#present that is in how she perceives and navigates the world

[meredithbeckham]

when you grew up like we did, it… it impacts how you see the world. everything is filtered through a very specific lens. and ward got that.

i think it’s important to realize you can miss something, but not want it back, paulo coelho.

[canichangemyblogname]

What the fuck even is gender?

[snowfll]

Then could I req a Lamina x capitol mentor reader fic where Reader is mentoring Lamina and after she wins she meets up with Reader again before she leaves. Lamina breaks down in readers arms from the guilt and etc with reader just comforting her (need some good hurt/comfort in my life rn) Thank you so much and take care! Feel free to take your time! - N

Promise?; Lamina

pairing - Lamina x Mentor!reader summary - Winning the 10th annual hunger games was not an easy task for Lamina, but you were there by her side through it all. Now, she had to go home—what is she going to do without you? words - 2.63 k warning- fluff! none! note - omg I'm actually in love with this, thank you so much for requesting it! It took longer to write than I expected, so I made it a little longer to make up for the wait! I hope you like, and please request more for Lamina—I'm so in love with her.

The news of becoming a mentor for the tenth annual Hunger Games struck you with a mix of frustration and resentment. The idea of relying on someone from the districts to secure your future in the Capitol was a bitter pill to swallow. The prize money, your lifeline for advancement, now hinges on the performance of a tribute.

Navigating the elite world of the Capitol Academy as a student from a less privileged background presented its own set of challenges. How you were accepted into the academy in the first place was a mystery in itself. Nonetheless, you were grateful for the opportunity you were given.

Your peers labeled you as ‘the quiet girl’ originating from your passion to read, in stark contrast to those who reveled in the social scene. The lack of wealth and connections meant you were an outsider, perceived as a freak in the prestigious academy.

Your peer’s disinterest in associating with you was mutual, creating an unspoken understanding of separation. While they indulged in weekend partying, you found comfort in the pages of books.

Despite the social divide, your academic expertise demanded recognition. Being one of the top students forced your peers to acknowledge your presence, meaning they had to tolerate you, and you had to tolerate them.

As the reaping day unfolded, the air hung heavy with anticipation. The news of a difference in this year's Plinth Prize reached you beforehand, a piece of information that carried weight beyond the customary tributes’ selection.

Sejanus Plinth, the one person who genuinely liked you, became a crucial ally in navigating the intricacies of the Capitol. Bonding over shared backgrounds that Capitol elites despised, your connection with Sejanus transcended the superficial norms of the academy. In a world where trust was a rare find, the two of you became close, sharing your hopes and fears.

Sejanus’s decision to disclose the altered details spoke volumes about the depth of your friendship. He recognized your deserving nature and understood the potential setback this change could inflict on your aspirations. Leaving you in the dust was not an option for him.

Before Dean Highbottom assigned the tributes to everyone, you told yourself you wouldn’t help whoever you got—they were district after all, and they certainly weren’t worthy of your assistance. The most you would do was introduce yourself and help whenever there were cameras on you. It’s what your fellow peers said they were going to do, so it must have been the correct way to go about being a mentor.

However, the moment you saw Lamina on the screen, your entire world flipped. Her tear-streaked face and heavy breathing elicited an unexpected wave of pity. In that moment, the stark contrast between her vulnerability and the impending games overwhelmed you.

The realization struck—Lamina, in your eyes, didn’t deserve the grim fate that awaited her. It became evident that, compared to her district partner, Lamina seemed unprepared and unfit for the brutal challenges that lay ahead.

Lamina looked to be around the age of sixteen or seventeen, only a year or two younger than you. You didn’t want to help her—you told yourself you wouldn’t. As you sat contemplating in the aftermath of the reaping, thoughts swirled about how you could protect Lamina in the arena. Perhaps, against all your odds, your guidance could be the key to helping Lamina navigate the perilous games and emerge alive.

In the hushed days following the reaping, a quiet anticipation enveloped you. The impending arrival of the tributes heightened the tension. During the limited time since Lamina became your responsibility, you delved into research and strategized different ways to keep her alive.

You weren’t excited about the games, not one bit, but you wanted to do anything in your power to help her. Unbeknownst to yourself, genuine care for her well-being had taken root, eclipsing the initial distant image you projected.

As soon as you heard the news of the tributes being held at the Capitol Zoo, you rushed out of class. Coriolanus had already met his tribute, having leapt into the van upon their arrival. It was only fair that you were able to visit your tribute as well.

Walking out of the classroom without a care in the world, you made your way to the home of the tributes. Dean Highbottom’s stern voice echoed after you, demanding your return to the classroom. Ignoring his calls, you pressed on towards the zoo with the determination to meet Lamina.

Arriving at the Capitol Zoo, you found Lamina sitting amidst the rocky surroundings, her spirit somehow untouched by the harshness that surrounded her. Despite the misery etched on her face, there was a quiet grace and a fragile beauty that persisted through the pain and suffering.

As you approached the caged area, Lamina looked up, her curious eyes meeting yours. Her tear-streaked face seemed to soften in response to your arrival; a subtle smile graced her lips—you couldn’t help but smile seeing the girl in a happier mood. The quiet grace she emanated amidst the harsh environment hinted at a resilience that intrigued you. How could one look so elegant while being held in a zoo enclosure?

“Lamina?” you began cautiously. She stood up, approaching you with a lingering smile. Her district partner accompanied her, pulling her back while sharing hushed words in her ear. He cast a protective glance your way as Lamina whispered back, loud enough for you to hear. “It’s okay, Treech. She seems friendly.”

You offered a small, reassuring smile to both of them, attempting to convey trustworthiness. Lamina, her eyes reflecting a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty, broke the brief silence, asking, “Are you my mentor?”

You nodded, affirming her question. “Yes, I’m going to help you in any way I can," you assured, hoping to instill a sense of comfort in the midst of the uncertainty that lay ahead.

“Promise?” Lamina asked, her gaze filled with hope as she searched for reassurance.

You met her eyes with sincerity; the weight of the promise was reflected in your response. “I promise, Lamina. I will get you out of this.”

Throughout her time in the Capitol, you found yourself making frequent visits to Lamina. There was no specific reason or agenda—your visits were driven solely by the desire to be in her presence. Though many mentors faked their appearance with their tributes, your intentions were clear; you wanted to offer comfort and support during the challenging moments she faced.

As the day in the arena unfolded, you discovered the depth of your feelings for Lamina. Watching as Treech, her district partner, left her on her own so he could join Coral’s pack, a surge of emotions welled up within you.

As Lamina looked heartbroken in the aftermath of Treech’s departure, a strong desire to cheer her up consumed you. The genuine care you felt for her welled up, surpassing the boundaries of a mentorship.

Unable to stand idly by, you pulled Lamina into your body, embracing her in a reassuring hug. “You’ll be okay, Lamina,” you whispered in her ear. “You don’t need him. You are strong on your own, and I’ll do anything to make sure you’re safe in the arena.”

Lamina, though initially surprised, gradually eased into the embrace. “Thank you,” she said, her voice carrying a mix of gratitude and vulnerability.

A few minutes later, a deafening explosion echoed through the arena, accompanied by screams that sent shivers down your spine. In an instant, instinct kicked in, and your first thought was to shield Lamina from the impending danger.

Without a second thought, you covered her with your own body; any concern for your own safety was overcome with a protective instinct. The echoes of chaos surrounded you as the bomb wreaked havoc, but in the moment, your sole focus was on keeping Lamina safe.

Amidst the falling debris, Lamina’s voice quivered. “What’s happening?”

“Keep your head low,” you urged, your own voice steady despite the turmoil. “We’ll be okay. Just stay close, Lamina.”

As you brought Lamina closer to the entrance, she clung onto you, fear and reluctance present in her eyes. She didn’t want to leave your side, finding a sense of security in your presence amidst the chaos. However, as you moved, two peacekeepers approached, their authoritative presence demanding compliance.

