#unable to perceive the shape of you

[starlightpixels]

Thinking about the shape of water again

[theharellan]

Wisdom wakes to face the dawn. @theshirallen

“Spirit-speaker, voice of Wisdom, I need your aid.”

Her voice would rouse him from the deepest slumber, he thinks he might cast off the pall of death itself to find his way to her side.

Instead, he shrugs off the white sheets of the honoured Dreamer, and wipes his hand across the back of his mouth. Crystallised remains of honeywater cling to his lips where his fellows had painted them in his sleep, a thoughtful gesture, if done in vain. The well of the Fade had proven deep, and he had drank from it gladly, almost forgetting the body that waited for him in the lands below.

Almost.

“You’re awake. Good.” Kindness comes first. They always do, quick to notice struggle and try to correct it. Without waiting, they move to sit in the space his head had lain, hands separating long trails of hair and beginning to braid them. They are gentle, but the feeling tugs. Everything does, from the air to his shoulders, as though the spinning of the world seeks to return him to his slumber.

But the voice beckons, and his hair spins further down his back.

“Has something happened?” Wisdom asks, gingerly touching the beginning of his braid. “The war-”

“Drags on,” Kindness finishes for him. “I don’t presume you found any answers, in your Fade wanderings?”

His tongue catches behind his teeth, but it is a simple enough matter to spin his hesitation into consideration. “Nothing definitive,” he says. “I… expected to have more time before I dawned.”

“You will have more time, I’m sure. For now, the All-Mother needs you.” He feels their hand twist something into his hair, and pin the braid’s end to its beginning. They tuck themself before him now, the silver vallaslin on their face a mirror to his gold.

“You still haven’t told me what I’m walking into,” he reminds them. The cold air shivers against him as he crosses the room to stand before an intricate wardrobe. As he reaches for his robes he sees the scars from the last battle he took part in still burn upon his skin. Frowning, he shrugs the clothes on, buttons tight across his breast. The weight of the wolfskin lands with a more comforting weight as he tethers it at his waist, and Kindness comes to smooth the fur in a singular direction.

“Our lady’s wounded pride,” they say, half-fond and half-weary. “She is not accustomed to being denied.”

His ears and his curiosity pique, but they force his shoulders towards the door. “I will let Mythal speak with her own voice, and not lend mine when it has already failed her.”

They shake their head at him when his look prompts for further explanation, shoving him harder until his feet obey. “Good luck, lethallen,” they bid as the halls of Mythal’s palace open for him.

The gilded walls of Mythal’s palace glow dully in the gloom, the All-Mother’s mood seemingly baked into the architecture. Wisps that act as sconces in the wall shimmer as he passes, some straying from their duty to float in the forward wind of his stride or gather beneath the shelter of his braid. Their glow is glittering starlight on his hairline, ringing a crown around him as the doors to the court swing open.

Awaiting him is the usual audience: the lesser servants and knights; the noble representatives and sycophants; and those of his nature, the minor aspects that distilled into Benevolence. And above them, garbed in robes that flow from glassy steps, is Mythal. Whatever her mood, she glows, shining like the stars.

They all seem to fade away when she sights Wisdom, the figures gauze-like in contrast to his fullness within the singularity of her vision.

“You walk among us again, my Wisdom,” she calls. “What knowledge have you returned to us with?”

She does not ask the question she wants him to answer, but he addresses it dutifully, without hesitation: “None that we may use at present.”

“A pity. The people suffer while we hunt for answers.”

The accusation cuts. He bows his head in apology. “I will not fail you.”

“No,” Mythal says, words soothing the doubts her own tongue incited. “I suspect you will not.”

It is not often she quits her throne, but she forgets it to join his side, shadow falling over him even as the light of her expression guides his eyes. With flawless hands, she scatters the wisps that have crowned him, smile thin upon her lips. “Come,” she bids him. “I would speak to you alone.”

The sentiment alone would be enough to clear the room, but she does not linger, guiding him past the court and out into the gardens. Impossible fountains fall forever from the air, spiraling around floating land masses where spirits gather. They peer over the edges before shrinking out of sight, but he cannot miss the impression of their hearts straining to hear the All-Mother’s words. He forces back his smile, and says nothing of them.

As they walk together, the fullness of Mythal begins to fade, her perfection falter. The intense blackness of her hair loses its shine, and the smile she casts upon him is tired around the edges.

“I know what you are thinking, my Wisdom,” she says, her chiding delicate. Fond. “We have been over this before.”

“You do not need to posture for them,” he says anyway. “They will love you regardless.”

“You speak not with your wisdom when you advise me so-”

“- You gave me a heart when you bid me to your side. Can you fault me for thinking with it, on occasion?”

“- I need them to trust me, as well as love me-”

“As I trust and love you.”

Mythal smiles upon him, twisting a lock of hair from his braid. She twirls it around her finger like a ribbon as she says, “That is why I summoned you.”

His heart jumps in his chest, remembering her admonishment before the crowd. “My efforts against the Titans-”

“- must wait. You will find the answer to the people’s prayers, but when the fighting is through, we will need to be in a position of strength. Our siblings in power will seek to gain ground, and if we falter, they will suffer.” She does not name them, but he feels them in the silence between her thoughts: the people he has walked amongst; shielded from the earth’s fear; guided through hostile grounds to those within her protection.

He nods. “What would you ask of me?”

“There is room enough for another aspect in my court, and I have just a one in mind. Not so old as Fear, but more powerful, and far less likely to be scattered by dawn.”

Dread tightens his throat as the nature of her request begins to occur to him. He rolls up the sleeves of his robes and scratches at his scars before her hand swats his nails away from his skin. Grateful, obedient, he clasps behind his back. “You wish for me to ask it on your behalf.”

“I already asked on my behalf,” she says with an air of disdain. “And Kindness, first, then Mercy. They burned through my whole court before I came to them, and even I, they refused.”

