#largely bc i associate it with their abuse

[pidgefudge]

hmm

[rinbowaman]

S E 7 E N : A S M O D E U S   P A R T   1 N E

Okay...well since tumblr wants to be stupid, be prepared for this chapter to be split into loooots of parts bc even if i paste 1k worth of words in, it grays out my post button. so with taht being said, this is def not proof read only because i have to retyped the whole thing inside the postbox and then (only then) will it allow me to 'post' the content. please ignore any mistakes you'll see, i'll fix those whenever tumblr get its head out of its ass.

Warnings: drying humping, breaking entry, harassment, assault, torturous abuse, blood, gore, groping, and cussing. i think that's it.

Waking up the next day, after your normal hygiene routine, you enjoyed a cup of your favorite tea. Your appetite hadn’t been the same since you found out of your impending death, yet you still managed to forced down some fruit with plenty of water. ‘It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t stay healthy…besides, in five days from now, I won’t be able to enjoy food anymore…’ The internal thought struck you deep…you nearly forgot that you have only five more days. The thought of time passing was skipping over your head since you were distracted by the unusual acquaintances you were running into… ‘Jay…then Jungwon…Beelzebub and Mammon respectively. I wonder…who will I run into next?’ It was moments such as this one that you strongly wished that phones and the internet wasn’t considered a sin and banned by the authorities of the cult, otherwise you’d have researched the 7 Princes of Hell, whom all were associated with the 7 Deadly Sins. You couldn’t go back to the library where you worked, you had already been absent for a full day, not to mention the incident that occurred between you and the senator, no doubt he was looking for you. Yet… ‘I’m surprised no one has come to my apartment…I know they could easily find out where I live….there’s no such thing as privacy in this world…not anymore.’ Sipping on your water, you peered out the balcony and hovered your sight at the city and the large rustic building across the apartment complex. Suddenly, you heard the door open, shocking you into fear as you had secured the locks, all five of them. ‘Oh my God…they did come for me after all…the Senator…’ Tucking yourself away from the balcony door, you couldn’t reach your room without heading over to the front entrance where you heard the door open and shut. The only spot you could go was the dead end kitchen, but that wouldn’t do you any good. ‘I might as well accept it…I’m dead anyhow…’ With the intense burn of tears coating your eyes, you placed your cup down gently as you grabbed onto arms, trying your best to put on a brave face. The footsteps grew closer, they were calm and delicate with the way you could hear the details of the back heel clapping against the hard floor followed by the upper pad of the shoe. Whoever it was, they had to have on some classy footwear. The foot steps came in closer…and closer. You shifted your gaze to the ground, strongly believing it was the Senator once you’re called the time you met him at work, noting his lavish attire and expensive leather shoes, the way they sounded clapping against the floor….just like how they are right now inside your apartment. Closing your eyes as you hugged your torso with your arms, you took a deep breath. ‘Here he comes…’ “There you are…I was starting to think I was in the wrong apartment…” Your eyes snapped open as your slightly parted lips gasped out when your breath hitched. It wasn’t the Senator’s voice as you expected. The voice was smooth, delicate in tone, and very pleasant to your ears. It wasn’t necessarily deep, it was similar to that of Jungwon’s, it had a unique pitch to his soft and tranquil vocal range. Looking up, you saw a younger looking man who was of similar height to that of Jungwon. He was , much like the others, well dressed and looked smooth, like fine wine…red wine. “You look a little dubious…we’re you expecting someone else?” He chuckles out with a look of amusement and yet, there was a hint of genuine sincerity in his tone as he slightly raised a brow, noting the look of concern and fear that’s as on your face, but was now fading into one of relief. “Breath darling…you’re distressed I can tell. I’m here now, you have nothing to fear.” He spoke with such affection and familiarity. Of course you knew he was another one of the brothers of Helel, you wonder why you hadn’t though it would have been him versus the Senator the moment you heard him entering your apartment. ‘Am I really that paranoid? I must be losing my mind…poor Lily…how could you have felt with just me comforting you, not these men who I feel you deserve more than me…’

P A R T 2 W O

Taglist: @deobitifull; @solstramaii; @vampiregirl215; @nshmrarki; @enhypen14; @iamliacamila; @lisaaannna; @nikstrange; @jaehaki; @luv-enhy-skz33; @silcry @honeysjae; @crackedcameraa; @stinkmonkey ; @baekxo07

[and-stir-the-stars]

avian au?

Could you explain

gladly!

So, it's basically just an au where I give everyone wings! Bc wings are pretty and i enjoy them, so clearly my Characters need them.

So far the au is giving fnaf characters a combination of bird and insect wings, though I'd like to incorporate mammals and aquatic wings. In the future I'd also like to do an avian au that's JUST bird wings.

Here's everyone's wings so far! :D

(Tw for bug pictures)

Elizabeth.

Liz has blue-winged grasshopper wings. These grasshoppers evolved to have wings that resemble butterflies, and I thought Liz having wings that look like one thing but are another fit well with Liz being so associated to "pretending", as Circus Baby put it.

People often are very interested in Liz's wings when they think she has butterfly wings, only to lose interest in her when they realize she actually has grasshopper wings. Liz tries to convince everyone, including herself, that her wings are those of a butterfly. She likes the attention and adoration it earns her, and wonders why she had to be born with gross, boring grasshopper wings.

William likes to call Liz "Hopper", though, as much as a nod to his own love of rabbits as much as an acknowledgment of Liz's grasshopper wings. As much as she wishes she had actual butterfly wings, she likes being called Hopper by her dad, likes that her father is happy with her wings.

These contrasting ideas lead Liz to have very complicated feelings about her wings.

~

Mike.

Mike has the wings of a moth. His wings are a brownish red, just like Foxy's fur, and just like his mother's hair. I'm not sure what type of moth is drawn above, but Mike's wings look something like this.

His wings have eye-like patterns on them-- though I haven't decided whether the eyes look like bird eyes (as moths often evolve to have as patterns on their wings, for their own protection) or will look more like human eyes. My friend Honey suggested that the eyes on Mike's wings could be the same silvery pale blue as William's eyes.

Mike's wings are quite large on his frame. When he was younger, Mike was a big kid for his age (his wings even more so), but once Mike reached ~14, he stopped growing, and all his peers started being taller than him. Mike being big for his age is part of the reason why he took the brunt of William's abuse-- William figured Mike "should be able to take it." Mike used to use his larger size to hurt other kids and make him feel powerful in the face of the abuse he faced at home. But by the time Mike is 14, the only thing "big" about him anymore is his wings-- moth wings that are very delicate and easy to break compared to other wing types. He tries extending his wings to make himself feel powerful, but the only people intimated by his wings are young kids like Evan, who is unsettled by the unnerving eye patterns on Mike's wings.

Mike being a moth also makes his canonical association with fire pretty funny-- moths are attracted to light, after all!

And Mike definitely has fuzzy antennae on his head that he tries hiding in his hair.

~

Charlie.

Charlie has the wings of a pigeon! Dead pigeons are supposed to symbolize betrayal, so obviously Charlie needs to have pigeon wings, right? And the black and white of this pigeons' wings fit the Puppet's theme nicely.

~

Evan.

Evan is going to have wings and a tail with a pattern similar to a red-tailed hawk. My bird avians will have tails in addition to wings, because tails are very important to birds' flight abilities.

Evan's feathers have a brown and white barred pattern, but his feathers gleam gold in certain lighting.

Also important to note that although he has the pattern of a hawk, his wings aren't SHAPED like a hawk's wings. Evan's wings will be shaped more like a sparrow or a blue jay's.

