#barely have the interest and motivation to relearn it

[lassieposting]

Chinhands

Okay so like, long post incoming, but here me out:

This isn’t my first post on Astarion & CPTSD – there’s this one here, about some of the more obvious symptoms he might end up dealing with during his healing journey; there’s also this one, about some ways his lover might use magic to help support him in a world without therapy; and then there’s this one, which is headcanons rather than meta, but has my thoughts on vampires as camouflage predators, and how Astarion might change physically as he goes from starving to well-fed. Those kinda tie into this so, linked for easy context.

But those posts all focus on the visible aspects of CPTSD – the symptoms everyone around you can pick up on. And. The thing is. A lot of the longterm effects of extensive trauma are actually not outwardly obvious. They're quiet. Insidious. Fundamental facets of your worldview become warped and twisted by your traumatic experiences. You look at the world - or at least, the parts of the world affectd by your trauma - through a goddamn funhouse mirror, and that's your normal. And part of the healing process - I'll pause here for us all to share a collective bitter laugh - is realising just how broken your idea of How The World Works is, and having to relearn from the ground up how things actually function outside of your trauma bubble.

So, y’all know what I think Astarion would struggle with without even realising it?

Disordered eating. A messy, complicated, love-hate relationship with food and how feeding makes him feel about himself.

Like. Most living things are hardwired to avoid certain negative experiences. A creature that has starved will often hoard food to ensure they won’t starve again. A creature that has fallen from a great height and experienced physical pain will be more careful to avoid other falls in future. A social creature that has experienced humiliation or disgrace will be distressed by those feelings, and adjust their behaviour to try and avoid feeling them again. The more bad experiences we have with a specific stimulus – drinking blood, in Astarion's case - the more we associate that stimulus with the negative physical or emotional consequences we will suffer, and the more avoidant we are likely to become.

As a real life example: an autistic child who talks enthusiastically about her special interest and is met with mockery and social rejection by her classmates will learn to hide her authentic self from the world to try and fit in: the pain of the bullying motivates her to distance herself from her own autistic tendencies, which are an essential component of how her brain works. She ends up trapped between her deep desire to engage with her special interest, and the training she has received from her peers that to do so is bad, unacceptable, social suicide. She learns to hate her autistic behaviours for causing her to be bullied, but she still feels the need to engage in them.

Astarion is in the same boat. He craves blood anyway as a vampire, and the hunger is made all the more intense because he is starving. But for the first 200-ish years of his undeath, we know that feeding has been a deeply unpleasant experience for him, and that will have left a deep imprint on how he sees the act of feeding, how it makes him feel. To eat is one of the most basic instincts of every single living (and, in this case, undead) creature, a fundamental source of positive emotions (satisfaction, fullness, satiety, enjoyment, happy taste buds etc) with a massive impact on a creature's quality of life - and Cazador has gleefully warped and twisted the very concept into an attack on his spawns' personhood. He uses it to dehumanize and humiliate them, and that's all they've ever known. So they will have learned to associate feeding with deeply negative emotions - humiliation, shame, disgust, fear and pain. For example:

STARVATION

Astarion tells us that Cazador fed him just barely enough to keep him functioning. Starvation is a trauma that, on its own, is likely to cause disordered coping behaviours in the victim. We actually see some of these in-game:

Astarion keeps a sizeable stash of bottled blood in his tent. This is an example of resource hoarding – he’s afraid of starving again, and he’s stockpiling food as a safeguard.

Individuals who have suffered starvation (or who have been forced to follow a restrictive diet by a parent as adolescents) often find that they struggle to impose healthy limits on their own food intake once food is plentiful lor they age out of the parent’s dietary control). We see this in Astarion during the bite scene: he can kill the player character if they fail a roll to convince or force him to stop feeding before he drains them dry.

We know that Astarion's feeding time is late at night – he tells the player that he’ll come to them for a meal once they’re in their bedroll and everyone is asleep. This seems like a strange choice, considering Astarion's tenuous self-control, but my personal headcanon is that he feeds so late because, like many starved creatures, he’s food-aggressive. Cazador absolutely seems the type to throw an insufficient number of rats to his starving spawn for them to fight over: Astarion is likely used to having to viciously defend his paltry meal, or one of his siblings will take it from him. So the player starts out offering him breakfast along with everyone else – but they’re interrupted, Gale nearly loses a hand when Astarion snaps at him, and the decision is made to feed him separately, so he doesn’t feel threatened.

SENSORY DISTRESS

Astarion talks about being compelled to choke down the blood of bugs and putrid rat corpses - at one point idly remarking that, "I've eaten things that would disgust most vultures." - so we know that a lot of what Cazador was feeding him was a) already dead and b) actively going off, and that offers up so many potential sensory triggers.

After death, blood begins to coagulate, clotting and curdling into a semisolid - that could be a texture issue.

Rotting corpses smell vile - that could be a scent issue.

We know putrid corpse blood doesn't taste good to vampires - iirc he calls it sewer water or dirty ditch-water, in comparison to "plonk" (woodland animal blood) and "fine wine" (the player character's blood).

Corpses often also come with the lovely bonus of maggots, which are a hardcoded signal to humans (and presumably elves) that food is no longer fit for consumption. The disgust response is instinctive, to make us avoid eating the rotten item. But Astarion would’ve had to choke it down anyway – probably wanting to hurl all the while.

NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS

Astarion tells us at one point that if he refused the disgusting carcasses Cazador gave him, his alternative was being flayed alive. That makes the disgusting food a choice, and one he doesn't really have any choice but to make. He would also need to be fed after his torture sessions in the kennels, to give him enough blood to heal himself before being sent out after more victims. This would eventually build a link in his mind between being fed and being hurt.  

There's also a dialogue where Astarion explicitly tells us that Cazador would suggest they dine together after Astarion brought someone home for his master to feed on. The alternative, as above, is getting flayed. So that makes a horrible three-way feedback loop of negative emotions: being forced to prostitute himself -> being forced to feed -> being tortured -> being forced to feed again -> and round and round again.

BODY IMAGE

This one is more headcanon than theory and ties into my other post about vampire biology, but it's still a point worth mentioning imo. Astarion's life has essentially revolved around sex, however unwilling, for 200 years, and that's become intrinsically linked with his identity - the way he sees himself, the way he interacts with the world. He makes several comments that all but explicitly state that he views himself as a prostitute, and his entire survival strategy in the outside world hinges on his ability to essentially leverage his attractiveness and his bedroom skills to snag himself a smitten protector. Iirc, there's a point in one of the breakup dialogue trees where he'll bitterly refer to sex as his only talent and say that he knows what people think he's good for. He is putting on an act almost constantly, always thinking about how best to portray himself to get the outcome he wants, how to make use of his target's desire for him.

And? This man has, for 200 years, been taught that people like him starving. He knows that the dehydrated-muscle, prominent-collarbone, deathly-pale hungry-eyed vampire look works for him. He's been found consistently desirable even though he doesn't look anything like a healthy, well-fed vampire should, and for someone who's so reliant on being hot, that's going to be hard to let go of. At this point, it may well make him anxious to be so well-fed that his body functions start coming back online, that he can fill out a little to how he looked when Cazador first turned him, that his unshakeable seducer act can be disrupted by things like blushing for flattery. After 200 years of seeing your body starving and thinking that that is how you are at your most attractive, being able to far better imitate a living elf could well be quite distressing for him.

So. At this point, as the game begins, Astarion most likely mostly hates feeding. It makes him feel terrible – degraded, humiliated, disgusted – and has almost no redeeming features. The blood he’s getting doesn’t even taste good, let alone sate his hunger. Feeding him is, essentially, just another torture technique of Cazador's. And yet, he still craves it desperately – debases himself begging for it, feels pathetically grateful for the tiniest scrap he’s given, finds his mouth watering at the sight of vermin. That’s already a horrible, mixed-up place to be emotionally.

And now it's going to get more confusing for him. Enter the player character.

Astarion gets to feed on a thinking creature for the first time, and with it, an array of positive emotions and sensations he's never gotten to experience before, in all the time he’s been a vampire. For example:

SOCIAL SUPPORT

When the PC calls Astarion out for trying to sneakily bite them in their sleep, he explains that he usually feeds on animals, but he's currently too weak and slow to bring any down. This is interesting, because in his Origin, it's a nightmare about Cazador that prompts him to bite a companion. But...I don't think it's a lie. We see multiple times throughout the game that Astarion doesn't cope well with being put on the spot - he gets flustered and kind of starts rambling - but this line comes off without hesitation. It is, if not the truth, still a truth. And the PC doesn't take advantage of that admission - he's vulnerable, but the PC doesn't hurt him or try to make him pay them with sex. Instead they just...feed him.

PHYSICAL STRENGTH & MENTAL CLARITY

He explicitly tells you that he feels strong after drinking from you – and he goes straight out hunting, backing that up – and he has a surprised exclamation that his mind is “finally clear”. He’s been living with hunger-induced brain fog for centuries. He must feel like you’ve given him his brain back.

JOY

He’s sated. He just had a meal that tasted good. He's getting all those positive food feelings for the first time - a massive rush of endorphins to a brain starved of happy chemicals for two hundred years. How many things have made this man happy since he died? It would be overwhelming.

CONNECTION

Held up against how Astarion is used to being treated, this gesture from the PC is an overwhelming show of kindness and generosity. They choose to trust him - even though, as he'll admit in the graveyard, that's an objectively stupid thing to do - and they offer freely something that makes him feel good. Him, a man who's usually forced to degrade himself for "rewards" that make him feel terrible. And as if that's not enough, they accept him for what he is, continue to give him the protection of a group, and they defend him to the others in the morning. He's feeling grateful and giddy and warm for the first time in centuries, and he knows it's all thanks to you.

But

That's going to give him a lot of complicated feelings, because he still has all those negative emotions related to feeding too. And they're not going to go away just because he's found out thinking creature blood is actually nice. They're going to clash against that new enjoyment and make him feel all confused and weird and mixed up. He might still feel shame, even though he enjoyed the meal. He might still find himself wrestling with pointless dread, because he associates feeding with torture and abuse, even though he knows Cazador is miles and miles away. It's a small step towards seeing feeding in a less negative light, but that’s all. And like, up to this point he hasn’t even realised that he might be able to enjoy drinking blood, because to him, Cazador's horrors are normal. That’s all he’s ever known – the only experience of food he’s ever had as a vampire. Feeding Is Horrible And Degrading is a fundamental fact of life that he’s just starting to realise...may not actually be true. That’s like...having a rug yanked out from under his feet. Scary. Distressing. Out of control. Which could make him lean more towards avoiding feeding for a while, to get that control back.

So how do the scales start to tip more towards really enjoying feeding?

I think it would be the introduction of the social aspect. As just this once becomes regular feeding arrangement, he's going to realise that he gets the high of all those positive emotions every time he feeds from the PC, and he's going to start associating that giddy, happy feeling with them specifically. Because we know that while animal blood is Fine He Guesses, and he does get merry on bear blood at one point, it's nothing remotely close to person blood. Woodland creatures still make up a decent chunk of his diet, but he doesn't get the same emotional kick out of them.

And like. He likes feeling good like that. It's addictive. So he'll keep wanting to go back for more – making excuses to spend more time with them, with feeding being a very convenient excuse. He's creating a positive feedback loop for himself of happy chemicals and like, crush feelings, and every time he indulges, he’s unwittingly handing over tiny little fragments of trust and affection in exchange. It's difficult not to start liking someone who makes you feel good, especially if you're so unfamiliar with the feeling. He finds himself that little bit less tense around his willing midnight snack. He laughs more easily around them, finds he's more inclined to indulge do-gooder tendencies, realises he's starting to enjoy spending time with them. He doesn't necessarily realise it, but feeding is no longer just about quenching his blood thirst. It's become a bonding activity. He’s like a semiferal rescue animal, building an emotional connection with you as protector and provider. He’s learning that you’re trustworthy.

And then, as your relationship with him develops and deepens, sex gets involved, and he plays himself.

In one of the dialogues where Astarion offers the PC sex, he explicitly calls it a reward for feeding him, and flirtatiously brings up PC's biting kink - that he can tell they enjoy it when he drinks their blood. This always lowkey makes me laugh because like. Up to this point, Astarion has had no reason to ever connect feeding with sex. Cazador doesn't let him drink from thinking creatures, and since Astarion talks about his prey being "dragged away" to be fed on, it seems like Cazador generally took his meals privately, so mixing the two isn't something Astarion got from watching him. This is something he's picked up from you.

Anyway. I'm not sure which way around they happen, but during his first sex scene, Tav gets the option to encourage him to bite them again, and he will. Obviously, he's not going to turn down "vintage wine", but this also makes strategic sense from the perspective of his plan to get Tav to protect him - he's probably thinking that he's locked them down because they can't scratch this particular itch elsewhere. They now need him. Except - whoops, he actually likes sleeping with them, and he's starting to catch feelings. And because he's come to associate biting Tav with all those good feelings anyway, making it A Sex Thing just shifts his perspective a little, makes him realise that he’s getting something out of these interactions that he gets hooked on.

Feeding has become a source of emotional intimacy. He's beginning to feel loved, cared for, valued. Close to the PC. And that, to someone so utterly love-deprived, is potentially enough to make it feel more positive than negative over time.

(As a side note, I quite like the idea that it'll become a sort of self-soothing strategy for him for a while. If he's stressed or afraid or hurting, he'll nibble on the PC to remind and reassure himself that he can - that he's safe and loved and no longer starving. He'll nip at them to deliberately induce those positive feelings of emotional closeness in himself, if he thinks they'll outweigh the bad ones that come with.)

But even so, those bad associations will probably never fully go away or stop affecting him. He’ll probably still always hear Cazador's belittling laughter if someone walks in on him feeding – look at you, boy, not so proud now, are you? Crawling on the floor for vermin, how utterly pathetic. He’ll probably always wrestle with feelings of stress and anxiety after feeding for no obvious reason, because his primitive lizard brain still treats it like a traumatic experience sometimes even when he's feeding on his living, trusted lover. It’s going to take him such a long time to wrap his head around just how fucked up all the reactions Cazador trained into him are, how different from his new experiences as a free vampire.

Anyway. Idk how well I explained all these thoughts but. Yeah. Astarion + disordered eating issues.

#bg3 #bg3 meta #bg3 headcanons #astarion ancunin #tw eating issues #tw disordered eating #tw ed

[minervadashwood]

Scars and Stitches, Ch. 10: Home

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Series Masterlist | Masterlist

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Summary: Daryl finds a surprise in the woods, then another at camp. Warnings: nothing notable. Note: This chapter has a major canon divergence. This is also one of my favorite chapters so, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

=======

"Beloved. Heart of mine. I know you are weary. Forgive me. I cannot let you go." ― Christine Feehan, Dark Lycan

Daryl missed you.  Day after day he was out looking for Sophia, motivated by Carol’s tears and the fact that the little girl was going through what he had many years ago.  That should have held all his focus.

But it didn’t.  He’d gotten used to being with you most of the day, having little chats, sharing meals, riding Merle’s bike, or whiling away the evening in comfortable silence.  But now he barely saw you.  It wasn’t the same way he’d missed Merle (both times), instead it was like part of him was absent, back on that farm while he searched in the woods.  Daryl had cared for others romantically before —usually anyone (man or woman) with a little kindness and a cute smile—but he’d never acted on those feelings.  It seemed pretty pointless. He was a no-good drifter, not worth anyone’s time or attention. It also hadn’t helped that Merle would bully Daryl any time he might show the slightest sign of softness or tenderness. Daryl perfected the art of burying any romantic feelings down deep, never to be acknowledged or acted upon.

When it came to sex, Daryl was also hesitant.  Aside from that time Merle hired a sex worker to “make him a man,” Daryl had never been physically intimate with anyone.  Whether it was his natural shyness or the impersonal nature of his first time, Daryl just wasn’t interested in fucking someone he didn’t genuinely care about.  And he didn’t let himself care about anyone because that made life ultimately more painful. It was easier to shut off whatever he was feeling and find other ways to occupy his time.

However, turning off his feelings was harder and harder these days. Merle was gone, and every time Daryl showed someone kindness, especially you, he was met with warmth instead of shame.  Then, at the end of a hard day you would hug him and trust him and understand him even when he couldn’t speak.  When that happened, he lowered his defenses to let the thought of you—and the thought of having you—inside.

As time went on, the more he wanted from you, and not just easy conversations and soothing silences.  Not a day, sometimes not even an hour, went by when he didn’t think about kissing you.  And those thoughts always turned into something more. He imagined you naked as he trailed his fingers over every dip and curve, memorizing parts of you that you would only let him see, only let him touch. He imagined relearning your body with his lips, teeth, and tongue; imagined you moaning and writhing beneath him as he made you his, in every way imaginable. 