Pride burgeons in his chest, like the first beams of sunlight at daybreak. “But you believe I will succeed where you have failed?”

“Your victories are mine,” she assures him, tucking the strand she had tugged away behind his ear. “But you speak with the voice of the People as no other in my courtroom can. The love you bear for me, not the All-Mother, but Mythal, may grant you the favour that even I lacked.”

She bends to knight him with a kiss to his crown, and he bows his head dutifully to accept her gift. “I will not fail you.”

“I know you won’t, my love.”

[omarwolaeth]

Sometimes I think about how the natural energies might not have been as clean cutting as we're lead to believe, and how Yuuya and Yuzu might not be the only split-soul existences, entirely because of a blast radius that neither Ray nor Leo knew about if the En cards ever went off.

[cherriesforheaven]

As an emperor romancer and a fan of the movie Amélie I should’ve foreseen myself getting emotional over The Shape of Water 🥹

[ferretfyre]

Academy Award for Best Picture:

If I told you about her, what would I say? That they lived happily ever after? I believe they did. That they were in love? That they remained in love? I'm sure that's true. But when I think of her - of Elisa - the only thing that comes to mind is a poem, whispered by someone in love, hundreds of years ago: "Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere."

The Shape of Water (2017, dir. Guillermo del Toro)

[sodaneko]

❥ 𝐓𝐎𝐎 𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐔𝐃𝐃𝐋𝐄 ↳ 𝐰/ 𝐀𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐮, 𝐎𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐮, 𝐊𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐨, 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐦𝐚, 𝐎𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐰𝐚, 𝐈𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐳𝐮𝐦𝐢 & 𝐒𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐬𝐚

a/n: reader is gn! i started drafting those during one of the first sticky hot summer nights of the year, then forgot about it until this came over me once again like a fever, and now here we are. i love writing drabbles because they force you to really think about the chars, how you perceive them and how to nail their unique personalities in 200 words or less. anyway, this is my first time writing for HQ after the brainworms got me down bad and i had lots of fun! hope you'll enjoy them too ♡

word count: 1.3k

𝐀𝐓𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐔 whines when you have the audacity to kick him back towards his end of the couch, catching your ankle and pulling you towards him in return, stubbornly ignoring your protests. Too hot to cuddle, my ass, he pouts, genuinely offended that you’d even consider that; when the only time Atsumu ever feels a sense of calm is when part of you touches him. Your hand playing with the shaved hair in the back of his neck, your leg hooked over his hipbone as you sprawl out in bed together, hell, even your icy cold feet shoved underneath his butt during winter. Something was missing when he couldn’t have your proximity. Yer so needy, Tsumu. So what if he was? He pulls you into his lap, face nuzzled into the crook of your neck, hands tightening around your waist. His breath fanning over your skin, hot and cool against it. Atsumu takes, he demands, but with you he is pleading, silent for once. Just a little longer–dreaming, breathing you in, kissing till he feels you smiling against his lips.

𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐔 wears his hair shorter now, back at its natural dark color, too. You helped him buzz it off during one of those sticky summer nights. Both of you in nothing but your underwear, Osamu sitting on the edge of the bathtub in your cramped bathroom. One hand of yours holding a razor and the other clamped over your mouth because you horribly messed up a setting and now he had a funny little edge in his hair, throwing you both in a laughing fit. It was your first summer together and Osamu couldn’t help but hope that there would be many more like this to come, with your bodies orbiting each other, unable to keep your hands off despite the heat and the sweat, the air heavy and electric and yet so light whenever he hears you laugh. Nothing beats the feeling of lifting you up on the kitchen counter and your eyes lingering on his hands, shaping a midnight snack for the both of you, getting drunk on stolen glances and kisses. There’s many metaphors for food and love and right now, Osamu can taste them all on the tip of your tongue.

𝐊𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐎 hasn’t even kicked his shoes off at the entrance yet and is already loosening his tie, before slender fingers work down button for button on his shirt. He hears you laugh about his demeanor from the other end of the hallway. How lucky, he thinks to himself. To have someone waiting for him at home, making even long work days during the most miserable summer heat bearable. His shirt has barely hit the floor and he’s already on you, caging you in with his arms and covering every inch of your skin he can reach in kisses, despite your giggling and feigned huffing over how sticky he is, sending him to shower first (as if you wouldn’t come right after him). Kuroo purrs when your hands tangle in his hair. In the end you always pull him back towards your lips again, swallowing every little quip and taunt like candy, sweet and syrupy in your mouth. It reminds him how he fell in love with you many summers ago, his heart ablaze ever since.

𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐌𝐀 is glued to the fan at this point. He even switched gaming from his desktop set-up to a handheld console, reluctantly admitting that his old house would heat up even more with his computer running at full blast. His expression really says it all when you approach him, silently pleading for cuddles. Kenma just can’t understand how anyone would seek someone else’s body heat when the sun outside was already doing a pretty good job in trying to end him. Still, he isn’t immune to your charms, never was (one time he mumbled something about your stats being way too high and how everything changed once he received a love buff of yours). When you hold out a popsicle as a means of bribery and blink at him with those damn soft eyes of yours, Kenma pauses his game and holds out his arms. He hums into the kiss you give him before sitting down in his lap, your lips tasting like ice cream and summer love. He rests his chin on your shoulder, face nuzzled against your neck, before he continues his game, letting you feed him the sweet cold treat. Summer might have become a little more bearable with you in his life–though he was already looking forward to many winters under the kotatsu with you. 

