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rin-and-jade · 8 months

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Who Turned On the Alarms?: A Post about Flashbacks

We all know Hollywood's portrayal of these memories being rewinded back to the past, with clear visual of its surroundings,, and that is also used to resemble some act to voluntarily recall them again.. but let's ask some stuffs here. What's a flashback really? How does that work? When can it happen anyway?? Why do we have these moments??.. sit back guys-- i got the video right here,, just uh, need to load these filmstrips to the projector before we can move on! (long post alert)

What is it?

Let's get briefed on the definition of a flashback first,,

" A flashback, or involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience. These experiences can be frightful, happy, sad, exciting, or any number of other emotions. " (but we will talk about the negative experiences only)

Yes, flashbacks are involuntary (apologize, Hollywood),, and they're also:

Varying in lengths, most are short as a blink

Happen in disconnected bits/snippets images

Often blurry, or fuzzy

Able to elicit strong emotions or numb them

Can present as physical sensations

It can happen in different degrees and frequency, but sometimes we kept missing the signs, why's that? I thought of a few reasons:

Because it's very subjective and that everyone's experiences are unique, that makes it harder to realize their own

Not aware of the term, thus got stumped and confused

Elicited emotions felt weak, thus disregarded as memories

And the How?

I'll keep it simple, the amygdala is a region in the brain that is responsible for emotions, the hippocampus for memories, and the prefrontal cortex for rationalizing. Amygdala, as how i have observed, prioritize in paying attention to strong negative experiences compared to other feelings for survival.

A flashback can happen because it undergoes a situation named "amygdala hijack", where it intuitively means the overactive amygdala ruins the other processes of the brain. So basically, when the amygdala detect some external senses that are similarly associated with bad, past incidents,, it triggers stress signals and puts you in a fight-or-flight situation.

Stress itself can impair these three regions like a domino line,, because the amygdala went to stress mode, it became more biased to feeling more of these bad emotions, and the emotions can evoke visual memories correlating to the context. This process unveiled so fast that there's barely time for us to rationalize what is happening which then leads to a failure of judgement (what is at present and what is at past) and this might be the reason we feel "in the moment" of our previous negative experiences.

Dissociation, paranoia, and changes in emotional sensitivity may appear together with the flashbacks

Okay, but when does it appear?

Answer is, from any kinds of external (image, scent, sound, tactile) senses--at this point, accidentally internally thinking/feeling something that could set off the triggers also counts.

It takes some time for the panic to properly (as brain needs to process) build up, there's a gap that serves as our gateaway from the relentless waves of doom that's bout to come--taking us to talk about how to cope and keep our composure:

Being aware is the first step, and the most important one because if not, we wouldn't know what is happening and how to deal with it, best if you familiarize yourself with the information so you can detect them in ease.

Check for your breathing and type of thoughts popping up are the breaths pacing faster? Does your brain generate more thoughts and you can't keep up with it? Do you feel dizzy or tensed or confused? These are the signs to look out for, to prevent early.

Quickly interject it can be things like assuring yourself it is not like the past again,, or tell yourself that it's a flashback happening, not a real threat. It does impede the speed of stress building up just by being aware that you're not really in danger.

Implement some grounding and de-stressing techniques Fastest way to interrupt your brain is by splashing your face with water or holding some ice, you can use whatever ways preferred as long it doesn't harm anyone in the process.

Why does it happen?

Well, flashbacks happen because the memories are often stored in the brain in a fragmented and emotional way, they can be easily triggered by various cues or reminders, as emotions are never bound to time. Thus why we can reenact past experiences in the present again. Im saying it's a survival mechanism that's intended to recognize and respond to potential threats more effectively based on past experiences, though it could be intrusive and disruptive/distressing for day to day living which is why i intend to talk about this.

And hey, you've reached to the bottom of the post! I hope you learnt a lot from this,, please let me know your own thoughts/experiences in this topic or suggest new ideas for me to work on, reblogs will help a ton so others could be informed as well so no need to shy away--and have a good day.

- j

#did #actually did #did community #did osdd #did system #dissociative identity disorder #sysblr #plural #jeducates

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crystaldust · 5 months

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How did you make the outcome be like you wanted?

that's the thing!! i'm not sure hahahaha

here's the full story:

***note: this is all about my ego, the past and "limiting" beliefs and thoughts

i had a really important exam last saturday but i didn't study anything at all for it (for context: it was an exam to get a discount for a preparatory course for college applications - i haven't studied highschool material in many years so i really don't even remember anything anymore) and so when the time came to it i was quite nervous and honestly i didn't think i could do well on it at all.

i knew i wanted to get a really big discount and ideally i would love it if the final value came down to 500 (the full price was 1400) but that was so unrealistic because as stated above, i didn't know shit, and i really didn't. I remember that during the exam I'd read some of the questions and genuinely be like: I have no fucking idea what this is about at all. By the end of it I would even have thoughts such as "is it possible to get every single question wrong?" (it was 50 questions) and "i must have gotten SOMETHING right, right?". another factor is that in the past few years I kind of developed the belief that I'm stupid... so I really questioned my abilities in general lol.

here's the thing tho: for the past month or so, I've really been trying my best and focusing on letting every thought and feeling be. I've spent years trying to control my thoughts and feelings and it became second nature to me. So back when i was waiting for the exam to start, I know i decided that i wasn't going to try to change the negative thoughts nor the feelings of anxiety, but I think I also decided that I was going to get a huge discount, no matter what happened. It was just a simple thought like "what if I got it tho?" To be honest I'm not quite sure about this last bit, I can't remember exactly, but it was something along those lines.

so I finished the exam and went home and i kind of let go of it in the sense of "let go and let god". I didn't fixate on it or anything, I just moved on. Then 2 days later they called me with the results, telling me I got 28 questions right and that reduced the value to 597. I was already ecstatic about this, it was the best news I could have gotten. It made my day. But it wasn't over yet.

They also told me that I could send in school records, results from past exams etc and that could help me get an even bigger discount. But I only had 2 days to do it, and at first I was worried because I couldn't recall having my school records at all and usually if you request it from your school, it can take a month before they give it to you. I asked my mom about it and she had a vague idea that maybe she had it somewhere... thankfully she found it, so I sent it over to them, along with the results fom one past national exam. Then they called me back a few hours later, telling me i had reached the maximum discount they could offer and the value was now at 465!!

So that's what happened!! I ended up getting exactly what I wanted even tho I (the ego) couldn't believe in it nor think accordingly to it at all!

if anyone has any opinions or thoughts I'd love to hear them!!!

#answered #personal journey #sorry its so long...

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itsclydebitches · 11 months

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Adding to the Semblance discussion. It was REALLY uncomfortable when they said what Semblances meant and I realized what Adam’s represented especially when Blake talked about her own Semblance.

it did not leave a good taste in my mouth at all when Blake just said ‘his Semblance is like yours’. Not even touching on the implication of Jaune’s own Semblance manifesting as his literal desire to be useful to the point he is sacrificing his soul(they specified he’s boosting their Aura, not just healing.).

like…I fully expected an intervention or something but no.

On a less…upsetting note. Do you think in Volume 5 when Ruby said she unlocked her Semblance training, it was that moment in Yang’s trailer? One where Ruby bolted and tripped. Which made me go ‘Oh, so this is the moment she talked about!’. Always found it weird how no one mentioned it in discussions.

I think it helps a smidgen that Ren's lecture (from what I recall, anyway) makes it clear that not everyone agrees with the theory that semblances = innate aspects of who you are... but the problem is the show then went to treat it as a given, rather than just a dubious, perhaps self-fulfilling idea. However, if RWBY is going to commit to that 1:1 connection, then yeah, the writing needs to consider what semblances reveal about a person that perhaps needs to be addressed. The closest they've gotten is with Blake and I think that's a staggering failure because 1. Her clones are not solely used for running away (they fight back, provide distractions, combine with dust, etc.) 2. Other characters with similar semblances (like Sun) apparently don't have this same flaw despite the metaphor suggesting as much and 3. Running away isn't inherently a bad thing. I keep thinking about how Blake's biased perspective of her own semblance might have led to a more nuanced version of Volume 8. What happens when you take a character who originally thought that running was a horrific, cowardly act, only for her to realize over time that it's just another kind of combat strategy, one that's often necessary in a long-term war (something she's in a unique position to understand given her generational fight for equality) and then you set her up in contrast to her overly optimistic "We can do it!" leader when they're both faced with a no-win scenario? As the cynical, hardened, activist, "You have to know how to fight to survive outside the kingdoms" team member, I'd have loved to see Blake help Ruby grow as they face more and more complicated situations... not clasp her hands and gush about how she's always looked up to her (not actually). Semblances could have been a key part of all that, especially when you take into account that speed is also a useful tool for getting out of a tough situation. How often has Ruby used her semblance to get away from a fighter she knows she can't take on alone? Roman, Mercury, and the like? But that Ruby belongs to a former version of the story that wasn't upholding certain messages to the point of narrative nonsense.

I'm drawing a blank on where Ruby "bolted and tripped." Was that another short? I never saw Yang's trailer as the moment she unlocked her semblance though, if only because Yang has no reaction to it. She laughs a little and says, "Nice one, sis" which is not the kind of excited response we'd expect from a younger Yang when Ruby hits such an important milestone. I've always assumed we've never seen the exact moment Ruby unlocked it on screen, just heard about it in passing.

Although, in re-watching that moment I spotted this:

Far from being a generalized character flaw, the context of this is Ruby running from hand-to-hand practice when we've already established that she doesn't want to do this. That's another flaw the show introduced without considering how it fits into the larger World Building. Why is Ruby the only one who has the "problem" of not being able to fight without her weapon? I would have bought this if the show had simply framed it as an issue all Huntsmen face, but Ruby is in a unique position to circumvent it given her family's personalities and fighting styles: Yang is a brawler, Tai might have been similar, and we see that Qrow has no problem shrugging and throwing a punch when his own weapon is lost (Tyrian fight). Instead, RWBY acts like Ruby is the only one with this issue (Ozpin calling her out), she's apparently overcome this with a single hit (Haven battle)... and then it never comes up again. Despite the fact that Volume 9 has her lose her weapon and then be too traumatized to pick it back up for all of 30 seconds the hand-to-hand never returns as a satisfying, "Ah, good thing Ruby had that development and came from this family, otherwise she might be in serious trouble here!"

Hmm. You know, now I'm just thinking about an AU where teeny-tiny Ruby with the speed semblance is originally trained in close combat because do you realize the advantage you have with Petal Burst and your small stature? Besides, playing dirty in the name of survival is a Rose-Xiao-Long tradition! It's not until late in Signal that Ruby is deciding on her weapon and it's a damn struggle for her to wield such a massive scythe, but she's stubborn and is determined to follow through on her choice. So one day she looses Crescent Rose in battle and Roman thinks that's it, this kid only had "one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed" going for her and those stuffy Huntsmen are notorious for putting all their eggs in one basket, learning their fancy moves with their fancy, dust-powered weaponry and then it alllll falls apart the second they're forced to get their own hands dirty. Piece of cake.

...only for Ruby to kick his ass with arms like steal from wielding a weapon that weighs as much as she does, the ability to slink her way under any guard, a speed semblance that can take her behind her opponent in an instant (trailing petals as a distraction to boot), and years of training under Tai, Yang, and Qrow—all of whom really like punching things.

Ruby: What? Did you think I needed Crescent Rose? That's stupid...

