#otherwise there is no correlation and there never has been

[nereidprinc3ss]

stakeout

in which spencer reid and flirty!reader are stuck in a car together with nothing to entertain themselves but each other.

fluff! warnings/tags: fem!reader, they have little crushes on each other, some of you will not like reader, but spencer does, it’s all banter, lots of teasing, playful insults, jokes about handcuffing so suggestive jokes i guess, so cheesy, reader enjoys flustering spencer, written with earlier seasons spencer in mind a/n: bandages!reader and spencer are so back!! i missed them!! this is SOOO cheesy! cheesiest thing ever! thank you to the person who requested this!!! thank you for giving me an excuse to just write cheesy banter!!! yyyayyyy!!! ilysm

“I am so fucking bored. Am I allowed to say that?”

It’s exactly the kind of thing Spencer should expect you to say, and maybe when you first joined the team it would’ve made him squirm, but now as you drop your binoculars and give him a look, bored, head tilted to shoulder, like you're waiting to be entertained, he only shrugs. Your insouciance is one of the things you know he’s come to love about you and would probably never admit. 

“Who’s going to stop you?”

You bump his shin with the toe of your leather boot and he glances down only momentarily before he’s raising his own binoculars to pick up your slack. 

“You. You don’t like when I swear.”

Spencer makes a face that you can only see the bottom half of. His voice is strained with focus. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Where? The faces you always make. You’re a judgy little bitch, you know that?”

“I don’t judge you for swearing. Frequent and creative use of profanity is correlated with a broader vernacular and greater social intelligence.”

“Oh, shut up. Yes you do.”

“You’re punchy tonight.” The leather of your seat squeaks underneath you as you slide down and groan, loudly. Spencer grimaces as he reaches over, gently swatting your shoulder with the back of his hand. “You should try to be louder. They might not have heard you.”

Your jaw drops indignantly. “Wh—the house is like 300 feet away! They’ve been blasting music all night. And not even, like… good music.”

“What, you don’t like death metal?”

You give him a side-eye. “Do you?”

He shrugs, giving up on the binoculars. A strand of hair has fallen over his face. You fight the urge to fix it. “I don’t know. It’s loud. And grating. And incessant. It begs for attention shamelessly and tactlessly. I’m kind of used to it.”

“Watch your mouth,” you scoff. “It would be a shame if I had to ruin that gorgeous face of yours.”

Spencer smirks and shakes his head disapprovingly, cheeks dusted scarlet. 

“You just can’t help yourself.”

“Who could around you, baby? Look at the bone structure on you. And those sweater vests. Can’t believe you walk around like that. It’s distracting.”

“Baby?” He grumbles, like he’s utterly displeased, but the way he’s losing a fight against that smile tells you otherwise. You lean your head against the headrest, boring your eyes right into his profile and giving him the opportunity for some searing eye contact, should he take you up on it. But for some reason, he can’t seem to look away from the steering wheel. 

“Do you choose them just for me?”

There are those pretty eyes—on you for maybe a second before they’re darting away. He fiddles with the binoculars in his lap. It’s adorable how much he doesn’t know what to do with himself when you get like this. Morgan once likened it to a cat batting around a mouse. Don’t play with your food, he told you. Take a little pity on the poor kid. He doesn’t know what he’s up against. 

But Morgan’s not here right now. 

“What?”

“Do you pick out your little sweater vests because you know I like them? ’Cause, you know—I also like when you just do a button up. The blazers, too. Those are sexy. But if I had to pick, it would be the sweater vests.”

You reach over to straighten out the grey one he’s got on right now, and he entertains your fiddling for only a moment before catching your wrist in a considerate hold. 

“Alright, can you—can you behave? Please?” He laughs. Unfortunately it makes your stomach flip. 

“Probably not. You could try cuffing me.”

“Or,” he begins, carefully pressing your own hand to your chest, “we could keep our hands to ourselves.”

You pout. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Where’s the fun in getting yelled at if Hotch has to come and unlock you because I dropped the key between the seats?”

“So it’s a maybe on the handcuffs?”

He falls back, eyes fluttering shut like you’re exhausting him, and offering you the perfect vantage point to admire that jawline of his. 

“Alright. Five minutes.”

There’s no way he’s actually taking you up on this. 

“Five minutes of what?”

His head rolls over his shoulder and he gives you a look of his own. “Of silence. I’m begging.”

Oh. 

Well then. 

You settle back in your seat and swing your own binoculars around by the strap. 

“You know, you’d be bored to tears right now if it weren’t for me.”

“I count myself lucky every day,” he says. And despite the sarcastic tone, you actually believe him. 

A moment passes, during which the bubbly tension of your shared repartee fades into a sincere comfortable silence. 

You kick your feet up on the dash. “How about I cuff you? Is that more your speed?”

You’re already grinning when he answers, not bothering to take your eyes off the house outside. 

“You are… astoundingly inappropriate.”

“Well a girl has to try, Spencer.”

[togglesbloggle]

Why do you think tumblr will die in only a few years?

Answer with jargon: a strong correlation between recent economic shifts and chaotic choices by major tech companies is most easily explained if the 'traditional' social media platforms of 2005-2020 are mostly a zero-interest rate phenomenon.

Longer answer, with less jargon: Even though Musk's takeover is making all the headlines recently, the last year has in fact seen major shakeups at many social media platforms, so Twitter is actually part of a trend. Almost inevitably, these are cases of social media companies trying to find a way to squeeze more money out of their userbase (Reddit), cut costs dramatically (Twitter), or both. This marks a sudden departure from a much more relaxed attitude towards revenue in the Pictures Of Cats industry, where the focus was historically more on expanding the userbase to a global scale and then counting on world domination to sort of <????> and then the company would become profitable eventually.

We joke, correctly, that Tumblr has never been profitable. But the entire structure of ad-supported content curation between human users is deeply suspect as a business model; IIRC Twitter was never profitable either, and Facebook has been juicing its numbers in very shenanigany ways. Discord was actually making money on net last I checked, at least a bit, so they're not all completely in the hole. But even if you take the accounting figures at face value, none of these companies has anything like the amount of money that their cultural prominence would suggest. Instead, they're heavily fueled by investment dollars, money given by super-rich people and institutions in the expectation that fueling the growth of the company now will pay off with interest later.

So what changed?

I'm not an expert here, but I'll do my best to muddle through. The American Federal Reserve has one mandate that dominates all others (sometimes called the 'dual mandate'), and one primary tool that it uses to enforce that mandate. The goal is to maintain low (but nonzero) rates of inflation and unemployment, which in their models are deeply interlinked phenomena. The tool is 'rate hikes', or more specifically, tweaking the mandatory rate of interest that banks charge one another when making loans.

As a particular consequence of this, hiking the rate also means that bonds start paying out much better. When the rate hike goes through, that affects people who let the government borrow their personal cash- that is, people who buy bonds- as well as institutions like banks that lend to one another. A rate hike means that you, personally, can make a little extra money by letting the government borrow it for a while. The federal government of the US is a rock-solid low-risk choice for this kind of moneymaking scheme, so the federal interest rate sort of defines the 'number to beat'; to attract investors, a company has to give those investors money at a better percentage than whatever the feds are offering. Particularly since a company is a lot more likely to go out of business than the state!

To wrap this back around to the Pictures Of Cats industry: the higher the rate hike, the better your company needs to be doing (or the less risky it needs to be as an option) to attract big investment dollars. Very high rates make it very hard to convince people to invest in business activity rather than the government itself, and very low rates put moonshots and big dreams on the table, investment-wise, in a way that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Social media companies were one of these big dreams.

In the great financial crisis of 2008, the Fed took the dramatic step of reducing their rate to zero, trying to juice the economy back to life. And ever since then, they've kept it there. This has produced an unprecedented amount of funding for very crazy stuff; it's part of what has allowed so many weird new tech companies (Uber, streaming services, etc.) to get so much money, so quickly, and use that to grow to massive size without a clear model of how they're ever going to make money. This state of affairs kept going for quite a while, with no clear stopping point; that zero-interest environment has been one of the shadowy forces in the background that shaped fundamental contours and limits in how our Very Online World has grown and developed. Until COVID.

Or rather, the bounce back from COVID: we suddenly saw a massive spike in inflation and an incredibly strong labor market, as employees quit in record numbers, negotiated higher salaries, and found better work, and at the same time supply chain issues and other economy stuff caused prices to climb dramatically. Recall the Fed's 'dual mandate', to control the employment rate and inflation. This was, basically, kicking them right in the jooblies. They responded in kind, finally finally raising their rates for the first time in 15 years. For some of the people reading this, it'll be the first significant shift in their entire adult lives.

The goal, as I understand it, is to fight inflation by reducing the amount of outside investment into private companies, forcing them to hire fewer people and pay smaller salaries, ultimately drawing money out of the working economy and driving prices back down by lowering demand for everything. You get paid less, so you eat out less, and buy at cheaper restaurants when you do, so restaurants have to compete harder by lowering their prices; seems pretty dodgy to me as a theory, but it's the theory. And the first part will almost certainly work- companies are going to see less investment.

For social media companies that are still paying most of their salaries with investor dollars instead of revenues, this is especially catastrophic. Without outside investment, they're just a massive pile of expenses waiting to happen, huge yearly costs in developer salaries and server fees. This is why, all of a sudden, every social media company is suddenly making bonkers decisions. They're noticing that nobody wants to give them any more money! So they're trying to figure out how to live a lot more cheaply, to actually somehow for reals turn their giant userbases in to some kind of actual revenue stream, or both.

