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dramadramallama · 4 months

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Love Supremacy - brain rot part 3 (hopefully that's it, last part, i'm done PHEW)

As stated here, the story within a story structure makes for a cool viewing experience. Different readings for different levels.

Layer 1 - Myung-ha abandons himself Layer 2 - Limbo: an intermediary, temporary, blurry state Layer 3 - The Game, roleplaying yourself (Layer 4 - Us, watching the show haha)

It grants both the audience, and the characters a chance to get a new perspective.

As Myung-ha sinks into himself, he has to rise back up.

The game framing is interesting, as it makes Myung-ha an active participant in his own fate. He is more likely to act in the safety of a game, with defined, clear goals, and “easy” missions to complete on the side of the main quest. It compartmentalizes the universe in neat little game notifications, and relieves some of the pressure of the hardest part of life. Finding happiness? Pfff, EASY, right?

Myung-ha is given the opportunity to do what all of us have probably wished at one point: re-start, from the latest save point, where it all went wrong. As argued in part one, the characters aren’t just words on paper, or pixels in a game. They have agency, just like Myung-ha.

1. Mirrors/Symmetry

2. Fate, Free Will, and Happiness

▶️3. Game/Reality

Very soon, it appears the lines between the so-called game and so-called reality are getting extremely blurry.

First, the stakes are incredibly high for a simple game. The penalty is death.

Myung-ha doesn’t seem fazed by the threat of death, he’s not scared of it. It could be because it's "just a game," but I personally think it's because he's technically already "dead." He ignores the penalty and focuses on his mission(s) at face value. Subconsciously, he works towards changing his own fate, and he gets there!

Debuffs (negative effects) need to be corrected

His efforts are slightly slowed by “debuffs.” These incidents happen due to Yeo-woon’s general dislike for everyone (including himself). They slow the process down enough to teach Myung-ha how to build friendships and relationships. The trick here is that Myung-ha is supposed to learn by proxy, through Yeo-woon’s self-love journey, how to love and be loved, and speak his true feelings.

“Bad” things seem to happen because Yeo-woon isn't quite ready for that unstoppable wave of affection Myung-ha unleashes. At first, the debuffs are incredibly mild and inoffensive (Fondness/Affection level around -10 or -5 = a LEAF falling on his face, a defective streetlight, and spicy tteokbokki lmao) and are easily transformed into something positive, bringing them closer.

But Yeo-woon’s affection is directly related to how honest Myung-ha is with himself and others. For example, he is disappointed to realize the urgency of Myung-ha’s text was fake (="Myung-ha doesn't trust me like I trust him"), and he doesn’t reassure Yeo-woon about the fact that he smells like someone else (lol cat energy). By refusing to open himself up to be cared for, it backfires with direct consequences.

Myung-ha is allergic to listening to his own advice. All "do as I say, not as I do." When he told Yeo-woon "when someone cares for you, just accept it, why do you have to [question it?]" I almost screamed. We're all mental health experts when it comes to someone other than ourselves lol.

As for most things in life, the answer is balance. His side quests involve, for example, making other friends, who can be reliable and provide help in return. Kyung-hoon helps with a part time job and Sang-won offers to drive him to Yeon-woo.

Also interesting to note, his knee jerk reaction to anyone trying to enter his sphere is to close himself off, keep some distance. The above is in response to someone using casual honorifics (hyung/oppa).

Kyung-hoon, as if expressing Myung-ha's interiority, explains he's ok with long distance dating. Why? Simple: he likes his boyfriend, and wants to enjoy every moment until it ends. This is in direct opposition to what Myung-ha chooses: he places the certainty of pain/suffering above the mere possibility of happiness.

(...relatable tbh)

Myung-ha's inner desires clash with his depressive state constantly, and it gets worse after Yeo-woon’s affection levels dramatically drop from a positive number, back to zero, and then negative again, due to Myung-ha struggling to accept, and balance his own feelings. Too much love for everyone but himself, too scared to need anyone who might end up leaving him. The debuffs get more serious (Grandma gets hospitalized), and he starts fainting. Myung-ha is falling back into old traps, and like vicious circle, by trying to fix the errors incorrectly, in turn, makes the system shut down.

Thankfully, he does come to understand things remain worthy, even though he cannot have them forever.

The mysterious texts from an unknown number

Myung-ha faints several times, like things aren't quite going right. The nonsensical texts keep pouring in.

These read, to me, like close friends/family grieving, like they're in a columbarium (?). Besides the one from his sunbae at the end, they're all unsigned. There's one text saying they have "followed someone wearing the same clothes as [Myung-ha], knowing it couldn't be [him]", and one about a broken vase. Are they all from his sunbae, relaying the things said to him once? Or after his death? At his funeral? As a prayer? Thinking of him?

While the game server experiences extreme instability, memories, “real-life” happenings parasite the safety of the game.

Very personal elements keep permeating the game play; lines go beyond blurry, and disappear entirely.

Elements outside of the game keep popping up. Soon, the edges of the gameplay aren’t so clear-cut anymore, as Myung-ha gets more precise with defining happiness. His own handwriting shows up in the game notifications.

The answers are his own: he filled in the blanks himself. But he constantly tries to apply them to someone else.

It becomes impossible to dissociate the game from Myung-ha’s existence. I’m sure I haven’t caught them all, but there are many instances where Myung-ha's reality bleeds into the game.

Bubbly, water sounds are heard at key moments, and before long, his "memories" with his sunbae also get a underwater backdrop. To say nothing of the water/wave imagery around Myung-ha.

His world is leaking through the seams, the wave is rolling him over, and he’s sinking deeper. Which way will he come up? Water symbolism is always, MUAH, chef's kiss.

He is given ultimate freedom - a symbolic pen, to overwrite the program, and solve the system errors

Myung-ha for better or for worse, whether he likes it or not, is in control, quite literally, of the game, and by extension, of his life. When he starts to understand he's the origin of the errors, he panics, chooses to end it early, and saves Yeo-woon's fate over his.

That same pen has been used to write all the answers to the questions that appear in the game. He chooses Yeo-woon over himself. The game fails, the universe wavers. Beautiful contradiction: he fights to stay. Just like the way he regretted it after walking into the water. His true intentions come bubbling back up to the surface, and he runs to Yeo-woon, away from death and towards life. He doesn't want to disappear.

Time's up

In the previous post, I went more in depth about how he only gives, never takes. He doesn’t reach out to be pulled out of the water, thinking himself to be alone, and his system slowly starts shutting down.

The scenes end abruptly, we jump from seemingly disconnected locations, faster, while Myung-ha frantically tries to outrun his own errors. I’ve seen some criticism of the pace and editing getting a little hectic in the later episodes, but I think it was purposefully reflecting Myung-ha’s state.

Yeo-woon, with his newfound agency, defies his own story ending. By changing the game’s core mission to “make Myung-ha happy” he counters Myung-ha's one-sided choice and the balance can be restored.

CONCLUSION // PLEASE LET THIS END

"Despite knowing the journey and where it leads, I embrace it and welcome every moment." (Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others)

It is unclear whether Myung-ha gets a redo in a new reality, or if he gets to enjoy his own personal heaven after death. The game might be a physical representation of Myung-ha’s mind. It’s as real as any other intangible concept, like love, or happiness. There's definitely something to be said about the aspect ratio changing depending on where he is, but...

But to me, it doesn’t really matter. It's not where he ends up, it's how he got there.

I love that we open with Myung-ha abandoning his life at sea, and close on him returning to the water for a new start.

And I love that Myung-ha loves his own story: on his date with Yeo-woon, he gets emotional over the movie because the Monster Croc is "an alien" (COUGH Myung-ha) who joins the Zombie Gorilla (COUGH Yeon-woo) in his world to "save it"...

#love for love's sake #love for love's sake meta #lfls #love supremacy zone #tunnel vision is over #i can REST

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many-but-one · 1 year

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Things I didn't realize would happen as I started trauma therapy

To preface, this is written by Vivian (he/him), the current "main" host of the Many but One system. I am a trauma holder for childhood and teen trauma, but I am also highly functional despite this due to the fact that most of my really severe trauma is even further compartmentalized--I am one of those "alter with alters" type of subsystems.

So, this post is going to explain some of the things I didn't realize would happen to me, Vivi, as I progressed in trauma therapy.

I had to re-learn how to say "no." This was very hard to do in the beginning. My entire "purpose" was very heavily focused on "just let it happen, just let it happen, it'll be over soon" regardless of what the actual circumstances were. Even in a non-SA environment, I found it difficult to say no to people or to remove myself from situations I felt were uncomfortable. When my therapist helped me realize that I had CHOICES and could make them freely (within reason) that was...seriously mind-blowing. Intrinsically, I know that I am allowed to say no. I know that I can make my own choices. However, when faced with the actual situation or if I think too deeply about the freedom I have I actually lose my fucking mind just a little bit. It's like my internal wiring is so deeply set to "NO! You sit there and you take it, it doesn't matter how uncomfortable you are, you just let it happen." Going against such deeply ingrained beliefs about myself has been a doozy, but it's been such a relief to finally have some freedom from those lines of thinking.

I am not as apathetic and hateful as I thought I was. Don't get me wrong, when I get into a "mood" I can definitely be this way, however, upon working on healing myself I realized I actually, genuinely, enjoy helping people or taking care of them. I was never like this before because I was so deeply focused on keeping MYSELF safe, that I didn't even have the capacity to think or care about others. I was incredibly self-centered, and not in a bad way, in a survival way.

I don't have to let myself suffer all the time. If my body hurts I can take care of it. If I am hungry, I am allowed to eat. If I am uncomfortable in any given scenario, I can leave. I don't have to "just suffer through it." Suffering is not a virtue, and it doesn't make me stronger. It only makes me weaker.

People aren't as bad as I thought they were. From my limited experiences in the external world as a child and teen, every single interaction I ever had with someone was typically highly traumatic. Such is the way of a trauma holder who kind of "specializes" in the SA side of things. So as you can imagine, becoming a host and having to interact with people on a daily basis made it very hard to trust anyone around me. However, the more I interact with genuinely good people, the more I realize that "Humanity is Okay, actually." Yeah there are some really fucked up people, like our abusers, but there is so much genuine GOOD out there, and having my walls up at every second made it literally impossible to even see it. Learning how to trust and be vulnerable is still something I am working on. But I am doing it, and it hasn't backfired yet. Knowing who to trust has been hard because I typically just go "NOBODY," or at least, I used to. So I am very careful about who I put my trust in, and it has paid off immensely.

I am a genuinely good person, even when I do "bad" things. When I say bad things, I don't mean abusing others or things of that nature. But moreso, things that myself, our system, our brain, has ingrained in us as "bad." Such as coping with negative coping mechanisms (alcohol, drugs, impulsive spending, self harm), engaging in trauma reenactment scenarios, or being overly reactive (or the opposite, apathetic) to others around me. Just because I relapse into bad behaviors doesn't automatically make me a bad person, that just makes me human. And thinking that I'm going to get through this hell called "Trauma Therapy" without relapses is just ridiculous. Being kinder to myself has been a good step.

I am allowed to make mistakes. Kind of with the above, mistakes don't automatically mean I need to punish myself for making the mistake. Making mistakes is part of life, no matter how big or small they are. Showing myself grace when I do these things has been life-altering.

I am a human being. This one is kind of sad. A lot of our trauma holders feel very detached from being a person, including myself. A saying we have to remind ourselves of constantly is "We Are Human." We are a person, not a thing, not a demon, not a monster, not a faerie, not a statue, not a robot, not a doll, not an angel, not a god. We are human, and we deserve to be treated with the kindness and grace of one. That is the LEAST we deserve, is to be treated like a human. Unfortunately that has not been the case for a lot of our lives. But things are different now. And we are finally starting to understand that.

I don't have to live with one foot in trauma time and one foot in the present. This might be a bit confusing, but something our therapist noticed with a lot of us is that we often have one foot in the present and one foot still in trauma time. We often feel like we have to hold on tight to those experiences. During trauma anniversaries, we HAVE to relive them, that's our job. This may just be a personal system experience, but we didn't get closure when the trauma ended, so we never knew when it would happen again. There are so many parts in our system that are so sure it's going to start again even though it ended 15 years ago. They are still certain that "this year is different, this year they will come for us" which leaves us panicked and paranoid. Something we did to cope was essentially relive the trauma or reenact the trauma internally during those trauma times because we were so used to being traumatized the same ways all the time at the same times of the year, that when we suddenly weren't, we panicked. However, in therapy we have slowly started learning that the cycle is OVER and we don't have to live like this anymore. It's so hard. But we are making it work.

I hope by sharing these few things it will instill maybe a little bit of hope for those of you who are working through trauma therapy. I truly never thought I would be where I am today. I was considered one of our most self destructive persecutors for a long time, I would burn every bridge I could to keep people away from me, I would self harm and drink alcohol excessively, I would be reckless and impulsive to the point where there were many times that our gatekeepers had to frantically yank me out of the front so that I wouldn't end our life. The levels of pain I felt (and still very often feel, I am not "healed" yet) were so fucking immense that I just didn't want to be here anymore. But seeing where I came from versus where I am now has given me a lot of hope for where I could be in the coming months and years. I don't think I've ever truly had hope for the future, but now I am at the very least curious what it will bring. I think even just a mere curiosity is enough. You don't have to be excited for what is to come. Simply being curious is good, too.