Still, when he realized these thoughts had spiraled out of control, he would force the fantasies deep down, until they sat like a lead weight in his belly. He was not good enough for anyone, and especially not you.  It was a practiced refrain, and he’d spent his life perfecting it.

*

While searching for Sophia, Daryl always worked on his own, the way he preferred it.  Every day he left at dawn and came back at night.  He only talked to Rick enough to review the search grid, get his coordinates for the next day, and grab a bite to eat, before collapsing in his bed.

On the fourth day, even he was feeling a bit hopeless, but then he stumbled upon what appeared to be a deserted hunting camp. It was the sort of place where men would gather on weekends to hunt in the morning and then get high or drink themselves to a stupor at night.  The kind of place where him and Merle whiled away many hours when Merle was selling drugs during hunting season.

After checking the perimeter of the small building, Daryl looked in each of the windows.  The place was empty as far as he could tell, so he went in.  Crossbow loaded and out, he made his way quietly through each room.  He found empty beer cans littering every surface, two dead bodies, and one hunting rifle.  Then he started checking closets and cabinets. 

In the kitchen he opened the door to a broom closet and saw a dirty, frightened little girl with Carol’s eyes staring up at him.  Daryl could scarcely believe it.  He reached to take Sophia’s hand, but the girl flinched away from him. 

He put away his crossbow and squat down.  “’member me?  I’m Daryl.  I’ll take you back to your mom.”

Sophia clutched her doll and glanced around.  “Where is everyone else?  Where’s my mom? Where’s Rick?”

Daryl for a fleeting moment wondered if he looked too scary for Sophia to trust him.   He took a knee.  “We found this farm with real nice people.  Your mom’s there, so is Rick, Miss Morgan, Carl, everybody.”

Sophia relaxed a little, and said, “Do you promise to keep me safe?”

“I promise, but you’ll have to stick close an’ do what I say, alright?”  He held out his hand again.

Sophia nodded and placed her hand in his.  They walked a few steps before Sophia swayed on her feet.  Daryl sat her down on the kitchen counter and took a water and protein bar from his pack.  He’d learned from your trip to rescue Merle and had packed provisions that wouldn’t gross out a little girl.

Once Sophia drank half the bottle and finished the protein bar, they set out again.

==

You were helping Carol with the laundry when Andrea appeared, breathless and smiling.

“Daryl found her!” she announced.

Instantly, both you and Carol dropped everything and followed Andrea.  Sophia and Daryl were still two small spots in the distance, but that didn’t stop Carol from going into a full-blown sprint to them.  You stayed near the RV, with Andrea and Dale, and watched the happy reunion from there.  Carol cried and so did Sophia, and in between hugging her daughter, Carol was hugging Daryl.  He stood there like a mannequin, dirt covered and obviously unsure of himself.  Eventually, Carol took Sophia’s hand, then Daryl’s, and led all three of them to the RV.  To your amazement, Sophia let go of Carol’s hand and ran to hug you.  You’d barely interacted with the girl except to read her bedtime stories.

“I’m so proud of you, Sophia,” you told her. “Keeping yourself safe and trusting Daryl to bring you home.”

Sophia let go of you and smiled at you with tired eyes.  For a moment you thought of Duane and the last time you hugged him, of leaving him and Morgan, the only thing close to family you’d had in this world.

Carol said, “C’mon, Sophia, Mommy’s going to get you cleaned up, put you in some new clothes, and fix you a good meal.”  Sophia waved to you and headed to the camp with her mom.

Dale came down from the lookout spot, and Andrea took his place.  He patted Daryl on the back and said, “Well done, son.  You’ve earned a rest.  You can’t know what this means to everyone.  We’re lucky to have you.”

Daryl stared at the ground.  “Kid did good out there. Knew she’d be alright.”

Dale looked at you, “Make sure he gets a good rest. He’s earned it.”

“And then some,” you agreed.

Daryl pulled his gaze away from the ground and said, “Goin’ back out to fetch the others.  No point in ‘em bein’ out there longer than they hafta be.”

“But Daryl,” you said, reaching a hand to his elbow. 

He didn’t flinch, but you saw him tense up at the gesture.  You removed your hand immediately.

“’m alright.  Best get everyone in one place again.”

You nodded, knowing he wouldn’t rest if there was something he’d set his mind on doing.

==

That night, when Daryl made his way over to his tent, you were already zipped up in your own space. He could see your silhouette as you read a book with light from a lantern.

He was hoping for one of your amazing hugs but decided not to trouble you. So, he went to his own tent.  He froze on the spot when he saw Merle’s air mattress in there, all made up with a sleeping bag laid open and a couple of blankets spread on top of it, like a maid had provided him turn down service.  This wasn’t right.  You needed the mattress more than he did.

Daryl left his tent and stood just outside yours.

“Ya decent?” he asked.

*

“Huh? Oh. Yep,” you answered Daryl, startled from your reading. You were already dressed in a loose tank top and soft cotton shorts, your go-to pajamas lately. You were grateful the tank was a dark color because you’d also shed your bra right after dinner. Underwires weren’t made to be worn at night.

“I’m comin’ in,” he said.

You dog-eared the page you’d been reading and watched as Daryl opened the door to your tent.

He looked down at you for a moment, then said, “C’mere.”

You furrowed your brow.  “Something wrong?” He nodded at the tent door, no further explanation given. You got to your feet, confused, but also knowing Daryl never did anything without purpose.

He followed you out of your tent, zipping it up behind him. You turned to see him carrying your book and the battery-powered lantern in one hand.  With his other hand, he grabbed your wrist and led you into his tent.

“What the hell, Daryl?” you said, once you were inside.

“Yer sleepin’ there.” Not waiting for your reaction, he put the book on the mattress and set the lantern on an upside-down crate that was next to the bed.

“I don’t need that mattress anymore,” you explained.  “I’m finished with the transfusions. Besides, you’ve been running yourself ragged looking for Sophia then coming home to look after me.  You deserve a good sleep more than anyone else.”

“I ain’t lettin’ you sleep on the ground when you don’t have to.”

You were torn between guilt and pleasure at the way he took care of you, but you would not let him do it at his own expense. “Daryl, I have no problem following your lead when we’re out there, but when we’re home, you don’t need to fuss over me.  You are sleeping on that mattress, and that’s final.”

Daryl turned and zipped his tent closed. Blocking the doorway, he kicked off his boots, took off his belt, and removed his knife holster from it. Then he stripped off his flannel shirt and dingy tank top, tossing them off to the side. You allowed yourself the swiftest of glances at his bare chest, but then forced yourself to stare at the tent wall. Daryl, moving away from the tent door, placed his knife and holster beside the lantern.

 The coast was clear. You said, “I’ll just go back to my—"

Before you could finish that thought, Daryl stalked toward you like a feral beast and scooped you up bridal style. With a yelp, you wrapped your arms around his neck. Without a word, he carried you to the bed and carefully laid you on the center of the mattress. Then, not giving you any chance to move away, he flopped down beside you, flung his arm around your middle, effectively holding you in place. With you on your back and Daryl on his side, his hard body met your soft one, so that your bare arm pressed into the planes of his chest and stomach. You flushed from head to toe. Whatever aesthetic attraction you’d had for him was quickly progressing into something else, something you’d rarely ever felt. You no longer simply wanted to be close to him, but you wanted to touch him, be touched by him.

Daryl chuckled in your ear.  “That shut you up.”

No biting retort came to mind as he held you, and you wished you could find some practical reason to leave this bed immediately. You drew a blank.

After a moment you said, “I know I’m heavy. You could have hurt your back. You don’t take enough care of yourself…” you rambled on, lecturing him like a mother hen, trying to hide the racing of your heart and the newly realized desire worming its way through you.

Daryl loosened his arm from around your middle and put his hand on the side of your face. “You ain’t nothin’ I cain’t handle.”

Your belly was suddenly full of butterflies and your heart was in your throat.  Lord help you, he was sexy and sweet and charming. His words, his voice, his touch, it all trapped you in a silent fullness until your heart, mind, and body only wanted more of Daryl Dixon

Yes, he had indeed shut you up.

*

Daryl, with all he had, restrained himself from slamming his mouth on yours, putting himself between your legs, and claiming you there and then.  He hadn’t expected anything like this happening; he’d just wanted you safe and comfortable. But now, heaven and earth could not move him, neither closer nor farther. He was getting hard, just by having you near and the look in your eyes as you watched him silently. He angled his hips away but kept his upper body close to yours.

Sure, you were heavier than the average person, but it was no extra burden to him, not when you were lush and soft and letting him hold you. He should be grateful enough that you’d let him this close, let him sleep next to you in his truck, in the RV.  He would sleep beside you any time you allowed it.

“You are so fucking soft,” he murmured, more to himself than you, but of course you heard him. Your ear was right next to his mouth.  Come to think of it, your neck and earlobe seemed to be begging for his lips and tongue. No, he told himself.

“I-I-I’m sorry. I’ve always been this way,” you stammered, and it only made him want you more.

He slid his hand from your face to squeeze your plump shoulder.  “It wasn’t a complaint.”

Fuck, what was wrong with him.  Controlling his body was one thing, but apparently controlling his words was a different matter. Here he was, blurting out hidden truths like he’d had five shots of whiskey and no common sense.  Aside from Merle, you were the closest person in the world to him, and he may not even see his brother again.  He needed to be careful not to scare you off or cross any lines that might ruin your friendship.

He removed his hand and found your book on the bed next to him.  He handed it to you and said, “Now hush up.”  He rolled over, both to hide his erection and keep himself from looking at your sexy body and thinking all the things he’d like to do to it.

You scooted away from him, to the other side of the bed, and he, again, had to resist the urge to drag you back to him.

“Ya good over there?” He said over his shoulder.

“Y-yep. Uh…just going to uh…finish this chapter on CIA interrogation methods.”

Daryl huffed, “Yer already good ‘nough at makin’ people talk to you.”

“It’s a book you gave me, so you only have yourself to blame, Daryl Dixon.”

He snorted, clamping down on his urge to draw you into another conversation just to hear your voice. “Jus’ tell me when to turn off the light.”

“Mmhmm,” you murmured.

*

You were thoroughly distracted from your reading, only turning pages as a matter of ceremony. The man was practically naked next to you, all hard muscle and coiled strength.  Heaven help you, but you wanted Daryl Dixon unlike you’d wanted any man in your life.  Sex was never something you cared much about, such a distant thought you’d never had any.  Hell, if he didn’t have you rethinking that lifelong pattern. But he was your friend, the best one you had.  Obviously, if Daryl felt some sort of way about you, he wouldn’t be turning away and pretending you weren’t laying right next to him, your body aflame with want just because he said he liked your softness.

You gave really nice hugs. That’s all he meant.

You turned another page, the words but a blur to your churning mind.  This sleeping arrangement was no different than sleeping next to each other in the RV or his truck. You shouldn’t overthink this. Besides, the air was hot—as usual—and it only made sense for Daryl to sleep without a shirt on. You might even have done it if you were him.  So, no big deal.

Yep, no big deal at all.

You rolled over to face Daryl but kept your distance as you handed him your book.  “I’m finished for the night.”

He took the book and turned off the lantern, and the darkness settled around you.

You started counting to one hundred while breathing slowly to calm yourself.

You felt Daryl also roll over, now facing you, and your eyes started adjusting to the darkness. You could just make out the angles of his face and the shape of him lying next to you.

“Been meaning to talk to you about somethin’,” he rumbled, voice low.

“What’s that?” you whispered.

“Back on the highway…that was rough.”

You realized you had never really talked about what happened, about T-Dog or the walker that almost ate you. You said, “Yeah, it was something we’d never seen before.”

There was a moment of quiet until Daryl said, “Don’t mean the group, I was talkin’ about me.  It was rough on me.”

Daryl had done everything in his power to protect both you and T-Dog. “You saved T-Dog’s life. And mine.”

“Nah,” he said.  “I left you alone under that jeep, and when that walker came…” he trailed off in an inaudible rasp. You heard him take a few deep breaths.  Then in a broken voice he whispered, “Thought I was gonna lose ya.”

Your heart swelled and words were trapped in your throat.  Had he been as scared of losing you as you had been of losing him?  Daryl had never been this vulnerable before, and you almost felt yourself splitting open, inviting him in.

“You didn’t,” you told him. With your hand you carded your fingers through his hair, then you traced your way from his temple, to his cheekbone, along his jaw and chin, memorizing by touch the face you knew so very well.  Then, seizing the bit of courage you had, you placed your hand on his bare chest, over his heart.  A moment later, you felt the roughness of his calloused fingers skimming along your hairline, cupping your cheek, and gently rubbing his thumb on your cheekbone. He held you there in the darkness, the only sounds were the distant nightly calls of summer insects and both of you breathing softly.

Your sexual desire was but a whisper compared to the more insistent need to feel close to Daryl the person, not his body. This was frighteningly intimate, and it had you wishing for things you’d rarely wanted.  What you were beginning to feel for Daryl was different than friendship or even kinship.   At first you thought it was mutual loneliness and daily terror that drew you together.  While your friendship may have started that way, it had gradually changed. Now you wanted him. Not just the protection or convenient companionship, but him: his smiles, his thoughtful words, his touch, his scent, his time.

You had no idea how to navigate this, or even if Daryl felt the same, but as he held you so tenderly, you let yourself imagine he did.

Daryl’s hand slowly slipped away, then he placed his hand over the one you’d left on his chest.  He threaded his fingers through yours and rested your hands on the bed between you.

He whispered, “Ya good?”

“I’m good,” you told him.  You watched the silhouette of his eyelashes flutter closed, felt his body relax, and heard his breathing slow.  You watched him for a while, eventually giving in to your fatigue and falling asleep, his hand still holding yours.

======

AN: In case it wasn't clear, Daryl is drunk on sleep deprivation, hence is lapse in self control.

Please feel free to like, reply, reblog; and thank you for reading!

Next Chapter

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon x you #twd #twd fanfic #plus size #plus size reader #plus size fanfic #mdop #minerva writes #dd/xm #scars and stitches

[oshiawaseni]

There’s a beautiful layer I like about the vol. 33 back cover, how this was the moment Kacchan exposed himself to Izuku and spoke to him directly from his heart. But Izuku did not have his mask on at this point. He should be looking back at him with his tired bare face. So this is a symbolic image of him facing Kacchan and keeping his true feelings close to himself because he has yet to figuratively take the mask off and be vulnerable… truthful… with him back…

It’s another good tell/proof to support our hopes of the future talk they need to have where Izuku will finally get to bare his soul to the person he loves the most without any self-imposed barriers or untruths hindering their bond or distorting how he really feels reaching Kacchan.

I’m pretty sure they both still don’t understand how much they mean to each other yet… They see their actions received from each other as impersonal and “normal hero mindset” motivated sometimes to the point they take offence to it but they unquestionably treat each other more special than anyone else and they haven’t been able to decipher this or their unmovable connection fully.

Izuku doesn’t know how emotionally driven Kacchan feels while carrying the need to rescue Izuku and strengthen him. Izuku is reckless yes, but I don’t think Kacchan has grasped that he is often the catalyst for Izuku’s most reckless and berserk behaviour. He doesn’t know how loved he is, has always been, because Izuku sucks at feelings too. Sucks at explaining himself.

I think that’s mostly because he’s scared of being rejected again. Izuku is like a once-burned puppy too scared to get close to his hand again because he remembers how much it hurt the first time. It’s easier to keep his distance because then he won’t suffer so much from the constant “dislike.” And even now since the apology he’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact it might not be so hopeless for them. That something between them has fundamentally shifted. Relearning Kacchan’s scary hands are only full of warmth and care for him.

It will be interesting to see how this all ends and what will be said when Izuku faces him directly for the first time since his apology. They’re historically both so bad at talking to each other but at least Kacchan has made this first step to pull Izuku in closer, encourage him to remove his mask and come to meet him halfway.