Tumblr is kind of the ur-example of this kind of thing, supporting a very large userbase with no coherent plan whatsoever to start paying its staff with our dollars instead of investors' dollars. When interest rates were low and Scrooge McDuck had nowhere else to hide his pile of gold coins, a crazy kid with a dream was the best alternative available to him. But now, unless something changes, he's going to notice he can just buy bonds instead, and that crazy kid can go take a hike.

That's why I think Tumblr is living on borrowed time, though I don't know how much. Like all cartoons, the economy doesn't really fall off a cliff until somebody looks down and notices they've been standing on thin air this whole time. But they always fall eventually; that's the gag.

[youremyheaven]

Ketu: Detachment & Connection

I thought I would expand more on the nature of Ketu in this post. Although both Rahu and Ketu are shadow planets (they are the north and south node of the moon) they experience this darkness very differently. Rahu seeks intense immersion in their experiences and seeks to absorb as much of their material realm (Rahu is the head) but Ketu is disconnected from this completely (Ketu being the headless torso) and even if they want to, they cannot immerse themselves in the material realm, they find it disorienting or simply feel disconnected from it all. Its meaningless to them.

The Ketu nakshatras are Ashwini, Magha & Mula

Ketu is in the darkness and to be Ketuvian is to be in a tunnel perpetually seeking the light. It can be a very uneasy energy to inhabit if imbalanced but this is why spirituality is so important to Ketu natives, they have to cultivate spiritual discipline if they are to peacefully embody this energy and find clarity in its detachment. Most people struggle with overattachment, so having this Ketuvian energy is a great starting point since you're already detached but grounding is very important as there is such a thing as being too detached or uncaring.

The Ketuvian struggle for connection reminds me of certain 8h themes and I think 8housers and Ketuvians have a lot in common in that regard. You need to have an intense kind of connection to feel anything at all, everything else feels kind of mild to your senses. Only intensity can wake you up and make you feel "awake" or "aware" as Ketuvians are sort of in this passive detached state otherwise.

I noticed many of these themes in Jungkook's solo songs. He is a Magha Moon and Mula Rising (he has such a puppy energy, it must be Mula's dog yoni hehe)

I had mentioned in one of my previous posts that being heavily tatted (a full sleeve of tattoos or just being covered in tattoos) is a very Nodal thing to do because they're plunged in shadows and making a mark spiritually helps them feel more connected or because they have to indulge in the extremes of anything for it to feel impactful.

Jungkook has a song called "Still With You" released in 2020, widely considered a love letter to army. These are the English translation of some of its lyrics that I found correlating to his Ketuvian energy

"That faint voice of yours that grazed me Please call my name one more time I'm standing under the frozen light, but I'll walk step by step towards you Still with you

With no light in the darkroom I shouldn't get used to it But I'm used to it again The low-pitched sound of this air conditioner If I don't have this, I will fall apart We laugh together, we cry together I guess these simple feelings were everything to me"

Fame can be a very intoxicating and addictive experience for Nodal natives. Since they feel very disconnected otherwise, they experience connection when it is pouring in such a large or vast scale. But this sort of dependence on fame and fans can also be destabilising and unhealthy because you never know when it might all go away. Since fame is so fickle, its dangerous to rely on it to feel "connected". This is why soooo many Nodal natives who are celebrities are sooo often self-destructive. You keep chasing that high and you'll never feel satisfied, you can never fill the vacuum you have and the harder you try, the more empty you feel.

I don't say any of this to be discouraging, im only trying to point out the emotional expectations we place upon certain experiences and even relationships and how it turns toxic and unhealthy when we do that. If we were to use another person to feel connected or tethered to the world, whilst it may work for us, they must feel very drained by being our anchor.

Jungkook has another demo called Decalcomania and the lyrics go like this:

When I see you smile in the screen You're good at everything You're just perfect Feels like I've never been you

Do you even see me? Do you know who I am? Or how do I look now? You don't like me like that

Come and tell me so much, you beautiful heart Oh, I'm gonna listen to you Please

All the numbers too big Can't get out of your game Oh, I want to paint it like you Please

I want to be your decalcomania I want you I want to be your decalcomania I want I want you

He is singing about himself and how he feels dissociated from himself. Fame can be a very dissociative experience for Ketu natives as their search for connection means they feel even more disconnected from the person they become to achieve this connection. Decalcomania refers to the process by which engravings are transferred to another surface (paper, pottery etc). It ties back to Ketu's need to be marked upon, they need something to make an impression on them, literally, because otherwise it does not feel real to them. Jungkook is asking himself to transfer the person he sees on screen to himself, so that he can embody the lightness and joy he sees on him.

Jungkook has another solo song called My Time in which he sings:

"24, feels like I became a grown-up faster than everyone else My life has been a movie, all the time I ran to where the sun rises every single night It's like I've been to someone's tomorrow The boy who found the world too big Keep on runnin' errday, pick the mic up Friends ridin' subway, I'll be in the aeroplane mode All over the world rock on, I made my own lotto But is it too fast? There are traces of losses Don't know what to do with, am I livin' this right? Why am I alone in a different time and space?"

Nodal natives (both Rahu & Ketu) regardless of whether they're child stars or not, have to grow up faster than others. This again makes them feel very disconnected from kids their age, you feel vv lonely.

Oh, I think I was in yesterday 'Cause everybody walk too fast I'm a little kid grown up not knowing it (Like a child who got lost) This got me oh just trippin’ It feels I'm roaming over Don't know what to do with, am I livin' this right? Why am I alone in a different time and space?

It feels confusing and disorienting to live a life that others cant relate to you. Immense wealth and fame can make you feel this way but Ketuvians feel this way in general. They look around them and they feel lost like everybody else is moving too fast.

"Sometimes when I'm gasping for air I wear my hat low and keep running Yeah, I don't gotta know where I go Even if it's opposite of sun One time for the present Two time for the past Happy that we met each other Now 'til the very end"

He's expressing his gratitude for everything even though it feels so alienating and confusing.

There is another song called Stay Alive in which he sings:

"그림잔 커져가지만 Although my shadow grows larger,

괜찮아 너란 큰 빛 덕분이니 It’s okay because it’s thanks to the great light that is you"

This is such a sincere explanation of what its like to be a Ketuvian in the limelight, he's thankful for having such a vast fanbase, the source of his "light" (remember that Ketu is in darkness and is always seeking light) but chasing this light means having to morph into somebody else/feeling disconnected from yourself which he succinctly expresses through the line "my shadow grows larger". Since Ketu is in perpetual darkness and is a shadow planet, it does not confront its shadow on its own. Its the seeking, the constant chasing for the light which they need that brings them to see their shadow.

Perhaps you feel very void and disconnected in general but you have a friend or a partner who makes you feel very tethered, through them you absorb their light but this also means you learn to look at yourself more clearly (Ketuvians are blind to their own nature) and this can be a very disconcerting and difficult experience if you've seldom ever felt "seen".

Emma Watson, Ashwini Sun, Mula Moon

I remember reading this interview in like 2010 where she said that whilst doing red carpets for the last Harry Potter movies she would have these moments where she looked into the mirror and felt very disconnected from the person she saw.

She subsequently turned to yoga and meditation and is even a certified yoga instructor. She has also mentioned going on silent retreats.

Ketu natives truly find balance in their lives when they cultivate a spiritual practice and devote themselves to it. Emma has largely stayed out of the limelight in the last decade or so and will probably continue to do so, this is very Ketuvian again, these natives find social interactions, especially the kind of intensive press tour celebrity life to be very draining, they need to retreat and do things in a way that is "real" to them. Emma has spoken about taking a break from acting and working behind the scenes.

Jungkook deleted his IG despite having 40+ million followers and like most Ketu natives he is very private and has no social media. It does not feel natural or real to them.

In her British Vogue interview, Emma said,

"...Her characters have felt, at times, “much realer” than she was. “I’m just so glad that I did [step away from acting] because I have this feeling of having my own voice and creative space and sovereignty in some way that I don’t think I did before".

This time has allowed Watson to concentrate on her “inner scorecard” (how you feel about yourself on the inside), versus her “outer scorecard” (your outward success, as seen on social media, for example). “I get a front row seat [with] some of the most successful, beautiful, incredible people in the world,” she says of Hollywood’s inner sanctum. “And when you have that seat it becomes very, very clear that there is just absolutely no level of success that will make you in any way happy or content if you do not like who you are or enjoy what you’re doing when no one’s watching.”

All of this feels like evolved, balanced and mature Ketu energy.

Miranda Kerr, Ashwini Sun

She is another person who I've always thought embodies a very healthy and evolved Ketuvian energy

Here's an excerpt from her interview:

“First, I try to do a little meditation and yoga, depending on how I feel. I've been meditating since I was 18. I've learnt Transcendental Meditation and Kriya Yoga Meditation, but sometimes I'm just too much in my head and so I need to put on an app. I use Insight Timer, which has different guided meditations, from a five- or 10-minute meditation or deeper ones which help if I can't sleep.

“Gratitude puts everything into perspective. The way that we speak to ourselves is really important, and to be aware to pull yourself up if you’re being self-critical and try and look at things in a positive way. For example, we can look outside and say, ‘oh my goodness, I can't believe it's raining’, or we can look outside and go, ‘well, it's cosy when it rains, I'd love to be inside and I get to wear my favourite scarf’ – we can switch our whole perspective on so many things. For me, waking up in the morning and thinking of at least three things I’m grateful for is so important. Just simple things like, ‘I’m grateful that we have fresh running water’.”

Salma Hayek, Magha Rising

Salma has been practising meditation and yoga for decades and has said: “It’s actually feeling the energy,” she said. “It moves and it dances inside of you, different sensations and emotions. So I use a lot of the frequency machines.”