Hawks' wings are long and thin, designed for diving and gliding. A sparrow's wings are shorter and rounder, and like a sparrow's wings, Evan's wings are designed not for hunting prey but for avoiding predators.

When birds moult, their feathers fall off and regrow quill-first. These growing feather shafts often look like needles-- or needle sharp teeth. Evan is scared of his moults. He has big wings that he usually wraps around himself for comfort. But whenever he's moulting, this instinct of wrapping his wings around himself turns against him: he wraps his wings around himself only to find needle-sharp teeth surrounding him on all sides. Evan hates moults, especially because neither of his siblings go through feather-moults like he does, so they're not always the nicest to him during moults because they don't know what it's like.

~

William.

I'm not entirely sure what Will's wings will look like yet. I know he'll have bird wings and a tail (as much as I would love to give him wings that match Mike's), and I know his wings are so big that his children will easily imagine William wrapping them safely within his feathers (though William so rarely does, the children can't help but hope).

I would like to incorporate a magpie pattern into his wings, because those birds are associated with death. I'm just not sure what the colors would be just yet.

I might keep the magpie pattern and have yellow in place of the white, and dark purple in place of the blue? I'm just wary to do that because it would feel weird to have his wings so closely match Fazbear Entertainment's colors. I'll have to think it through more.

But unlike Evan's wings, William's wings will indeed be long and thin like a hawk's (even if magpies don't quite have that wing shape).

~

Francine.

I haven't decided yet what wings Mrs Afton will have, except that I think she'll have insect wings of some sort. I was thinking about giving her the wings of some species that is known for taking long migrations since it would fit her theme of wanting to run away. I really do love the idea of Fran having luna moth wings, though as far as I know, luna moths don't migrate. I'll have to think about it more.

~

Doin the taggy tags :D @cloudwhisper23

[renthony]

i want to chime in as another person- my mind was changed on NPD years ago but it was only because of like, real human people talking about their actual experiences that helped me realize it was not The Evil Disorder (TM) in the same way that I realized ASPD wasn't THe Evil Disorder (TM). I guess I was maybe more likely to realize something was up because i also hit a bunch of the diagnostic criteria for it but like, when literally all you hear is "narcissist just means someone is a self centered asshole" it's hard to realize that that's not actually what it is at all.

and they for real taught us that shit in school. we had a whole discussion about the myth of narcissus and how obviously that hurt ~everyone else~ more than narcissus, even though he literally starved to death and turned into a flower. it took me until i was like 17 and someone else went "hey thats kind of fucked up" before i was like oh yeah. that was probably not something he did for fun huh

idk where i'm going with this but i respect the hell out of you being willing to brave the internet goblins and be like "stop being an asshole about ppl with npd" because its gotta hurt way more when people are being an asshole about something you actually got. i made like one or two posts ages ago about the "narc abuse" ableist bullshit and i remember it being enough of a headache even when it completely and totally was not personal for me bc i do not have it

oh uh idk im sure you know this but for the people in the back sitting around, aspd is antisocial personality disorder and people with aspd are also not evil malicious serial killers in waiting or whatever the ~common interpretation~ is and people with aspd are just as capable of being good friends and normal ass people who don't run around cackling evilly or whatever and kicking puppies, just like anyone else. but buying into ableist mythology about people's diagnoses is absolutely going to cut you off from other regular people who are just living their lives and is also associated with higher rates of violence against other people :,) bigots kill

To be honest, a large chunk of the reason I get so vocal about NPD is because of how bad the ableism has wormed its way into my head. It's pretty much a daily occurrence that my housemates have to remind me that asking for help isn't manipulative and that I'm not being an evil little monster just for needing reassurance. Anti-cluster-B ableism curls up in your head and feeds on all your insecurities and struggles and it's so, so goddamn hard to deal with.

I can't ask for help getting out of bed on high pain days without getting paranoid that I've somehow manipulated my husband into being my reluctant servant. Doesn't matter how many times he reminds me that he's here because he loves me, and how helping me out of bed is an expression of that love. The internalized ableism still makes me so deeply fucking afraid that I'm the shitty one.

I have a daffodil tattooed on my head as part of my big floral scalp piece, and it's for Narcissus. Ovid's version of the story is the one that's always stuck with me the most, where Narcissus is tricked into his downfall by Nemesis. His worst crimes were "rejecting proposals from people who felt entitled to his body" and "being kind of an asshole, which is something that literally everyone is guilty of at times."

In the end, Narcissus didn't waste away because he was too self-absorbed for anything else, it happened because he was treated with trickery instead of compassion.

[voros-kiralyno]

Headcanon: Nova's back tattoo

Nova has several tattoos, but her most important and symbolic one is the large tattoo on her back.

Aside from covering up some of her scars from her abusive father and brother, the tattoo itself has a lot of meaning etched into all of its elements.

Nova has always been drawn to snakes, they are her favourite animal and the one she would choose to represent herself. Nova has also always associated roses with power. The way they look so pretty but if not handled correctly draw blood. Power is not without it luxury or thorns.

See nova is the longest surviving Alpha in power (other than the brothers)

She took the throne and she staked herself to it. And everything that happened to her before then has left a mark on her she will never be able to remove. Her trauma is a vital part of both her climb to power and her resolve as a person sitting on the throne. That being the reason the rose goes through the snake, representing the violent mark getting her power has left on her.

The words " Emlekezik a ver ara" are hungarian and mean 'remember the price/cost of blood." They were not part of the original tattoo but instead added later on after Nova's second dark period. It was a promise to herself that she would never let herself slip into that monster again.

The sparing use of colour only for the blood, eyes, and the crown's jewels was also a purposeful choice used to tie the power that comes with the crown and the cost of it together.

Side note: it's important to note theres no backwards R in the hungarian alphabet, Nova just has always written her R's backwards bc... well idk shes not like other girls.

Other side note: I designed and drew the tattoo myself and I am so proud of it but also please don't steal it, plz k thanx.

[aronarchy]

i think transgender ppl have a lot in common with survivors of parental abuse. (beyond just the large statistical overlaps). specifically, when it comes to being nonconsensually assigned a name & identity & role at birth which they don’t allow u to reject later in life, and how they define your self on your behalf according to their norms and wishes, and it feels wrong and off and ugly and is not you, and part of our liberation struggle is to rename & redefine ourselves (refusing to be X child of Y and Z inheriting their names bc they are not associated w/me in any meaningful way. refusing to be the daughter/son bc not me & not true). both seen as a cardinal sin against gender- & age-classed patriarchal obligations wrt identity, both disruptions & fracturing of the nuclear family

(thinking about how thruout my childhood i was disgusted by & wished i could reject my legal name esp bc of the abuse & harm associated w/ (which just furthered the dissonance) and felt like rejecting the abusers as ppl i have to forever define myself alongside + rejecting the assigned gender (role) + rejecting the name(s) are part of the same thing for me)

[smoov-criminal]

Hey, I just found your blog and saw your post about OCD. I was wondering if you could talk some more about it 'cause I went through it when I was little, untreated and with no support, and I rarely do see anyone talk about what OCD is like internally. Those intrusive thoughts do come back every once in a while and scare the crap out of me. Thank you

hi! sorry i didnt answer sooner i literally never check my inbox lmao.

im definitely not the most educated person on OCD on tumblr, but im happy to share some things ive learned/thought about since my diagnosis.

1. i learned that my mom has OCD around the same time i did, which makes a lot of sense. i seem to have been the only one in my immediate family who knew she'd been dealing with severe anxiety for years, but whatever lmao. i think a large part of my OCD obsessions stem from my mom's. she wasn't aware that her feelings were abnormal, so i guess im not mad at her for that, but i picked up on a lot of it as a kid and have the anxiety i do as an adult. i think this is unfortunately a very common experience: growing up with mentally ill parents who eventually give u the same mental illness thru a combination of genetics and abuse/neglect/bad parenting/parents needing therapy.