Yang: 👏👏 😎 👏👏

Blake, who also harbored those assumptions about Signal-trained Huntsmen because like many of their enemies she comes from a culture where you fight with whatever the hell you've got on hand: 😍

Weiss who DOES need her weapon to enact any kind of damage because she's been taught that any fighting that could so much as muss her hair is a big, cultural no-no and she's just beginning to realize that maybe that ignorance/aversion is a bit of a liability:

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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spanishskulduggery · 2 years

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Can you explain when to use imperfect vs preterite vs perfect past tense? I struggle knowing when to use which.

So this is going to be just a quick overview of preterite and imperfect, and I'll include more links now for more in depth things that you can look at because I talk about them very often

Preterite tag

Imperfect tag

The Perfect Tenses w/ haber

In many cases preterite and imperfect are both valid choices, depending on what you're trying to express: leí "I read" vs. leía "I was reading / I used to read" as an example

Preterite in Spanish is also known as "simple past"; it's used for things that have definitely happened. By "definitely" I mean there's often a time phrase associated with it that says "this happened at this time"

It typically is action or something that did specifically happen, so it can read as very clinical and matter of fact

...

Imperfect on the other hand has more uses. The linguistic term "imperfect" means "not yet completed"

Imperfect is often used with narration and description, describing the weather, the time, personalities

But the big thing that I find helpful is that in general the imperfect tense seems to be narration, while the preterite seems to be an interruption or action.

Whether you choose preterite or imperfect in some cases is more about how much description you're giving, as imperfect gives you a scenario, while preterite shows an action taking place in that scenario.

Dormía y entonces sonó el teléfono. = I was sleeping and then the phone rang. Dormía mientras sonaba el teléfono. = I was sleeping while the phone was ringing. [implying "I" didn't wake up] Dormí y sonó el teléfono. = I slept, and the phone rang. [two preterites imply a list of actions, like recalling a memory

The other very important function of imperfect tense is that it can mean "used to"; this can be done with or without the verb soler "to be in the habit of"

*Quick note on soler; it can't exist in preterite, it's usually in present tense suele ir a la playa "he/she normally goes to the beach" or imperfect solía ir a la playa "he/she would go to the beach". Because the imperfect tense can mean multiple things depending on context, soler adds a special bit of emphasis on "used to" to clear up any confusion:

Iba a la playa. = I was going to the beach. [imperfect continuous/progessive] Iba a la playa. = I used to go the beach. [imperfect, marking habitual] Solía ir a la playa. = I used to go to the beach. [habitual; soler being a clear marker of habitual]

Another common one is vivir. You could say vivía en la ciudad to mean "I lived in the city" OR "I used to live in the city", but if you wanted to be very clear - solía vivir en la ciudad "I used to live in the city"

Additional Notes:

You can only tell time in the past with imperfect - era la una, eran las dos, eran las tres etc

You can do the passive voice with preterite + past participle, and it only works with preterite here

The perfect tenses are a bit of a special case. I never know quite how to classify them because they can be in pretty much any tense, and they exist in indicative and subjunctive

Essentially though, "perfect" means "thoroughly done"; the same linguistic root as "imperfect" being "not yet completed"

Perfect tenses use a conjugation of haber + a past participle, and some past participles are irregular... as an example hacer "to done" turns into hecho "done"

Past participles are useful to know because they're also frequently the adjectival forms of verbs... like haber roto "to have broken", but then as an adjective roto/a is "broken"

Perfect puts things a little into the past, but it still has an effect on the present. So it is technically like a past tense, but it can be used alongside other tenses when things still have an impact

English has this same function - it's the difference between "did" and "have done"

Note: Many people use present perfect in place of preterite [simple past]. I wouldn't recommend it if you're just starting out because you shouldn't use it as a crutch, and preterite has many irregular forms you do need to know for later on

¿La viste? = Did you see her/it? ¿La has visto? = Have you seen her/it?

In that example, pretty much nothing has changed. If you use the preterite you typically would expect an answer in preterite, describing the past, la vi ayer "I saw her/it yesterday" or no la vi "I didn't see it/her" for example

If you get asked "have you seen her?" you're asking about something that still has an impact on the present... no la he visto aún "I haven't seen her yet" for example has an implication that you might see her later. Or la he visto "I have seen her" kind of invites a follow-up question; it's almost as if you know someone is going to ask you where you saw her or when, or where she is now

Next we have pluperfect [el pluscuamperfecto] which is an imperfect conjugation of haber + past participle

"Pluperfect" or "pluscuamperfect" is more or less "past-er than past", or "more than past"

It's talking about something that happened further in the past but still has an impact on the present situation. You see this a lot with recounting memories so it comes up a lot in first-person stories, diaries, memories, witness statements etc.

No la había visto. = I hadn't seen her. La había visto antes. = I had seen her before. Nunca habíamos viajado en avión. = We had never flown (before). [lit. "we had never traveled by plane"] Se habían hecho ricos. = They'd gotten rich. / They'd become rich. Se habían hecho ricas. = They [f] had gotten rich. / They [f] had become rich.

But if you compare present perfect and pluperfect you really see the "more past than past"

No se conocen. = They don't know each other. [present] No se conocían. = They didn't know each other. [imperfect] No se conocieron. = They didn't meet each other. [preterite] No se conocerán. = They shall not know each other. / They will not meet each other. [future] No se conocerían. = They wouldn't know/meet each other. [conditional] No se han conocido. = They haven't met each other. [present perfect] No se habían conocido. = They hadn't met each other. [pluperfect] No se habrán conocido. = They won't have met each other. [future perfect] No se habrían conocido. = They wouldn't have met each other. [conditional]

*Note: no se habrán conocido is not a super common expression but it is grammatically possible... you're more likely to see that used passively like "they shall not be known" or "you would never have known" as in "they would not have been discovered"... but that's neither here nor there

And like I said, perfect can exist in subjunctive so:

Es curioso que no se hayan conocido antes. = It's strange that they haven't met before. Es curioso que no se hubieran conocido antes. = It's strange that they haven't met before. Era curioso que no se hubieran conocido antes. = It was strange that they hadn't met before. [which sounds more narrative]

#learning spanish #learn spanish #spanish #language #langblr #languages #la gramatica #asks #preterito #imperfecto #haber #the eternal struggle

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repo-net · 1 year

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Hi friend! As fun as Monaca was, it is good to see Nagisa is back! 💙 After “Monaca” ranked her friends, I’ve been wondering how you would rank the WOH in terms of your personal favorites? I’m assuming Nagisa is your favorite, but out of the others do you have a 2nd favorite, 3rd, 4th, 5th ect. or is it just Nagisa’s the best and the rest are kind of equal to you? (with the exception of perhaps Monaca?) Just curious but you don’t have to answer. Have a great day! 💕

Hello hello, thank you again for another ask! It was quite a fun week, I appreciated the small change in theme I took for a bit, but it's nice to finally have a refreshed and updated look again now that we're back to normal.

Ranking the Warriors of Hope, huh? I've been asked this question a few times before, but I'm not sure if I've done it here yet? I can't quite recall. I do have a personal ranking though that hasn't changed and likely won't ever change, but I'll skip number 1 since I think it's pretty obvious who's taking that spot.

5. Kotoko Utsugi

Kotoko's cute. I think she's entertaining and a lot of her lines hit the mark when she's actually allowed to have depth (something that DR tends to fail on), and she probably has my favorite design when it comes to the Warriors of Hope. Her personality is funny and I just wanna give her a hug because of the horrible messes she's been through.

But in the grand scheme of things and appreciating her overall character, I just can't overlook the clutter of mishandling of the themes in her writing. The game didn't treat it with nearly enough respect as they should've, from the weird as hell shots of her underwear, to the whole motivation machine... thing. I have an obvious issue with that entire segment, but I at least see why Kotoko would act in such a way. But the fact they turned it into a minigame...? With the instructions for it ending off by basically telling the player to not enjoy themselves too much? Leaves such a sour taste in my mouth.

For the same reason characters like Mikan are low on my tier lists (though I don't actually dislike or hate any character, the lowest grade I give is just a 'god, I really don't care at all'.), Kotoko gets the same grade. Fun character, horrible handling and presentation.

4. Jataro Kemuri

Y'know, there's a bit of a gap between Kotoko and this one. Not that big, but enough that I can decisively say every time someone asks me who my least favorite Warrior of Hope is, I would say the former. Anyways, moving on to Jataro. I think one reason he's over here is because he suffers from what I call "middle character syndrome", where he doesn't 'die' early enough like Masaru to leave a first impression, or someone late like Nagisa to really set you up for the climax. He's stuck in the unfortunate spot of having to follow up from who came first.

But that doesn't mean I don't like him. I think his trauma and backstory is one of the more unique ways of portraying mental abuse. While I think they could've done a better job of actually giving us time to digest his story and see more context in what really happened, I think his attitude (and his voice actor: god bless Michelle Ruff, she does an incredible job) and how he's so ruthless because he loves being hated is intriguing.

It's not enough to get him that high, but for what it's worth, I enjoyed Jataro while he was on screen and I wish we got to see more of him and Masaru, they badly needed more screentime. Speaking of which...

3. Masaru Daimon

Ah, here's the boy. If you thought my issue with Jataro's screentime was bad, man - Masaru's issues go way bigger than that. This poor fella gets a total of two scenes to shine in - the part where the Warriors of Hope introduce themselves, and his boss fight. If you wanna be generous and make it three, then we can count his supposed funeral, but as far as I'm concerned, the only one who got any sort of character build there was Nagisa and Monaca.

So why is Masaru so up high on my list despite the fact that he, y'know. Barely even existed? It's because he left his mark and set the tone well for the rest of his members to follow up on. Establishing himself as an arrogant, noisy brat that you just wanna pummel in his intro, with making a few lines here and there that make way for light-heartedness (wieners!). And then, he shows his weak heart. Beating his arm up (that scene was and still is hard to watch btw) and making subtle references easy enough for the viewer to make inferences from. Building what's coming.

That's what Masaru does. He lays the blueprints down for the rest of the kids, and that they all have reasons for turning the way they did. Being the first example is as important as closing off the story, and Masaru despite how little time he got was able to pass that test.

2. Monaca Towa

Yep, it's pretty obvious who my second favorite Warrior of Hope is if you've been paying attention to my blog, lol. Monaca is a horrible and terrifying child. She has done plenty of things wrong. I want nothing more than for her to receive her comeuppance and get what she deserves. And that's why pickle satan is my second favorite Warrior of Hope, my favorite villain/main antagonist in the series, and one of my favorite characters in general. And it all roots back to what I believe is most important in a character - presentation.

Believe me when I say this; a character that annoys the viewer will always be worse than a character that repulses them. You want them to think 'oh screw this guy, i hope they get owned and beat eventually', absolutely not 'oh screw this guy, get them off my screen, i don't wanna see this anymore'. You want to have the audience desire their demise, not be so irritated by them that they don't even wanna continue seeing the story anymore. Monaca plays her role of the despicable villain incredibly. She is so easy to hate in the ways that you wanna see her get destroyed.

I could go for a long, long while about Monaca and make a post of her own, honestly. Her dynamic with Nagisa is a one-sided tragedy (that I honestly think is more co-dependent than most people realize.) that ends with her pulling off one of the most horrid scenes in the series by mentally destroying the psyche of another character to the point he can't even muster the will to fight her anymore.

Her whole motive - it's initially believed that Monaca wants to be the next generation of Junko Enoshima herself, but the more you look into it, the more hints the story gives, until the buildup where the plan was for it to be Komaru all along... it's an excellent build and subversion that makes sense. Her writing works. Her character works. Everything clicks with Monaca. I just wish her arc ended more satisfyingly in DR3, even if the absurdity of it was pretty funny. Monaca's great. Love her and I'll always write about her.