#horikoshi keeps us well fed lol #bakudeku #art #horikoshi art #op #Bnha meta #idc if he just loves Kacchan as a bestie and someone irreplaceable I’m here for close besties too ❤️ #do I think Kacchan will understand he is Izuku’s hero by the end of this series? yup lol #maybe it goes both ways :)

[normal-thoughts-official]

Makoto plot line by Lêx?

thank you for this totally 100% spontaneous ask that you sent of your own free will, anon!

okay, so here's the thing. i dont like makoto. not really. he's annoying af and basically useless. bitch does nothing but hide behind haru cuz he's scared of everything and be blushy and soft in that spineless way, you know? like he just lets everyone push him around and treats everyone in such an unfuriatingly uniform, fake-cheery, ultra helpful way that it's his whole personality

but here's the thing! it gets sad. you know? especially considering how he, like, seems to basically live to enable haru? in all the worst ways. like it's nice of course that he helps haru with his depression but there's a point when it becomes enabling and that point is when makoto is running after haru all the time trying to solve his messes, remind him of his own damn responsibilities, and basically take care of haru's whole life so he doesn't have to. again, helping is good, but by worrying about the things haru doesn't worry about and preventing him from facing the consequences of not doing anything basically lmao he enables haru to never fucking get out of his constant stupor. also, as previously said, he's spineless, which means that he never truly goes against haru's wishes. so like. enabler. bad

which is my main beef with makoharu, which is actually the most popular ship in the fandom because ppl have no taste and also dont know how to interpret shit. tho tbh even makoharu shippers are like "i ship makoharu because makoto deserves to be happy and he wants haru!" so even they acknowledge that.... haru isn't into him lmao. but anyway

point is: they pull each other back. im not gonna say it's abusive or something cuz i don't think it is, i wouldn't even call it toxic, but it's stale in the worst kind of way. makoto enables not only haruka's depression, but also his self destructive and to some extent relationships destructive behavior, setting his growth back. and makoto lives and exists to take care of haru. he has no dreams, no goals, hell, not even INTERESTS. his whole thing is just. haru. where haru goes, he follows. and. that's it basically

which is why the fact that so many makoto stans ship makoharu is also baffling to me, because if i were a makoto fan, i'd probably hate haru, lmao. i mean, makoto is going around doing all this work for him, plus emotional labor, and haru never gives him much back really. and it's obvious that haru doesn't like makoto the same way makoto likes him, but makoto is just out there taking whatever scraps he can get, and haru just sort of. probably doesn't even notice cuz that's been their dynamic since they were kids. and makoto knows that, too. so like. if i stanned makoto. id fucking hate haru for that tbh

and honestly it's bad writing because i think the writers couldn't care less about makoto lmao and also didn't know what to do with him, which i think becomes increasingly obvious as seasons go by and he's just sort of. there. they tried to give him his own plotlines and even dreams but it never stuck. he feels like a doll most of the time. even in s1, which was widely rinharu-focused and barely had any other characters have real plotlines unless you count the one (1) episode where they try to teach rei how to swim, makoto was particularly uninteresting and underexplored and developed. like, the other characters might not have had huge importance but at least they had personalities. makoto didn't, really, unless you count "mama henning haru" and "being uwu" as a personality

but my point is: what if makoto got some real writing? what if we explored his character, and his relationship with haru, in a more critical, dimensional way?

makoto is in love with haru, i think that's indisputable. haru isn't in love with makoto, which i also think is indisputable. makoto himself knows that what haru has with rin is special and beyond what makoto and haru have, he says that, he even says that he was jealous of rin. yet he stays. even when rin comes back, and haru and rin become friends again, and it's obvious they're going to be together, makoto stays. he takes care of haru, which is some pretty damn stressful work, and does all this emotional labor for him, and haru barely gives him, like, a smile every once in a while, lmao, and again it's sad. but makoto stays. and - that's an important part to me - it doesn't seem to be because he has any hopes that haru will come around. so why

i think they're stuck in a loop, and that makoto has been in love with haru, and being not only his emotional support, but basically the one thread connecting him with the outside world (while simultaneously enabling him to continue as detached from it as he can, because he's not bringing haru out to the world, he's bringing the world to accommodate haru) for so long, he doesn't really know what else to do. also, he feels guilty about leaving haru to his own devices, even if obviously there's nothing he can do if haru won't help himself. also, he's scared of losing him, because he's been defining himself for his relationship with haru for so long, he doesn't know where else to go

i think that's supported by his relationship with other characters. like i said, makoto is annoyingly kind to everyone (if im not mistaken, the name makoto actually does mean kind) and a MASSIVE pushover. he never goes against anyone's wishes. he never really throws in what he wants. he doesn't really interfere with anyone's plans and ideas, he just sorta makes it happen. he is never annoyed, never has any quirks, is never even like, tired, you know? he lives to please other people, to the point where he has no personality, interests, or wishes beyond that

so, yeah: i think makoto is scared that, if he doesn't please other people, there's nothing else left for him. and in a way, he is right, because i don't think he would know what to do with himself if he had to look into himself and figure out what he wants out of life. so it's easier to follow others and dedicate himself to them. also, fear of loneliness is very valid, even if i dont think any of his friends would actually leave him if he weren't being their damn mom all the time. but they also let it happen, especially haru, because it's convenient, and again, homeboy barely has the energy to go to school, much less help makoto unpack all of that

but if i were writing free!, id want to explore that, because it has so much potential to be a pretty damn rich story, actually. especially as the story progresses, because one effect of rin being back and haru running the whole swimming club and trying to prepare for their race is that haru needs makoto less and less as time goes by. because he has a motivation. he cares about his grades because if he doesn't keep them up he won't be allowed to keep working in the swimming club, he cares about teaching the newbie (the rei i mentioned before) how to swim because otherwise they won't be able to run against rin in the medley race, hell, he reforms the whole entire pool that was abandoned so they have a place to train (with help, but like, he couldnt be bothered with getting up to school before). he even goes back to drawing so he can make pamphlets to attract more people to the club

and then he finds his love for swimming again, especially as a team, competitively. he finds his love for people again, for human interaction, for competition and the thrill of the sport he loves. haru finds his motivation, and he starts putting his life back on track and working towards his goals, and haru is damn capable. and that means that makoto has a lot of free time in his hands now, and haru is slipping through them, and he knows he can't really keep their relationship as he was. and he shouldn't, honestly, and i think that he's, at least, smart enough to know this

and he has a crisis, because again, he's been defining himself through haru for the longest goddamn time, im talking all the way from middle to high school here. and he doesn't know who he is. he doesn't know what he wants. he barely knows what he likes

but he's not alone either, because again, makoto is haru's best friend, and haru does like him and it's not like he's all "i found my purpose with rin now. peace out". his journey was also about finding his whole support system with his friends. through relearning how to swim in a team, he also relearned human connection and friendship. that's one of the many beauties of rinharu. they inspired each other to make their lives better, including in ways that have nothing to do with each other, and they weren't even trying to

so he has haru, but in a now radically different dynamic, and also rei and nagisa (his teammates) and gou (rin's sister and also their trainer) (rin and gou don't go to the same school for some reason). and everyone is going through a similar crisis, because it's the last year of high school. rin obviously has known that he wants to be an athlete since he was a kid, but everyone else's plans are kinda sketchy. makoto just happens to have some extra flavor in that mission - he's not just trying to figure out what he wants to do, but who he is

and fuck if i know how that would develop from there, but id really love to see makoto finding himself, honestly. i want to see his issues being addressed. the only backstory we have for him is that he's afraid of the ocean because he almost drowned at some point? i dont remember. i want to know why the fuck he's been repressing his own needs and personality so hard. i want to know what had him so scared of the world that it was easier to forget about himself and basically live through haru. i want to know what he's going to do to find himself, and the very, very painful journey of looking at himself and his own needs, and, in many ways, his own emptiness, because makoto essentially carved himself hollow. i want makoto to have dimension and depth, and be relatable and not just a dumb shell of uwuness for ppl to swoon over and want to protecc, not even because i like him, but because it could be so interesting. and relatable in so many ways. like, god damn it. if you wanna make him one of the main characters, give him a real plotline!

and i want to see him finding out that his life is better when he's a little more detached from haru and not living in an endless pursuit of a relationship, but having a network of people he loves and that has mutual support. i want to see him getting over haru, not so he can have some other romance with someone else, but so he can grow. makoto basically doesn't grow at all the whole show, and it's sad to watch, especially as everyone else grows so much

#ask #anonymous #long post #anti makoharu #anti tachibana makoto #meta #freestalgia #rinharu

[comicbookuniversity]

Dragon Ball Super and the Future

by Bunnypwn Gold

I am a huge fan of Dragon Ball, as I have stated here before and as I have written about in the past. My love and knowledge of this franchise is deep, and I will always be ready to enjoy what it has in store and wrestle with the ideas in it. And right now, it’s a great time to be a fan, because Dragon Ball Super is going strong. The anime has come to a conclusion and/or could come back in the future, and the manga is approaching the climax of its newest story, the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga. It’s amazing for a lot of reasons that I’ll discuss as I respond to this article by Kofi Outlaw, which praises the saga for going back to DBZ style storytelling as a “course correction.” While I agree with several points in this article, I also disagree with the basic premise and argue that the author is only saying these things about the saga because he has not been paying attention to how consistently better the manga has been than the anime of Super. I am using this response to organize my thoughts on how Super has gone so far, the divide between the anime and manga version of events, and the future of the series as a whole, not as a pro or anti stance against Kofi or his article, to be clear.

At the beginning, Kofi criticizes Super for having low stakes and focusing on making Goku and Vegeta the sole focus, increasing their power levels dramatically and leaving other characters to languish. He also said that there were a lot of gimmick fights. Overall, the story structure had changed to reflect this change in character focus and the villains were weak and unmemorable. This new arc, featuring fan-favorite villain Planet-Eater Moro and a range of great battles with his bandits for the Z Fighters to show their stuff, is a return to the DBZ structure, and it features all the brutality and high stakes of the old days. Best of all, it lays the foundations for a new future focusing on other characters.

I have to say, I agree with much of this. The focus on Goku and Vegeta as “Gods” and their super-special Saiyan-ness in the meta canon is really annoying to me. Elements of this were seen in DBZ, as the humans and Piccolo stop trying to catch up to the Saiyans, and it was all GT was about, making that series a big disappointment for me. The first three stories of the Super era are notably low stakes, as well, and I would have liked a little more tension. There could have been more focus on other characters and a larger cast in general, and that certainly would have been enjoyable. And to finish it out, I am very excited for what the Moro story means for the future. The whole thing has a “last chance to shine” feel for the old guard of characters we’ve known and loved for years, Goku is probably going to master Ultra Instinct and thus complete his journey as a martial artist, and it still opens up a lot more about the history and lore of the series to explore in the future.

Beyond that, I have a lot to disagree with. For starters, if you look at the Tournament of Destroyers and the Tournament of Power and just see a bunch of “gimmicky fights” and no stakes, you’re missing the point. I always loved the tournament stories in Dragon Ball, and both of these Super tournaments deliver on that joy. The manga had a lot of important differences with the anime in how these tournaments went, too. Before the Tournament of Destroyers, the manga went through a condensed version of the Battle of Gods events, only offering one extension in the opening to give an actual benchmark on Goku’s strength so we know where we’re starting as a series, an important gift the anime and movie fail to deliver. It then time skips past the Resurrection ‘F’ story, which I think is sad, but ultimately serves the manga’s purposes. After Goku got his God form, the next thing we see, before the Tournament, is Goku training with a new master, showing that he’s back on the path to martial arts excellence. By skipping the Golden Frieza fight, the manga passed on a story that only shows off how cool Super Saiyan Blue looks (a term, by the way, the manga invented because it’s better); outside of showing off this new form, the Golden Frieza story adds nothing. As Goku and Vegeta enter the Tournament of Destroyers, they build a team entirely focused on power, and lose one of their strongest members because of a test of intelligence. To further drive home the point, Goku’s final battle with Hit ends with him realizing that his strength allows him to outmaneuver an innovative and amazing fighting technique, Time Skip. He then forfeits the match so he can have a real fight with Hit later, where Hit can try to kill Goku and has time to train beforehand, which sounds a lot like a DBZ style story. It’s the first step in Goku relearning that technique matters more than power. In the manga, they also gave more love to Piccolo. In the anime, they had him be effectively useless, barely able to fight Frost, a Frieza parallel. The manga had Piccolo fight evenly with Frost, who later shows that he’s almost an equal with Super Saiyan Goku; Piccolo lost because of poison, not because he “could never hope to beat a strong person.” It’s not as cool as it could have been, but it’s more than Piccolo ever got in the anime.

Now, I have to vehemently disagree that Zamasu was a weak, forgettable villain who existed solely as a gimmick. The Zamasu story carefully builds and delivers on the many themes of the franchise that I identify as atheist. Throughout the series, Toriyama repeatedly introduced gods of varying kinds and levels of divinity for the sole purpose of tearing down the illusion of their importance and special qualities. Gods in this world are a verifiable fact, and not only are they just people with a particular job, but every time Goku and Vegeta meet a god, they treat them like anyone else and show them no special respect or deference. Goku and Vegeta are the best exemplars in the series of treating deities like normal people, something the series itself does regularly. It’s one of my favorite parts of the series, as an atheist myself.

So, here we have Zamasu, a deity who believes that he’s uniquely capable and qualified to rule all of existence and that mortals aren’t worthy of life. In the Bible, on more than one occasion, God decided to wash the world clean of humans because they had become too sinful; similar stories exist in other religions and cultures. In this case, Zamasu is motivated by intense and literal hatred of mortals, who he sees as not simply having “become too sinful,” but fundamentally incapable of being anything else. He extends this hatred to other gods who want mortals to exist and do as they please. His rise in Future Trunks’s time to be the almost-almighty God with a Capital G is the antithesis of what the series has said about gods and divinity on every level, and that’s exactly why he’s such an amazing villain. He also checks a lot of other boxes. He uses the power of a mortal who made himself into a god, Goku, to kill the gods and overpower the mortals. He also relies on a mortal, Trunks, to develop his power and another, Dabura, to create the opening he needed to start his plan. In working to bring the downfall of all mortals, Zamasu in effect worships at the altar of mortals and relies on their miracles to succeed, just as Goku has trained with several deities on his path to success.

Trunks is also notable, because growing up, Trunks didn’t have any gods to look to like Goku did. The first “god” in Trunks’s life was Goku, as both his mother and teacher would talk about Goku as their main inspiration for hope. Goku was made into a mythical figure that could have fixed everything, and that’s exactly what Trunks used time travel for, both times he employed the strategy. That’s why Zamasu taking Goku’s body was so impactful, because “hope” came to kill him. Goku’s ultimate failure to defeat Zamasu also tears down the idea of Goku’s “divinity” in the same way as other gods were taken down a notch. This results in Goku calling on Zeno for help. The development of Goku and Zeno’s relationship is interesting and important in setting up the conflict of this story. They become friends because Goku is the only person who treats Zeno like he’s not special, which seems to confirm that Goku’s relationship to divinity is proper. At the same time, Goku doesn’t like Zeno, because he knows Zeno is just a bored shut-in and likely doesn’t understand Zeno’s role. And really, Zeno doesn’t have a role like the Gods of Destruction and the Supreme Kais. He’s in charge because he’s the most powerful and can destroy all of existence with a thought. That’s exactly what Zeno decides to do when he sees Zamasu and the multiverse he had been ignoring, getting rid of everything because he didn’t like how it turned out. Not unlike Zamasu with mortals; in effect, Zeno is the thing that Zamasu wanted to become, and that story ends with his vision of reality being carried out. It was the ingenuity of mortal time travel that made some form of happy ending, because like in every other Dragon Ball story, you can’t rely on the gods for most anything. So yeah, Zamasu is an amazing villain and his saga was brilliant. My main criticism of the manga version was that the setup was rushed, so the death of Future Bulma happened off panel and the death of the rest of the mortals in existence was breezed by. Plenty of brutality and high stakes, if you ask me, though yes, I wanted to see it with my own eyes more.

Then we get into the Tournament of Power, a great tournament story that really drives home the point of the god-centric Super run. The Tournament of Power, if you didn’t guess, isn’t about power. It’s about teamwork, strategy, and skill. In the manga, this is made absolutely clear. The downfall of everyone in the tournament is that they rejected this basic premise or were wiped out by someone who would later meet their downfall for rejecting this basic premise, setting up their incorrect view to be knocked down in the end. Goku brought Frieza onto Team Universe 7 because he feared they would need his raw power, ignoring the possibility they bring in Yamcha or Chaozu for a friendly face that works well with their team. Hit reappears and shows that he has gotten way stronger. However, he loses to Jiren, Goku’s main opponent, in the opening of the tournament because he was relying on that raw power and abdicated the potential of his famed fighting technique. Multiple times, stronger and more arrogant solo fighters regard those fighting as a team as being weak and no threat. The main exception to those relying on teamwork being weak is Gohan, who was very strong and wanted to work as a team. In the anime, Gohan was made inferior to Frieza and ultimately lost trying to beat a lesser opponent. In the manga, Gohan, in his Potential Unleashed state and not as a Super Saiyan of any form, fought evenly with Hybrid Super Saiyan Kefla, who I suspect was the second strongest person on the field, and double-KO’d with her. In the fight, it’s implied that Gohan could go Super Saiyan while using his Potential Unleashed state, but chose not to so he didn’t have to rely on that kind of gimmicky power. It’s incredibly badass and satisfying.