𝐎𝐈𝐊𝐀𝐖𝐀 is squishing your cheeks together, his thumb brushing over the corner of your mouth. Collecting evidence, but also wanting to feel your tongue poke out slightly against it, cheeky as ever. Just how could you eat the last ice cream in the freezer without him? He lets out an exaggerated huff, feigned indignation, both of you knowing he can never keep this up for too long–not when it comes to you. Oikawa leans down to kiss you, your face still in a tight grip, tasting the remains of the ice cream on your lips, as if you weren’t sweet enough already. Maybe he can be bribed for another kiss when you offer a midnight walk to the 7/11 down the street, promising to pay for a cool sweet treat to make it up to him. He had already forgotten what he was mad about the moment you leaned into the kiss, but he’ll never say no to a chance to hold your hand, even if it’s sticky with leftover ice cream and the summer heat. To Oikawa, love is stored in the mundane things, even if his love for you is anything but that.

𝐈𝐖𝐀𝐈𝐙𝐔𝐌𝐈 is standing in the kitchen past midnight, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers while he roams the freezer for anything to help him cool down; even a pack of frozen peas would do. He feels a pang of guilt for having peeled away from you, your form pressed so tightly against him in his sleep, it almost gave him a heat stroke–for more reason than one. Everything is sticky and airless and Iwaizumi is sure that if he would have glanced at you even a minute longer, his heart might have just given out on him. All this love he holds for you, burning him up from the inside, like a fever. He lets out a long exhale when he presses an ice bag against the back of his neck, but it’s not that what causes a shiver down his spine; it’s two arms sneaking around his waist from behind, your sleepy voice mumbling out his name, your body melting into his again. The first kiss pressed on the side of your neck is an apology, the second one a promise. The third–to devour you.

𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐒𝐀 grumbles something about you being too sticky and sweaty, making a weak attempt to shove you back to your side of the bed, only to pull you back by your hips when you actually do leave some room between you. He can’t help it, you fit so perfectly in the curve of his body, your back pressed against his chest, one of his knees nudged between your legs, all tangled up. It’s the perfect position to plant kisses on the back of your neck, too. Kiyoomi loathes those hot summer nights in the concrete city. He’d rather be somewhere else with you, somewhere to breathe more easily through this heat. Maybe you should move to the countryside, yes. A small house with lots of green surrounding it. Less people and noise, just you and him. Yeah, he would like that. He kisses the back of your neck once more and takes a slow, deep inhale of your sweet scent, before sleep finally crawls upon him again. For now he’ll endure this heat, anything, as long as he can hold you in his arms like this–and have a cold shower with you in the morning, maybe.

[stydixa]

If I told you about her, what would I say? That they lived happily ever after? I believe they did. That they were in love? That they remained in love? I'm sure that's true. But when I think of her - of Elisa - the only thing that comes to mind is a poem, whispered by someone in love, hundreds of years ago: "Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere." THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017) Dir. Guillermo del Toro

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Do you have any advice on how to write creepy villains who are also classy? I know that's rather specific, but I have trouble writing them because I creep myself out and I'm also worried I'm being too cheesy!

Writing Ideas: Creepy Villains

"Creepy" Characters

When you get creeped out by someone, that means that there is something about them that is making you (consciously or unconsciously) perceive them as a threat to your personal safety.

It is your brain’s way of warning you that there is something:

unpredictable,

unsettling, or

dangerous

...about that person, and it is unable to decide if that person should be feared.

This typically manifests in awkwardness, confusion, or unsettlement, and you typically resolve it by getting as far away from the creepy person as possible.

Kinds of "Creeps"

Creeps come in all shapes and sizes, and their reasons for their creepy behavior could be sinister or entirely accidental.

In addition to that, many factors that people perceive as creepy are things that people cannot help, such as appearance or gender.

For example, men are far more likely to be considered creepy than women, and physical attractiveness plays a large role as well.

People can even disagree about what they consider to be creepy.

Depending on the character, the setting, and the story you are writing, being a “creep” could have wildly different connotations.

In one story, a creep might be a suspect in a murder case, while in another, a woman could feel threatened by her creepy blind date.

Or, the creep in question could simply be a teenage boy trying to fit in at high school.

Creepiness can even be a good thing!

Some of the most beloved characters in media come across as creepy characters, such as Stein from Soul Eater or the entirety of the Addams Family.

Misunderstandings can also work in your favor, as your protagonists can experience character development as they learn to accept and befriend those who appear different from themselves.

To make a character a bit more unsettling and potentially reveal more about their creepy nature, consider giving them some of these traits and behaviors:

Erratic and unpredictable emotions 

Unapologetic non-conformance to societal norms

A careless appearance (e.g., messy or greasy hair)

A habit of standing too close to people or not respecting personal boundaries

Weird or inappropriate expressions

Always appearing too tired or too energetic

Repeated quirks (e.g., fidgeting or licking their lips)

Obsessing over a single idea, person, group, or topic; usually of a taboo nature, such as sex or death, though it doesn’t always have to be (e.g., teenage girls can be creepy in the way they obsess over musical idols or bands.)

Avoiding eye contact

Conversational awkwardness, or an inability to pick up on social cues

Oversharing in conversation, especially about really personal topics

Showing too much or too little emotion (or the wrong emotion in a situation, such as finding humor in a funeral)

Collecting things, especially things that are usually deemed inappropriate to keep, such as fingernails, animal skulls, or other people’s trash (bonus points if the creep brags about their collection in conversation)

Having a hobby that involves watching something, such as bird watching (binoculars are an inherently creepy image)

Having unrealistic expectations for, or even idealizing, other people (often to the point of obsession)

Knowing too much about something or someone, and remembering way too many details

Staring, either into space, at animals, people, their own hands, etc.; staring is often creepy

This is in no way an exhaustive list. Remember that these traits alone are not enough to make a person creepy—they are only part of the strategy. One way of generating ideas is to think about real "creepy" people from your own life, from the news, or even other fictional stories. Think about the behaviors that, if you saw in real life, would make you keep your distance from someone. Think about the behaviors that frighten you, and use those. 

