#and for the sanity of the rest of us

[musical-chick-13]

:) :) :) :) :)

[aerialworms-art]

Lifespans.

(ID under cut)

[Image ID: A three-way venn diagram floating against a starfield. The circles are coloured; one yellow, one light blue, one a darker shade of blue. The yellow is the smallest, the two blue ones over double its size, with the darker blue the biggest. The yellow is half covered by the two blue circles, while it takes up a small amount of the two blues. The centre overlap between all three is labelled "the precious few years we three were together".

There is very little overlap between the yellow and the darker blue without the lighter blue.

The work is signed 'aerialworms'./End ID]

[esaari]

[candyheartedchy]

I think I just discovered a repressed fictional crush and I’m not sure how I should feel about it.

[10thmusemoon]

Title for the ask game!

"Good Graces"

lmao prim why does this feel like I'm seeing beyonce at the grocery store??? i love your fics!

okay hm content warning for angst, major character death, bad end

Shenbros that grow up alongside YQY and that somehow makes everything worse.

YQY still makes the unforgivable mistake of saving Shi Wu, Shen Jiu still steps in, but now he has Shen Yuan attached to him too. The two get taken into the Qiu household, QJL still develops an obsession with torturing Shen Jiu but now uses Shen Yuan as collateral.. If he doesn't behave, if he isn't perfect, well then, QJL will just see how his little brother does instead. Throughout this all, the two grow even closer, SJ doesn't let the resentment fester because SY is the only thing he still has, the only thing that keeps his sane. SY bandages his wounds in the night, holds him close, brings him into QHT's circle of safety with clever words whenever possible. He is the only good thing in the world now that Qi-ge is gone. They just need to wait for him to come back, and things will be fine.

And surprisingly, he does! This universe smiles down on SJ for once and shows him mercy. YQY looks like a prince standing behind his shizun, regal in his fine robes, and handsome in the way that well fed nobles can be. SJ tries to focus on the negotiations, but his eyes keep drawing back him yqy's face, awe and hunger at war. It's because of this that he misses the way SY goes stiff, head swiveling between the cultivators in silently growing horror.

The negotiations are easier than SJ ever thought they would be, his and SY's lives are traded from one hand to another like any dirty coin. The only difference being now they are indentured servants, their contracts having an actual time limit, the conditions of which only require them to be CQMS disciples until YQY becomes the new peak lord.

Which is...fine. More than fine, even! SJ is convinced that if he really wanted to, he could convince YQY to runaway with them afterwards. When he tells this to SY he's shocked by his insistent refusal.

"No, we have to stay at CQMS. No matter what."

Whatever.

For 15 solid years, SJ's life is good. He stakes his claim on YQY as soon as he realizes there are people interested in him, shamelessly making himself at home by his side. SJ excels at QJP, determined to be the one YQY can rely on. If SY insists on staying at CQMS, then SY will just have to make it theirs.

(years down the line is experiences gleeful joy at seeing people's face twist when it's revealed he's yqy's spouse.)

SY in all of this, is living in crisis mode! His brother is the scum villain and is going to get qi-ge killed! Why the FUCK did Airplane never mention any of this!!??? No matter how badly he wants to fuck off to the beast peak, he doesn't! He stays firmly on QJP, taking on all the duties that deal with the new disciples to keep them as far as fuck as he can from Shen Jiu's clutches!! When YQY and SJ finally ascend as peak lords, naturally he continues handling any responsibilities of SJ's that deal with one-on-one contact with kids. And honestly? That's the ideal! SY's cultivation has never been as strong as SJ's, he's not the one meant to be the protagonists' narrative foil after all! He can coast by on teaching the fundamentals!

In SJ's eyes, SY continues to be his filial younger brother, taking on the burden of the tasks SJ hates. He spoils him, when possible, in the way only SY and YQY ever seem to understand. They are the only two good things that have been and always will be his. He doesn't need anyone else.

And then NYY arrives, and no one is more surprised than he is that he looks forward to teaching her the guqin, delights in how quickly she picks up the erhu. He doesn't understand why SY looms nervously whenever she's near, is irritated when he starts to suspect why. It's their first huge blow up.

And then the boy arrives.