I hope you all have a blessed day,

🪷Vivi👑

Many but One

#vivian🪷#did osdd #manybutone #trauma therapy #trauma treatment #trauma recovery #therapy #dissociative identity disorder #otherwise specified dissociative disorder #cdd #odd #did #actually did #actually traumatized #traumagenic #traumagenic system #dissociation

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septembersghost · 2 years

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More painful musings from me this morning as I try to process this breakup.

I think what's deeply sad is the lost potential, not just for their relationship, but for who Jimmy could be as a partner in life. He's SUCH a good husband to her, but he ends up shooting himself on the foot because he falls short on some crucial aspects of emotional maturity, and I think this is truly what broke them in this episode.

By refusing to truly look inwards and by resorting to repressing pain and wearing masks, he never quite develops the emotional maturity to give his partner what she needs to work through the trauma she's going through right now. Because of that lack of honest introspection, all he has to throw at her is in his desperation is "tell me what to do to change, you make me happy, and I love you". Which, as honest and deeply loving as it is, it's not what Kim needs to get through this. He would have tried SO hard to make things better for her, but he would have gone about it in the wrong way - trying to make her forget and move on (I do think moving on IS important at some point. He's not wrong about that. But that can only happen after everything has been properly processed, whereas for Jimmy that's the immediate go-to solution). Had he not been parroting back Mike's nonsense to her, had he not been banging on about healing and getting over it, had he looked inward and really tried to learn and grow from this, and take responsibility, I think they probably would have had a very different conversation. But that's the best he had to offer in that moment.

i keep thinking about the moment in the office, when she told him about her meeting with cliff and the jackson mercer foundation, when he kissed her so happily. how unbelievably PROUD he was of her. he was rooting for her, he supported her, he wanted that for her. kim's own fear and even immaturity within that did its own damage - she could've gone to santa fe. he told her they'd put the plan on hold. he told her to go, that they'd live to fight another day. and she made that ruinous u-turn. more tragedy of lost potential for all she and he and they could be.

he definitely was a good husband to her and tries his best to uphold the vow of their relationship - not even necessarily the wedding vows (though those, too), but the promise that they'd be honest. if there's something i feel like i shouldn't tell you, that's when i should tell you. kim broke that covenant, even though she thought she was in part doing it to protect him, to keep them together.

that said, they're both culpable here, and i agree that jimmy's avoidance tactics and his masking is completely detrimental because she cannot cope that way. she can't compartmentalize it that way. and hearing him telling her that the healing will start, that they just have to keep pushing through until they forget (the bad choice road speech backfires tremendously), only sinks her deeper into her despair. there's no quick-fix solution to this, no change he can possibly make, and kim KNOWS jimmy doesn't process grief or trauma. she saw it with chuck. she saw it after the desert. she knows him better than anyone, and she's so lost in needing to be punished that she can't cope with his methods. neither of their responses is healthy - they need time to process, they need time to begin to move forward in a considered way, jimmy's answer is to skip right to the forgetting part, and kim's answer is to punish herself so severely that she takes everything away from her life. honestly i don't know how jimmy, even coming from a more reasonable place, could've talked her down from the extreme anguish she was feeling - it led to what amounted to metaphorical self-harm, her choice to end her own career, abandon everything she'd built and hoped for, erase herself in the guilt of it all - but they're communicating from such opposite extremes. she knows jimmy will never want to blame her, too. she needs to be blamed, even if she has to do it herself. it's like she experiences a massive over-correction and he tries to aim for an under-correction, and neither of them can meet in the middle. she'd already made up her mind when she kissed him in the parking garage. maybe there was some combination of words he could've said to change her mind in that living room if he had been prepared to take responsibility and approach her more calmly and with more self-reflection, but the shattered pieces they have left to give each other can't be mended yet, they can only cut with their sharp edges.

the loss of potential in general is such a heartbreaking theme in the story and a vein of it runs through everyone. jimmy and what he could've been in his legal pursuits, kim and what she could have accomplished, jimmy and kim and their love and connection and understanding of one another, nacho with his good heart that was better than the men he chose to work with and ultimately ended up trapped with, mike, gus, chuck...all of them could've chosen different paths at some point, places they could've found to eke out brighter lives, but they don't. they plummet further with whatever shadows trap them there. the potential still always exists, though, as long as they're still living, which jimmy and kim thankfully are. i'm not certain that all of it's lost forever, but in that moment, they lose the most valuable thing they had.

#i love your insightful thoughts!#it makes me so sad #kim wexler #jimmy mcgill #better call saul #bcs spoilers #jaimetheexplorer #letterbox

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exigencelost · 3 years

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The other thing about #39 hellish ant-Cassie scene (where Cassie kills an image of herself that’s screaming in existential anguish) is that Cassie tries to tell the rest of the team about it later, to explain why she’s so shaken, and no one picks up what she’s putting down. Jake and Rachel (the people who love her the most) both try to connect with her in that moment and they both fail; Jake talks privately about his relief that she’s okay (which she’s not) and Rachel tries to make a joke to lighten the mood (which Cassie doesn’t laugh at). No one else tries at all, and no one really hears what she’s saying.

I had a conversation awhile ago about how the team fails to see Cassie clearly a lot of the time and I’m thinking now also about the #19 line “You’re saying the whole world can go to hell as long as you, Cassie, don’t have to turn into me,” and how Cassie has no rebuttal because it’s true, but also, even though it’s true, Cassie doesn’t actually have a problem with Rachel. Like, I’m struggling to think of a time Cassie is actually judgmental of, or frightened of, or disapproving of Rachel. Cassie could not live with herself if she was like Rachel, but Cassie can easily live with Rachel, and those things don’t seem to conflict for her.

And later in #19, Marco shows up to kill a small child and Cassie takes drastic action to prevent it because she doesn’t want to be party to that act of violence, but I can’t remember any line of her narration or dialogue that condemns Marco in any way for what he plans to do. She can’t bear to do it. That doesn’t mean she thinks less of him for doing what he thinks needs to be done. Cassie is afraid of Marco in #19 but she is not angry at him and she does not observably pass judgment on him.

I’m having a thought that goes something like: Rachel and Marco (who refuse to say out loud that they hate themselves) have recurring problems with Cassie (who constantly verbalizes her struggles with self-hatred) which they frame as them defending against Cassie’s unfair moral reprobation; but Cassie doesn’t have any discernible problem with them.

Whereas Tobias (who has achieved personal moral self-acceptance), understands Cassie possibly better than anyone, and Ax (who has a lot of issues but none of them are revulsion at his own capacity for violence) gets along fine with her until the endgame when she materially betrays the team’s objective. Like. Ax doesn’t have a problem with Cassie being passively angst-ridden. He doesn’t take that as an attack on himself. They’re not close but there’s not friction in the way there’s constant friction between Cassie and Marco.

Marco sees Cassie’s moral hangups as a personal attack, and partly that’s because he feels like she’s making his boyfriend think less of him, but it’s mostly because he thinks so little of himself and he’s compartmentalizing that so aggressively that he can’t stand being in the same space as someone who refuses to compartmentalize. The entire team (with the possible and significant exception of Cassie) has accepted the premise that Cassie is a better person than Marco; so if Cassie is disgusted by her own sins, by the transitive property she must be even more disgusted by Marco. But I really don’t think she is.

Idk. I’m forever thinking about #30, where Cassie yells in the planning meeting “we can’t do this, he’s in denial, it’s his mother,” and then she ends up pushing Eva over the cliff. Like. She tried to throw down against Marco’s plan but she expressed it very clearly not in moral terms but in terms of Marco’s well-being, arguably even in strategic terms: He Cannot Take This. This is a mistake. It will backfire. We will lose a functioning team member. And she loses that argument and so she shuts up and plays her part and then in the end she is the person who does the actual deed, which, again, protects Marco from doing it, falls in line with her thesis statement that he can’t survive doing it, but like. Are we really going to pretend that Cassie is sitting in moral judgment over everyone else? The only person on the team that Cassie Animorphs doesn't know how to live with is herself. The only thing Cassie Animorphs ever thought the word “abomination” about was a creature that was in the process of transforming into her.

#animorphs #animorphs 19 #animorphs 39 #animorphs spoilers #animorphs endgame #cassie animorphs #marco animorphs #rachel animorphs

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butmakeitgayblog · 2 years

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That CI snippet (which I love and adore so much it lives in my soul , heart and mind rent free) made me wonder if there has been any instance where Lexa has felt like Clarke did with Costia?

I know we saw a bit of that in the conclusion of the bet snippet (and what a snippet it was 🤌🏻) but what about after they get together? Does it ever get to her?

Honestly, not really. Lexa's pretty secure in herself (read full of herself) and also their relationship. She knows Clarke's in love with her and has known that long before they got together. The flirting and jealousy really is more of a game than anything for Lexa, a good excuse to get kinky or maybe have a nice angry quickie somewhere semi-public 😏 But it was always Lexa who really needed to let go of her bullshit and let Clarke in, not the other way around.

The whole story is written from Clarke's POV but as an insight into Lexa's, Clarke has never been as smooth or discreet with her feelings as she thinks she is. But Lexa?

Lexa is.

Lexa is really good at compartmentalizing her emotions when she feels she needs to. But Lexa's always had an attraction to Clarke that held her attention more than others, and that scared the shit out of her, because she knew pretty quickly Clarke would be someone who could actually hurt her. If she let her in. So she kept Clarke at arm's length. Played aloof and indifferent even if felt anything but when it came to Clarke. It was why she acted like Clarke didn't exist while she dated Costia, because inevitably she'd find herself comparing. And comparing leads to yearning and yearning leads to wanting and Clarke was entirely too dangerous of a person to ever let herself want.

But then the bet presented itself and it was like... it was almost like Lexa was secretly making a bet with herself. As tho testing herself in a way. I mean she didn't anticipate Clarke winning, she really didn't. But she figured, even if she did and then she had to go through with it... maybe turning Clarke into a game would make it all easier. More safe. Take the heat out of the attraction.

And uh... well. Obviously that fuckin backfired.

Girl went and caught actual feelings.

Like some kind of amateur 🙄

So yeah when she realized that, yeah, nope. Nope. Nope. Don't want Clarke sleeping with that girl. Don't want her sleeping with anyone. And then realizing omg I'm an idiot, Lexa kinda just went all in on it. And while Lexa could tell Clarke hadn't fully figured it out herself, Lexa knew Clarke was already there too. So, yeah. It's not really ever too much of a question for Lexa. Clarke loves her and is devoted to her. She's just a little goading asshole sometimes

#anon #cruel intentions au

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peonycats · 3 years

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Here a nyo Pakistan and Saudi Arabia chatting! (This Pakistan OC belongs to my friend @hammyletto who I also share this Saudi Arabia OC with!)

I don't have very much rn on what I think fem KSA (kingdom of Saudi Arabia) would be like, so this is much shorter than male Pak lmao- she's probably a very severe and stern person like her male counterpart, but sometimes, she can be even harsher than he is, shockingly.

(Most of this stuff is from hammy!!) As for male Pak, I think it's prbly most useful to compare him to his female counterpart. He's much less sociable than she is, and doesn't really feel the same need to speak out as much as she does. This is partly because fem Pak is, on some level, more used to fighting to be heard and not be spoken over, making her more headstrong and outspoken than he is a lot of the time.

Their similarities come out the strongest in their emotional volatility tbh- they're both very intense emotionally, as well as being incredibly stubborn, but male Pak is more outwardly aggressive and direct when he's upset or annoyed, while fem Pak is prone to hiding her negative emotions under passive aggressive cheerfulness, or just a strained smile.

One important difference is how they compartmentalize their nation duties and their personal feelings. Fem Pak draws a cleaner division between what she as a nation has done, and what she as a person feels, and often tries her best to be personally friendly and kind to anyone she meets. This, however, kinda backfires on her, because many other nations may not feel the same, and can find the contrast between her actions as a nation versus person uncomfortable or even hypocritical. Male Pak doesn't really draw the distinction between personal and political as much, nor does he feel obligated to, so he avoids anything but the bare minimum of social interaction when it comes to nations he doesn't like or doesn’t know how to interact with. They both also have trouble reconciling with their past actions, or when they've hurt others, and don't really know how to deal with it.

One thing is for certain tho- male Pak would be a lot more awkward around a fem India than a male India lmao

#hws nyo pakistan #hetalia ocs #hws nyo saudi arabia #hetalia #nyotalia #fuck it new tag #historically inaccurate hair is historically inaccurate #hetalia headcanons #ask #anonymous #one day i will draw nyo india but im so intimidated #SWEATS LOUDLY #aph pakistan #hws pakistan

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platypuskenny · 3 years

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Can I get more f that Kenny’s physiology with his alter egos? I’m rlly interested in that

(assuming this means psychology, as a follow up to this post)

i’ve put it off cuz i’ve been busy with other stuff but i‘m really glad i got this ask cuz i love kenny and I love thinking about them in the context of their two alter egos!