Here are a couple of tamer ideas for behaviors to keep your creeps realistic and subtle:

Acting too calm under pressure

Having too much knowledge regarding a particular topic

Smiling at inappropriate times

Giving off the impression of knowing more than they let on

Being too friendly

Having a nonchalant attitude towards death and suffering

Phrasing things in a way that seems unnatural for a native speaker

Being insistent about getting what they want

Having or showing a lack of sympathy or emotion

Not taking anyone seriously, or taking people way too seriously

Evidence of trauma or a mysterious event in their past

Any peculiarities in attitude, attire, and hobbies

If you keep things in moderation, you might not have the same immediate effect on readers, but you have the opportunity to slowly build the creepiness up over time.

But remember: Just because someone is different does not mean they are creepy or dangerous.

Some Writing Tips:

Add details slowly

Find a balance between creepiness and humanization

Let the readers do the imagining

Show, don’t tell

Use strong verbs

"Classy" Characters

Some tropes that show a character is "classy":

Classy Cane: Stylish and sophisticated characters often have canes. Either because they actually need it due to a disability or just want to show off how classy they are.

Classy Cravat: A cravat is a strip of cloth originating from Croatia that is wrapped and tied around the neck, sometimes embellished with lace or other decals. It's a predecessor to the necktie, and a common accessory in 17th to 19th century men's fashion. It's also excellent shorthand to show your audience that a character is rich and classy. If a character in the modern era wants to show their status, but doesn't want to look like they popped out of a time machine, they will often wear a toned down Ascot. These have the similar connotations, just with a more modern touch.

Tea is Classy: The very practice of tea drinking is presented as a sign of wealth and privilege. In China, where Tea and Tea Culture originates, high-quality tea was often used by the nobility as a symbol of status. When tea eventually made its way to Britain in the 17th century, it was six to ten times more expensive than coffee, making it a luxurious commodity associated with aristocracy. Even as tea becomes more widespread and "common", and with diners selling "to go" paper cups of tea, the connotation of tea drinking as a sign of sophistication and wealth still persists.

Wine is Classy: Whenever a character is shown drinking wine, it's usually a good sign that person is high class or sophisticated (or trying to come off as such), especially if the wine comes from their special private stock. The connotations of this can vary depending on the person. This trope varies widely by culture. In most of Western and Southern Europe, particularly in countries with a strong wine-making tradition like France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, wine is viewed as a fairly mundane and commonplace beverage (to the point where wine is served in some McDonald's), though prestigious vintages and appellations still fit this trope and tend to be expensive. It's also (in France) almost only drunk during meals, not between, and binge drinking is met with more social disapproval than with beer cultures. This may be an artifact of Roman times when drinking full-strength wine was considered barbaric and it was thus often watered down.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Writing a Villain

Villain Archetypes ⚜ Writing Notes: Villains

An Unforgettable Villain ⚜ Anti-Villain

Sympathetic Villain ⚜ Your Villain's Evil Plan

Here are some writing tips and references from different sources. Since both creepiness and class are quite subjective, choose which elements you would like to incorporate in your story to create your creepy but classy villain, considering your own perception of both characteristics, your plot etc. (On the same note, what's "cheesy" is also quite subjective. Some writers aim for realistic/believable depiction to avoid this, but then there's also that old writing advice: Write what you want). Hope this helps with your writing!

[les-gnossiennes-fantomatiques]

“Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with your love.

It humbles my heart,

for you are everywhere.”

A little color study I did from a beautiful movie.

[nidianddeepspace]

Unable to perceive the shape of you I find you all around me Your presence fills my eyes with your love It humbles my heart For you are everywhere

Art Commission by BlackLapiz, inspired by the movie The Shape of Water. (Poem by Hakim Sanai)

[shmowder]

Their concept of immortality is built upon the belief that you are not you, but your memories. Every person is not their body, is not their mind, is not even their DNA.

What you are, is a collection of memories, of life experiences, of ideas, beliefs, and observations.

You are, especially, other people's memories of you. That's the stuff your soul is made out of.

You know the saying, even if someone dies, at least they'll always live on in your memories. The Kains took that literally

Imagine with me that we took all of these things about you, and suspended them in air.

In modern terms: copied them on a hard disk and stored them for safe keeping. Then when you eventually drop dead, we simply take that hard disk and slot it into an appropriate device—a biological human body. Just like a virus, you'll begin taking over that person and overwriting their being.

"The Focus" is the storage place. The hard disk itself. It's called that because you *focus* memories inside of it. The Polyhedron and Crucible are just oversized SD cards.

You focus on your own memories of who you are, your own experiences, and they etch themselves into the wall. Likewise, other people can focus on their memories of you to help shape the stored version of you better. Since we're all different people depending on who's perceiving us, we need many perspectives; you're a different you with your mother than you are with your dog, etc.

And just like Yulia said, the Focus is not a physical place you can go to, at least the inside of it. It's just math, at its core, through and through. Much like a hard disk is just code, mere numbers and commands. You can save enough books in it to fill a building, but you could never reach in there physically and pull a book, nor replace a mass of books with an equal mass of a human. Which is why no one could enter Simon's Focus without Simon's explicit invitation.

But can any random human body do?

No. It heavily depends on the type of memories you stored, and the way in which you stored them. Much like your phone is unable to read a floppy disk.

Georgiy Kain is the father of this method, the architect of this ideology.

A doctrine in which he describes a soul not as a phantom manifestation of the person, but more akin to music. Each soul is a melody. Some are a piano solo, others are a whole orchestra. The more complex and deceivingly subtle the melody is—the more life experiences and memories—the harder it will be to replicate and play.

Because they have no feasible way to access the music sheets of the melody that is your soul, they can only hope to reverse engineer it through repeated listening, studies, and educated guesses.

Orchestras require various specific musical instruments to work. To replicate a person's soul—which we have established is their memories—successfully, you'll need an appropriate instrument of a physical body.

So no, not just any human body would do. Much like a Clair de Lune is horrendous on a ukulele.