Thanks again for sending the ask! I apologize this took a while, I've been busy these past few days in preparation of the upcoming school week. Hope to hear from you again, and have a great day!

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onewomancitadel · 1 year

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Another small similarity I noticed. Emerald & Mercury are not only reflections of Cinder's childhood self but she also took up the parental role for the both of them and even refers to them as her children. While Jaune's story has him taking care of kids in Atlas and learning not to be a helicopter parent with the paper people. The story highlights both their flaws in dealing with their metaphorical children. Am I crazy? Because it kinda feels like the show is setting them up to be parents.

I have made the case before for them having children on a few different occasions, but not with this specific evidence. (I don't usually bring it up because I feel like this end of the fandom, and fandom in general, gets a bit touchy around it - including me honestly, because I've had some real misogynistic freaks message me about it). Thanks for your ask though, because you've made a good point here. I don't think you're crazy.

I have separately discussed the false mother role Cinder took on with Emerald (I can't recall her referring to them as her children, do you have an episode citation for that? I'm going to assume that was in an earlier volume) but I never considered it in the context of actual children lol. The separate thing with Jaune and kids is very weird (and I am sincerely surprised that they actually did genuine helicopter parenting characterisation with the Paper Pleasers).

The thing you have to remember (and I have to remember) is that this isn't really just there for fluff - as joyful as that can be - but it is genuinely thematically motivated. I have elaborated on this topic in the past a few times, but Ozlem lost their children. There's an ongoing idea of creators/creations and how to control them (or not control them) and let them grow (literal garden metaphor here). Ozma saw his lost daughters in the Maidens; Salem literally went and got an all-in-one daughter (Maiden vessel) replacement. Salem as a bearer of life who killed her children is something very deeply symbolically twisted (this is why Medea is so notable) basically asking to be redeemed.

Note that Ozpin controlling the Maidens - specifically trying to control the transfer with priming Pyrrha for Maiden candidacy, and Ironwood likewise emulating this process - is categorically a bad thing. Those sequences where Cinder stops this happening is a twisted good thing (even if her motivation happens to not be altruistic, but this is why calculatedly I think reforming her attitude towards the Maiden powers makes sense because she's already demonstrated, to some degree, this idea. Take that idea a little further...)

Recall that Jaune took on the role of the Old Man in the Four Maidens fairytale. Jaune is repeatedly connected to Maidens or would-be Maidens in pretty significant ways given that he's not a possible candidate - like, seriously significant, given that he was taken down to the Vault where Amber was and the whole thing with Pyrrha, then Penny, and his enmity with Cinder. The only other Maiden he hasn't had much to do with is Raven, but given Raven may at some point make a return, there's no saying what could happen. So, that he's got this direct relation to Ozma (when he's an old man) is pretty telling because we're being told to directly think about the way Ozma related to his daughters... contrast against Cinder with her Dark Curse - like Salem's own Grimm poolification - and the Ozlem of it all starts getting weird pretty quickly.

But it's such an enduring idea in the show (Ruby's mother wound is a whole thing in her Heroine's Journey) that it's no surprise it's come up over and over. Evil stepmothers and fairy godmothers and growing up and disillusionment with the parent figure are fundamental to these sorts of stories, lol. You can read redemption of a character like Emerald or Winter as escaping arrested development encouraged by various figures in their stories. So if you were to, say, write a character escaping arrested development from their evil stepmother/fairy godmother, 'growing up' and making her own actual family when she's never had any at all is a pretty organic way to convey that entry into adulthood. I don't think this is going to be true for every character, but if they've specificallllyyyyyyyyy done this in a particular way with Jaune and Cinder, it's very weird.

I don't know what else they'd do the dad characterisation with Jaune specifically for once it's moved past a joke into serious thematic territory. Similarly with Cinder I initially always wrote it off as merely Cinder emulating her stepmothers; I would never expect them to follow through on that in a serious way. But in R/WBY, it's not like children were a wayside issue for Raven and Summer; that actually has a significant plot impact (as well as character) on their stories. If there's one show where I wouldn't expect mothers to become nonentities, admittedly R/WBY might be one of them which I'd point to.

I'm still not totally sold on the idea of it happening in canon - like yeah, would it be the epilogue treatment? Is that what full Ozlem resolution looks like? It does work thematically, it does work storywise and for what their characters need/want (either for Cinder with no family or Jaune with a family name which has hurt him, so what can he do to self-determine lol) and yeah, there is some particularly... interesting characterisation. Of course your average detractor would say, 'But she's evillllll' like come on, think for a minute about full character development and transformation and like, life which comes from death. Eyeroll. (Yeah, ironically redeeming the pretend mother role she took on with her acolytes is pretty good... I didn't think of that before).

Let me put it this way: I'm not looking to form-fit a married-with-kids ending for any given female character. I'm only really interested in it if it makes narrative sense. It is very peculiar how it redeems Ozlem in an actual reverse/literal way (this is the specific point I made the case on) and how with what you've laid out here it is actually supported with given characterisation. I wouldn't say this is the case for every character at all.

I'm trying to think of counterpoints, and if you read it specifically in the context of Ozlem (because this is where it's doing so much work) it's hard to read Jaune's characterisation in response to a different character. It really only works if it's Cinder in this case. The counterpoint would be that Jaune answers Weiss' need to continue on the Schnee legacy, but we don't really have much in that direction, and to be totally frank, very little of Weiss' character suggests 'continuing the Schnee legacy', or redeeming it, necessarily involves children. It depends whether they positively answer Jaune's whole identity Arc Huntsman thing or they affirm that actually he was meant to be tied to that and kill himself with expectations or whatever. My problem is that like, the ostensibly bad Huntsman who is romantically tied to Cinder (famously failed by a really bad Huntsman) is the most dramatic and wonderful narrative development possible.

I'm attempting to entertain different perspectives here but yeah I didn't expect to get serious textual justification for Jaune and Cinder having babies. Definitely not on my bingo, and definitely not Jaune characterisation in V9 I'd ever dream of getting canonically.

Basically they need to have sex.

#seraphina's asks #user: emperorluffy #reverse ozlem #knightfall #seraphina ruminates over V9 #rwby9 #just in case

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zedpercyfan · 2 years

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In GCYL, you think Ash was more saddened by the fact that Misty was leaving? Or did he cry for both her and Brock? Because Brock did leave them before and he was happy for him. Or was it the realisation that suddenly he was left alone? After all this was the first time that both of his friends were leaving him. Or it somehow subconsciously perturbed him that Misty was leaving and he can’t do anything about it? Thoughts?

I'm going to start my answer to this by stating outright that I'm no fan of GCYL. In the past few years I've just become really disenchanted with it and I just see it for what it is: a glorified admittance by the Pokémon writers team that they didn't know what they were doing with Misty, so they chose to force her out of the show. I will admit that there is something to be said about how Misty's the one companion and Pokegirl who didn't leave Ash by choice but that doesn't excuse the team from how obvious it was that Season 5 as a whole was a last minute effort to try and cram some character into Misty as a Trainer. Very bad overall in my eyes.

When it comes to Ash crying at the end...I think there are two ways of looking at it: the probable intention by the writers and the fan interpretation. I say the probable intention because of Brock's supposed leaving, which in context of what happened in AG, just rings as the writers just having so little faith in Misty's departure that they just had to have Brock leave too, only to bring him back a few episodes later. He left just to have an extra gut punch. Hell, I suspect they knew he was coming back since he's in the opening and they just wanted to squeeze more tears out of their audience and/or get a Chronicles episode out of him. I think therefore it was meant to be about Ash being alone, but even then I call BS. Both the regular timeline and the AU makes it clear that while Ash will shed a tear or two over leaving friends, he's generally very okay traveling alone - he takes comfort in knowing that people need to do what they need to do. Even in the first episode we saw that Ash was very keen to travel out, no hesitation over not having any friends. One could say it's about this being his first major goodbye and this steels him for later goodbyes but I'm not too sure about this being the case considering how easily he can say goodbye in those later ones.

My feelings therefore are that Ash is upset because it's Misty and his subconscious feelings for her are leaking out. I recall that Ash thought the return of her bike would make Misty happy and that running the Gym was a dream come true, so in my headcanon he sees that as something he shouldn't get in the way of. Meaning that in-part it's him lashing slightly out at his own powerlessness even though he can't understand what he's feeling.

#anonymous #asks #Pokemon #pokeani #zedpercyfan #Misty #Pokeshipping

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shadowflash · 2 years

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i already posted this on twitter and am basically crossposting + bolstering the original thread’s contents since this is a journal account for things of text like it.

general 3hopes spoiler warning

...

You know the idea of killing Sothis = The Fire Emblem herself is so cool, and I really hope they expand on what it really means in the context of the 3Houses universe to walk this kind of path. The concept of humans fighting against their alleged progenitor / a corrupted god / something of the nature is already fun. I personally enjoy the spirit of "we decide what world we want for ourselves!" very much. And I think it's good for this game that we have this option.

Like, for a spin-off game to have a plot point revolve around the possible destruction of its franchise's / world's very foundation... It's honestly so cool. And it's such a fun move! I really think this element of 3Hopes' story adds excitement to an already loaded yet very familiar scenario. Like 3Houses, 3Hopes encourages its players to explore every possible scenario and, ideally, its players will be able to walk out of the experience comparing + contrasting each routes and evaluating their individual pros and cons as part of the fun to be had with its branching story. But we never sincerely reach the ends of these branches...

And this is why I can't really take people who automatically assume ‘killing Sothis = an act of evil because she’s god therefore this is a bad end’ seriously?

I think by playing through Shez and Arval's scenario, even with what little definitive information we have, we can definitely understand that something really important hinges on the player's decision to either honor Arval and Shez's (initial) wishes or not. But as the game currently exists, we don't even understand the potentially greater outcomes of choosing to kill GOD or not, it's pretty much left at the level of "fulfilling personal grudges". It's only by doing things in a particular order that you can access the Arval paralogue which gives you a good idea of what the greater objectives are. But it's not as substantial as, well, just plainly saying what this is all about. Like, Epimenides wants to kill Sothis because she’s a false goddess, among other reasons, but what does that seriously mean here? What happens to Fodlan if she’s gone for good? If you don’t want to kill Byleth/Sothis, well what happens to Shez now that their dear friend Arval is ‘gone’ and they’re left to cope with that loss? With being alone in their thoughts after ~3 years of Arval’s consistent companionship and support? And what about the rest of the war that we don’t get to play?

It’s kind of jumping the gun to look at things as ‘good outcome’ vs. ‘bad outcome’ when we lack the information that would allow us to make the legitimately informed distinction. I feel like designating things as 'Path A’ and ‘Path B’ would be more.. truthful with regard to what we do currently have.

Also: designating the no kill / kill paths as “Good End” versus “Bad End” implies that a conclusive ending exists in 3Hopes to begin with? That the current state of the game and it’s story is somehow an acceptably complete product? Which, given popular reception as of late, it clearly isn’t. And it ignores how this is obviously deliberate on the dev’s part as well..?

Anyway, I struggle to understand how the secret chapters result in an outcome that is plainly ‘good’ given the lack of follow-up events and what Shez has to deal with through walking that path.

Doing the Shez + Jeralt C-Support, the player witnesses Shez admitting to believing that:

"[They] don't think [they] could've beat the Ashen Demon anyway."

And, in how I can recall it as I’m writing, Shez comes to reluctantly bury-but-not-bury the hatchet regarding Bergliez’s company getting blown up in part because of this admittance of weakness / inferiority. Which is so. Where do I even begin with this. Shez “Interests: Getting stronger; Dislikes: Losing” Lastname admitting that they don’t think they could ever defeat the Ashen Demon. Um. Erm. What is this supposed to tell me? Shez and Byleth could make good friends but what worth is it For The Story As A Whole when that friendship is born out of Shez, The Protagonist This Time, saying something equivalent to “I can train with you all I like but I think I’ll always be at least slightly behind you, [Previous Entry’s Protagonist]!”

