#vulnerability is hard

[allastoredeer]

The way I've always seen radioapple is that inevitably Alastor would mellow out around Lucifer, because unlike every other sinner that would see him fall to take his place, Lucifer is already beyond him. It's the difference between having to worry about everyone and only having to worry about the biggest predator in the room. By definition Lucifer is so much scarier than anything that would dare attack the Radio Demon that he makes him (feel) safe.

And if his insecure ass would just accept that, he'd be much happier. :)

But alas, he's so used to being attacked and noticed that he can't begin to imagine a world where he's not a target. I think on some level he's convinced himself that he likes being in that constant state of justified anxiety.

Alastor has so many issues and I want to study them all under a microscope. I think, even in a developing relationship with Lucifer, it would take a long, long time, full of emotional turmoil and coming to terms with his insecurities, before he even begins to allow Lucifer to "protect" him. In any way.

As someone who also hates being vulnerable, or weaker than anyone I'm around, I project so much onto Alastor its not even funny. To give that bit of vulnerability to someone--to open yourself up enough to allow someone to take care of you, to PROTECT you (which can feel so degrading in some circumstances, in my experience), is super fucking hard, and I think Alastor would have to go through massive amounts of character development before he got there LMAO.

But I want him to feel comfortable and safe around Lucifer. I want him to feel like he can trust him. I want good things for Alastor if only he would open himself up and allow that vulnerability T.T

#gah I love him so much #can you tell I project so much of myself onto Alastor? #because I project SO much of myself onto Alastor #I feel a little insane #vulnerability is hard #opening yourself up to someone elses protection is hard #admitting that someone else is stronger than you is SUPER fucking hard #Alastor I see you #I feel your pain and insecurities #hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #the radio demon #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor the radio demon #asks #anon #anonymous

[brilliantpines]

the frustration that comes with a lack of communication or inability to communicate effectively is such a fun thing to explore in writing and I don't think people do it enough

#no one is perfect at communication! #vulnerability is hard #and accurately assessing your thoughts and feelings on an issue you're having with someone is hard enough #least of all articulating those issues TO that person #written relationships are much more interesting and feel much more real when you're comfortable with the fact that these two people aren't #inside each other's heads #and there are issues that come with that #anyway I'm certainly not a writer but I've been dabbling recently and this is something I've been thinking about #pines.txt #writing

[arttuff]

brucie wayne is not immune to the sudden urge to hug his son

#dc comics #dc #batman #nightwing #bruce wayne #dick grayson #batfamily #batfam #he brings him to his chest so hard it's gonna give him a concussion #im feeling vulnerable and huggy. my files are all filled with sketches of batman hugging his kids rn #probably wont post any LOL #anyway dont tag with ship plz #animation

[stuckinapril]

friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me

#It’s just so different #even though it’s public it still feels secret and safe. i feel comfy sharing a lot more on here than I do in my actual day to day life lol #in my head I’m also just speaking to myself 90% of the time which helps #if a friend off tumblr saw my thoughts I’d feel so weird ab it #esp bc they might get the vagueposting about certain situations and tell mutual friends #no thank u. this is for me. I’m not about to start censoring my thoughts bc someone I know knows my tumblr #u guys literally saw me have LIVE BREAKDOWNS #meanwhile I’ll have the worst fucking day in history and tell no one about it. I’m already cripplingly private but way more so in real life #this is basically a low stress journaling outlet for me. it’s so important for me to maintain the separation #like this is actually my diary & has been so handy for letting out emotions / articulating thoughts / staying on track !! #& I’ve met so many kind people on here who actually get me. which is so hard to find irl bc I’m surrounded by pre-med gunners/overachievers #who are by standard not very good w emotion & can be competitive/judgmental. or at least it’s hard for me to be vulnerable in front of them #and I’m part of that crowd so I reserve my emotions only to a handful of very close friends #it’s nice to hop on here and express negative emotions!! or positive emotions!! just whatever I want and it’s low stress and people get me #I don’t have to worry about judgment or competitiveness etc etc #like everyone on here is so kind & nice & understanding. & just a breath of fresh air from the types I run w. it’s just nice to have this #so idk that’s why I think I’ll always be strict about keeping the worlds separate. it just works #p