As the fight with Jiren nears its climax, Goku uses a strategy that could kill him in an attempt to overpower the foe who’s stronger than any God of Destruction. This prompts Roshi to step in and admonish Goku with the single most important line in Super. When Goku says he needs more power to beat Jiren, Roshi says, “Hmph…Power, y’say? Plain old fighting strength? Who the heck taught you that? Vegeta? Frieza?” This is a great moment, because not only does it push Goku to go for Ultra Instinct and focus on bettering himself as a martial artist once again, but it pushes back on the worst lessons fans take from the franchise. Goku isn’t cool because of his strength, and he’s not so strong because he can transform. It’s all about that martial artist’s journey, baby. Goku grew up constantly learning new ways to become a better martial artist than he was the previous day, and it was pure passion driving him; he got to where he is because he took every opportunity to better himself, with his transformations just a convenient way for the story to keep upping the stakes. Jiren is the pursuit of raw power incarnate, with indifference and constant dissatisfaction his reward, and all he wants is his dead master to tell him he’s finally a good fighter. He’s everything Goku was becoming, and Goku overcame him by returning to his roots. He was able to fight Jiren evenly with a technique that anyone, theoretically, could learn if they reached the same heights of martial arts mastery, as proven when Roshi uses an imperfect form of Ultra Instinct to trade blows with Jiren. The manga anchors this lesson because it focused on technique the whole time and built towards this moment: Super Saiyan God was just another technique that showed Goku he had a lot left to learn; the Tournament of Destroyers showed how boring life is when you’re so strong you can’t actually test yourself; Zamasu showed how power is corrupting and how the pursuit of it changes you; and the Tournament of Power shows how damaging and literally suicidal pursuing raw power over personal growth is.

And to put the nail on the coffin, Goku doesn’t beat Jiren with Ultra Instinct, but instead beats him by briefly working with Frieza; you can’t master the path of a martial artist in one fight. Android 17 wins the tournament for their universe by playing dead, an age-old strategy, and uses the Super Dragon Balls to wish back all the universes destroyed by Zeno. While that can be seen as lowering the stakes, it’s no more stake-lowering than any other time the Dragon Balls have been used this way in high-stakes stories, and the stakes in this case were the destruction of eight entire universes. That’s pretty darn high. Also, it’s a good time to point out that Zeno was the real villain of the Tournament of Power. He was going to destroy eight universes out of boredom, and then remembered he could instead let one survive by having them Hunger Games for his amusement. There are no stakes, no reason to fight, without Zeno. There’s going to be conflict with Zeno in the future, I’m sure of it.

The anime followed a very different route than the manga, focusing entirely on Goku’s raw power and how cool he is. They added a lot of filler moments to both increase the number of gimmick fights and silly, campy fun, too, which made the whole thing lower stakes and less brutal. As described in regards to Piccolo and Gohan, the anime also made other characters weaker compared to Goku and Vegeta to amplify the impact of their unique transformations. In the Tournament of Destroyers, the anime introduced the idea of Goku using Kaio-ken while Super Saiyan Blue, for no other reason than to let Goku use a bunch more strength after he proved he could win. I won’t get into it, because it’s a tangent, but the entire concept of Blue Kaio-ken is BS, and the DBZ anime is where the proof lies; the Super manga actually touches on that exact thing, since Goku trying something like Blue Kaio-ken against Jiren is what nearly kills him and prompts Roshi to step in. Anyway, the anime also elongated the Zamasu story with a series of gimmick fights meant to show off how cool the three Saiyans were, even though they knew from the start that none of them would beat Zamasu. That story featured a bunch of secretly alive people, too, lowering the stakes and overall brutality of Zamasu as a villain. The time between Zamasu and the Tournament of Power, including the lead-up to the tournament, was spent showcasing filler side stories that make the other characters, ignored for most of Super, look way cooler and stronger than they actually ended up being. For as much as I wanted to see more from Krillin, Tien, and Piccolo in the manga, at least Toyotaro didn’t jerk us around acting like they were going to be way bigger players than they were. And the way the anime presented Goku achieving Ultra Instinct was focused entirely on strength and treating it like a super cool new transformation, which it isn’t. So if you were watching that story, I could see how you come out of Super thinking that it’s less intense, more gimmicky, and glorified one or two characters to the detriment of others. That’s why I think you could only be as impressed with the Moro arc as a “course correction” if you’ve been paying attention to the anime and only just now got into the manga.

This brings and end to what I’ll call Phase 1 of Super and to a time skip past the battle with Broly (which I would argue was for the same reason the Golden Frieza battle was) and into the Moro arc, which I agree is a great story that brings back a lot of things Super wasn’t doing enough of. It even brings back the meta story structure of the Buu Saga, since the first part is a very Phase 1 storyline and the second half, after Goku and Vegeta are defeated, is much more of a DBZ storyline, just as Kofi described. It’s like saying, “Yeah, we want to pivot away from this, we’re done making that point.” Looking at the first part of the Moro arc, you can read it as a way of reinforcing the grand statement of Phase 1, that the constant jockeying for power and strength and the glorifying of a couple people to the detriment of others is a bad way to write a story. The reason that’s important to say is because that’s the way a lot of the meta canon has been going for a while, at least it seems to me; all the fun, original video game stories are about Saiyans and their super special Saiyan-ness and how super cool strong they can get. It’s why GT was such a disappointment to me, and as I said, it stopped several great characters from trying to become better during DBZ. I think Kofi is right to say moving away from that model of storytelling is a good and important shift in the right direction, though I can’t say if it’s for the same reasons. That’s because, if it’s not clear, I think that what Super did along the way in Phase 1, at least in the manga, was better, more important, and more complex than the simple glorification and valorization of Goku and Vegeta, loaded as it was with themes arguing against that model and continual demonstrations of why they need to switch back to a focus on their martial arts journey. The structure of the Moro arc only serves to reinforce and finalize this thematic argument. As it continues, we are undoubtedly in store for some truly amazing fights and a satisfying, climactic battle with Moro for the entire Dragon Gang.

I also want to make a very important point for how the series is moving forward. Kofi says that Toriyama is switching back to this DBZ style story because he “has learned a thing or two from his mistakes.” For one, the massive success of Super doesn’t really seem like a mistake for anyone to learn from. For two, it’s really in poor taste to imply that Toriyama is changing how he’s writing a story because of negative fan reaction. Allegedly, that sort of thing happened with the Buu Saga, which is why Goku came back and we saw Super Saiyan 3, the perfect continuation and parody of the Super Saiyan form, all because the fans didn’t like Gohan’s high school adventures. I don’t think that’s happening again, allegedly, and in my opinion it’s not exactly a good look to say that it is. For three, that almost literally can’t be what’s happening, because Toyotaro has much greater control over the narrative by now. For those who don’t know, the way Super is being created is that Akira Toriyama writes plot summaries, and then lets the different creatives develop it from there, free to add and subtract and move around what they will. The anime team decided to focus on power and how super cool Goku is, and that version of events reflects that. Toyotaro, artist and co-author of the manga, kept his eye on the martial arts journey while executing this long vision of Toriyama’s to introduce new levels of grandeur and warn against getting lost in it, and that version of events reflects that. Over the course of the series, each creative team was given increasingly greater control over the narrative, leading to greater divergences; the two Tournaments of Power might as well be two different stories. By now, in the Moro arc, with no competing anime version of the story, Toyotaro has much more authorial control than when he started, and that will only increase until, as I hope and predict, Toriyama officially hands off the series to Toyotaro’s capable hands so he can write new stories for the foreseeable future. So no, I don’t think it’s very accurate to say that Toriyama learned any lesson because Toyotaro is the one making the important changes in how the story is told, not Toriyama. Keep your eye on the prize, you know; forgetting Toyotaro’s role means forgetting that we can and probably will have new Dragon Ball that isn’t a video game or video game-related story after the passing of Toriyama. I think the long hiatus of the anime reinforces this: Toriyama has said that if the anime team followed Toyotaro’s lead, they wouldn’t make so many art mistakes, and allowing the manga to develop lead time could be a strategy to follow the manga as a source material in the future, rather than continue this confusing dual path.

So yeah, the Dragon Ball Super manga is better than the anime in every way, and judging the series by the anime alone is setting yourself up for disappointment. The Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga showcases an amazing villain for the franchise, and it sets up more to explore in a future that values the contributions of the full cast. It also, to my eyes, foreshadows the end of the road for the Dragon Gang we’ve been following so far, and thus a potential new beginning with their successors; I mean, there’s no more time after this between Beerus and meeting Uub to use, and meeting Uub is the moment Goku passes the baton to a successor. This is a time to look forward to that bright future and reflect on the themes the manga has been developing as we head into it, as well as what the two versions of Super mean for the franchise as a whole.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #Dragon Ball Z #goku #tournament of power #universe 6 #zamasu #goku black #jiren #vegeta #moro #Akira Toriyama #toyotaro #manga #anime #comics #comic books

[dogbearinggifts]

“Dad Sent Me to the Moon” vs. “Because Dad Made Me”

How Luther and Vanya Talk About Trauma, Part Two

This is Part Two of a series examining how Luther and Vanya address their own trauma and respond to the trauma of others. My goal is to compare their canon reactions to how fandom portrays them, and see if the common perceptions are accurate. As I said in Part One, I’m not out to make one character look better than another; I just want to examine what happens and what is said and give each scene as fair an analysis as I can. 

You can read Part One here. 

Episode 3: Extra Ordinary

This is the episode where we learn about Vanya’s book—but as I said I wasn’t going to count it as a mention of her trauma, I’m going to leave that aside. A few scenes after this montage, though, we find Luther and Allison in the main living area, discussing Grace’s potential involvement in Reginald’s death. Before long, though, Luther changes the subject. 

Allison: And then we left her here. Alone. In this house, for thirteen years! I mean, no wonder she lost her mind. To be away from your kids?  Luther: Hey, what happened with…Claire? With Patrick? You never told me.  Allison: Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it.  Luther: It’s just…when we were kids, we used to sit in here and tell each other everything.  Allison: Yeah, and then we grew up. Pause Things got ugly between Patrick and me. Now the court tells me I have to do this mandatory therapy thing before I can have visitation.  Luther: What for?  Allison looks at him, then away.  Luther: You used your power on her.  Allison: I mean, there were these days when she would have these epic meltdowns. And no matter what I said, she wouldn’t stop. She was three then, and I…I know that’s what three-year-olds are supposed to do. So I said I would do it that one time. Only it wasn’t just that one time. I told myself any parent with my power would do the same. That it wasn’t wrong. I just had an advantage. I mean, from the time I was little, I used it to get everything I wanted. With Dad, with my career…but now I know nothing in my life was real. So I’m starting over. I just didn’t think it would be so hard.  Luther: It’ll get easier. Some things just take time.  Allison: Yeah. And some things just stay broken. 

What’s interesting about this exchange—which is the first time Luther has responded to someone else’s trauma—is that Allison is not the one who brings it up. The subject of Grace’s mental state is tangential to the topic of why Patrick filed for divorce and got custody of Claire, and Luther is the one who brings it up. Allison at first hedges, Luther pushes a bit, and she tells him everything. 

Now, there are two ways to look at this, the first being that Luther is nosy. He had no reason to pry into her personal life, Claire had nothing to do with him, and he just wants to know all the juicy details about Allison’s divorce, possibly so he won’t have to feel guilty should he decide to make a move on her later on. While I can see evidence to support this theory, I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Rather, I think Luther could tell Allison was upset about her divorce and even more upset about losing custody of her daughter. As he said, he and Allison used to tell each other everything, so he’s probably heard her vent about more than a few things before the family broke apart, and he’s probably seen her become noticeably calmer after she’s had a chance to get whatever ailed her off her chest. To me, it seems Luther is expressing concern for her, and giving her a chance to vent. 

What’s more interesting about this exchange, though, is what Luther doesn’t say. If you watch his facial expressions as she confesses (which I can’t capture because my laptop is old and screenshots just turn to blackness) you can tell he’s horrified by what his sister did to her own child. He absolutely does not approve. But he doesn’t tell her that. He doesn’t say “Jesus, Allison, what the hell were you thinking? She’s a kid! Your kid! You don’t treat her like a puppet!” He can tell, by Allison’s expression and the trembling of her voice, as well as the words she uses to describe what she did, that she knows it was wrong. It’s clear she hates herself for it, so Luther doesn’t pile on more guilt. He just listens and gives her a safe place to confess, not speaking until the end: “It’ll get easier. Some things just take time.” 

That line might not look it, but in context, it’s incredibly validating. Allison has just shared her darkest secret with him (and it’s a pretty dark secret). She ruined her own life, and now she has to relearn everything and she’s not sure she has the strength for it. So what does Luther tell her? “It’ll get easier. Some things just take time.” The first part—It’ll get easier—acknowledges that what she’s trying to do is difficult. The second part—Some things just take time—is an attempt at encouragement, telling her to not give up if she doesn’t see results right away. Luther is encouraging his sister to keep trying to make amends, without offering false hope. 

But I think it’s what he says next, after Allison says “Yeah. And some things just stay broken” that’s the most overlooked bit of validation here: Nothing. After Allison says that, Luther is silent—and with that silence he validates her fear. She knows this whole mess might not have a happy ending. She knows she might never see her daughter again, and that she has no one to blame but herself. And Luther doesn't try to tell her otherwise. He doesn’t brush off her fear with some pat answer like “Well, you just need to keep trying” or “Everything will be okay.” He just lets her fear stand and remains quiet, allowing her space to talk more if she needs to. 

Not too long after this, Vanya heads over to Bricktown to find Leonard’s shop, and as they’re walking together, they run into Allison. We then get this: 

Leonard: You didn’t tell me your sister was a movie star! To Allison: You were in that Umbrella thing too, weren’t you? To Vanya: But you weren’t in that, were you?  Vanya: No, I was sort of the fifth Beatle of the family, so… Leonard: Never did like the Beatles. More of a Stones guy myself.  Allison: Um, sorry to interrupt, but could you, uh, come back to the house? We’re having a family meeting.  Vanya: And you guys want me there? 

From the way this line is delivered, it’s clear that this is not a simple, innocent question. Vanya meant it as a swipe at her siblings, a reference to being excluded, and it comes across as one. (As a side note, I think her word choice is worth mentioning: referring to herself as “the fifth Beatle of the family” casts the Umbrella Academy as something cool, a guarantee of fame and fortune she was passed over for—rather than as the vehicle for wanton child abuse it was. I doubt she’s trying to gloss over the abuse her siblings were forced to endure, because it doesn’t seem she was aware of most of it, but comparing the Academy to one of the most iconic rock groups in history says a lot about how she views it.) 

Unlike her first mention of her exclusion in the previous episode, this one is far less appropriate to the conversation at hand. Knowing Vanya, and knowing what Allison said to her the previous day, it’s not entirely out of left field; but it’s still a swerve from the topic—and it’s neither necessary nor beneficial. 

Imagine, for a moment, that Leonard is exactly what he seems: a sweet, somewhat dorky guy who maybe comes on a bit strong but is pursuing Vanya not out of sinister ulterior motives, but because he thinks she’s neat. He’s walking along with her, talking and joking about all the things they have in common. Things seem to be going well, he’s glad he made his move—and then her movie star sister pops up out of nowhere. And he realizes—holy shit! Movie Star Sister was also a superhero! But he doesn’t think Vanya was one, so he asks if she was. “No, I was kind of the fifth Beatle of the family,” she says. It’s clear she’s not happy about that, but hey, might as well try to cheer her up. Now Movie Star Superhero Sister is asking Vanya to head back to the house for a family meeting—a family meeting of superheroes, holy shit….

….and Vanya immediately takes a swipe at her. Drags her rotten childhood into the conversation, uses that simple invitation as a reminder that she doesn’t think much of her sister or the rest of her family. Movie Star Superhero Sister, to her credit, doesn’t respond in kind, but wow, Vanya suddenly doesn’t look so nice anymore. Sure, she had a rough childhood—rough enough to fill an entire book—but her sister was trying to be friendly and Vanya tried to pick a fight? 