It also brings to mind when Shez wonders just how long it could take for them to catch up to the Ashen Demon / they might as well just hire them. Arval’s comments on how Shez is kind of pussying out of the challenge due to their lack of self-confidence whilst facing loss after loss and, in an effort to encourage them and refocus their attention, that they “-Shouldn’t relinquish their prey just yet”.

Digression: People have argued that Arval/Epimenides is trying to manipulate Shez into doing what they want but we don’t even know if it’s such a bad thing to rid Fodlan of the ‘goddess’ in the first place? Arval doesn’t even seem to understand the whys of their own motivations beyond feeling like they’re being led by fate unless you do the secret chapters, and by that point they basically go back to being Epimenides / a complete self. I’m not really concerned with the idea of manipulation happening here if it.. doesn’t even result in anything happening in particular. The way the situation is being framed, it really seems like keeping Shez and Arval in the dark works out better for them personally..? And again, we don’t even have information on whether or not killing Sothis results in a net-positive or net-loss for this world.

A mutual of mine on twitter also pointed out that, post-secret chapters, Shez gets no legitimate closure with Arval. I mean the first thing you see them do when they get back to base after that chapter is frown and declare that:

“[They] can’t hear Arval anymore”.

They do have talk it out a little bit with Byleth during their A-Support but at most I feel like that only offers something that loosely resembles closure. Shez can also talk to their respective lord at the base camp about whether or not Arval’s still around, with Shez responding with “No they’re not but they kind of are..? I still have their powers so I think it’ll be okay..”. Like, Shez has to walk away from That Whole Thing wondering what it was all for and unable to do much else but "live out the destiny [they] both once shared". They have to live with the fact that they were the only person who had the means to communicate with and understand Arval, that theirs is the hand that cut Arval/Epimenides down, and that they were sole witness to their last words:

A: “It’s incredible.. Just how strong you’ve become.”

[Shez reaches out to Arval] “Arval...”

A: “You’ve grown more than I ever thought possible. And yet..”

A: “I’ve never felt more alone.”

The whole ‘Why Arval is suddenly trying to kill Byleth’ and ‘Shez and Co Are Teleported Into The Nightmare Dimension’ situation also gets put into perspective if you run into Azure Gleame Ch. 11 campsite dialogue with Arval:

“I can sympathize with the sadness that comes with losing one’s place in the world.”

And, again in Azure Gleam, while everyone is facing off against Thales and declaring what it is they’re fighting for, Shez’s line is:

“With this power... I’m gonna beat him. You’ve got my back, right Arval?”

It’s sad for them. And for what. Yes, Shez and Arval/Epimenides are basically soul-melded as a result of the events in the secret chapter, if we are following the logic 3Houses did for their own escape from Zahras bit, but Shez doesn’t know that.

Recruiting Byleth and by extension Sothis results in very personal losses for Shez, The Protagonist, and Arval, Basically The Other Protagonist, and for what exactly? What does this do for the story? What does it do for Fodlan?

Sothis is still around, but inferring that "Sothis being around = Good" really depends on The Player (not Shez) to like Sothis and/or Byleth from information and experiences based on their previous runs with 3Houses. For most of 3Hopes on the other hand, they’ve been an obstacle that Shez and Arval have to put in the work to overcome. And the game doesn't tell you what was gained, what was protected, what anything about what comes of keeping Sothis alive. At the meta level, we the players understand that killing Sothis = Destroying the Fire Emblem but we are not given any definitive answer for what happens next. By Arval/Epimenides’ account of things, we know that doing so basically saves the humanity / the world. But how?

Should it be the case that Fodlan can only know peace should Sothis’ existence persist in one way or another (ie: through Byleth): How does that work? Why??

To leave it at “Well they’re the real protagonists of the “CANON” game so of course we can only get a happy ending through playing their story” is such a nonsense answer. It doesn’t mean anything beyond “I want a peace that is necessitated by my previous self-inserting.” It’s such a worthless answer to these questions that does absolutely nothing but enable bad creative decisions meant to appease whatever these people call themselves at the expense of everyone else who wants this, 3Hopes, to mean anything.

Besides, I thought a lot of us (using this word loosely) were into killing god. What happened. When did it go out of style. Did I miss some memo that declared that everyone is only down for god killing if it isn’t their flimsy self-insert character. Okay.

Inversely, walking down the ‘Kill Byleth/Sothis’ path results in some comparatively lighter consequences for Shez (and Arval) personally? Like, a unit from their side of things dies but they’re arguably... Irrelevant. Randolph? Who cares. Like. Seriously who cares about Randolph. Judith? She's cool but it’s not like she’s around for very long nor can Shez and the player interact with her in enough meaningful ways, if any at all, to make that loss hurt more personally unless you were already invested in her relationship with Claude. But again: she has no supports. Rodrigue is the ‘ideal’ character to kill off as a consequence of one’s actions since he’s playable and deeply involved with the Faerghus characters and events so it’s like: Ouch--if you like him at least! And the stories just move on normally after this so it’s not like anything really, really changes? I would say that these losses are like watching ripples scatter across the water’s surface before it returns to stillness. And in Azure Gleam, Shez and Arval can figure out that Arval = Epimenides without going through the drama and hassle of the secret chapter’s way of going about things, and the two of them have a heart to heart. It shows Arval experiencing some insecurity over definitely being linked with the bad guys and Shez confirming that the whole partners in destiny thing goes both ways between them, and that they’ll always be partners no matter what. It’s so cute it makes me sick.

And what happens to Shez and Arval once you kill Byleth/Sothis? Well, Arval starts crying because they’re experiencing like 2138921 emotions at once, namely those of happiness, emptiness, regret, and of being relieved of a giant burden, a mission they thought would never come to an end. And Shez is.. sad. Now that the revenge plot has been completed, they feel empty and regretful as well. Nothing was really gained.. but arguably nothing of great personal importance was lost? They kind of just move on after this, so them being regretful over not ‘solving’ things in another way with Byleth is just contained to this one episode. Welp.

Should the information regarding what was going on between Sothis and Epimenides / The Grand Problem one day be revealed in full, I do hope they leave the situation at The Right Level of Ambiguous to allow players some agency in how they believe the Three Hopes world should turn out AND that those endings are good.

I hope players have the option to choose sides for humanity: defend the goddess or side with your partner in destiny! That way it won't invalidate people who like the professor and it WILL validate people who like the new characters. It’s wishful thinking that seriously depends on the development team to make good decisions which is. Well. Yeah.

Currently, the game kind of does allow for this expression of player agency but it's so... It's hard to understand what Fodlan gains that has a DIRECT correlation to Sothis should you allow her to live. Killing her reveals almost nothing about WHY exactly, at most we know why Epimenides wants to but it's still hard to parse out the bigger picture. Shez and the player don't know what's truly at stake, so whatever say we have in how to deal with Sothis has no bearing on anything substantial save Shez and Arval’s character arc and minor route details.

yadda yadda theyre baiting for DLC blah blah and im going to be mad about it for a good while etc etc. i can bitch and moan about how shitty of a move it is to put out the story in its current state with the intention of making us pay for an actual complete experience, but:

im still going to buy it (HUGE FAIL) this is my life. i live here. (CRINGE)

doing so in proper would require getting into research about. uh. shifts in video game selling models or something. which isnt a topic i can commit to going over and researching in proper myself.

#i say bolstering a twitter thread but clearly i went insane #few3h spoilers #fire emblem three hopes spoilers #fire emblem three hopes

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milknhonies · 5 months

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"THE BUS STOP FOR A BEAUTIFUL SOUL."

A year ago from today something really uplifting happened to me. I texted and told this to my friend @omnia-vanitas69 moments after it happened while I was travelling back home one the bus.

I then went home and tried remembering all the details to note in my diary. Today I'm sharing what occurred on 30th June 2023 @ Alexandria Street - Bus Stop 11. (Photos have been provided.)

I was waiting for a bus to go back home from a class in "Employment skills & Resume design." A helpful program for unemployed people, free and funded by the government to encourage people to get a job instead of living off of Centrelink (Assist Benefits).

At the bus stop was an odd looking fellow. I'll be frank. He was what in Australia we call a bogan. "an uncouth or unsophisticated person regarded as being of low social status." He had lost teeth, unbrushed hair, no shoes on, a singlet and shorts. He was smoking and carrying a plastic shopping bag, I can't remember what was inside.

I smiled at him, because...I perhaps pitied his appearance. I also felt that it better to be nice than rude and silent as we waited for the bus.

I recalled saying "Afternoon. Aren't you cold?" (As June is the winter month in Australia.) And that is how conversation broke out.

An unspoken culture difference (in Australia at least) I've come to learn is that people who have come from the city are not as kindly social to strangers. People in the country or of an older generation can easily hold a conversation with someone they've just met.

Before this interaction I have to quickly provide the context that my father passed away in 2021 June 18-19. It has been perhaps one of the greatest traumas I've experienced.

Now back to the original story.

I'm sitting with this bogan man and I'm talking to him. He's got the thicker brash accent compared to my softer, britanian twang.

We discussed how long we had both lived in Brisbane. I had only been there for a few months to a year at the time. He had been in Brisbane his entire life.

He asked if I had family here and I said "Unfortunately not, but I have a mother who resides in Logan." (Logan is a very large suburb that has been granted the term Logan City and been divided into multiple suburbs. Logan is where many poorer and low class minorities live in the Brisbane region.)

He told me, "My wife, she has a boyfriend now and lives with him in Logan." When I looked at this man closer, I could see tears come to his eyes and his voice began to choke, "She will always be my wife even if by the law she isn't anymore."

I felt unsure whether I should feel empathetic or uneasy. It was an eery situation. My prejudice had battled my mind. But I let empathy take control after a true second seeing the way his face looked. He was smiling. He was softening. He wasn't a scary man. He was devoted.

"Now I will never say a bad thing about that woman," he said proudly, "Not many women are like her you see. Her soul is good. I have come to learn the greatest skill of observation. And I can see just now as I look into your eyes and see your soul. You are a listener."

I recalled thinking, 'great another arrogant male fanatic wannabe psychic.' which isn't a kind thing to think but I really don't approve of people who claim to hold this mass knowledge of the stars and universe especially when they look like a crackhead. It's childish behaviour.

But...he then said.

"You have a soul like hers."

Which at first made me confused and secondly made me feel unsure about him. There was something about his presence that was so magnetising. I did worry he would ask for my phone number and send me a nude image for the purpose of trying to have sex with me like most men usually do.

Instead he wiped his face and softly said, "Now trust me, I'm not trying to get a girlfriend. Don't get me wrong. You must be a lovely girl. I have only ever loved one woman and that is my wife."

I nodded and looked away from him. I didn't know how to feel. I was relieved. I was confused. I was on edge.

Across the road there was a park and a big jacaranda tree in the middle with apartment buildings around the area. It was covered in brown green leaves and purple flowers dying off. I stared at the jacaranda and thought about how ugly the infostructure disrupted the natural beauty.

I thought about how the tree was like a sign of evidence form god that even as we die or have died, we are still alive in his mercy. Christians typically are not meant to believe in the words of a psychic, it's considered unholy, demonic and dangerous if prophecies are true. It made me feel cold and think about how if I continued talking to the man somehow it would damage my soul.