He can't explain why this particular disciple is so repulsive. Why the dirt seems to stick to him, no matter how clean he is. Filthy fingerprints on grasping hands. Wretched thing has a certain look in his eye, a hunger SJ knows will be ruinous, insatiable. Just the way he trails after SY is enough to make him spit! And SY has always been a soft-hearted idiot, falling for the urchin's sob story! Just as obsessed! If they don't nip it in the bud now, they'll be rumors about them. The kind of things that pull righteous cultivators down from the heavens!

YQY listens to all of this indulgently, combing oil through SJ's hair and kissing his temple. As always, no matter how hard SJ tries to hold on, yqy always manages to pull him from his mood.

"What's wrong with having a favorite?" "It's not the same and you know it!" "He's just a child, if you let Liu-shidi back on QJP, it won't even be an issue."

Lots of grumbling about toads wanting swan's flesh. They both know the root of the issue is just that SJ can't let anything that's his slip out of his grasps. His love is all consuming, kept close to his chest in the fear that it will be stolen away.

LQG is not allowed on QJP, instead, SJ starts to teach more. Tries to test LBH relentlessly, waiting for him to fail so he can prove a point. This makes things worse between the brothers, more and more arguments come up until they resort to childhood tactics of wrestling across the floor of the Bamboo house and ripping out hair. SY breaks a hair pin he knows YQY gave him, SJ tears one of SY's manuscripts on abyssal fauna in half. The fallout is ugly enough that Binghe and NYY run all the way to QDP, breaking past the sect leader's chief of staff about the impending death of YQY's husband and/or brother in law.

Kneeling in front of an amused yqy, bruised and with bald spots, both brothers Shen explain their case, each threatening YQY not to show favoritism to the other. The proposed solution is to have LBH spend some time on Qiong Ding Peak, at least until he's qualified to go on night hunts on his own. SJ is fully convinced he's won, is ready to smugly denounce any comments about Qi-ge's blatant favoritism.

Neither expect SY's eyes go wide, for him to lean forward until he's crawling to yqy's side in excitement. Luo Binghe's praises fall from his mouth like honey. SY's running to his room for a brush and paper, outlining lesson plans and tasks LBH can take on to learn about all the good CQMS does for the realm. To SJ's revulsion, SY badgers YQY until he promises to include one on one lessons. QDP already has a head disciple, there's no harm in it, right?

In Shen Yuan's eyes, a light from the heaven's has shined down on him. Invisible to all, the system flashes an exclamation point above yqy's head, offering an alternative option to saving the sect.

[MISSION OBJECTIVE: SHIBOS GOOD GRACES]

[DO YOU WISH TO ACCEPT? Y/N ?]

It's perfect! No matter how much SQQ hates LBH, the combined forces of SY and YQY will stand united against him! The sect will be saved and SY will never see his white lotus darken! Maybe, and he's nearly salivating at this point, LBH might even consider staying at the sect and becoming the next QJP lord! It will take, of course, years to soften up SJ to that point. But really, when has he ever said no to SY when it truly mattered? He just needs to suck up and live in Shen Jiu's pocket for a little, it's fine! This will be easier than the time he accidentaly came back with several short haired monsters after a mission with LQG and needed a place to keep them! And now they farm them for brushes!

SY sleeps soundly for the first night in years, comforted in the knowledge that LBH's work ethic and stubborn tendencies will surely endear himself to YQY eventually. And then, one day, he knows with certainty, that if he's not there to protect LBH, YQY surely will.

The Immortal Alliance Conference is as disastrous as it was always going to be. There is a countdown floating ahead of Shen Yuan that only he can see. Sweat is pouring down his face as he fights his way after demons he once dreamed about. SY lost track of his brother ages ago, the two separating to different crisis points to save as many disciples as possible. At the three minute mark, bright blue laughing kaomoji offer their congratulations, informing him that the inmun requirements for SHIBOS GOOD GRACES have been met.

SY nearly collapses with relief, his steps slowing down a fraction, just enough to catch his breath. Fuck teaching the fundamentals to scholars nerds did not help him retain cardio! The times is in it's final seconds when he makes it into a clearing, eyes blinking rapidly in disbelief when he passes Xiu Ya embedded into the forehead of a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python's skull. Then, just further ahead, Shen Yuan's heart falls nearly out of his chest.

There are tears streaming down Luo Binghe's face as he tips backward off the cliff. The huadian beneath his messy hair shines a bright red, the soft glow reflecting off Yue Qingyuan's black pauldron. The sect leader, his da-ge, is slumped against Luo Binghe, arms in a tight embrace, an unfamiliar sword piercing him in the back as the two tumble towards an abyssal rift.

