. Who knew?
In this episode alone, we see Adora's understanding of the Horde's tactics used to predict the use of the poison and her knowledge of their routines used to effectively infiltrate the base. There isn't much analysis to do here other than to contrast that with how She-Ra is represented in the stories. She-Ra is a warrior where Adora is a tactician.
It's also worth noting that She-Ra's healing would only have been treating the symptoms of the poison, where Adora went to the source of the problem.
Hope. This is an episode about hope.
Adora's defining skillset isn't She-Ra, and it isn't her background, it's her resilience and perseverance. Adora rarely gives up, she instead seeks a new way to fix a problem. And that has an effect on people.
This is a shot from The Batman (2022) and I promise you its relevant. It's important here that Batman isn't carrying people to safety one by one, he's leading them to a better place. He's helping them to help themselves. This is one of the reasons this is the best live action Batman, because it's not about punching the bad guy, it's about saving people. And the way that is done, isn't by solving all of their problems for them, it's by shining a light and inspiring them to do better and to fix their own lives.
This is the effect that Adora has on people. She inspires people to help themselves. What's interesting is that hope is very much associated with the She-Ra personality. She-Ra is a symbol. Maybe there isn't so much of a difference between She-Ra and Adora after all.
Yes, I just linked She-Ra and Batman. No, I am not sorry.
But there is another effect that Adora has on people, and that isn't any effect that she can see. This episode makes a point of showing the effect of Adora's defection on the Horde itself.
"I know you're lying. You have to be lying. What did you do?"
I don't need to explain how bad this is. Not from a writing perspective, but as something for a mother figure to say to her prodigy.
In any case this little scene displays what Adora defecting has cost these two individuals. Shadow Weaver covets power, she seeks to control every piece on the board, and her most influential has just left her side.
Meanwhile Catra gives this line:
"What did I do? She left us, she left me."
Here we see Catra's abandonment issues coming out. She has taken Adora's leaving personally.
There's a neat little trick with her character design that I want to highlight here. Catra is mostly symmetrical, her mask, her hair, her costume (with a couple of flourishes). Even the marks on her arms match each other. The exception to this is her eyes. One blue, one yellow. Eyes that she can't cover up. Everything about Catra is perfectly even, but it's a facade, and the imbalance in her creeps out through the way she sees the world.
In 1810 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe wrote that yellow and blue are the two primary colours that are in the greatest opposition to each other.
"Yellow is a light which has been dampened by darkness; blue is a darkness weakened by light."
Once again, this is the influence Adora has had on Catra, and the influence the horde has had. Notice how the hoard bears a green that, in this specific shot, is very similar to Catra's yellow eye. The Horde corrupts. And notice how much the blue stands out. Notice how it is the closest to Shadow Weaver, almost protecting Catra from her. Adora weakens the darkness so that in the end, Catra can be free. I'm definitely clutching at straws here, but it's a neat little rabbit hole.
I'd try and summarise my points here, but I think Glimmer says it best.
"Adora, She-Ra isn't the reason we like you. We like you because you're our friend."
She-Ra is a story about purpose, and acceptance. And Adora's journey is about realising that she doesn't need to fit one single purpose for people. She can live her own way.
The two personalities, Adora and She-Ra, represent the sides of Adora as powerful and Adora as herself. In this episode, we learn who exactly that self is, and what effect that has on the world of this story.
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#rants#literary analysis#character analysis#literature analysis#what's so special about...?#she ra adora#she ra perfuma#batman#she ra spop#she ra#she ra and the princesses of power#spop
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The Apothecary Diaries
S1E7 First Watch
Here's where I watch The Apothecary Diaries for the first time and give my thoughts, analysis, predictions, and occasionally I stumble into a joke.
If you want to read from the beginning:
Episode 1
My character cheat sheet
Hongniang - Head LIW at Jade Pavilion
Lady Lishu - child bride concubine
Lady Ah Duo - one of the top 4 concubines
Lady Lihua - concubine who was poisoned by face power
Crystal Pavilion - Lady Lihua's residence
Jade Pavilion - Lady Gyokuyou's residence
Xiaolan - Maomao's servant girl friend
Lihaku - military officer who gave Maomao a hairpin
The Verdigris House - brothel
Luomen - Maomao's dad
Maomao has been ordered to rest since she was poisoned last episode. Her friends are worried and demand she take time to let herself heal. Maomao would rather not, but so far she is compliant.
And now that she has time to think, some of the things she has been repressing are rising. She's thinking about her father and wondering if he is okay. I suspect that she hasn't spent a lot of time with the grief of losing her old life. But grief is something that is inside you, not something you can run away from. Now that she is still, there is no where to hide from it.
Her trauma is also making itself known. She admits to feeling uncomfortable without her freckles painted on. Her altered appearance has been a shield she wore to protect herself from the male gaze.
The fact that she is processing her grief and trauma is actually a good sign that she is in a place that she feel safe. And I credit that to the love and care she receives at the Jade Pavilion.
But Maomao can only tolerate so much of this kind of introspection, so she paints her freckles on and goes to ask to be allowed to work. Apparently, most of the people at the garden party thought Maomao was literally a different person and Lady Gyokuyou is fine with Maomao hiding her true face.
Gaoshun has been at the pavilion all morning, just waiting for an opportunity to talk to Maomao, and not for any other reason, especially not to spend time with Hongniang. Lady Gyokuyou sent this high ranking official out to the yard to pull weeds because he was making eyes at Hongniang bored. Once again Maomao notes that Gaoshun is prime husband material. If only he weren't a "eunuch." My prediction here is that he is a private guard/official to Jinshi who was assigned to the rear palace along with his master, rather than a regular eunuch or palace official.
Jinshi actually sent Maomao the poisonous soup that she asked for. Gaoshun wants her to promise she won't drink it. Lol.
Maomao is out here using fingerprinting analysis to solve this crime. She deduces how many people have touched the bowl and is compelled to tell Gaoshun her theories on Lady Lishu's food taster. A fuller extent of the bullying that Lady Lishu experiences is painted. It turns out her ladies in waiting are even more terrible than Lady Lihua's.
The person who added the poison touched the rim of the bowl which is something servants handling food are trained not to do. So that eliminates a few suspects. Maomao has passed what she knows to Gaoshun, and therefore Jinshi. Hopefully he will have some insight.
But not tonight. We are seeing an exhausted Jinshi for the first time. He hasn't slept, or changed his clothes, and now he doesn't have the energy to be formal. Gaoshun scolds him for it.
Gaoshun: Your true nature's starting to show.
Jinshi: Who cares? There's nobody here.
Gaoshun: You're forgetting me.
Jinshi: A little slack, if you please.
Gaoshun: No.
As it turns out, Gaoshun has been looking after Jinshi since the day he was born. Yet, despite their long relationship, Jinshi is not permitted to relax in his company. I feel bad for Jinshi here. His relationship with Gaoshun may be the closest one he has, and yet even this is so formal. It has to be a lonely existence.
And as if we hadn't picked up that Jinshi is in fact a prince, this whole conversation offers more evidence. He has had a minder since the day he was born, and the dignity of his station must be maintained at all times.
And if that isn't enough, Jinshi's hairpin is a symbol of his status. Gaoshun is frustrated that Jinshi just tossed this hairpin of great importance.
It's something only special individuals can wear.
Xiaolan informs Maomao that she can use the hairpin she was gifted to request that the man who gave it to her escort her outside the palace. Maomao is enthusiastic about the idea. And two men have given her a pin. I'm guessing she'll ask the bouncy military officer before Jinshi, even though she knows him better. Things are complicated with Jinshi and there are so many unnamed feelings between them. Asking Jinshi would mean something. Whereas Lihaku means nothing to Maomao. He is a means to an end.
Not Maomao questioning whether Jinshi qualifies as a man! OMG!
But considering how one of them lost a certain part of their anatomy does he still count?
And Lihaku is... kind of a shitty guy. He's repulsed that Maomao isn't as beautiful as she was at the party, accuses her of being clueless, and trying to take advantage of him. His tune drastically changes when Maomao makes an offer to get him a night with a high ranking courtesan.
And this is why Maomao chose Lihaku to be her escort rather than Jinshi. This is what she has to trade. An introduction to a famous courtesan would not be of interest to the two women, or the "eunuch" who gave her hair pins, but it very much interests Lihaku. This is just a business transaction for both Maomao and Lihaku, but it is a successful one. Maomao has secured an escort to take her home.
Maomao's pavilion friends are enthused for her. They essentially are acting like Maomao has accepted a proposal. They don't question her on why the man she is leaving the palace with is a different guy than Jinshi who they saw give her a hairpin first. They are simply happy for Maomao's good fortune. Maomao understands none of that. Lady Gyokuyou knows that Maomao doesn't understand about the hairpins and she spares a thought for Jinshi saying:
A pity. His poor heart. When he finds out, it's going to shatter.
Which delights her. Lady Gyokuyou is looking forward to seeing Jinshi suffer. Me too.
And sure enough, when he visits a day too late, Lady Gyokuyou delivers the new about Maomao in the most devastating way she can, implying that Maomao has eloped. She then laughs at Jinshi's horrified reaction before softening the news by letting him know she'll return in 3 days. Lady Gyokuyou is my hero.
As we enter the pleasure district, Maomao describes the various roles the women there play. The Three Princesses of Verdigris House are revered by all. They outrank everyone else. Courtesans in general are respected and there are many girls who hope to be one. Though it's very competitive. Girls will become servants and train to become a courtesan but there is no guarantee they will achieve it. This show is always showing us the various roles that women play in this society.
The Madame of Verdigris House greets Maomao with a violent gut punch. She does allow Lihaku to enter the brothel and meet with one of the princesses. Turns out Maomao is paying half of all of her earnings from the palace for this opportunity. And it's still not enough. She's in debt to the brothel. That's probably not a good thing. In fact, I could see that going very, very wrong. She's going to need to be careful.