I remember not looking at him when he said this-, "But I want you to know. I want to tell you. Right now. You're a beautiful young lady and I know there's troubles in your past but you will not need to worry about them any longer. I promise you."

It was quite frankly rattling. I couldn't decide whether I needed to hold back laughter or consider running away from him. It wasn't scary but I felt like there was something far more supernatural with the way his eyes and voice seemed to make me feel warm.

He said, "I know I might look mangy and like a dirty old bastard in these rags, but please believe me. Your soul is beautiful and shines out from and through you. You are stunning and must hold your head up to show the world your beauty. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise."

I never told my friend this. This is something I left strictly in my diary until now. This old bogan man touched my chin. He pressed his one pointer finger tip on my chin and sighed softly, smiling with his black and rotten teeth..

He said in the gentlest tone that was just above a whisper, "because you my dear...are a beautiful young lady."

And I felt like I had been harpooned with some invisible arrow in the chest and stomach that I couldn't remove. I struggled to talk. I was not sure how to respond except nod and say, "Thankyou, I'm not sure I believe or agree with you sir, but thankyou for your kind words."

He shook his head and then panic filled his face because the bus I was waiting for was driving passed.

He took off down the street to chase the bus. He knocked on the door. And I was a smidge embarrassed to get on while he told the driver that he shouldn't have driven passed since he could see me waiting.

What's weird is, he didn't get on the bus. It's the only bus number to go through.

It was like...he was waiting there the entire time...just to talk to someone. And without being too vain I might add, just to tell me about what he believed he could see of my soul.

Whether it was real or not is not really the haunting issue. What haunts me is how I could so easily fall in love with a man thrice my age, smelt like a cancerous breath and looked like a toothless chihuahua.

I know it's shameful but if he asked for a kiss, I probably would've granted it. Not in pure lust. No. It would have been light and sweet but full of devoted desire to prove my gratitude to his compliment.

He was noble. Polite and kind. He did not make me feel objectified or sexualised. He made me feel adored and appreciated and loved. We never even exchanged names.

I still think of him. And I hope somewhere he is doing well or at least at peace in regards to the dangers in his health.

But deep deep down i always smile cheekily at the prospect of him not even being human...Like he was some mystic angelic being. Like he was some long lost soul trapped in that man's body for those thirty minutes it took me to wait for the bus.

Anyway. I hope those who read this post will experience this feeling and wave of special spiritual compliments

#old man #bus stop #supernatural #milky thoughts

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eldritchsurveys · 6 months

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1151.

random survey 2023 v.iv by ausmuh

How would you describe the last song you listened to? What ~vibes~ does it give off? >> I couldn't really say, but I think one could make their own judgement from the album art

When was the last time you were sick? How incapacitated were you by the illness/ailment? >> I had a random cold for a few days in the summer but on the occasions that I do get colds they don't really affect me that much, they're more obnoxious and inconvenient than actually incapacitating

Do you often reflect on your past in terms of "eras" or “milestone” time frames (eg, looking back and saying, “it’s been 10 years since X”, etc.)? >> I think that's the only way I can really measure time for myself; I find a few linchpin events that are easy for me to remember (going to NOLA for the first time in late 2009, for example, or leaving NYC in early 2016) and then kind of triangulate the general time frame of less-easy-to-recall events by their proximity to those linchpins I also measure time by who was piloting the body at the time -- did a thing happen in the Björn Era or the Grey Era, or was I here by then, that sort of thing

Is there something you would like to do or be, but have pretty much accepted it won’t happen because it’s just “not the kind of person you are” or is otherwise incompatible with your personality, character, etc.? >> this is kinda how I feel about deep interpersonal relationships, ngl

When was the last time you experienced cognitive dissonance? >> I... am not really sure that I experience that? my opinions are naturally malleable and context-dependent and I don't have a problem with paradox. I'm not sure how one would go about triggering a true dissonance in my thoughts

If you use Letterboxd, what causes you to “heart”/“like” a film? >> it's very much vibes-based. if I have a very strong attraction to a film in some way, then I usually Like it.

Do you like people watching and is it something you do often? If so, where are your favorite locations to do so? >> I don't do it often (I'm not usually around that many passersby these days) but it can be interesting sometimes. I think it was just way more interesting to do in NYC and that naturally set a bar, lol

Whether you want to have children or not, what do you think has had the greatest influence on your views of children/childrearing (eg, your parents, your own upbringing, your interactions with children as an adult, etc.)? >> obviously my own upbringing (in showing me what I definitely would not want to do) but most of my "this is what I would do" ideas come from a variety of places and I can't nail a majority there

Is there anything that you enjoy that you simultaneously find intensely cringey? Is it so cringey that you wouldn’t normally admit to actually enjoying it? >> fuck no lmao I don't do that "ooo it's a guilty pleasure" "ooo I know it's actually cringe" "ooo it's so bad but I love it" shit. I own my tastes and I respect them

When was the last time you felt someone was being dishonest with you — not necessarily downright lying to your face, but acting or responding to you in a way that seemed false or did not feel like their true self? .

Similarly, when was the last time you saw a side of someone that made you question your preexisting perception of them? .

If you were a doll, what outfit(s) and accessories would you come with? >> definitely a laptop and a pair of headphones. and a bunny plushie. the outfit would probably be black jeans, black battle vest (maybe with lil velcro patches and pins you could put on or take off? depending on the size of the doll ofc) or hoodie, and some sort of band t-shirt. this is based on what I most often wear outdoors when I don't need to put a lot of thought into it

What was the last bit of praise you received? >> Sparrow said I was "multiverse-brained" (galaxy-brained but bigger) in Discord earlier lol

When you hear or see your name written out (as in /your/ name, not someone else who shares your name), do you immediately recognize it as your own, or is there a moment of disconnect before that recognition? >> I do immediately recognise it as my own, yeah. but sometimes I also feel a lil jolt, like I'm being Recognised in a more real sense, because that's also my name in a different universe but the average person that knows my legal name doesn't know that extra detail (unless they've also read the book, which, in my experience, the average person hasn't)

#surveys #survey #random survey

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mythvoiced · 1 year

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"Did you know that, uhm, apparently, smell is the only one of the five senses with direct pathways to the hippocampus and the amygdala? Which...means noses are...uhm, connected to our memory center." She spills the tidbits of trivia with a small smile; brown eyes suddenly narrowing when she catches sight of something. "Speaking of, uhm, noses...you have something on---" Without much thinking, she gently leans in, taking away the speckle of dust (perhaps pollen?) that gathered on Julian's nose. It almost seems like she's booping their nose, which causes Lexine to chuckle in slight bashfulness. "So--Sorry, I should've asked first, before---" (you said 'boop the doctor's nose' so...not me, logging in just to send this UIWEHDKASHDWUIEHD, I HOPE THIS IS OKAY?? BUT FEEL FREE TO IGNORE IF IT'S NOT FITTING OR SOMETHING; PLS HAVE A GREAT DAY DAY, LEN-LEN!!)

@theimpalpable | CASUAL MID-CONVO BOOP?

---

There is a lot of things Jules knows that relate to anatomy, biology, the way the body functions, but he can't actively claim neurology to be his favourite subject among all those they'd at least had to dip their toes into to even become a general practicioner.

There are things he's forgotten about.

Things they've carefully stored elsewhere in their brain, to be picked out in case of necessity.

And even things he's familiar with but likes to discuss and relearn as often as possible.

At the time, he doesn't quite recall which of these apply to the context of listening to Lexine describe the connection between one of the many senses the human body is capable of relying on - because oh yes they've been reading articles, identifying colours through touch? - via the section of the brain tasked with translating what is experienced into information for the human themselves to access, but that paraphrasing alone, and the continuous nodding, bright eyes trained on her as still in his GP, depending on her to make it through the three years of their specialisation, what better way to portray how truly enthralled he is?

Enchanted in the most innocent way, simply an active and curious mind, metaphorically walking alongside an equal, a woman who seems to sparkle with enough interest of her own that, by the time he's managed to distract himself from all the ways they could continue this conversation into even more intriguing themes to notice she's approaching his face, she's already apologising.

Ah, yes.

Julian blinks at her, one hand shooting up instinctively to touch where the remnants of her boop are still fluttering along the skin of their nose, beckoned into the motion more by her apology than the gesture in on its own.

"Ah, oh no, don't worry," he laughs, and there's not a note of awkwardness in their tone. If there's one thing they're used to, then it's the occasional hand in their face. Be it just via experiences with... odder patients they've had before they were kindly redirected to someone who could be more helpful to them, or even the women in his life (mother, two aunts, one of which had a wife) who'd always enjoyed wetting their thumbs and dragging it across his cheeks (no matter how old they are), Julian has no complaints here.

Not that... they'd tell her that.

That'd probably be weird... wouldn't it?

He blinks.

Oh, hell. Gotten lost in their head again. They quickly shake the concentrated frown off their face and continuing dismissing Lexine's worry.

"Don't worry, I should thank you, actually. I'd have never noticed," because they never do. "I- I mean, not that... No, I just... It's a habit, I don't realise- You see, I've had quite a few situations where-- sometimes odd things happen and--" they swallow around the jumble of words he can't disentangle and press their forefinger to his lips, as though shutting himself up.

Blink.

"I'm making a mess," a chuckle, "what I meant to say is, thank you. You were saying?"

#theimpalpable #the intellectual;julian #more????? BOOPING???? For the tHE doctOr????#i love how i didn't even expect anyone to read the tags and y'all INSTANTLY 'WELL DON'T MIND IF I DO'#such a boopable nose you have blessed us both ;;;;;;;;;WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;#ALEX I HOPE YOU'RE HAVING A MOST WONDERFUL DAY YOURSELF AND THIS IS MORE THAN OKAY AND???#I LOVE LEXINE??? I LOST MY-- I HAVEN'T INTERACTED WITH HER NEARLY ENOUGH SO THIS IS GOING ALL PERFECTLY ACCORDING TO MY KEIKAKU >:3 #apologies for this being... a lot in Jules' head he's?? so all over the place rn i smell an adhd diagnosis in the behavioural pattern here-#LFHJGFHFGLJKGJK ♥♥♥#;answered

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dayinthelifeofkoko · 2 years

Text

Dreams vol. 1

The most I know about dreams are that they're mainly based on things that lay in your subconscious. I have had some of the most strange dreams.

I don't want to write too much about Trouble. I don't like Trouble in general. Well, maybe I do, but really I don't like him. We've been in contact with one another for a few months and he doesn't want to leave me alone.

I mean it's so bad that Trouble is even in my dreams!

So, I caught an early night last night and low and behold there Trouble was. I think I only have these crazy dreams when I go to bed extremely tired. I can't remember what last night's dream was about, but at least I can tell you about the other occurrences.

The first time was one of those dreams that felt so real. I will not be surprised if I actually spoke or reenacted things in my sleep that happened in my dream. We were walking on the beach and I looked at him and asked, "Is this real? Is this really happening?". It was as though my conscious self and who I was in my dream just could not believe that Trouble was right there. I remember him holding my hand too.

It. Was. Weird.

I also recall that at the time I had that dream the crush I had on him was so intense. I looked forward to his DMs. Got giddy for absolutely everything he said or did. Just euw. I hate that I got like that.

These dreams honestly do not just get cuter. They get disgustingly cute as they come. I cannot stand it.

The next dream I had was all over the place. At one point in the dream I married my ex and was telling him, "I'm so glad that we got married". The next moment my ex and I - married - are sitting opposite each other at a table watching the rugby on TV when Trouble walks in.

Trouble walks in, sits on the couch and then he magically is teleported through the TV watching the rugby live at the stadium.