The wail of a dying beast pierces through SY's stupor, SJ stands with a blackened hand outstretched, only steps away from following the only man he's ever loved. Shen Yuan moves faster than he ever has before, half blinded by notifications he's never seen before. Something about heartbreak points, swords, and narrative foils. He doesn't care! He doesn't care! SJ is writhing in his hold screaming like a madman, over his shoulder Luo Binghe is getting smaller and smaller, Yue Qingyuan's robes fluttering around them like broken wings. Screams echo through the clearing long after the rifts have closed.

"I'M SORRY I'M SO--"

"QI-GE YOU BASTARD! YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T LEAV-"

-

Five years later, Luo Binghe returns to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, notably missing the great Xin Mo sword. The protagonist kowtows in the bamboo house, forehead touching the floor and arms extended out to present a mahogany box of bones and a long sword with a plain scabbard before an alter. Shen Yuan kneels next to him, chest shaking with labored breaths, he follows suit with is forehead pressed to the floor. From his peripheral, he can see the way Binghe's shoulders have started to shake, a puddle of tears collecting just beneath his face. A tally of points starts to flash above the boy, Shen Yuan closes his eyes, another useless apology passes through his mind.

"Gege was right, Qi-ge came home."

[zakiyah]

.

[h00tzz]

HELLO people of tumblr I simply MUST throw my tf2 ocs at you

I swear there’s actual lore and they all have names and backstories and they’re all CLONES living in the clonepocalypse but I’m writing this at 4am and I have places to be tomorrow I hope I don’t regret losing my mind and posting this tomorrow

[lyrate-lifeform-approximation]

Gifting you a "go to sleep stick". Use this on whomever will not fucking rest.

*It's a stick. A smallish, cylindrical stick with glowing veins running up and down it.*

Have fun!

@thespectacularspider-witch

this is great because i know exactly who to use this on

@spiderman2-99 :)

[talkativelock]

Btw, sorry long time followers for the Starkid spam. It's not going to get better, I fear. The last like... 2 or 3 times I got into Starkid I managed to keep it mostly off tumblr and then I got distracted by something else before it could take over my life too badly but that's not happening this time. There's like two weeks of Starkid content in my queue right now and a livestream for the kickstarter launch tomorrow morning that will probably generate a bunch more content for the queue so you should probably filter the tag "starkid" if it bothers you or go watch the shows on YouTube (if you haven't already) so you know what I'm screaming about or just enjoy the incomprehensible yelling idk

This has been a lock blog warning. love you followers and mutuals

[synthshenanigans]

Finally has been a full year since I started listening

Fuckin hate that guy eugh

[crossbackpoke-check]

Substance, Shadow, and Spirit [remixed, abridged] by Tao Yuanming

[seventh-district]

not even gonna try to contain this vent post within the tags bc i can just feel that i'm gonna yap

for the first time in a very long time, i'm watching an old video of me, age 13, playing with my dog on the kitchen floor. and i can barely handle the envious sight of how absolutely free i was. like, i know i've rewatched this video at a few other points in time in the nearly 12 years since i recorded it, but i've never really watched the full thing, paying as much attention as possible to every single detail.

i initially dug it up the other night because it's one of the only videos i have of Sassy on my current phone, and i wanted to.. see her again. but while i was analyzing every frame of the 3min video trying to drag as much of her memory out of the past as i possibly could, it dawned on me in a way it never has before just how unbelievably free i was behaving.

i was on the floor. touching it, sitting on it, putting my hands down on it and then (to my current self's horror and disgust) putting them on my cheeks, touching my face. i sat my drink down on the floor next to me. i picked Sassy up over and over again and then touched my face and drink and then i picked her up again and actually put my mouth on the top of her head to give her a little kiss. i did all of it without a second thought. it obviously came so naturally to me. i was moving around, interacting with the world around me in such an unbelievably normal way that i barely even recognize myself. and i was doing everything so quickly, too. i had energy. i moved (what seems to me now as) recklessly (though to a normal person it is probably just. normally.) and i just touched anything and did anything and. there weren't any consequences. it was fine.

that was roughly 1.5 years before Sassy dropped dead with zero warning and zero explanation and i developed severe OCD.