CW: discussion of child abuse and neglect, including inexplicit discussion of child sexuality. also a lot of discussion of The Whole Kenny Death Thing. also spoilers for the stick of truth if you haven’t played it!

kenny’s been treated a lot more seriously in recent seasons, with a shift in character to be a lot more mature as well, and it’s a development that makes a lot of sense in the context of “the characters have undergone A Lot and it’s really shaped their personalities because they’re at a stage when their brain is still very soft and malleable and susceptible to trauma.”

the addition of karen in “the poor kid” seems to have shaken up the depiction of the mccormicks a lot. in earlier seasons, kenny was more passive about his home situation, or at least went out of his way to ignore them, (like in “best friends forever” when he plays on his PSP and leaves the house while his parents fight). there are early scenes where he does have some responsibility to his family (i.e. trying to win a can of food for them in “starvin marvin”) but usually he’s just depicted as a kid trying to live through a tough situation. though his “willing to do anything for money even if it’s deeply upsetting, depraved, or outright deadly” character trait from “fat camp” kind of tracks with this understanding that he prioritizes financial security over his personal well-being.

however, ever since karen was added to the show, kenny’s been depicted as a much more responsible and often even tragic figure. his parents are too caught up in their own shit to address their children’s emotional needs, and kevin sadly gets caught up in their violence as well in “the poor kid” (he’s also vaguely implied to be developmentally disabled in the few scenes he speaks up but that’s mostly speculation). because of this, kenny ends up being karen’s main caretaker - holding her close when she’s distressed at losing her parents, buying her a doll, etc.

kenny’s situation is a textbook example of parentification. he ends up taking care of karen, at least emotionally, because his parents and brother are unable to do so. he also becomes the breadwinner in “the city part of town” as soon as he gets the chance. this is a really unhealthy scenario that a lot of children in poverty, especially older siblings, see themselves in. it can result in the child not knowing their true place in a family that takes them for granted, and thus not considering their own needs and/or feeling shame if they need help because they’re so used to putting everybody before them. i think this tracks with kenny being “the quiet one” and rarely asking for anything.

that’s not even getting into the constant death and the fact he spent so much of his life not even understanding why he was doomed to constantly die in horrible painful ways, and for nobody else to remember that he even died to begin with. (kind of symbolic of the neglected child, huh?)

this brings us to mysterion and princess kenny. in both the superhero game and the fantasy game, you’ll notice kenny is the one who tends to get the most involved, with the only exception being possibly cartman, who could be the topic of a whole other essay on identity issues. mysterion is the one superhero with a real power who exists outside of their superhero game (besides the kewn, whose superhero persona is entirely self-motivated anyway), and princess kenny gets so defensive of her identity that she betrays her friends in both the trilogy and the game. kenny also talks about lady mccormick in the third person in the first black friday episode, and i don’t know if any other characters speak about their personas in that way. so kenny intentionally places more distance between his personas and himself than the other kids do with their personas.

therefore, i see mysterion and princess kenny as how kenny copes with his deeply repressed psychological issues. it’s a way to compartmentalize his feelings towards his constant suffering and the burden his family inadvertently placed on him by developing these two identities. one embraces his role as caretaker to the degree of becoming a superhero, and the other rejects it in favor of being entirely doted upon. (some people have read the prominence of roles as signs of a dissociative disorder, and i can see that with this context, but i don’t know if it’s really a perfect fit for any specific disorder, especially when there’s little information on kenny’s consciousness when it comes to these personas.)

mysterion is more obviously a tool for kenny to express his discontent with his town. in his first appearance, he states, “i could no longer sit by and watch as my city became a cesspool of crime,” which tracks with his earlier characterization as reluctantly accepting his family’s poverty despite constantly suffering. (plus i’m pretty sure several of kenny’s deaths were the result of crimes.) he refuses to be unmasked because he “would stop being a symbol,” and only does so in order to quell the unrest that his mystery has provoked. that "symbol" wording suggests that mysterion is an extreme version of kenny's self-sacrificing lifestyle to the point where he defines himself as a symbol of justice and hope, not a person. kenny himself is also pretty quiet and secretive, but more because nobody cares about him and he’s kind of afraid of getting killed any second. mysterion’s secret persona is something bold, powerful, and masculine. he is physically adept in a way we don’t see kenny behave, and much more reasonable and cautious about what’s best for him and humanity. (a good visual of this to contrast with kenny is the “mysterion re-rising” animation in the fractured but whole, where he consciously rejects the chance to go to the heaven full of naked women that kenny loves because he has to return to battle.)

mysterion is also a way for kenny to reclaim his "curse” and use it for good. as mysterion, he uses death (albeit reluctantly) to get out of tough situations and save his friends. in video games like fractured but whole and phone destroyer, mysterion’s ability to exist as a ghost and revive himself is a gameplay mechanic. this self-sacrificial personality trait has shown up in earlier seasons, and he kills himself for the good of the community/world/etc in “cartman’s mom is still a dirty slut,” the movie, and “jewbilee.” but he’s not nearly as interested in world issues unless he’s under pressure to care. (for example: he does join the workers’ strike in “bike parade,” but he’s not very passionate about it and doesn’t even care about the issue until his dad takes him to a union meeting.) kenny’s good with solving short-term issues while mysterion worries about the deeper, long-term problems with the town.

this brings us to mysterion and the mccormicks. when we see mysterion’s interactions with karen, we see how mysterion represents kenny’s responsibilities towards her. mysterion is able to offer karen elaborate, heartfelt emotional support, and guarantee that he’ll always be there for her. he also beats up a girl who bullies her and threatens anybody else who thinks about hurting her - more on that aggressive instinct down below. while mysterion’s identity is known to his friends and the rest of the town, it’s not known to karen, who sees him as a guardian angel. presumably, this is so mysterion can remain a symbol of hope to her, just like he is to the town, and so karen feels like there’s people in the world who care about her besides her brother. however, this does backfire in the fractured but whole DLC where she laments how her brother doesn’t seem to spend time with her, which embarrasses mysterion as he promises to tell him to be there for her more often. this implies that kenny gets so wrapped up in being mysterion that he forgets that he has a duty to karen as kenny as well, further indicating that mysterion is a way to cope with the tragic responsibility of caring for a sibling not much younger than he is.

during the superhero trilogy, kenny also uses mysterion to question his parents about their cult meetings, something that shook him so badly when he learned about it that he broke character. mysterion also told his parents to be nicer to the kids, not beat each other up, pay their kids allowances, and not smoke. it seems that mysterion is able to approach kenny’s parents about serious issues while kenny himself mostly stays out of their business - possibly out of fear? (kenny’s more confrontational in later seasons, though - flipping off his dad in “bike parade,” for example.)

on a similar note, mysterion is way more openly angry and violent than kenny is, especially when it comes to the death curse, which he openly complains about in a way kenny himself never did. compare kenny complaining about stan ignoring his deaths in “cherokee hair tampons,” which only gets further ignored, and mysterion complaining about it in graphic detail in “coon vs coon and friends,” even killing himself in front of his friends, and understandably scaring the shit out of them. mysterion also gets really protective of karen, violently so, as seen with the girl he beats up in “the poor kid” and his distrust when the vampires befriend her in the “from dusk til casa bonita” DLC. such a mysterion is way more passionate and loud about justice and direct action while kenny is more resigned, and most of his good deeds are unknown to the public. if kenny has embraced this caretaker role, it makes sense that he vents his repressed anger through mysterion, especially if you take it in the context of dissociation - kenny can’t handle dwelling on his shitty life all the time, so mysterion holds that anger and finds a way to cope with it by trying to fix everything around them, including kenny’s home life.

princess kenny is very opposite mysterion in many ways. most obviously, she’s a girl. kenny’s relationship with gender is something i think about a lot in light of PK. “tweek vs craig” depicted him as the only boy in home ec, and he was thrilled because it was the safe alternative to the deadly shop class. i think that, regardless of your headcanon for kenny’s gender (i personally see them as feminine nonbinary - i’m mostly using “he” pronouns in this essay strictly for recognition’s sake and because i’m mostly talking about the show’s depiction of kenny), he sees femininity as safe and comforting, but nevertheless very powerful. (remember that his mother, while not super feminine, is a very outspoken and aggressive woman who calls stuart out on his shit constantly.) and what’s a better combination of femininity and power than a magical girl?

also one thing i want to note real quick is that karen still refers to kenny as her sister in the stick of truth despite not being super involved in their game which i personally choose to read as Trans Rights Subtext

this is how we get lady mccormick / princess kenny, who is largely a passive character during the black friday trilogy, sitting upon her throne and cutely commenting on the surroundings while stan translates for her. then when sony takes her in, she becomes the star of her own show, a magical japanese princess who doesn’t take shit from cartman or his army and gets whatever she wants because she’s a cute little girl and now she gets to be protected and doted upon! also she speaks japanese and is not muffled in the slightest despite wearing her parka....symbolism? and really interestingly is that when she supposedly dies, she brushes herself off and immediately revives, declaring that she’s okay. in kenny’s feminine fantasy, she doesn’t suffer when she dies, and revives without any mess at all. princess kenny is always gonna be okay!

PK is also very flirty and overly sexual. it’s no secret that kenny is very interested in and knowledgeable of sex. he also absolutely worships women’s bodies, as seen with his views of heaven and that whole plot of “major boobage.” i don’t even read this as lust, because he’s ten, but sheer fascination with sex. maybe it plays into that whole “growing up too fast” concept where he tries to indulge in the “fun” parts of adulthood to make up for the exhaustion of caregiving, but this has been a thing since before kenny was depicted as a real caregiver so IDK.

anyway, i think PK is also a way for kenny to experiment with flirting and sex, particularly with other boys. she uses her coyness and, in the games, her bare chest to entice boys. her cuteness also attracts grown men in “titties and dragons” which goes largely unremarked upon, which is a bit uncomfortable but still works with the idea that she’s the most “lovable” form of kenny. she also apparently thinks the new kid is “cute.” iit’s really funny to me how kenny is depicted as interested in strictly girls while princess kenny only focuses on boys, which could support the idea that PK is a separate entity from kenny, or that kenny just needs to figure himself out. either way, i imagine kenny finds some thrill in getting men to pay attention to them when their male friends often treat her as superfluous, and even then it often involves objectifying herself (this also tracks with their behavior in “fat camp”). it’s kind of sad if you think about it.

in the climax of the stick of truth, princess kenny has her own in-depth backstory, where she was an orc/elf rejected by both the elves and humans. i think this reflects kenny’s feeling of being “othered” as non-human (since this game chronologically comes after the superhero trilogy) and just generally not feeling welcome among their friends unless they need her. there may also be some parallels between her friends denying her the right to be a princess and kenny’s friends refusing to believe in his immortality. when she rebels against her friends choosing the stick over friendship, it’s another way for kenny to cope with their mixed-to-negative feelings about their friends. so while PK is a figure to be doted on, she’s still probably more gutsy than the kenny we usually know.

however, PK is not entirely selfish or apathetic about the world around her. in the opening of “a song of ass and fire,” her inner monologue explains her choice to deflect to the PS4 side as the side she believes “is best for all.” she also laments that everybody, including her parents, will be fighting on black friday. it seems that PK dreads the mere idea of war, which contradicts mysterion’s tendency to use violence as a means to protect others. PK still uses her adorableness to help her team, and only asks that they accept her, which really isn’t much. it’s just when she, you know, becomes a nazi zombie and puts the world in danger because she’s so pissed about not being accepted for who she is.

in my original post, i used the freudian personality theory to explain these three personas, which i regret because i fucking hate freud and he’s heavily responsible for modern consumerism and planned obsolescence. but the basic concepts of the id, ego, and superego do kind of illustrate what i’m getting at with these guys. i assigned princess kenny as the id, because she’s more about self-gratification and getting what she thinks she deserves as well as a tendency towards sexual gratification, and mysterion as the superego (hehe get it super) because of his strong inclination towards morality. however, this isn’t that black-and-white, as princess kenny has some moral considerations and mysterion has violent impulses (the “aggressive instinct”) that are more easily attributed to the id. nevertheless, it seems that kenny is still the balance between these exaggerated personas, and when he expresses attitudes similar to theirs, they are far more downplayed due to the necessities of his situation as a caretaker and an underappreciated friend. kind of makes you wonder if/how the attitudes of mysterion and princess kenny will manifest in him when he’s older.

#kenny mccormick #princess kenny #mysterion #south park #LONG POST #kenny #answers #my-nostalgia-is-horror #analysis

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flameleads · 2 years

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@stonedeafdog asked: Roy’s true feelings on Mr. Roth? 💕✨

“I know I’m hard on him when we’re working. I’m his Commanding Officer, and he’s my subordinate. I handpick every person on my team for more than one reason, and it’s not just due to their skills on the field---and he is a skilled combatant. He’s smart, works hard, and his loyalty isn’t something I’ll ever question. But, our relationship is a little more complex than that.”