2. mental compulsions need to be talked about more. i suspect the reason my OCD went undiagnosed for so long is because my compulsions are almost entirely mental, so no one, including myself, knew what to look for. mental compulsions include: saying/repeating words or phrases, counting words, letters, numbers, or objects, making lists, ruminating on past and potential future situations with "what ifs", trying to figure out the meaning of internal experiences like thoughts and feelings, trying to figure out the meaning of life, and even replacing an obsession with a different image/word. sorry for the long list, but i listed all of these bc i do a whole lot of them, but didnt realize theyre compulsive behaviors until recently. how are people supposed to heal when they dont even know what symptoms they have?

3. if u have intrusive thoughts, particularly ones related to bigotry and pedophilia, i want u to know that u arent those things. your thoughts dont make u a bad person, there is no morality associated with your thoughts. your actions are what determine how good of a person you are.

thats about all i can think of atm, but if you or anyone else has any specific questions feel free to ask!!

[thedroloisms]

yes theres no doubt a large disparity esp on here when other communities outnumber this one in size. I mean to say the new wave over-saturates this behavior, when they all share the common mindset of "at least my guy is not as bad as that one" they conform to putting a controversy in the back of their mind because they never expect their guy to be subject to that limelight or little things that get dream lambasted for because they take part in it. Making sure their punching bag stays as that only punching bag. And seeing it happen to them is such a foreign thing to experience, so they have find ways to cope with it even if it means to drag a name that has nothing to do with the situation. It's my thought process at least that the critical thinking the general community adheres to will always be based on bias and malicious take-downs to make themselves seem better to a wider range beyond theirs. Its so naturally performative too, their statements have like a veneer of snarkiness to it that you can clock right away. Using "she didn't say anyone so we shouldn't speculate" and ignoring the deliberate details she dropped, makes empathy look like a smoke screen to deny or not talk about the person who everyone knows is in plain sight. I understand its a sensitive subject to most people but seeing the evidence of her spoken word be accused of being associated with leak stuff in order to blame something other than their guy is so disgusting. So thats why in this situation, seeing the stark differences as an observer, I can't help but laugh too otherwise I would go mad.

i'd say in my personal experience, older fans tend to be even worse about the "my guy is a good guy and better than dream" rhetoric specifically bc they cling to their experience in choosing "the right side" as giving them a moral high ground. a lot of said people are specifically even invoking dream's name in terms of decision-making in this situation, basically saying "ohhh this situation isn't like the dream situation, if it was like that then obviously i would've dropped him" or on the flip side being like "we can't be like dream fans, guys, we have to Drop Him and call him an awful inhuman monster #fuckmen" etcetera whatever. obviously there are plenty of problems with newer fans as well but i've seen pleeeenty of people acting in stupid ways who were specifically here for the allegations against dream in 2022 (including something i saw earlier which made me laugh a little bit - someone going "look i cant support abusers i used to be a dream fan but then the allegations dropped and i stopped supporting him because i didn't want to look bad :( i dont support will gold anymore but i will continue to draw wilbur soot" like ???? okay) - i feel like new fans are more of an issue bc they take this attitude from older fans and parrot and amplify it, but honestly i wouldn't really say new fans are the root of the issue (though obviously their lack of supporting a Bad Guy in the past factors into their superiority complexes in the present)

while there have been quite a few idiots making this situation about dream (some people outright accusing dream, though honestly i think those people were just trying to deflect the situation onto their favorite punching bag rather than making an actual accusation - and a lot more people bringing up the dream situation specifically to soothe their own complicated feelings because Obviously they care about victims and Obviously they care about holding Bad People accountable) - i feel like the majority of what i've seen from people other than the copium is just a lot of people going all :( support shelby #believevictims don't speculate, which is. wow. crazy to me as well to consider it leak to ... talk about literally publicly available information? like leaktwt is when you listen to music lyrics now i fucking guess.

you really, really do have to laugh, honestly. i didn't know what to expect from this situation but my god, i did NOT think it'd be this bad

[vacantgodling]

🩹 for any of your ocs? and also 🎻 for any paramour oc because I'm curious about that world's music scene

hey!! thank you for asking :) — sorry this gets very long LMAO. tw for tagetes being an abusive piece of shit.

🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)?

tagetes can play instruments however they refuse to—they’re one of those “i never do anything for free” and the idea of performing for someone else is SUPREMELY offensive and degrading to them personally lmao. they do often hire musicians and ask them to perform extremely complex versions of symphonies to flaunt that they can hire such talented performers, but also as a cruelty. they found a particularly difficult movement by some bigwig composer and asked for one of their harem girls who’s talented in violin to play it for them. every time she messed up she’d have to start over and she wasn’t allowed to stop until her fingers bled. yknow. cuz they’re so normal 😒

iberis can play the piano passably but he isn’t particularly musically inclined. he dabbled with the idea of learning violin because violin prowess has some research showing it’s association with mathematical proficiency and because he’s a scholar he liked the idea of that. but he never ends up having enough time; getting a doctorate and all.

narcissus has no talent for music whatsoever though she does greatly enjoy it. large orchestral performances or showings are some of her favorite kinds of balls to attend because they make her feel refined and she loves to get lost in the way music sounds. clematis gunn (the shitty father of all these assholes) spent a considerable amount of money on tutors on a number of different instruments however she’s just tone deaf, bless her.

hyacinthus was never taught any instruments, not even in his tenure of living with tagetes. hya would’ve refused regardless—he and tagetes are somewhat alike in the idea of performing for someone else is not ideal. hya, unlike tagetes though, does appreciate the arts—he’s just more fond of books and things he can do quietly on his own.

lavendula is the most musically gifted among the gunn family’s lot. she is proficient in “pretty” instruments as her mother calls them; flute, violin and harp. she doesn’t enjoy them as much as her other proficiencies but when asked she can perform rather well.

aloe has a lovely singing voice but he prefers to sing in temple choruses or praises for The Shepherd. he doesn’t usually engage with secular music.

in terms of lower class characters, music is very eclectic and more down to earth; working with what’s available and learning proficiency in that than any sort of formal training. i would say that terian is the most musically inclined of lower class characters because he can play the guitar and his voice has an amiable timber to it.

🩹 ADHESIVE BANDAGE — does your oc have any physical and/or mental disabilities?

i haven’t diagnosed many of my characters in the mental illness realm just bc it can get a bit dicey with the whole “representation” vs demonization debate and i’d rather not get into the weeds of that if i can avoid it sorry. i think the only character i have truly diagnosed for anything is jenna in the liminal space series because her being autistic is a very important part of her character. you can definitely see where some of my characters may or may not have certain dx’s but yknow. it’s more up for the reader to decide than for me to be forthcoming about.

though a good number of characters have ptsd tbh bc of the horrors.

physically disabilities wise, tcol has the most characters with disabilities just because as many of them are adventurers and fighting yknow. Creatures and the like, it can fuck ya up basically. off the top of my head:

eryn would be considered legally blind because she’s chaos touched in both eyes. it’s somewhat of a toph situation from atla where she has a sort of “sight” but not for just everyday stuff. she can essentially see the aura of chaos around things which is why/how she’s able to still be a ranger—a sight heavy class—she’s able to aim using the aura of chaos, which is something she teaches forte. it makes her shots more accurate and deadly tbh. i haven’t fully worked out how disabilities devices work in tcol yet (it’s on my tcol todo list but there’s so much worldbuilding on that thing i need to do LOL) but id imagine she has some sort of sight cane or something similar.

spoilers (but idc sorry), forte also becomes chaos touched in one eye after an Incident which leaves him partially blind in one eye and deaf in that ear on the side of the attack. he also develops a limp after this situation

karenza, from the same Incident also becomes physically disabled however i haven’t decided how quite yet lol

erebos (for this universe) has a skin condition where he is essentially albino; he was basically dead for 30 minutes due to a childhood accident and all the color drained out of him. he was able to be revived but he has a higher sensitivity to the sun and is immunocompromised for all intents and purposes. in a similar vein, helix, charissa, and altair have a similar condition but slightly Altered because of the special circumstances of their existence and the fact that they were able to be partially healed. after the fact it looks somewhat like vitiligo and the immune-issues are somewhat there in some ways i haven’t fully fleshed out how completely yet.