my memory is too far gone for me to figure out if the two events were cause-and-effect, or simply happened to take place around the same time in my life. it's not like i kept any sort of detailed log of my developing symptoms so i don't know if i'll ever be sure.

regardless, all i can focus on is how nowadays i wouldn't be able to do any of that. nothing aside from my shoes can come into contact with the floor. and i cannot come into direct skin contact with my shoes. if i find myself in a situation where i have to sit on the floor, as soon as i can get up, i have to remove all clothes that touched it and put them in the dirty laundry, and wash my hands, and if i had to touch my phone after touching the floor, i have to disinfect it. i will under no circumstances touch my face after contacting the floor until my hands are washed. i cannot touch or pet or hold either of my pets without washing my hands and preferably removing whatever clothing they came into contact with.

they are not allowed in my room nor my bed. Sassy slept in my bed with me every night. i never put my mouth on their fur to give them a kiss. i gave Sassy head kisses without a thought. they are not allowed to lick me. i used to find another one of my past dog's 'kisses' on my hands to be very endearing and unproblematic. now if it happens i have to wash it off immediately. anything that gets touched between my hands contacting either pet and being washed, i have to disinfect it.

i mean it with my entire fucking heart and soul when i say that OCD is an insidious disorder. having lived with it for a decade now, i couldn't be more aware of this. but, therein lies the exact point i'm trying to make. in spite of knowing that it has wormed it's way into every single aspect of my life, brain, and personality, it's entire nature is defined by the fact that it will do so, and it'll do it in such a way that the disordered mindset becomes your new normal. it had managed to completely overwrite a lot of my pre-disorder memories of how i used to... operate in the world around me. it has entirely altered the way i do every. single. thing. to the point where i just can't even fathom how it used to be any different. if i didn't have videos like this one to serve as proof that things did used to be different, i wouldn't have any basis for what my "normal" ever even was. it robbed me of those memories entirely.

let's fish one example out of the thousands of different ones i've got siting around: i've spent years trying to figure out how i used to take a shower that didn't take me an entire hour. i have no video of something like that obviously, so it just feels like.. like when i try to envision how i used to bathe myself it literally just goes black in my brain. there's no memory or mental images left in there. i can't fathom it. i mush have just been walking around halfway clean. i don't know. i don't understand how anyone can take a "quick" shower and get out feeling clean. my brain just absolutely cannot grasp it because the OCD is all that's left. it snuck in and completely rewrote the code of who i am and how my brain functions and how i perceive the world and i am never going to get my old self back. no amount of medication or therapy can truly, fully undo the damage it's done to my mind and body.

i mean. i have learned to live with it, barely. i wouldn't really call what i do 'living' but i am. surviving. and some of my obsessions and compulsions have the tendency to fade in and out over time, so i've been able to CBT myself out of some of the most disabling ones. showers take 1 hour now instead of 1.5 to 2.

i can read normally again now, after that period of time around uhh 2018 i think where i could barely read since i had to count the letters of every single word i saw. that was a pretty miserable time and i eventually forced myself mostly out of it. but i still slip back into it when i'm exceptionally stressed, which makes written communication difficult. but it's not like you can just explain that to people and expect them to believe you. but the uh. idk what to call it. OCD cranked the pattern-seeking part of my brain up so far that the metaphorical knob broke off and so the uh. like. the ability for me to notice which words have what amount of letters is always there, i'm just good at overriding it now. that's what 'learning to live with OCD' is like for me. the tracks that it carves into my brain never go away, i just get better at overriding them. but certain stupid little rules never really leave you, like if i'm lengthening a word like turning 'no' into 'noooooo' or 'holy' into 'hooooly' then the new lengthened form of the word has to have a 'good' number of letters like 3 or 7 or whatever my brain deems fit.

i can sit small objects down now without compulsively checking that the surface i'm about to sit them on is clean. ...most of the time. that got really annoying but also embarrassing to be seen doing it. having to re-wipe the counter down every time i'd pick up my water bottle and put it back down. trying to do Anything in the kitchen was an absolute nightmare. and yeah it still takes me a long time to cook anything, and there's countless other compulsions that make me dread the kitchen, and yeah i still can't sit large objects down without thoroughly inspecting the surface below them, and. sigh. there's no making this one sound like it's much improved at all. cause it hasn't

at least the compulsion to re-live and commit to memory every possible detail of my dreams immediately upon waking has left me. that's one rare example of a compulsion that has totally left instead of just adapting to be less intrusive. it was so miserable laying there for ages every morning trying to force any shred of memory out of my dreams and then panicking when i oftentimes couldn't remember anything.