Hayek claimed that her meditation works wonders for her appearance. “Sometimes when I’m doing it, people tell me when I come out of the room, ‘Oh my god. You look 20 again,'" she said.

She also warned that if she stopped meditating, her face would suffer. “When I don’t do it for a while, guess what?” she said. “The face starts to drop and everything starts to drop.”

Spirituality comes easier for women than men imo and Ketuvian women are more likely to buy into all things spiritual like crystal cleansing, chakra reading and even other offbeat spiritual techniques.

Gigi Hadid, Ashwini Sun & Rising

Gigi is another person who embodies really healthy Ketuvian energy

In her interviews, she always sounds very grounded and tethered. She said:

"I got pregnant and I really started to think about what I wanted after, when the world opened back up. (she got pregnant during covid) It kept coming back to just a more stabilized schedule where I’m not in a different country every week. This is very stabilizing. I have an office that I come to. I know everyone here. I don’t have to look a certain way to show up. It’s a different experience for me, and it was the right time because I was ready for that,” 

To realize what is causing you to feel unstable and deliberately manoeuvre your life to create that stability requires self-awareness and maturity.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mula Moon

He has talked about how bodybuilding and building his physique really helped him feel connected to himself in a different way. I think this is an interesting manifestation of Ketu's disconnection and need to go to extremes to feel anything. Arnold's workout routine from his Mr World days is pretty insane, he worked harder than anybody else and was single-mindedly focused on it. Pushing yourself to such extremes and committing to it is difficult but those Ketuvians who can do so will benefit from it immensely.

Ketu is detached from the material realm. For a Ketu native that isn't tuned into their spiritual side, this can mean feeling disconnected in general but the blessings of retreating to spirituality, slowness, stillness etc means shifting to a version of life where you feel anchored within yourself without depending on anybody or anything to feel that way.

All of the people I mentioned above turned away from the spotlight or made choices to make their lives more grounded and stable and as a result they feel content and satiated. They are detached from the material realm but firmly tethered to the things that matter to them.

I just wanted to make a brief post about how Ketuvians embrace their shadows and how spirituality anchors them.

I hope this was insightful.

[cherubchoirs]

Do you have any concepts/sketches for the other fallen archangels ;o;

here's cleaned up sketches of a line up!!

more info under a read more!

uriel (heresy): heavily lifted from baphomet, uriel's spontaneous combustions have left him ashen save for the brilliant golds and reds that now outline his figure. he is still constantly trying to read/write, but it's never long before the books burst into flame in his hands. uriel now has the gift of prophecy while ignorant of the past and present, but he refuses to share what he sees.

raphael (fraud): directly taken from the inferno, raphael is weighed down by a divinely gilded golden cloak that is made of solid lead beneath. he refuses to remove it due to constant, feverish chills and so can make very little progress through the halls of hell. he has been drained of all color otherwise and weeps bitterly toxic tears in direct correlation to his falsehoods. regardless, raphael still practices manipulating hell energy into something that might provide relief and comfort to those around him.

michael (violence): michael has been shocked white to show the blood he must now consume to stay alive. his helmet has been broken to free his jaw, able to devour fresh blood from any entity in hell as well as the fetid blood that flows through the phlegethon, while the stone-like feathers breaking through his skin echo the harpies of violence. he has become much less able to control his temper and at first wishes to destroy hell himself; however, once reunited with his brothers, he channels his fury into protecting them.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Adrien Agreste and Why Motivation Matters

One of the most important things you can gift a character is a motivation that correlates to their intended role in the story. It's a big part of how they truly come alive. And if they have a motivation that doesn't correlate to their role? That can make them come across as a total ass!

A few days ago I got an ask about Lila. I ended my response with this:

I'm totally fine with complex, master-manipulator Lila, it's just hard to figure out the best way to make her work when we don't know anything about her backstory or motivation.

This got me thinking about motivation in general and how much it plays into the show's poor writing. I talked about Lila above, but I wanted to point out how much it's responsible for Adrien's issues, too.

Motivations are one of the main ways you create strong characters. You come up with the thing they want and then keep that in mind whenever you're writing them. Motivations can be very simple and straight forward (I want to get home) or extremely complex and nuanced (a person wanting to create a new government with a very detailed idea of what that means). A character can even have multiple motivations!

Unfortunately, all motivation are not created equal. There is such a thing as a bad motivation and I'm not talking ethics or morality here. I'm talking about picking motivations that match the character's intended role. For example, Gabriel's motivation is fine! It perfectly suits a villain. On the other hand, Adrien's motivation sucks because it makes him into a terrible hero.

Adrien's motivation as given in the show seems to be this: win the heart of my Lady. Later on, that motivation changes to: date Marinette and be the best boyfriend possible. And that's it. He has no other overarching motivations. Individual episodes might give him a one-off motivation to jazz things up for a bit, but generally speaking, romance is all he cares about. It's why we get baffling moments like this one from Dark Cupid:

Cat Noir: Falling for me already, my lady? (pulls Ladybug down next to him) I need to talk to you. Ladybug: It’s gotta wait. Dark Cupi- Cat Noir: (hushes her) I swore to myself that I'd tell you as soon as I saw you. Ladybug, I-I... Look out! (Cat Noir spins around to shield Ladybug, and is struck by one of Dark Cupid's arrows.)

Or this one from Oblivio:

Nadja:(from a helicopter) Looks like Ladybug and Cat Noir are struggling today. (Ladybug is rapidly spinning her yo-yo to deflect Oblivio's blasts while Cat Noir sits down casually.) Ladybug: And stop calling us a couple!

These are just two out of many examples I can pull from, but they highlight a reoccurring issue: Adrien often doesn't take akumas seriously. He's been shown to happily prioritize flirting over fighting and, as a result, he's put himself, his Lady love, and all of Paris in danger.

It also gives us things like Kuro Neko and Kwami's Choice. Episodes where he quit without any concern for protecting his loved ones or even just protecting the freedom that comes with being Chat Noir, things that he only really cares about in the realms of fanfic. As far as the show is concerned, Adrien doesn't care about his loved ones or his freedom. His only constant driving force is his current crush.

Don't get me wrong, he's going to react if he sees Nino in danger or if his father bans him from going to a party! But in terms of what generally guides Adrien's actions? His father, Nathalie, Nino, Chloe, and Alya are out of sight, out of mind. And being able to leave the house? Well, who cares about that? He'll happily sacrifice freedom for a date. Outside of Origins, I think we only ever see him sneak out or otherwise break the rules so he can have a date.

You'll note that Marinette doesn't really have this problem*. While dating Adrien is a big motivation for her, she has a second motivation: protecting Paris. Sometimes those motivations clash, leading her to make poor choices, but that story never treats this as a good thing the way it does Chat Noir's endless flirting. Instead, Marinette's crush is treated as a character flaw or an interesting source of conflict like Volpina threatening to kill Adrien, making Ladybug having to chose between her two main motivations: love and duty.

This is why I've had several posts where I offhandedly mentioned Adrien needing a second motivation. It's also why I've mentioned that Gabriel should have been claiming that akumas were the main reason that Adrien was getting locked up because that's a really simple way to give Adrien personal stakes in the fight. Are those stakes selfish? Sure, but that's okay because it's a selfish motivation that doesn't go against being a hero. If Marinette was only being Ladybug for the sake of her parents, her motivation would be selfish, but still suited to a hero because it doesn't stop her from being heroic. It actually drives her to be heroic. As written, Adrien's motivations do the opposite. Whenever Ladybug or Marinette are seemingly safe, he will do very unheroic things because romance is his only main motivation and that's a problem. To make him work in his intended role, he needs to match Marinette and have (or discover) a motivation that suits a hero.

*To be extra clear and hopefully save myself a salty ask or two, I'm NOT saying that Marinette never does questionable things in the name of romance, she absolutely does. I'm saying that it's extremely rare for her romantic motivation to get in the way of keeping Paris safe because keeping Paris safe is her second motivation and it overrides the romantic one most of the time. Once an akuma is on the loose, she's usually all business. It's one of the reasons Passion (the episode where Nathalie becomes Safari) is so awkward. They did a full role reversal for Marinette and Adrien and it really doesn't work on Marinette's end because it feels out of character for Marinette to ignore the akuma threat in favor of flirting. She never did that for Adrien or Luka or even Catwalker. The worse we ever saw was a crush distracting her from making the right call, but even then, she was always at least trying to protect Paris. Compare Desperada (Viperion's debuted) to Passion and you'll see what I mean.

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Let's talk about The Emperor and Stelmaine for a minute.

So, when it comes to the latest Emperor hate, the assertion that "The Emperor raped Stelmaine" or that what happened to her was otherwise "like rape," has been going around, presumably because of a TikTok video that got popular.

So let me start off by saying I get it. It's pretty infuriating, but I can at least understand the logic. I get why something in this evokes that a little for some people; She loses her agency completely, forced to work with him. In his rage at the player's dehumanizing behavior after he makes a sexual advance, he shows them this story, and says the phrase "you will take me to the brain because you have no other choice." He is speaking specifically about the forcing player's aid in the goal of destroying the Elderbrain, but the statement does come as a response to a (dehumanizing) rejection, and the brain is the main source of sexual connection for him.

So like, if I were to erase all other contexts, I can see why some people react to it like that.

Uhhhh, however....

People who make this argument always like to erase how directly interconnected the Emperor's survival is in every choice he makes, from Ansur to Stelmaine to You.

We don't know what exactly happened with Stelmaine, but if they ever developed a friendship, and she didn't know he was a mindflayer, and discovered it later, he would have had no choice but to enthrall her. If it started from the beginning, again we should consider that on his own, he has no resources or infrastructure to keep himself safe, and therefore would have targeted a politician to put his dwelling place under his own power.