(spoilers idc sorry), erik loses an arm bc of a different Incident. like the whole thing unfortunately so. he does end up going to marthveil to see if he can get a prosthetic eventually.

aside from tcol i think the only other character i have that i can think of rn would be lennon from gothica bc spoilers idc but her legs get Fucked Up after the Big Incident with aurora and so she uses crutches and has a wheelchair later on in the second book.

[foxfren]

I saw @hiwelcometoachilles’s post about how Kevin Day would be a Nike brand loyalist bc he feels like he'd be offering his game to her, and lemme tell you, it's how I ran with the idea

So, Nike is a Greek goddess and personification of victory in fields of art, music, war, and athletics, right. I knew this, and thought it was cool how in this headcanon, Kevin would be offering his game to essentially victory herself, right, like some sort of good luck thing before a match. But it goes deeper than that

"She is often portrayed in Greek art as Winged Victory in the motion of flight; however, she can also appear without wings as Wingless Victory when she is being portrayed as an attribute of another deity, such as Athena & Zeus." (Wikipedia)

First, I want to mention how she is usually depicted with wings, but at times without. At some level, Kevin can relate to this (pre- "skiing accident"): he's with the Ravens, but wishes to leave. He doesn't want everything that comes with being a Raven, but at first, he couldn't see a way out. I imagine him researching about Nike, seeing depictions of her without wings, and holding a small spark of hope; that some day he will leave the Ravens and escape their abuse, and be able to continue doing what he loves and being successful/victorious in it. In which case, him wearing Nikes would not only be offering his game, or a symbol of good luck, but an act of rebellion (one that would stay secret, and thus wouldn't be punished for).

Yk how it was mentioned Nike is portrayed as Wingless Victory when attributed/associated with another deity (specifically 2)? What if Kevin wanted to be on the USC Trojan team? Scratch that, he definitely did at one point. But after finding out about his biological father, he went to the PSU Foxes. Either way, he's fled the Ravens, shed his feathers, and joined a new team.

The Winged Victory statue's stance is described by Wikipedia as "not walking, she was finishing her flight, her large wings still spread out backwards. The arms disappeared, but the right shoulder raised indicates that the right arm was raised to the side." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THE PARALLELS?? How right before Kevin quit the Raven team for good, his left hand was broken, and he was forced to use his right hand if he wished to continue playing Exy. How the statue's right arm was raised, as if in victory. How in the Foxes final match against the Ravens, Kevin, the girlboss, the baddie, switches his playing hand and raises his left hand; not in victory, not yet, but as a challenge. As an act of rebellion, of defiance. Of hope and faith and eventual victory. Man

(It's also stated that no one is certain about the correct reconstruction to the Winged Victory statue's left hand, once again paralleling to Kevin's broken hand, idk I thought that was cool)

Like I'm definitely stretching this out but like, the brain rot fully took over lmao

[fairycosmos]

This is an interesting convo!

I know that studies based in both my country and the US have linked large age gaps to increased risk for intimate partner violence and other forms of abuse. It's important to take it country by country and the studies I read (they were for a uni project) focused specifically only on heterosexual couples.

Of course there are other factors that increase or lower risks for these things and a large age gap relationship doesn't automatically mean they will happen. It just gets trickier the younger one of the partners involved is. The brain only finished developing its frontal lobe at approximately 25 years of age, which is the part responsible for reasoning, social interaction, problem solving etc. (idk maybe thats why Leo Dicaprio bounces when his partners turn that age) This means people younger than that are physically unable to reach their full reasoning potential.

Maturity is also a slippery concept because it is often equated with one type of intelligence when there are many we need to navigate life. I've even been called mature by multiple people just for being a generally serious person. Maturity is also at times mistaken with having gone through certain experiences. They can help a person mature at times but certain experiences had too young or before the person had the resources and capability to properly deal with them - like having to grow up too fast - can lead to stuff like hyperindependence for example, which is often mistaken as a sign of maturity and not what it is, a trauma response that leave someone more prone to being sociallyisolated, aversion to reaching out to for help, mistrust of perceived outsiders etc etc). It's not a healthy balance. These are the folks that tend to get "you're so mature for your age" a lot. That's just one example though and it all depends on the person and they circumstances.

It's just stuff for younger people to be quite careful around especially because these things are very specifically what predators tend to look for in potential partners (aside from youth itself and qualities they associate with it) and they know young people are more likely to have these vulnerabilities. Other appeals to them is also that this tends to be a very tumultuous life period with many life transitions, finding oneself as an adult, trying to become financially independent/stable, a shifting support network and a still developing a schema for what relationship dynamics should look like to them.

We can all can be manipulated at any age if someone knows your specific vulnerabilities well enough, but particularly young people have a lot going on that add a layers of risk, which is why, as we learn more about different manifestations of abuse of power, the age gap conversation has been becoming more prevalent too. We have better language to describe and explain such phenomena than we did in the past. Like before, the inherent power imbalance of employer-employee relationships in terms of sexual relationships and advancements was not taken seriously and everyone involved was considered equally responsible and accountable when power was abused.

Healthy age gap relationships certainly exist. It's just precaution that younger people know what the risks and red flags are so they can make better decisions, especially when there are people out there who are actively looking to take advantage and will go to great lengths to cover it until they've gradually developed an unhealthy dependence in the relationship.

thank u for sharing! im not sure i much of anything to add TBH bc i feel like you summed things up really well. it makes a lot of sense to me that the more we're becoming aware of abuse of power and how it manifests in society, the larger age gaps in relationships are critiqued and questioned.

[tottymatsuno]

tw traumadumping

I’ve mentioned it before and have written fics about it, but like my involvement in the fandom at large has always been a coping mechanism for severe tragedies and trauma, which is why i can personally be hypersensitive about anything that could be triggering.

from my mother passing, hospitalizations, abusive marriages, to high risk pregnancy ososan has a firm association to me with very painful things that have happened, so sometimes I’ll come across as intense or overbearing, or maybe I’ll do or say something weird and when asked the situation dramatically shifts from. “Oh well youre just weird” to “oh that’s horrific I would’ve preferred to think of you as weird”

That hospitalization made me so thoroughly suicidal that i started buying my first totty merch hauls, and i wrote a 35k fic called peach boy in about four days bc i just couldn’t sleep. there’s things about ososan that make me immediately dissociate or panic. I actually remember the night i started writing, i had read a fic om ao3, which was only three chapters long, and took like 2 years for it to be updated. It was one of 27 Todomatsu fics.

and i read it, reread it, commented which I’m sure you can still see under the name billy, and i went on their profile for the first time and saw they were a bl. This was probably the night i got out of the hospital, I’m sure i was still sitting in my scrubs at the time.