Maomao returns home, and things are weird with her dad.
Maomao: Hello Dad. I'm home.
Luomen: Oh. Welcome back. You were gone awhile.
Maomao is so happy to see him. She's smiling the whole time, but the casual interaction after her disappearing without a trace and coming back after so long, is weird.
After Maomao falls asleep, Luomen is reflecting and thinks:
The Rear Palace? What a twist of fate.
What do mean Luomen?!
Do you mean generally? Like oh, look how this poor girl who used to live on the bad side of town and work hard to scrape by, is now living in the palace and hanging out with royalty?
Or do you mean specifically? Is there some reason that Maomao being in the rear palace is remarkable? Does she have some hidden connection to the palace? Does she know?
Very little JinMao content in this episode. Which is probably good because they have some things to think about about after all the events of the day of the garden party.
We might be seeing the beginnings of Jinshi unraveling. He's either unable or unwilling to keep up all the walls he's kept until now. Maomao somehow slipped through and he's starting to question if it's worth the effort to keep them up. He tested taking them down with Gaoshun, but was rebuffed. But the cracks have already begun forming and it's only a matter of time before things start to give. He's had a taste of something real and I doubt he can go back to the way things were before.
Maomao on the other hand is running. She had some time to think in the beginning of the episode and she's scared. The emotions are so big and scary. And for as honest and straightforward as Maomao is, she is not good at being vulnerable. It's not a coincidence that she left the palace right after all that happened with Jinshi the day of the garden party. She needs to get away from the palace and Jinshi so she can evaluate how she feels and decide what she wants to do.
Maomao returns home, back to a place where she knew who she was and what she wanted. But she's changed from her time in the palace, and she needs to examine that. Her desires have also changed. Does she really want to leave the palace and return to work for her father?
There are parallel stories being played out between Maomao and Jinshi. Both of them have changed and can't return to the way things were before.
It will be interesting to see how these characters adjust to change, and how their stories will differ or reflect each other.
Most of Jinshi's challenges seem to be external; the pressures of his status, the condfines of his station. He seems willing, perhaps even eager, to face the rising emotions.
Maomao on the other hand has a lot more freedom and less external pressure than Jinshi (ironic because she's an indentured servant), but she instead struggles with internal stressors; the scars of trauma, and fear of intimacy. She fears the rising emotions.
For both of them, there is no going back, and they will have to adjust to the changes and face the challenges that result. There is no way out but through.
But hopefully they will come together face their challenges side by side.
🤞
If you want to read these from the beginning:
Episode 1
Next episode:
Episode 8
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Recent RWBY Chapter thoughts
I have read many people saying that someone must die in order to return home. And all this happened because Jaune "believes" that Alxy killed Lewis to get out. "Believe" is the key word here. Jaune isn't sure what happened to Lewis, and I don't think the cat is hiding the information. Throughout the show the cat technically has not lied, he only answers what they ask him. Nothing more and nothing less.
I don't think anyone has to die to get out of Ever After. This is what I think happened with Alyx and Lewis. Jaune says that Alyx is a cruel and ruthless person, and that Lewis is the kind and clever one. Alyx poisoned Jaune, thinking that he would help in some way what she saw in the herbalist's smoke. So she left with the cat and her brother. What did she saw? I have some ideas, but that's for later.
So when they get to the tree maybe Alxy and Lewis had a fight, maybe. If this actually happened, the cat would never have mentioned it because Jaune and RWBY didn't ask that question. The point is that somehow or another they did find the way out and may be that Lewis wanted to bring Jaune. But of course this is when he discovers that he was poisoned and the fight started. I don't know exactly how it happen or what happen, but maybe Alyx wanted to kill her brother in a way to keep him quiet once they arrive the real word. But Lewis is clever, somehow or another he was able to stop his sister, but tragically he made her "ascend". But in Lewis eyes, he thought that he killed her, since the cat says that those who are not part of the Ever After cannot ascend.
Then upon returning to his world, Lewis decides to write the story and because of him for not being able to help his friends and his sister. He wrote the adventures of his sister and the others as a way to apologize to them for everything that happened. I wouldn't say he lied, but maybe he wrote what happened this way as a way to heal from this horrible experience.
Now, what happened to Alyx? The cat doesn't remember what happened and as Jaune said, the cat returned to him after a few days. Since the cat is very curious and nothing was happening, he didn't stick around on the tree, and he no longer cared what happened to the siblings. So he returned to Jaune to see if he has something interesting for him. Jaune took this wrong and he thinks the cat is guilty.
Now comes the complicated part. I believe that Alyx did ascend and become the Jabberwalker. You see, from what Jaune told us, he tried to guide them just like the story, but Alyx, being cruel, committed crimes everywhere they went. In all that narration the Jabberwalker was never present. It means that the Jabberwalker appeared later. First clue.
Second, the Jabberwalker is always scares when he has to fight a group. We figure this out when RWBY and Neo and their clones attack him. The Jabberwalker panics and runs away or becomes paralyzed in fear. The Jabberwalkers that attacked afterwards were copies of Neo, so they weren't afraid of RWBY and Jaune. Where am I going with this? Alyx poisoned Jaune because she knew that he is the only one who can stop her, what ever she is trying to do. He is stronger than her, faster than her, bigger than her. So the poison was the only way to get rid of it. The Jabberwalker only attacks people that he knows he can beat. The first time it appeared, Yang was lonely and tired, a good prey for the creature. Same idea, different tactic. Both Alyx and the Jabberwalker ar scared easily.
Third, ascension supposedly helps reborn creatures by taking their memories and transforming them into something better using those memories. Like the King, in the story they say he played Alyx fairly (I think it was Lewis who played the King), but after he was beaten for the first time because of Alyx cheating, he was reborn as a prince and started cheating too. In Alyx's case, she was already evil but using her memories the tree turned her into the Jabberwalker. This was unintentional, since the tree's job is to make creatures better and give them a new role, not make them worse. And since Alyx is pure evil, only more evil can come of this. That's why the tree turned her into something big, strong and fast, and with the desire to end everything in her path.
Fourth, what I think she saw in the smoke. I think she saw herself as a monster. And trying to escape that, she made a lot of bad decisions. In the end, fulfilling what she desperately tried to avoid.
I think there is more to the story that Jaune has not told us and that the cat knows about Alyx. Honestly, it would have been better if the episode had been a little bit more about what Jaune had to go through with Alyx and Lewis. Just to get a better idea of these two siblings. Just to get a better idea of these two characters. I also believe that no one will die. I think Neo might become good, learning what happened to Alyx as a lesson. Or maybe just stop hunting Ruby and maybe do something else. Everyone will get out of there, I hope that Jaune will become young again (The change of his image when he got angry in the reflection gives hope that this may happen), but I think that everyone else in his world will be a little older. I mean, Lewis and Alyx's clothes look kind of old and Jaune met them and ran into Rwby later. Time must pass more slowly in the "Ever After." But like always, this is just my thoughts, I may be wrong.
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I fell in love for the first time. I think it'll tear me apart because that's what it did to my parents, but I think I'll let it
hi anon 💙
i’m sorry i took so long to respond to this. i had to spend a long time thinking about it. i don't know how much you really wanted from me, but you have my thoughts here under the cut nonetheless.
first, i want to say i’m so happy for you! i think falling in love is one of the best, most wonderful things in life—for the feeling of it and for all the doors it opens. the first time especially, it cracks us open. it introduces us to new parts of ourselves and changes the way we see the world. i think that’s why it’s so terrifying; it asks us to transform.
there’s so much vulnerability required in that process. and we know it doesn't always (or often) go well. those of us who grew up with examples of particularly bad relationships tend to be especially wary.
when i was younger, i fully believed love was some kind of delusion that drove people to behave stupidly, and that all romantic relationships were hurtling toward some terrible end—the utter destruction of those involved, some miserable facade of companionship that left them feeling hollow, or (at best) a disenchantment that eventually freed them from the delusion. i wasn’t afraid of falling in love so much as i rejected it… still, when it happened… everything i thought i knew—about life and about myself—exploded like a star.
you sent such a short message, but it reminds me so much of myself. “i think it’ll tear me apart” and “i think i’ll let it.” i want to reach out and hug you, and i want to sit with you for six hours talking over hot chocolate. there's so much i wish i could say to my younger self, but at least i can share some of it with you, and i know we’re different people and your path will be different from mine, but maybe it can help you.
i think the worst mistake i ever made was to cross my own boundaries. i don’t think there’s any chance of overstating how much hope is involved when you fall for someone. the optimism and idealism (and the rarely-mentioned boost in courage) inherent in the experience makes us more willing to risk pain (longing, loss, betrayal…). i also don't think there’s any chance of real love without a willingness to get hurt, and all important relationships involve difficult emotions. but i have this dangerous tendency of thinking, “love is so precious, and now that i have it, i’ll do anything to make it work.” or even, “i love you so much, i’ll forgive anything if we can keep trying to work together.” that stubbornness and desperation and fear of loss… it’s poisonous. i’ve been hurt in a lot of ways, but the worst heartbreak did not come from loss or betrayal or even someone treating me badly—it was the sense that i had betrayed myself. healing is so much harder when you're wondering if you can trust yourself, because no matter how things go, you're the one who has to get you through.
maybe you’ll get hurt. we always run that risk. maybe you’ll be happier than you ever knew was possible. we just don't know! but you must be able to trust yourself to set and enforce boundaries, and if you find that your relationship is damaging to you, then you must be willing to walk away.
i don’t meant to scare you or preach to you or anything. if this isn't what you wanted, i hope you will forgive me. i’m 22 years old and still figuring it out—i certainly have no great wisdom to share. it’s just… “i think i’ll let it.” your words resonate so deeply within me, it feels wrong not to offer you what i’ve learned. what i’m learning.
i don't want to discourage you at all from embracing all the magic of the experience. the warm, happy glow, the lightness and the weight, how the world becomes more beautiful around you. feeling so safe, you want to sink down, curl up, and sleep inside the feeling. at the same time, feeling so happy, giddy, sparkly, all you want to do is laugh and dance. finally understanding all those songs and books and movies, and marveling at all the feelings you didn't think you’d ever feel, didn’t know you could feel, and suddenly becoming aware of how much the world has to offer you… there is nothing quite like this.