If Leonard had been simply a normal guy pursuing a normal romance for normal reasons—if he hadn’t stuck with Vanya to use her for his own ends—that not-so-subtle jab probably would have convinced him to move right along. Bringing up family drama in front of someone you barely know, regardless of how comfortable you feel with them, is generally a relationship ender. At the very least, many people will want to take a big step back and reconsider—because if your partner will make cutting remarks like that to their own siblings for no apparent reason*, what will they say when they’re mad at you? 

I understand where Vanya is coming from. I understand she’s been excluded by her family and that taking swipes at them probably gives her a few seconds of catharsis. But that does not, in my opinion, justify what she does here. She can be angry with her sister for what she said. She can hate her siblings for making her feel like an outsider. But saying “And you guys want me there?” in response to her sister’s invitation is rather uncalled for. Allison is making an effort to reach out—presumably what Vanya always wanted—and Vanya bites her hand off. 

Furthermore, Allison hurt Vanya in private. When she lectured her on how little she understood about relationships and how she needed to stop blaming Dad for all her problems, they were in the Academy with no one else around. Vanya chooses to hurt Allison back in public, in the presence of a man Vanya barely knows and that Allison has only just met. Vanya isn’t just returning blow for blow—she’s escalating the fight. Allison humiliated Vanya for sure, but she didn’t put Vanya on the spot in front of anyone else. Vanya humiliates Allison in front of a stranger who—from the fact he recognized her right away from a movie she’d been in—seems to be a fan of hers. For all Allison knows, he’s going to take that tip right to one of those trashy gossip magazines, trade it for his 15 minutes of fame, and she’ll see it in the bottom corner of the next issue’s cover: Sibling Squabbles—Allison Hargreeves’ Meeting With Sister Hints at More Family Trouble for Embattled Star.

Allison chooses not to return an eye for an eye. Rather than lash out at her sister, she tries to reconcile. Which was, I think, the right decision—but I also would not have faulted Allison at all had she chosen to avoid Vanya after that. 

Later, as Hazel and Cha-Cha are combing the Academy in search of Five, Allison finds Luther sitting on a windowsill, staring up at the Moon. 

Allison: Wow, look at that.  Luther: Mm. Home sweet home. I tell ya, things were a lot simpler up there.  Allison: What’s it like?  Luther: Quiet. Cold. And uh…lonely.  Although, every now and then, when the sun came rolling over the horizon just right, and the light hits it, everything would turn to white glass. It’s….it’s beautiful. Pause You know, whatever you told Claire….I didn’t really feel like a superhero up there, but those few moments when my whole world was glowing, I felt like I was meant to be there. 

This is Luther’s first onscreen mention of his trauma. As with Vanya, and as with Allison and her trauma, someone else broaches the subject first. Luther does not bring up his time on the Moon apropos of nothing; Allison asks him a question and he answers. 

What’s most noteworthy about this exchange, however, is that Luther does not speak of his time on the Moon as if it were traumatic for him. His first words about it (“Things were a lot simpler up there”) are somewhat positive; his initial description (“Quiet. Cold. And lonely”) is neutral; and his continuing description is actually quite positive. His mention of conditions on the Moon is brief and perfunctory, and he spends more words describing the moments of breathtaking beauty he found. 

As we later find, his time on the Moon was much harsher than he lets on here, but we get hints in the opening sequence, where he must squeeze his massive frame through openings and corridors clearly built for someone of average size. Yet the Moon base was designed by or on the orders of Sir Reginald. Even if it was created years before he ever considered sending his son there, he had the money for modifications to accommodate Luther’s mutated body. He chose not to do this, forcing Luther to spend four years in cramped conditions, unable to even take much of a walk outdoors. What we see of his base, too, is spartan; he has a bed with homey blankets and artificial gravity as well as a small houseplant, but little else. And he spent four years like that. 

Yet he tells Allison none of this. He gives her a simple description of life on the Moon that carefully avoids too much negativity before regaling her with the majesty of it, ending with a particularly sad bit of foreshadowing: “I felt like maybe I was meant to be there.” 

Luther has not yet begun processing his time on the Moon as trauma. As far as he knows, he was sent there for a reason that was not disclosed to him. Would he speak of it differently had he already begun processing his exile as trauma? Possibly. Whatever the case, Luther’s first mention of his time on the Moon is a simple answer to a simple question, followed by a description of the scenery that makes the Moon sound downright lovely—not a demand for pity. 

Running count of trauma mentions (cumulative of all episodes thus far)

Own Trauma: Vanya 2, Luther 1 Trauma of Others: Vanya 1, Luther 1

*There was a reason for Vanya’s low blow. We the viewers know it, and Vanya and Allison know it, but Leonard had no way of knowing it. I said “no apparent reason” because from an outside perspective, Vanya’s remark seems to come out of the blue. 

Read on to Part Three

#the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #tua #tua meta #luther hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #ben hargreeves #five hargreeves #number one #number seven #number two #number three #number four #number five #number six #trauma #how luther and vanya talk about trauma

[sponfawn]

Color-in-laws Part 4

Butch and Blossom

Butch and Blossom’s relationship was pretty straight forward for the most part, until this latest chapter which I will delve into. At first, Blossom was really just an aesthetic pleasure who he liked to tease for fun. Then she became a symbol of all that Brick has “taken” or “deprived” Butch of, and all his insecurities that come with that. Basically just another source of his resentment towards Brick. And now? Well.

At first (excepting harassment and innuendos) he interacts with her in a rather passive way, like when he found that Brick and Blossom had run into each other on the beach. Even when he’s jealous, he doesn’t really interact with them about it. His expression changes, but he talks to Brick like normal. He uncharacteristically asks Blossom if she needs help with her bag, but that’s about it, and he doesn’t really react until he gets back to the beach and starts yelling for someone to play volleyball with him.

Their dynamic starts to shift very subtly for just a few lines in “Girl at the Rock Show”. After the Boys get sick and Brick is still recovering, he opens the door for her and they are alone for once. Butch actually talks pretty casually with her. He subtly suggests that she has ulterior motives, but I think this is their first totally civil, however brief, conversation - no innuendos (until Brick comes into it), no yelling, no violence.

Of course, after Brick enters the equation his insecurities and jealousy awaken, and he needs to work it out at the batting cages. I think perhaps the shift was that he (barely) started to see and treat her as a person, beyond a symbol of unattainable desire and Brick-envy. At least for a second. At this point he’s still very stuck in that pattern of thinking.

Since then, he’s slowly started to shift that pattern, tho. After he woke up from the Dream™️, he notes that Brick and Blossom are sitting together in his line of view. Hes clearly upset about that, but quickly forgets it altogether in favor of Buttercup. While previously, the thought or visual evidence of Brick’s perceived superiority would have sent him into a persistent, anger-fueled hyper sports frenzy, it was no match for his softer feelings. That’s pretty powerful stuff. And it shows a huge shift in priorities. Where only physical exertion could calm his Brick-Blossom rage (mostly Brick), now it’s swept away like so much confetti. Granted, this was only an internal shift of dynamics.

But then! This latest chapter! Nothing like a fake-date to shake up relationship dynamics, eh? Not only do they actually have a full, even lengthy (for them) conversation, they also are pretty damn civil the whole time even when Butch gets upset, until she punches him. Of course, this is almost entirely cuz the situation demands it and Blossom has ulterior motives and is determined to keep talking with him. But it still counts. He does make some innuendos and jokes but he keeps them pretty tame compared to earlier infractions. He even apologizes. And then he confronts her directly and explicitly about her feelings for Brick. Something literally no one else has done before (except for Cindy but does that even fully count?). Not even Bubbles or Buttercup.

In some ways, this exchange reminds me of Buttercup’s angry rant at Blossom, in chapter 2 after the food fight. Both Buttercup and now, Butch, confront Blossom about some of her jerkish behavior. Both times she gets indignant, but then relents when she recognizes their hurt and (to differing degrees) her part in it. It’s the first time I think she sees Butch as a full person. Like when he almost died, I think she was concerned and relearning how vulnerable he (and they are) is but it was strictly in a physical sense. This is the first time she’s ever seen him emote anything except anger, amusement, and boredom. And for him, this is the first time he really expressed his deep-seated issues with Brick to anyone except Buttercup and maybe Boomer.

There’s something in this space, this moment where they are suddenly able to be vulnerable in ways that they haven’t been with many people. And while Butch is definitely not as open as Blossom is - I mean she admitted to liking Brick yet not knowing why, her pain and confusion - I feel that’s in large part because he doesnt have the verbal skills to be able to do so. Previously, he never said anything to her when he felt that deep insecurity and hurt over Brick. The only times he’s expressed those feelings while using words, beyond insulting Brick to his face, were when he was talking to Buttercup. And this time with Blossom, he actually uses words, which is honestly more telling in itself than one might think. Granted, he didn’t directly describe what his feelings were. But what he did say and how he said it had heavy implications to Blossom, and expressed the deep emotional pain he experiences in relation to Brick. Which is a huge step for him, since he hardly even does that much with others.

The end of their fake-date, though, comes with another ending, and the realization of a more complete shift in Butch’s internal dynamics with Blossom.

Now, Blossom is no longer a symbol of unattainable desire. She isn’t even a symbol of his desires, period. She’s just another person who likes Brick despite his awful flaws, and who is left feeling weak and pathetic in his wake. He’s not mad that she specifically likes Brick, he’s mad that she used him, and that once again Brick was the priority over him for no clearly definable reason. It’ll be very interesting to see if they have any similar encounters moving forward, and how their dynamics might shift further now that hes realized he doesn’t want her in any capacity anymore.

#sbj more than human #color in laws series #butch #blossom #longpost #long post

[brightsun-and-darkmidnight]

A Quick Way Home

TITLE: A Quick Way Home

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 3/3

AUTHOR: brightsun-and-darkmidnight

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: When Loki learns that you try to be home as soon as you can because of your child, he volunteers to teleport you there. It is convenient and you don’t doubt his motivation, but it happens so often that you need to ask why? Loki hesitantly tells you that he just likes to see some good parenting.

RATING:  T

NOTES/WARNINGS: Single mom.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Kaytlyn is a single mom who puts her child first… Loki takes interest in her parenting skills and insists on getting her home earlier. Her son, Jeremy ends up sick and she needs to leave work while an important meeting is happening in a few minutes. Making Loki's reputation better IS Kaytlyn's job, meaning it is… Challenging.

My Ao3: brightsun_and_darkmidnight

 ~ ~ ENJOY  ~ ~

Kaytlyn's wardrobe was empty. Nothing fit right, especially her jeans because she gained a few more pounds. Jeremy walked into her room and sat beside her.

"Muumm… just wear your comfy fancy pants and a kinda nice shirt." He muttered, "what is it called?" He sat up with an explanation, "it will be casual business!"

 He jumped up and went to his room.

Kaytlyn smiled with a shake of her head when she heard his hangers being moved around. She pulled the pants out of the mountain of clothes Jeremy was talking about. As she was searching for a shirt Jeremy jumped to her side plucked a shirt and threw it to her.

"We can wear the same color!"

Kaytlyn examined his button up shirt and then the one he forced into her hands. Both were green but with a slight difference. Green was associated with Loki and she KNEW by the gleam in his eyes and smirk he had a plan. Kaytlyn put the shirt on and Jeremy said it was perfect. She looked at herself from all angles and while she found some parts unflattering Jeremy pushed her away from the mirror.

Loki arrived shortly after and picked them up.

Kaytlyn talked about simple things with office work and how their outing today might look to people.

Jeremy was quiet at first then when Kaytlyn barely talked... Jeremy filled the air with conversation. She did end up asking where they were headed and Loki forfeited information of a chocolate factory. Jeremy cheered loudly and swore to taste everything.

Loki amused by Jeremy's excitement, explained, "I can't taste everything in one visit."

Jeremy's eyes sparkled, "but have you?"

"Of course this is my favorite place for sweets."

Jeremy leaned forward, "so how many times will it take for me to try everything?"

Kaytlyn's ears burned as Loki grinned, "several visits."

"Hey Loki. Do you like our shirts? Because I picked them out. We are casually business."

Loki smiled as he glanced at the color, "What type of business are we doing?"

Jeremy gaped like a fish glancing between Kaytlyn and Loki.

His pointer finger went up with a rush of words, "The sampling of chocolate! Very important business!" He ran towards the entrance, "lets go!"

Loki leaned to Kaytlyn with a whisper, "he have a plan?"

She walked forward and muttered, "he always does."

Jeremy attempted to try as much as he could. Kaytlyn insisted he eat actual food and Loki slid in the reminder that they would need to come back for the other samples. Loki took both of them to a restaurant of Jeremy's choice. The special restaurant for important celebrations Kaytlyn always took him to for rewards. Loki sneakily paid for the bill before she could. However once she caught a glimpse of the total she knew it would have put her back in the bills if she paid.

Loki took them back home. Jeremy watched TV for a little and Kaytlyn sat awkwardly beside Loki. Her child went off to his room to play a video game, and the volume was louder than during a normal day. She was going to kill him. 

Loki asked for a drink and tilted his head to the kitchen. Kaytlyn understood and lead him there, busying herself with getting cups. Loki stood beside her and pushed the hair back to expose her hot ear. With his gaze on her and hand urging her to look at him... Her eyes shot to him when he asked a question.

"May I kiss you now?"

"Umm… yeah."

He approached slowly and in the last moment she pushed on his chest and turned her face. "I am not… I'm out of practice."

He barely moved away so when he laughed she felt his hot breath on her neck and ear. Her knees were weak as he spoke close to her ear. "Would you like to practice then?"

She swallowed as she nodded slowly. **why are my ears so sensitive?!** her eyes fluttered shut as he hummed. His lips brushed against hers and she realized how long it has been. Her body was on fire and melting onto her underwear, JUST from a kiss! **I am going to need to get some lingerie for a later date.** Loki was not close but close enough. She wanted him closer but she let him lead. When he parted he was smiling as her eyes fluttered open.

No tongue and she was among the most sinful beings ready to pounce him. His thumb grazed behind her ear and she did her best to keep her eyes open. 

"I might need a few more lessons."

Loki's quiet chuckle as he teased the spot around her ear. "At a later time."

"So… I assume I said that aloud?"

"I suppose we could work something out with a form of agreement concerning a relationship status."

"You mean us, together?"

"Yes. If you want to be mine. More importantly if you would accept me into your family."

"I would love to give this a chance. So.. yeah I SUPPOSE we could start dating."

Loki fixed hair behind her ear with a smirk. Jeremy waltzed in and glanced at them. Got a water and walked out just as quick with a claim of sleep. Kaytlyn starred in the direction her nosy child walked off to.

Loki moved her chin towards his lips and kissed her more. "How many lessons do you need?"

She glanced at his lips again, "too many. I am a terrible learner."

His lips pressed together with a slight smile. Then teeth showed with a teasing tone, "you seem as though you are relearning quickly."

Her eyes met his… she inhaled. Her voice sounding to dreamy, "Honestly…. I wanted to do that for so long."

His fingers played with her hair, "well then… How professional of you."

She gave him a harsh glare. "Don't you start that. Professional talk is for the workplace."

"Noted."

~~~~~~~~

Loki and Kaytlyn were officially, publicly, dating and she fell more in love with him.

Loki became involved with most to all of Jeremy's school events and took an especially large interest in his education. Loki read with him, eventually figuring out reading him to sleep gave him more "adult time" before leaving for the night.

While Kaytlyn was especially riddled with anxiety the first time he stripped her bare, Loki admired each body change that made her a mother. Stretch marks, the tummy she could never get rid of, and oh god her breasts. Her boobs especially changed from pregnancy and motherhood… The sensitivity in them were definitely a change. Or at least, she did not remember times where they were cared for in the extent Loki did.

Loki whispering and growling in her ear about how much he enjoyed her body… Kaytlyn could never explain how well that worked.

~~~~~~~~

Loki tended to everything concerning Jeremy and herself.

After several months during dinner in their new house, Jeremy spoke up while staring between the two of them. "This is going to be cool when you guys get married because I will be able to be in it."

Kaytlyn returned Loki's smile.

Loki spoke, "that sounds like a good plan."

Jeremy beamed a smile, "my plans are always good."

Loki grinned, "was the status of your mother's relationship to me, "casually business" the day of the chocolate factory?"

Jeremy returned the grin, "a magician never tells his secret. Anyway… let's start talking wedding plans."

~~~~~~~~

In a few years they got married. Jeremy was ecstatic to be part of the wedding, and some of the planning. Even more excited about Loki asking him at the ceremony if he would like to be his child. Loki has always been Jeremy's father but now it would be official once the papers would be signed.

~~~~~~~~

A few years later Jeremy casually slid in the question, or rather demand, for a sibling. Kaytlyn's ears burned brilliantly and stuttered that she would have to talk to Loki.