I remember just buying stuff after that, and going manic and pacing and just sitting down and writing.

and i still write. I don’t have an accurate word count bc there’s stories archived in different places, but i can assure you without any doubt in my mind over written probably since then im total about 10 million words since its my main coping mech

i tend to be pretty selective, and on guard when it comes to this fandom, and my friends and who i interact with bc iv met people i thought were okay, and whove turnt out not to be. It’s difficult but ive tried to be a lot more straightforward, honest about ny boundaries, and be understanding of others. idk where in gojbg with all of this in the end bc im sleepy but its just a poop dookie fart anime

[ansu-gurleht]

Whatever questions you want for ku-vastei 👀

General Information

Name: Ku-vastei

Associated game/era: Morrowind/late third era

Age at beginning of game/relevant time period: 48 as of morrowind i believe? not sure really. she was about 17 when the arnesian war started, and she spent about 30 years in prison. a little less than 30, actually - she traveled with my eternal champion talin after the arnesian war ended for about 3-4 years to help him resolve the simulacrum and defeat jagar tharn, so she didn’t actually go to prison until the true emperor was restored to power

Race: Argonian

Sex/gender (bonus points if there's a cool answer): born “male,” argonian-gender-shifted while in prison, “female” as of morrowind

Sexual orientation/preferences: loosely bisexual when male, lesbian when female

Class (or a general description of their skillset): “sorcerer”; skilled with spears and medium armor, and gifted in conjuration, restoration, mysticism, and alchemy

Background

Is this character from their race's home province/territory? If not, what is their relationship with the region? Do they feel a connection to it?: ku has a nebulous relationship to black marsh. she was born in southern morrowind, and traveled to black marsh to recruit for the arnesian war. she has very little connection to the place, although she has a loose connection to the hist, which helped her to transition her gender as well as cultivate her magical potential

Where did they grow up? A city? A village? Isolated, in the wilderness? What was it like to leave?: she grew up on the savethi plantation deep in dres territory in southern morrowind. it was, of course, not a great time, since she was a slave. she suffered horrible abuse there, but she did have her “family” (namely a few close friends and her naheesh, which is a kind of argonian village elder) to help her get through it, until she violently took over the plantation and started a slave rebellion which led to the arnesian war

What was their childhood like? Who raised them? Do they have siblings?: on savethi plantation, the slave children were collectively raised by the adults. ku-vastei never knew her true parents, although she had her suspicions. she doesn’t know if she had true siblings or not, either, but she had friends she considered close as siblings.

If they are an adventurer, why did they choose that life? Did they choose it at all?: so it depends on what you mean by “adventurer.” does her time as leader of the slave revolt count? or not until she escapes from certain death to fight with talin against jagar tharn? if that’s the case, she didn’t really choose it - the alternative was death at the hands of angry dunmer. if you only consider her becoming an “adventurer” when she comes to vvardenfell after prison, then she didn’t really choose that, either. that was foisted upon her by the emperor. 

Do they worship any gods? Who? How do they feel about the gods in general?: so she venerates the hist, but she’s not fanatical about it, really. she doesn’t care about the tribunal, the nine divines, or the daedra, although she has a loose respect for mephala and boethiah.

What are their interpersonal relationships like? Are they close with many people?: so she became fairly close to talin out of a survivor’s necessity during the simulacrum, but it was largely superficial. later on, she falls in love with ashiri-khaan, and becomes close friends with malcius. llethym mostly just got on her nerves, and qismehti she respected but in a rivalry kind of way.

What's their relationship with their family like? Do they have one?: only the found family as nerevarine, unfortunately. and the family she creates with ash is quickly shattered when she has to help defend black marsh during the oblivion crisis, and never returns.

What guilds do they join? Are they committed to those guilds, or are they mostly in them for the benefits?: morag tong (she joins bc she enjoys killing people), mage’s guild (she enjoys learning about magic), and house telvanni (again, magic, and also power).

Are they a vampire/lycanthrope? Did they choose to become one? Would they reverse it, given the chance?: nope! she never becomes either

For Nerevarines

Why were they sent to Morrowind? Were they truly guilty?: she was put in prison so as to satisfy morrowind’s lust for her head after the arnesian war and imperial simulacrum were ended; a supposed-life-sentence was the compromise, since she helped save the empire. she was absolutely guilty of starting a war that shook morrowind to its core.

Do they trust Caius? How much?: not really. she does what he says because she has no choice really. he does help (kind of) save her life when she gets corprus, so he earns a little bit of her respect, but not much.

Do they align themselves with any great houses? If yes, why?: house telvanni. she sees the potential for power, both magical and political, to be nearly intoxicating. in one timeline, she even becomes archmagister of the house.

Do they know/feel that the Empire is using them as a pawn? What do they do about it?: oh, she definitely knows the empire is using her as a pawn. but she’s kind of okay with it, tbh. as long as it means she gets to go free again.

What's their relationship with the Ashlanders? Does it vary by tribe?: she’s amicable with most of them. she likes urshilaku and ahemmusa the best, and erabenimsun and zainab the least. but she’s mostly okay with them all.

Do they believe their self to be Nerevar reincarnated? Do you?: over time they come to believe it more and more, but never totally. however, they do see the value in claiming to believe it, so they do, at any useful opportunity. as for me, i’ve intentionally set up several parallels between them to heavily imply they are the same person, even if not technically “reincarnated.” hard to explain.

Who do they think killed Nerevar?: officially? she supports the theory that dagoth ur killed him. unofficially? she doesn’t really care, perhaps leaning towards the theory that the tribunal killed him, but at the end of the day not really caring.

Do they feel sympathy for Dagoth Ur?: nope. not at all. he’s just another xenophobic colonizer to her. her supposed history with him in a past life doesn’t even register to her.

How do they feel about the Tribunal in general? Do they trust them?: nope. she grows to tolerate vivec, even (in the archmagister timeline) taking hir on as an advisor of sorts. but she doesn’t totally trust him. she feels absolutely nothing when she kills almalexia.

How much do they interact with the Anticipations and the House of Troubles? Do they do any of their quests?: she does mephala’s quest and sheogorath’s quest, netting her the ring of khajiiti and the spear of bitter mercy. that’s all she really does though. mephala’s she does as part of her role in the morag tong, and sheogorath’s she just stumbles upon and decides to humor.

If they travel to Mournhold, do they side with Almalexia and the temple or Helseth? Why?: this is a tough one. on the one hand, she distrusts almalexia for being a member of the tribunal. on the other hand, helseth hired assassins to try to kill her. i think she sides with almelexia, but doesn’t feel bad about killing her in the end.

How do they feel about Almalexia? Do they see her as sympathetic?: more or less already answered this. not sympathetic at all.

If they joined the East Empire Company, who did they side with? Do they regret ever getting involved?: ku doesn’t do bloodmoon in the main timeline; qismehti does.

Which aspect of Hircine did they fight?: again, she doesn’t do bloodmoon.

Where do they go at the end of the game? Do they leave Tamriel?: so initially she settles down in mainland morrowind with ash and their daughter hla-eix, but when the hist call the argonians back to defend against the impending oblivion crisis, she heeds the call and goes back to black marsh. then she ends up lost in oblivion for like 200 years. so yeah, i guess you could say she left tamriel.

[1ns4n3j3st3rf0rlyf3]

Militant shelter programs are more evil than jail bc there is less routine and more consistency in abuse

Being in a homeless shelter is isolating, paranoia inducing and traumatizing. So is being in prison or jail. They are built in such similar ways that once you lose your connection to community and you have been in the system for long enough you rationalize being stuck in the system with its toxic codependency that makes people feel like they're doing something the right way. It's emotional Stockholm syndrome that makes people dependent on any kind of reward. Stockholm syndrome describes the psychological condition of a victim who identifies with and empathizes with their captor or abuser and their goals. Stockholm syndrome is rare; according to one FBI study, the condition occurs in about 8 percent of hostage victims.

https://www.britannica.com/science/Stockholm-syndrome

When community is existing outside of the shelters it is so much more preferred to the shelter. Streets over the system until the streets become unlivable bc of the profit based motives the system prioritizes.