#i am... wordy#best wishes to you anon 💖💖💖💖💖#replies#anika speaks#/////#on love#on relationships#on my mind
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"Bright" vs "Dark" Plants, The Poison Path, and The Need To Stop Being Edgelords About It All
It is forever obnoxious to me, when dealing with materials pertaining to the Poison Path, that there is always an air of completely unnecessary edginess about the nature of the plants. Particularly in regards to their “dual nature”.
The most recent example I’ve encountered comes (yet again) from 'The Poison Path Herbal: Baneful Herbs, Medicinal Nightshades, and Ritual Entheogens', when Mr. Michael says:
[Baneful Herbs] are the tricksters and shapeshifters of the plant world. They can act as both poison and panacea and teach us about boundaries and limitations that we would otherwise not approach.
The statement is certainly not untrue. In fact, he’s completely correct. However? It contains, overall, a symptom of a much larger mentality I encounter often along the Poison Path, and among those who write about it and practice its supposed virtues. One which has traveled beyond the realm of annoying, and which I wish I could chuck in the gutter and never see again.
It’s an obnoxious statement specifically because those on the Poison Path, whether they realize it’s what they’re doing or not, always act as if it is only Baneful Herbs which have such a dual nature- which is where the unnecessary edginess rears its ugly head ... Yet in actual reality? All plants (or at least nearly all, anyways; there are always exceptions to the rule) are dual natured in this way; the so called “Healing Herbs” of the world are no different than the so called “Baneful” ones in being capable of inflicting harm and trickery.
⇝ Take Iris, for instance. It has been long used as a Diuretic, as a remedy for Bronchitis, and as a Laxative for Constipation. The dried root of Iris Germanica var Florentina is specifically known as Orris Root- which most would recognize as a common ingredient in perfumes, incenses, potpourris, and other aromatic products. And yet Iris is well known to be toxic- causing vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, severe stomach pain, convulsions, and even liver, kidney, and even spleen failure if used incorrectly.
⇝ Comfrey, which I planted in my own garden last year as part of an experiment in natural fertilizer moving forward, has also long since been used as both an internal and external expectorant, astringent, and demulcent. Modern trials especially have shown it acutely beneficial in the topical treatment of joint pain, inflammation, myalgia, degenerative arthritis, and more- but only if the native Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids are removed from any such concoction made with Comfrey, because as it turns out, such a once widely used and beneficial healing herb is actually toxic; capable of causing a form of liver disease that can only be diagnosed through a postmortem liver biopsy, through accumulative consumption of even the smallest amounts- whether that “consumption” is through internal or external usage of any kind of preparation.
⇝ Coltsfoot has been found to contain these same accumulative Alkaloids. As does every member of the Heliotropium genus- another common aromatic- that has been tested so far (out of 325 species in total). Hemp Agrimony (Eupatorium Cannabinum) is also among them. As are many, many others.
And this is but a small smattering of blatant examples of Healing Herbs which are perfectly capable of trickery, and which contain an inherent multiplicity and duality. There are thousands more- more than one could possibly ever even list.
The true difference between "Baneful" and "Healing" plants? Is in the fact that the Baneful is so called because they harm more often than they heal; Baneful Herbs require an incredibly skilled and carefully studied hand in order to use them properly without hurting someone- and so it is much easier to harm people with them even when it’s their healing nature which is being sought out. As a result, many have developed “opposite associations”, and become taboo in cultural mythology and folklore around the world- becoming deeply associated with more “negative” figures and deeds, compared to the often “holier” and more elevated folklore and associations that develop around Healing Herbs.
But this dichotomy does not actually mean that there exists between them any true divide which makes Baneful dual natured and Healing single natured, or somehow removes the ability for Healing herbs to be equally as capable of trickery and deceit as their Baneful counterparts. And frankly, with as much herbal knowledge as many people on the Poison Path promote themselves as possessing? You would honestly think they'd not only know this, but also genuinely understand it.
It seems, however, that they are wrapped up in too much of their own egotism and desire to be edgy, and too focused on the “bad boy” image of Baneful Allies to listen to their brighter counterparts. Which is disappointing, as the age old adage clearly instructs us that “To Heal you must also know to Poison- for both are two sides of the same coin”. And so you would think, truly, that the door of understanding would swing both ways. But apparently the wisdom does not.
This is an opinion piece based in 20+ years of Witchcraft and Pagan experience, and 15+ years of Herbal Practice. If you found this helpful or interesting, please consider Tipping or Leaving a Ko-Fi (being Disabled, even $1 helps); you can see my other "Original Content" here.
This account is run by a Dual Faith «(Converting) Masorti Jew + Traditional NeoWiccan» & «Ancestral Folk Magic Practitioner» with 20+ years of experience as a practicing Pagan and Witch. If that bothers you, don't interact.
#Old Blog Reposts#2022#Original Content#Original Witchy Content#Original Herbal Content#Herbalism#Religion & Magic#Natural Connections#Gardening#Gardenblr#Plantblr
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i am that, nisargardatta maharaj, ch. 96.
Questioner: I am an American by birth and for the last one year I was staying in an Ashram in Madhya Pradesh, studying Yoga in its many aspects. We had a teacher, whose Guru, a disciple of the great Sivananda Saraswati, stays in Monghyr. I stayed at Ramanashram also. While in Bombay I went through an intensive course of Burmese meditation managed by one Goenka. Yet I have not found peace. There is an improvement in self-control and day-to-day discipline, but that is all. I cannot say exactly what caused what. I visited many holy places. How each acted on me, I cannot say.
Maharaj: Good results will come, sooner or later. At Sri Ramanashram did you get some instructions?
Q: Yes, some English people were teaching me and also an Indian follower of jnana yoga, residing there permanently, was giving me lessons.
M: What are your plans?
Q: I have to return to the States because of visa difficulties. I intend to complete my B.Sc., study Nature Cure and make it my profession.
M: A good profession, no doubt.
Q: Is there any danger in pursuing the path of Yoga at all cost?
M: Is a match-stick dangerous when the house is on fire? The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it will destroy the world in which you live. But if your motive is love of truth and life, you need not be afraid.
Q: I am afraid of my own mind. It is so unsteady!
M: In the mirror of your mind images appear and disappear. The mirror remains. Learn to distinguish the immovable in the movable, the unchanging in the changing, till you realise that all differences are in appearance only and oneness is a fact. This basic identity -- you may call God, or Brahman, or the matrix (Prakriti), the words matters little -- is only the realisation that all is one. Once you can say with confidence born from direct experience: 'I am the world, the world is myself', you are free from desire and fear on one hand and become totally responsible for the world on the other. The senseless sorrow of mankind becomes your sole concern.
Q: So even a jnani has his problems!
M: Yes, but they are no longer of his own creation. His suffering is not poisoned by a sense of guilt. There is nothing wrong with suffering for the sins of others. Your Christianity is based on this.
Q: Is not all suffering self-created?
M: Yes, as long as there is a separate self to create it. In the end you know that there is no sin, no guilt, no retribution, only life in its endless transformations. With the dissolution of the personal 'I' personal suffering disappears. What remains is the great sadness of compassion, the horror of the unnecessary pain.
Q: Is there anything unnecessary in the scheme of things?
M: Nothing is necessary, nothing is inevitable. Habit and passion blind and mislead. Compassionate awareness heals and redeems. There is nothing we can do, we can only let things happen according to their nature.
Q: Do you advocate complete passivity?
M: Clarity and charity is action. Love is not lazy and clarity directs. You need not worry about action, look after your mind and heart. Stupidity and selfishness are the only evil.
Q: What is better -- repetition of God's name, or meditation?
M: Repetition will stabilise your breath. With deep and quiet breathing vitality will improve, which will influence the brain and help the mind to grow pure and stable and fit for meditation. Without vitality little can be done, hence the importance of its protection and increase. Posture and breathing are a part of Yoga, for the body must be healthy and well under control, but too much concentration on the body defeats its own purpose, for it is the mind that is primary in the beginning. When the mind has been put to rest and disturbs no longer the inner space (chidakash), the body acquires a new meaning and its transformation becomes both necessary and possible.
Q: I have been wandering all over India, meeting many Gurus and learning in driblets several Yogas. Is it all right to have a taste of everything?
M: No, this is but an introduction. You will meet a man who will help you find your own way.
Q: I feel that the Guru of my own choice can not be my real Guru. To be real he must come unexpected and be irresistible.
M: Not to anticipate is best. The way you respond is decisive.
Q: Am I the master of my responses?
M: Discrimination and dispassion practised now will yield their fruits at the proper time. If the roots are healthy and well-watered, the fruits are sure to be sweet. Be pure, be alert, keep ready.
Q: Are austerities and penances of any use?
M: To meet all the vicissitudes of life is penance enough! You need not invent trouble. To meet cheerfully whatever life brings is all the austerity you need.
Q: What about sacrifice?
M: Share willingly and gladly all you have with whoever needs -- don't invent self-inflicted cruelties.
Q: What is self-surrender?
M: Accept what comes.
Q: I feel I am too weak to stand on my own legs. I need the holy company of a Guru and of good people. Equanimity is beyond me. To accept what comes as it comes, frightens me. I think of my returning to the States with horror.