Lamina tightened her grip, and you tried to reassure her, “It’ll be okay, Lamina. I’ll meet you straight away; just let them get you to safety.” Despite your attempt to ease her worries, the peacekeepers intervened, firmly grabbing her. Lamina, reluctant to be separated, cast a desperate look back at you, silently pleading for you to stay with her.

After the tumultuous events in the arena, you found solace in spending every moment of the day with Lamina. Your connection had deepened, transcending the confines of mentorship. In the aftermath of the chaos, your presence became a source of comfort for her, and you, too, found a sense of purpose in being by her side.

Whether it was strategizing for the challenge ahead, offering words of encouragement, or simply sharing quiet moments, the atmosphere shift was clear as day, the tension of the arena replaced by moments of connection. As you exchanged playful banter, the laughter flowed effortlessly.

“You know, I think you might be the best thing that happened to me.” As you teased Lamina, a playful glint in your eyes, you continued, “In a place like this, finding something good is like stumbling upon a rare gem. And I have to say, you’re my gem, Lamina.”

She chuckled softly, a blush tinting her cheeks. “Well, you’re not so bad yourself.”

You smiled, the sincerity in your gaze matching the warmth in your words. “We might be the first pair to turn the Capitol’s Hunger Games into a love story.”

“Well, isn’t that a plot twist?” She responded, her eyes meeting yours with a smirk on her face.

As the banter continued, a subtle shift occurred. The teasing smiles transformed into something deeper—an unspoken connection sparking between you. Lamina, with a hint of vulnerability, admitted, “When my name was reaped, I never expected to find something like this.”

You leaned in, the distance between you shrinking as you whispered, “Sometimes, unexpected things are the best things.” The words lingered in the air, your eyes glancing down at her lips before making their way back to meet her eyes.

In the charged atmosphere, Lamina closed the gap, her lips meeting yours through the bars of the enclosure. The kiss went on longer than expected, and you smiled into it, realizing neither one of you was willing to let go first.

When you finally pulled apart, the smiles remained, and your forehead naturally rested against Lamina’s. The unspoken emotions hung in the air, a promise of companionship and shared determination.

“Now, there’s no chance I’m letting you die in that arena,” you declared, the gravity of the statement stained with a newfound depth of connection between you and Lamina.

In the face of the challenges and dangers within the arena, you remained true to your promise. You didn't let Lamina face the grim fate that awaited her. Through strategic planning, shared determination, and unwavering support, you guided her to victory.

As the final moments unfolded and Lamina emerged as the victor, a sense of relief and accomplishment swept over both of you. For you, it wasn’t the Plinth Prize that made you so cheery—in fact, you forgot about the award. You simply needed her alive; her survival was enough for you.

As Lamina prepared to return home, there was an assortment of emotions—relief, gratitude, and a subtle touch of unworthiness. As you sat together, there was a shared understanding that transcended words. The bond formed within the games had become a defining chapter in both of your lives.

You held each other’s gaze, silent acknowledgment passing between you. In that quiet moment, you watched as Lamina struggled with her feelings. Her face wore a sad expression, and you couldn’t help but share in her sorrow. Despite the triumph of winning and surviving the Hunger Games, there was a weight on Lamina’s shoulders that overshadowed the expected joy.

“Hey,” you spoke gently, breaking the silence between you and Lamina. “What’s wrong, honey?” The concern in your voice mirrored the empathy in your eyes as you observed the gloom etched on her face.

Lamina hesitated for a moment, her eyes meeting yours, before she finally sighed. “I should be happy, right? I won. I survived,  but..." Her voice trailed off, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

You reached out, placing a comforting hand on hers. “Surviving the games doesn’t mean you have to be happy all the time. It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?” The sincerity in your question enticed her to share the burden of emotions that seemed to weigh on her.

She hesitated before opening up even more. “I don’t deserve this—to have won, to live while the others are gone.” She paused, taking a breath, allowing her to continue her rant. “Treech, he did what he needed to do to survive—leaving me was good on his part, and he still didn’t make it. Why was I the one to make it out alive? It doesn’t make any sense.”

You squeezed her hand gently, offering a reassuring smile. “Winning is a tremendous accomplishment, but it doesn’t erase the challenges or the pain. It’s okay to feel a range of emotions, Lamina.”

Lamina went on to go into detail about the events that occurred in the arena—especially the ones you didn’t witness. How she had to kill multiple tributes to ensure her safety. How after the first few kills, she felt like she couldn’t stop.

“I’m so scared of losing all control, like I did in the arena." She told you through sobs, the fear of losing control, of becoming someone unrecognizable, was etched in her eyes.

You listened empathetically, recognizing the weight of the survivor’s guilt that burdened her. The aftermath of the Hunger Games had left her grappling with the harsh reality of loss and the difficult choices made for survival.

“What happened doesn’t define you," you assured her. “You were thrust into an unimaginable situation, forced to make choices for survival. It’s natural to feel scared, but remember, you’re not alone. I may not be with you in the districts, but I will always be there for you in spirit.”

As your words sank in, Lamina’s tears flowed even more freely. Through her tears, she choked out, “What am I gonna do without you near me?”

You reached out to gently wipe her tears away, your own eyes reflecting the pain of the impending separation. “Lamina, you are stronger than you think. You’ve already faced the worst. I will visit as much as the Capitol allows me; this isn’t goodbye,” you reassured her, your voice carrying a mixture of determination and comfort.

“Promise?”

“I promise. You can’t get rid of me that easily, honey.”

[donna-rinascimentale]

hiya! hope you doing well.

would you elaborate on the interpretation you were talking about in your Labyrinth post tags? what you said was really interesting and I never thought about it that way! 👀

also, hope you had fun watching! ✨✨✨

certainly.

i’d always been subscribed to the interpretation that the labyrinth is a metaphor for navigating coming of age, that the end of sarah’s hero’s journey is a means of balancing adult maturity with never losing a child’s sense of wonder and imagination. the fandom has thought up tons of explanations for where jareth falls in this scenario. is he a tangible antagonist, actively trying to get sarah to slip back into her old childish ways? a metaphor for adulthood, all that sarah is and isn’t ready for?

i think he’s all sarah’s creation. so does jim henson.

“He represents a lot of things that are a part of Sarah's world, what she's trying to figure out and what she's going through. … [Jareth] has no reality except what Sarah gives him, which she can constantly change.”

sarah seems to be very genre-savvy. she reads lines from a play titled the labyrinth, and she recognizes the puzzle of the two guards and implies she’s practiced it before in case she’d happen to encounter it. here, the labyrinth is a product of sarah’s fantasy, by which she navigates her adolescence and her parents’ divorce and her perceived lack of autonomy in a manner typical of a seasoned fantasy reader.

sarah is well aware that every fantasy hero needs a villain. the likeness she gives hers is that of her mother’s costar—as the former mrs. williams is a stage actress, shown in the photo on sarah’s vanity of her posing with a fellow actor who looks just like this jareth. sarah made jareth, made him as beautiful and dangerous as she believed he should be.

sarah made jareth.

to jareth, god is a sixteen-year-old girl.

imagine god, calling you by name, crowning you a king and giving you beauty and power. you were quite literally born for this. all you know is this role, building yourself and your kingdom just the way god wishes it.

then, god turns herself away from you.

you may feel betrayed. hollow, like you’ve been stripped of everything that makes you you. “you made me this way,” you might say.

Everything! Everything that you wanted, I have done. You ask the child to be taken, I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you.

“i was playing the role you put me in. what was i made for, if not you?

i can’t live within you.”

Just fear me, love me, do as I say

“let me play the role of villain, the role you made me to fill.”

and I would be your slave.