anyways. i could and would have to write a literal book to fit in even half of all the examples of every single compulsion i've ever had in the last 10 years. most of them are still with me. some of them are very.. evolved, but most of them are still with me in one form or another. there isn't a single aspect of the way that i interact with the world around me that isn't heavily influenced by my OCD.

i don't expect to ever get to be that 13y/o kid again. and even back then, i was far from neurotypical. mental things were already starting to spiral for me around 11 or so. but none of my other (numerous) illnesses hold a candle to the disabling effect that OCD had and has on me. it's one of the WHO's top 10 most debilitating illnesses in the world, physical health issues included. i think i heard it ranked at #7, ironically enough. that stat might not still be accurate but i can't help but constantly want to quote it because i think one of the most tortuous aspects of OCD is the inability of those who don't have it to truly grasp how much you're struggling. how bad it is. it's taken so unseriously by the majority of those who don't have it, that trying to get across to someone how much you're struggling feels like this constant uphill battle that you never asked to fight.

one of the most difficult things for me to live with is the knowledge that most people just aren't going to understand. or believe me. and feeling unseen while suffering through immense pain is just. it's maddening. and dealing with that exact issue of struggling so much, both in physical sorts of pain and with mental illnesses, and having everyone around me never take it seriously enough.. it has been such a prevalent part of my life for so long that it just. it's slowly driving me fucking insane lol. not to be dramatic. i know i've got a relatively easy life. but there is always gonna be this invisible, bleeding wound on my soul that gets torn open a little wider every time i have to look someone in the eye and try, exhaustedly, to explain the absolute dumpster fire shitshow that i have to live with in my brain 24/7, only to get some fuckass excuse of a response like 'haha yeah i know what you mean! i'm a little OCD too!' and they just like. like seeing things organized neatly and sometimes experience a passing worry that they left the stove on.

and i just wanna say that 'we are playing life on two very different difficulty levels and i don't think i'll ever be able to get that across to you' but no i have to be nice and downplay it and get along bc it's just not worth it. i'm so fucking tired. OCD is exhausting enough to live with, let alone trying to educate other people on it.

maybe one day ill post that stupid excuse of a poem i wrote regarding my frustration with that exact experience.

but like i said, i don't ever expect this to go away. medication only treats the symptoms and i can only force myself to suffer through so much CBT. this will be with me forever, in a significant capacity. i just hope that before i die, i'll get to know what it's like to have someone look me in the eye and understand. not necessarily from personal experience, but to at least know me well enough to be able to understand how serious i am when i say that OCD ruined my life.

but it might turn out that the only place i'll be able to find that level of understanding and acceptance, is when i look in the mirror.

that might just have to be enough.

[stormyoceans]

why is jojo doing this to us, mon?😭

https://x.com/JojoTichakorn/status/1913222238893150546

THIS ENTIRE CONVO WAS AN ATTEMPT AT MY LIFE AT MY MENTAL HEALTH AND AT ME PERSONALLY AS A PERSON AS A WHOLE FOR SO MANY DIFFERENT REASONS BUT THAT ONE JOJO'S TWEET ABOUT SEA IN PARTICULAR TRULY HAS ME PACING AROUND MY PADDED ROOM GESTICULATING TALKING TO MYSELF FROTHING AT THE MOUTH GNAWING AT THE BARS OF MY ENCLOSURE PROWLING LIKE AN ANIMAL THAT NEEDS TO BE HEAVILY SEDATED

I DON'T CARE HOW INSANE I SOUND RN WE ARE SOOOOOOO GETTING THAT SEA HAREM SERIES FOCUSED ON THE DATING LIFE OF A QUEER MAN DIRECTED BY P'JOJO I JUST KNOW IT I CAN FEEL IT IN MY TIDDIES SOONER OR LATER JIMMY IS GONNA HAVE TO LEAVE FOR THE US TO FURTHER HIS STUDIES AND TO PREVENT NOMNOMS TO COLLECTIVELY COMMIT MASS SUICIDE THEY'RE GONNA HAVE TO GIVE US THIS THE SIGNS HAVE BEEN SIGNING FOR SO LONG IT'S GONNA HAPPEN