But I digress. There are way too many factors in play that we know nothing about when it comes to Stelmaine. What we do know is that the Emperor is often reactive when it comes to the others in his life. He explicitly says that he fears your rejection and betrayal, and that is tied up directly in his own survival. We saw this happen with Ansur. And with both Ansur and Stelmaine, the Emperor contextualizes your relationship through both of those experiences. He is constantly waiting for you to call him a freakish monster and refuse to even converse with him, which would result in his survival being threatened.

His sexual advance itself is arguably not about sex at all, but about ensuring you develop an emotional entanglement with him so that, you guessed it, you would get invested in his survival. Immediately afterwards he gets back to talking about the goal.

It's important to note that you are free to reject this advance kindly and he takes no issue, he doesn't even pout. He only starts threatening you when you basically just call him a lying manipulative freak. To him, that belief is threatening, even if the accusations of manipulation are accurate, because it means you are uninvested in his survival and could turn on him at any point.

At this point, he notes that his methods of manipulation have improved since enthralling Stelmaine, and you should be grateful for this. An asshole statement to be sure. However, this direct correlation he makes suggests that the othering he is experiencing from the player lines up with the experience he had with Stelmaine.

It also makes it abundantly clear that after Stelmaine, he came to the conclusion on his own that he never wanted to do it again. He feels a grief and trauma over Stelmaine that he hints at, and uses to gain your sympathy. But it is THIS scene that fully reveals why he feels that grief. If he was the rapey, soulless monster people make him out to be, he would feel no grief over her, and most notably, would never have bothered putting so much time, strain, and effort into gaining the player's agreement and consent literally every step of the way. He, a mindflayer, makes a conscious choice every time you interact, to gain your support the hard way. To basically put his own survival in your hands.

For one of his kind, with the odds stacked against him no less, to choose verbal/emotional manipulation over any other tool in his arsenal, is much more notable than I think a lot of people click into. He's making a concerted, active choice against enthrallment.

Even when you push him to the point where he threatens it, he still never enthralls you. He gives himself up to the Elderbrain, rather than enthrall you. The threat was always empty.

That suggests to me that the thing that traumatized him about Stelmaine was the enthrallment.

For the Emperor - and I would like to repeat that we are talking about a mindflayer and not a irl human being - manipulation is gaining consent. In his perspective, gaining consent is what he is going through so much effort to do.

[lectorel]

Fucking around with fandom specific tropes: Harry Potter is Skull de Mort, expanded addition

(original linked here.)

***

Skull de Mort starts life as a game, half mockery and all spite. He's one part caricature of young Malfoy to two parts gleeful muggle counter-culture trash, wrapped up in a name and a persona designed to send Voldemort spinning in his non-existent grave.

Skull is a braggart and a coward, the embodiment of every half-baked rumor and hypocritical criticism ever aimed at Harry - selfish, self-centered, short-sighted, in love with his own ego and incapable of admitting when he’s wrong.

Skull makes his career in pissing people off and pulling bullshit stunts, until he can send someone over the edge with a single whined complaint. A saint would try to strangle him after being locked in the same room for 15 minutes.

He is, without exaggeration, the funniest thing Harry has ever done. Skull has more fun in an afternoon than Harry had in his entire childhood before Hogwarts.

***

More than that, though, Skull de Mort is Luce's friend. Another prophecy child, the older brother she'd never have, her fellow confident and conspirator. When she confesses the future she's bound to, the curse that she'll bind the future arcabalano with, he doesn't turn away.

Skull is the best thing Luce has ever been able to keep.

***

Skull is tiny when he sleeps, bombastic personality pulled back under his skin. Luce finds it fascinating, how someone who takes up so much room is so small when still. Even sprawled across her bed, carelessly wrapped in a bathrobe and sweatpants, he's still so much smaller than when awake.

Skull would have made an excellent mafia boss, in another, poorer, life. He lies like he breathes - reflexive, thoughtless. People see what he wants them to see, whether that's the cowardly braggert of his public persona or the varying twists of his more temporary roles. Truth is a precious commodity to Skull, and he shares it only grudgingly. Their fellow sacrifices have yet to earn it from him.

Luce doesn't blame him. The weight of prophecy makes her a liar too, blandly smiling at the sacrifices laid out on the altar. She’d feel worse about it if they weren't all, as Skull so delicately put it, a bunch of ruddy wankers high on their own egos. Lal is the closest thing to innocent of the five, and she left the army to become a freelance criminal.

And they're all, to a one, completely fooled by Skull. Strongest does not correlate with any degree of observation skill, from what Luce's seen of them. Otherwise they might have noticed how often he was laughing at them.

[very-grownup]

Ace Attorney game parallels (no, not that one, or that one, or that one ...)

One of the interesting things about the Great Ace Attorney in the evolution of Shu Takumi's Ace Attorney games is the maturation of "Weird Girl Assistant".

Our original trilogy Weird Girl Assistant is Maya Fey (obviously a perfect being beloved by everyone with taste why can't I preorder that Nendroid yet motherfuckers?), who is all heart and ... not so much knowledge, but a conduit to Mia’s knowledge. She doesn’t personally possess any legal knowledge, but she’s integral for Phoenix in accessing knowledge that would otherwise be denied to him due to Mia’s untimely death. She’s fully Weird in her Assisting.

Apollo Justice has Trucy Wright (obviously a perfect being beloved by everyone with taste), who is a lot of heart but not all heart. She has personal knowledge to impart to Apollo, regarding the perceive ability and his bracelet. It’s integral assisting to how the trials in that game will reach pivotal points, which makes it genuine Assisting, even if outside of that Trucy is plenty Weird. I would argue this is distinctive from the Phoneix-Magatama matter in the original trilogy (it’s easy to forget that Nick doesn’t even have the magatama in the first game) because Trucy is, essentially, teaching Apollo to do something he technically can already do, whereas the magatama is something Phoenix is given by an outside source still connected to the mentor (Pearl). Narratively and thematically they’re different, even if mechanically they function similarly.

Years later, the Great Ace Attorney gave us Susato Mikotoba (obviously a perfect being beloved by everyone with taste). Susato is an /actual trained legal assistant/ to the point she can masquerade as a lawyer in the second game's tutorial. She could BE the lawyer as easily at Ryunosuke, save for her sex in the historical setting of the game. She Assists like no one’s business and her Weird is no weirder than Ryunosuke himself, two young people who grew up in a country with recently opened borders, in a foreign country for the first time. 

A reflection of a maturation in Takumi's depiction of female characters, a general wider consciousness of feminism in popular culture in Japan (something I am in no way qualified to discuss), a third possibility? I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to say that the evolution of the Weird Girl Assistant into an actual competent assistant is a sign of the games ‘maturing’. For all their goofiness there has always been a serious, darker tone in the games compared to the adventure game standbys of North America. It’s built into the series from the choice to have Phoenix’ second case involve the solving of his boss and mentor’s murder.

There may also be something in the connection between the tutorial mentor and the Weird Girl Assistant, holding the balance of knowledge between them like the centre of a seesaw.

The connection with Mia and Maya is obvious: they’re sisters and perfectly mirror each other in their relation to what they bring to Phoenix. Mia on a pedestal of legal knowledge, forever older and wiser than Nick, as her death fixes her on that pedestal. Mia and Nick never get to be colleagues, equals. On the other end, enthusiastic but underage Maya, someone Nick will always be older than and always be wiser than in the legal sense. We don’t know how an older Maya might have fit with the disbarred Phoenix Takumi left the series with; maybe it didn’t matter and outside the confines of the Lawyer Protagonist and Weird Girl Assistant, Maya could stop being a mirror for her sister.

Similarly, Kazuma and Susato are sibling-like. Kazuma, like Mia, is the tutorial mentor, but he’s only a mentor to Ryunosuke because he’s a law student and Ryunosuke isn’t. He doesn’t have that much more knowledge than Ryunosuke and I think it correlates that he doesn’t have that much more knowledge than Susato, the girl who expected to be his legal assistant. There is something like equality here between the Mentor and the Weird Girl Assistant when neither precisely fits their role mold. Kazuma is, I think, as weird as Susato is knowledgeable.

BUT WHAT ABOUT --

Bitch, you know I've always got Apollo Justice opinions to drop.

In Apollo Justice, Kristoph is a fully knowledgeable mentor to Apollo. He is an actual lawyer, he is Apollo’s senior, and he is Apollo’s employer. In these ways, he is on all fours with Mia.

Aside from being the murderer.

There is, frankly, an entire other thing to get into with the tutorial mentors and how their stories intersect with death and a turning point in their respective protagonist’s life and career but this is about Weird Girl Assistants.

So.

What is Kristoph Gavin’s Weird Girl Assistant connection?

THE INCIDENT.

Seven years earlier, in Zak Gramarye’s trial, Trucy is used by Kristoph to deliver fake evidence to Phoenix, leading to Nick’s disbarment.

In Apollo’s tutorial trial, for the murderer of Shadi Smith/Zak Gramarye, Trucy is used by Phoenix to deliver fake evidence to Apollo, leading to Kristoph's arrest (and possibly his disbarment but who knows in the world of Ace Attorney and Japanifornia).

I have nothing but love for Trucy, but she's the shifty, deceitful Weird Girl Assistant to follow a shifty, deceitful Tutorial Mentor in a game about disillusionment and broken trust, following a trilogy about believing in yourself, your instincts, and redemption, and preceding two games riding a balance between hope and despair, with part of that balance being a more equal partnership between the Attorney and his Weird Girl Assistant.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for talking about my cousin behind her back?