Later on that night as Loki was seducing her he went for a condom.

Kaytlyn removed it from his hand….

"Do we actually need these anymore?"

"I suppose not."

Kaytlyn tossed the package in a random direction as Loki resumed whispering in her ear.

#A Quick Way Home #loki #single mother #single parent #motherhood #chapter 3 #brightsun-and-darkmidnight

[tiberiusjeffersonkippen]

Dancing for You

Here’s chapter two! Thanks to everyone who liked the beginning! Here’s the AO3 link.

Summary: As Cyrus prepares a dance for his high school’s talent show, he finds himself entangled in a new friendship with none other than TJ Kippen, Grant High School’s resident jock. Only good things can come from new friends…right?

Words: 2087

Chapter 2

“Good morning Grant High!” The voice of Grant’s principal, Mr. Hayes, rang out from the loudspeaker. Although he usually paid attention to the announcements (unlike most of his peers), Cyrus could barely even keep his eyes open. He was really tired out from the talent show, and he almost overslept. He listened to the announcements as best he could, but his “best” ended up being falling half-asleep for everything but the very first and very last announcements. He zoned back in just as Mr. Hayes finished with “And please go vote for all of our very talented students who performed last night! Videos and the ballot can be found on the school’s website!”

“Does he not understand that you literally can not vote for ‘all’ of the performers?” sniggered Buffy, who sat next to Cyrus in first period Spanish.

“Oh, you know Mr. Hayes,” said Cyrus as he yawned. He really needed to get more sleep. “Besides, it’s a nice gesture, right?”

“You’re too nice, Cyrus.”

“Well someone has to stick up for the guy. All everyone ever does it makes fun of him.”

“Principal’s pet,” teased Buffy.

“Whatever. Let’s get down to business before Senora Gonzalez yells at us.”

Cyrus drifted through school as a zombie. He was probably going to have to relearn everything he was taught that day, but he was too exhausted to care. His math teacher even noticed that he was more tired than she’d ever seen him! After almost running into several people in the hallway (including one who Cyrus swore didn’t even go to Grant), Cyrus somehow got himself to history on time. Granted, he was literally the last person to arrive when he was usually one of the first, but Cyrus was willing to count it as a win. Unfortunately for him, someone had decided to appropriate his typical seat (which was the best one in the entire room, if you asked Cyrus), leaving the only open seat at the end of the last row, next to TJ Kippen. Cyrus groaned, but he couldn’t help but be somewhat satisfied with the temporary change. As much as he hated the back row, Cyrus was dying to have another conversation with TJ, and, more importantly, find out what the heck ‘Underdog’ meant.

However, before Cyrus could even open his mouth to ask TJ, Mr. Forbes started class. ‘That’s right,’ thought Cyrus. ‘I’m not as early as I usually am, so I don’t have time to chit-chat like I usually do.’

“Good morning class! I hope you all got the chance to go see the talent show last night! Let me tell you, Grant has some very talented students! In fact, we even have a very skilled dancer in this class! Our own Cyrus Goodman killed it last night!”

“Thanks,” Cyrus mumbled while the entire class turned to look at him. He really did not need the entire class to be very aware of his dancing abilities. Sure, he did decide to go and dance in front of hundreds of his peers, but he didn’t expect any of them to talk to him about it. Now, Mr. Forbes was practically inviting them to! Although, Cyrus supposed, he already had someone talk to him about it. TJ. In the bathroom of the Spoon.

Speaking of TJ, when Cyrus glanced over at him, he found a very soft and a very not-intimidating TJ staring back, before he shuddered and looked away. Cyrus was really going to have to interrogate him later.

“Anyway, we are going to begin our decades projects today! Now, they won’t be due until about a month after the AP test (which let me remind you is in three weeks!), but I wanted to give you guys ample time to come up with great ideas! This will be a partner project, so I’ll give you guys some time to pick partners after I’ve explained the entire project.”

Anxiety spiked through Cyrus. None of his friends were in this class! He looked over each of his classmates. Steph would pair up with Katie, Andrew would go with Victoria, Alex and Oscar would probably work together, Kira was too bossy and too much of a perfectionist, and Reed was too much of a dumbass (Cyrus wasn’t even sure how he got into AP US). Maybe he could work with Leo? His locker was right next to Cyrus’s, and he always seemed nice.

“So, without any further ado, I release you to the Battle Royale that is the picking of project partners!” announced Mr. Forbes (ever the dramatist), and the chaos began.

Cyrus stood up and started to make a beeline for Leo, but then TJ knocked over the tall pile of papers and folders that was sitting on Cyrus’s desk. By the time he finished cleaning everything up, Lester had already claimed Leo, and everyone one else had partnered up. Except for TJ.

“Guess we’re stuck together, huh?” said TJ, although he didn’t seem to be too disappointed about it.

“I guess so,” said Cyrus as he sat back down. Since he was already sitting next to TJ, there was no need to move to another spot.

“Kippen and Goodman? There’s a pair I never thought I’d see,” said Mr. Forbes while he wrote their names down next to a decade. “You two will have the 80s. Don’t mess it up! I am entrusting you with the decade of my youth!”

“Forbes is such a dork,” TJ said after their teacher walked away to assign decades to the other groups.

“I know, but it’s sweet. What other teacher is willing to be that goofy with their students?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” TJ paused a moment before a grin broke out on his face. “Did you watch those videos of him that Reed found?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you in the groupchat?” After Cyrus shook his head no, TJ continued “Oh, give me your number and I’ll add you. Anyway, there are these videos of him on YouTube where he’s telling stories. One of them is about him selling all of his belongings and going backpacking across Europe.”

“There is no way he actually did that.”

“I dunno, he does have that glimmer in his eyes…” TJ’s sentence drifted off and they both started at their teacher for a moment before Cyrus brought them back to the task at hand.

“Well, I guess we should get started.”

“Yeah, I guess.” A beat passed. “So,” TJ continued, “Do you have any idea what we should get started on?”

“Not really? Brainstorming is probably the place to start, and I don’t know about you, but personally, I think my brain is feeling pretty calm right now.” Cyrus was expecting a response, and he got one, but not in the form he thought he would get. Instead of using his words, like, y’know, any decent person, TJ started laughing.

‘Great,’ though Cyrus. ‘He’s finally come to his senses and realized what a joke this is and now he’ll try to weasel out of being my partner, which is perfectly fine by me because I probably would’ve ended doing it all anyw-’

“That’s a good one, Underdog,” TJ said, (quite rudely) interrupting Cyrus’s inner monologue. “Mind if I use it?”

“Wait, you mean you weren’t just laughing at me?”

“What? I was laughing at what you said, not at you.”

“Oh,” Cyrus swallowed. “Well, how stormy is your brain feeling right now?”

“I’d said pretty stormy.” TJ grinned, but Cyrus could just barely hear TJ add an “as always” onto the end of his statement. As much as Cyrus would have loved to dive into what TJ meant, he decided against it. If TJ did in fact not hate him (which seemed to be the case), Cyrus was not about to go and ruin it.

“I guess we can get started with that then?” he said instead.

“Sound like a plan.”

Twenty minutes and more than a couple of pieces of paper later, TJ and Cyrus had come up with approximately one hundred million ideas, none of them very good.

“What even happened in the 80s?” groaned TJ as he crumpled up another piece of paper and expertly shot it into the trash can.

“Three minutes twenty-three seconds to three minutes thirty-four seconds,” said Cyrus.

“Huh?”

“‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ You know, where it goes ‘Wheel of fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide/foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz/hypodermics on the shore, China’s under martial law/Rock and Roller coaster wars’? It happens between three minutes and twenty-three seconds and three minutes and thirty seconds.”

“One, how the fuck do you know that? Two, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT?!”

“I thought it would be valuable information when I was like 12.”

“Seriously? You have got to be the most interesting person I know, Underdog.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say I’m that interesting. And what’s with that nickname? That’s like the third time you’ve called me ‘Underdog.’”

Before TJ could answer, the bell rung. “I’ll keep trying to come up with ideas!” he called as he went out the door. “I’ll let you know if I think of any good ones!”

“You guys are NOT going to believe this!” Cyrus said, sitting down with at his lunch table.

“What is it, Cy? Did they overstock chocolate chocolate muffins and are giving the extras away for free?” responded Buffy.

“Haha, very funny.”

“What? 9 times out of 10, when you are yelling in the cafeteria, it’s about those damn muffins!”

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

“While I am sure that that would be a very entertaining argument to listen to for twenty minutes, I want to know what Cyrus was going to tell us,” interrupted Andi.

“Oh! So you know how I had that conversation with TJ Kippen yesterday?” said Cyrus.

“Yeah, did you ever figure out what that was all about? And the whole ‘Underdog’ thing?” said Jonah.

“I’ll get to that. So today Mr. Forbes has us pick partners for the decades project. And somehow I ended up being partners with TJ! And for some reason he seems happy about this! And then he called me Underdog again, like twice!”

“I’m starting to wonder what exactly his motives are,” said Buffy.

“Me too! But don’t you think he would’ve just shoved me or something if he wanted to mess with me? It’s so much easier than being forced to spend time with me.”

“Maybe he just wants to get a good grade on the assignment?” suggested Andi.

“Maybe,” said Cyrus.

“Speak of the devil,” muttered Buffy, and, before he could ask what she meant, Cyrus felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to face a grinning Kippen.

“Hey! I just has an absolutely amazing idea for our project!” TJ said excitedly.

“Well? What is it!” responded Cyrus.

“So you know how you were talking about that one section of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ that’s about the 80s? What if we rewrote it be entirely about that decade!”

“Hmm, an iconic song filled with events of an iconic decade? I think that’s a great idea! We’d probably have to write a more detailed explanation and analysis about the events, but it would definitely work!”

“Awesome! I guess we can figure out when to get together and work on it tomorrow?”

“Sounds like a plan! See you in history!”

“See ya in history!”

When Cyrus turned back around to continue his lunch and conversation with his friends, he was met with a couple of shit-eating grins.

“What?” he asked.

“You seemed a little enthusiastic about that exchange,” teased Andi.

“Yeah, I could literally hear the exclamation points at the ends of your sentences,” added Buffy.

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Cyrus.

“They’re talking about how you obviously like TJ,” said Jonah without looking up from his phone.

After a beat of shocked silence from the others at the table, Jonah looked up. “What? I’m not as oblivious as you all think I am,” he said, and laughter erupted from the table.

“But seriously,” said Buffy as she tried to suppress giggles, “you so totally like him!”

“I so totally do not!”

“Okay…” said Buffy, and they all went back to eating their lunches.

“Oh, hi TJ!” said Andi.

“TJ?” Cyrus whipped around, but TJ was nowhere to be seen. Andi and Buffy, however, were giggling uncontrollably behind him.

“Yep, you don’t like him at all,” said Andi.

“Oh, shut up.”

#andi mack #tyrus #tyrus fic #andi mack fic #Dancing for You fic #my writing #let's go chapter two

[rowingviolahere]

a wrap-up (ha!) of my new hockey experience

i’ve played (field) hockey for more than 10 years but i just started playing ice hockey and thought i’d write some of the stuff down. basically a group at my uni were looking for people interested and i joined up knowing NOTHING about ice hockey except Knife Shoes. but in summary: im now four different hockey players in a hoodie (indoor, field-field, field-goalie, ice ice baby)

(before anyone asks, yes, this was highly motivated by a recent reread of check please, but turns out ice hockey is heaps fun). rest under a cut to save your dashboards because i know that most people on my dash don’t care about (penumbra voice) spORTS! SPORTS! SPORTS!

the good:

you’re allowed to use backstick? WILD

also you’re allowed to stick check!! what the hell!!! one of the guys at off-ice grabbed the puck off me w what in field would be an ILLEGAL stick check and i was like “ok stop. hang on. i need some clarification. are you allowed to do [stick checks/obstruction/tackling from behind/swing tackles]” “yes” “there are no rules and i am UNSTOPPABLE” *immediately steals the puck back from him*

like two months of Actual Ice Hockey Training Weekly and starting from “can go forwards turn-ish and do hockey stops on one side sometimes” my skating skills are while not top noch, Muchly Improved. i can now do crossovers forwards and backwards in both directions, hockey stop both ways, and i know OF mohawks though they still elude me

having your own skates means edges actually..... exist. wild. i’d used hire skates all my life and got on the ice w my new ones and i was like. Oh. This Is It. Can Never Go Back Now.

wax for stick wrapping smells Good Actually. kind of want to. chomp it. (Forbidden.)

women are just. heaps allowed to play in the men’s league in my city w no issues so! if i end up medically transitioning i wouldn’t have to jump through hoops about it unlike field where i guess i’d have to start playing for the men’s club (which is a Separate Club to my current one and is from what i’ve seen super disorganised.)

was able to answer not one but TWO ice hockey-related questions at field trivia night. (admittedly one was a wild guess and resulted in me just going through all the NHL team names i knew until i went “i think that one sounds right”)

swapping which hand goes on top of the stick means that i can just do backstick stuff without my brain going “NO!!! THAT’S WRONG!!!!” which is a real good brainhack

i now exist in a weird position in the omgcp fandom where i have PLAYED and therefore have at least some experience to draw on wrt THAT but still very little idea of anything involving like actual NHL-related stuff (oh god does this make me bitty?)

the bad

oof ouch ow my LEGS

god that’s so much money. so fucking much money. i have a full kit of ice hockey stuff but god at what costs

(i know the costs. at least 900 plus travel expenses. cost of playing a comparatively niche sport that requires a lot of gear i guess)

so. much. cardio. why offside. there’s no offside in field. (don’t @ me i know why there’s offside in ice. i just hate it.)

im still not sure about whether “shoots right-handed” means you have a “right-handed stick” or if it’s like. the opposite. idk idc my left hand is on top bc otherwise i’ll start importing nonsense into my field game

[pokes bruises] how did THAT get there

no one told me how long shifts were meant to be in my first game so i was on the ice for like. a full five minutes. d e a d. (although my only point of reference was field hockey and again. that’s like. five-ten maybe fifteen before you get a sub.)

still don’t have a jersey because shipping to australia costs like. $50 extra? why this (still need to get one tho)

we’re probs not going to get any more games until next semester and tryouts for actual teams aren’t until like. october. h h h. gotta make do w pickup training till then

having a different hand on top of the stick means i have to relearn how to shoot. i want to be able to do these wrist shots people keep talking about. i can barely flick in outdoor anyway but. c’mon. wanna be able to pass strong.

the probably unnecessary but worth mentioning

i’ve been using my goalie smock as a jersey and look. it works. (bonus: it now smells kind of like the ice rather than just. goalie stank.)

have started wrapping bits of my field stick with hockey tape (and i hear you all booing but look. it’s an old stick i’ve had for about 7 years and it cost $40 bc i got it in the middle of the season and also it’s wood which i did not realise when i bought it but yeah the edges have started to shed a bit more than usual and while im not worried about it shattering like i was w my indoor stick because it’s wood it IS chipping at an increased rate and i literally just spent $30 on a new grip so i don’t want to get a new stick until next season at LEAST so. tape.)

most wild of the wild: my old indoor coach was at pickup training and i recognised her name bc it was kind of distinctive and she was like ‘how do you know that’ and i was like ‘i think you coached my indoor team when i was 12′

im trying to start fitness training for my field team and it is Not Working so far but i’m going to try.

#not mentioned but worth mentioning: might start barracking for the sharks just because of chowder. i think that's valid. #it's not like i have any geographic reason to support any nhl team it'd be based solely on colours mascots and standings #and i don't like people who support based on standings bc that can change and also im a freo fan and that'd never work for us #and sharks are cool and i like the colour teal so. sharks? #and all my rl friends know that kent parson is my fursona but i don't like the knight's uniform so. no la for me soz vanja #but i DID get number 90 on my team jersey bc of parse so. you can make a check please fan play ice hockey but can't take the nerd out of em #mag plays ice hockey now #uhhhh i think this is enough tags so this won't end up in the check please tag at Large but still im putting it into my fandom tag bc icehoc #check please #i realise that mentioning team jersey and complaining about not having a jersey are incongruous so! i've bought one and it's got my name on #it's just that our esteemed captain hasn't placed the order yet.so it's schroedinger's jersey rn #i have been CORRECTED by vanja and honestly i should have checked better but la is kings and lv is knights. i knew that but forgot which cit

[urcadelimabean]

Unpleasant emotions under the cut. Medical stuff, mental health

It still takes about 30 seconds of talking about the idea of getting back on the mats and training again before I start crying. And I cried already yesterday. I try not to think a lot about it which I know isn't healthy. It brings back everything. I wonder if people, even friends, didn't take seriously how badly this injury affected me in college because on some level it still isn't "cool" to care about things this deeply, especially not a sport. Maybe they expected me to just move on. I'm not stupid, I know there is at least a possibility of never being able to do brazilian jiu jitsu, judo or MMA again and only being able to do boxing if I could even bring myself to. But wow, people really didn't understand the earth shattering thing they were suggesting when they pointed out maybe I will never recover. It hurts to even consider it, and I have many times at this point. I didn't just love training, I was in love with it. Just completely completely in love. This isn't just bad because injuries suck and pain sucks. Of course I had found other hobbies in the years I've been rehabilitating my knee but nothing has come close to replacing actually getting on the mats and wrestling. And I still break down imagining what it would be like for this fucking injury to be over once and for all. I can't even express myself. A friend pointed out I didn't just go from being not very active to being bedridden and injured, I went from low-key having super powers and being extremely extremely way over the top active to being bedridden and injured and in pain, followed by having to relearn walking etc. Imagining being back there again, before all that when I could train freely, is just imagining all the happiness I know I'd feel and it's the weirdest and worst feeling because it's so so so happy and I'm so so so sad. "Happy" "sad" - why aren't words more helpful. I just can’t express it.