M: Go back and make the best use of your opportunities. Get your B.Sc. degree first. You can always return to India for your Nature Cure studies.
Q: I am quite aware of the opportunities in the States. It is the loneliness that frightens me.
M: You have always the company of your own self -- you need not feel alone. Estranged from it even in India you will feel lonely. All happiness comes from pleasing the self. Please it, after return
to the States, do nothing that may be unworthy of the glorious reality within your heart and you shall be happy and remain happy. But you must seek the self and, having found it, stay with it.
Q: Will compete solitude be of any benefit?
M: It depends on your temperament. You may work with others and for others, alert and friendly, and grow more fully than in solitude, which may make you dull or leave you at the mercy of your mind's endless chatter. Do not imagine that you can change through effort. Violence, even turned against yourself, as in austerities and penance, will remain fruitless.
Q: Is there no way of making out who is realised and who is not?
M: Your only proof is in yourself. If you find that you turn to gold, it will be a sign that you have touched the philosopher's stone. Stay with the person and watch what happens to you. Don't ask others. Their man may not be your Guru. A Guru may be universal in his essence, but not in his expressions. He may appear to be angry or greedy or over-anxious about his Ashram or his family, and you may be misled by appearances, while others are not.
Q: Have I not the right to expect all-round perfection, both inner and outer?
M: Inner --- yes. But outer perfection depends on circumstances, on the state of the body, personal and social, and other innumerable factors.
Q: I was told to find a jnani so that I may learn from him the art of achieving jnana and now I am told that the entire approach is false, that I cannot make out a jnani, nor can jnana be conquered by appropriate means. It is all so confusing!
M: It is all due to your complete misunderstanding of reality. Your mind is steeped in the habits of evaluation and acquisition and will not admit that the incomparable and unobtainable are waiting timelessly within your own heart for recognition. All you have to do is to abandon all memories and expectations. Just keep yourself ready in utter nakedness and nothingness.
Q: Who is to do the abandoning?
M: God will do it. Just see the need of being abandoned. Don't resist, don't hold on to the person you take yourself to be. Because you imagine yourself to be a person you take the jnani to be a person too, only somewhat different, better informed and more powerful. You may say that he is eternally conscious and happy, but it is far from expressing the whole truth. Don't trust definitions and descriptions -- they are grossly misleading.
Q: Unless I am told what to do and how to do it, I feel lost.
M: By all means do feel lost! As long as you feel competent and confident, reality is beyond your reach. Unless you accept inner adventure as a way of life, discovery will not come to you.
Q: Discovery of what?
M: Of the centre of your being, which is free of all directions, all means and ends.
Q: Be all, know all, have all?
M: Be nothing, know nothing, have nothing. This is the only life worth living, the only happiness worth having.
Q: I may admit that the goal is beyond my comprehension. Let me know the way at least.
M: You must find your own way. Unless you find it yourself it will not be your own way and will take you nowhere. Earnestly live your truth as you have found it -- act on the little you have understood. It is earnestness that will take you through, not cleverness -- your own or another's.
Q: I am afraid of mistakes. So many things I tried -- nothing came out of them.
M: You gave too little of yourself, you were merely curious, not earnest.
Q: I don't know any better.
M: At least that much you know. Knowing them to be superficial, give no value to your experiences, forget them as soon as they are over. Live a clean, selfless life, that is all.
Q: Is morality so important?
M: Don't cheat, don't hurt -- is it not important? Above all you need inner peace -- which demands harmony between the inner and the outer. Do what you believe in and believe in what you do. All else is a waste of energy and time.
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Your trauma is not going to be healed or resolved if you're blaming NPD or borderline or HPD or ASPD (or any other disorder) for all of the awful shit that happened to you. If you keep trying to confirm those biases for yourself, you're going to poison yourself with paranoid hypervigilance and lateral aggression. It's not healthy for you to be overanalyzing and armchair diagnosing every person you interact with to see if they're a narcissist or something, because that hypervigilance will only cause you to isolate yourself out of fear, and community and new experiences/outlooks are vital for trauma recovery. (Not to mention that none of us can truly diagnose a personality disorder without years of professional psychiatric training).
I'm autistic too, formally diagnosed at 18, and I've watched people call us possessed or abusive or evil or toxic with only our disability as a basis for these accusations, the same way that folks will call people with NPD or other personality disorders malevolent or evil or toxic or abusive with only their disorders as a basis for those accusations. They face just as much unwarranted stigma as we do, but people have convinced us that we (we, as "innocent little autistics") are more vulnerable to this imaginary disorder-inherent abuse than anyone else, and so we've been tricked into extending this awful prejudice to another group of marginalized people who don't deserve it.
I'm genuinely sorry for what you went through at the hands of your mother — she sounds like an absolute monster — but you're doing nobody a favor, not even yourself, by turning NPD into an urban legend abusive boogeyman to be afraid of. It was your mother's fault for choosing to abuse you, not narcissism's fault for existing as a personality disorder.
Hi. Thanks for your support I do appreciate it.
You are absolutely correct regarding NPD. It is a very over stigmatised disorder and its stigma often proceeds it in spaces where those diagnosed can get help. It is so important for us to know the difference between narcissistic abuse and NPD so we don't further the stigma of people with NPD. I see many blogs here that tag NPD on posts about narcissistic abuse for example, and it's wrong.
The truth is educated people know that NPD does not cause abuse, that it is a disorder formed from abuse, that only professionals can diagnose as it is so complex and how an NPD diagnosis does not make a person dangerous, but that doesn't mean that every person is educated and its really important that when advocates see NPD being stigmatised in this way we call it out.
I have also talked about how NPD and Narcissism are not one in the same. Those with NPD can identify as "Narcissists" as a short hand for their disorder, but there is no such thing as a diagnosed narcissist, because "narcissist" is not a clinical term. NPD isn't a diagnosis of clinical narcissism, NPD is a complex disorder characterised by some traits associated with narcissism and mostly traits that aren't. To be a narcissist is to be an egotistical or self involved person, and as far as experts know, that's really not a good reflection of what it means to have NPD.
My mom isn't mentally ill because she abused me, and she's not abusive because she is mentally ill. I'm not going about my life psychoanalysing strangers to armchair diagnose through the lens of my own fucked up experience. I don't know if my mom has a psychological disorder and I don't claim to know either, because it doesn't matter, no mental disorder can explain what she did to me. It's not armchair diagnosing someone to recognise a pattern of behavior and accurately call it what it is. I'm not armchair diagnosing my mom as an abuser when I say I'm a survivor of narcissistic abuse by my mother, I'm recognising her patterns of behaviour and calling it what it is.
A narcissistic abuser is a person so self involved or egotistical that they abuse another person for the purpose of satisfying a narcissistic delusion, not an abuser who happens to have NPD. I'm under no delusions that my mother had this one elusive disorder that somehow made her abusive. My mother abused my sister and I to satisfy a number of her narcissistic delusions. She believed that we, as small children, were trying to manipulate her and deserved to be punished, she believed that we were extentions of herself and thus should be treated however she saw fit, she believed that we were intentionally faking long term symptoms of CTPSD to unfairly embarrass and expose her. None of that is a symptom of NPD, but it is a reflection of unchecked and unchallenged narcissism being weaponised by an abuser.
NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) is not "the Narcissism disorder" NPD actually is a very complex psychological condition that is defined by narcissistic traits and traits that have nothing to do with narcissism. The truth is, and I get a lot of backlash every time I say it, that NPD has very little to do with narcissism except its name.
A person with NPD can be abusive and it have nothing to do with narcissism. A narcissistic person can abuse someone to the end of satisfying a narcissistic delusion and yet never meet the clinical diagnosis criteria of NPD. Plenty of regular people have high levels of narcissistic traits yet manage to never abuse anyone or qualify for a diagnosis of NPD. I understand that even if my mom did have NPD or BPD or HPD or any other disorder that is classified with narcissistic traits, she still could have chosen to not abuse me.
You are right, my trauma and anybody else's won't be healed for blaming a laundry list of psychological disorders for the abuse we have endured. But narcissistic abuse is real, it is recognised by experts in psychology, therapy, abuse and recovery as its own distinctive type of abuse, and pretending that what I experienced, doesn't have a name isn't going to help me, or the millions of people recovering from their abuse every year either.
To recover from our abuse it is healthy for us to find support groups, to collect resources relating to our experience, to have acsess to spaces where we can share our experiences if we want to. It is important for us to have spaces for survivors of narcissistic abuse.
I understand that narcissistic abuse and NPD feel so inextricably connected in the cultural zeitgeist that it can feel like every mention of narcissism is a mention of NPD, and that is a norm that absolutely must be challenged to protect innocent people who have disorders they never asked for. It shouldn't come at the cost of taking away resources, spaces and platforms that help millions of people who are recovering from long term abuse.
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Is this really my "capitalist-poisoned brain," the fact that I only think about myself and am so "egotistical" and "individualistic" that I'm not seeing the "greater good" that is "community," existing in "community" and helping each other through mutual aid communally?
Because, as far as I know, no amount of community or mutual aid is able to fulfill my innermost layer of social needs. It does nothing to address the type of loneliness I'm dealing with, understandably so.
I've been sitting with this, thinking about how "wrong" I am, and how it's "awful" of me to think about myself before thinking about "community."
The problem is not a lack of "community," I have plenty. I'm part of many communities. These communities remain in my outermost social layers, I don't experience loneliness there. I never really did.
Then I start to realize that I'm looking at things from different perspectives - and that me and other people might have very different opinions about the same thing, and even more dissimilar needs, and none of us has the "right answer" or something that will work universally for everyone.