[stickaflaginit]

Keep Your Friends Close; Keep Your Altepetl Closer (3/3)

All empires, regardless of power or influence, inevitably collapse. A widely-held misconception regarding The Aztec Empire is that the Aztecs fell victim to Spanish conquistadors, leading to the empire's downfall. Spanish conquistadors did play a role in Aztec collapse, but Spanish victory over the Aztecs was made possible by decades of altepetl attacks, slowly weakening the empire's military forces. Let's explore the role of altepetl in The Aztec Empire's decline, fueled by altepetl's religious resentments.

Conquering neighboring territories caused the Aztecs to receive divine praise from their gods and goddesses. Additionally, conquering neighboring territories caused the Aztecs to gain military power through recruitment of men from allied and conquered altepetl. As the Aztec military grew stronger, the civilization became increasingly inspired by both Huitzilopochtli, god of war, and personal motives to expand the empire. This expansion forced altepetl to produce routine material and human sacrifices to the Aztecs for the benefit of Aztec gods and goddesses. The Aztec Empire, on many occasions, stole slaves and prisoners from nearby tribes for ritualistic purposes. Consequently, many altepetl harbored religious resentments towards the Aztecs, and attempted to rebel against Aztec control. During the reign of Aztec ruler Montezuma II from 1503 to 1520, both the empire and altepetl rebellions were at their peaks.

Source: Laack, Isabel. Aztec Religion and Art of Writing: Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics, and the Nahua Sense of Reality. Brill, 2019. Print. 

Image Source: “Montezuma II.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moctezuma_II

Despite constant rebellions from altepetl, Montezuma II defeated neighboring tribes' attempts to gain sovereignty. Altepetl rebellions, however, significantly weakened The Aztec Empire through exhaustion of Aztec resources and military forces. Shortly after the altepetl rebellions, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortez attempted to invade The Aztec Empire. Unstable relations between the Aztecs and conquered altepetl gave Cortez the opportunity to form alliances with altepetl, most notably the Tlaxcalans, known as long-term enemies of the Aztec, and strong war fighters. The Tlaxcalans were largely responsible for Cortez's later victory over The Aztec Empire. Towing a large army of angry natives into the Aztecs' capital city of Tenochtitlan, Cortez quickly imprisoned Montezuma II. The ruler eventually submitted to Spanish forces and, in doing so, lost the respect of the Aztec civilization. Spanish accounts claim Aztecs living in Tenochtitlan bombarded Montezuma II with stones and arrows during Montezuma II's frugal attempts to negotiate peace, causing Montezuma II to suffer fatal wounds. Aztec accounts claim Cortez murdered Montezuma II, causing the conquistador's regime to be nearly destroyed in exiting Tenochtitlan by the Aztec regime.

Source: Read, Kay Almere. Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos. Indiana University Press, 1998. Print. 

Image Source: Britannica Editors. “Montezuma II.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Montezuma-II

The exact demise of Montezuma II remains uncertain. The role of religion in The Aztec Empire's decline and collapse remains absolute. In fact, the role of religion remains evident in all stages of the empire's lifespan. Religious ideals fueled constant need for war that subsequently expanded Aztec territory, religious allegiance gave the Aztecs leverage to maintain control over conquered altepetl, and religious resentments led to a weakening of The Aztec Empire, aiding overrule of Montezuma II by Spanish forces.