It's a large scale propaganda that the shelter is a safe space to put the displaced peoples, so when people prefer to sleep on the street it makes jailing them justifiable to the wrong kinds of people. I think cops like spreading that nonsense to make it seem more humane that they lock up vast numbers of homeless for any possible infractions, real or imagined. They make it seem like they're doing the homeless guy a favor for "taking them off the streets".

Stanford prison experiments and their relation to system based community

Carried out August 15-21, 1971 in the basement of Jordan Hall, the Stanford Prison Experiment set out to examine the psychological effects of authority and powerlessness in a prison environment. The study, led by psychology professor Philip G. Zimbardo, recruited Stanford students using a local newspaper ad. Twenty-four students were carefully screened and randomly assigned into groups of prisoners and guards. The experiment, which was scheduled to last 1-2 weeks, ultimately had to be terminated on only the 6th day as the experiment escalated out of hand when the prisoners were forced to endure cruel and dehumanizing abuse at the hands of their peers. The experiment showed, in Dr. Zimbardo’s words, how “ordinary college students could do terrible things.”

https://exhibits.stanford.edu/spe

This study to me shows how silly it is to expect people who haven't been screened and trained effectively to effectively hold that much power over people. When people are given unnecessary and unreasonable amounts of power, that feeds a fragile ego and makes people act selfishly. The systems in place (ie: shelters, mental hospitals, care programs, anything medical, jail, etc) all share a very similar method of gatekeeping and toying with people for profit.

Gatekeeping theory is the connection between two inarguable facts: events occur everywhere all of the time and the news media cannot cover all of them. And so, when an event occurs, someone has to decide whether and how to pass the information to another person, such as a friend, an official, or even a journalist.

The gatekeeping of political messages is known as media gatekeeping (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996)—that is, “the process by which countless occurrences and ideas are reduced to the few messages we are offered in our news media” (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009, p. 75).

they make it hard for us to get what we need because of the lack of interconnectivity within the care routes and they want to keep the marginalized poor so we r easier to silence

Medical "gatekeeping was associated with better quality of care and appropriate referral for further hospital visits and investigation. However, one study reported unfavorable outcomes for patients with cancer under gatekeeping, and some concerns were raised about the accuracy of diagnoses made by gatekeepers. Gatekeeping resulted in fewer hospitalizations and use of specialist care, but inevitably was associated with more primary care visits. Patients were less satisfied with gatekeeping than direct-access systems." -- quote from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478478/

This continued gatekeeping of medical care leads to the further marginalization of peoples who don't have access to direct access medical care and terminology. Getting help with disabilities is a very rare thing to happen unless you are not marginalized. So the 1% is again hoarding the care while the disenfranchised get stuck in the cycles of gatekeeping. The majority is left feeling isolated and without care.

Now they if they try to seek out care.

I think Stockholm syndrome is trained into people who fall into the system like Pavlov's dog. (Pavlov demonstrated salivation in dogs through a series of experiments where he paired the sound of a bell with the presentation of food. Over time, the dogs began to associate the bell with food and would start to salivate at the sound of the bell, even when no food was presented.) To me the pipeline is troubled teen, rehab, jail, shelter, jail cyclically.

troubled teen - mental health

"Ms. Ianelli is an activist and the author of a new memoir, “I See You, Survivor,” which details her ordeal. But she is far from alone. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans have endured similar harms or assaults in residential boot camps, wilderness therapy and Christian and therapeutic boarding schools, which claim to vanquish teen psychological problems like drug misuse, depression and defiant behavior. Among them is Paris Hilton, who first told her story in a 2020 documentary and is now lobbying for recently introduced legislation to stop the abuse.

These children’s programs act similarly to psychiatric hospitals in that they control residents’ custody and communication with the outside world, but they are typically not strictly regulated. Some states exempt programs that claim to be religion-based from standards enforced on other child-caring facilities, while some states have few, if any, regulations on these programs. Because more than a dozen states allow spanking and paddling in schools, corporal punishment that would be illegal in prisons occurs in many of these programs. Evidence suggests that the punitive “therapies” that these facilities use are unsafe and ineffective."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/opinion/troubled-teens-industry-regulation.html

Children's autonomy is easier to steal with no reparations. Legally more excusable historically.

The Children's Rights Movement is a historical and modern movement committed to the acknowledgment, expansion, and/or regression of the rights of children around the world. This act laid several constitutional laws for the growth of a child's mental and physical health. 

https://www.childrensrights.org/

- [ ] Mental health - Rehabilitation

- [ ] Toxic punishment reward system based on shame and fear

- [ ] Rehabilitation - abuse

- [ ] Push and pull loves of drugs and connection

- [ ] Abuse - jail

- [ ] no tolerance for own emotion bc the childhood systems in place silenced ourselves

- [ ] Jail over the streets

- [ ] Community over isolation

- [ ] Food water shelter

- [ ] Not chemically dependent on substances (other than big Pharma)

Gatekeeping and Gerrymandering is a huge system in the bay area. the systems in place currently serve to protect the 1% instead of us and keep us cycled in trauma.

Gatekeeping theory is the connection between two inarguable facts: events occur everywhere all of the time and the news media cannot cover all of them. And so, when an event occurs, someone has to decide whether and how to pass the information to another person, such as a friend, an official, or even a journalist.

The gatekeeping of political messages is known as media gatekeeping (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996)—that is, “the process by which countless occurrences and ideas are reduced to the few messages we are offered in our news media” (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009, p. 75).

they make it hard for us to get what we need because of the lack of interconnectivity within the care routes and they keep the marginalized poor so we r silenced

Medical "gatekeeping was associated with better quality of care and appropriate referral for further hospital visits and investigation. However, one study reported unfavorable outcomes for patients with cancer under gatekeeping, and some concerns were raised about the accuracy of diagnoses made by gatekeepers. Gatekeeping resulted in fewer hospitalizations and use of specialist care, but inevitably was associated with more primary care visits. Patients were less satisfied with gatekeeping than direct-access systems." -- quote from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478478/

This continued gatekeeping of medical care leads to the further marginalization of peoples who don't have access to direct access medical care and terminology. Getting help with disabilities is a very rare thing to happen unless you are not marginalized. So the 1% is again hoarding the care while the disenfranchised get stuck in the cycles of gatekeeping. The majority is left feeling isolated and without care.

The majority people of the United States are not millionaires. According to the statistic below in 2020, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metropolitan area in California had the highest share of millionaire households of any U.S. metropolitan area, with 13.6 percent of all households having at least one million U.S. dollars in investible assets. This is Bay Area culture. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/294941/largest-ratio-millionaire-households-per-capita-us/

This is where gerrymandering comes into play. To gerrymander is to manipulate the boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favor one party or class.

Typical gerrymandering cases in the United States take the form of partisan gerrymandering, which is aimed at favoring one political party while weakening another; bipartisan gerrymandering, which is aimed at protecting incumbents by multiple political parties; and racial gerrymandering, which is aimed at maximizing or minimizing the impact of certain minority groups. 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-redistricting-final-map/

There is a clear decision to make the minority voting members of communities that are usually more marginalized by our country.

Again, https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-redistricting-final-map/ this link is crazy to see the intentional disparity

currently on social media especially there are polarizing AI bots that cause micro conflicts within the communities that should be fighting together

"A report we recently published through the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business sheds light on the relationship between tech platforms and the kind of extreme polarization that can lead to the erosion of democratic values and partisan violence. While Facebook, the largest social media platform, has gone out of its way to deny that it contributes to extreme divisiveness, a growing body of social science research, as well as Facebook’s own actions and leaked documents, indicate that an important relationship exists."