“your will be done.”

god is a sixteen-year-old girl who hasn’t yet figured out the way she wants to be worshipped. it’s a heavy burden, trying to satisfy someone who doesn’t know what she wants.

but there is hope for jareth.

fandom rarely debates on how to interpret the barn owl at the beginning of the film. we’re pretty much in consensus that it’s a manifestation of jareth, but that’s never given much thought.

when sarah asserts her power and escapes the labyrinth, jareth has once again taken the form of the owl. in the final scene, when sarah celebrates with her friends from the labyrinth, reconciling her love of fantasy with her maturity and self-growth, jareth flies away, smaller and smaller until he’s gone. here we turn to the age-old metaphor of flight as freedom.

in moving away from escapism and becoming an active participant in her own life, sarah has freed jareth from the role of villain. none of the friends in her room are human. be reminded again that jareth bears the likeness of a man present (at least tangentially) in sarah’s real life, who would likely feel disheartened knowing he’s blamed for something beyond his control.

because sarah has no more need for a jareth, there is no more jareth. and that’s arguably best for both of them.

(p.s.: i go to the theater tomorrow! i have a sarah-esque outfit put together and everything. thanks for wishing me well & know tomorrow can’t come soon enough for me… this film has been among my favorites for many many many years and each watch makes me find more to love. best cult i’ve ever joined)

[commsroom]

to me, the question of whether hera would want a body is first and foremost a question of autonomy and ability. she has an internal self-image, i think it's meaningful that the most pivotal moments in her character arc take place in spaces where she can be perceived the way she perceives herself and interact with others in a (relatively) equal and physical capacity, and that's worth considering. but i don't think it's about how she looks, or even who she is - and i think she's the same person either way; she's equally human without a body, and having a body wouldn't make her lived experience as an AI magically disappear - so much as it's about how she would want to live.

like most things with hera, i'm looking at this through a dual lens of disability and transness, both perspectives from which the body - and particularly disconnect from the body - is a concern. the body as the mechanism by which she's able to interact with the world; understanding her physical isolation as a product of her disability, the body as a disability aid. the body as it relates to disability, in constant negotiation. the body as an expression of medical transition, of self-determination, of choice. as a statement of how she wants to be seen, how she wants to navigate the world, and at the same time reckoning with the inevitable gap between an idealized self-image and a lived reality, especially after a long time spent believing that self-image could never be visible to anyone else.

it's critical to me that it should never imply hera's disability is 'fixed' by having a body, only that it enables her to interact with the world in ways she otherwise couldn't. her fears about returning to earth are about safety and ability; the form she exists in dictates the life she's allowed to lead and has allowed people to invade her privacy and make choices for her. dysphoria and disability both contribute to disembodiment - in an increasingly digitized world, the type of alienation that feels like your life can only exist in a virtual space... maybe there's something about the concept of AI embodiment, in particular as it relates to hera, that appeals to me because of what it challenges about what makes a 'real woman.' when it's about perception, about how others see her and how she might observe / be impacted by how she's treated differently, even subconsciously. it's about feeling more present in her life and interfacing with the world. but it's not in itself a becoming; it doesn't change how she's been shaped by her history or who she is as a person.

i think it comes back to the 'big picture' as a central antagonistic force in wolf 359, and how - in that context, in this story - it adds a weight to this hypothetical choice. hera is everywhere, and she's never really anywhere. she's got access to more knowledge than most people could imagine, but it's all theoretical or highly situational; she doesn't have the same life experiences as her peers. she has the capacity to understand that 'big picture' better than most people, but whatever greater portion of the universe she understands is nothing next to infinity and meaningless without connection and context. it's interesting to me that hera is one of the most self-focused and introspective people on the show. her loyalties and decisions are absolute, personal, emotionally driven. she's lonely; she always feels physically away from the others. she misremembers herself sitting at the table with the rest of the crew. she imagines what the ocean is like. there's nothing to say that hera having a body is the only solution for that, but i like what it represents, and i honestly believe it'd make her happier than the alternatives. if there's something to a symbolically narrowed focus that allows for a more solid sense of self... that maybe the way to make something of such a big, big universe is to find a tiny portion of it that's yours and hold onto it tight.

[marzipanandminutiae]

it just seems strange how many people are being weird *to you* about abby cox’s video… when it’s (imo) quite a lovely video. as an afab nonbinary person, i’m so so interested in her discussion of how people like me would have realistically navigated the past, and it’s not like she doesn’t acknowledge them! it’s just that the options were more limited than a lot of media presents them, but that’s what history IS and it’s not insensitive to discuss how real people lived realistic lives.

also you always get SO many asks when a topic like this comes up, it’s as though you’re the historical costuming rep for tumblr and people want you to defend them for perceived slights

I think it was just one person who sent several anons over the course of the day, in response to another person who asked why I didn't like L*ttle W*men 2019. I mentioned not liking that they put Jo in menswear from the waist up when they claimed historical authenticity and that choice- while not something that could never have happened; GNC women did exist, and like Abby Cox, I never claimed they didn't -doesn't make sense in the specific contexts in which they applied it.

But yeah, the vitriol over that video never made sense to me. Everyone seems to firmly believe that she basically said "screw masc-presenting women" and that's just. Not what it is at all? There's an entire section of the video about women who DID wear conventionally masculine clothing in the 19th century! She praises the costuming in G*ntleman J*ck (censoring for the tags) for threading the needle re: reflecting Anne Lister's masculine presentation but still acknowledging that she had to make concessions to the world she lived in!

(And don't even get me started on the whole Mary Wollstonecraft tizzy. Yes, she was a "quote unquote feminist" because the term "feminist" didn't exist yet and has connotations today that would be inaccurate to apply to her. Current scholarship usually calls her a "proto-feminist" or finds a more cumbersome but precise way to describe her views. Yes, she did say "cringey" things about women and fashion- namely, that the only reason women showed an interest in dress was that their Minds Were Caged By The PatriarchyTM. She was human. She was fallible. Why is that a sin to say?)

I don't know. I'm happy to offer my opinion on such things any day, but you're right- that particular Anon certainly was determined to Win the discussion, and waxed more than tiresome by the end.

[featherquillpen]

"a world of indescribable beauty": an animorphs meta

In Book #19 The Departure, we finally hear a perspective from a Yeerk, Aftran 942, about why the Yeerks left their planet and began conquering other species as hosts. One of the reasons she gives is Andalite imperialism, which makes a lot of sense: the Andalites began occupying and building military bases on the Yeerk planet before the Yeerks posed any kind of threat to them. This obviously doesn't justify enslaving other species, but it is certainly a reason why the Yeerks won't just go home to their pools: they would be submitting themselves to utter Andalite domination.

But there's another reason Aftran gives that is given a lot more emphasis within the story. It goes like this:

“In our natural state, we have an excellent sense of smell. We have a good sense of touch. We can hear. We can communicate, using a language of ultrasonic squeaks. But we cannot see. We are blind, until we enter a host. Over the millennia we have moved up the evolutionary chain to more and more advanced hosts. Eventually, the Gedds became our basic host bodies.

“They are clumsy, slow creatures. But they have eyes. Oh, you can’t imagine! You can’t imagine the first time you enter a Gedd brain and seize control and suddenly, you are seeing! Seeing! Colors! Shapes! It’s a miracle. To be blind and then to see!”

Suddenly she stooped down and snatched up a caterpillar from a leaf. “Do you see this? This is what I am, without a host body. Helpless! Weak! Blind!” She spun and pointed at the meadow. “Do you see those flowers? Do you see the sunlight? Do you see the birds flying? You hate me for wanting that? You hate me because I won’t spend my life blind? You hate me because I won’t spend my life swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge, while humans like you live in a world of indescribable beauty?”

Aftran says that Yeerks want to infest host bodies because Yeerk pools are disgusting and vision is magical. She takes Cassie on a journey in this book of becoming a caterpillar, nearly blind, and coming to appreciate once more the glory of her vision.

For years I have known that this narrative is contemptibly ableist, positioning a blind life as a terrible life worth enslaving others in order to escape. But after reading the book An Immense World by Ed Yong, a book about how animals perceive the world through a dozen different senses, I think this narrative presented in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series is not just ableist, but also betrays disdain, ignorance, and contempt for the astonishing and beautiful diversity of animal perception - a very poor move for a book series very much about the beauty of animal diversity.