#imperialism #ancient history #history #colonialism #imperialists #aztecs #aztec empire #spanish #conquistadores #cortez #mythology #religion #mesoamerica #the americas #mexico #spain #all great things must come to an end #don't mess with altepetl #vulnerability is hard #embarrassing ends #nice guys finish first

[thebabblingbrookenook]

#vulnerability is hard #stepping out of shame

[mrsman]

I love you I miss you I wish you would come back

Please do come see me I want to forgive you at the very least and tell you it’s okay to heal

#silence is no enough #vulnerability is hard

[time-woods]

I love prismo making scarab so flustered but man. Imagining it the other way around is so good too. I feel like it’d hit prismo like a truck if scarab showed any sign of forward-ness towards him, even just subtle touches on his waist or holding him closer I feel like would make the poor guy malfunction!

yes ! ! he would ! ! mainly cause its like 'oh ! hes like- getting better ! hes getting more comfortable expressing himself !' hed be extremely proud n also a mess cause oh wow

like here for example when scarab kisses him first hes just like 'WOW'

#asks #being vulnerable in his own ways is hard for him too but its a different way n how he expresses it is different but yaknow #but yea in short hell yes he gets flustered when carma initiates stuff #chasing stars au

[ruporas]

drank too much

[ID: Digital Art of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. Vash’s body is turned slightly away from the viewer as he holds a staggering Wolfwood by his shoulder. He has one foot ahead of the other, the foot in the back used to stabilize himself from tipping over. Wolfwood is tethering into Vash, his weight pressed into him with his arms wrapped around Vash’s waist and his face is hidden away as he leans against Vash’s shoulder. Vash’s expression can be seen, his eyes wide and mouth tight-lipped, and his face is flushed red. A speech bubble comes out from Wolfwood, saying a drawled “Spikeyyy...”. The background are desaturated pastels of blue and green, showing night time, as they stand in the middle of an empty street that is also lit by the moon not depicted. Yellow light is seen coming from the inside of a saloon. End ID]

#vashwood #Vash the Stampede #nicholas d wolfwood #trigun #trigun maximum #when i think of who handles their alcohol best -- it's going to be vash naturally. considering his age but also his plant biology? #idk how his plant biology comes into things but it feels like it makes sense... and helps build his tolerance... also he's canonically #a bit of an alcoholic i think... one of his vices. and im sure ww drinks but his go-to comfort is through smoking not drinking #slight detour but the barkeeper was also like i'm the angel that provides drinks for these troubled souls. all i could think of is #a parallel from ww to vash... vash going thru this hell on his own during that point in the chapter and ww is the angel who will give him #his space and then also save him later. But anyway. that's a completely different topic. as a result of ww Not being much of a drinker #i feel like he'd be clingy... a LOT less verbal but more physically affectionate #i feel like he'd be able to speak as he normally does but when he wants to ask for something he'd just reduce it down to names #spikey needle noggin while tugging on vash's arm. vash explodes immediately #this is also very self indulgent if u cant tell. #i was just thinking that ww while sober is a hard cage to crack through no matter how close vw gets to one another. #while ww can end up being emotionally vulnerable -- has to at some point within their relationship -- he still just has tons of trouble #navigating his own personal wants. #ruporas art

[yennyinc]

Acceptance!

#my hero academia #bnha #boku no hero academia #bkdk #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou #izukus hand #bakudeku #bnha fanart #I didn’t forget about you guys! idk why it’s so hard for me to post on multiple platforms lol #im always here though fellers lurking about #katsuki’s gaze is fixed on Izuku’s hand #katsukis gaze is fixed in izukus hand resting gently atop his heart. #His own palms lay open a symbol of acceptance and vulnerability towards Izuku #His expression bears a serene tender demeanor a testament to the knowledge of whom his heart belongs. #lol

[collegeoflore]

the thing is that. astarion is tender but he’s not tender as in soft and sweet he’s tender like a bruise

#astarion #thinking a lot today abt what vulnerability and tenderness and love looks like for him and xarrai #when they’ve both been stripped of their softest parts so effectively #like what is tenderness when there’s nothing left but hard edges? #idk. the end of the game is a beginning for them both and i like them. is the problem.