The Focus places don't just suspend the memories—the soul—in time, but play them as well. At all times. That melody must be actively played. The orchestra requirements of a specific instruments extends to the Focus as well, not just the hosting human body. The SD card must have its own RAM, CPU, cooling, and Motherboard. While a Graphics card hasn't been implemented in a Focus yet.

Artemy talking to a visible Isidor in P2 is actually just the abattoir acting as an accidental Focus with an implemented GPU; meaning the kin succeed in building what the Stamatins failed, In this essay I WILL

Ignore that forget it back to topic :)

Which is why not just any place can be a Focus. Why Simon was "outgrowing" the crucible's focus and needed to be moved to the Polyhedron urgently; his memory was fading from the people.

Much like an overloaded SD card begins corrupting the data inside. This detail enables the Kains to talk to their "dead" relatives whose souls are in purgatory.

What's clear is that they need mortal minds with great intellect and will in order to "move" these said souls around. Tenacious humans to act as the adapter cable that allows you to transfer files from one hard disk to another.

In some instances, the process could spell the death of the human. The magentitude of the soul seems correlated with the years the soul has seen, the amount of memories it accumulated. So while moving the a soul older than two centuries is lethal.

Dealing with the 50ish years old soul seems fully survivable.

Well... except for the receiving end. Nina's soul (focus of memories) is being incubated inside Maria's physical mind (body?) temporarily. Akin to a non-running executable, a compressed pile of files. For it's Victor who is meant to be ereased and die in order for Nina's memories to elbow his own soul out of his body.

Their immortality is not physical; your body will decay inevitably, it is a continuous emulation of memories and past experiences. A ship of Theseus immortality.

To grasp the very basic essence of this form of immortality, think of it this way:

There is a far away kingdom where apples are forbidden by issue of the king and queen. Maybe the prince is deathly allergic to it, maybe it's a religion thing, or maybe they just really really dislike apple pies.

But the people really love apples, in fact they believe life isn't worth living without apples.

So they pool their money and hire a bunch of scientists to find a solution around the issue. The scientists can't bring apples into the kingdom, so they look at another round fruit instead, oranges.

They take an orange, selectively breed it and chemically treat it until it tastes just like an apple!

But the people aren't satisfied, sure it tastes like an apple but it doesn't smell like an apple. It doesn't look like an apple, and its texture is not that of an apple.

So the scientists go back to the lab, they try again, with a pear this time around.

They selectively breed it into a round apple-like shape, they inject apple flavouring into it, and they dye its skin the most shiny red.

In fact, it looks so much like an apple post-treatment, that their test groups could never differentiate between it and the real thing. The people are rejoiced! Their apples are back!

And the king and queen can't find a fault in this loophole, and these new apples don't trigger the allergy reaction in their son, so they allow it!

An apple, is whatever other people's memories of an apple is.

This pear acts, looks, tastes, and smells exactly like how other people expect an apple to, then It might as well be an apple.

If a person walks, talks, behaves, and looks exactly like how other people expect Simon to, then it might as well be Simon Kain.

And that's how you fool death and achieve Immortality

You make a copy of yourself which will live, a version of you suspended in time that you'll update every single day by going into your own Focus. And when the time comes, you take a pear, and alter it into an apple. But it must be a pear, the closest relative to apples, otherwise you'll get an orange, that while tastes like an apple, makes the nastiest texture in apple pies.

At the end of the day, it's a matter of perspective.

You can go full purist and claim the ship isn't the original one the second you replaced a single loose screw.... and while true in the literal sense, it's redundant and pointless to point it out. There is nothing to revert back into; the original ship doesn't exist anymore. It wasn't murdered or destroyed, it just vanished! Ceased to exist the second a part of it changed, no matter how small. Better to have the next best thing than pool the money for a new ship registery and sailing permit.

Because being the "original" version of anything is a concept. No man steps into the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Your cells die and get replaced all day, are you not the same you? How about every seven years, the maximum time frame it takes for your whole body cells to fully die and get replaced. Should you get a new ID and enroll back into elementary school?

No, you'd say, because you already know all the information. You remember elementary school and everything you were taught in there!

Well... this new "Simon" remembers being Simon and everything Simon went through. Simon is dead, just like the previous you who has died, except your corpse was tactically scattered around into dust particles and slowly replaced by its murderer one by one throughout the years until nothing of your original body remained.

-

Now there are a lot of loose ends left unaddressed, but it's better to have questions you can't answer than answers you can't questions, and maybe an answer will rear its head eventually.

If Georgiy, the inventor of this method, is merely 77 years old how could Simon possibly be 200?

I'm working under the assumption no Focus has ever existed before Georgiy Kain orchestrated the whole ordeal, and yet Victor mentions the names of presumably distance relatives wondering if they should pull them out of the Focus instead.

-

Why Maria can talk to Nina and Simon through sleep, why Victor can hear Nina at all times, why Georgiy can consult Simon.

I'm not sure why their abilities to contact the souls encased in the Focus varies in conditions—why can Nina speak through Victor to the Changeling very early on while Dankovsky could only communicate with her during late game? And why does Maria have to sleep or journal to talk to her rather than speak through Victor as a medium?

It could have something to do with who's the biggest contributor to the memory of the person; Victor knew Nina longer and better than Maira, Georgiy knew Simon longer and better than both of them.

As to why Simon was immune to all diseases and sickness?

I think it's correlated to how your very own immune system has its own memory; if it learns how to defend against a sickness once, it will always be able to overcome it. It saves the instructions in its own database and makes copies of the white blood cells that previously worked the last time the sickness came knocking on its door. So by virtue of having a varied immune system database, Simon seems immune to all colds and sick throats.

Simon isn't actually immortal, he just appears immortal... but then, what difference does it make?