For example, it's me trying to fit into the polyamorous community when I'm essentially monogamous. They're not wrong, I'm not wrong either. One thing is not better than the other, even when one of them is more "socially acceptable" - I don't even think I can legally benefit from monogamy that much considering things like disability and queerness, so that "privilege" comes with a lot of caveats. No matter what I do, I will not be able to see that kind of relationship configuration as something that will be good for me; likewise, they will not see the kind of relationship I seek as something good or healthy for them. Big deal. Different people with different needs, we can all do our own thing separately.
For example, it's me trying to be a understanding, compassionate and accommodating friend (even possibly, partner) at the cost of my own health and needs. It's me taking the brunt of maintaining a connection by myself because the other parties are burnt out/sick/emotionally unavailable/suffering under capitalism. Well, guess what? I deal with all these things too. It's hard. I know it's hard and because it's so difficult, I choose to take care of myself first. And because it's so difficult, I show up as they show up to me, become frustrated because that doesn't even reach my bare minimum and I end up preferring to stay alone over wasting my energy on a connection that goes nowhere.
I guess that's really depressing, and a really depressing way to look at connections with other people, too... but I'm here for quality and if there's no quality, having "nothing" is better by default. Loneliness doesn't drain me like an one-sided relationship does. Loneliness doesn't make me hopeful by showing up so much at first and then burning out and distancing itself. And so on and so forth.
Like... I don't think the solution for my issues is to become a community-driven polyamorous person who is very selfless and accommodating of my friends and others - I tried that before several times and, believe me, it did not go well at all.
Becoming someone else is not going to help me. Changing my beliefs, thoughts and behaviours only goes so far.
Is this really a matter of me sitting with these issues and doing more and more self-reflection, until one day I'll become truly enlightened and "change"?
I don't really think so.
The irony of it all is how even if I were to become that person, it would still be difficult to fulfill that innermost layer, since it's very personal and requires a lot of vulnerability, intimacy and closeness between me and someone else - that still cannot make other people want me, that still cannot make other people prioritize their relationship with me and desire to be committed to me.
Regardless, healing my relationship with a sense of community and becoming less individualistic is definitely something I ought to do at some point. At the same time, I am in no rush considering that's one of the sources of my ailments. I prefer to keep on strengthening my relationship with myself, because that is one relationship of absolute trust and vulnerability I have in my life - communities come and go, there's many people, I'll likely not remember their faces and names, and that's fine. They can stay at a distance.
Regardless, I don't think I'm in the wrong for prioritizing my needs and wants, and preferring loneliness over something unfulfilling and progressively more frustrating. It hurts much less. The "joy" I get from these fragments of connections here and there is not worth it for me. I don't think that's wrong either.
"Wow alright, this is not for me," is literally something so freeing to think about. Even if it could apply at some degree, at some point, if I feel like it doesn't serve me, then I don't have to take it? Well, that works for you? Great, I'll give it a try and see if it does for me too. Oftentimes, it will not work for me, and it's alright.
What works for me is exactly what I've been trying to put out in the world. Not anything impossible or "too much." If that means I'm acting from a capitalistic individualistic selfish framework (and the alternatives I'm given do not take into consideration the fact that I might have tried them before and realized they do not work for me), so be it. I do not care. Let me be "wrong" then. Let me go on a different path than yours because there's many paths one can take. Let me try finding what works for me. Let me take a familiar discomfort, let me sit in loneliness and suffer because of it, since it's my preference over short lived reliefs.
I will not change into someone else. I've tried to do that enough. It's not good for me. And I will definitely not change for someone else's sake. Nor for the "greater good" of a "community."
I will walk the path I believe in and let myself be mistaken, let myself fail and fall, and let myself get up and continue, to try other things. In my own pace, in my own time, with my own terms.
I won't renounce community, obviously, but I feel like I exist and walk this path alone. My communities are precious and something I'm thankful for and yet, they do not provide the support I need. I have to do it myself. That's alright because I know I can do it.
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𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐔
love/healing potions= fluff, antidotes= comfort, poisons= angst, aphrodisiacs= smut; ༊*·˚= personal favourite
Love Potions:
Cuddling Headcanons || 4.3k || Multi-Character || ༊*·˚
⇢ ˗ˏˋ scaramouche, childe, xiao, chongyun ⋆ˎˊ˗
summary: what would the characters do if they accidentally confessed to you?
Moonlit Dreams || 1.7k || One-Shot || ༊*·˚
⇢ ˗ˏˋ al-haitham ࿐ྂ
event prompt: slow dancing
Sleepy Tighnari Drabble || ~160 || Blurb
⇢ ˗ˏˋ tighnari ࿐ྂ
Snapshot || ~930 || Drabble
⇢ ˗ˏˋ al-haitham ࿐ྂ
event prompt: taking photos
Anemo as the 5 Love Languages || 2.3k || Multi-Character || ༊*·˚
⇢ ˗ˏˋ scaramouche, xiao, venti, heizou, kazuha ⋆ˎˊ˗
summary: everyone gives affection a different way, so how about our favourite anemo users?
warnings: minor spoiler for 3.3 archon quest [scara]
I got your back || 815 || Drabble
⇢ ˗ˏˋ kaveh ࿐ྂ
inspired by this amazing artwork
Whatever || 2.8k || One-Shot || Modern AU || ༊*·˚
⇢ ˗ˏˋ piercer and tattoo artist! scaramouche ࿐ྂ
summary: working in a coffee shop means you always meet a wide variety of personalities; but why, out of all options, did you have to go and take an interest in the mysterious guy with an attitude problem?
warnings: uhh needles (obviously), cursing like once, reader has questionable nicknaming skills (they're worse than paimon's)
Royal Concubine AU || 2.4k || Drabbles/Rambles
⇢ ˗ˏˋ kaveh/al-haitham, shouto, kenma, inui/koko⋆ˎˊ˗
summary: i'm back on my "'i have more knowledge on x topic than all your advisers together, i just couldn’t progress through the ranks for one reason or another, so you should definitely make me your concubine, so i can gossip about your minister of finance’s stupid proposal while wearing expensive shit and fine dining and then we slowly fall in love' royal au" bs again, so have some rambles because there are a lot of possible constellations here
Antidotes:
Being sick || 350 || Drabble
⇢ ˗ˏˋ al-haitham ࿐ྂ
summary: a grumpy nurse takes care of you when you're sick
Poisons:
A moment with you || 4.6k || Multi-Character || ༊*·˚
⇢ ˗ˏˋ scaramouche, xiao, zhongli, venti ⋆ˎˊ˗
summary: when the immortals are suddenly reminded of your mortality
warnings: overall: mentions of death; xiao's part: mentions of death, life or death situation; zhongli: mentions of past loved ones; venti: nightmares, past traumatic experiences; scaramouche: death (not reader nor character); if i forgot anything please do tell me!!
But I Still Love You || 4k || One-Shot
⇢ ˗ˏˋ scaramouche ࿐ྂ
summary: your relationship was all you could have wished for but what if it turned out it was just a little more?
prompts: 8. "you're a monster", 19. "i can't do this anymore", 23. "what's wrong with me?"
warnings: murder, somewhat graphic depiction of violence, emotional abuse+ manipulation, toxic relationship, gaslighting, mentions of suicide, yandere (?) themes, you know i normally love scara but he's a totally messed up asshole in this, i do not condone this type of behaviour; do not engage with this fic if any of these could potentially jeopardise your health!!
A million miles away || 3.5k || Multi-Character || ༊*·˚
⇢ ˗ˏˋ scaramouche, kaveh, venti, zhongli ⋆ˎˊ˗
summary: what do they do and how do they cope after you suddenly go where they can’t follow?
warnings: angst, reader dies/ has died, arson [scara], alcohol consumption [venti, kaveh]
Aphrodisiacs: [Nsfw, minors dni]
Artistic Inspiration || 4.1k || One-Shot || Modern AU || ༊*·˚
⇢ ˗ˏˋ piercer! scaramouche ࿐ྂ
summary: every artist knows, inspiration can be found anywhere; so why not in the sheets as well?
warnings: nsfw/ minors dni, somewhat mean! scara, name calling (slut), slight degradation mixed with praise, pet names (doll, pretty), mirror sex, oral (f! receiveing), unsafe sex (rings probably shouldn’t go there, take ‘em off before you get nasty), unprotected sex (just remember you could get pregnant and if the thoughts of children doesn’t scare you… then the thought of an std should), porn without plot (what’s plot), talk about piercings and tattoos, pierced/ tattooed! scara
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐬:
Jealousy || ~300 || Blurb || Modern AU
⇢ ˗ˏˋ piercer! scaramouche ࿐ྂ
nonnie asked: What’s jealous Scara like
warnings: gn!reader mentions of alcohol consumption, rough sex, soft/ mean! scara
Teasing him gone… right/wrong? || ~470 || Blurb || Modern AU
⇢ ˗ˏˋ piercer! scaramouche ࿐ྂ
nonnie asked: I wanna tease Scara in front of his friends so bad
warnings: gn! reader mention of alcohol consumption, toys, orgasm denial, (semi-) public sex, allusion to fingering/ hand job
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i feel like there is a lot to unpack here. . .
first those scathing lyrics, holy shit.
starting with the 'check check check', this is a throwback to 'All I Want is Nothing' but the point of a mic check is a question to see if you can be heard.
'pay top dollar for that poison' - psychiatrists and meds, etc can be expensive. remember thats what keeps gerard's therapist driving a lexus.
'medicate to a state you'll find enjoyment' frank is going for blood with this one imo. when your current life situation is bad but fixing it seems too difficult or too much work so you settle for medication to make it all better, but it only makes it surface level okay. because ultimately you are avoiding your problems. how different is this from alcoholism anyway?
also just because its expensive doesn't mean it is actually working for you. money really can't solve all your problems. sometimes it makes them worse.