The sensory world of a Yeerk

Aftran tells us about the senses Yeerks have, and we see them from Cassie's point of view in book 29 and Visser Three's point of view in The Hork Bajir Chronicles as well. They have an excellent sense of smell, a good sense of touch, they can hear, and they can echolocate. They may have other senses that Aftran didn't list, such as heat-sensing (to find Kandrona rays, perhaps) or electroception. But let's stick to the ones we know they have.

Smell, as shown in the books like book 1 and 21 where a point of view character morphs a dog, is a remarkable sense. While our eyes can only detect three colors in various combinations, a sense of smell could differentiate thousands upon thousands of unique scents. In aquatic environments, like where a Yeerk lives, a strong sense of smell can be used for navigation: different areas of water with different dissolved nutrients will smell different, creating a scent-scape. Smell also has a time dimension that vision does not. People and things leave trails of smell behind, which means a keen sense of smell can delve into the past. Approaching beings have a wave-front of smell in front of them, so you can also smell what's coming, sometimes from a very long way away, if the scent molecule is very small and volatile. More than any other sense, smell gives you access to the past, present, and future of a place.

In water especially, a sense of touch can create a fantastically nuanced sense of the world around you. Since Yeerks swim, they likely have touch receptors that give them a sense of flow, like the lateral lines of fish. In the ocean, everything is touching each other at a distance through the medium of water, via the currents created by swimming. The same would be true in a Yeerk pool: a Yeerk would likely be able to feel everything and everyone moving around it, each wriggle of a fellow Yeerk felt on the skin like a caress.

Our closest template for the Yeerks' underwater sonar shown in book 29 is the sonar of dolphins, which is even more remarkable than Applegrant showed in the various books where the Animorphs become dolphins. If Yeerk sonar is like dolphin sonar, then they are living medical scanners: their sonar can penetrate flesh to internal organs, as long as they are underwater. They would be able to perhaps hear the brain of a submerged host, or at least the skull. They would sense the contours of things buried in the sediment below the water. Sonar is very finely tuned because those who use it can adjust the frequency, length, pitch, and volume of their calls depending on what they want to detect. Imagine if you could "tune" your vision to different wavelengths: that's what sonar is like.

From all this, I think we can draw only one conclusion. That "world of indescribable beauty" where Aftran says that humans live? The Yeerks lived in one, too. It was just a different world with different indescribable beauty.

The problem with centering vision

First of all, let me be clear: the worst part about this narrative, in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series, is that it's ableist. It's incredibly cruel to blind readers to suggest that they live in a world without beauty. This cruelty shows in the way book 49 treats a human blind character, Loren, who is also depicted as having an impoverished life-- not so much because she is literally dirt poor, but because she's longing for sight, which Tobias provides her via the morphing power.

But there is another big problem: this narrative undermines a lot of the key themes that Animorphs is trying to communicate.

Within book 19 itself, the passage I quoted above is trying to make Aftran more sympathetic. She's not just a monster who enjoys controlling and dominating others; she infests hosts for a supposedly good reason: because her sensory world is devoid of beauty and joy and hosts give her access to it. It's a turning point in the story for how we view this character. But if we reject the premise that a Yeerk's life in a pool is dreary and joyless because it is not sighted, Aftran here becomes very unsympathetic. Like a colonizer who already has a countryside manor but also wants a cottage on a tropical beach, Aftran already lives in a world of indescribable beauty, but she wants to exploit other people so she can experience the beauty of their worlds in addition to her own.

One of the core themes of Animorphs is the beauty and wonder of biodiversity. Aftran celebrates the beauty of the meadow in the passage above from book 19. When the Animorphs morph dogs (book 1), their sense of smell is a wonder; when they morph dolphin (book 4), their sonar is a miracle. But when Yeerks rely on those same senses, they’re inherently inferior to vision.

For a long, frozen moment of disbelief, I did not know what was happening. I didn’t understand what my brain was receiving.

How could I? How could any Yeerk who has not had a host?

Sight!

Objects - not felt, not smelled, not reflected on sonar - but seen. It was like a sonar image, but oh, so much more. So much!

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Chapter 5)

Which one is it, Applegrant? Is the diversity of perception a good thing, or is vision the best sense and everything else a distant second? You can’t have it both ways.

The third problem is that this narrative undermines another core theme of Animorphs: anti-imperialism. This deserves its own section for a deep dive.

Anti-imperialism and the diversity of embodiment

Anti-imperialism is a core theme of Animorphs. K.A. Applegate’s father served in Vietnam. Parallels are drawn throughout the series between the Andalite-Yeerk war and proxy wars between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: the Vietnam War (in The Andalite Chronicles) and the first Gulf War (in Visser.) The Andalites and the Yeerks are like the Americans and the Soviets, causing immense suffering on other planets in their proxy wars over species that they consider either slaves or necessary sacrifices.

One of the ways that empire works is that the bodies of imperial subjects are designated inferior and in need of correction. For example, in the U.S., natural Black hair is considered to be inherently “unprofessional,” and in many professions it must be shaved down or chemically straightened to be “professional.” Now, the Yeerks are themselves imperialists, but before they became the Yeerk Empire, they were occupied by an Andalite military force that considered their bodies to be disgusting and inferior before any Yeerk had ever raised a weapon against them:

«Orders are to avoid incidents,» another Andalite said. «Don’t you know these parasites are our brothers?» This was said with a sneer.

The Gedds moved closer.

«Orders or not, these filthy slugs are not touching my ship.»

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, chapter 1)

This is exactly how empires work. It’s good writing. But then we run into a problem, which is that every Yeerk we meet in the series agrees with the Andalites that their bodies and their senses are inferior. Aftran speaks disparagingly of “swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge,” which is the Yeerks’ natural state, but humans and Andalites consider disgusting. Aftran, Visser Three, and other Yeerks think vision, an important sense for Andalites and humans, is superior to sonar, an important sense for Yeerks. In the entire series, we never meet a single Yeerk who enjoys being a slug, living in a pool, and perceiving with Yeerk senses. They are all eager to either enslave host bodies or use the morphing power to permanently change their bodies. The series justifies the Andalites’ imperialist beliefs: the Yeerks agree that their bodies are in need of correction.

Celebrating the diversity of embodiment, lifting up all bodies as different and equal, is an anti-imperialist message. What Animorphs gives us by depicting (abled) human and Andalite bodies as enviable and Yeerk and Taxxon bodies as hellish prisons to be escaped at any cost, is an imperialist message.

How to fix it

The series has been done for twenty years now, but we’re all fans here, and we like to transform our favorite works. I’ve done a lot of work in my series Dæmorphing to fix this narrative, and I think there are a lot of opportunities to do so in fic and fanart.

Be realistic about animal perception. Applegrant do a much better job than most authors on researching animals and trying to depict them realistically, but they still tend to overplay the role of vision in the various animals the Animorphs become. For example, when Ax and Marco morph wolf spider, vision is emphasized as an important sense for them, when in fact touch/vibration is much more important to them when they hunt.

Depict aliens (and humans!) who prefer other senses to vision. There’s an opportunity to do this with Loren, a blind human given an ableist narrative in canon, and Elena, a blind girl the Animorphs rescue in book 51. You could also depict a Yeerk who experiences vision via a host and decides they like their own senses better.

Show Yeerks as victims of empire, not victims of their own bodies. I think this interaction that Ax has with a Yeerk in book 52 is very revealing. He’s caught a Yeerk in falcon morph who wants to stay in that morph and become a nothlit.

«I will be free,» the falcon insisted. «I will fly. I will see. No more need for Kandrona. No more orders, no more of this horrible war. I’ll just fly away.»

I understood. This creature was like Tobias, my true shorm. What a human would call my “best friend.”

Tobias was once a human boy. A very unhappy human boy. He stayed in red-tailed hawk morph for longer than two hours. I suspect he did it on purpose. It was his way of escaping the complexities of human life.

Tobias was abused and neglected and lived in poverty and chose a hawk body to escape the miseries of his life. This is exactly what this Yeerk wants. And it’s not just about wanting to see: it’s about wanting to escape the horrors of the Yeerk Empire. This is fertile ground to reframe the Yeerk desperation to escape into a host body or a nothlit form.