[kkobweek]

Prompt Descriptions Part 3 (Day 6-7)

Day 6: Fashion choices / Flowers

Fashion choices

Clothes, accessories, and hairstyles are an integral part of character design, and they contribute a lot to how we perceive a character. Artists can play dress-up with these two gorgeous men and make them wear absolutely anything 😜 Here are some official art references for ya (the range of these two 😅)

Bonus:

But "Fashion choices" is not only about visuals!

🌸Kakashi's ninken all wear fancy vests with Kakashi's signature henohenomoheji; how were those vests designed in the first place? Was it Kakashi or his father/mother who made them?

🌸How did Obito come up with his masks' designs? Is there a story behind it? If he was so gloomy and indifferent to the 'fake world' why was his first mask bright orange?

🌸You could also present your version of why Kakashi is so adamant about wearing his mask!

🌸It would be fun to imagine what items of clothes are their favorite. Mb Kakashi has a favorite pair of bunny-shaped slippers, or Obito might be too attached to his favorite T-shirt that doesn't fit him anymore (bc of y'know, obiboobs).

🌸What if they go shopping for clothes together? and actively get embarrassed or awkward with every second 😄Or mb Obito is trying to pick a cool outfit to attract girls, and Kakashi is (deliberately or not) sabotaging his shopping?

🌸They could be helping each other put on a uniform or a multi-layered ceremonial kimono. Or they could help each other out of their clothes as well... 😶‍🌫️

Flowers

🌸Flowers are wonderful because you can turn them into a symbol, a hidden message, a reminder, or a gift.

🌸Hanakotoba, the language of flowers, could be used by a character to say something they are too afraid to say with words.

🌸Obito is a mokuton user, what if one day he decides to master the art of arranging flowers as well? Or mb Obito and Kakashi go to an ikebana class on a date? :D

🌸Mb it's hanami season and a group of friends is having a party under a sakura tree?

🌸A fresh bouquet of flowers appears by the hospital bed every morning or at home on a window sill and nobody knows who it is from?

🌸Kids making flower crowns for each other just for fun!

Day 7: Letters / Diary | Ceremony / Rituals

Letters / Diary

Letters… ✉️

Letters may be a bridge between those sides of the characters that they can't easily express in real life, but on paper they can finally be honest.

🌸When Obito is on a long journey, mission, or redemption trip, they can start writing letters to each other — about their lives, problems, achievements, fears and happy moments… what they dreamed about at night, or what they had for breakfast.

They get reacquainted via those letters.

It's a good way to ask questions about Obito's life — Kakashi has time to think, to decide what he wants to share and to put into words. Their "catching up" becomes more mindful, less emotional, probably even more sincere. They can't see each other's worried faces when they admit their mistakes, and they can write "risky" things too.

🌸 Imagine Kakashi rereading a fresh letter again and again, thinking all day about how to reply (instead of his Hokage duties). He has to force himself to refocus on work ten times a day.

🌸Imagine the high voltage of the first meeting after hundreds of letters — Kakashi's hair standing on end even more than usual!

🌸Imagine the powerful flow of acceptance, recognition and love filling the dry riverbed of longing they've dug out through all those letters — when they finally meet.

🌸It could be a mix of letters and diary as a coping mechanism: Kakashi writing letters to Obito, knowing he's dead, but unable to stop talking to him. He writes "therapy letters" or a kind of diary, but every entry starts with "Dear Obito". He's attached to that ephemeral image as ever. (What if Tobi found this diary in Kakashi's room and got a glimpse into Kakashi's real thoughts and feelings?)

🌸What if Kakashi got a letter from Tobi?

🌸Or it could be a letter from Rin, like in this headcanon, in which she tries to explain Obito to Kakashi.

🌸What if Kakashi was captured, but somehow managed to write a pack of letters to (jounin?) Obito and send or hide them somewhere, hoping they'd be found? He knew he’d die this time — and the letters were raw and honest.

When Obito receives or finds them, he gets to know the parts of Kakashi he never hoped to reach. Kakashi offers him all the stories he never told — the sad ones, the funny ones, the tender ones.

He writes about why he wore a mask.

He writes about his darkest ANBU days… About the time he decided to kill himself but couldn’t.

Things he wished he could share one day — with a friend, with someone he loved, with Obito. But he never did. And these letters…

These were his last chance.

Ceremony / Rituals

🌸What if we think about clan traditions? The Uchiha must have some rites of passage for their young. For example, when sb awakens their sharingan, they are invited to visit the Naka Shrine and perform a small ritual asking the deities for guidance.

🌸The Hatake clan is way more mysterious. So what if little/teen Kakashi feels sad about not knowing the traditions and rituals of his own clan? Mb Obito helps him create his own traditions? And when they grow up Kakashi still sticks to them?

🌸It could be an academy graduation ceremony or a party to celebrate a rank promotion! Mb it's baby Obito's or baby Kakashi's first recital at daycare? Or who knows, it's their children's first school play.

🌸(okay-okay, we're getting there) The wedding! 😄It's completely within your power to get them married! Is it a marriage for politics or tax benefit? Are they getting fake-married for whatever reason? Have they finally come to realize they are each other's family? Was the proposal as perfect as it was in Kakashi's favorite part of Icha Icha? Did Team 7 mess up the ceremony in some way? So many ways to go!

🌸A ritual could be healing or therapeutical. It even could be the "true love's kiss" trope, but with a kkob flavor.

[entomolog-t]

Another weirdly specific brainrot is plagging me-

Imagine finding some item at a pawnshap/garage sale/thift shop, Maybe the item is a little figuring, maybe it's a book- whatever it is, the item is fairly small. Upon bringing it home, you start feeling weird. Your head hurts. Thinking it's a migraine, you grab the item and go to head to bed, only-

It yelps.

In a panic you drop it.

It screams.