My (20nb) cousin (20F) is pregnant at the moment, on purpose. I was the first one to know, because we're kind of each other's person. The baby daddy (22M) is my worst enemy tbh. We really don't get along (reasons: he wants to be a cop, he cheated on her, he made her delete all of her male friends from social media, they broke up for a while because he "was so stressed and couldn't deal with her bullshit", she never wanted to get married before him, her personality did a 180 after him), I seriously don't like the guy (he also has a very punchable face) so I can't say I'm happy about this yk. I tried really hard to stop her from getting back with him (this was before they were expecting) using the usual methods: "you deserve better", "he's a bitch", "I'm scared he's manipulating you" etc. Didn't work, obviously.

Anyways, when she told me, I did my best to not show any negative reactions (and think I succeeded, we've been talking about babies non stop) and to be super supportive, so she knows if anything feels slightly off with the baby daddy, I'm here (have I mentioned that I really don't trust him?). So ok, when she posted about the pregnancy on social media, I was finally able to talk about it with other people (most of our friends correlate) so I went to discuss the situation with one of our closest friends, S (23M), who's also part of my haters group towards the baby daddy.

S and I were saying stuff like "holy shit she's fucked" (she lives with her mom, doesn't work, baby daddy hasn't finished whatever he needs to do to be a fucking cop, those are not great conditions) and "that piece of shit of a man is going to destroy her future". SHE WAS IN NURSE SCHOOL AND THERAPY BEFORE MEETING HIM AND THEM HE CONVINCED HER TO DROP BOOOOTH (I have not made my peace with this). But then shit hit the fan cause apparently, S's girlfriend (22F) read those messages and told my cousin.

She's now very pissed at us and not talking to me or S, and I don't know how to fix it. Like, ok, yes, asshole move I guess to be talking about her behind her back, but she knows we don't like baby daddy, and we never said otherwise. So probably ITA but how do I fix it????

Ps.: My problem with him being a cop, is because most of the cops in our state/country are part of large criminal groups or just act like small army's for politicians (early this year there was a massacre in a neighbor city where the cops killed a lot of innocent people in the basis of "they're all hiding a fugitive" that everyone knew it was a lie to clean up the towns ghetto so the city's Mayor could take back the land and build shit)

Pps.: English is not my first language, sorry.

What are these acronyms?

[magdaclaire]

starshine, a poem about my girlfriend @legalespeon

to cait: you're my favorite. to everyone else: hope you enjoy.

transcript under the cut or in the alt text image descriptions.

signed,

m a morton

i told her once that meeting her was like turning the lights on

and i don't know if there's any better way to describe it 

how else can i say that it feels like she reached into me and pulled every good thing about me back into the light

reminded me that there's more to this house than the shadows and the gloom

the creaking staircases and drafty windows

that she spilled color back into the world

or maybe she just reminded me to look for it

she opened the front door and the handle didn't even stick

didn't even catch on the swollen door frame

storm damaged in more ways than one

nobody's ever done it like her

people have shouldered through the door and they've climbed through windows

they've left the first time they were denied entry, 

mistaken the hesitance for occupancy,

it didn't even hesitate for her 

like the door was made for her to walk through.

meeting her was flicking on a gas stove

tick, tick, tick, catch,

the potential was always there,

stored energy waiting to be sparked into a flame,

i've cooked more in the months since i met her than i had in the previous two years.

every day, we do the connections together

that new york times game, something i would have never gotten into without her

i only like doing wordle with her

i get bored otherwise,

too caught up in my head to even stay focused on a game you only get six tries to get right

so why do i feel so perfectionist about it anyway

but that's not the point.

the point is that things are more fun when i can hear the sound of her laugh

i've always hated looking at menus but it's fun when she's telling me all the things she wants to try

when she's looking at restaurants in my hometown and curious about the brussel sprout salad

(which, of course, i order)

we looked through the attraction pages of three zoos together

we've contemplated dates in my hometown

the place she used to live

the place she's moved to now

the city where i stay when i'm with my brother

every place i am, i want her to be

i wanna see my comfortable places through her bright eyes

see how my girl sheds starlight, pixie dust from her fingertips

her delighted laughter, her open excitement,

i want to take her to every nook and cranny of childhood i have left in this world

let her know the creature consigned to this body

how it has come to heel beneath her gaze

how deeply and embarrassingly and ardently she's been needed for longer than i've known her.

she worries she doesn't help me as much as i help her

as if that worry in itself isn't more care than any partner has ever treated me with

like there isn't care in every look she regards me with

as if i haven't slept better since meeting her than i have in years.

and it can be said,

hey man you met her in the same time as getting on some new meds, maybe correlation isn't causation?

the new antidepressant is called auvelity and it started working before i ever knew her name

gave me energy again and the ability to cry and i started cooking again

day by day wasn't a slog for the first time in years and i hadn't felt that good since high school

(as fucking terrible as high school was).

the whole world still dim like milky twilight, damp with humidity

the frogs and the crickets so loud (or maybe the walls so thin) that you can hear them standing in the center of the house.

the lights didn't turn on without her.

she wraps joy around me like a borrowed coat, sits me down in the living room and tells me about the future,

and for the first time, i can picture one with me in it

for the longest time that idea was so vague to me

the abstraction from self it took to imagine survival past day by day by unforgiving day

with her, i can imagine turning 25

26, 31, 45 

if she's there, i want to be there too

and that's a lot to put on someone's shoulders

and i cannot be one more burden in her Atlas sky hands.

she'd tell me that i am not burdening her but stepping shoulder to shoulder with her, bearing the weight together

or she would tell me that i'm one of the reasons that all this tension is worth carrying

or she'd tell me that she's tired,

that she'd like to let go of the world and lay down with me,

and i would grab her hand and smile,

say fuck the world, come home with me

and in this imagining within an imagining

i picture how carefully she would set down the sky,

like placing a child back onto their feet

and how this is how she does everything,

with so much care it makes your chest ache

makes your eyes hurt

starlight girl supernova bright in my mind's eye,

my heartbeat catching on the lines of her smile.

sometimes, she and i sit looking at each other through cameras and phones and hundreds of miles

and i feel closer to her than any lover to ever touch my skin

there was an ocean between us and still that was true

four hours time difference we still found a way

i don't know what to do with a partner that actually thinks i'm worth the effort.

pushed out to sea by every moment i'm not with her,

pulled back in by the tide of her breathing,

my starlight girl moon in the sky,

and i the wrong kind of cosmonaut but enamored anyway,

there's not a way i can imagine this where i don't want to follow where she goes.

she's got one of those gaming computers with lights where lights truly do not have to be

it's colorful and whimsical and i'm sure that there's functional purpose

i want to build her the world with my own two hands but i imagine a computer like that might be easier

circuits and wires and logic and programming and ducks, from what i hear

i've never been for going about things the easy way anyway.

that's the scariest thing sometimes,

how easy things are with her

i'm used to loving folks like pulling teeth from my own mouth

service comes easy to me, gifts i can make,

but expressing love aloud has never been easier than when i'm pushing it past her lips

pouring love into her with lip and teeth and tongue

whisper her my love affair fire with smoke passed between our mouths

she breathes me in and i am taken in,

perfect and peaceful.

i'll never stop wondering why

she chose me but i'll choose her back every day if she'll let me

my sunshine, my north star

everything i need.

once, i told her that talking to her helps,

but I think I'll miss her til I have her in my hands, and every time she's not after that too

she says to me you say the most romantic shit sometimes,

asks me if she's supposed to  be normal about it,

as if making her feel that way isn't the goal of my every sentence;

letting her know how special she is through words alone is impossible

but sometimes I get close.

sometimes i think she can feel just how badly I need her,

split seconds of oh, you love me flash of recognition on her face

as if loving her wasn't what I was made for,

as if the sound of her laugh isn't music to me,

as if I don't hang off her every story time run-on sentence,

her unique ability to circumnavigate her point so much that it's like she's telling ten stories at once,

I love that about her.

I love the way she needs me to know every single detail and every single reason and how she knows him and how they know them,

how she invites me into the house of her soul just as easily as the door opened to her,

I love how much she trusts me.

I love trusting her just as much.

my good morning texts to her always start the same way

good morning, starshine! the sun says hello!

a bastardization misremembrance of something my mother quoted to me as a child that tastes like home on my tongue,

the home I provide to her will always live more on love than anything else,

and as well as I can, I won't let her be lonely in the home we share.

I was a lonely kid, in a way

in the textbook for the psychology class I took the semester before I met her

there was a small definition of what autism is, which began with

autism is a disorder characterized by extreme aloneness,

the goal here to be able to communicate exactly how much people like me live in our heads more than our homes,

open door and song birds singing,

and i don't think i've ever looked into a two way mirror and saw myself so profoundly as in that simple sentence,

that deep well of loneliness bubbling within me so suddenly.

i've never liked learning new things in public

it takes me time to adjust to information, to incorporate things

i can play a good game when it comes to the gambit of conversation

adapt as quickly as i can and keep quiet while things slide into place in my mind

i've never met someone more understanding of the oddities in me than she is

never been able to ask for the space she gives me naturally

slow but not far

an arms length intimacy that we close the distance of when we're both ready,

i wonder if she loves figuring me out as much as i love the vice versa,

standing in that push and pull of learning every single thing about her,

letting the ocean tide bite at my ankles just for the pleasure of standing in the sea spray,

i've always loved the water but never like this.

my love for her ocean vast and trench deep,

i have no idea how to end a poem about her

i'll spend the rest of my life with her

and i still don't think i'll ever be able to properly form the words,

tell her exactly how much she means,

how much i need her.

so instead, i'll prop the door open

write her poem after poem after poem of hello i love you,

good morning, i love you

how did you sleep, i love you

did you get something to eat, i love you

drink some more water, i love you

let me take care of you, i love you,

and i will take her hand and i will give her the keys, say

this house is yours now

i know you'll treat it well.