'everything's a process, just try and trust the doctors' - 'just try' i think is the stand out there. everything's a process is a good line if referring to how healing does not have a finish line, neither do our accomplishments, success and relationships for that matter. it's not like in the movies where the credits roll on a happy ending, you have to live through your entire life.
also 'trust the process' compared to i'm not okays; 'trust me'? no? okay.
'fuck that, fuck them and fuck the damn kid that gave me black eyes given out in plain sight' - again, holy shit. i won't dive into my own experiences with friends getting shit advice from doctors/therapists but this anger is hitting home. i wonder if the 'damn kid' is the younger version of who he's singing too. reminds me 'cross out my eyes, i won't mind at all' in medicine square garden.
'never feeling good inside, never even one time'
'yea life can get you low and down, but never let it take you out' - "Because it kills me to know that we used to feel low
But now you just lay down
And it's time that we all stood up" from Basement Eyes
the never let it take you out reminds of a few my chem songs
'even when you got black eyes given out in plain sight' i haven't quite pin pointed what this means. trauma from fame? indirect cruelty? abuse?
'Never feeling good inside, never even one time for all your life'. - "i felt this way for so long i'm scared i'm fine' from guilt tripping.
it wasn't just enough to release the song, but to promote and emphasizes the lyrics to make sure they are seen.
my other observations is that he didn't sign the instagram off with 'ktf' (keep the faith) but with 'xo'.
the tube of lipstick that contains a knife - daymn. i could say a lot on that. bloody red lips anyone?
i knew there was some beastie boy inspiration as soon frank was stepping towards the screen
#frank iero#hirs collective#lyrics#trust the process#trust me#instagram#my chemical romance#am i missing anything? or off base?#who is still hopeful for mcr5?#how is it put? screaming when no ones listening
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Sorry for ranting but that post really resonated with me,thank you! it aways seemed so weird how everyone was ignoring these themes and focusing only on what they considered badass about the lore. When playing i could clearly see facets of the suffering that afflicts mainly women on each female character,like the old lady who mistakes you for her kid and gives you sedatives to make you forget,implies that "your fathers blood" is to blame when you atack her and remarks that "you were aways the brave one" when the player has no woes to share... it instantly reminded me of stories from older women about what life was like with abusive husbands and sedatives being prescribed freely due to their stress at home with no way out. Adellas negative levels of self esteem due to church brainwashing (that mirrors Adelines) and the presence of the female rivalry that is instilled in many of us,Ariannas entire questline and the questions it makes the player ask themselves in the end, and finally the doll and Marias whole THING,especially if seen through the lens of a lesbian or GNC woman! like how can people be so blind and not realize how womanhood is a core theme here?? I get disagreeing with individual analysis but to outright deny that there is something there is bonkers to me
okay but seriously, all of these insights are SO important!!! the women of bloodborne are so much more complex than people seem to give them credit for. the old woman and adella especially so clearly have biases. but what really gets me is how realistically those are portrayed: tools of the power structure they were born into which serve to separate and isolate each of them in their subjugation.
this got Insanely long… under the cut it goes!
i mean, seriously though. the women of oedon chapel are very different, each from a different marginalized background of their own. in addition to what you described, the old woman lives in central yharnam — which the church has essentially thrown to the dogs. arianna is a so-called “vileblood” who is forced to the margins of society because of that and her (presumed) identity as a sex worker. adella has been groomed within the church (a word which specifically implies a process beginning in childhood) to see herself as nothing but a worthless vessel for “lowly blood”. these women are all subjugated by the church in different ways, and in an ideal world, they would realize they have much more uniting them than they do separating them.
which is exactly why the church has invented scapegoats to prevent that from happening. the church tells the old woman that it isn’t them who has reduced her home to ruin and likely sent her son to die in the hunt; they tell her it’s foreigners and their tainted blood. the church tells adella it isn’t their fault of that she is treated worse than dirt and has no one to turn to when she is abducted and nearly murdered by a branch of the church itself no less; they tell her she deserves it, because she’s only worth how much she can be bled out for others. they tell her it’s the fault of “vileblood” taint turning the world mad, not their own poisoned healing and insane experiments. i mean seriously — the parallel between arianna’s (implied) “vile” blood and adella’s self-described “lowly” blood is not lost on me.
and arianna, who is wholly innocent yet painfully aware of how isolated she is in that chapel, is left to stumble into a sewer and left with nothing but madness and isolation and the wretched thing she birthed when she is raped by a god and forced to bear its child… and based on how we see the upper ward of the church positively crawling with the exact monsters that she was forced to birth, i’m willing to bet that this is exactly what the church wanted.
bloodborne illustrates how prejudice is ultimately used to subjugate and silence all but the upper echelons of the powerful; and how it is the most vulnerable in society who are left to suffer the worst of it, utterly alone and alienated from their would-be allies. it shows how a class of the oppressed can be so purposefully be driven apart, so their oppressors remain unchallenged. it shows how even those like adella who play a crucial role in their grasp on power are still treated like scum. their oppressors enable, orchestrate, and weaponize the pain these women suffer and force them to bear it all alone.
and as for maria & the doll — again, i COMPLETELY agree. lesbianism aside, maria is undeniably, fundamentally gender nonconforming, especially when compared to the other NPC women. the relationship between her and gerhman is something i plan to go more in depth on in a later post — but i will say that i actually see gerhman as more of a paternal/protective figure. that is to say: i think gerhman in the text represents the gender role of men as a protector of women taken to its natural conclusion; not as a role made for service or assistance, but rather for ownership of the woman under protection. he’s an incredibly tragic and twisted man. i want to poke him like bug under microscope etc.
i am so glad my post resonated with you!!! these are honestly the kinds of conversations i want to have with other fans — because they’re so damn INTERESTING to me to pick apart!!!
tl;dr: The Girls Should Unionize.
#soooo glad this is all Fictional to the Funnie Werewolf Simulator and has Noooo Real World Parallels 😄😙🤩 /s#bloodborne#rape mention#this is why alfred and adella are fundamentally not the same btw#both hold bad views and are absolutely blood racist? 10000%#but adella has been groomed by the church to have no one to turn to but them likely from childhood much the same way any abuse survivor is#what she Needs is to have her worth as a human validated outside of that abusive power structure#what alfred needs is like. a goold ol slap in the face imo#like this man is just frothing at the mouth to do Genocide from the second u meet him. he isn’t exploited or abused#at least as far as canon implies#hes just violently blood racist#& cares more about murdering some lady who had to watch her kin slaughtered than uhhhhh checks notes#doing Fuck All to actually better the lives of the vulnerable people around him#whereas adella is one of the Few people who will go out of her way to care for and look out for the good hunter#sorry this is kind of an alfred hate page#why would u make him your blorbo#isnt his whole Point that bigots can be very nice and unassuming to those who they presume share their violently bigoted opinions#their bigotry has been instilled for VERY DIFFERENT REASONS.#adella was taught this so she could be more easily degraded into having absolutely 0 identity or self worth#alfred is bigoted because it Serves His Interest.#by acting on it through violence and propagation he is reinforcing the status quo and the power he holds within it#adella only snaps when she believes (!!!for bigoted reasons!!!) that the good hunter has been tainted#like at least imo she probably is expected the good hunter to beast out? because i think with all the talk of like#‘foreigners and their tainted (vile?) blood are to blame for the scourge’ that we hear from like….#Everyone?#even the damn huntsmen enemies?#it seems pretty likely to me#and even that Drastic action of having to take someones life fucking breaks her down even further#oops. like all of these tags are just a huge tangent . i should just make a post about this too#mine
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End of 1918: Ceasefire and revolution
Rudolf Berthold is in the Berlin University Hospital until late autumn 1918, where his sister looks after him.
Due to the slow healing of his wounds, further use of Berthold in the troops was no longer an option, nor was he initially granted use at home.
He spent the last weeks of the war in his Franconian home.
October 1918
Overthrow! Constitutional change! In a few days, what strong men have built up over centuries will be destroyed. "Peace at any price!" So the seduced people whine. People everywhere have lost their heads. One doubts the army. We are still far in enemy territory and we are supposed to surrender? Madness! Oh Germany, where is your national feeling? How great France is in this respect! Despite all the devastation at home, despite the many defeats, it remains strong. We have been victorious for 4 years, we have smashed armies and states almost in all parts of the compass rose, and yet the homeland has not been behind the front for a long time! Not only because of the privations to which we too were subjected; the internal incitement, the worthless party discord has crushed the spirit of unification of 1914, has crushed all that was good! You dishonourable wretches who have carried the spirit of treason to the people under the guise of the alleged idea of peace, do you believe that the enemy will know justice and mercy?
Ceasefire offer ... our honour is over!
I still push for the front. The consequences of my last crash are outwardly overcome. Unfortunately, my right arm remains lame. But I shot with it in spring and summer after all. The will and the ability just have to be there! I want my Geschwader 2 back. Precisely because I had the greatest difficulties with it for months until it was flying at its best, until it grew close to my heart. I am attached to each and every one of them.
The belief in the imminent peace of nations is a fantasy of our pacifists: the world will never completely eliminate ill-will and enmity, love even among nations can never be forced, especially when hatred lies in the blood, and a bridge can never be built in the long run between people that differ from each other like fire and water. Only power and the will to defend oneself secure life for the individual as well as the nation.
Wilson replied. We continue on the sloping track and I still have to sit here. I want to go out to the front! I'm supposed to put together a new fighter wing after all. If only I had at least my healthy bones ..., but I'll make it anyway! The will does everything. As long as the battle rages outside, everyone who has experience belongs out there! One can help so much, especially from an educational point of view!
How pathetic is this begging in front of Wilson! The front is fixed again and yet we want to surrender, we the actual bearers of the victories! How ridiculous, mean and miserable is fate sometimes!