At first you're quite freaked out, but upon realizing that the item is far more freaked out, you start to calm down. They, whatever it is they are, have been bound to that item, fully aware and conscious- able to feel and perceive, yet completely helpless and unable to do anything. Just an inanimate object. You're the first person that's been able to hear them. They're desperate for your help, though you can tell they're still terrified of you. You're huge to them, and they are quite literally unable to do anything except beg you be gentle.

It's odd, comforting an item, especially one so very terrified of you, but you do your best.

After some time, through conscious actions or random happenstance, you're able to figure out how exactly they're bound to the item- a small binding insignia scrawled on the surface of the item. All you'd need to do is interrupt the lines of ink and they'd be freed, returned to whatever body they came from.

Maybe you've grown close, and the notion of them leaving is sad, maybe the item is absolutely annoying and you're so very excited to get them out of your hair- whatever the case, you do it.

Though things don't work as expected.

They don't return to their body... in that, the item doesn't just go silent as the bound soul zips off to reunite with its body. No- instead, the item glows, taking on a human shape. It grows, but to your horror- it doesn't stop at 6ft. Not 7 or 8.... the once-object-now-person keeps growing beyond the limits of what's humanly possible. Are they 12ft? 20?? 50?? Up to you- but they're clearly far too big to be human, and suddenly, that feeling of powerlessness they once felt is now very unpleasantly relatable.

Is it a magic mishap? Are they from another world? A different species? Perhaps they're dangerous, bound for a specific reason. Are they grateful? Annoyed? Angry???

Adhdjsfjdjd I just think there's so much odd potential from what is essentially a very odd size swap. Lots of potential for both angst and sillys and very unique fearplay, and that combo is my go to happy meal.

[urspiritualnurse]

Pick a card. (Left to right)

What do I see when I orbit around your soul?

Pile 1.

Predominantly shapeless souls, sometimes harvest itself into a form that it's beholder deeply lacks, wants, yearns, desires or the opposite, fears.

I see that yours has mimicked a root.

Why has it shaped itself to that, what desires or what subconscious motive caused it is something you will naturally realize at your own pace and timing.

I see the repeated number 9s in the cards, and in this case I perceive that number as a blockage, a mid stop, a constantly frequenting incompletion, just when you believe you are about to reach the complete numeral 10, it restarts back to 1, and so begins the continuous sishyphean cycle.

If you picture a root digging in the soil and entangling itself to every fibre and grain of it, that imagery is usually delicate, gentle, soothingly heartwarming .

But in your cards, the picture I visualize is rather hostile , as if every string of that root has claws, shredding each grains, piercing through any and every vitality of the land to dig itself down, so fiercely and so passionately, as if it's life depends on it.

With no end goal, destination in mind, that it is aware of, it just absentmindedly keeps on digging.

I see you going from people to people, community to community, anywhere and everywhere, with your roots clawing on every connections you have had, with a pure intentions to find solace but your desperate and devoid roots knows no other way to plead firmness, and stability except digging furiously onto everyone and everything.

Do you find yourself to be an uncomfortable being to be and be around?

Has your soul crossed you out from being its land where it can simply ground itself?

Has it found other candidates instead to have them fulfill your role?

Do you have someone that you feel is the epitome of comfort?

Ask yourself, when I'm nearing their existence, my soul's form which I have no awareness about, how is it approaching and interacting with them?

Your soul is wandering sad and desperate to feel a sense of connection to a land that it can call its own, why are you uncomfortable to your ownself? That is for you to unpack and unravel.

What can you do to call your beloved vital essence back to yourself?

Start by asking, "why do you make your soul uncomfortable ?"

( your vital roots will inadvertently be claws to the lands, that isn't yours to dig.)

Pile 2.

Anger is an advocate of those too timid to speak.

But if anger is unsupervised, unguided, unguarded, it denotes to the onlookers, that it is only a mere tantrum with loud speakers on, consisting the blend of generous vulgarity and crude language.

I see, in this pile humiliation has been the main force behind reasonable outbursts of anger.

Was there a crowd who laughed when you would scrunch your expression in fury? Was there a community that mocked your anger's sensibility and intelligence?

From this reading, an image of a canine species comes to my mind, whose fangs represents your justified anger, yet I see those fangs growing so tall and untamably beyond the line of normalcy, that it pierces through the specie's snout, making it unable to voice out the core reasons in sensible, coherent language and speech.

Your anger, (and I keep wanting to reassure you) is justifiable, valid.

Yet it has reached to a point of such humiliation, and provokery from the flocks of lunatics around you who are too insensible and too uncompassionate themselves to ever see past your fury.

That your anger has surpassed its own ability to communicate.

It has lost the language it is meant to use for efficient self expression that causes no harm to you and others and also the reality around.

Have you heard the term "blacking out", your anger goes through that quite a lot.

Don't be too hard on yourself, or your burning anger, for that is the only warmth that is loud for you to notice , that is emanating from within you, not others.

A warmth that says, "I care."

Do what you must, after reading this pile.

But my utmost suggestion would be, communicating with your anger.

Ask it, who is it angry at? What did they do? What did they caused?

Nomatter who the culprit behind it is, whether your ownself or others.

Just notice how the anger responds to your question.

Does it howl incoherent language?

Does it throw things around and punishes inanimate objects, walls with your

knuckles?

Or does it speak.....

In a language that only those who are truly listening can understand.

(Insensibility towards a disheartened child, is what leads to a tantrum.)

Pile 3.

Do you know in this whole play of existence, we all expect certain things from the earth that we reside in.

And if we were to put all those collective desires in a single piece of paper, one would notice a common thing from each anonymous man's written desires.

Luminosity.

Every living being with a thrifty sense of individuality, somehow always seem to find anything luminous, desirable.

Or maybe, it's just that, what you want always seems to shine.

Whether it's love, promotion, prosperity, good health, vacation, etc.

I see in this pile, the luminosity you desire is of riches and the freedom that it comes with.