[nestasminiaturepegasus]

Is Nesta Archeron a Narcissist?

Disclaimer: I am not a professional. I am a university student who has been studying psychology for 3.5 years. A lot of research and time goes into this post. If you do have a personality disorder (PD), you are NOT a bad person. If you think you have a PD, do not self-diagnose from this post; please speak to a psychiatrist.

From afar, especially to those who do not like Nesta, it feels like a no-brainer to diagnose her with NPD. However, being one of the most complex personality disorders, it is important to consider context, background, and the full spectrum of her behaviour and motivations.

Understanding Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) According to the DSM-5, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following criteria:

Grandiosity: Exaggerated sense of self-importance.

Nesta has stated in several instances, especially throughout ACOSF when we see her internal monologue and self-hatred, that she does not deserve anything—love, kindness, etc.

“I deserve Eris.” Her voice cracked.

“I do not deserve you, and I never, ever will.”

“I am worthless and I am nothing.”

“...and still he somehow loved me. I didn't deserve it, but he did. And I let him die.”

While, yes, NPD is generally associated with traits like low-self esteem, Nesta’s expressions of self-deprecation and unworthiness point more towards a profound internalized sense of shame and self-blame, rather than grandiosity. This suggests a deeper psychological complexity possibly stemming from unresolved trauma or guilt, rather than the characteristic inflated self-importance seen in NPD.

Fantasy: Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

I am not going to touch on fantasy or fantasizing, because it just did not occur in the book. But, if I had to say anything, it's that if anyone was fantasizing about great power or success, it was Amren, wanting to use Nesta's powers behind her back.

Need for Admiration: Requires excessive admiration 

Nesta has not once been seen canonically to fish for compliments, wish for compliments, or even respond well to kindness—because of, as previously mentioned, her self-hatred.

“Don't touch me. Don't- don't be kind to me.”

While we know that Nesta longs for kindness deep down, and that through the valkyries, she learned to accept it, Nesta is often seen rejecting kindness, rather than seeking it out.

Sense of Entitlement: Sense of entitlement 

This is the big one—the one that gets everybody up in arms. I would like to begin by stating that even I, someone who loves Nesta, can see a sense of entitlement in the first ACOTAR book, and to say otherwise would be silly. However, even if she a) showed this trait enough for it to be thought of (by psychologists) as a direct NPD trait, it is not shown canonically enough to constitute diagnosis (traits must be pervasive and consistent across various relationships and situations), and in order to diagnose NPD, as stated by the DSM-5, an individual must exhibit five or more of these traits to be considered for diagnosis.

So, while Nesta has been seen to exhibit entitled or selfish behaviours, it a) is not pervasive enough to constitute a direct correlation to NPD, and b) does not simply mean that she has NPD. Remember, exhibiting occasional entitlement ≠ Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Exploitative Behaviours: Takes advantage of others to achieve own ends 

This is another argument I commonly see regarding Nesta and NPD. For starters, there is one instance where we see Nesta exhibit something that could be perceived as exploitative behaviour, which occurs in the first book.

Feyre asks Nesta to chop wood, and Nesta requests Feyre to do it instead, citing that her hands are more 'well-suited' for the task.

I acknowledge that Nesta’s unwillingness to chop wood and her attempt to have Feyre do it instead can be perceived as subtly exploitative behaviour. However, in the context provided, Nesta’s refusal to help could be interpreted as a response to her deep-seated resentment towards her father's neglect and the influence of her upbringing. Her actions do not inherently constitute exploitative behaviour towards Feyre. Instead, they reflect her choice to withhold assistance as a form of protest or to compel their father to take responsibility for their well-being.

Exploitative behaviour typically involves taking advantage of someone's vulnerability or goodwill for personal gain or to avoid personal responsibility. In Nesta's case, her actions seem more like a stance against enabling her father's neglect rather than exploiting her sister. However, I acknowledge this could be perceived as subtly exploitative because, despite deeper reasons, she relies on Feyre’s assistance (even though she resents it, and would rather she didn’t).

Lack of Empathy: Lacks empathy; unwilling to recognize or identify with others' feelings and needs

Let’s start with Feyre’s own words:

“I think Nesta feels everything—sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly.”

Beyond that, there are several instances where we see Nesta show great empathy for those around her, even when it brings her no real gain:

“What I care about is making sure no children—fae or human—are harmed.”

“Neither of you is to blame for what happened. Neither of you failed anyone.”

“It’s the only way,” (willingness to give up her life for her friends during the rite).

Unwilling to leave Cassian at the prison, or during battle in ACOWAR.

Willingness to do anything to keep Elain from falling further traumatized, even if it was overbearing at times. 

It is seen time and time again that Nesta has empathy and the capacity to show great care for others. I do agree that the way she treated Feyre was not how I would treat my own siblings; however, that does not make her apathetic—especially when she has shown care for Feyre since. (The fact that it didn’t happen until Feyre nearly died does not matter in the context of NPD, sorry).

Envy: Often envious of others or believes others are envious of them.

Throughout the series, we do not really see Nesta show envy towards others. She may have potentially envied her wealthy peers after falling into poverty—though this is more a case of resentment towards their refusal to assist her family. Additionally, there is a sense of envy towards the Inner Circle and Feyre’s new family, though it’s more accurate to describe it as longing.

From Nesta’s perspective, Feyre starts a new family—one that has treated Nesta poorly from the beginning. Nesta does not feel comfortable around these people, especially those who treat her disrespectfully (like Mor). While Feyre had every right to extend her family to those who love and care for her, it is also fair for Nesta to long for the sisterly bond she witnesses between Feyre, Mor, and Amren.

Whether or not Nesta should have handled her relationships with Feyre better in the earlier books has nothing to do with a diagnosis of NPD.

Arrogant: Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes

And finally, we have another of the commonly used explanations behind Nesta’s tiktok diagnosis of NPD. Arrogance, much like grandiosity, is not canonically demonstrated by Nesta throughout the series. Nesta is seen to carry herself with a sense of purpose, composure, and confidence—this is not inherently arrogance. Nesta was raised from a young age to marry someone of high social status; a lot of her behaviours are a result of social learning (where behaviours are learned by observing others and the consequences of those behaviours) or conditioning (where behaviours are learned through reinforcement and punishment) rather than arrogance or entitlement.

As mentioned earlier, we see just how little Nesta thinks about herself, and if we look from Cassian’s perspective that is seen by the others as well,

“He’d seen her self-loathing and anger, but hadn’t realized how much she’d been aware of it.”

Nesta does not expect to be treated with high status by others; instead, she often allows others to speak down to her, internalizing it as a learned response from her upbringing and experiences. This behaviour reflects complex psychological dynamics where individuals may internalize negative perceptions of themselves due to past experiences or societal conditioning.

Finally,

This post is not meant to be an excuse for Nesta’s past behaviours, nor is it an attempt to get you to like her—you not liking Nesta does not disrupt my inner peace at all, please feel free to continue. However, throwing around serious personality disorders after a simple Google search is harmful. With NPD being one of the most complex personality disorders, it is imperative to approach discussions with nuance and understanding.

Additionally, claiming Nesta has NPD simply because she is someone you don’t like, or a ‘terrible person,’ is harmful to those who do have NPD and perpetuates negative and prejudiced ideologies of the disorder. Please remember that this is a fictional character. There is no need to tear down real people to try and prove your dislike of Nesta Archeron.

(This information is all from either my Abnormal Psychology courses (year 2 and 3), from the National Institute of Health, or from Psychiatry.org).

[littleeyesofpallas]

Ya know, a ways back someone had asked me if I had any takes on Yoruichi's tattoo --I forget in which ask, but there was a bigger question that I wound up answering and I sort of forgot about the tattoo part entirely. But at the time, I really didn't have anything to say about it anyhow, but I don't think Kubo had released that art of the original Gotei at the time. So as it happens there are some odd little adjacencies now, although not especially strong ones... but I figure I can squeeze a post out of it.

So originally Kubo did a little color spread of all the Bleach girls in swimwear at the beach, and that in turn got adapted into a dumb little filler thing in the anime based off some other omake. It's also shows up in Bleach Brave Souls.

(weirdly a different swimsuit specialadds a different, unrealted, tattoo on her right thigh??)

But in the body of the manga itself, she's never actually shown with it. In most cases we don't get a 100% irrefutably clear view, but there are plenty of moments where her left upper thigh is definitely visible enough that if the tattoo was canon it should have been visible. The most obvious contradiction being her first appearance in her human form on account of, you know... her being entirely naked for that...

Now, one of the most immediate evocations of the sun tattoo would seem to be Ichigo's "Black Sun" motif --although it seems like a "tribal" style tattoo, which would be solid black anyway, making it hard to really assume it's a deliberately associated color-- which is itself actually kind of weird because it started entirely meta textually as part of the pair of databooks, SOULs and VIBEs: the former being the manga databook, and the latter being the accompanying anime databook, together featuring the phrase

"the rain drags black sun down, but the rain dried by white moon".

But this actually conflicts with the manga's use of a black moon motif for Ichigo, and doesn't really appear in the text at all. In fact the only real association Ichigo has with the black sun in the story proper might be the tangential association with Yhwach calling him, "my son born in the dark" when Yhwach himself is associated with the sun and light, and his own mirroring of the black flame(?) motif.