The average Yeerk did not ask to become a foot-soldier of empire. Throughout the series we meet Yeerks who do not like the role they were given. If Aftran lives in a world without beauty, then it’s not because of her senses; it’s because she lives under empire. Think of the Yeerk pool on Earth compared to how a pool must be on their own planet. The Yeerk pool on Earth is a giant concrete tub. A pool on their planet may have teemed with other life. It may have had all kinds of differences in sediment, rocks, water composition, sunlight. The Yeerks on Earth are like rats in a barren cage. Their senses didn’t deprive them of “a world of indescribable beauty”: the Yeerk Empire did.

[alekyareads]

I never thought i would be back so quickly to posting on tumblr due to a lot of issues coming up in my life all at once. but i saw the discourse of who Anya loves more her mom or dad and made me realise how much of a essentially unhealthy relationship they have.

Now, before anything, let me say i love and adore the series so far and this post is not meant to hate on any of the characters. I love how they are presented in both the anime and the manga and how Endo brings out the nuances of the characters in the situations they find themselves in. Second, this post will contain manga spoilers.

Starting off with Loid/Twilight, cause currently where the manga rests, the lines are blurring between the two personas. He is caught thinking that everything he dose is for the mission, weather that is true or not is up for debate its not, he is falling for his family Hard The way anya perceives this is essential. She is younger than six, and at that age a child is still learning and cannot tell the difference between rejection/acceptance. if we look at a teenager, an example of behaviour could be if someone found out their friend was only with them for the benefits, weather it may be social or related to studies, that person will be hurt. Anya sees the 'for the mission' As taking part to save the world with her papa. When Loid brings up plan-C, Anya thinks of her mother as competition. Not necessarily as 'papa will send anya back to the orphanage if she doesn't get stellas' type, but papa will not care about me anymore or i am not the priority type. If at some point in the manga when all the secrets are revealed, if the Forger family doesn't sit down and have a talk about their thoughts, Anya will grow up to to have many issues on a healthy relationship dynamic in her daily life.

For Yor/Thorn Princess, the issue arises in two parts. one, Yors relation with herself, And two, How Anya perceives her mother as competition. First we know that Yor never really interacted with people and wes solely focused on her job as a hitmen and taking care of Yuri. This lead to her having insecurities and being unable to navigate social situations properly. This is seen in how she interacts with anya. She is accepting of anya the second she meets her and this relation has progressed quite fairly until Yors interaction with melinda Desmond. Here, we see two distinct paths of thought. Yoris slowly getting over her insecurities by interacting with a group of mothers and learning more of herself. While anya sees her mother as competition. Thus, what I predict is that some time in the future, Yor hears Anya say something about her in her childlike whims and the genuine fear of not being taken care of anymore, this will break a few of the bridges built between the mother and daughter.

Yet, even after looking through all of this, I still believe that there is love present in the family. Weather or not some may be ready to call it 'love', There is care and looking from the first episodes, we can see how well written and nuanced the character emotion and interaction towards each other have grown. And this family slowly yet surely growing from a place of lies and deception and fear to acceptance, love and care is one of the favourite parts of the series foe me.

[h3l1k3]

I've officially been on HRT for 2 years now.

For some reason the end of year 2 feels like a much bigger deal than the end of year 1. I guess that one year ago I was still very much "in the middle of it" and transitioning related things were a lot more present in my mind back then. They still are, and I'm still "in the middle of it" (still one some waiting lists for treatments I want at least), but the feeling is different. All that stuff is in the back burner while I work on things that seem more important to me in the present moment. After 2 years on HRT it feels like I've "made it" somehow.

It'a interesting thinking back to earlier points of my transition - and to the time before I started transitioning. It feels like life was somehow easier back then, but in a way I would never wish to return to. I spent years just going through the motions and doing what I thought I had to do until I'd be able to go on hormones. I remember the 1st month's relief and euphoria from finally getting what I had wanted for so long and the terrible depression of month 2 and 3 once it finally sank in what a long wait it'd be before I'd start seeing tangible results but without all the defence mechanisms that had kept me going for years before. I was able to power through so much by thinking about how in some distant future I'd be able to transition, but once I had it in my grasp, having to wait any longer for the life I wanted felt unbearable.

That's a striking contrast between my life pre- and post-hrt. Pre-hrt I struggled to see a future for myself - post-hrt the full weight of the future is constantly pushing down on me. I detest my younger self for the decisions she made when she couldn't see a future for herself, because now the me that wants nothing more than to see her vision of tomorrow fulfilled has to pay the price.

It feels like everything is different now - but nothing has changed at all. I'm still the same person I think. I don't think there's been a marked change in my personality at least. But the things on my mind now are so different from the ones I worried about earlier into my transition. I remember "chasing the mean": wishing I could rid myself of every little thing that made me deviate from the norm of a regular woman. Some worries pertaining to that have long been fixed by hormones while others just seem silly to me now. I remember wishing that I could be shorter - but what for? I actually quite enjoy some of the things that make me stand out, like being a little tall for a woman.

But that has perhaps been the biggest struggle for me this last half a year or so. I recall venting to my partner about how frustrated I felt with how much of what is expected of women revolves around heteronormative gender roles. As a trans woman exclusively attracted to women, this is a space that feels hard to navigate sometimes. To be a lesbian in a heteronormative culture is in itself a subversion of womanhood. But to subvert womanhood, you must first be recognized as a woman.

But with every day that passes I become more confident in who I am, and the world seems to perceive me as such as well. As much trouble as transitioning has been, I only wish I had gotten started with it sooner.

[lorata]

The attitudes that your D2 characters have when it comes to Capitol citizens (and this is based off memory) - floofy, frivolous, vain, gossipy - all of that reminds me of language used to criticize femininity today. How do D2 women navigate their own hyper-masculine culture, and how do they perceive themselves in opposition to Capitolites?

there's so much happening here let me try and break it down

1.) D2 characters criticize the Capitol using language that is used to criticize femininity today

yeah no, I’m gonna call foul on this one right away.

the elite Capitol citizens are characterized in canon as vain, gossipy, caring about frivolous things, wearing floofy clothing, etc. and calling that gender commentary is misreading at best and disingenuous at worst. like yes there is something to be said about how fluidity in gender presentation appears to be reserved for the upper class while the binary is enforced on the poor (with death games, even!) but I don't think that's what this ask is talking about. 

none of those traits are essential to femininity, but they ARE essential to being a highly visible Capitol citizen. it is FAIR to criticize the Capitol for these things! conversely, it's stupid to do the same thing to women. yeah? it is therefore not a valid leap to say "people don't like the Capitol because the citizens are vain and care about clothes, but in real life WOMEN are stereotyped to be vain and care about clothes, so characters who don't like the Capitol also hate women, how do you defend that"

that is putting real-world gender values onto a dystopia where, let's stop and remember this, one group of people takes the other's children and sends them into death matches for their entertainment

the truth is everyone gossips! everyone is vain! everyone wears weird clothing! but -- this is the important part here -- in the Hunger Games, the rich scarf down appetizers while poor children are forced to perform a romance on camera for a cup of soup, and they wear red-carpet makeup and expensive outfits the whole time 

we are not supposed to look at the Capitol and go "wow, mocking makeup culture is misogynistic, slay queens!" we're supposed to think about 24/7 coverage of the Royal Funeral while millions starve

as I have said before and I will say again, this is not about gender, it's about class

2.) D2 women exist within a hyper-masculine culture  

I’m gonna be honest, this one makes me a bit tired

D2 is not a culture that teaches masculinity. If we attribute athleticism or physical prowess to masculinity, that’s our problem. If we attribute pathological obsession with usefulness and loyalty and contribution to society, or unquestioning adherence to authority, to masculinity, that’s our problem. If we decide that violence is inherently masculine, again, that’s our problem. Violence is not inherently masculine and I’m a bit leery that anyone thinks so. A culture that inculcates the death games is not teaching their kids to emulate maleness, it’s teaching kids to worship authority to the point they become willing cannon fodder for the rich. 