With a deep breath, his shoulders relaxed and released some of the day’s tension. The grimace he typically wore vanished in favor of a smile, one that could be seen reflected in his gaze as well.

“You ever look at someone, see them smile, and you just wanna do everything you can to make them smile more? That’s how I feel when I’m around him a lot. When he smiles or laughs... he must think I’m an idiot sometimes just for trying to get those reactions out of him.” He chuckled to himself. “Can’t say I mind that much either. He can call me an idiot all he wants. I’m not about to stop trying to make him happy.”

Not anytime soon, at least. For as long as Emil let him, Roy would try to make him happy. It ranked up there with his goals of making this country a better place.

“I feel... safe with him. Not just because he’s done a damn good job of protecting me when on the job, but because he does that off the clock too.” Roy let out a sigh. “When you’re a young upstart like me, you have to compartmentalize a lot of what you think and feel. If something’s wrong, you can’t go to anyone. A lot of people are relying on me, so I have to be strong for them. With Emil, though... we can just be, I guess. I want him as is, and he lets me come to him as I am too.”

Both arms folded over his chest. This was a tad more vulnerable than he planned to be today. Oh well.

“He’s seen me when I wake up after one of my nightmares. Or, what happens when the sound of a car backfiring has me reaching for my gloves. Those days when I have trouble focusing? He knows why then too. And, when I got the call from Central about Hughes...” Another deep breath. “I went to Emil as soon as I could. I didn’t feel safer anywhere else.”

What even happened that night? He couldn’t say he remembered? After that phone call, everything was a blur. All he remembered was the frantic phone calls he made to Central until he got an answer, how he nearly dropped the phone... and nothing. Best not to think about it.

“He sees a lot of me that no one else, save for the Lieutenant, knows about. That doesn’t just mean the bad or scary shit either. If he doesn’t think I’m an idiot for trying to make him smile all the time, then he definitely thinks I’m one for not being able to chop up vegetables. Or know how to live outside of a city. But hey, at least I can do dishes and sew. I can also make a damn good grilled cheese if I say so myself.” He grinned. Maybe he could make that, and some tomato soup, later for lunch.

“I could go on about him, but I’ll keep it simple: he’s one of the most important people in my life. When I’m President, I want him at my side. I want him there for as long as he’ll let me stay by his.”

#stonedeafdog #ic; light a fire | roy #ic; from the desk of roy mustang | answered asks [ unprompted ]#rel; achilles And patroclus | emil [ stonedeafdog ]#[ me initially: this'll be like three paragraphs tops ]#[ me now: so I'm a liar ]

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mcsplaced · 3 years

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𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖆 𝖆𝖑𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖔𝖓 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 . . .

Not everyone can say they’ve been to the Big Apple, but [AGLAIA ALDERSON], a [TWENTY-FIVE] year-old [CIS WOMAN] has lived in [BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN] for [TWO WEEKS]. This is the city of dreams and [SHE/HER] knows it, because they came to NYC to be a [BARTENDER]. Living in the city means they meet all kinds of people, but everyone always seems to think they look like [LEILA GEORGE]. They even got away with free cab fare once because of it!

hello, all ! i’m lauryn, 21, my pronouns are she/her, and i currently reside within the cst timezone. i’ve been tumblr rping on and off for about 8 years now, and aglaia has been a muse of mine that i’ve frequently played for about two years. here’s is my first muse of this rp, aglaia ! her about is listed here, her statistics are listed here, and her plotting page is listed here. if you’d like to claim any of the plots on that page or do some other plotting, shoot me a message ! i prefer discord, but i’m open to messaging on tumblr. my discord is limes#6826. i look forward to writing with everyone !

TRIGGER WARNING — child abuse ( mental and physical ), mentions of drug usage and alcoholism, mentions of knives, familial death ( brother )

( tw : mention of child abuse ) aglaia alderson was born in ojai, california, to a rather large family. aggie had 3 older brothers, two of which exuded the same nonchalant, neglectful behavior that her parents did.

( tw : mention of physical and mental child abuse ) the family lived in poverty with both parents struggling to hold down a job due to alcoholism. their father would rarely strike them, though it did happen every now and then when he had a bit too much to drink and passed the line of conscious thought. aggie was able to compartmentalize both the physical and emotional abuse that she did receive. ( end tw )

aglaia and the brother born a year before her, silas, grew very close. with little else to do, the pair played mind games with others, exhibiting manipulative behaviors before either of them were double digits in age; this continued well into their early teens.

( tw : mention of knives, familial death ) around the time that aggie turned 16, she and her brother attended a house party together. it was here that her brother got into a serious fight and ended up being repeatedly stabbed in front of aggie. the trauma was only really felt by aglaia; her family did not seem phased by the occurrence, shedding very little tears at silas’s death. ( end tw )

( tw : mentions of drug usage ) this event made aggie far more apathetic than she was previously, and she departed from her home soon after he was buried. the 16-year old ventured from town to town, hitching rides from others and stealing from grocery stores with the occasional holdup at gas stations. after one month of this, aggie was able to buy a car and spent most nights sleeping in it while she continued her adventures. during these years, aglaia spent most of her time experimenting with hard drugs. ( end tw )

at the age of 20, aglaia made her way to bedford-stuyvesant, brooklyn. upon arriving in brooklyn, aglaia met someone that fascinated her. it wasn’t long that aglaia resided in brooklyn; the two made off to commit a string of robberies.

the year and a half that they spent doing this was the best year of aglaia’s life, who reveled in the thrill that their adventures offered. the two got sloppy and even committed low-security bank heists, and this ended up backfiring on them.

aglaia was apprehended by police as her partner made away with their money; she was sentenced to three years at a federal prison camp. the prison wasn’t awful, as it was minimum security with few regulations and some amenities. aglaia had plenty of time to sit within her anger, reflecting on her life and how she got to where she was. she decided then and there that she could not trust a soul. she was likely delusional, but she felt certain that she would do great things in life and make lots of money along the way. aglaia spent a lot of her time planning future jobs to pull when she felt safe doing so.

upon release, aggie was somewhat of a new person: selfish still, but cold and uncaring. she contacted her former partner, finding out that they had left to stash their money. aggie felt nearly whole being reunited with her money but found that greed overpowered her momentary satisfaction. aglaia was propositioned by them to move in with them until she could get back on her feet. she began bartending and plans to pool her money until she can move somewhere along the west coast and continue her criminal expeditions. aggie feels empty inside, lacking excitement in her life even though she indulges in danger whenever possible.

important information about her personality can be found above in her about, and basic statistics can be found above linked to her statistics.

#sorry for any mistakes ! i proofread a billion times #but you never know #ENYC.INTRO

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gothpandora · 3 years

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therapy has really opened my eyes to how traumatic it was to be diagnosed with adhd as an adult. i think there’s this misconception that the hardships of adhd are strictly material, like being forgetful and late all the time, and that once you deal with those material hardships then everything is fine. but there’s so much internal grief and mourning that comes with an adult diagnosis, because you not only have to grieve what your childhood could have been, but you also have to deal with the loss of your future self.

my entire life, i had this idea of myself in the future, where one day i would be a good student. a good daughter. a good sister. a good person. one day, i’ll be capable, and accomplished, and deserving, and worthy, and accepted. every choice i made in my life, i made for her. every sacrifice i made was for her. all the times when i pushed myself to the brink in school, i was working my ass off for her. but being diagnosed with adhd meant that i lost that person. she’s just gone. and i don’t know who i’m doing this all for anymore. it’s a very lonely grief. it’s like i lost my closest friend, except nobody knew her. every time i felt alone in my life, i had my future self to think about and make me feel less alone. but she’s gone. and now i’m really alone (and i kind of always was).

another thing is, adhd makes it hard to process feelings like this in general. we’re so good at compartmentalizing everything and distracting ourselves from hard emotions, but it always backfires and comes back stronger when we least expect it. so i guess what i’m saying is that i’m trying to rethink my diagnosis. for the past few years, i’ve been trying to think about it positively, with hope and determination and all that. now, i think i’ve realised that i was putting off dealing with grief. so i’m trying to learn how to basically mourn the loss of my future self, and recognizing these emotions as real, and worth feeling. and nobody is to blame. but i’m allowed to grieve anyway.

#adhd #actually adhd

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scripttorture · 4 years

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My question is basically: in the scenario I describe, do you think I should go with or without torture as a referenced thing that happened? The situation is this- my character’s father has been dead for seven years, but I thought that what if, instead of being killed by the monster he was faced with at the time, he was injured by it and then captured by a group of bad guys. This is set in the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild universe and the bad guys in question are the Yiga Clan, (1/9)

who alternate between a comical and threatening presence in the game. They are presented as a tribe of assassins, but the reason why they decide to take my character’s father alive is that they saw him using a rare kind of magic and either want him to teach it to them or want to get him to use it for them. (It’s hereditary so he can’t teach it to anyone but his daughter, but they don’t know that and he will neglect to inform them that anyone else has the same abilities.) (2/9) Most likely they want him to do something with his magic when their idol (Ganon, The Big Bad) returns or possibly something that they think would help him return. Where the question of torture comes in is, I need him to still be alive and capable of going with an escape attempt after seven years. So, whether or not they get the notion to try torturing at any point, it obviously can’t be super regular or prolonged over this period. I thought maybe one or two incidents toward the beginning (3/9) of his captivity, which were ordered to stop when they realized they would have to keep him alive for an undetermined amount of time and that’s easier when you aren’t treating extra injuries, but I’m not sure that would really add anything other than acknowledging the fact that someone in there probably got the notion to go “hey if he won’t teach us that magic what if we punch him and ask again” and may not have been turned down. Or they may have, (4/9) or they may not have brought it up at all because the Leader didn’t ask them to. Alternately, I could lean into their comical side and say that, while they got the idea to try “torturing” they don’t actually know how to do that. They’re assassins, they usually just kill, they don’t really know what to do with prisoners, it’s been a long time since they split off from another group that may have known torture techniques in the service of the now-destroyed kingdom. In which case it would be (5/9) things like “ohoho what if we give him his food... WITHOUT ANY bananas? he’ll be MISERABLE” (they are obsessed with bananas) played for a weird kind of humor. On the other hand I don’t want to imply that if they’d tried “REAL” torture it might have worked. Possibly the punching and asking again was tried once toward the beginning, then the comical “no bananas” one was tried later and neither one accomplished anything? I don’t want to say he spent seven years underground (6/9) surrounded by a comical murderous weirdo cult and “nothing really happened” in that time until his rescue but I don’t want to shoe in something like Actual Torture Attempts when it isn’t necessary. I could fill his time with escape attempts and/or trying to get information. Final thing: his daughter is going to break him out with the help of the Hero and a friend who defected from the Yiga Clan. This friend’s mother is going to take leadership of the clan but is meant to reform somewhat. (7/9) My character (the one whose father is imprisoned) could funnel her anger at his imprisonment towards the previous leader but if she finds out he was tortured (or weird attempts were made at it) she could have more trouble coming to a grudging, still pretty angry acceptance that her friend’s mother exists and is the way she is and probably shouldn’t be magically lit on fire. Or she could compartmentalize and say the friend’s mother never ordered anything like that, or may have even (8/9) turned a blind eye to her father’s final escape. This was a lot of detail but again the main questions are: does that seem like torture attempts would add or detract, and would it be in poor taste to include something like the “no bananas” scene? (9/9)

While I’d never played a Zelda game when I got this ask I am now one of Those People who got a switch in response to not being able to go outside. (They had pokemon, I was weak). And I’ve put a lot of hours into Breath of the Wild since. It’s a beautifully realised setting and I can see the appeal of writing something set in that world.

Humour is a very subjective thing. Whatever we do there are always going to be people that the jokes don’t land for. I’ve (mostly) got positive responses to my humour but I have had incidents both here and on my AO3 page where people took exception to it. And that’s a lot more likely to happen when we’re dealing with serious topics.

That said, I do think that we need humour about the things that scare us. There’s nothing quite as potent and satisfying as making our fears ridiculous.

If you’re considering using humour in a torture/kidnap/POW situation (whatever you decide re torture the story definitely contains some of these elements) then the main thing to consider is this: what are we actually laughing at?

This kind of humour is mostly likely to backfire or be outright hurtful when it can be interpreted as laughing at the victims. Or at the existence of traumatic events. And it’s most likely to work consistently when it’s aimed at the abusers.

From the way you’ve described this it sounds like the joke is on the Yiga clan. As it is in the game itself. (I have enjoyed the assassination attempts by enraged ‘banana salesmen’.) If you wanted to continue the pattern the game set I think a lot of fellow fans would enjoy this humour.

But the main question here is about when we should use torture in a story. And how we judge whether it’s adding anything.

Personally I start by thinking about the tone and themes of the story. The kind of atmosphere I want to capture and kinds of character interactions I want to write.

Then I try to think through the impact torture would have on the narrative in terms of knock on effects. So, symptoms in victims/survivors, witnesses and torturers but also effects on culture, community and organisations.