These days I am in my closer home near Bamberg. It is a beautiful piece of German soil. This magnificent German forest, the serious spruce, they seem to me even more gloomy than usual, even sad! They mourn with me over our nation's growing disgrace!...
This people without self-confidence should be ripe to govern itself! Disgusting is the poison and spite that is spread against the person of our Emperor! Thus the foreign countries must only despise us all the more....
Join together, all of you who have kept your decent minds in these days of meanness! Cast off all petty party interests, let honour, loyalty and love for the homeland not be empty phrases!
November 1918
There has been such an eerie silence before the storm over Berlin since the end of October, all that is missing is the spark and the discharge is there! Berlin, the center of all intellectual life, the nurturing center of art and science, the center of the greatest industrial activity, on the one hand, the giver of everything good and beautiful. On the other side, again, the breeding ground for the worst impulses and impulses, the abode of all the worst criminals, the rejects of humanity, the revolutionary rabble who can only destroy, not build up, who cannot lose anything, but only in bloody upheaval with murder, robbery and looting has to win! There is also the branch of Russian Bolshevism and these wicked elements, supported by the Soviet embassy, are already beginning to stir. As unbelievable as it sounds, they are hugely popular and the weak Democratic government is letting them do what they want instead of interfering with fire and sword. Instead of coming together and forming a solid fighting bloc, the good citizen is left at a loss. Speeches are made and incendiary articles are written in the newspapers, but there is a lack of initiative. If the storm breaks out, everything will definitely go into chaos, everyone will try to save themselves and go under one by one.
Our previous regime can be blamed for not educating the people sufficiently in national consciousness; the press system in particular should have been better supervised and controlled by the state! Because what educates the common man more than his newspaper? With the most ruthless severity, timely intervention had to be made where one was at work undermining the love for the people and homeland, the only source of our strength! They tried to win over these elements through false indulgence and clemency, the result was a strengthening of the un-German direction and the true friend of the fatherland saw his ideals, for which thousands gladly gave their blood, for which they sacrificed their everything, sullied by a brutal hand.
As long as a good core, even if it is currently so small, lives in our people and does not die out, we have the indestructible hope that one day loyal German reception and feeling will awaken in the fatherland and will relentlessly demand accountability from those who, for criminal reasons incite the people with mean egoism, tear them apart with incendiary speeches and ignite the revolutionary fire!
The Commission left to accept the ceasefire conditions - unconditional! -. Is there anything else we can do now that Bolshevism, once promoted by the Social Democrats, is becoming increasingly widespread? Kiel, Lübeck, Braunschweig... Workers-Soldiers' Council dominate the field and, to add insult to injury, the cowardly and oath-breaking home troops are defecting to the revolutionaries in droves. The king's coat, which I have worn with honor and pride for so long, is desecrated! How difficult it is, how terribly difficult, to continue living!
Berlin and Munich are ablaze, judging by the broken connections! This precisely at the moment when we need to be strong in order to gain as much as possible from the enemy in the negotiations! It has happened: the revolution has broken out! Fate, go your way now!
The wildest rumors are circulating in the countryside, which is cut off from all connections. Emperors and princes have been driven out, the Bavarian king has been driven out of Munich! Unbelievable! But now you can trust the mob to do anything! And I have to sit here doing nothing, especially these days! Oh, if only I had a company of my peacekeepers and we would soon have peace restored! I would hunt down the ringleaders; day and night they would have no peace until they had reaped their well-deserved reward: the hanging!
In the last few days I couldn't write: everything was too terrible! One piece of terrible news follows another, leaving no room for calm reflection. What people were afraid to suspect is now reality: the mob has become master overnight! Workers' and Soldiers' Councils everywhere, these canails have chosen the moment well for their work! These new ministers are agitators and shouters, party bigwigs and professional politicians of the worst kind! And nothing is harder to learn than to command well and govern well! What I saw weeks ago: in this chaos, the majority of our people were simply taken by surprise and then lost their heads. Poor Germany, where are you going?
I didn't have my diary in hand for over 4 weeks. I wanted to forget, not think, and yet it was impossible to calm down. Today, on Christmas Day, I'm looking through the pages again and asking you, dear diary, about memories. Like every year, like outside in front of the enemy, like as a child and as a man in peace, this time I decorated a tree just for myself: the Christ child above, with a small airplane underneath, looks at us and smiles. They know that you are my best advisor, my friend in good days and bad.
There is snow outside, which I rarely saw in the field, and which I always wished for at Christmas because it brings the real Christmas atmosphere. Snow on German fir trees... and yet no Christmas spirit! This time the snow is like a big shroud that covers so much beauty, so much longing, so much ideal. Why do I always feel this cold shiver when I look out of the window over the fields, meadows and forest in their white dress, even though the cozy warmth surrounds me in my little room?
It's Christmas and yet completely different than usual! Did the time of revolution also bury our old German Christmas, the joyful hope, our childhood faith? Then, German people, if you have forgotten how to be a child, you are no more worth than being thrown into a pit and covered with earth! If earning money and rawness of heart and emotions mean strength for you, then you don't deserve to have thousands of people believe in you like they believe in themselves and bleed, gladly bleed and bleed to death!
Free, free, finally free! This is how the masses roar, this is how they rage. One infects the other, everything forms a huge army of drunks, exiles, madmen! The happiness of the new freedom is shouted to each other. You call each other comrade and brother, fall into each other's arms, kiss... and suddenly the stupid citizen, the beer table hero, notices that his wallet is missing! Freedom, equality! How greedily the eyes sparkle! I ask the one who shouts the loudest, he looks at me with stupid eyes, thinks and stutters: "Me, I don't need to work anymore!" He is a worker who I asked about the nature of the new freedom... I ask a farmer who I previously saw walking arm in arm with the worker. First the same stupid face, then a blissful smile: "I don't have to deliver anymore, I can now sell my grain and my potatoes secretly and use the money..." I ask an elementary school teacher. A proud look from above. "Now we are the masters. We will finally get the salary that we have always fought for. Now we demand: now we must be given the social position that we deserve based on our intellectual superiority, our salary!"
So this is what the happiness of the new freedom looks like! The worker no longer wants to work, but wages, high wages, money, money. The farmer believes, with the cleverness that is innate in him, that he can drain his fellow human beings, the city dwellers, the workers; He sees human duty as an annoying constraint, he only wants money, money... The elementary school teacher sees demands as his ideal.
Why do you look at me so sadly, my little tree? Only a few families have a Christmas tree and the children run around depressed. Devotional! Brutes mockingly disrupt the church service. That is now the “great thing”, that the freedom of the republic has brought us is a big field of rubble, slavery! And how I longed for this Germany after being outside from the beginning! High and low lay shoulder to shoulder in the same dirt, the officer next to his soldiers, all animated by one thought: to protect the fatherland! That was real democracy, that trench community, it and only it can be the foundation stone for a new building of our German nation!
My dear little tree, have no fear: I remain firm and strong inside despite the external collapse and with me many, many Germans. The inner values remain and true inner greatness cannot be lost. German fir, grown in the German forest, a symbol of hope and loyalty, you should not remind us in vain that we too are children of the same earth.
German Christmas in German lands! How rich we are for having such a feast! As long as we celebrate Christmas, German loyalty will not die out in German hearts!
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BG3 playthrough: still stuck in the Tiefling camp, and an amazing roleplay experience
(Spoilers)
First some quick notes, but then I want to talk about how this game is really making me get into *actual* roleplaying in a way I’ve never had a game do to me before. (I’m not sure why my phone keeps capitalizing Tiefling and I’m too lazy to correct it)
First of all: I am never going to leave this Tiefling camp, there’s too much to do and too many people to talk to. The Absolute is going to overrun Faerûn and I am going to still be sitting here having gruel with Otka and playing my violin for the kids.
What am I going to do if I run across another area that makes me this emotionally invested?? It is going to take me years to finish this game at this rate!!! (Well, this week I’ve had a bit less time to play though, which has also really slowed the progress down)
Hey a quick note: there was a little glitch for me with the Auntie Ethel conversation. I introduced myself to her as my tav, and got Astarion’s approval when I told her about our tadpoles, because he thinks it’s delightful how demented she seems. Then I talked to her again using a different character, got the same conversation, and got a SECOND Astarion approval. (Didn’t work again with subsequent tries) Someone told me you can do something similar when you pet scratch. Nice little bonus.
Ok anyways the main thing I wanted to talk about was the crazy fact that I am actually roleplaying in this game, getting emotionally involved, and legitimately able to make what feels like natural and realistic decisions based on what my character would actually do, rather than… you know… interacting with the game feeling very much like a player. Oh ok, here’s the conversation, here’s the normal dialogue option, here’s the smart dialogue option if my talk stats are good, and here’s the evil option, which is always bad to choose because it messes up your game. And I know, because I am a player playing a game, I should pick the normal option. This is how games always go.
Me and my friend were talking about our extremely different reactions we had to the Druids in the Emerald grove, and why.
So the Druids have been letting the Tiefling refugees stay there, but the welcome is wearing thin. Supplies are running low and goblins keep trying to attack. Now with the old leader of the Druids missing, the next highest in command wants to finally kick these Tieflings out. The current leader is creepy and militant, but mostly the other Druids range from “following orders” to “ok-ish”.
You have been told Nettie the healer might be able to help remove your tadpoles. She’s being a little evasive at first, but it’s because mindflayer infection is serious business and she wants to protect her people. After she realizes you are not going to be a threat, she confesses that unfortunately she actually doesn’t have a way to heal you. Their absent leader might though. She gives you a vial of poison and says she needs you to swear to take the poison if you start to change into a mindflayer, because if you transform in the middle of this grove you are going to kill everyone. You must swear: if you don’t directly swear it to her, she will become hostile and start a fight.
My friend who is playing is terrified of transforming into a mindflayer, and he likes Nettie, so he took the poison and promised sincerely.