[lucianinsanity]

Man, it's so funny (annoying, tiresome, infuriating) to see USAians go through the same shit Argentina has been going through for the past year

Oh, your president cares more about banning pronouns from official papers than solving real problems? Yeah, welcomed to the club

And you know what, the worse thing is that this is all USA's fault, but god forbid y'all ever look at another country for once

[sergeifyodorov]

I'm a new jets fan and I am sooo curious about your post about the locket room being toxic. is it just a vibe or is there actually known fueds between players?

okay i am going to state that the majority of this is hearsay/gossip, but here's a few things i can state fairly confidently

evander kane (noted ex-jet and ex-shark, current oiler) was not liked in the locker room, at least by dustin byfuglien (who i will shortly refer to as "buff," a nickname of his)

buff was an F/D for the jets/thrashers, and an alternate captain for them as well as a perennial all-star. there is an actual photo of him flipping off evander, so this feud is the least alleged thing about the Jetsuation (jets situation). right before the pandemic buff was granted a leave of absence and then a contract termination -- the rumours about this are twofold; one, that his body was breaking down (he was frequently injured so there's almost certainly truth to this) and two, that he was Not Friends with blake wheeler/mark schiefele

mark schiefele was essentially a co-captain, from what i can tell (now that wheeler is a] stripped of the captaincy b] a ranger and c] not long for the nhl, i imagine they might Name him), and is known to be firstly, an evangelical Christian (no hate, but, like, if you don't work in the church and your christianity is more than two lines in your wikipedia page? harshes the vibes) and secondly, kind of an asshole.

blake wheeler was, up until the 2022-23 season, the captain of the jets. they stripped him of the C in the offseason. he was good friends/allies with schiefele. he is apparently at least a democrat though so that's cool. what's uncool is the uh

THE PATRIK LAINE SITUATION

it's 2016. the jets have sucked ass and now have the second overall pick. they pick patrik laine, a winger with a great shot and some serious star potential

laine is a favourite pretty much instantly, scoring 36 goals as an eighteen-year-old rookie and 44 the year after. he's not twenty and arguably one of the best players winnipeg has ever had. quiet, even-keel, fashionable.

there's some contract struggles in there, including a stint where he went to switzerland as an rfa, but he comes back, signs a very short contract, we move.

gets hurt in december, before he comes back from it he's traded to columbus.

a little bit later, rumours come out -- blake wheeler (also a winger) was jealous of his skill, wanted the ice-time and the glory, and mark schiefele, the best centre on the team, wanted to play only with wheeler, not laine. rumours say the two of them bullied him to his face, talked about him behind his back, and the then-coach (paul maurice iirc) just sat there and let it happen (although maurice has stated he regrets not intervening). after this, laine allegedly requests a trade

so yeah

beyond The Patrik Laine Situation there's just rumours of them not liking each other at all; on paper they should be a comfortable away playoffs team, a 3-seed or a comfy wild card, but in practice they're a wild-card team at best -- they were up there in the division for a few months last year, but seriously crashed and burned as soon as january rolls around. there are seemingly yearly soundbites of them going "well, we just don't like each other all that much," and everyone always seems to want out (although that might be winnipeg the city more than winnipeg the team.)

i will leave you with one old alleged anecdote: some reddit guy once went to a party (or a concert? maybe a restaurant or club?) where the jets were, and instead of socializing, talking to each other, they were apparently all just sitting around in silence not really lookin at each other at all

[archduchessofnowhere]

I came across the most amazing thing ever on Google Books: someone uploaded Richard Sexau's transcription of DOZENS of Ludovika's letters to her relatives!!!!!

Sexau was a biographer of Elisabeth's brother Karl Theodor, and did extensive research on the Ducal Wittelsbachs. Many of the primary sources (like Archduchess Marie Valerie's journal) used to this day by historians writing about Elisabeth and her family come from his archive, currently in the Bavarian State Library. His copies are considered to be reliable, although in recent years the discovery of the original manuscript of the memoirs of Duchess Amélie of Urach, of which historians only knew Sexau's copy until then, show differences between his version and the original. While this does put a bit of doubt on how reliable his copies truly are, this document is still an incredible valuable source and I feel like Christmas came earlier this years. I'm STATIC to get fully through it, so far only in a superficial read I found so many letters that were quoted by Brigitte Hamann in her book.