"In an article published in October 2020 in the journal Science, a group of 15 researchers summarized the scholarly consensus this way: 'in recent years, social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have played an influential role in political discourse, intensifying political sectarianism.'"

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-tech-platforms-fuel-u-s-political-polarization-and-what-government-can-do-about-it/

“Twitter has emerged as a key platform on which anyone with a smartphone can engage in political discourse,” observed Michelle Nguyen in her article entitled “Twitter’s Role in Politics” in The Northwestern Business Review (https://northwesternbusinessreview.org/twitters-role-in-politics-b3ed620465c9). She noted that a TV ad “can cost millions of dollars” but “a single post can reach the same number of people just as quickly for a tiny fraction of the cost.”

"Though this study was focused on Twitter activities of members of the 111th U.S. House of Representatives, we suggest that our findings have broader implications about the use of social media by political and administrative institutions. Results of our study are cautionary for governments and policymakers who use social media to collect and interpret the voices of citizens because the preferences of citizens expressed through social media may be directed more toward contentious political issues rather than toward solving challenging problems."

"The capacity of social media to personalize information appears to be contributing to greater levels of extremism, and online political polarization is increasing. Therefore, institutions and governmental entities must develop a process for gathering a wider range of opinions (and greater online participation) from the public and simultaneously discern which voices represent extremist views."

https://scholar.harvard.edu/sounman_hong/political-polarization-twitter-social-media-may-contribute-online-extremism

there are niche micro arguments between people that have the same wants with different language and that's where classism comes into play with our language and the gatekeeping of regular communication

This video shows parts of how language can lead to pipelining and polarization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baaMpTGC04U&ab_channel=Jubilee

What is the alt-right pipeline? 0n3ph Answered: it most often refers to a feature of the algorithm wherein maybe you start with a couple of sjw cringe compilations, then you get passed on to say Tim Pool or Jimmy Dore, and then on to maybe Sargon of Akkad or Steven Crowder, and eventually end up with neonazi content.

It means a series of stages presented to a viewer through the algorithm which slowly boiling-frog radicalises them into going full alt-right.

the ways that society is being polarized by trauma porn is making them feel like the largest public issues are what deserve the most importance but the issue is that we are moving away from collective action in places where our masses could actually do something good

[atomicsuperrobot]

A lot of takes on Nightmare!Cadance have to do with her being a heart breaker, or some sort of lovelorn figure. Which, while the broken heart imagery is very nice, I feel would be fundamentally incorrect. Nightmare Moon was generated out of scorn, neglect, and spite. Daybreaker could presumably come about the same way, or else out of hubris; she is pride and vanity personified, from what little we get to see of her- flippant and disrespectful and even a little irresponsible. One thing they both have in common is that they unquestioningly assert the superiority of their associated powers; Nightmare Moon wanted eternal night, Daybreaker would presumably push for dominion of the sun over all things.

So, then, why do we assume that any other presumable nightmares would be different? These two appear to have doubled down on their domains, whilst amplifying their worst traits. Any other nightmare pony, including Cadance, should be the same. We even got a taste of the concept with Rarity, what with that cursed book, in Inspiration Manifestation. She kept giving to all these ponies, true, but what she gave them had to fit into what she insisted was the best possible designs, even if they weren't necessarily practical, or made the ponies unhappy. She forced her personal standards of beauty on everyone she gave to, and they did not get a say; they couldn't even get a say on whether they wanted these gifts or not, once she got a full head of steam. (I have not read the comics, and so the Nightmare Rarity debacle shall not be commented upon without the necessary information; I was pulling strictly from canon with this analysis, anyways.)

This is an excellent portrayal of how Nightmares seem to function, at least in part; regardless of whatever motivations push them over the brink, they tend to be exaggerated versions of themselves, with negative feelings or traits heavily amplified in addition. (This is directly contrary to how the Discorded ponies worked, who were forced into hard opposites of their original personalities and traits, instead of leaning dangerously far into them.)

Thus, a Nightmare version of Cadance would likely be... obsessive. Possessive. Definitely overstepping any existing boundaries in service to her idea of what love and family should be. I doubt she'd go the full noncon route (largely bc children's show and also bc that's a step too far for anybody to run with the idea), but she'd be uncomfortably close, and could potentially try forcing ponies together against their will- she has been canonically shown to be able to influence ponies' emotions, though the extent shown was simply bringing up/reminding ponies of existing goodwill in their hearts, rather than forcing anything onto them. A Nightmare's power is amplified, though, and her thought processes would certainly be heavily skewed, so it'd be possible that she'd certainly try, regardless of it'd be healthy for those involved or not.

Idk, I just think that the usual direction for Cadance reads too much as a Discorded pony rather than a Nightmare one, and is also far less interesting than how she could potentially be written. Within reason, of course; it's possible that it's better this way, as this idea is very easy to abuse...

[firstcursearchive]

The clocks symbolism.

Written  in  response  to  an  anon  1000  years  ago  but  here  I  am  finally  pulling  out  the  clock  post.  

Like  I  mentioned,  I'm  also  going  to  be  adding  another  post  to  this  one  that  I've  made  more  recently  so  yeah,  I  told  you  I  had  plenty  of  nonsense  left  to  repost. So  my  interpretation  of  the  clocks  and  their  symbolic  value  is  BASCIALLY  that  Henry  is  very  much  not  a  fan  of  social  constructs.  Keeping  in  mind  that  Henry’s  time  of  living  was  the  50s-80s.  If  you  think  the  world  is  an  oppressive  shit  hole  now,  boy  do  I  have  news  for  you;  it  was  a  thousand  times  worse  in  Henry’s  time.  It  is  largely  due  to  social  constructs  that  Henry  suffered  as  he  did,  as  someone  who  was  an  outcast  to  social  norms  and  was  unable  to  completely  conform  to  societies  ridged  view  of  right  and  normal,  because  ists  and  phobes  are  still  a  thing  now  and  they  were  a  lot  worse  back  then.  

This  was  a  time  when  you  could  get  hate  crimed  for  wearing  the  wrong  clothes,  being  an  actual  minority  was  a  nightmare. Ultimately,  and  on  the  surface,  “Time”  represents  humanities  greatest  social  construct  of  all  and  clocks  symbolize  time.  Henry  /  Vecna  as  a  character  is  out  to  dismantle  and  destroy  the  status  quo  due  to  his  lived  suffering  and  oppression.  This  is  a  righteous  and  fair  conquest  in  Vecna's  mind.  For  my  portrayal  of  Henry  and  Vecna  I've  been  leaning  heavily  into  religious  and  cosmic  horror  tropes  as  well  which  I  think  are  canonly  present  in  the  character.

For  example,  I  wouldn't  say  Vecna  is  just  doing  what  he's  doing  because  of  his  life  expereinces  and  his  personal  struggle  with  systematic  oppression  and  the  horrific  abuse  and  exploitation  he  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  government.  ( Though,  imo,  thats  understandable  enough  to  me,  like  put  yourself  in  his  shoes  for  a  sec  and  tell  me  how  you'd  be  handling  it  bc  I'm  not  too  proud  to  admit  I'd  go  a  little  insane  too. )  

BUT  FOR  ME  PERSONALLY,  I've  viewed  him  as  and  written  him  as  a  messianic  archetype  and  tropes  surrounding  divine  and  prophetic  journeys  are  also  heavily  used  and  refenced  here.  Very  apocalypse  but  in  the  sense  of  the  literary  genre.  You  can  read  about  some  more  of  my  thoughts  and  references  on  that  here.  Vecna  is  associated  heavily  with  the  end  of  time  and  doomsday  but  I'll  get  back  to  this  shortly.