It would probably be easiest for me to break this down with an example or two.

I’ve talked briefly about both of these stories before. One of them takes place about two decades after a military coup ousted an absolute monarchy. Ilāra, one of the major characters, was embedded in the old regime and tortured people. They were also tortured by the regime and helped make the coup successful.

And part of the impact torture has on the story is in Ilāra's symptoms. But it’s also in the way other characters relate to them. Normal people are afraid of them or disgusted/enraged at the sight of them. They’re ostracised by their own community and treated with contempt by their military superiors.

One of the major themes running through the story is the question of how we deal with people we love when they’ve done horrific things. And how countries, cultures, move on from atrocities.

Most of the major characters aren’t Ilāra's generation, they’re the kids who came afterwards. The people who just about remember the Revolt but grew up in a world without the monarchy. They’re navigating a legacy of blood and bitterness, things that aren’t their fault but nevertheless have shaped the world they live in.

Part of it is about how the children Ilāra helped raise respond to this personal (and national) history. How they try to square the fact that this person was good (and in some ways defining) for them, while being monstrous to others.

I felt that torture would add to this story because the point of it is those fault lines. In society at large and in personal relationships. It’s about exploring how we try to bridge or heal those fault lines and how, sometimes, we make them deeper.

Torture (and indeed the other atrocities that are part of the country’s legacy) serve to raise the stakes. They deepen that initial emotional trench between the characters. And they also… Pull the camera back I suppose? The story may be about a single family but it isn’t an individual story. It’s about how larger patterns of abuse effect everyone in a society. Torture serves to make it about the culture, the country, instead of just the individuals within it.

There are similar ideas in the other story I’m working on, societal divides and how we bridge them, but I think there’s a slightly different focus.

Both of these stories are fantasy stories, but while Ilāra's story is in a sort of circa 1900s past Kibwe’s is in the future. It’s extrapolating the political oppression and systems from the places I’m interested in (in this case India, the Philippines, Kenya and Nigeria.)

The story takes place across generations starting when Kibwe was a teenager but continuing to his daughter’s formative years and into his children becoming independent adults.

And there’s torture in this story because the entire family is involved in politics. Because I grew up knowing that the natural consequence of acting for major political reform/justice was arrest and torture.

The story is about trying to change unjust systems and generational violence. It’s also about the unhealthy ways people can engage in activism, putting the theoretical good of the community above their health and their families/friends.

I didn’t really have to think about including torture in any depth, it was a natural fit. In fact I’m not sure I could talk about politics in any meaningful way without talking about torture.

So some more specific questions that might help with your story. Is the structure of the Yiga clan important to the story? Is the effect they have on society at large important to the story? Is this primarily an individual/personal story or one with a wider focus?

There aren’t ‘wrong’ answers to those questions, it’s about what you want to write.

Do you want a more personal focus with the relationships between the major characters being more important then the world at large? I think of this as a character focused (as opposed to a character driven) story.

For instance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy while we care about every member of the fellowship the important thing throughout, the focus, is the destruction of the ring and the systems that are harming all of Middle Earth. By contrast in Howl’s Moving Castle we care about the war and the fate of the missing Prince, but the important thing is what happens to the girls from the hat shop.

Both of these approaches to a story can include torture in a meaningful way. It can add to both kinds of stories. But it’s generally adding different things.

In a character focused story (with the kind of plot you’re writing) torture is mostly adding a sudden change to all of the relationships a character has. There might be focus on symptoms, a recovery arc, character development etc but the first and most obvious thing it’s adding is a major change to how these characters interact.

In a story that’s more focused on the big picture of the world torture can add world building elements and it can be used to map out divisions and allegiances in the societies you write.

Part of the reason I’m making this distinction is that in this scenario you can very easily tell a character focused story with trauma-recovery and not have torture. Kidnap and seven years imprisonment is enough to be traumatising.

That doesn’t mean torture couldn’t/wouldn’t add anything to that story. But it might not be necessary for the story you want to tell and the focus you want it to have.

On the other hand if this is primarily a broader story about communities and cultures growing and changing, the decision of whether or not to include torture has much more potential to direct the plot. It could create opposition to reforming the Yiga clan, both inside the clan (wanting to stick with how things are) and outside it (with people wanting it utterly destroyed).

Different factions and cultures might band together on the basis of shared opposition to the Yiga clan. And the clan’s reformation could effect those allegiances.

There could also be knock on effects based on where the clan operates: cultures that have been targetted by them in the past might not want this new ‘reformed’ (and more obvious) Yiga clan on their lands. And that in turn could stir up trouble within the clan because hey they’ve been here for generations it’s their home too!

There are lots of ways torture could add to this plot and these characters. It could also feed in to broader themes.

For instance the main character and her father haven’t seen each other for seven years. The difference between how we remember or idolise someone and the way they actually are is a theme you could add to here. The Yiga clan is going to end up reformed: what does it take for people to accept that reformation and forgive? The main character is friends with a former Yiga assassin: how do we process the fact people we care about might have hurt others?

That isn’t an exhaustive list, I’m just throwing out ideas to see if anything interests you.

In terms of timing and character being physically able to escape I think you’re already hit on a pretty good idea.

Torturers don’t tend to stop when ordered to. Part of the reason a lot of organisations reject torturers is because they… tend to disobey orders. A lot.

So if you wanted to write a scenario where this character is initially tortured and then held for a much longer time without torture the realistic way to do that is to have the character transferred from the ‘care’ of one group of Yigas to another. Torturers tend to exist in groups as sub-cultures within larger organisations. Which means that their presence in an organisation does not necessarily indicate that everyone in the organisation supports/carries out torture.

You could even have the Yiga’s take a (perhaps half-hearted) anti-torture stance and have them punish the torturers.

Wrapping up, the decision of whether or not to include torture is up to you. I can see ways it could add to your story but the points and themes I’ve spoken about might not be things you’re interested in.

Just because an element could add to a story doesn’t necessarily mean it’s adding something you want. There’s nothing wrong with deciding that an element doesn’t interest you, takes the story in a direction you like less or causes more stress then you want as you write it.

Ultimately the question is whether you want to write torture. And there’s no wrong answer to that question.

I hope that helps. :)

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userpoe · 3 years

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what do you think the fandom gets wrong about a certain flyboy?? not causing drama and I hope this is okay to ask I’d just love to know

*rubs hands together, takes a shot of coffee and slams my cup down on the table* I am going to preface this with that this is just my opinion and also that I’m really...really overly opinionated on this matter because I’m very protective of the flyboy since he’s my comfort character.

honestly my biggest pet peeve is just that a lot of the time, poe’s reduced to one or two of his traits. poe is a pretty well-rounded character with a lot of different facets to play with (there’s a reason I have so many poe playlists, it’s because I like to explore these different sides of his character). back right after the force awakens came out, there was this big fanon idea that poe was nothing more than a sassy cinnamon roll who was never frustrated or annoyed - ever. which, I suppose, was mainly because we only got so little content of him in tfa so that was primarily the side we got to see of him, but EVEN THEN, we get hints that’s there’s more to poe than meets the eye:

this shot right here has lived rent-free in my mind since 2015, this is the “good is not nice” personality hiding just slightly beneath his facade of “everything’s easy for poe dameron” he keeps up until after tlj. so that was my initial pet peeve.

but speaking of tlj, fandom perception of him changed REALLY drastically following the film - I’m not here to talk about his decisions in the film, and we don’t have time to unpack all that (I have a mental flow chart of things that almost certainly influenced all of his decisions in said film though), but I will say that instead of Poe being seen as the “happy go luck cinnamon roll” suddenly he became this overconfident, cocky, smartass.

which, yeah, poe is, I love (1) smug smartass, but that’s not all he is. if Poe was solely just an overconfident, cocky smartass I would not have fallen in love with him as hard as I did back when. He’s genuine, has a gentle streak, and is a little bit of a romantic - but those tend to fall to the wayside in favor of characterizing him as a jerk. And I get it! Poe can be a jerk sometimes (it’s an almost unavoidable thing when you’re a smartass, I speak from experience).

But this is something that happens with every character in Star Wars, because Star Wars is usually pretty good at giving us well-rounded characters to the point that there’s so many different facets of the characters that they feel genuinely real and we latch onto the parts that we admire or relate to the most. For me, I just happened to latch onto every single part of Poe’s character.

Additionally, I’ve read some fic where Poe just doesn’t have any concern for his pilots? Where he doesn’t even know some of their names? And, fellas...no...the gif I listed above is his reaction to losing one pilot, and then we get this shot in tlj when he realizes just how badly his strategy backfired and what it cost him:

he tries to compartmentalize by focusing on the good that came out of the battle, but that’s not the face of a guy who’s entirely proud of what happened (I’m also annoyed by the idea that Poe is a prideful guy because...dude has some self-worth issues, you know that line from Oh No! “I always feel like I’m the worst, so I act like I’m the best”? yeah). and also, during the battle, Poe refers to his pilots by name. Colbat Squadron isn’t usually under his command iirc, yet he calls Paige by name when he contacts her. In SW Adventures #6, when he meets Rose, he doesn’t catch her name but when he talks to her over the comms, he recognizes her as “that shy mechanic.” Also, his complete indignation and horror at the fact that Finn didn’t have a name?? He’s gonna remember people’s names, alright.

There’s also this recent idea that Poe is...sexist???????? I’ve seen it a lot about some of his interactions with Rey and [buries my head in my hands and sighs with all the exasperation on the planet]...no. Just. no. Flat out, no. Nope. Every time I’ve seen this thrown around (the sw adventures comic where he and Rey go for a flight, then when he and Finn take her out for Jedi training, a bit in Spark of the Resistance), there’s actual explanations in the content itself that proves how much of a reach this is: the flight comic makes a point of saying Poe has been going on flights with all his pilots to make sure everyone’s at top performance (he neglects repairs on his own x-wing to do this), in the jedi training course one it’s Artoo who sets up the course and they only do it because they want Rey to go on missions with them again (Poe even states IN the comic that they know she can handle herself), and in Spark of the Resistance, he’s concerned with her inexperience more than anything else, and immediately apologizes for doubting her AND admits that he was a jerk for thinking it?? Also, almost every important person in Poe’s life is a woman? He becomes a pilot because of Shara, he idolizes Leia (not Luke, not Han, Leia), when Leia makes a comment about “flyboys” he reminds her that “some of us are flygirls.” oVER HALF OF HIS ELITE SQUADRON. IS COMPRISED. OF WOMEN.

And lastly (for the sake of this ask anyway)...the idea that he’s a flirt or just like...some Jack Harkness level playboy?? I’ve seen a lot of fic/headcanons/text posts suggesting he’s slept with most of the Resistance and is a big ole’ flirt. Fellas...I don’t see it.

There’s not...anything in canon to support this idea either? Freefall is the best glimpse we get at Poe dealing with the subject of romance, and it’s pretty tame? He mentions having had a couple of partners before he meets Zorii, but the way he interacts with their relationship is really sweet. he stumbles a lot when he first meets her and is not exactly the epitome of smooth, and after they get together, he frequently fantasizes about running away with her to start their own life together.

Jumping ahead, the idea of Poe managing to be “smooth” is honestly just funny to me in general because I’ve always pictured him turning into that meme of “*tries to lean against the doorway to flirt with a crush, misses and falls*” if he did actually fall for somebody. When he first meets Leia, this boy has a whole entire CrisisTM about how he looks like a mess; he wears his mom’s wedding ring with him everywhere with the intent to find the right partner to give it to, Zorii calls him a romantic in Freefall...and in the comics, Poe is rarely vulnerable with the members of his own squadron whom he considers family, and he constantly ducks out of parties early to go catch his breath - which doesn’t strike me as behaviors that a playboy would have, know? And when he’s around someone he does have a crush on??? He turns into a human disaster! When he and Finn reunite, Poe bites his already busted lip because he’s distracted by how pretty Finn is, and then when Finn grabs his shoulder and leans in to ask for his help, Poe’s straight-up just staring at Finn’s lips. I can practically hear him mentally bluescreening when I watch that scene. He’s mind-boggled by how complicated Finn’s relationships are in Resistance Reborn (”I can’t keep up with all of your ‘just friends’”), and is REALLY flustered and embarrassed when Maz starts flirting with him to the point that Leia swoops in to save him.

Honestly, there’s more evidence of BB-8 being a bigger playboydroid than Poe being one in canon...

and then in an episode of Resistance when BB-8 and CB-23 are catching up, Poe teases them with “All alright you two lovedroids, we can catch up later.”

I stan a dork, okay. That’s what I’m saying. A dork married to his cause and is incredibly supportive (but sometimes confused) by his friends’ relationships, and asks for permission to kiss people:

that there is a smartass rolled up into a complete and utter sweetheart and I love him dearly 😌

#ask box #nonnie nonnie #long post #flashing tw #uhhhhhhhh i went off oops #i have a lot of thoughts on him and i'm vvvvv defensive of him so like #yeah #thanks for the opportunity to rant a little bit nonster!#i also. not including this but i also thinnnnnnnnnnnnnnk most of his issues with h*ldo is cos he just. doesn't like politicians BUT #that's another conversation for another day #oh nonster im pretty sure you weren't expecting a 1k word essay tfjdjdk #sorry

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octerminal · 4 years

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I’ve talked before about how Nadia being Earthborn is the central reason she’s renegade leaning, but I really want to get into it again because I’ve been listening to Hadestown a lot recently and that always makes me think of Nadia because the musical touches on how traumatizing poverty is. And also just because, well, I always want to talk about Nadia.