Okay, the ex part is weird I don't know what to make of that, but Trouble ? Was Trouble looking for trouble at that very moment? Or was it an innocent passing by.

Perhaps he appeared in my dream to diffuse the whole I married my ex situation. I just don't know. However, I do kinda know why there was rugby playing and why Trouble got teleported to the stadium.

I am laughing at myself for this one to be honest. Trouble sent me a DM and at the end he said something that sounded quite like "I'll take you there". We were speaking about rugby for more context as to why the dream played out the way it did. I however made a fool of myself and asked him to clarify the last bit that I heard as "I'll take you there" and turns out he didn't even say that. Hahaha what a joke.

ANYWAY, I am still trying to remember what I dreamt about last night. I think I'll come back to it when I remember

Anyway, thank you for reading.

Koko x.

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padawanlost · 3 years

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Hey there! First of all I wanna say that I love your blog 😊

If I may, I wanted to ask you something regarding the Jedi Code. What did it say exactly about love and family? From my understanding, they were forbidden to form attachments, yet one Jedi (can't remember the name) married and had several kids. So, as long as there was no love or risk of attachment, they could marry and/or have kids?

I'm so confused

Before anything else is said, we need some context. The Jedi Order is over 25000 years old, which means a lot of things changed over the years. what’s really important to keep in mind is that theirs rules were no set in stone. There’re multiple variations of the “Jedi Code”. Also, not every rule the Jedi had to live by were part of the Jedi Code. Some rules were more about tradition than the code itself. Because of that every generation of the Order has its own particularities. That’s why the Prequels Order was different from the Old Republic’s Order and that was different from New Republic’s Order.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the prequel era Jedi.

1 – Jedi were NOT allowed to marry or reproduce (without the Council’s authorization):

“If anyone finds out that I’m expecting a child, I’ll be thrown out of the Jedi Order and I won’t be able to serve. I have to carry on. I can’t let the men down.” Skirata was furious. She felt it. She could see it, too. And if she thought that was bad, it would be nothing compared with how the Jedi Council would react. She’d be kicked out of the Order. She’d no longer be a general, no longer able to play her part in the war. [Karen Traviss’s Triple Zero]

2 – Jedi were allowed to have sex, but they were not allowed to have romantic relationships or to have any kind of emotional attachments to their sexual partners.

“Jedi Knights aren’t celibate. The thing that is forbidden is attachments and possessive relationships.” George Lucas.

“But ol’ Pellaeon’s just having a spot of romance, if you know what I mean. It’s not like he gets attached to any of them, is it? Is romance allowed? Can you have a spot of romance if you don’t get attached?” Ahsoka’s stripes became more vividly colored, embarrassed. Yes, she obviously did know what Coric meant by romance. It wasn’t the word he usually used for it, but Ahsoka was only a kid, and Rex had decided from the start that talking about that sort of thing was something best left to her Jedi Masters. Yes, General Skywalker, I think that’s a job for you, sir. It wasn’t a clone’s duty at all. “Romance,” Ahsoka said stiffly, “is acceptable. Jedi are not … celibate. Just … no attachment.” [No prisoners. Karen Traviss]

He felt his fingers fist. Don’t you lie. Not about this. Don’t you dare. “You love her.” Monotonous blasterfire filled the silence between them. Then Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes, Anakin, I love her. But I was never in love. For a short while Taria and I needed each other. And when we no longer needed each other, we parted—and remained friends.” So that was how it worked, was it? Stay aloof, stay detached, never let yourself feel too much, too deeply, and the Order didn’t care? So if Padmé and I pretended we weren’t in love … [Karen Miller’s Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege]

3 – Jedi were not allowed to have contact with their biological families;

“After the Jedi Masters decided that it was too dangerous to train anyone familiar with fear, anger, and any other emotion that might lead to the dark side, it was agreed that Force-sensitive juveniles, adolescents, and adults would no longer be eligible for enlistment or conscription. Instead, they sought out and adopted Force-sensitive infants who would be raised and trained at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant; to prevent any emotional attachments that might cloud judgment, most recruits would never have any subsequent contact with their families.” [ Ryder’s Windham’s Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force]

The entire baby Ludi case

Still no word from the Jedi Council about what happened at the Battle of Naboo. Watto is beside himself with fury, complaining that if I can spend a hundred credits to send a message, then the Jedi can spend a hundred credits to answer. It worries me that it’s taking them so long. Three days should be long enough to figure out whether you were at Naboo, and whether you’re still alive. […] Shmi seemed to believe that Watto genuinely missed the boy. Leia had trouble accepting this, but was forced to at least allow for the possibility when Shmi reported that Watto had actually made a gift to her of the ten credits she had borrowed to help pay for her message to the Jedi Council. […] An administrator on Coruscant had finally replied to Shmi’s ’Net message: Anakin was well, but the Jedi did not discuss the activities of their Padawans even with parents. Even that was enough to elate Shmi. [ Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning]

4 - The love they were allowed to experience was nothing like how we experience love in real life:

Who wept their tears on the inside, where they would not be seen. To weep for a fallen comrade was to display unseemly attachment. A Jedi did not become attached to people, to things, to places, to any world or its inhabitants. A Jedi’s strength was fed by serenity. By distance. By loving impersonally. [Karen Miller. Wild Space]

It was impersonal. It wasn’t like loving your family or your friends. It was more compassion, than love (the kind of love that connects you to someone on a emotional level).

Instead, they sought out and adopted Force-sensitive infants who would be raised and trained at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant; to prevent any emotional attachments that might cloud judgment, most recruits would never have any subsequent contact with their families. [Ryder’s Windham’s Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force]

“Not that Luminara is indifferent, but that Luminara is detached. It’s not that she doesn’t care, but she’s not attached to her emotionally. And at the end of the day, one of the questions that I guess I pose is, is that really a good thing? Is Anakin’s way of being so compassionate wrong? Because on a certain level, you have to accept that the Jedi lose the Clone War. So there is something that they’re doing that’s wrong.” Dave Filoni

Nobody asked the obvious—whether clone troopers were everyone else or not. Joc looked from Ahsoka to Rex and back again. “What’s wrong with attachment?” he asked. “Why can’t you have attachments? You mean love, right?” Ahsoka looked at the clones wide-eyed but in slight defocus, as if she was trying to recall something. “Love is acceptable,” she said at last. “But not attachment.” “What’s love if it isn’t attachment?” “Attachment is … putting personal relationships first, caring about the people you love so that it influences how you act.” Ahsoka seemed to be picking her words carefully. Coric stared back at her. “You know, it affects your judgment.” [ No prisoners by Karen Traviss]

5 - The exceptions:

There were some exception to these rules, most of them happening during a different time (Old and New Republic Eras). However, there’s one notable exception all the rules above during the prequels: Ki-Adi-Mundi. Unlike most Jedi he was allowed to marry multiple wives and have multiple children and still remain a jedi. They allowed it because he belonged to an endangered species, so him being in a polygamous relationship was part of the greater good. Fun fact, he was emotionally attachment to some members of his biological family.

#ask #anon #jedi order #jedi culture #txt

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zenonaa · 3 years

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'Like the rest of the group, he also wondered what could have driven out such a grin from him, out in the open like that. Worse, it could have not been a ‘what’, but a ‘who’. He had prided himself on never letting anyone slip under his skin, never letting anyone become close to him. Learning to rely on others, and let others rely on him, was one thing. This felt more personal, like a kick to the stomach.'

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya Characters: Fukawa Touko, Togami Byakuya, Naegi Makoto, Naegi Komaru, Kirigiri Kyouko, Asahina Aoi, Hagakure Yasuhiro Additional Tags: TogaFuka Week 2021 Summary: Togami and the others stumble across a photograph of him smiling, but he can't remember the context so the others try to figure out what happened for him to do that.

Comments: owo what's this? togafuka week day 1: happiness! i haven't actually written something for all the days but this is one of the things that i did manage to squeeze out.

💗 Please like, share and comment if you enjoyed it! 💗

***

Cleaning up Hope’s Peak wasn’t an afternoon affair. Beyond the old school building that Byakuya knew too intimately, debris clogged hallways, trash lay scattered throughout the campus like weeds and the air smelled of rust and blood. The group of seven started with the art building on the east side of campus. For the first few hours, Yasuhiro hummed as he hauled cardboard boxes, Komaru still had the patience to prepare and bring lemonade, and Aoi’s sunshine voice beamed between walls as she shared a story about the time her family held a second-hand sale in their backyard.

By the end of the day, however, their lively chatter had dimmed with the sky. Inside remained as bright thanks to Byakuya and Yasuhiro reconnecting the electricity, but darkening windows reminded them of the aches in their limbs, the ebbing flames behind their eyes. Byakuya swept his gaze across what used to be a theatre but was currently a sorting room filled with boxes instead of chairs. Makoto, Touko, Komaru and Yasuhiro were sitting together on boxes, while Kyouko and Aoi had just walked in with a dirty wheelbarrow.

“We should adjourn until the morning,” Byakuya announced. He reached a hand toward his glasses, intending to push them up, but stopped himself when he remembered the grime clinging to his palms. Not wanting to dirty his glasses, he lowered his hand.

The Byakuya of the past would have deemed this sort of manual labour beneath him, yet he had willingly spent most of that day working alongside his companions. His friends. How things changed.

“There is so much stuff,” said Aoi, who by now had parked the wheelbarrow and was slouched against it. She wiped her vest against her forehead.

“And not a lot of it is useful,” added Kyouko, next to Aoi. Yasuhiro straightened up.

“Nonsense. All we need to do is spruce them up, and they’ll be ready to go on sale.” He walked over to a broken lamp, its shade bitten and discoloured, as dirty as the floor it lay on. “Like this lamp. Fix this up, and it’ll be as good as new. Then all we need is a good pitch and b’am,” he punched his palm, “sold.”

“You can’t do that with everything here,” said Komaru. He put his hands onto his hips.

“Not with that attitude! But with the right mindset, you could sell anything here, guaranteed.”

Yasuhiro rubbed his finger against his nose, grinning like a fool. Some things changed, but others stayed remarkably the same. Byakuya’s gaze drifted over to Touko, who was scowling at Yasuhiro. Touko was both different and the same. Different, because she stood firm where she used to cower, and she let others into her world where she used to cloak herself in darkness.

And same because while like Byakuya, she had learned to allow herself to rely on friends and for friends to rely on her, she was still head over heels in love with him.

She pointed at a black bag containing hunks of metal. “What sales pitch do you have for this?”

“Easy! All you have to do is make the contents into sculptures,” replied Yasuhiro. “Their only purpose is to be admired, ‘right? Add a backstory to go with them and boom, sold. You can do that to practically anything even if it’s trash.”

“No way,” said Aoi.

“Want to bet?”

The group roused to accept his challenge. Makoto found a used wipe container, and Yasuhiro clicked his fingers and said to fill it with plastic bags, turning it into a dispenser that was portable and could fit easily into a car drawer. Aoi presented him with pizza boxes, at which Yasuhiro laughed and demanded more so they could be decked in wrapping paper and transformed into a drawer unit. When Komaru found a metal pipe, Yasuhiro claimed it needed a clean and spray paint and it could sit contentedly on a shelf.

Yasuhiro even sucked Byakuya and Touko into the game. The cork in Byakuya’s hand changed into a keychain, and Yasuhiro’s voice fashioned an old juice carton into a recyclable purse ideal for coins and trips to the arcade. Each item that the others found, Yasuhiro repurposed it into something else.

“There has to be something you can’t reuse,” Komaru insisted. She peeled the lid open on a cardboard box and lifted out a hardback red book from inside it. “What about these photos? Who’d want to have pictures of strangers?”

“Photos?” said Kyouko, intrigued.