Otherwise the only loose link between Ichigo and the phrase "black sun" is that zangetsu's crossguard in bankai is a manji/swastika --a symbol used in Japanese Buddhism, via Chinese Buddhism, via Indian Buddhism, but originally taken from Indian hinduism where it was itself a sign of the sun god Surya-- and the SchwarzeSonne:"Black Sun" rune was a part of Himmler's stupid esoteric LARPing horseshit he did in the N*zi party, where he just mashed up the swastika, Nordic runes(𐌔), the alchemical sol niger:"black sun", and the Arthurian round table concepts so he could have that dumb mosaic built into the floor of the Wewelsburg castle he had requisitioned.

Sorry i got off topic... point being: the BlackSun was kind of like a leveled up swastika as far as n*zi symbols go, so it kind of follows that Ichigo's devloping powers imply a black sun as the next step past swastika.

But like I said, that's a super loose correlation within the text itself. Rather, the black sun in Bleach actually seems to be a weird recycling of something Kubo did in Zombie Powder: The black getsuga tenshou's black flame motif being a kind of throwback to the black flames of Akutabi Gamma's Karinzanjutsu, and the Ka-rin[火輪]: "Fire Ring/Wheel" having a symbol representing the sun, thus the sword style's black flames making its symbol a black sun.

So what's the point in bringing all this back up if what we're asking about is Yoruichi? Well, Yoruichi may not have had any sort of identifiable sun motif herself, but her ancestor, Chika, does. His name can read as "1000 Sun", although in the context of Yoruichi and Yuushirou's names both having words for "night" in them, it makes sense that Chika's name should actually be read, "1,000 Days", or very possibly "1000th Day" since Yoruichi's name is clearly meant to be read as "1st Night" considering her birthday is January 1st.*

*Her overall gimmick is a reference to hatsuyume[初夢], a tradition/idea that your first dream of the newyear --taking into accounts that you stay up until midnight on new years, your first dream is on Jan 1-- is supposed to have some prophetic qualities. (Incidentally, Urahara's birthday is December 31st, and given his partnership with Yoruichi could imply he's meant to be associated with the Omisoka holiday? but I'm not getting into that here.)

Anyway... all that just to say that her sun tattoo isn't really canon but if it were, it might have something to do with her ancestor, Chika. Although given that their family crest features a moon and they have a night theme to naming, I'd assume Chika's name is meant to be kind of an outlier rather than directly reflective of any family themes.

I dunno, I guess that's not really much of anything actually, since the whole black sun tangent doesn't even link back around... I guess the only thematic link is that in rather literal terms a "black sun" might be most readily envisioned as an eclipse, which in both the Shihouin and Ichigo's cases would be a way of aligning the moon and sun motifs.

(Technically I guess Isshin's relationship with Masaki is a kind of eclipse, as its the overlap of her sun/center of the universe iconography with Isshin's own moon motif via engetsu, but honestly Isshin was never actually moon themed and his shikai just felt like a lazy tack on detail that Kubo gave no real thought or consideration to beyond it being a derivative of what Ichigo already had going on.)

[acti-veg]

Since most scientific and academic literature is outdated past 5 years, do you think keeping up old studies is efficient when new evidence is constantly coming out on both sides?

I think the fact that people tend to view studies in isolation, and often only look at the most recent, is a big part of the problem we have with research being misinterpreted or overblown.

Studies can strongly suggest correlations or a set of results, but it’s only really through consensus building over time and over multiple studies that we get knowledge. It may take twenty years of research to really establish something as fact, and older studies never lose their relevance, they just provide a snapshot of the available data from the time when they were published.

For example, will always be the case that in 2014, x amount of GHG emissions were caused by animal agriculture. That will never not be true. It may not be relevant when discussing animal agriculture in 2024 (it would now be worse), but if we’re talking about animal agriculture overall being harmful, looking at studies over time and the consensus built by them would be necessary to establish the truth of the matter.

This is how we account for contrasting results, for researcher bias, narrow or otherwise flawed data sets, or just statistical anomalies. If the data has been consistent for a decade and shows an uptick or a decline, that tells us more than one really recent study would, however exhaustive. You should look for the most recent available data on any given topic, but you can’t just look at one piece of research in isolation.

[taximaximus]

What Happened?

During a sleepless night in the Safe Haven, Thomas asks Newt what happened to his leg.

TW: suicide talk and violence

Word count: 1,805

(This is my first fanfic in a hot minute so I'm sorry if there are any inconsistencies!!)

They sat on the beach during one of their sleepless nights so as to not wake any of the other inhabitants of the Safe Haven. Gentle waves lapped at the shore, stirring the sands, occasionally tickling the bottoms of their feet with an unusual rise of water before ebbing away back to normal. Newt had his knees curled up towards his chest, allowing him to lay his arms and head on top. His injured leg, Thomas noticed, stuck out about a foot farther than the other, almost as if it couldn't bear to be constricted and scrunched up.

Thomas's eyes flitted up to Newt's face, then to his leg again, and finally back out towards the sea. His fingers dug into the sand; an attempt to channel out the building restless energy that correlated with what he was about to say.

“You know, you never did tell me what happened to your leg.”

A flicker of both confusion and sadness crossed over Newt's features, so brief that Thomas almost didn't see it. Even under the dim moonlight, he witnessed the tension in Newt's hands, the way his knuckles progressively turned white.

Thomas felt guilty for bringing up the topic at all. But he needed to ask at some point. Ever since arriving at the Safe Haven and undergoing recovery, his leg has been weaker than ever, the limp more prominent after any extended period of walking. Newt pretended not to notice, pretended that it didn't bother him, yet Thomas knew otherwise. He always did when it came to Newt.

If the blonde didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't. That's been their unspoken rule whenever they found themselves in each other's company in the ungodly hours of the night, plagued by nightmares and the past.

“What do you want to know?”

Thomas lifted up a hand full of sand and let the grains cascade between his fingers. “Whatever you want to tell me.”

Newt chewed on his bottom lip in thought. The dark circles under his eyes did nothing to dim the hesitation that glimmered in the silence. The indecision that made Thomas's heart wrench, almost as if he were witnessing some private deliberation, forcing his gaze to remain by the sea. Silence stretched like eons between them without either of them moving a muscle; and after a few minutes of this had passed, Thomas figured he wouldn't get an answer.

Newt suddenly broke the silence with a sigh and laid his legs flat on the sand. He winced, and Thomas couldn't tell if that was due to the healing knife wound or the leg in question.

Digging his hands out from the sand he was so thoroughly trying to destroy with his nervous energy, he patted his thigh. An invitation, one that Newt knew quite well. The blonde glanced over, immediately meeting Thomas's eyes. There was much less hesitation this time around as Newt maneuvered over to his side, resting his injured leg on top of Thomas's lap. So that had been the culprit of the wince.

He began to massage Newt's knee, gently rubbing circles and prodding into the muscle. He could feel his leg tense and relax at intermittent intervals depending on where he massaged and the amount of pressure he applied, depending on which points were more tender than others.

This became another unspoken act between them, introduced by Newt himself the day after they arrived at the Safe Haven: whenever old injuries flared, they'd offer to massage the area around it. Something about relaxing the muscles, so they didn't have to work as hard and accidentally aggravate the pains in the process, or so they've been told by people slightly more qualified than they were.

Newt spoke against the silence that had started to consume them again. “It happened back in the Maze,” he said simply and with the weight of someone admitting it for the first time. Thomas's fingers twitched in surprise. He honestly hadn't expected Newt to talk about it, not with the way that internal battle of indecision had glazed his eyes. Thomas didn't dare look up or speak aloud, not even to say that he figured that information out a long time ago, probably from the very moment he registered Newt's limp as a thing, in fear of interrupting the stride that the blonde was slowly building himself to.

“Happened soon after I came up out of the Box. Didn't know where I was, who I was. Memories gone, like the rest of us. And I could feel-” his breath hitched, just a fraction, “feel like something was missing. More than just my memories. Something else. Someone else.” He floundered for the words to describe it, and yet, Thomas vaguely knew the feeling. It's a feeling like when he realized Chuck wouldn't smile at him again; a feeling like when he lost Minho to WICKED without much hope of getting him back; a feeling like when he thought he lost Newt forever to the combination of the Flare and the knife wound. An empty, suffocating black hole of an emotion.

“I couldn't handle it.”

Thomas's fingers froze against Newt's knee.

“Couple days in after being made a Runner, I went into the Maze-” his breathing wavered more now, “and I found the tallest wall I could…”

Thomas looked up at Newt fully now, and he saw the unadulterated fear, sadness, defeat, and regret, all rolled up into one faraway look. He wasn't sure if he'd ever seen such raw, negative emotion on Newt before, and he suddenly wished he could erase it from his memory in the same way that everything before the Maze had been erased.

“And I jumped off it.”

He dug his fingers into Newt's knee without really meaning to, earning a hiss of pain. He pulled back his leg from Thomas's grip suddenly, then froze, eyes wide, as if he just realized what he admitted out loud. Newt moved away hastily, kicking up sand, and Thomas instantly realized this as his way of putting the walls back up, to get a handle on his emotions. And Thomas didn't want that: he wanted, needed, Newt to know that this admission hadn't been a mistake. He reached out and grabbed Newt's hand, holding onto it like a lifeline. His eyes mirrored the blonde's desperation yet for a completely different reason; their gazes locked, a silent exchange of words and will. It took a minute of this for Newt to finally reciprocate a grip on Thomas's, somehow holding on even tighter.