But before I can do that, I have to talk about a few other things first.

(This is going to be niche and also super self-indulgent, but it’s my blog, so who cares. Note that because of what both Hadestown and the Earthborn background entail, this is going to get slightly political. But again, it’s my blog, so who cares.)

Generally speaking, Mass Effect has an issue with downplaying trauma. Ashley, Tali, Garrus, and James all go through the traumatic experience of being sole (or almost sole) survivors. Tali goes through this twice, because the comics show that before she even met Shepard she lost the team she’d been traveling with. (And that’s not even counting the fact she also loses a chunk of her team on Freedom’s Progress. They use this trope with her a lot.) Liara loses her mother in the first game and she has almost no reaction. Shepard dies in the beginning of the second game and spends the rest joking about it, with very few opportunities to express anything but humor over the situation.

People respond to trauma differently, and the game is also told primarily from Shepard’s point of view, so consequently we only see what Shepard sees. All of these characters likely grieved in private, and they definitely do carry scars (literal and figurative) from what they’ve gone through. But I also think that Mass Effect likes making characters go through objectively traumatic things without fully considering how someone might act coming out of it. In fairness, that’s the fun of fanfic, and I also do think everyone on the Normandy has some degree of experience in compartmentalizing because they simply don’t have the time to sit down with their feelings. (A lot of them are also just averse to doing this.)

But exploring that trauma is what I’m interested in the most, and that’s how I approached Nadia. Earthborn is my favorite background for that reason. It’s not a single event that’s shaped their life thereafter, but a sustained stressful environment they endure for years and only escape once they sign up with the Alliance. And in that regard, Nadia rather sees it as trading one cage for another, but that’s neither here nor there.

Like, to go back to Hadestown (I swear I’m not going to write Hadestown meta on this blog), “When the Chips are Down” is one of my favorite numbers because it so accurately describes Nadia’s response to poverty. “How can you expect me to care about another person and put their wellbeing above my own, when doing that will result in my own death? How can you expect me to trust another person, when that could result in my own death? How are you going to lecture me on having no morals when if I had prioritized morality, I never would have survived?” (This is something I love bouncing off Kaidan, but I’ll get to that later.)

In other words, and this is an incredibly obvious thing to say, poverty is traumatizing and violent. It is an incredibly violent thing to put another human being through, to make them worry for their basic safety, to live their day to day in a constant limbo of uncertainty that permeates every facet of their life. Will you be able to eat today? Will you be able to sleep in a safe environment? Can you trust this person you’ve never met? Will trusting them endanger what little safety you’ve managed to achieve? How much money do you have? How long can you make that money last? Where will you be tomorrow? How about the day after?

This is something that leaves its mark on anyone it touches. It’s hard enough for an adult to plan for the future when they don’t have the luxury of knowing how they’ll even survive the week; when you’re a child, and that sort of stress is all that you’ve known, how do you even imagine a better life when you’ve known nothing different?

Before I get any further, I want to pause for a moment. Something that’s always been curious to me are the codex entries for Earth. Here’s a portion of ME1′s codex:

Here’s a portion of ME3′s codex:

(Written transcripts of the complete codex entries at the links.)

In both of them, they talk about how humanity is in a new golden age. A lot of pollution and common diseases have been eliminated. The colonies have brought in more resources. There's even been some correction to the damage early climate change caused. Then the Fire Nation—I mean, Reapers, attacked and ruined all of this. Except, take a closer look at ME1′s codex:

“While every human enjoys longer and better life than ever, the gap between rich and poor widens daily. [...] Less fortunate regions have not progressed beyond 20th century technology, and are often smog-choked, overpopulated slums.”

This seems incompatible with the idea of Earth being in a golden age. How can Earth be thriving if the class disparity is growing, not narrowing? How can Earth be thriving if entire swaths are still "smog-choked” and using centuries old outdated technology?

It’s not incompatible if the idea is that Earth has entered a golden age only for the ones who can afford it. And this is the reality Earthborn Shepards were raised in: the idea that their suffering is an unimportant, insignificant underbelly to an otherwise “prospering” homeworld.

So, resuming with that in mind: the way Nadia sees it is that to allow poverty to exist is an inherent societal failure that reflects on the government. This is why Nadia has no loyalty to the Alliance, and why she doesn’t trust them. This is why she subsequently has no loyalty to the Council, and why she doesn’t trust them, either. It doesn’t matter that the Alliance and the Council weren’t personally responsible for her childhood, because they’re still governments. She knows that governments will lie and exploit and allow for people like her to fall through the cracks if it will benefit them. She knows they will broadcast only the best of what they have to offer while conveniently pretending people like her don’t exist.

Like, personal politics aside, as shown above with the codex entries, this is just...canon. And Thane’s loyalty highlights poverty on the Citadel through Mouse and the concept of “duct rats,” so we know that it exists there, too. How the Council presumably feels about poverty on their station is outlined if you speak to Avina on the Citadel in the second game:

AVINA: Asari futurists believe poverty cannot be eliminated without “cornucopia” technology, which will create anything the user desires. Such technology is unknown outside science fiction.

Essentially: yeah, unfortunately, poverty exists on the station, but what can you do? Believing poverty is avoidable is actually utopian and therefore unrealistic, sorry!

But when you meet Anoleis on Noveria as Earthborn, he can literally tell you poverty doesn’t exist on Sur’Kesh. (And sure, he could be lying, and we have no proof either way. It doesn’t erase the fact that, at the very least, the existence of widespread poverty is something that even a corrupt and money embezzling salarian thinks is an easy jab.)

ANOLEIS: My homeworld is clean. Poverty is non-existent. If you take some perverse pride in that overheated, acid-washed slum, that is your business.

There’s nothing about the Alliance and poverty that I know of¹, which makes sense considering the main branch of the Alliance we see throughout the games is its military branch. There are still plenty of instances in the trilogy where the Alliance does exploit the vulnerable, or attempts to cover up their self-inflicted shortcomings. An obvious one is with Kaidan and Conatix; Kaidan literally tells you the Alliance is the one who “made mistakes.” That in their haste, they allowed a man to brutalize children for the sake of research. And when it backfired, they sealed the documents and pretended it never happened.

UNC: The Negotiation is one of my favorite ME1 missions for this reason, too—it highlights a part of the Alliance the series doesn’t really focus on otherwise. Darius tells you that the entire reason he’s operating in the region at all is because the Alliance is the one who set him up there.

DARIUS: You see this gun? This is your gun. Your military set me up here, and now it wants to pretend it doesn’t know me! But I know the truth. The Alliance needed me here! So treat me with the respect I deserve!

SHEPARD: You said we set you up. Did the Alliance give you weapons?

DARIUS: After the batarians were driven out of the Verge, the Alliance wanted to stabilize the region. I had the strongest syndicate in the area. They gave me the weapons and money I needed to take over.

After the mission, Hackett implies the entire reason he sent renegade Shepard to cover a diplomatic negotiation is because he expected and wanted them to kill Darius, because he was now more trouble than he was worth.

HACKETT: I’m sorry that you were unable to negotiate with Darius peacefully. His death is regrettable. Nevertheless, the resulting chaos will create a power vacuum that makes future raids upon our miners unlikely.

SHEPARD: You didn’t think I’d negotiate with him. You wanted me to kill him.

HACKETT: Sometimes extreme measures must be taken to ensure humanity’s safety. Or did you think you were the only one willing to break the rules to get the job done?

(Link, so you can watch the mission yourself.)

None of this is me saying the Council and the Alliance have no redeemable features whatsoever, or that they have never contributed positively to galactic wellbeing. It’s just me citing instances in canon that support why Nadia has the opinion she does of them, and why she’s not exactly incorrect in having them.

So, to loop this back around to Kaidan? As I said, he’s not a stranger to government-level negligence. But Kaidan had a much different reaction than Nadia did, and this is something that absolutely fascinates her once she finds out.

Before that, though: the two of them don’t really hit it off in the beginning—though they’re both still professional—and this is mainly due to Nadia being, well, Nadia. She is not a people person and she never tries to be, which consequently makes her off-putting to most people. On her end, she’s generally unimpressed and uninterested in the people around her. She sees a lot of them as puzzles to be solved and then to move on from, or threats to assess.² The rare times someone does pique her interest enough to act on it, she still prefers to not linger around for long. So, you know, just general unhealthy behavior.

So, Eden Prime is illuminating for them both. Like, on Kaidan’s end: Nadia comes off as callous. She doesn’t care about the colonists, she doesn’t care about Jenkins’ death. On Nadia’s end: Kaidan comes off as naive. How has he been a marine for this long and she has to tell him to suck it up after someone dies? (This is one of the reasons why she didn’t want to work with regular marines again; in my canon, Anderson had to needle her³ into accepting the Normandy position.)

But the truth of it is that the reason Nadia comes off as callous is because she’s thoroughly desensitized. Like, when you grow up poor, on the streets, and in a gang? You’re both witnessing and being put through a lot of traumatizing situations. Akuze, of course, only adds onto this. There’s this one dialogue option in the beginning of the second game when Miranda and Jacob are assessing Shepard’s memory, and while Nadia doesn’t take this option in canon, it is how she feels:

JACOB: You enlisted, and you survived a thresher maw attack that wiped out the rest of your team. Do you remember that?

SHEPARD: Yeah, I remember it. Everyone screaming, gunfire, blood everywhere. I was the only one focused on survival.

Paragon Shepard focuses entirely on the other marines: how they were their friends, how something like that can destroy you if you let it.

Renegade Shepard barely thinks of anyone else at all. There were fifty other marines on Akuze, and renegade Shepard thinks they survived simply because they were the only one focused on it. For Nadia, that’s because that’s what her entire life has already been until that point.

Look, there are a lot of different ways to play renegade; it runs a much larger gamut than paragon, in my opinion. Nadia is more of a neutral renegade. She’s not particularly bigoted, just dispassionate and apathetic⁴. She resorts to violence and intimidation because it’s the easiest way to control her surroundings, not because she thinks what she’s doing is particularly righteous⁵. This can get brought up in Samara’s loyalty when talking with Morinth:

MORINTH: Violence is the surest expression of power.

SHEPARD: Violence is a means to an end. Power is that end.

Like, Nadia is a person who’s had to live a life surrounded by violence, not because it’s what she initially chose, but because it was repeatedly inflicted on her. She didn’t have the luxury of nursing her compassion and generosity, or of prioritizing morality. Those things would’ve gotten her killed. What she focused on instead was survival: the best way to survive, the easiest way to survive, the way that consistently ensured her own safety. This meant violence, and in order to survive, she became very good at inflicting violence.

That’s what I meant when I said Nadia thinks she traded one cage for another: the Alliance wasn’t freedom in the truest sense; she’s still doing what she ultimately would’ve done if she had remained with the Reds⁶. She’s just doing it with government approval and a steadier paycheck. She knows she’s still being used, and it’s only who’s using her that’s changed. All that’s to say, she isn’t an N7 ranked infiltrator because she feels strongly about protecting Alliance space and dirtying her hands to do it. She’s an N7 ranked infiltrator because it’s simply what she’s good at.

One of my favorite renegade lines in the entire trilogy is during Thane’s loyalty because it perfectly highlights Nadia’s philosophy on her situation:

SHEPARD: Your father and I have killed a lot of people. You haven’t. There’s no reason you should start.

To Nadia, her life is what it is because of the circumstances she was raised in and the decisions she made in response to that. She doesn’t deflect blame for the sort of person she’s become; she holds herself the correct amount of responsible.

She kills people for the Alliance, she kills people for the Council, she kills people for Cerberus. Other Shepards might dress it up differently when death is unavoidable: “it’s a shame, but it was necessary,” said along with the appropriate amount of guilt. Or: they were a terrorist, they were a mercenary, they forced my hand. To Nadia, it’s all death, and there’s no inherent difference between killing someone “to protect humanity” (read: protect the Alliance’s interests) or killing someone “to protect the galaxy” (read: protect the Council’s interests) and simply killing someone in a situation paragon Shepards would deem unnecessary. And to Nadia, if you haven’t had to live a life like this—why start? You still have other options. Use them.