“Yeah, there are a whole load of albums in here. I went through a few earlier but didn’t recognise anyone, so I forgot about them.”

Touko rolled her eyes. “Typical...”

Kyouko and Aoi each took out an album. The box seemed to contain several of them, their covers glazed in dust and cobwebs.

“Gekkogahara-san is in this one,” said Kyouko within a few seconds of skimming.

By now, the rest of the group had gravitated over. Inside the album that Kyouko was holding, the photographs were contained in plastic flaps that overlapped so only the one on top could be seen unless it was flicked up, revealing the photograph beneath. In the photograph currently on display, Miaya Gekkogahara was sitting next to a pale guy with dark hair and dark shadows under his eyes, who Byakuya recognised as Yasuke Matsuda. They appeared to be seated at a computer desk, their heads turned toward the photographer.

“It’s really her,” murmured Makoto. “And not a robot masquerading as her.”

“Do you think these are all photos of her class?” asked Yasuhiro as he and the others picked up their own photo albums to browse.

“If that’s true, then everyone in these are deceased,” said Touko.

Aoi winced. “When you phrase it like that, this feels kind of morbid.”

Makoto flipped through a few flaps in the album in his hands. Then his creased forehead exploded as his eyebrows shot up. “This album contains our class!”

Everyone crowded around him. The photograph showed a pink room with a television screen hanging on the wall. Blurred writing glowed on it that Byakuya struggled to decipher. In front of it, Couch seats were positioned around three sides of a table, and on the seats sat members of their class. The only classmate not in the photograph was Sakura.

“Sakura-chan must have been taking the photograph,” said Aoi. “No way would our class exclude her.”

Holding the album in one hand, Makoto scratched his head with his other.

“I vaguely recall this,” he said. “Kuwata-kun... yes, I think it was him... booked a karaoke room, and the whole class packed in. All of us sang at least once.”

While Future Foundation had aided them in recovering from the memory loss inflicted by Junko, some memories were stronger than others. For Byakuya, he could recall plenty of events, but none came with any emotion attached. It was as though he was reading about them in a newspaper afterwards.

“Byakuya-sama graced us with his voice,” Touko piped up. The ends of her lips curled upward as she squeezed her hands together. “I r-remember... he made the air taste like chocolate syrup... his words spread a chill across my skin... ah...”

Byakuya remembered performing a single song, but he hated singing, and he couldn’t remember what compelled him to accept a microphone.

“Enoshima tried to steal such a precious memory from us.” Aoi rubbed the heel of her hand against her eye. “Sakura-chan sang a beautiful song about friendship. Her voice washed over the room like the ocean.”

Kyouko placed a hand onto Aoi’s shoulder. Komaru flicked through the other photographs in the album. Byakuya didn’t pay Komaru any more mind, frowning at Touko as she seemed to relive the experience of him singing. Her recollection appeared much more intimate than his own. Part of him wanted to ask her for more details. Another part was repulsed.

Komaru gasped.

“What is it?” asked Makoto as they all focused on the album again. The photograph that had captured her attention depicted Byakuya. Nothing extraordinary appeared to be in the photograph - he was sitting on a bench at an angle, not facing the camera.

Yet the others stared with their mouths agape.

“I have never seen Togami-chi smile like that,” said Yasuhiro.

Byakuya inspected the photograph closer. Though it had been taken at a distance - probably so he wouldn’t realise someone was taking a photograph of him - there was a definite smile gracing his lips. It wasn’t a smirk, or a cruel grin, or the faint curve he sometimes showed around his friends, but a smile showing teeth, one that didn’t just meet his eyes, but made his gaze, no, his face glow.

What he was looking at, however, was unclear. It was now that Byakuya realised the photograph had been torn, and the section that held the object of his attention wasn’t in the album.

“It must have been something amazing to have made him smile back then,” said Yasuhiro.

They all turned to Byakuya, who pursed his lips.

“Putting aside whether I would tell you if I knew, I don’t actually recall when this took place,” he said.

“Maybe we could help jog your memory?” Aoi suggested. “When I want to remember something, I write it on my palm three times.”

“That won’t help,” said Touko. “You can only do that while you still remember the thing.” Her teeth gritted. “Argh... if only I knew what could have elicited such a pure smile from Byakuya-sama...!”

She dragged her fingers down her face.

“It’s not a big deal,” said Byakuya. While the others burned with curiosity, discomfort stewed in his gut like when he had watched Touko reminisce about the karaoke session.

Like the rest of the group, he also wondered what could have driven out such a grin from him, out in the open like that. Worse, it could have not been a ‘what’, but a ‘who’. He had prided himself on never letting anyone slip under his skin, never letting anyone become close to him. Learning to rely on others, and let others rely on him, was one thing. This felt more personal, like a kick to the stomach.

“There has to be some way to reawaken the memory,” said Komaru, her tone light without the burden of his thoughts. She turned to Kyouko. “You must know a way.”

“Must I?” Kyouko’s eyebrows rose.

“Because you’re from a detective family,” said Aoi, nodding.

“Actually...” Komaru’s smile cringed on her face. “I um... just assume Kyouko-chan knows everything.”

“There are a few techniques we can try,” said Kyouko, faintly amused. “Perhaps if we pinpoint when and where exactly the photograph took place, that may stir something in Togami-kun’s brain.”

Other than Byakuya, no one else was in the frame. A briefcase leaned against a bench leg and a pile of papers rested on his lap. Annoyingly, he couldn’t see any writing that may have been on the papers. In the photograph, he wasn’t looking at them. He was focused on the nothingness where the other half of the photograph should have been.

“That has to be the main plaza,” said Aoi. “I recognise the benches. Sakura-chan and I finished our morning runs there. Then we would sit down and drink some water. We never saw Togami there though.”

“Yeah. That looks like the fountain at the back,” added Makoto.

Kyouko stroked her chin. “The sliver of sky in the background appears rather pale, and judging by the colour of the leaves, it’s approximately autumn.”

“Togami-chi never missed a lesson, so it had to be late-afternoon at the latest, ‘right?” said Yasuhiro.

“Unless it was the weekend,” Makoto pointed out, prompting Yasuhiro to exhale frustratedly through his teeth. The thoughtful expression on Kyouko’s face, however, didn’t waver.

“We can deduce whether he had lessons on that day,” said Kyouko.

“How?” asked Aoi.

Byakuya already knew. “I’m not in uniform.”

“Indeed,” said Kyouko with a bob of her head. “So unless you changed into another outfit after your lessons, this scene transpired at the weekend.”

“Does that ring any bells for you?” Komaru asked Byakuya, clasping her hands together, eyes wide with optimism. “Visiting the plaza on the weekend, and catching sight of something that brings joy to your face...?”

His jaw clenched. All of them were staring at him. They had a campus as large as four high schools to clear and they had only made a dent so far, but the arduous task appeared to have been pushed aside in favour of probing his brain for some memory. Oh, how they tried his patience at times.

“I can’t say it brings anything to mind, though it is unusual for me to be there,” he said in a level tone. “Usually, during the weekend, I would be indoors, either in my room or in the library.”

Certainly not at the plaza. Certainly not with a brazen smile chipped into his face.

“I think we’ve followed the photograph’s lead as far as it can go,” said Yasuhiro. “Now we must turn to guesswork. If we bounce ideas off each other, that might help Togami-chi remember. Perhaps you had come from a meeting, where you struck a billion dollar deal?”

“Or you emerged from the cafeteria after they served some tasty donuts?” Aoi chimed in.

Byakuya’s frown sank in deeper.

“Or you finished a really good manga?” said Komaru.

“Or listened to a good song?” added Makoto.

Yasuhiro clicked his fingers. “I once read that listening to music is a good way to stir up memories. If we find a piece with the right mood, Togami-chi ought to remember the scene!”

“What sort of mood do you guys reckon we should play?” asked Komaru as she shoved her hand into her coat.

“Something cheerful,” said Aoi.

Komaru retrieved her phone from her pocket and tapped on her screen. A few seconds later, a series of beeps sang out of her phone, playing over the sound of clapping and a fast drumbeat. She side-stepped back and forth to the rhythm, and Byakuya lasted until the first few lines of Swedish auto tuned singing.

“Turn that off,” snapped Byakuya. “It’s not helping me think. It’s giving me a headache instead.”

With a pout, Komaru switched it off.

“Perhaps we should visit the location,” said Kyouko.

Touko’s brow creased. “Won’t it be dark?”

“Don’t worry, Touko-chan, our phones can provide you with light,” Komaru assured her, patting Touko on the shoulder.

They set off, departing from the old theatre and winding through corridors toward the plaza. Byakuya stayed silent, lagging behind most of the others slightly. Only Touko seemed to take note of this, and though she didn’t speak to him, she hovered further back than him, and he could feel her eyes on the back of his neck like flies crawling against his skin.

As they drew closer, he concluded that they wished so desperately to discover the source of his smile because they planned to use it against him. Perhaps they intended to humiliate him, or blackmail or manipulate him. But they were his friends, weren’t they? Surely they didn’t plan on using what they learned against him?

Yet... if that wasn’t the case, then why?

The plaza was no longer the picturesque location it once was. It couldn’t have been in a brochure promoting the academy, like the photograph in the album. Weeds grew between upturned slabs, gnarled fingers reaching toward the sky. Nearby, the rubble corpse of the fountain didn’t spout water, dry as sun bleached bone. They all stood silently for a while, observing their surroundings. There were no benches to sit on.

“It sure has changed a lot,” said Yasuhiro.

“It’ll do. Hagakure, bend over on all fours.” Aoi pointed at her feet. “You will play the part of the bench.”

Yasuhiro balked. “Why me? You’re stronger.”

Her stare didn’t relent. He managed a few more seconds before he dropped to his knees and planted his hands in front of himself. Once he was in position, Aoi turned to Byakuya expectantly.

“I am not sitting on him,” said Byakuya flatly.

“Please, Togami-san!” Komaru pleaded, shaking her phone in both hands. Light from the screen danced across her face and when her hands stilled, so did the glow. It seeped into her skin, accentuating the crinkle between her eyebrows and the stare from her eyes that pulled, pulled, pulled at Byakuya until he snapped.

“Why are you all making a big deal of this?” Byakuya asked not only Komaru, but all of them. He flung up a hand. “There is a photograph of me smiling. That’s it. It concerns me that you’re so obsessed with finding out what caused me to smile.”

His question clenched them in its jaws, burning the air with acid. He waited for one of them to answer. For Touko to do more than fidget, and Komaru to stop chewing her lip. Finally, the pressure squeezed out a response from Makoto.

“You’re our friend,” said Makoto. “You’re usually so serious, and you rarely ever seem happy. We thought if we could find out what made you that happy back then...”

“... we could bring that happiness back to you now,” finished Touko, curling her fingers into her palms. Byakuya tensed.

That explanation had never occurred to him. For most of his life, he had been forced to be on the defensive, to anticipate betrayals and attacks from anyone. Then again, for most of his life, he hadn’t been acquainted with people like this. Friends. He grimaced, staring at Touko for several long seconds before averting his gaze and pushing up his glasses.

“Nuisances...” But he seated himself on Yasuhiro’s back, setting his feet firmly on the ground.

Byakuya tried to imagine the sky was a pool of water, not ink, and that he was on a bench, and that water streamed from a fountain behind him. However, the air remained as dry and dark as his mouth, and no matter how often his mind mended the slabs of the plaza, they would crack and decay within moments.

“Anything?” said Touko, wringing her hands.

He folded his arms over his chest.

“No,” said Byakuya. A collective sigh spread, though Makoto was soon grinning again.

“I guess we’ll have to keep trying to make you happy.”