I'm going to be stretching my stupid fucking leg more and trying to see if the pain lessens. I literally can't stop trying. I feel like I have absolutely no control over not just whether or not I get better but also no control over my own desires like....it's been five years now, five!!!!! Years of my life!!!! Korra recovered from leg paralysis faster. And the idea of getting back on the mats for real still makes me want to go charging out my front door screaming bloody murder (this is a good, happy thing) with absolutely no caution.

That sport was everything in the world to me. I dont even acknowledge that very often. I was never ever ever dedicated to it I was addicted. Fun doesn't even begin to describe it and I was GOOD. And it was even more fun because I was good and because it was a challenge but I got just as much out as I put in. And I was getting better and better and better and never wanted to stop. I literally wanted to fight since I was a small child. Seriously, I wanted to be a knight or a pirate when I grew up, which is obviously hilarious in retrospect. When I started mixed martial arts it was a dream come true. It's as much a mental game as it is physical- that's why they call jiu jitsu "human chess." You're always adapting to your opponent and anticipating and strategizing. It's seriously the coolest sport in the world. And I barely think about it anymore if I can help it. I can’t even tell my cool stories of victory anymore because I can’t remember them well. I’ve forgotten what things are called and the specifics of how to do them.

Like........does it even matter why my knee has had so many problems? Was it not having actual painkillers after surgery that gave me nerve damage? Maybe the stiffness is worse because of small infections which I've heard have been the cause that made lots of other people's knee rehabilitation much worse. Would I even care if I found out now? Probably not. at all. I just dont want to be involved with this anymore. I am so deeply bored with these stupid fucking problems and I just do not care.

I didn't just go from being active to being inactive,I went from functioning so well in school to having trouble focusing and thinking clearly, having trouble sleeping, having trouble with homework, forgetting things, having intrusive thoughts, developing anxiety, having nightmares, not caring about previous interests, worsening self confidence, self harming thoughts, nightmares about suicide, huge problems seeing blood including period blood, randomly becoming rapidly afraid, hopelessness, dissociation, feeling angry all the time, having brain fog, not being able to cope with other problems as well in other parts of my life, flashbacks, financial stress, not feeling like I knew who I was, oh yeah also physical pain in many many degrees lol. How wild is it to realize I've been mentally shying away from some things so hard I thought about my scars as simply "long skin deep cuts" as opposed to what they really were post hospital: unanesthetized bone-deep stab wounds stapled closed over cut up tendon and screw and bolts. And nice of my doctors to gaslight me about it as well and push the idea that I just couldn't handle moderate pain. So nice of them to give me hydrocodone which no longer alleviated my DEBILITATING PERIOD CRAMPS so what will it do for stab wounds, I really don’t know. Also I should never have been prescribed hydrocodone for my period but how was I to know that that the time

To add insult to literal injury lolol, creepiness from men went up at about a 200% increase as soon as I was injured. This was the first time I really had to deal with men who are disgusting, obviously aside from my father.

I just look back at all these years. Of all the stupid injuries that other people have no problem recovering from, an ACL tear doing this is just actually INSANELY stupid I almost want to laugh. But that sounds like blaming myself and I'm so not going there because I know this wasn't my fault. I literally worked my ass off especially the first year (or worked my ass back on? I had so much atrophy after surgery from the swelling that my butt was asymmetrical lmao)

I just don't feel like I can work that hard anymore, I'm operating at less than half power but I'm still trying. The one positive, ha, thing I can say about having less energy to keep trying is that if there was a time for pushing myself it was at the beginning when i had to build most of the muscle back and I guess I mostly did that. I shifted to a softer approach and gentle but more frequent stretching instead of strength exercises and developing some more fine motor control I still don't have and trying to develop a more forgiving attitude towards my body. But I need to stretch even more and more frequently and focus on that over strength. I wonder if some of the pain is still related to muscle weakness but 🤷 I have a thigh muscle.

Anyway...'carry on' is what im going to do I guess. I'm just whatever word means existentially rapidly cycling from furiously angry to depressed to manically motivated to hopeless to numb and then back. I just miss it. I usually never let myself think about that. I loved it.

#personal stuff #do not reblog

[mysilentlegacy]

i was always the student

that worked really hard at school. got my work done early, always did extra credit. and then my senior year of high school, i stopped pushing myself and did the bare minimum.

and then after high school, i wanted to work, help my mom pay bills. then my husband got in the way of that and I'm currently a stay-at-home-wife.

and i just haven't really gone back to pushing myself since then. i took a vocational course for about 2 years, and that ended up leading nowhere. made me feel like i wasted 2 years and was just really disheartening.

haven't done much with my life since. got really into reselling for a year. fell off that too.

there's just nothing that sparks it for me anymore. no real motivation.

i feel like i have to relearn self-control and self-motivation all over again. I've been failing miserably at life lately, at least thats what it seems. at 27, can't really say I've accomplished much, there's not much I'm proud of and its just sad.

i have to really force myself to do daily tasks like cleaning my room, making food, washing dishes. I've been going more for take out for breakfast because its whats easiest for me.

my weight has suffered and i can't seem to lose just 10lbs. i got to 9, then stopped working out due to health issues regarding my knee, teeth, and vag.

i just don't know what I'm doing anymore. most days are routine. I'm just waiting for something to spark my interest back into living, just haven't found it yet.

#myposts #personal

[mbaljeetsingh]

Lessons Learned from My Journey as a Self-Taught Developer

The path of the self-taught developer is tough and filled with uncertainty. There is no straight line from newbie to career programmer. Because of this, I believe all self-taught developers have a unique story to tell.

In this article, I’ve shared a few stories and lessons I've learned from my time teaching myself programming. Hopefully reading about my experiences will help you reflect on your past and motivate you moving forward.

Focus on the process

When I first started learning to program, I never had the intention of making a career out of it. I just wanted to make a specific app.

My journey started when I was a senior in college. I just finished Richard Branson’s biography and I was probably reading too much TechCrunch. I was pumped full of entrepreneurial energy.

I was constantly reading about how college kids were receiving massive amounts of investment for their mobile app ideas. I thought I could be one of those college kids.

One day, while walking in-between classes, an app idea hit me. I quickly became convinced that I’d found the next big thing.

I was consumed by the idea and stopped paying attention to lectures. My excitement for the app idea quickly grew to the point where I felt I needed to take action.

There was one big problem. My idea was a mobile app and I didn’t know anyone who could build mobile apps.

So I thought, "what the hell, how hard could programming be?" I was losing interest in my major and I was spending a lot of time playing Xbox. I could put some of my free time towards building out my mobile app idea.

Sometimes being naive helps you take action when you normally wouldn’t.

I was a college student with no programming, business, or design experience trying to learn Android so I could build a complex mobile app. I guess that’s what you get when you mix a big idea with the Silicon Valley hype machine.

I wish I could tell you things went well from here.

I bought a few books on Android development and spent countless hours in my room trying to duct-tape my app together. I didn’t care how the app worked, I just wanted a finished product.

Time went on and the app turned into a Frankenstein of copy and pasted code. The app didn’t have many features and it barely ran without crashing.

It wasn’t until I accidentally got into a Computer Science class that I realized that I should focus more on actually trying to learn software development.

My inability to program lead me to abandon my initial app idea. I'd come to the realization that I wasn’t going to make the next big thing, at least not yet.

Over time I corrected my behavior and took learning more seriously. I started to enjoy programming and eventually started a career as a software developer.

Take Away

My big app idea consumed me for a long time. It put my focus on the end result rather than the process of getting there.

When you get too focused on the end result, you start taking shortcuts. Shortcuts might lead some short-term progress but in the long run, your lack of knowledge will always catch up to you.

It’s important to remember that learning anything big, like programming, requires many small steps. Each step will need to be treated with care.

Learning new things is like building a house. You start with the foundation and build up. If the foundation is faulty the whole thing will crumble down sooner or later.

Sometimes building a strong foundation requires you to slow down. There’s no shame in going slow. The people who understand the basics the first time will end up getting ahead of the people who have to go back and relearn them.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes:

It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.

It's not how fast you can do something, it's how slowly you can do it correctly.

I was a perfect example. From the outside, it might’ve looked like I was a programming whiz kid. In reality, I couldn’t build an app to save my life.

Focus on the process and you will surprise yourself with how much progress you make each day.

Stack Overflow is awesome (and dangerous)

As I was building my killer app, Stack Overflow became my best friend.

Anytime I got stuck I would try to craft together a perfect question to ask the Stack Overflow community. I averaged a few questions a day.

Not only would I post questions, but I would also treat the answers on Stack Overflow as Gospel. I would spend a crazy amount of time scouring the site to try to find an exact chunk of code that would fix my problem.

When I found a suitable answer, I would copy and paste it right into my codebase and try to make it work with my existing code. I spent little time trying to understand the code I was adding.

I made brute-force trial and error a new art form.

This process went on for a while until eventually, I wised up and realized the flaws of my approach.

Take Away

Stack Overflow is a blessing and a curse. It’s great at helping you solve problems; however, if you aren’t careful, you can quickly become dependent on the website.

Sometimes the website is too good at solving problems. It creates a false sense of confidence that can lead to more headaches down the road.

Stack Overflow shows you how to get something to work but it doesn't usually explicitly tell you why it works.

Understanding the how is important. Bugs need to be fixed and code needs to run.

However, understanding why something works is what's going to help you apply the knowledge again in the future.

It's like the quote...

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

Copy and pasting code from Stack Overflow is like giving a man a fish. Understanding why a snippet of code works is like teaching a man to fish.

There's nothing wrong with copying and pasting code. We all do it. It's only a problem when it becomes a crutch and stunts our growth as a developer.

The thing I had to learn the hard way was that it's impossible to learn anything if the answers are constantly given to you. There are no short-cuts in the learning process.

When you're stuck, attempt to solve your coding problem at least a few times before going to Google.

When you find yourself copying and pasting code, spend a little time trying to understand the code snippet before moving on.

Find experienced help

The first thing I did after I decided I wanted to learn programming was buy two Android development books.

At the start, I followed the exercises in the books closely and worked through the example projects. However, I quickly got frustrated with the progress I was making following the book and decided to go off and figure out how to program on my own.

As you’ve read above, that slowly resulted in disaster.

I spent countless hours isolated in my room trying to figure out simple programming problems. I was getting stuck on every new line of code and it didn't feel like I was making much progress.

I was helplessly stuck and my life was a cocktail of doubt, frustration, and an overwhelming feeling of being lost.

To make matters worse, I had the bright idea to start using a massive C library called FFMPEG. My app needed to edit videos, so I thought it was a good idea to utilize the library’s robust functionality.

It wasn’t my smartest move, considering at the time, I could barely get my Android app working.

I wasted a lot of time trying to read the C code and figuring out how I could use it in my app. I struggled to even get the library imported into my Android project. The Android code and C code didn't want to play nice.

After many hours of getting nowhere, I eventually became frustrated and abandoned the library.

Around the same time as the FFMPEG debacle, I signed up for an Object Oriented Programming class. I'm honestly not sure how I got in. I later found out that I was the only non-Computer Science major in the class. I think there was a bug in the enrollment software.

The first assignment was to build a Blackjack program. I’d been teaching myself programming for 5-6 months at this point, and I felt somewhat confident with my skills.

I finished the assignment and felt good about my work.

It didn't take long for that feeling to fade.

My whole program was written in one huge method. Just about everyone else in the class was able to pick up on the fact that the program needed to be separated into classes.

Not good.

Take Away

Luckily, the classwork and guidance from the teacher allowed me to take a step back from my Android app and reflect on my programming abilities. I started to value learning and reigned back my desires to make a completed app.

I've now come to realize that if I would've spoken to just one experienced developer in those early days, they would’ve seen what I was doing, set my priorities straight, and talked some sense into me. They would’ve helped me correct my path when I was going down useless dead ends (like trying to work with FFMPEG).

Instead, I isolated myself from the world partially because I felt like there wasn’t anyone who could help me.

Isolation is a double-edged sword. On one side, it helps you focus on the task at hand. On the flip side, it removes you from the world starving you of crucial feedback.

There were a lot of ways I could’ve found help. I could’ve tried to find a professor/student at the university with Android experience or looked to the local community for help. I also could’ve tried finding an online Android community.

Experienced developers are like a compass. They won’t get you to your destination but they will make sure you are pointed in the right direction. Their help can often be the difference between success and failure.

Make sure you seek out guidance wherever you can find it. It will save you time and frustration down the road.

Craft your environment

This might be the only thing I felt like I did right when I was teaching myself programming.

Throughout my life, I’ve been really bad at studying for tests or doing my homework at home. There are just too many distractions at any given moment. I would often try to find refuge in libraries or coffee shops.

Luckily I applied this rule when I was teaching myself programming.

I ended up becoming a regular at a few local coffee shops. I preferred coffee shops over other study locations because they provided some variety and it’s easy to hide (easy access to caffeine doesn’t hurt either).

If I was studying at home, I made sure my door was shut and my roommates knew not to disturb me for a certain period of time.

Regardless of where I was, I would make sure my music was loud enough so I couldn’t hear what was going on around me.

I can’t say I was perfect at finding a distraction-free work environment but I was able to succeed a majority of the time.

Take Away

Having the right work environment is often an overlooked part of learning.

Focus is a foundational component of memory and skill acquisition. When you try to learn something new, the strength of the learning is directly linked to the intensity of your focus. When your focus is weak, new information will be less sticky which will result in slower learning and more time studying.

Your work environment should be distraction-free and should allow for long uninterrupted stretches of focus. Even with COVID-19 making it difficult to work remotely, there are still actions you can take to design your learning environment.

Here are a few things you can do:

Find a location where people won’t interrupt you

Put your phone in airplane mode

Use some sort of timed website blocker for social media and news sites

Wear headphones and listen to non-distracting music (preferably a long playlist so you don’t have to constantly switch songs)

Avoid TV or other highly stimulating surroundings

Have a notebook nearby to write down any tasks or ideas that pop into your head

Make it known to the people around you that you don't want to be disturbed

Only you can decide where and how to craft your environment. But make sure you do, because it’s worth it.

Get out into the world and meet people

Landing my first programming job was sort of a random occurrence.

I just moved to Omaha, Nebraska and I had around a year of self-taught development under my belt.

I knew very few people in Omaha, so I searched Meetup.com to try and find other people interested in Android development. I found a Meetup focused on mobile development which covered both iOS and Android development and I decided to go.

Going to that first meeting was nerve-racking. I spent around 10 minutes in my car at the venue deciding if I should go in or drive off.

I was intimidated. I wasn’t confident of my programming skills and I knew everyone at the Meetup had much more experience than I did.

I finally said, screw it and went inside.

I’m glad I did.

I started to attend regularly and during one Meetup, not too long after I moved to Omaha, I met a recruiter who was looking for an Android contractor. We talked for a while and I got an interview for the job later that week.

Before the interview, I felt confident. During the interview, I was a deer in the headlights.

The interviewer was talking about the project I’d be working on and it all went right over my head. I tried to stay engaged but they could tell it was out of my range.

After the interview, they asked me to hang-out for an hour so I could talk to someone else. Knowing I blew it, I walked around downtown trying to clear my head.

I ended up interviewing with someone else at the company, and shortly after, they offered me an internship.

I was so shocked that after I signed all the paperwork and got my work laptop running, I went over to the CEO and asked if it was a paid internship or not.