And when I speak of freedom, you must know how grand and multi dimensional it is.

The freedom riches gives, the freedom love gives, the freedom good health gives, etc, are all different yet they all are indeed a valid face of the multifaceted term, freedom.

I see you, having almost a professional outlook and interactions with the world, the earth.

I can almost hear you speak to it, " You are letting me live here, I will pay you back for your service by not throwing litters around, donating to charity that cleans your vast back, agreeing on plastic bans, etc"

In all of those chat you hold with the earth, in your subconscious mind room.

You represent formality and such alienating disconnection, that your inner sense of disbelief towards anything that promotes unity is reasonable.

What you want from this world is a luminosity build by luxury.

No shame, no bringing forth discussions about compassion here because the synonym of riches doesn't mean cruelty, for me to ever dictate you of how you should be and must pursue.

Do you ever feel like escaping your office and the very building you work on?

Somedays the formality eats you up and chews your mental agility and spiritual resilience, so much so you just wish to be at home, playing with your autistic and unspeaking cat.

You can do that.

You can call off the work.

You can reach out to the elevator and press the ground floor that takes you to the parking lot, there will be your car waiting for you, you can get in it and drive away from the office, the work air.

But what will you do when the crushing formality surrounds not just that place, but the entire earth?

Can your car drive you up to mars? To the moon? To the stars?

For you to escape even for a second, out of such professionalism burdens that you inhale every living seconds of your life.

In this reading, I see no visions that I must introduce you to.

You are already a visually active person, you think with visions not just numbers.

By no means this reading insinuates you of being unkind or lacking in any humane qualities.

Neither is it a complain from the mother earth to you.

Take it as a gesture unfolding infront of your awareness.

A gesture that suggests sensibility in your life.

Even the faintest mimickery of sensibility has acquired you a tip of what you yearned for.

Ponder, what the real thing could pull.

(Has the professional interiors followed you, even to your bed?)

Pile 4.

I must introduce you to an objective of mine that suggests what this outside world consists of, happens discreetly within our interior too.

Adversity, competition, push and pull, dog eat dog world pace, etc.

And how you may ask?

Every external worldly tension stems from various reasons, one that stands to this day, the most valid is, lack.

The uprising heat and debates, the battles of winners and losers are here, not just because of human sadism to win but to also get hands on a place, position, thing,etc before someone else does.

Which comes from an arguably devastating narration that we all collectively feed on, lack.

Your internal world seems to be a world copied and pasted from our very reality.

You seem to tell your internal conscious residing within you, that you lack space so severely that to be accepted for residence, one must go for the other to find the leash.

Competion arises the moment lack wanders around introducing itself.

Your masculinity and your feminity will compete for a position because you told them, only one must stay.

Your anger and the contradicting poise of a breeze will compete the moment you say to yourself, i need only one to navigate.

Your mind and heart will start to clash, get into heated arguments that spiral you into madness, depression, anxiety and mental , physical, emotional, spiritual agony.

Because you told yourself, only one is reasonable, the other is not.

That only one is reliable to execute life with, the other is not.

So, when your whole internal cells that makes up your entirety feels like a war zone,

a telenovela about a sibling rivalry, the marching tension between you and your competent colleague, or the ticking time bomb that ticks rules such as the one who gets there first gets to have it, etc.

You must know, it is because a narration is being given with or without your awareness.

That says,

I lack.

I lack so, what I consist entirely of, must decide with each other, who is to get deducted and who is to stay.

In this reading I don't think I need to guide you into answers because you already are aware.

But as a gentle nudge, here goes my everything.

" Lack only exists in places where prosperity unsettles us."

(Stop playing "the floor is lava" with the entirety of yourself.)

[distort-opia]

in the tags of a post, you mentioned joker changing demeanor when he's alone, but he doesn't become another person, he becomes "nothing". do you have suggestions for comics where that happens? thanks!

Sure! There's one comic I can think of that recently and explicitly did this, and it's The Joker (2021):

The Joker (2021) #3

You can argue that we're not seeing Joker do any of that, this is Jim Gordon's perception of him. However, it puts into words a fundamental reality about Joker's character: he doesn't really exist. And James Tynion continues to approach Joker this way, the entire comic.

The Joker (2021) #4

Here, alone, Joker is blank and unsmiling. But the second he perceives that Jim is awake, he smiles. It's a very clear callback to what Jim thought of earlier.

But "Joker" being a persona that gets constantly put on and taken off is a core aspect of him, so it can be found in many many comics. Alan Moore's The Killing Joke (1988) provided the utterly essential "multiple choice past" concept. Although to be fair, even before TKJ came out, we had Frank Miller write Joker into a catatonic state in The Dark Knight Returns (1986). Miller introduced the idea that "Joker" without Batman (his main audience) does not exist to the point of becoming insensate: the most extreme version of "becoming nothing" when not perceived. And then Grant Morrison gave it an even more concrete shape with the theory of Joker being super-sane, and shedding selves like snakes shed skin. This is most obvious in Batman (1940) #663 -- A Clown At Midnight.

There's really so many examples, especially Batman-related ones, so I'm just naming a few. In Batman: Going Sane (1994) we see "Joker" disappear upon Batman's perceived death, and the man who called himself "Joker" inventing a new identity called Joe Kerr. Morrison did the exact same by making Joker unable to keep up the act after thinking Batman was dead and becoming Oberon Sexton, as revealed in Batman and Robin (2009) #12. In the alternate world of Mother Panic: Gotham A.D. (2018) we see Joker stop being "Joker" entirely when it becomes clear Batman is gone. Though perhaps Scott Snyder wrote the most extreme Joker has ever been regarding his lack of self: a Joker who had his face cut off and then wore it like a mask, in Batman: Death of the Family. You can't get any more literal about the whole "Joker doesn't truly exist" thing, really.

[tobidei]

"Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere."

Newest piece for my Valentine's set ♡