In a normal game this would be the “good” route and the one I would normally take, because I am a computer game player playing a computer game and the goal of the computer game is to make the good numbers go up. Right?
My experience of the grove though has been very different from my friend’s. I am playing as a dark urge seldarine drow who is trying to be a nice guy. The Druids have been rude and racist to my character, which I’m sure he’s used to, but the contrast between that and how the Tieflings are friendly and welcoming to me is very noticeable. I had a conversation with the pickpocket kids about how people say lies and racist stuff about Tieflings too, just like they do with the drow. My character has been spending so much time getting to know the Tieflings in the grove, mediating arguments, playing with all the naughty Tiefling children, doing sleight of hand tricks for them, watching them pet Wyll’s cat familiar. (I need to be really clear, I’m not simply imaging that these activities are happening, this is flavour that is actually programmed into the game, ie the kids do literally follow around my cat and make comments about it)
So I get farther into the grove and find some frantic Tiefling parents being held back by Druid guards. Their daughter has been taken away because she stole something, (which she only stole because she thought it would prevent the Tieflings from getting kicked out of the grove, and anyway, it’s since been returned.) and they won’t let them see her. The Druid guards are, as always, being rude and racist to me, and my tav is getting angry at the way the Druids are treating his new friends.
So he goes to talk to the Druid leader, and is absolutely shocked to find she is threatening a Tiefling child with a venomous snake. Yes the kid stole something but I have to say again: she stole it because they are going to die on the road if they get kicked out, and the damned item was returned anyways. The leader is a real nasty piece of work, and when she saw me she even said that she feels this must be a good omen, having a blessed child of lolth visit their grove!!! First of all, yikes lady, but also: Lolth-sworn drow are different from seldarine, my kind rebels against the more brutal and merciless lolth-sworn, this was NOT a good comment to make to my character. By this point in time, my tav is absolutely fucking done with these fucking Druids. Yes, objectively speaking, most of the Druids are not terrible and I can see their point, but I felt like my tav in this specific situation would be feeling quite angry and hostile at this point.
So then we get to Nettie. The very first words out of her mouth to me are that the last time she saw a drow, it tried to cut open her belly, and did I have any plans of doing the same? She brings us into the back and there is a goddamned dead drow laid out on her table. I guess it attacked them and they’re studying it because it also had a tadpole infection but goddamn.
She is being evasive and asking a ton of questions. She confesses that if she decided she didn’t like us, she was going to poison us with this little thorn branch she was holding. Then she holds out the poison and demands that I swear to take it.
As a player, I know the best option is to swear, just to get her to shut up. It makes the good numbers go up, and that’s what it’s all about, right?
But my tav in that moment - I felt like he would have absolutely lost his goddamned temper. I’m doing a dark urge run and he’s trying his hardest to not hurt people horribly, but this has pushed him over the edge of his patience. The Druids have been shit to him, shit to the people he’s come to like so much, they’re dissecting another goddamned drow over in the corner, and this woman is sticking poison in his face and telling him to swear to her that he’ll kill himself. He told her fine he’ll take it, but she says that’s not enough, you need to SWEAR to me. You know what? No, he’s not! He refused, she started a fight and attacked us first, and I switched to non-lethal damage and I knocked her out.
This wasn’t just me making a fun decision on my own, like, oh: I have decided on my own, because there’s no game dialogue for this, that my stardew valley farmer is lonesome and feels like an outsider which is why she gets along with Elliott. This is like. Actual things happening within the game that are provoking a legitimate emotional response from me, and I am able to respond to it in a realistic way. When Kagha called me a blessed child of lolth, I had dialogue options to be offended by it.
I am, once again, just absolutely blown away. My friend and me were talking about how we’re both playing “good” characters but how our game experiences still have been so different that we had completely different reactions.
I think that’s absolutely amazing. I can’t remember any game I have ever played ever where I was able to actually get into the roleplaying aspect as much as this, and feel like I was making choices totally based on what my character would do, because this situation was utterly unique to the experience of my friend who is playing the exact same game.
I’ve only really scratched the surface of act 1 here. What the heck else is going to happen by the end?
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10 for Jacob/Ashe affection?
10) the kindest "i hate you" followed by a contagious laugh (Jacashe)
Of all of Duncan's classes, the one he'd always excelled at most was Potions. Honestly, he was even better at brewing potions than his boy best friend Jacob Cromwell was, since as much as the magical prodigy reveled in the theory of potionmaking and loved experimentation, he could get very easily distracted trying to improve on what was already there. Duncan, however, as much as he could very easily have "plused" up a potion if he wanted to, rarely saw much reason to -- experimenting with potions could be dangerous, so he didn't see any point in risking his limbs or eyebrows in an attempt to reinvent the wheel.
Duncan Ashe would need a damn good reason to mess around with a potion's potency. Even his OWL exam didn't give him enough motivation to do it -- his Draught of the Living Dead was already perfect, so the examiner would be more than impressed enough without him twisting himself into a pretzel.
At that same exam, though, the examiner also had Jacob's work to consider -- and the scholarly airhead managed to catch the older wizard's attention not by brewing his own excellent potion, but by drawing the entire periodic table up on the blackboard and then going on a lecture about how one could possibly apply different chemical compounds to potion recipes and their ingredients.
"...As you can see, Muggles have divided up their periodic table of elements not just into how many atoms make up their outer most shell, but also how reactive they are with other elements. Take radium, for instance -- a highly reactive metal that, when ingested, can be deathly poisonous to humans...but if one combines it with clorine, you get Radium Cloride -- a bioluminescent, colorless salt that, when turned into a gas, has even been experimented with as a possible cure for different kinds of cancers. Not unlike the deathly poisonous potion ingredients we use every day, to brew complex antidotes and Healing treatments! Hellebore, used in the Draught of Peace -- Asphodel, used in Wiggenweld Potions -- Venomous Tentacula leaves, Arnica, Sneezewort...all used in countless antidotes, from everything to dragon pox to ague! Imagine how much faster it would be to brew new potions, if we could apply this kind of model to the ingredients we use every day...if we could see, even before experimentation, which ingredients would react violently with each other and which ones wouldn't...hypothesize which ingredients could blend well, and which ones wouldn't! We could develop a cure for memory loss...for blood maledictions...hell, maybe even lycanthropy! The possibilities are endless!"
Duncan was left standing off to the side with his Draught of the Living Dead, watching his best friend once again snatch up all the spotlight away from him. Part of him wanted to be resentful about it, but as he crossed his arms, listening to Jacob eagerly prattle on and seeing the examiner get swept up in his enthusiasm despite himself, Duncan instead found himself smiling.
Because, well...it was a good idea. Jacob always had good ideas. That was part of what had always been so fun about being around him -- why Duncan had become his friend in the first place, even with how stupid and reckless and insensitive and arrogant he could be at times. For all of his flaws, Jacob had good ideas, and those good ideas almost always came from a place of sincerely wanting to help others...from wanting to do good for the world and for the people he cared about.
So as annoying as it was that Jacob had effectively snatched up all of the examiner's attention even after how much he'd praised Duncan's potionmaking skills -- that this rambling diatribe would likely result in Jacob getting an O on his OWL, same as Duncan, without doing even half the physical work -- Duncan couldn't help but watch Jacob ramble on like an idiot with a faintly cynical, but still incredibly fond smirk.
When Jacob finally stopped talking long enough to catch his breath, the examiner actually clapped his hands together, beaming.
"That was splendid! Absolutely splendid!" he praised Jacob, his squinty little eyes twinkling. "Well, Mr. Cromwell...as much as I'd love to hear more, I do have the rest of the class's work to examine...thank you very much!"
Jacob faltered, looking a bit confused, as the examiner walked away, so he could migrate around the rest of the room. He looked over at Duncan across the room, bewildered -- the Slytherin left his cauldron and strode over to him, his arms still crossed and his eyebrows raised coolly over his narrowed eyes.
"Seems the examiner takes after Slughorn, in fawning over you," said Duncan dryly.
Jacob frowned deeply. "He didn't even stay to watch me brew anything. Do you think he'll come back around and watch me brew something then?"
Duncan gave Jacob a bewildered look.
"Do you mean to say..." he said very slowly and lowly, "...that you didn't do that for points? You seriously just scribbled all that stuff up there on a whim, for your own entertainment?"
Jacob glanced back at the periodic table he'd doodled on the board and then up at Duncan sheepishly.
"Well, not for my own entertainment, exactly...but I'd been thinking about it the other day, and I thought about maybe applying it to the potion I did, so I just doodled it up there to test out the idea -- you know?"
Duncan's head fell dramatically, as if he'd just been clubbed with a two-by-four. Then he started to laugh.
"What?" said Jacob. His own face was breaking out into a smile too, just hearing his friend laughing. "I thought it'd be interesting! You can't tell me it wouldn't be fun to try to make a new potion -- think about how much easier and safer it'd be, with a proper periodic table! It's really just common sense, isn't it...?"
"I hate you," muttered Duncan.
Those words, though, were accompanied by the fullest, brightest smirk and eyes that sparkled with fondness as he laughed harder than ever.
"Come on," he muttered through his cackling, taking hold of Jacob's shoulder. "Now that we've both got our O's in the bag, we'd best clean up and head out. Liv can meet us when she's done..."
Affectionate Prompts!
#hphm#hogwarts mystery#duncan ashe#jacob cromwell#olivia green#why yes duncan was usually very cautious with potions#that's part of why a lot of students blamed jacob for duncan's death#they knew duncan only ever got into dangerous situations for jacob#and sadly they weren't completely wrong#duncan tried to 'plus up' that erumpent potion because he thought it would draw R's focus away from jacob#like 'here I'll give you this powerful thing that can help you with the vaults just leave my boyf-- I mean buddy alone'#if only it was that simple :'(
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