The internship turned into a full-time job and I started my career as a software developer.

Take Away

When you are self-taught, people are not going to come and seek you out. You will need to find opportunities for yourself.

Graduates of four-year universities and code schools have the advantage of leveraging their school's network when finding a job. Self-taught developers don’t have this luxury.

Self-taught developers will need to go out into the world and build their networks themselves.

Cold calling employers and sending out resumes can work. However, I've found people like hiring people who are close to them in their social network.

Websites like Meetup.com are great for finding monthly programming specific groups. Even in a pandemic, there are still many virtual Meetups that are very informative and beneficial.

There are also other Slack channels or Discord communities that you can leverage to make meaningful relationships. You can also try reaching out to various people in your area and ask to have a quick 15-minute virtual coffee with them.

Do what you can to build up the nerve to reach out and talk with people. Be friendly and talk to them about your experiences. Make sure people know of your long-term goal of finding a job.

Put yourself in situations where something positive might happen. You can’t win a raffle if you never buy a ticket.

Consider any opportunity that comes your way, because even if it looks like a dead-end, it has the potential to lead to something bigger.

My internship was a huge pay-cut to the other offers I had at the time. However, I knew if I worked hard it would be an opportunity for me to break into the tech industry.

The key is to think of job opportunities in the long-term. Internships or part-time jobs might not give you your desired salary upfront but they might open up doors in the future.

Conclusion

As you can see, I made a lot of mistakes in my journey of becoming a self-taught developer.

Teaching yourself to code is never a straight road. All our stories are unique.

The key is to keep going and to avoid getting discouraged when things aren't going your way.

I encourage other self-taught developers to share their stories. Not only will they provide valuable insights, but they will also help shine a light on the unique paths we’ve taken.

Hopefully, my story and the lessons I learned will help you moving forward.

If you want to hear about other insights I've learned along the way, follow my account Zero to Programmer on Twitter. The goal of the account is to help you learn programming more efficiently.

via freeCodeCamp.org https://ift.tt/2X8itPB

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[btsorpheus]

THE HI-TOUCH

I like to joke that on February 14, 2020, I met the love of my life.

I didn’t, of course. But for a second, I fumbled my way through a half-high-five-half-handhold with the K-pop boy group Monsta X and absolutely did not cry, no matter what Rolling Stone attempted to imply. (Yes, that’s me in the foreground of the final photograph.)

The hi-touch is an extremely weird event, to say the least.

Anxious because this was the first time I’d ever attended a fan event, I’d managed to show up four hours early. About three of these hours were spent nervously reading Orfeo by Richard Powers at the Coffee Bean down the street, occasionally looking over trying to figure out when people queue up.

The final hour was actually spent in the line. I tried to make small-talk with the fan in front of me, but soon gave that up when she grimaced in disapproval after finding out I’d been a fan for “only a month” then literally took me by the shoulders and shook me while insisting, “MAKE SURE YOU MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH THEM! MAKE EYE CONTACT OR YOU’LL REGRET IT!”

It was while I was worriedly scrolling through my phone that Monsta X rolled in in sports cars.

Just as I began to recover from the absolutely mind-boggling spectacles I’d already been forced to face, I was ushered into the venue--which housed six enormous cut-outs of the members’ faces. Which, frankly, was terrifying.

(Photo: Michelle Kim. Two of the “six enormous cut-outs,” featuring Hyungwon and Joohoney, set-up at Tower Records for Monsta X’s meet-and-greet on Feb. 14, 2020.)

I’d probably been waiting in there for around 15 minutes when the employees desperately trying to hype up the room (mostly full of nervous young girls) introduced Monsta X, who suddenly burst through the curtains on the opposite side of the room and rushed up to the table before hurriedly taking their seats (Kihyun, their main vocalist, barely had time to shrug off his jacket) and sticking out their hands.

After that, it’s just a blur.

Writing this approximately a month after the event, all I can remember is the first member possibly smirking at me, the second holding my hand more firmly than I’d expected, the third smiling broadly, and the last two seeming tired.

And then I stumbled out of the venue and called an Uber and was back home, largely unchanged.

(Photo: Michelle Kim. Paul McCarthy, Dead H Drawings, 1968-69; graphite and ink on paper. Paul McCarthy, Dead H Crooked Leg, 1979 and Dead H Crooked Leg Maze, 1979; graphite and ink on paper. On display at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA. Photo taken Feb. 22, 2020.)

The Gaze

When recalling the original myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the first thing that usually comes to my mind is Orpheus turning around to look at Eurydice and to lose her. It’s the climax of the story. And though that Orphic gaze is translated differently in different iterations of the myth, it always seems to be a focal point.

Gazing at something implies a strange binary--it reveals that there is that which you can see and that which you cannot. Paul McCarthy captures this in his Dead H Drawings, a series of sketches of said letter with the space in the center horizontal line highlighted. If you were to look through the legs, you would never be able to see the inside of that portion; you could only see out the other end of the leg like a tunnel. Hence, it’s a dead space.

Even when just looking at a specific object, it becomes clear that you can only focus on one thing at a time. Everything in your peripheral is less easily accessed--forget whatever’s happening behind you.

In Orpheus’s case, the gaze is about confirming Eurydice’s presence yet also losing her. It’s both a moment of relief and of grief, of catharsis and of catastrophe. The nature of his tragedy is that he can’t have the first without the second; if he did, he will have succeeded.

For Scottie, the protagonist of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, it’s exactly this sense of conflicted intangibility that attracts him to Judy/Madeleine, the Eurydice-figure. Even when he believes she’s just Madeleine, there’s an element of fantastical unreachability to her--the fact that she is supposedly possessed by Carlotta. And then when Judy falls back into the Madeleine role, Scottie continues to push her to the edge until she dies a true and final death.

Perhaps this is what makes celebrities such easy objects of affection and what motivates paparazzi. Celebrity sightings, celebrity photos, and two-minute interviews--they’re all small glimpses of a desirable person that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.

(Screenshots of replies from Twitter on a tweet regarding how the original poster believes BTS loves ARMY more than ARMY could ever love them, taken on March 11, 2020. Twitter handles and personal information have been blurred for the users’ privacy.)

A persistent phenomenon in BTS’s fanbase is ARMY seeming to think that BTS’s members genuinely love all of their fans.

K-pop is particularly adept when it comes to commodifying celebrities. It’s why they’re referred to as “idols” and not just as normal performers. Their jobs are to record songs and dance at concerts, but they’re also expected to vlog, feature on variety and reality shows, film practice videos, take and post selfies, consistently interact with fans on Fancafe (a blog platform for K-pop idols), be gracious and friendly in public--and on top of all this pressure, maintain their appearances and memorize choreography and lyrics.

Because there’s hundreds of hours of content featuring them available, it’s easy for fans to believe that they truly, personally understand their favorite idols. But idols are first and foremost entertainers. Everything they do is in the interest of gaining more fans, who turn into consumers and therefore income. When taking into account their motivation, does that still make idols genuine?

In Sarah Ruhl’s play Eurydice, Eurydice loses her memory upon death. She must relearn who she was when she was alive through her father, also dead, as he reteaches her how to read, her favorite past-time when alive. 

By the time Orpheus arrives to guide her out of the Underworld, it’s unclear if Eurydice has regained her previous sense of self. And if she has, it’s been filtered through her father. 

Similarly, the return of “Madeleine” in Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a hazy recollection of the original woman.

(Vertigo (1958) dir. Alfred Hitchcock.)

Though Judy is dressed as Madeleine, talks like Madeleine, and walks like Madeleine, she’s only playing the Madeleine that Scottie wants to see. She’s putting on an artificial performance of what he expects in an effort to appease him. The Madeleine that he wants is a cool, refined, and feminine lady. Though not playing hard-to-get, she’s always out of reach as a woman both disconnected from reality and married, therefore unavailable. 

Judy can’t always be that. In the car, when Scottie drives her to the bell tower where the true Madeline died, Judy slips through her Madeleine veneer as she acts just a shade too coy.

Eurydice can’t always be what Orpheus expects her to be. The Backwards Look that ultimately causes him to lose her is an act of attempted confirmation, to be sure that he has her: the “loan” that Hades had promised him.

This Backwards Look manifests in many ways among BTS fans.

First, there are the sasaengs and fansites. They’re in some ways comparable to paparazzi--fansites especially, who consider it their (unpaid and unasked for) jobs to photograph idols at their every public appearance, even if they’re just going to catch a flight, then to share their professional-grade photographs online. Sasaengs take this a step further; they’re essentially stalkers who will buy an idol’s personal information to, for example, share a flight and book a neighboring hotel room to be as physically close to them as possible.

Though less extreme, there are also fan artists and fanfiction writers. Both attempt to capture the BTS members’ personalities and internal lives and manifest them in portraits, comics, and elaborate stories (often novel-length or longer). Artists and writers have to assume something about BTS when creating such content. There’s no way anyone could fully understand what’s happening in another person’s head. And when BTS is constantly presenting stage personas while acting like reality shows, filmed by dozens of cameras and producers, represent who they truly are, it’s difficult to say who the artists and writers are trying to capture.

Even a fan’s desire to stream music and videos and look at photos of BTS is a form of the Backwards Look. They’re constantly revisiting a moment and trying to recapture that first instance of experiencing it. This is the Eurydice moment--the experience of falling in love with a piece of art in a brief glance, and losing that feeling as soon as the moment is over.

These experiences are by no means limited to just BTS. Many fandoms, especially other K-pop groups’ fandoms, all experience this overwhelming amount of content consumption. But because BTS is the current Orpheus--dominating their music genre--they have the most fans, the most fanart and fanfiction, and the most streams. They are constantly under the pressure of the Backwards Gaze.

And they are constantly beyond it at the same time. In Ovid’s telling, Eurydice disappears as soon as Orpheus looks back (“she was gone, in a moment”). In Ruhl’s, the lovers “turn away from each other, matter-of-fact, compelled” as soon Orpheus sees Eurydice. When Scottie finally sees the Madeleine he wants, she dies in the next scene.

Eurydice is always beyond reach. And for every minute of content BTS releases, there’s still hours where they’re beyond the camera’s gaze. Are they the same in front of it as they are apart from it? Would they still profess how much they love ARMY if no one was there to record them? Would RM be as well-spoken? Would Jin’s laugh be the same?

It’s only been a month or so, but it’s difficult for me to recall what exactly happened when I gave Shownu, the leader of Monsta X, a horrifically awkward half-high-five-half-handshake. I tried to record what happened right after the event, but I was so shocked that all I could write for him was “funny little smile,” which doesn’t help much when I’m trying to piece together the memory.

Even in the moment, it was difficult to parse exactly what that “funny little smile” meant. There’s only so much time to think when you’re given just a split-second glance. Had Shownu been teasing, playing the flirt that loves all his fans as idols are expected to? Had he been genuinely excited to be there? Had he been embarrassed? (I know I was.) Maybe the smile hadn’t been funny, or little, or even a smile at all--maybe I’d read the moment all wrong.

Funnily enough, Shownu features on a song called, “Don’t Look Back.”

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#4

[schoolofartsgent]

25 Surprising Facts About best keyboard for learning piano

A person this sort of millennial who knocked my socks off was this youthful girl named Anushka, a teen in her early twenties. Her white t-shirt with "MILLENNIAL" in massive, black, bold letters just caught our rapid focus and we couldn't end pondering her Unique Expertise Presentation, listed here at Nirmiti Academy. The Do it yourself (Get it done On your own) Craft was her distinctive expertise. She represented a younger face with the millennials. Moreover, it was her presentation that spoke a lot more of her like a millennial. She was a real go-getter when it arrived to current her exclusive talent in a novel way. We could see her beaming with delight and happiness to showcase her exceptional expertise to Many others. She was so enthusiastic that she was speaking a mile a minute. She experienced much to mention over it and she could go on and on and maintain us glued to her presentation. The millennials like Anushka and many Other folks are motivated to work on matters which interest them. At the same time, I could also see her becoming struggling to smile and existing herself Fortunately. Gone would be the moments to the millennials the place they experience existing and revel in their environment. They can be the technology who sense the regular will need for virtual notice which qualified prospects them to overshare their life and moments on social media or go inward in deep conscience to discover themselves. This leaves them unconnected with the Bodily globe all over them.

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Millennials are in this article to remain! They can be youthful, brilliant and energetic and they're the longer term. They are excellent belongings which the globe must harness and use. They can be the era that is definitely revolutionizing the whole world. They may be the budding leaders of tomorrow. They undertake technological know-how and stimulus in precisely the same breadth. This technology can be a collaborative and social generation that includes a target comprehending and building their awareness as a result of several types of medium to find out the solutions. It is actually to the educator like us to offer an arena for engagement and discovery in addition to become a written content specialist and mentor. It is for learning platform suppliers like Nirmiti Academy to provide an explorative and experiential expertise and convey out their true opportunity in everyday life and at work. It is this transformational journey that we at Nirmiti Academy sit up for on a daily basis to learn, unlearn and relearn with these youthful and magical era - the Millennials!

With the advancement of innovation, it's got gotten crucial to persistently study, unlearn, and relearn to extinguish the thirst of grave challenge. In distinction to customary time, the action of bookkeepers just isn't constrained to maintaining thick registers. With robotization, the concept of manual bookkeeping has become an outsider expression and now, a massive bit of bookkeeping operate could be addressed bookkeeping programming, by way of example, QuickBooks programming.

In this particular website, we will discuss a portion of the numerous specialised ability and abilities to develop into a professional Accountant now and continuously:

Simple Wondering

Source: magnapubs.com

At the point when we talk about the bookkeeping calling, we should take into consideration fundamental talents, such as, getting the critical info on the bookkeeping calling. In any situation, presently the situation continues to be modified and men and women are alluding applicants being able to burrow even further to take a gander in any way viewpoints from the quantities and the information equally as spotting designs and illustrations to be aware of the Tale inside. Be that as it could, this capacity cannot be developed medium-term. That is a sort of sensitive aptitudes that you can discover over a timespan, through successfully in search of knowledge Along with the work. Rather than carrying out things which ring a bell, endeavor to think of creative and out on the container preparations. Examine, evaluate, and Feel if you experience an issue to concoct essentially the most achievable and progressive preparations.

Receive Complex Capabilities

Supply: Domain.me

As indicated by Entrepreneur.com, cloud bookkeeping is going to be launched in above ninety% corporations. Mechanization has gotten inalienably elementary to support while in the organization. With innovation, for instance, the cloud, it can be at present very simple to appreciate the unpredictable facts and also to get to them from anyplace on the planet with barely any snaps. The cloud has grown to be The latest sample for that bookkeeping business enterprise.

With cloud facilitating it has grown to be A lot less complicated for that businesses to work cooperatively without trading off the safety element. On top of that, working with the cloud give nonstop accessibility of the knowledge from any remote corner of the globe. Accordingly, the fascination for just a bookkeeper getting specialized qualities would be the great choice in excess of the group.

Information on Federal government Legal guidelines

Resource: Money Convey

As a consequence of differed new and reconsidered tips, The task of bookkeepers has Moreover improved. Inside the calendar year 2020, realizing the stray pieces of those progressions can get principal for bookkeepers. As indicated by experts inside the bookkeeping enterprise, new governing administration rules and compliances will likely be constantly actualized to advance straightforwardness in organization. In this manner It'll be much more simple to the bookkeepers to get the information on new and current governing administration principles and tips. So, it is suggested to makeover your present mastery time allowing, and to enhance a significant most popular position above Many others.

Relational Competencies

Resource: Jarvee

You ought to have the choice to liaise with unique divisions, buyers and the customers. For this, bookkeepers are anticipated to possess solid relational skills, by way of example, customer the executives, arrangement aptitudes, compassion, and so on.

Presently, the activity in the bookkeepers usually are not restricted on the calculating, it includes customary gatherings with authorities, buyers, and associates to accommodate their Tastes. Within this manner, obtaining every one of these capabilities will include from the operate performance and accomplishment of the bookkeeper. One example is, it is prescribed to not make the most of interior abbreviations or specialized language when responding to inquiries of The shoppers. Getting excellent relational aptitudes will build strong connections and to carry clientele and to attract in new purchasers. This can be a significant aptitude to get.

Details Analytics

Source: amazing info mixture

Smarts are classified as the people who can fathom the information, however far more astute are the ones who will make it getting used. To investigate the knowledge and to consider a plausible arrangement, it is important to the bookkeepers to grasp the intricate details of the knowledge. Acquiring every one of those aptitudes can make you conscious of your existing fascination on the purchasers and buyers. Greedy the innovation and embellishment of our arrangement of skills as per the need of time will almost certainly assist.