One thing I love about Hadestown is how it discusses the simple accessibility of being able to live your life, let alone live it virtuously. Like whether or not I agree with that, it’s an interesting thing to explore, and it gets brought up multiple times:

“When you’re hungry and there ain’t enough to go round / ain’t no length to which a girl won’t go / [...] and sometimes you think / you would do anything / just to fill your belly full of food”

“See how the vipers and vultures surround you / and they’ll take you down, they’ll pick you clean / if you stick around such a desperate scene / see, people get mean when the chips are down”

“Aim for the heart / shoot to kill / if you don’t do it, then the other one will / [...] nobody’s righteous / nobody’s proud / nobody’s innocent / now that the chips are down”

“Go ahead and lay the blame / talk of virtue / talk of sin / wouldn’t you have done the same? / in her shoes / in her skin / you can have your principles when you’ve got a belly full”

“I did what I had to do / that’s what they did too”

“Some flowers bloom / where the green grass grows / our praise is not for them / but the ones who bloom in the bitter snow”

Again, I’m not going to meta about Hadestown⁷ and the precise context for these verses are different in that canon (for starters, Eurydice never kills anyone), but the concept is similar: when you’re poor, you’re often driven to desperate measures to survive. Sometimes that means stepping over other people, or otherwise ignoring how your actions will affect them. Often, this is to your own detriment. And it’s really, really easy to cast judgment on the poor people driven to these decisions when you were never in their position. It’s really easy to just live when you’re not in a situation where you had to worry about your survival on a day-by-day basis.

I bring up Hadestown because it’s a nice conduit to explain Nadia’s issues. She’s not renegade because she thinks she’s on a crusade and anyone who gets in her way is acceptable collateral damage. She’s renegade because her survival depended on it, and as Sha’ira points out, it’s what has allowed her continual survival:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong. That strength is what kept you alive when everyone else around you was dying. You alone survived. You will continue to survive.”

For her to survive her childhood, she had to step over other people and put herself first. This meant not allowing herself to get close to other people, and to not care about them beyond what they can give her to ensure her own survival.

And this is why Kaidan interests her. Kaidan’s response to brain camp wasn’t to minimize the importance of his morality, it was to double down on it. (Yes, partially to his own detriment, but that’s a different post.) His response wasn’t to distrust others, because after all, one of his defining characteristics is his compassion. It’s just that Kaidan’s inclined to troubleshoot everything, even his interactions with other people. He might be “once burned, twice shy” but he’s not going to be “once burned, byedon’tfollowmeI’mgoingtorelyonlyonmyselfforever.”

Like, he still wants to help...

SHEPARD: So why are you telling me this? Are you saying I’m cutting corners somewhere?

KAIDAN: I’m saying...it’s probably inevitable that we’ll have to. And when that happens, I want to help you. When someone important to you is up on a ledge, you help them. Keep them from mistakes better made by a kid.

SHEPARD: I’m a big girl, Alenko. I don’t need your help.

KAIDAN: I didn’t say you needed it, I said I’m offering it.⁸

...even though his desire to help (because he cares, because he thinks it’s the right thing to do) is precisely what led to the culmination of his trauma.

KAIDAN: He hurt Rahna. Broke her arm. She reached for a glass of water instead of pulling it biotically. She just wanted a drink without getting a nosebleed, you know? Like an idiot, I stood up. Didn’t know what I was gonna do...just, something.

He figures out what went wrong and tries to avoid repeating that mistake. He doesn’t just stop trying at all. He doesn’t lose his faith in having faith.

It’s antithetical to how Nadia responded to her own circumstances, and she can’t quite process the logic behind...why you would be this way. It’s not that she expects everyone to be like her. She’s seen a lot of different people traumatized, and consequently a lot of different ways people have reacted to trauma. It’s more like: “fool me once” is enough for Nadia. There are no second chances after that. She sees no point in ruminating over why something went wrong. Just accept that it did. (Or don’t, but never think about it, anyway.) She thinks living any other way is akin to, I don’t know, laying down in a snake pit right after one just bit you. Stupid, in other words.

(I should also clarify: this is mainly when it concerns people. She will troubleshoot when it comes to things like tech.)

Like, I’ve joked about this to a friend, but when Nadia first reads Kaidan’s file⁹ her impression is: alright, boy scout. Then she actually meets him and she thinks her assessment was more or less spot on, and she loses whatever vestiges of interest his file did manage to leave despite its otherwise boy-scouty-ness.

But the thing is, Kaidan isn’t naive. He chooses to have the faith he has in the Alliance despite what they’ve put him through. He’s acutely aware that the Alliance is capable of mistakes, because he’s been on the receiving end of it—yet he still wants to help and feels that as a biotic, the Alliance is his best avenue to do that:

KAIDAN: I’m not looking for “the dream.” I just want to do some good. See what’s out here.

KAIDAN: Commander, I thought real hard about how to use my talents. When I swore the oath to defend the Alliance, it wasn’t on a whim.

Like, Nadia thinks Kaidan giving his loyalty to the Alliance is a stupid reaction, yes (in fairness, Nadia thinks loyalty to organizations in general is stupid), but it still fascinates her precisely because Kaidan has some semblance of an idea of what the Alliance’s negligence can and has caused, and yet he still continues to put his faith in them. Kaidan hasn’t had the easiest life¹⁰, but instead of closing himself off, his reaction was to give the Alliance a second chance, to still place his faith in others, all because he still wanted to do some good.

It’s not what Nadia has done, and she can’t say she understands it, but realizing that Kaidan isn’t the ignorant boy scout she pegged him as goes a long way when it comes to the development of their relationship. (For instance: it allows the relationship to develop at all, lmao.) And the development of their relationship is one of the early domino pieces in a long line of dominoes that sets Nadia down a much healthier path.¹¹

¹ We do know, however, that the Alliance does offer to pay college/university tuition in exchange for serving with them in some capacity, thanks to conversations with Traynor and Ashley.

² You know that one Iron Bull banter with Cole where he talks about how one of the first things he does when he meets a new person is to figure out the best way to kill them? Yeah, that’s Nadia.

³ This is because Anderson’s brain is huge, and he understood no one can forever live life the way Nadia was living hers unless they’re a death seeker.

⁴ One of the most in character renegade lines in the trilogy is, once again, during Thane’s loyalty (a big reason why it’s one of my favorites: it’s really, really good Nadia content) when you choose the first renegade check during the interrogation. Shepard sounds so bored, so matter-of-fact. That’s the kind of renegade Nadia is.

⁵ This is probably worse to some people compared to “hard” renegade, since at least “hard” renegade can genuinely believe in what they’re doing, even if others consider it evil. Fortunately, I don’t care.

⁶ I don’t really think she killed anyone during her time with the Reds. (Or, if she did, it was only one person and it would’ve been near the end of her time with them.) I think they primarily used her for cybercrime. She still would’ve witnessed and been expected to participate in a lot of beatings, etc. And, as previously said, had she stayed with the Reds I do think this would’ve ultimately progressed into her killing for them, too.

⁷ Though if you enjoy criticisms of capitalism, an exploration into the traumatizing effects of poverty, and an ultimately hopeful message that meaningful change is possible even when everyone is conditioned to believe it’s not, I recommend giving it a listen. It’s easy to follow along through audio alone, but you can find a low quality bootleg pretty easily, too. (Be warned that some of the songs will differ from the official album recording, though.)

⁸ If the remaster brings better lighting to Kaidan’s little hub area and doesn’t hideously whitewash him like in ME3, this is absolutely one of the first things I’m going to gif because it’s one of my favorite moments in the entire romance.

⁹ Nadia reads the files of everyone she’s going to work with, not because she’s particularly interested in them, but because she wants to know what level of incompetency to expect.

¹⁰ Unrelatedly: ask me about my headcanon about how disgustingly rich Kaidan’s family is, and how much Nadia wants to kill him when she finds this out.

¹¹ This is absolutely not saying love, romantic or otherwise, cures her lifetime worth of unpacked trauma.

#ch: nadia shepard #this post brought to you by: my very desperate need #not to look at the fic i've been trying to work on all month #this post also brought to you by: my obsession with nadia and hadestown overlapping #this post also-also brought to you by: my desire to simply talk about hadestown #and finally #this post also-also-also brought to you by:#my desire to regain the ability to string sentences together again #(see point 1)#i'm going to go farm balloons in acnh now

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if-found-return-to-gusu · 4 years

Text

Happy Birthday to Me pt 10

While he was gone, I kept dancing with A-Lian and making faces for her to giggle at. It worked quite nicely until she heard the obviously very familiar sound of her parents singing. Instantly deciding she was tired of her poor uncle’s antics in favor of wanting to be held by her mother (fair) I shuffled her along to the stage. She waddled the last few steps to her mom who immediately swooped her up. Jin Ling had already ascended to his rightful throne in his father’s arms again, his favorite place that evening it seems, and the two doting parents started to dance along with their song (which was, fittingly enough, “I wanna dance with somebody”. Pff)

Somewhere near the end of the song Lan Zhan finally came back with the promised sweets. He looked a bit concerned and mildly heartbroken to find that A-Lian was no longer with me. When he asked where she had gone I just pointed up to the almost obnoxiously perfect family picture on stage. (Obnoxious because of the peacock, and almost because Shijie is always perfect and never obnoxious.)

The king demanded that he get to sing a song so before they could be shuffled off the stage they were allowed to sing a rather off-key rendition of “twinkle twinkle little star” with A-Ling belting his little heart out and A-Lian babbling her best to follow along.

It was so adorable that I had to look at something else or I’d end up crying again. So instead I started poking at the cake that was still being held by the steadfast Lan Zhan.

I’d barely managed to shove a huge bite in my mouth when I felt a forceful yank, taking me away from my cake and my Lan Zhan! Unacceptable!

Turns out it was, of course, my darling little brother telling me it was my turn. RUDE

“YOu could have at least let me finish my cake, Asshole!” I grumbled at him once I was finally able to swallow the lump of frosting that had jammed my mouth shut.

(Gamby yelled at me to watch my language so close to the kids. Oops. Sorry Gamby)

I got shoved up on stage then despite my continued protests. SangSang asked me what I wanted to sing and after a moment of thought there really was no other choice for me.

Okay

I know it’s a meme.

Okay I get it. Alright? He-Man and lol and whatever. Haha. BUt for real,

“What’s Up” from 4 Non Blondes fuckig SLAPS okay?

And I’ve loved it WAY longer than it’s been a meme! Fuck you He-Man! (Yes I’m aware I used the meme in question on my blog once. I am a multi-faceted human being and am perfectly able to compartmentalize thank you).

So the song starts off pretty quiet but after a few seconds Gamby all of a sudden shrieked like an excited teenager and practically begged me to sing it too.

So obviously yes, right? I’m not gonna say no to a duet with Gamby!

Oh it was so FUN! We were both really hamming it up in the best way and sometimes barely even able to sing it because we were trying so hard not to laugh.

We had a stellar audience too, all looking comically enraptured by the song, swaying in time to the music. I think SangSang even pulled out a fake lighter ap on his phone to hold in the air as he swayed.

The song ended to energetic applause and we both took our bows dutifully before Gamby pulled me into another tight, tight hug.

“It’s our song,” she said in my ear. “I used to sing this to you when you were just a sprout!”

FUCK

Okay hold on.

Sorry the memory of it made me well up again.

So you have to understand. I have always LOVED this song. Not just, like, liked it or thought it was fun or anything. I LOVE this song. Like top 5 forever. Maybe even number 1. Just.

This song for me. It comforts me. I don’t remember anything from my early childhood but this song made me feel nostalgic. Safe. I found it when I was like… 15? 16? And just it was SO familiar.

It turns out that Gamby and Mom used to sing it together with me all the time. The feeling I was getting whenever I heard that song. It was her. And it was Mom. The feeling I get from that song is the feeling of being loved by my parents. With no expectations. Nothing to repay. Just pure love.

I don’t remember my mom. But I have that now. I have that feeling.

Okay

Okay I’m fine. I’ve blown my nose and we can carry on.

So I’d mostly re-composed myself by the time I found Lan Zhan again only to discover that he’d just stood there the whole time just…. Holding the cakes.

I freaked out a little due to my honestly a bit overly-emotional. I took the cakes away and set them aside so I could rub his arms while scolding him. (Did I really do that? Why?? Ugh I’m an idiot)

I told him he could have put the cakes on the table or something and that his arms must be tired! I think I just wanted an excuse to touch him more. But I was a bit high on adrenalynn and the liquor was still making me a little warm.

So I’m gonna blame it on that.

While I made a buffoon of myself, Jiang Cheng and Huaisang did a cover of Meatloaf’s Let me Sleep on It.

It was hilarious. They had taken the energy that had honestly started with “My Heart will Go On” and just cranked it all the way up to 11. It was so good to see Jiang Cheng just having FUN without having to worry what he looked like for once.

He always has to be on his best behavior. It must be exhausting.

But now, with Nie Huaisang playing the part of the overly-pushy love interest asking him to ‘love her forever’ and Jiang Cheng pleading for more time to consider back and forth. Ah it was amazing. I rested my head on Lan Zhan’s shoulder while I watched it, feeling pleasantly warm and just honestly so loved. It struck me again just how many people had come here just to celebrate me. I still can’t wrap my head around it.

I held Lan Zhan’s hand as I thought about it though, lacing our fingers together because I can and it’s free. I sighed after a while, just feeling so content. I told Lan Zhan as much and was rewarded by a hand playing idly with my hair.

“I’m glad you are,” he said. I could feel the words rumbling in his chest. “You deserve to be.”