In  my  headcanon,  based  on  what  we  saw  in  canon,  Henry  would  practice  his  psionic  abilities  on  the  grandfather  clock  that  existed  in  his  childhood  home.  He  would  use  his  mind  to  wind  the  hands  back  and  forth  as  he  wanted.  This  was  a  big  moment  for  Henry  in  my  headcanon  because  it  was  the  first  time  he  was  able  to  consciously  and  purposely  manipulate  a  “physical”  thing  with  his  powers  and  also  it  came  with  the  realization  that  he  could  essentially  check  out  of  societies  expectations  of  him  because  he  had  powers  unlike  anything  else  in  society.  

Suddenly,  he  couldn't  be  entirely  bound  by  societies  expectations  and  pre-defined  role  for  him  and  this  was  incredibly  alleviating  for  him  as  an  autistic  child  in  a  time  period  where  the  outlook  of  life  for  an  autistic  person  was  grim  to  say  the  least.  (  Once  again,  the  social  and  political  climate  for  minorities  in  this  time  was  utterly  horrific  I  cannot  stress  this  enough  and  how  understanding  that  is  important  to  understanding  a  lot  of  themes  in  ST  in  general. )

GOING  DEEPER  AGAIN,  I  view  the  clocks  as  also  symbolic  of  Henry’s  imprisonment  as  well.  He  was  trapped  the  Hawkins  Lab  for  20  years.  He  spent  20  years  of  his  life  just  waiting  for  that  nightmare  to  end  because  the  fact  is  Henry's  alleviation  and  revelation  of  his  powers  and  desire / hope  for  freedom  was  short  lived  and  absolutely  destroyed  when  he  was  imprisoned  by  Brenner.  He  didn’t  know  how  the  end  would  come,  he  didn’t  know  if  he  would  grow  old  and  die  or  if  he  would  be  killed,  or  if  something  miraculous  would  happen  and  he  would  be  freed  somehow.  None the less suddenly  the  destiny  and  direction  Henry  had  within  his  reach  was  torn  away  from  him  and  he  became  a  slave  to  the  Lab  and  Brenner's  project. This happened more than once.

MY  personal  interpretation  that  I’ve  got  going  on  until  canon  tells  me  something  different  says  Henry  was  trapped  in  the  lab and the lab was  a  place  where  clocks  and  lights  were  a  conduit  to  reality,  to  the  real  world,  the  world  outside  of  the  lab.  In  that  lab,  time  was  all  Henry  had.  Both  things  have  become  symbolic  to  Henry  as  a  result.  So  naturally,  the  same  remains  true  of  his  time  as  Vecna,  in  the  upside  down.

 He  spent  years  trapped  in  the  upside  down,  a  place  without  society,  without  civilizations,  and  literally  without  time.  This  was  a  place  he  came  to  like.  We  don't  really  know  what  Vecna's  time  in  the  upside  down  looked  like  just  yet,  and  I  have  my  working  theories  about  it  that  I  might  mention  in  another  post  sometime  because  I  have  written  about  them  but  anyway  -

Merging  Hawkins  with  the  upside  down  kind  of  represents  a  sort  of  a  “propaganda  of  the  deed,”  but  in  a  way  that  seems  true  to  the  horror  genre  again,  with  the  aesthetic  kind  of  being  that's  he’s  become  an  agent  of  doom,  he’s  heralding  in  the  “end”  of  the  world  (  particularly  as  it  currently  is  )  in  which  an  “end”  is  considered  the  furthest  part  to  the  flow  of  time  and  therefore  can  also  be  represented  by  a  clock.  Henry's  counterpart  character  is  Kali. Her  name  represents  the  Goddess  Kali  who  is  symbolic  of  things  such  as  change,  doomsday,  time,  rebirth,  etc,  which  are  all  pretty  specifically  relevant  to  Vecna  as  well.

 Each  victim  brings  him  closer  to  fulling  this  "prophesy"  each  victim  is  symbolized  by  the  chiming  of  the  clock. Four  being  the  magic  number  also  seems  to  be  symbolic  because  we  have  the  four  points  of  time/day:  Morning,  afternoon,  evening  and  night  that  can  be  attributed  to  time   as  well  but  four  itself  is  also  an  important  number  in  esotericism  because  it  represents  the  four  seasons,  the  four  elements,  and  otherwise  is  a  number  that  represents  the  earth  and  the  natural  world.  Briefly  mentioned  by  me  before,  its  also  possible  five  is  the  true  number  here  because  it  feels  likely  Vecna is  actually  the  original  sacrifice  which  would  bring  the  real  number  of  sacrifices  up  to  five.  

Five  is  also  an  important  number  in  esotericism  because  it  largely  represents  humanity, contrasting and complimenting number four.  I  probably  could  make  another  post  to  talk  more  about  this  but  I  have  mentioned  in  the  linked  post  above  a  lot  of  the  religious  and  heavily  esoteric  themes  in  the  show  that  were  made  particularly  obvious  in  season  4 so yeah, trust me on this I'm not as crazy as I seem. I've  also  talked  about  this  before  but  in  my  POV,  a  lot  of  Henry’s  manifestations  as  Vecna  are  symbolic  to  him  on  a  very  personal  level.  He’s  walking  psychological  horror,  and  he  very  much  represents  PSTD,  depression  and  trauma,  abuse,  suicidal  tendencies,  etc  and  these  were  intentional  themes  outside  of  canon,  and  most  of  them  are  things  Henry  suffered  himself  in  canon.

 Things  that  had  an  emotional  /  mental  /  physical  impact  on  Henry  as  a  human  are  repeated  and  projected  outwardly  through  Vecna  and  Vecna’s  “curse”  in  a  highly  supernatrual  way.  I  actually  have  a  whole  separate  post  covering  a  bit  more  of  that  because  I  know  the  D*ffers  referenced  a  lot  of  iconic  horror  media  and  you  cant  tell  me  the  Ring  and  Silent  Hill  weren't  in  the  reference  pile,  though  that  I'll  repost  later  too,  lol. Like  you  said  the  spiders  are  obvious  but  THIS  is  how  the  clocks  factor  into  him  in  my  opinion.  Like  the  spiders  they  mean  something  to  him  on  a  personal  level  and  I  do  believe  theres  a  lot  more  to  the  spiders  than  just  "Henry's  favorite  animal"  as  well,  which  of  course,  I've  ALSO  talked  about  in  detail,  but  everything  that  meant  something  to  Henry  has  become  very  twisted  and  ominous  as  Vecna  and  thats  all  intentional  IMO.

ANYWAY  I  hope  that  made  sense  !  I’m  not  saying  its  COMPLETELY  canon  because  as  far  as  things  go  a  lot  of  stuff  is  still  up  in  the  air  and  I  could  be  wrong  about  things,  but  its  what  I’ve  been  reading  from  canon  so  far  and  the  approach  I've  been  taking  in  my  writing.  In  conclusion:  Henry/Vecna  is  not  just  a  senseless  monster,  he’s  the  radical  leftist  activist  that  turns  to  terrorism  to  make  the  centric  protagonists  look  good:  Horror  genre  edition.  Literally  he’s  the  horror  genres  version  of  Magneto  or  Erik  Killmonger.  (  Theres  a  reason  he's  explicitly  related  to  the  former  in  my  canon  /  AUS,  because  ST  also  explicitly  references  X  men  in  canon  constantly,  like.  The  aesthetic  is  real.  )  Its  a  hill  I  guess  I’m  gonna  have  to  die  on  but  at  least  I  know  JCB  is  so  ready  to  die  on  it  with  me  at  this  point.