I have written so much in my stories about how D2 is not a culture that values stereotypical masculinity, it is a culture that values work. Outside the murder machine, softness is valued. Kindness is valued. Domesticity and shared partnership in homemaking are valued. Men and women braid flowers into each other’s hair as a courtship ritual. Characters who have weird ideas about gender roles – e.g. Odin – are time and time again called out by the narrative as being weird. Nobody thinks this! Why are you like this! Everyone’s making fun of you! When people learn about Lyme’s upbringing (the few who she confides in), they’re not like “oh yeah those were all normal things to happen”, they are like wow, that was messed up. 

Petra’s inability to articulate why being dressed up like a little doll upsets her is so much more layered than “ew frilly dresses” and reducing it to a critique of femininity is actually kind of sad. she’s autistic and the texture makes her want to claw her skin, but she’s been trained not to speak. it represents the erasure of her bodily autonomy. it’s a manifestation of the way her disability has changed the way people look at her. very literally, it makes her into a doll that capitol citizens play with for their entertainment. and yes, also, she is butch and has never been allowed to explore or even realize that about herself because not once in her entire life has she been allowed to dress herself, because at 13 the trainers looked at her hair and eyes and height and said “pretty” and chose her angle for her, and it takes her years of recovery and slowly, slowly making changes to make her gender presentation into something that clicks. 

the traits valued by society are found in men and women and the tensions are usually indicative of something bigger. most women in D2 are living their life, man. keep your head down, work hard, love harder, give something back, try to leave something worthwhile behind. the kids who die for us deserve at least that much.

3.) D2 women in opposition to Capitolites

D2 women see themselves as apart from the Capitol because Capitolites don’t work, and D2 is all about work. work outside the home, domestic work, serving the community, it doesn’t matter, but D2 values contributing to family/others/society in some way and Capitol citizens don’t seem to share that

as I’ve said before, the people of D2 have a weird tension in their head where they have to respect and fear the Capitol -- and they do! -- but they also know that none of these fancy people could last a day in their jobs, and there's a point of pride in that. they keep the country running. their blood, sweat and tears makes the lives of the rich possible. they are the bedrock of this country, dammit, quite literally, it's the Rocks District

it's the whole ... "coastal elites" phenomenon, right, these rich people are out of touch and they don't know anything about REAL working class people's lives! except that this is a dystopia and these rich people watch the working class children fight to the death and also have giant feasts while the working class literally starves, so it isn't a made-up class war to keep people from looking at the top, that’s inter-district conflicts. this is the top

(now obviously there are jobs in the Capitol, somebody's gotta clean the solid-gold toilets over there – this is a bar joke – but those aren’t the people you see on the TV)

the question of how do women in D2 handle the issue of usefulness -- that's the real one. Petra gets a terrible injury and wants to commit suicide because she can't bear being helpless, and working through that is the first major character arc for her. Emory feels like she didn't "earn" her right to survive because she didn't kill enough people in a bloodthirsty enough way (geez! let's stop and think about that for a second!) and has to deal with the idea that just surviving, living, being here on the planet, being loved, is enough. Heidi -- Brutus' mother -- becomes the breadwinner for her family after her father runs off when she's a kid, lying (badly) about her age to go down the quarry as a young teenager, partly to provide but also to earn her family's honour back. everything is tied to use, because being useless, not contributing, is the worst thing you can be

(I've had discussions in other asks re: this compulsive collective usefulness and (dis)ability in D2 but let's not get off-topic lol)

tl;dr people as a whole in D2 position themselves against the Capitol in terms of usefulness and providing for the community, including women. the whole ... appearance thing, that's more a shorthand. if you have time and money to go to endless parties and buy expensive clothing and spend 6 hours putting actual glowing lights into your hair (or whatever it is the Capitol does), what are you giving back to your community? pointing to the visuals of the Capitol and saying "we're not like THEM, we're good, salt-of-the-earth people who work hard" is a handy way to reinforce those community standards. it has nothing to do with getting gussied up for the harvest dance.

(now. the subset of D2 that does do the social climbing Capitol stuff is like, you backwards idiots, where do you think our status and privilege comes from, but that's a whole other story)

[oldxenomorph]

carnation : what is your muse’s relationship with their gender ? how do they express or not express this relationship ?

magnolia : describe your muse’s relationship with nature & the natural world .

sunflower : what brings your muse the most joy in life ?

botanical headcanon prompts

carnation: what is your muse’s relationship with their gender? how do they express or not express this relationship?

The Emperor’s gender is strange because neither she or her family adhere to human/organic concepts of gender. I would classify the Emperor as being nonbinary, but I would also do the same for most members of her family. (Especially the shapeshifters like Nyarlathotep, Yhoundeh, Lilith, and Alucard.) It’s probably the best descriptor there is in regards to what her gender even is. She’s nonbinary in the very literal sense that she is beyond the gender binary.

Both of the Emperor’s forms (her true form in the Black Palace and her regular Reaper Emperor form) are masculine, complete with working male parts. During her time amongst humanity as Shepard, her shape was masculine but with female parts. She is a daughter, the No Life King's own flesh and blood; she had her bat mitzvah when she-as-Shepard turned 12 years old. She is both a mother (the Xenomorphs were born from her blood alone) and a father (she sired the Princes of Entropy with Nyx). Her titles are masculine-as-gender-neutral: Emperor, Great Lord. Her pronouns are feminine and gender neutral: she/her and they/them, but most people simply use she/her when referring to her individually and they/them when referring to her and the Reapers collectively. She uses the term wife because that is what Nyx calls her, to her it holds more power and more romance than just the neutral term "spouse": the wife of the Night Incarnate, the wife of the Eternal Night.

She’s never felt conflicted about her gender or how she presents herself. Why should she care if organics can’t comprehend her? Why should she bend to their perceptions of gender identity and presentation? The Emperor has always been comfortable with who she is, what she is, even during her time as Shepard. She’s not completely dismissive of gender, as a concept, she understands that it’s important to a lot of people and cultures. For that reason, she doesn’t mind it if organics mostly perceive her as female. (I’m particularly thinking of when Urdnot Bakara/”Eve” tells fem!Shepard at the end of their conversation in ME3, “I’m glad to see humans treat their women with respect. Your people have placed a lot of responsibility on you.”)

Lilith and Alucard’s parenting had an impact on how she presents herself. Lilith, like her father and mother, takes whatever form she wishes, whatever form is suitable for the situation, whatever form she needs, whatever form fulfills her desires the most. Alucard’s vampirism from Lilith has made him into something of an eldritch horror, he can change his form at will: a shapeless mass full of eyes and gore and centipedes, an old Voivoide, a handsome Count, a beautiful woman, a sadistic teenage girl. Gender doesn’t mean much to him anymore, he detached himself from the concept a very long time ago. The Emperor is naturally indifferent to gender and the gender binary, but organic life doesn’t do well with indifference. However, both Lilith and Alucard have spent a long time amongst humanity and are sensitive to the way organics perceive gender, so they made sure the Emperor-as-Shepard understood that so she may navigate a world that is vastly different from her family.

Her gender's a complicated thing to put into words.

magnolia: describe your muse’s relationship with nature & the natural world.

The Emperor respects the natural world, but it is not her realm. Not entirely. Her great aunt, Shub-Gorgoroth, is the Dark Lord of the Wood. She and her Thousand Young govern the life and death cycles of the natural world. Many times when she was the young Shepard, Lilith would take her to see Shub-Gorgoroth so she could impart upon the young entity her knowledge and lessons about nature and the natural world.

At the same time, the Emperor also knows and respects that organic life has always tended, stewarded, and shaped the wilderness. Nature is never truly untouched, it requires both the natural events of the planets and the hands of sentient organic life in order to evolve and thrive. It doesn’t make sense to her that the ideal form of nature is one that is untouched by humans/organics. It is a process that every species has done in every cycle. Sometimes they do it too much and sometimes it’s difficult to go back after doing so much damage. She’s seen countless examples of species who have rendered their worlds inhospitable because they weren’t careful, like the drell. Earth was nearly one of those worlds, but then humanity discovered Prothean cache on Mars.