Byakuya clicked his tongue, but his lips twitched outward and he quickly hid it behind his hand. Nuisances.

“Does this mean you can stand up now?” Yasuhiro asked from beneath Byakuya.

Aoi stretched her arms upward, arching her back, and yawned. “We ought to call it a day. It’s getting late.”

While the others headed toward the dormitory building that they were currently living in. Byakuya stayed where he was. Their footsteps faded, the glow of their phones shrinking into five pinpricks of light before disappearing completely. Despite his friends’ efforts, they had failed to uncover the story of the photograph. Now that he knew their motives hadn’t been nefarious, he could appreciate their attempts and found himself wondering what had happened all those years ago.

“It’s a shame we don’t know what made you so happy back then,” said Touko next to him, echoing his thoughts. She hadn’t retired for the night with the others. He glanced at her, meeting her gaze. Her phone shone a light against her wistful expression.

“I suppose so,” he said in a casual tone.

“With many of my memories, I don’t recall exact details, but they evoke certain feelings.”

His eyebrows rose a fraction in interest. “Oh?”

“Yes. For example, standing here... is stirring some emotion in me. I think I have a memory associated with this place too.”

Byakuya turned his whole body to face her.

“What emotion?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away, as if letting the thought sit on her tongue, tasting it.

“Warmth,” she said. “Like the warmth I feel when I’m with you. Perhaps I will never remember what happened to give me that feeling. B-But... I have many other precious memories... and I can work on creating more with you, Byakuya-sama.”

Her lips twisted into a smile. Meanwhile, his insides twisted, much like they did whenever she referred to him in a romantic manner. He had been experiencing the sensation more frequently around her lately. Sometimes, all she had to do was meet his gaze or brush against him, and his stomach would coil like she had pressed her lips against his.

“Byakuya-sama?” Touko’s voice broke into his thoughts. “A-Are you feeling all right?”

He did not want to think what about his face had made her ask that all of a sudden.

“I’m fine,” he said, and he adjusted his glasses. “We’ve dawdled here for long enough. Let’s return to the dormitories.”

“Together?” blurted Touko. Without a word, Byakuya strode away, and she darted after him, keeping abreast. “Are you going straight to sleep when you arrive back?”

His eyes stayed forward.

“No. I will have some tea and read first,” he replied.

“What do you plan on reading?”

“Out by Natsuo Kirino,” he said. Her head jerked back.

“I r-recently finished that!”

“I know. After seeing you reading it, I thought I would give it a try. I was more interested when I learned that it’s not a romance, but a crime novel.”

“I specialise in romance, but I read for a variety of genres,” she said. “I can recommend some more books i-if you want. Have you read The Inugami Clan? You may find the start slow, but I think you will enjoy the cast and the premise...”

He listened as they walked back together. The more she spoke, the more passionate she became, and he couldn’t help looking at her as she lit up, waving her arms around.

A smile poked at the corners of his lips, and he finally felt a sense of déjà vu.

#togafuka #togafukaweek #touko fukawa #byakuya togami #junko enoshima #dr3 #komaru naegi #makoto naegi #kyouko kirigiri #yasuhiro hagakure #aoi asahina #fanfiction #one shot

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chacusha · 2 years

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DS9 Companion liveblogging (5/14?)

First half of season 3 (3x01-3x10):

Interesting context on the first part of season 3, which was the only time when DS9 was the only new Star Trek show on air (between the end of TNG and beginning of VOY): Quark and Odo were apparently the favorite characters, people wanted more travel outside the station, and were lukewarm toward the Bajoran religious and political plots. Fascinating.

The Defiant was originally going to be called the Valiant but that name was vetoed because it was too similar to Voyager. Both ship names come from TOS episodes.

Some interesting notes on the reveal that the Founders are Odo's race: Behr and Wolfe joked about the Founders being Odo's people throughout season 2, then Michael Piller separately floated the idea to them and they cracked up and decided to propose making that happen. And Auberjonois was worried about the reveal because he'd always joked that the day Odo's backstory is revealed, that's when he's getting written out of the show. But he was reassured that they had more directions to take Odo's character post-reveal.

^ I'm sorry, it will always be funny to me that Bareil had a sizeable fan club. Interesting notes about why Eddington was brought in. (Eddington's character is apparently influenced by a character of the same name in the film In Harm's Way. I am unfamiliar with this film though.)

3x01 "The Search Part I": There's a note here about how Armin Shimerman didn't like the scene where Sisko asks Quark to kiss the nagal staff since there is an air of mocking Ferengi culture to it, but I love that scene. 👀 (For horny reasons lol.) Also apparently the prop sculptor (Dragon Dronet) based the head of the staff on Quark since he was given Quark's picture as a reference and didn't realize the prop was meant to belong to another character entirely.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Jadzia's very short-lived hairstyle in this season opener. Apparently it was controversial so it was changed afterward.

3x03 "The House of Quark": Love this episode because of all the ridiculous drama of Klingon noble houses and inheritance law meeting very polar opposite Ferengi sensibilities. There's some notes here on how Gowron's actor Robert O'Reilly was pleasantly surprised to transition to DS9 after TNG ended. Also, this is sweet:

Looks like Keiko's temporary departure from the show was to free up Colm Meaney for film projects (mentioned earlier) and to allow more focus on the Bashir/O'Brien relationship.

The story behind 3x04 "Equilibrium" is so funny. Basically, a producer got really into a stage magician and bought a pitch for a DS9 episode that just had the magician as a guest actor and his act involving masks, and the writing team had to create a whole plot around it: "Moore recalls that the original storyline had something to do with 'the circus coming to Deep Space 9, and this magician was in it, and we thought, "Well, we're not gonna do that."'" -- lmao. Initially it was about Odo before they realised that masks worked better as a metaphor for Trill hosts.

Apparently, the original plot of 3x05 "Second Skin" involved O'Brien as the secret undercover Cardassian instead of Kira, but the writer couldn't make it work with the Keiko/Miles marriage resulting in a human baby. Also some interesting thoughts on a more ambiguous version of the ending we got, where it is Kira's determination to be Kira and Bajoran that is what makes her so:

(The theme of this episode is that everyone is wearing a fake deceptive appearance (i.e. a second skin): Kira, Ghemor, the Defiant and Sisko, Garak, etc.)

Wow, lots of interesting notes on 3x06 "The Abandoned" -- so many I can't really summarize them all. Briefly: a lot of teenagers growing up/maturing in this ep including Jake, the Jem'Hadar, and Odo himself; Avery Brooks (who directed this ep) felt it was very much an allegory for how to deal with a generation of troubled, addicted, and potentially violent youths and what it says about society if it gives up on them (very much grappling with race and class issues although through sci-fi allegory and not direct analogy); Mardah's time on DS9 spanned from 2x17 "Playing God" to 3x10 "Fascination"; the way people worry about the age difference and Mardah's job but no one in this episode blinks an eye at her and Jake's interracial relationship, a casual depiction of a post-racial world; Jake gets a new outfit; Sisko also gets a dignified three-piece outfit for the dinner with Mardah, to indicate how seriously he's taking meeting Jake's girlfriend and how he doesn't want to embarrass Jake.

Also some interesting notes on Odo getting quarters in this ep (including the scene where Kira gives Odo flowers that he puts in his old bucket, and later flings that bucket/vase in 4x13 "Crossfire" -- Auberjonois added that detail to the "Crossfire" scene) and also makeup restrictions on babies/children, which constrained the young Jem'Hadar looks.

I like how the synopsis of 3x07 "Civil Defense" only covers the A and B plots of the Ops group and the ore processing group, making no mention of the Quark and Odo C plot. It's okay -- the two of them literally contribute nothing plot-relevant to that episode lmao. Reading the summary, I really love this episode. It's one of my favorites just for the ridiculousness of the security program that has Dukat cringily chastising rebelling Bajoran workers and responding to an increasingly severe hypothetical uprising in a way that manages to come off as both smug and panicked, and his boss publicly shaming him for abandoning his post lol. Like, nothing about this security program makes sense; it's all just done for the lols and for the sake of making things increasingly dire. I suppose maybe it establishes that there is just something buffoonish about the way the Cardassian military (/fascist governments more generally) operate. But mostly it's just a very silly plot.

On polishing the script for 3x07 "Civil Defense": "'He [Michael Piller] hated it, he hated it, he hated it,' states Behr, likening the tortuous experience to one he and the other staff writers on TNG went through to turn 'Yesterday's Enterprise' into a solid script." -- So surprising to hear this, because the final result (of both episodes) is so good! I am considering reading whatever is the TNG equivalent of this book because I have so many questions about what they were thinking / what was going on in some of those episodes and plotlines...

^ O-omg... 😂

^ I always wondered about this... I like the look without the belt better too, although maybe if it were around longer it would have grown on me.

^ I agree. 3x10 "Meridian" sucks. It has some interesting cinematography because Frakes directed it but the romance in it is so painful and unconvincing.

Dang, I didn't realize the alien in this episode was Jeffrey Combs' first Star Trek role ever. (Apparently, Frakes cast him because he remembered him from the Riker audition! -- according to Memory Alpha, not this book.)

^ I always kind of wondered (1) when did the writers first get the idea to make Odo's feelings for Kira romantic, and (2) when in the timeline of their relationship did Odo develop his crush (kind of wondering the same question, just from a Doylist + Watsonian point of view). For (2), I think this is the earliest explicit moment (it has kind of a "I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me" kind of vibe going on with Odo), although I suppose the feelings could have started earlier. But it looks like the answer to (1) is sometime after this point. Interesting!

(Also, I feel kinda bad for Quark in this episode as I think a lot of the humor is a bit mean-spirited/at his expense. But at the same time, Kira and Odo ganging up on Quark is a great dynamic (see also: 2x24 "The Collaborator").)

Some interesting notes on 3x09 "Defiant" on where the story idea came from (they wanted to do something with Tom Riker and have a plot where the Maquis are gaining strength due to his help/leadership); the humanization of Dukat; Tom's characterization (vs. Riker); that this episode sets up that the Obsidian Order are planning something but what exactly was not decided at this point; and the dangling plot thread of what happened to Riker. I agree that it always bugged me that you never find out what happened to Tom (Frakes says he envisions Kira would at some point get sent to Cardassia to get him out of his sentence). He and Kurn are two great TNG characters that DS9 brought back just to do something vaguely depressing with, and I'm honestly tempted to just render those plotlines non-canon. 🤷‍♀️

Some interesting notes on (1) 3x10 "Fascination" being an homage to A Midsummer Night's Dream, and (2) how the set design and costumes were played with in light of that:

Also, OMG:

^ I mean, Quark does have cartoon character energy... Shimerman's evaluation of the episode is a bit cranky but he's not wrong.

More on the earlier note about Odo's crush on Kira from "Meridian": "And it ["Fascination"] openly reveals a plot point that only had been hinted at previously: the fact that Odo loves Kira. Interestingly, this was a case where an actor's performance strongly influenced the producers. 'There was a moment in 'The Collaborator,' Behr recalls, 'where Rene [Auberjonois] does a take with Nana that we hadn't been expecting. And we all looked at it and said, "Odo loves her. That's what he's playing!" Recognizing the rich story possibilities, Behr's team took the ball and ran with it, giving Auberjonois plenty of material to play with in the coming seasons." (I'm guessing he was referring to "Meridian," not "The Collaborator.")

Oops, I have to end this post a bit early because apparently I am hitting Tumblr's limit for images in posts. (Also, I know I focus on Odo and Quark a lot in my notes. I am biased.)

#star trek: deep space nine #ds9 companion liveblogging #book liveblogging #st ds9

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