I looked up at him then, all indignant because how dare he ruin a perfect moment by embarrassing me like that (he ruined nothing. I just like being dramatic). But then I realized just how close we were and my protests just kinda never found their way past my throat. I traced every feature of his perfect face with my eyes, longing to do it with my lips instead. The urge was almost tangible. For a second it almost felt like I might die if I didn’t press a kiss to every part of his face I could. His forehead. His nose. His cheeks. His eyelids. His chin. His lips.

I leaned forward a hair when he spoke and broke the spell.

Thank god.

I think he asked me why I was staring or something. It’s the only thing that made sense, but I didn’t really hear him due to the fuzzy static in my ears. I got up quickly lest I fall into a stupor again. Curse you Lan Zhan. Curse you and your perfect face. I looked around the room to find something to latch on to and my eyes fell upon the tragically under-utilized photo booth!

It was one of those fancy ones you see at all the weddings and big parties now-a-days. The kind that’s a huge mirror that you can write on and with like the props and stuff.

I immediately decided that there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to immortalize that frustratingly perfect face next to mine and I dragged him over to the photo booth.

We had already agreed we needed to fix our ‘lack of selfies together’ problem after all, didn’t we?

By the time we got here, we’d been beaten to the punch by the beautiful Wens. Wen Ning and Wen Qing were making funny faces in the mirror with A-Yuan and aaaah my heart!

I don’t think I’d EVER seen Wen Qing pull faces like that. I’m so glad I get to keep those photos forever. With that in mind I realized I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to be included! So naturally I photobombed! Well. More I bodily shoved them to the side to make room for me to starfish in front of them.

I suppose I should have anticipated the vicious crack to my head even if it was my birthday. Wen Qing’s finger snaps are murder!

Mortally wounded, I crawled my way back to Lan Zhan so that I might at the very least die in his arms.

I complained that Wen Qing was being mean because she was and that I was going to have a bruise on my forehead for the rest of the night! Mostly I just wanted to see if he would kiss it better for me.

Except.

He actually did.

;ADFJ;LKSDJF;AJKF;ASLJF;JF

WHY MUST MY PLANS ALL BACKFIRE ON ME???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Wei Ying.exe has stopped. Please wait while we reboot the system.

Would you like to submit an error report? Yes | No

Oh I must have been so red. I was still riding on that ‘It’s my birthday I do what I want’ feeling though and it spawned the following word vomit.

When he asked me if it felt better.

I told him

Yes

But.

“I think I need another kiss just to make sure. You wouldn’t want the birthday boy to be incapacitated for the rest of his party, now would you?”

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

AND OF COURSE LAN ZHAN WENT ALONG WITH IT AND KISSED THE SPOT AGAIN. BECAUSE HE ALWAYS INDULGES ME AND DOESN’T SEEM TO KNOW THAT HE SHOULDN’T BE ENCOURAGING ME LIKE THIS?!?!?!?

I heard the sound of the lovely Dr. Wen gagging behind me. Fair.

But then we were saved by my hero A-Yuan who ran up to hug Lan Zhan’s fucking anime legs and thanked him so sincerely for healing his Xian-Gege.

“You’re so right, A-Yuan! He’s great like that!” said, kneeling down to pat his back approvingly and ruffle his already party-ruffled hair.

Then I noticed that we had somehow managed to edge into the frame of the photo booth and the countdown to the next picture had started. I tried to warn Lan Zhan to get ready but turns out that was the WRONG action. He looked up at the exact worst possible moment so when the mirror showed us back our picture it showed me yelling, A-Yuan looking into space, and Lan Zhan’s face morphed into a hideous slug monster.

This set A-Yuan to giggling right away, claiming that his bunny gege was a monster!

Lan Zhan growled at him, playing along, which got me going.

LAN ZHAN. STOP. MAKING. ME. FEEL. THE. THING. I. AM. NOT. READY. TO. ADDRESS. YET.

FUCK

;LDKJFSA;LJKF;SKJDF;LKFJ;FLK

Lan Zhan is NOT allowed near kids anymore! My heart can’t take the strain!

To cover up my newest surge of emotion, I demanded we take some proper pictures!

Wen Ning, angel that he is, took A-Yuan away so we could have pictures with just the two of us. Lan Zhan looked ready to protest, so for the sake of my poor heart, I pressed the ‘picture’ button to distract him. I gave him an arrow that said ‘birthday boy’ on it, which we barely got pointing in the right direction in time, and grabbed a lovely handlebar mustache for myself while claiming to be DaGe and told him to smile.

Bless his soul he actually did. I don’t know how he manages to tolerate all my stupid antics. Somehow he always seems to be able to take me in stride while staying (mostly) unruffled. I should take lessons.

The picture came out perfect! ♥

So Naturally I demanded a million more.

We did a few with props and a few without. And some silly faces and some serious faces. And some faces that were so serious they circled back to silly. Lan Zhan was a real champ and went along with all my hijinks.

Then I remembered the tree incident that everyone yelled at me over.

If he catches me I’ll…..

That sentiment was so strong. I don’t even know how that thought ends. I’ll what?

I still don’t know.

This time I at least gave him some warning.

I told him to hold out his arms so I could jump into him in a much safer recreation of the tree yeet.

The picture snapped right as I landed in his arms and I remembered to look just in time so that I could grin at the camera and not Lan Zhan in an attempt to be slightly less obvious. When the picture came back though Lan Zhan was looking straight at me. Probably trying to make sure he didn’t drop me. But fuck.

I’m keeping that one in my wallet once we get them printed.

Apparently my leap got the attention of the rest of the party because suddenly EVERYONE was there. It was like a clown car with everyone squishing in to see how many of us we could fit in a single picture. Ah it was amazing. We grabbed some props for added panache and I managed to wrangle it so that Lan Zhan and I were still in the middle with all my friends and family squashed around us.

In a brilliant idea on how to save space, I decided that I should just get as close as possible to Lan Zhan and gave him a big fat smooch on his cheek. I was rewarded when I saw the end result with what had to be the best picture ever taken.

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng had their hands in each other’s faces, trying to push each other out of frame, each of them barely managing to stay in the back corners of the picture.

Below them and to the left, DaGe was looking entirely too pleased to be squished in that close to Lan Xichen who was holding at least 7 different props and looking ecstatically excited. Wen Qing and Shijie were next to each other on the front right, holding A-Yuan and A-Ling respectively. The four of them were holding up peace signs, their faces all close together to try to fit in the picture.

Front Left was Jin ZiXuan with A-Lian, rubbing their noses together and looking admittedly adorable.

The front center had MianMian and Qin Su making innocent doll eyes at the camera, their hands laced together and their cheeks squished up against each other. Directly in the back center Gamby and Aunty Yi were imitating them perfectly.

To the middle right sat Wen Ning looking like he was just happy to be included. He’s such a sweetie.

And right in the center of all that commotion was myself and Lan Zhan. I was planting the most obnoxious kiss I could manage on his cheek and he was grinning like the sun.

Oh.

My God.

OH MY GOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

After celebrating the best picture ever made we all somehow managed to disentangle ourselves from each other, with many knocking elbows and a lot of laughter.

#wei wuxian #wei ying #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #cql #mdzs #Long Post #(Modern AU!)

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euphorieds · 4 years

Text

oh finally ur here bitch u got a dollar ?? so i can go buy some LOVE AND AFFECTION ,, open ur purse i kno u hav it !!! anywaysjkhskehjks tiktoks literally making up my entire identity aside ,, hi ! i’m mira , im 19 nd its so nice 2 meet yall !!!

♡. jung haein. cismale. he/him. — there goes ARTHUR KANG, who appears to be a TWENTY-NINE year old VAMPIRE. word is the ELEMENTARY TEACHER was born in 1991 and has been in town for A YEAR. you might know them as + SINCERE and - RETICENT. stray paint on his cheek, smiles dipped in sunlight & gold, late nights through winding streets, polaroids of anything & everything covering walls.

life b4 the vampire stuffz

so arthur was born to a Human single mom nd had a little sister younger by 9 years who he adored Very Much , and they lived in a small apartment above his mom’s restaurant . they weren’t like ... Totally Rich ? nd they had their struggles,, but arthur was always v content nd happie w his life bc he had his mom nd sister nd thats what rly mattered !!

he was popular in school bc of his ~good looks~ nd also bc he was just a rly friendly nd dependable person !! nd he had his Fair share of confessions from both guys nd girls but he was always like “no sorry!! im not v interested in dating” nd then he’d go home to his mom nd his little sister nd when he was done w all his schoolwork, he’d help out at the restaurant

his mama always complained abt the Swarms of fans that hogged tables at the restaurant nd it was in good nature !!! but arthur had to go convince his fans 2 buy smth so his mom wouldnt throw a towel at him

arthur graduated high school nd decided to get into teaching bc he just loved being able to see the way his sister’s eyes lit up when she understood what he was teaching !! he thought it was v sweet nd endearing :( <3 so when he wasn’t studying, he was working at his mom’s restaurant even tho she always told him to go away nd live his life JHHDJK

so . in college . while he was drinking w a few friends . he also realized he was Very Much Bisexual when he was looking at his guy friend nd was like oh thats rly nice nd then told his mom nd she jus patted his cheek nd said good job .

anyways JHGHDK he graduated college , got that slappin degree nd got into teaching at a local but private elementary school !! so he was getting that coin !!! and this is the part where his life got turned upside down !!!

arthur met june when he was 28 . they had come 2 the restaurant and eventually, the pair struck up a friendship (mostly bc arthur was Intrigued that a vampire would eat normal food like he knew they could but he was like ... why tho ) . and june jus kept coming to the restaurant everyday . they became close, hung out after hours all the time, nd arthur was rly thinking like ... did he have feelings or is this jus a good friendship ?

anyways those feelings backfired bc the whole time arthur had known june,,, they’d been slowly exchanging their blood w his in hopes of turning arthur . why ? we dont know (it was for fun nd bc they Could)

so arthur . he turned bc eventually the magic took hold , nd june disappeared . in response , arthur locked himself up in his room nd tried to jus . undo what june did . bc he didnt want to live forever, but he didnt want to die either bc he still has friends around, and his family .

after the vampire stuffz ...

arthur was So Scared of hurting the ppl he loved , nd he tried to last as long as possible w/o feeding on animals or ppl nd isolating himself, but it just . didnt work . so arthur took himself out of his confinement, packed all his things nd left home for coeur cove . he never told his mom or his little sister , nd he feels Immense Regret for not saying anything .

a year in coeur cove meant that he took up a job teaching at the local elementary school, nd it was one of the few things that rly made him smile !! he also bought a polaroid camera , nd has a habit of just taking photos of everything that makes him happy bc hes licherlaly just terrified of living for a long time nd not being able 2 remember the small things

honestly he still hates the fact he’s a vampire but he jus doesnt think abt it .... arthur: we are Compartmentalizing laidease ... we do not See .

now hes just ?? hes jus vibing . hes still as sweet as he was back then but hes definitely a lot more ?? secretive abt a lot of things . he doesnt talk abt who he was b4 Turning :( bc hes scared to .. hes jus baby ..

wanted connections

a frIEND .... listen these are limitless i want him to have FRIENDS but its just gonna be like ... no one knows Anything abt him before coeur cove nd he keeps it that way . but hes someone who will listen 2 ur problems and also get into the weirdest positions to take a good fuckin photo of u !!! (unLIMITED spots ....)

give him an Almost Romantic Relationship ... but they fell out bc he just never opened up JHSSJKSHJKS listen the DRAMA of that .. very sexy . (1/1 w/ katherine carter)

close friend .... this is the One Person . Or Two People . in all of coeur cove who know abt his past ... like . these are the ppl he’d consider a True Ride or Die . there’s som MAJOR trust for these ppl bc he liCHERALLY jus says nothing abt who he was (0/2)

neighbor(s) who put(s) up with arthur and the occasional loud noises that come from his apartment but no he aint smashing hes just very clumsy and has too much knockable furniture in his place

give me like .... ppl who he Parents unintentionally . hes been taking care of his little sister his whole life,, hes an elementary school teacher .... ppl who hes gonna say “say bye bye bus” out loud to and then be Mortified for the rest of his life . but if ur ever sick he shows up w soup nd is like ‘hoW could u get sick do u not eat ur vitamins ??’

also u know what would be absolutely sexy . give me june . i actually should put a wanted connection for this but can u imagine the absolute DRAMA of arthur meeting the person who ruined his life . i think that’d b VERY sexy . anyways . im keeping this in mind 4 later jHSJHSHSKSJ

going off from the top one give me like . an enemy .... or like they jus cant fucking stand each other for some reason nd its like .. arthur when he sees them: oh :) . hello :). would u like 2 be dropkicked :) ?

anyways gOD ok my brain tiny but like.... lms if u wanna plot... u better lms or i’ll aggressively renegade on dash...

#coeurintro #no one:#me: RENEGADE RENEGADE DOOHWAP HAH HAH #its almost 3am but i felt the Urge to check my laptop nd whEW glad i did that ... coeurcove soft open babey !!!

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