So, the Emperor curates.

In the Ziggurat, there is a garden level. Full of the Emperor’s favorite flowers from all over the galaxy, the most sensitive and sentient ones kept in special greenhouses where they are cared for. Xenomorphs sleep under cascades of violet from wisteria trees. Benches under weeping willows for whenever anyone in the Ziggurat wants a reprieve. Walls of blood red roses, a request from Lilith. Marigolds for Cassilda and Hastur. Great Grecian vases filled with lavender under a black gazebo, built just for Nyx. There are flowers that only bloom at night and some that grow only in the darkness.

In the deepest parts of the garden, there are fungi and alien mycelium that have recorded the cycles of extinction in their vast networks. Archives of the Reapers and the Emperor's work, gifts from Shub-Gorgoroth herself.

sunflower: what brings your muse the most joy in life?

A not at all comprehensive list of daily/current things that bring her the most joy:

Nyx

The Great Family (even when they’re annoying)

Her daughters, the Xenomorphs

Her sons, the Princes of Entropy

Her new granddaughters, the Nyctomorphs (born from the Third Prince)

Spending holidays like Passover and Rosh Hashanah together with the Great Family

Watching night descend upon the city

Having sex with Nyx, some may even quantify it as a lot of sex

Sometimes all Nyx wants in bed is to just to be in her arms, nothing makes her happier than fulfilling her wife's wishes; not every time needs to be filled with lust and passion, the quiet moments are just as wonderful

Every morning, the First Prince presents her all the newly born Xenomorphs and she spends time connecting with each one before giving them their names

Sometimes, the Queens (the ten original Xenomorphs, her first daughters, born from her blood) will detach themselves from their ovipositors and seek out her true form in the Black Palace, where they are cradled by her as they rest in her presence.

When the youngest Xenomorphs return to her and repeat all the gossip they heard on the Citadel

Pride still bubbles up inside her chest whenever her father calls her “little dragon”

Surprising Nyx with a visit while she’s working

Getting summoned by Nyx while she’s working to help relieve her stress and satisfy her needs

Lilith and Alucard still fuss over her, which she finds endearing

Nyx sharing a bottle of Ambrosia with her

Sometimes when they're sitting and enjoying the beauty and calm of the garden level, Nyx will rest her head on her shoulder

Running her finger's through Nyx's hair

Whenever she and Nyx get a visit from the people they have particular fondness and affections for

Receiving kisses on her cheek from family members

Getting a visit from Liara (by the time the events in Andromeda begin in 2819 CE, Liara is 742 years old; she, Grunt, and EDI are the last ones in the universe who remember when the Emperor was Shepard.)

Eating stars, especially ones that are on the edge of death

Gazing out at a night sky full of stars, admiring her wife's work

and many more things I can't think of at the moment

[velvetsands]

idk i’m in this weird place. like i have come to the realisation that i’ve never actively chosen the objectively easy path in my life however all of those paths have been relatively easy when compared to others. and now i look back and go oh wow yeah but… others had it worse. but that shouldn’t change my experience…

i worked extremely hard during honours in a prestigious lab which made me a highly sought after graduate. i moved interstate alone at a young age because i wanted more in life. no friends or family for support, and yet found my feet. i navigated truly awful supervisors and friends who turned out to be not so nice after all. not once but twice. holding space and love for my brother who is an addict/recovering alcoholic. loving and supporting my sister as she completed one of the hardest degrees in the world to pursue her dreams of architecture. i secured the best phd project with best supervisor which yielded the best results to produce a potentially world changing patent. presenting nationally and abroad to some of the biggest giants in my field - and being formally recognised for my talent. doing lifesaving saved the way i interact with my own life. swimming at 6am. climbing the world’s tallest free-standing mountain. being 100% secure with my long-distance relationship for over a year now. enough to now move interstate again and most likely internationally in the near future. none of this can be really perceived as easy. and some of this is luck but it’s also time to realise that my personal perseverance, resilience, work ethic and general demeanour/outlook play a considerable part too.

i have been absolutely honoured to receive the support and encouragement and indeed love from so many people near and far this week. it was once my worst fear to be perceived however maybe it’s not so bad after all. people really like me and will seem to miss my presence. it warms my heart. i have been careless in my vulnerability to them too because they deserve to know how much they mean to me. my colleague’s dad(!) made me a whole kilogram of fried rice because he knew how much i liked it. like wow.

today is the first day that i realised that all my needs are being met. like truly 100% met. and it’s indescribable.

thank you universe for letting me walk in the light.

[canichangemyblogname]

This was in my drafts from April 2023:

I've been beating myself up, mentally, about my identity recently. Because, first, what the fuck even is a man? And I understand that I get to define that question myself, but it's still a necessary question to ask. Second, I've been thinking about not having much community with cis, het men.

I left these tags on a post recently:

#And a nb (she/they) contributor to the series #added that they understood- a little- as she too had been raised to be a woman #in a patriarchal society #and that society interacts with them as a woman and treats her as such #and they navigate the world as a someone perceived like and treated like a woman #And they both talked about how neither of them really have community with men #they may even ‘look masc’ and they may sometimes present outwardly ‘like men’ #but they have never really related to men and they never felt a sense of belonging or acceptance among (groups of) men #And that makes complete sense to me #I get that. Because in a patriarchal and white supremacist society what is a man?

I've just been mulling this over. It has made me realize I need to make more genderqueer & queer friends, first of all, because I do have community out there. But this also made me pause and really think about how accurate the label "man" might be for me. And I don't think that doubt will ever go away. I don't know if it's ever possible to be 100% sure in a cissexist society.

I also know that a large part of my doubt comes from fear. Because this isn't gonna be "easy." But while, yeah, it might be easier to live in ignorance, ignoring crucial parts of myself, I have to ask, "At what cost?"

I've only just begun socially transitioning among friends and friends only. And I've been making small changes in my presentation that make me happy. And ultimately, that's what this is about. This is about doing something which makes me happy.

I have no idea where the future will take me, but I also find myself looking forward to having a future, and I find myself seriously considering a future for the first time in my life.

The doubt may never go away, but I feel like if I prioritize happiness, I can't go wrong.

[ccaptain]

an in-depth analysis about kaeya and his parents in the abyss soulmates verse:

first of all, it's important to start this essay with this prefaction: kaeya's parents DO love him, and very very much, and have both idolized and infantilized him. it's time to explain exactly what this means.

their affection is not akin to what a parent feels for their kid, considering their backgrounds:

- kaeya's father is a gruff man, born and raised in conflict and to always respect the elders. he has climbed where he is with his strenght and determination alone, has made many sacrifices and never regretted doing so, and has plunged many times into battle. he's a callous man, hardened by the circumstances and experiences. he has been in the eye of the cataclysm fighting without a stop until everything was over, and he commands instictive respect everywhere he goes, and this is why he was chosen as the ruler of khaenri'ah

- kaeya's mother was born and grown in a wealthy clan before becoming an alberich. she has learned how to adapt to the unspoken rules of royalty, and was known as a spoiled rotten heir. this helped her pratice in recognizing false friends who wanted benefits from the real ones, helped her navigate through manipulations and verbal traps and it has become like a second skin for her. she was the sole teacher kaeya had in these matters, but even after settling for life as the ruler alongside her husband she retains the manners of royalty, with her passive-aggressivene silences and facial expressions and subtle manipulations

there aren't two people, in the entire teyvat, more different than them. not only that, but they carry their own baggages of behaviors and traumas that were not resolved before they had kaeya. they didn't had this magical epiphany at seeing their son in his crib, crying softly, with a little turf of cobalt hair on his head. they didn't had the impulse to protect him instantly and shield him from all the horrid things in the world, no. instead, his father held him with his expression softening and promised him that he'd make a warrior out of kaeya, and his mother swore that he would have never gone defenseless into a battle, be it of weapon or wits. their heir, their pride and joy.