He moved back over toward Thomas, elbows and shoulders bumping clumsily together, sides pressed against each other. Thomas knew they could find a more comfortable position if they just let go of each other for a second, yet the thought of actually doing so didn't even cross his mind. Not for one second. Presumably, it didn't cross Newt's either; when Thomas glanced at him to the best of his ability, blonde wisps of hair tickling his nose, he saw that mixture of emotions earlier, still present but significantly decreased. Instead, he appeared more relaxed. As if the memory still plagued him, but now with the admission out in the air between them, he didn't have to carry so much of the emotional weight.

“Got caught on a vine. Ended up breaking my leg in three places,” Newt continued with a voice barely above a whisper. “It was Minho who found me, took me back to Homestead. He stayed with me when he could; I think he was afraid I'd try to do it again if I was left alone for too long. He… he gave me a second chance at life, Tommy.”

“Is that why you wanted to save him so bad?” Thomas spoke up for the first time in a while, and he wasn't surprised at how hoarse his voice was from the emotion of it all.

Newt nodded. “I needed to-… I felt like that would be a good way to repay him. Even if I had to take his place at WICKED.”

Thomas looked out towards the sea. “I'm sorry.”

Surprisingly, a laugh escaped the blonde, holding the same bittersweet mixture of emotion. “Then I got a third chance at life when you saved me from the bloody Flare,” he said, then frowned. “One of these days, life will stop giving me chances.”

The memories of the Last City left Thomas forgetting how to breathe, as if he were suddenly plunged into cold water. The sickly, black veins covering Newt's skin like spider webs, liquid oozing out of his mouth with every desperate plea for death that he could choke out. Thomas battling with a version of Newt that wasn't his, more worried about the blonde's safety than his own, despite the attempts on his life. The way that, in the end, Thomas couldn't save him. Couldn't foresee the knife plunging into Newt's chest in order to save Thomas.

By the time the memories faded, he saw Newt- his cured, healthy Newt- looking up at him with pure concern written all over his tired features. The blonde moved impossibly closer to him, now the one aiming to provide comfort. Thomas felt guilty; he's supposed to be the one comforting Newt, and yet somehow, the tables had turned.

“After your leg, you don't ever… ever feel…” Thomas tried to spit out, aware of how unintelligible and small he sounded.

He's lucky that Newt knew exactly what he was trying to say. “No. Not to that degree. Not ever since you arrived in the Maze.”

He pursed his lips. The implication that Newt still felt some of the emotion that pushed him over the edge didn't sit well with him. Not even when the other tried to soften the blow by saying his improvement was due to Thomas. That felt a little too hard to believe.

Thomas rested his forehead against the side of Newt's head, his eyes squeezing shut. “You promise you'll let me know if you do?”

“I promise you, Tommy. I won't throw away the life you've given me.” Newt's voice adopted a tinge of teasing relief as he added, “besides, with how you're clinging to my side, I don't think I could ever feel that way again.”

Thomas cracked a smile. The tension slowly ebbed from his muscles, as it did with Newt's. And when silence consumed them again, both of their eyes trained out at the sea, pressed against one another, it was comforting and intimate. The water couldn't even touch them now, temporarily granting them security. The wind whispered promises of keeping their secrets until they were ready to spill them to the world.

Yet the surroundings didn't matter to Thomas. As long as he had Newt by his side, there's no place he'd rather be.

[supercityboys]

My take on Michael’s “dislike” for his own name is that it’s directly tied to how his body is a tool for capitalism and why he thinks it’s okay as opposed to being disgusted by it.

After finished his books, I immediately thought that his story was a cautionary tale about the dangers of capitalism, specifically how it literally takes over the person on an individual level.

Booster has three different “names” he has for himself:

Michael Jon Carter. This name is easily the most painful to hear, yet it is the name that completely embodies him no matter what stage he’s in. This name is NOT a persona and has never been rich (in his eyes). He got kicked out of college, applied to a rock bottom job, and spent a life of poverty in this name. His mother calls him by it, and she dies with her last words being for him to never speak to her again. Michelle also has no apprehension nor any pushback from Michael himself for using it. However, she’s the other half of him. He probably thinks of her as his direct dichotomy. Michelle dies and therefore Michael.

Booster Gold/Booster Carter. The beginning of the obsession or at least where we’re shown it. He personally assigns this name over his own whenever he wants to attribute his achievements to himself. Booster Gold is the star, the superhero, the all-American. This persona is rich with friends and without strife. This is, of course, at first. Throughout the Big Fall and Future Lost we watch as this persona deteriorates and becomes more of “Michael” than his projected one. From Trixie damn near pleading for his true name to Rip, Jack, and Trixie traveling to future and having his past laid bare as day, Booster Gold morphs from Americana folklore to fallible, yet otherwise loving guy. Even later on, when truly loved for all that is the mess he presents, even he cannot stop Booster from becoming the familiar Boos’ by the Blue Beetle.

Gold Star. Though it is the least spoken/mentioned, Gold Star is the metaphorical golden standard that Michael truly aspires to. Unlike his real name, Gold Star takes from Booster Gold. The football announcers would interchangeably switch between BG and Booster Carter, but with GS there would be no trace of his true self. Also unlike BG, theoretically, Gold Star might’ve actually achieved the incredibly hedonistic, god-like goal Michael has in mind. Maybe it was for the best that his perfectionist nature stopped him from retracting his Freudian slip…

Michael’s mental distinction between these names/moniker’s are directly correlated with his image being used for money.

To take it a step further, once Michael becomes aware of who really knows him, he’ll naturally strip the selling shtick. After Trixie knows him for real, he doesn’t show himself off anymore.

Directly after the manhunter fiasco when he’s in that manic state and Dinah, Jon, Ted, and Skeets track him down, his first reaction to the JL & co. distrusting him is to run away. Then, when it’s revealed inside the restaurant that he can’t even be himself because he’s sold his identity at the cost of fame, Booster scrams to time travel into the future where no one will know him. Once that’s taken care of, he no longer tries to make a “good” impression and becomes one of the jokesters in the JL series, ultimately forgoing fame in search of only money (even that stems from trauma). From here on out begins the true marker for his character development where he reconciles with Michael Jon Carter, solidifies Booster Gold, and forgets Gold Star.

[henrysglock]

The blood thing is confusing, so they aren't related cause blood transfusions don't make the receptor and donor related but it's presented on the play as a bloodline/family tree thing? And do you still think el and Henry can be related outside of the blood transfusions?

It's presented very ambiguously!

Brenner says that Henry's as much a father to the children as he is in relation to the blood transfusions. I know in earlier showings they specified that Henry met the woman who was pregnant with 002, and that the mothers had been receiving transfusions. However, in the showings I saw, Brenner only says that 10 children had survived the transfusions. He never mentions mothers (the mentions of pregnant women only show up in one newspaper scrolling past at like. light-speed).

Which...You truly are preaching to the science choir here, Nonnie (and I say that lovingly). The blood thing has been fucking with me for a hot minute because, well...it straight up doesn't work like that, unless you start majorly stretching biology.

Brenner says Henry has a totally unique blood type, the same blood type Brenner Sr. had after his time in Dimension X in 1943. It caused Brenner Sr. to reject all blood types for transfusions. Which...this could make Henry a universal donor, I won't write that off entirely, but it's unlikely, imo, given that Brenner mentions survival rate. This means some of the babies rejected the blood transfusions and died (whether they received it via their mother or otherwise).

So it becomes more likely that they'd be looking for kids who have a predisposition to surviving the transfusions of the unique blood.

And that, my dearest Nonnie, is genetic.

So while there may be some wild-caught kids like Kali, it's likely there are also direct descendants.

On that note:

I feel like there's definitely still some confusion about the purpose of the transfusions, specifically in the way of correlation vs causation irt powers...so I thought I'd toss my 2¢ in.

Based on TFS canon so far, Brenner is intent on exploring Dimension X to further his father's work. But in order to do that, he needs subjects that can survive it. Imo, he's looking for what made Henry able to survive whatever happened to him. From what I've gathered, the transfusions seem to be less about giving children psionic powers and more about either collecting children who are predisposed to survival in Dimension X (akin to antibiotic resistance in microbes), or predisposing them to it (like a particularly harsh vaccine that only a select few survive, which is still a genetic/selective trait...just with an extra step: do they survive the vaccination?).

The fact that these children survived the blood transfusions and have psionic powers, many of which are shared abilities, makes me think there's some specific trait in these children's biological makeup that makes them predisposed to both characteristics. The children that survived the blood also have powers, in what seems to be all cases. Children who present these powers are more likely to tolerate transfusions, and vice versa. Correlation, not causation.

Thus, I firmly don't believe the blood transfusions gave the children abilities. I think it acts as a screening process, and the psionic abilities are a correlative marker of that ability to survive Henry's blood.

We do the same thing in microbiology all the time. Selective media. Grow the culture on a medium that's deadly to anything that doesn't have the desired trait, and whatever grows is the desired microbe (see: mannitol salt agar for pathogenic staphylococci). The medium didn't cause the microbe to change in order to survive, the microbe was just predisposed to surviving exposure to the selective agent. Correlation, not causation.

tl;dr: I think the transfusions are a selection technique, a screening process, to ensure Brenner gets the most important trait: Survival in Dimension X.

The children are all genetically similar in that trait, which leads to "you're a father to them irt your blood". It's a shared genetic trait between Henry and the children, whether it came from him via sex cells or if it evolved wild-caught. They all have his blood...blood like his. And what's the most efficient way to select for a genetic trait? A breeding program. So yes, I do still think some version of Henry and El are related.

(This isn't even getting into the music choices, with Henry singing TYBTM to baby El, which is the same song his blood-parent mother sang to him as a child, or the casting choices irt: Jamie and Millie. There's the blood stuff, and then there's the Everything Else about Henry and El.)