[againstme]

URGENT: LOSING HOUSING

i'm losing access to my housing on the 29th of may, and i'm trying to gather funds to make it over to my friend in portland that has a place for me to stay.

i've got my plane ticket for the 5th of june, i need to secure funds for the storage container payment for the month by the 29th, and i need to have enough to take an uber from the airport to my friend's as soon as possible.

the storage container is 150 dollars, and the uber can range from 40-60 dollars. that needs to be secured as soon as possible.

the most direct way to help me with that is through my p@yp@l and vnmo, both are linked, and $chxseallen. gofundme takes a percentage and is a slower disbursement.

i also need to cover costs of living while i'm still working on getting a job and place, for things like food, transit, medication and appointment co-pays, and other general essentials. the gofundme to assist in that is below:

please share if you can, that would help a lot.

#c.txt #this is a really vulnerable thing lol it's hard out here #idk what to tag this is without getting bots #signal boost #funds #emergency funds #funds needed #housing insecurity

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

#something something hope is a weapon hope is a discipline hope is a garden to cultivate!!! #HE'S SO GOOD HE IS TRULY EXEMPLAR OF THE WHOLE PHILOSOPHY OF THE NEIN AND I DO NOT THINK THAT'S AN ACCIDENT #truly just like. enormous proponent of letting trust and curiosity into your heart regardless of the horrors. #it's hard and it makes you more vulnerable and sometimes it hurts so so much but it will also save your fucking life! #cr spoilers #critical role #essek thelyss #cr meta #I was gonna apologize for the length but I'm not sorry. I'm also not sorry for being insane about him but he's so special to me. #head in my hands he's so GOOD HE'S BEST BOI! GUIDING LIGHT NORTH STAR!!! LOOK AT HIM!!! #also truly if i had two nickels for a span of time with no essek sightings where I wrote a lot of fic #with deliberate personal acknowledgment that I was writing some pretty maximal arcs for him in terms of character growth #and then end up getting essek for half an episode and having to go OH WE'RE GOING THAT FAR ACTUALLY. FUCKING INCREDIBLE. #yanno. two nickels. but good lord I am thriving that it's happened twice #augh this is ONE of the pieces I need to write this week. we're not gonna talk about it

[hayaku14]

#kaitou kid #kuroba kaito #dcmk #detective conan #magic kaito #dcmk stans: OMG THE MONOCLE IS OFF WE CAN SEE HIS EYES #kaito's left eye: BITCH IVE BEEN HERE THE ENTIRE TIME???? #left eye is side eyeing us so hard rn #but you dont understand!!! kid without the monocle!!!! exposed and vulnerable!!!! RAAAAHHH #dc prattles #dc memes #detective conan movie 27

[st-hedge]

It wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card that I’d draw V again. Anyway I’ll go ahead ramble in the tags

#devil may cry 5 #dmc5 #dmc v #so I’ve replayed dmc5 a stupid amount of times since March #but to be fair it’s a very short game #but I’ve developed a hobby of trying to connect dots between v and Vergil #cuz the detail is actually so good #for instance even how he holds the cane is similar to how he handles Yamato #his expressions are so alike but it’s not obvious #but then I thought #why is vergil’s humanity some dweeb who is like 20 something #he is like closest age wise to his dmc3 version #(this has probably been answered but I wanted to figure it out myself) #then I remembered the line from v about how his humanity has finally returned #so has it been subdued and dormant ever since he got imprisoned by mundus #and is that why his humanity resembles his younger self #cuz the human vulnerable side of him has been dead #this is the only edition of Vergil I won’t drop kick on sight #human v is a dork ass goth who has a soft squishy heart #and he can’t even kill his brother who he hates so much when given the chance #UUUGGHHHHHHHHHH #don’t even get me started about the ordeal with Nero #v tried so hard to just see him as a tool but he knows that wasn’t the case

[papanowo]

my god ! these bitches gay ! good for them ! good for them .

#my art #star wars #tcw #clone wars #codywan #commander cody #obi wan #i feel like cody would be kinda nervous to be in a relationship cus like.. he was created for combat and leadership #theres no way in hell that man would not be somewhat scared of being vulnerable #and obi wan is of course also kinda closed off but more cus of the code #idk i just thought about codywan reeeally hard the other day and this came out #theyre just. theyre just rlly sweet okay