they knew the cataclysm was coming, so they wasted no time in loading responsability upon responsability on his young shoulders.

even since he was able to think, there has been the weight of countless expectations placed upon kaeya's shoulders: he was immediately treated almost as an adult, and trained for his upcoming role appropriately. there were punishments if he failed to upholds these expectations, and big ones at that. no water, no food, no sunlight. locked in a room alone with his thought, because this was a concept of ''death'' they wanted kaeya to learn that if he fell, then khaenri'ah would also fall with him. as he grew without failing once again, with his parents proud gaze on him- and with those, their disappointed silence if he fell, and a reward of aknowledgement if he manages to grasp himself back to the surface after failing. without a doubt for kaeya this has always been love: to discipline, to teach and share knowledge to better oneself. he can never see what his parents did as indoctrination, for it was useful for his growth and he has learned many lessons, as a person in position of power should. people count on him to be better, to ALWAYS be better, and he needs to keep improving.

the fact that their love is present but in such a way that it alarms even the tsaritsa, an archon who ( in this verse ) can perceive love, is very telling. they see kaeya as their successor, as their next ruler, and yet he's also seen as a child still growing at the ripe age of 22.

if somebody brought up the fact that kaeya has been emptied of his hobbies and dreams to abide to his duty, if they got convincing enough, his parents would be proud of him first of all: they also have sacrificed most of their lives to ruling khaenri'ah. then, they would get suspicious about their son being ''emptied'' and investigate, if anything to see if it's a thing that's easy to see. and, once they determine that it isn't by observing kaeya for a measly hour when he's acting as all affable and charming, they'd dismiss it and breathe in relief that it was, most certaintly, a lie. they're blind to the truth, there can be no failures or even the possibility of failure as long as kaeya succeeds as the next prince.

kaeya's father has always ruled, always given orders. and kaeya's mother has always been among the powerful, always scheming and plotting for the next move, living in opulescence. they wish to retire, but would grow restless and try to sweet talk their way back into the palace soon, once their little dream of ''moving into a cottage by the sea'' would be something they always wanted but that would revolution their lives: without their servants and in a very limited space, always in eachother's face without much privacy among the four rooms of their cottage, they'd understand that this is not the life they wanted and make their way back into the royal palace. however, at that point kaeya would be the king of khaenri'ah, with his power passed as soon as the previous rulers retired. without a doubt they'd want that power back with less fuss as possible. thus, worming their way back into the whole thing with their proud, happy son welcoming them back would be more than possible: kaeya loves his parents very much, of course he'd welcome them back.

i think that the saddest thing that there is is that kaeya has lost most of his personality and sense of self for a silly, unrealistic dream made by two people that were supposed to look out, protect and cherish him. he lost most of his hobbies, most of his interest and has his brain reprogrammed to put khaenri'ah first even before himself, and the entire thing would still have his parents whispering behind his back and never leaving him alone, always contesting his decisions just because they want a say in the nation they wanted to retire from... and his emptiness goes unnoticed, if not even praised.

inhales.

man.

[commsroom]

whenever i talk about hera and embodiment i feel like i first need to make a case for why i think it works thematically / why it might be something she'd choose, given the option, but sometimes i just wanna say, like. it's interesting to me to think about how she'd be perceived, or what she would perceive differently by virtue of it being a novel perspective. in her own self image, i think she's generally unaware of her own expressions - that they either don't communicate what she's feeling, or that they communicate too much of what she's feeling - because it's not something she's ever had to take into account in social interactions before. if she had a body, i think she'd be overly precise in her movements, like she's thinking through each individual part of it the same way she'd do with the hephaestus.

if her body was more biological - would that put her more at risk of disease? would her muscles or motor functions be underdeveloped? if it was more mechanical - what environmental hazards would that expose her to? what maintenance would she need, and who could she trust with it? either way - would there be physical tells in her appearance or presentation that could make it difficult for her to navigate public spaces? would her actual appearance be at odds with her self image, and how would she feel about that? with or without a body, if she meets new people on earth, especially if she meets them online - when and how does she broach the topic of being an AI? what issues of safety / trust are there; how do people generally respond?

it sounds kind of terrible to be like "i think a lot of aspects of this would be difficult and frustrating for her, and i think she would still have chronic pain" when it's something that i want for her, that i think she would want, and that i like thinking about. but that's part of the point, for me. it's about choosing to live in the world when having a body feels like an unnatural state - when it feels like everyone has some shared history and experience that you're an outsider to. it's about being visible in a world that might be more comfortable if you weren't. it's about building a life worth living with disability.

but it's also just about... existing, without needing to be useful or having a purpose. i don't know if i have answers for a lot of these questions, but i like to think about them because... there are a lot of things that hera very much canonically thinks about and has some concept of, or desire for, but she doesn't have the ability to experience. i want her to experience those things. i want her to have access to physical comforts, because it kind of breaks my heart when i think about how she knows physical pain, but the closest thing to a good sensation she's ever really had context for is relief.

[janavimishra09]

Title: "E-Learning Evolution: Navigating the Digital Classroom Revolution"

The emergence of online learning signaled a massive change in education in recent times. It was initially perceived as supporting our conventional modes of instruction but has since outgrown them to become the main instructional technique all over the globe. The use of digital platforms, breakthroughs in technology and world events such as the coronavirus outbreak have speeded up the acceptance of online learning, thus revolutionizing how we teach, absorb knowledge and relate with educational material.

1. The Digital Classroom Revolution:

Digital platforms and the internet have brought a new way of receiving educational content and instructions known as e-learning or online learning. It is more flexible, accessible and scalable because it includes interactive video lectures and multimedia presentations, virtual classrooms and online assessments that are not found in traditional classroom arrangement. Access to education has been democratized by the digital classroom revolution, which in turn has smashed geographical barriers and made it possible for people of all age groups and cultures to learn.

2. The Benefits of Online Learning:

Online learning comes with a variety of advantages for both learners and educators including student-centered learning experience, ready access to study materials as well as no specific time restrictions. Online learning allows instructors to explore new ways in which they can collaborate with others innovate and reach out to various students. They can develop interactive multimedia materials that are interesting , monitor how learners are performing as well as give them instant responses.

3. Adapting to the Digital Classroom:

Even though there are many benefits to taking courses through the internet, they are not without drawbacks which are specific to learners as well as those who teach them. Moving into the virtual classroom means getting used to new ways of thinking about education; it is different from traditional school rooms in terms of both the knowledge that teachers have and methods used by them when interacting with students. In order for one to be successful at taking an online course he/she should possess some discipline because nobody will be checking on him; there won’t be any bells here signaling that class starts or ends every hour like in our schools For students to effectively navigate online courses, they need to have self-discipline, time management skills, and digital literacy. On the other hand, tutors have to accept new technologies, restructure the curriculum for online delivery, and think of interesting ways of keeping learners engaged in virtual settings

.4. Strategies for Success in Online Learning:

For one to do well in the digital classroom, several strategies can be used by the students to improve learning. Such include; creating a serene place away from any distractions to study from, setting aside study periods which are consistent and taking part in discussions and activities online actively. Moreover, they can also make use of online forums, virtual tutoring services, multimedia learning materials among other digital resources when studying.

5. Embracing Innovation and Collaboration:

The future of online learning is in innovations and cooperation. To boost the efficiency and engagement of online learning experiences, instructors and colleges should keep on delving into fresh technologies, pedagogical approaches and instructional design principles.By embracing collaborative tools, virtual reality simulations, and artificial intelligence-driven adaptive learning platforms, educators can create immersive and interactive learning environments that cater to diverse learning styles and preferences.

In Conclusion:

The rise of online learning represents a transformative shift in the field of education, offering unprecedented opportunities for access, flexibility, and innovation. By embracing the digital classroom revolution and adopting strategies for success, students and educators can harness the power of online learning to unlock their full potential, broaden their horizons, and shape the future of education in the digital age.