#the diamond system

[doctorsiren]

“Every thought is sabotage

What a fool I am

But how long can we keep playing?

Game after game

No losing game after losing game”

[fruitsofhell]

Something I really like about Rose Quartz's characterization is how dedicated the writers were to making what she did morally grey. Idk it would have been really easy for the twist to be she was Just Evil, especially learning she was related to the main villains, but no they created this very vague character who even in her appearances feels mysterious. If anything Rose is the one thing that is less clear to me after my rewatch, because now seeing the nuance in her character pulls me out of a black-ane-white view of her and into one that is just... foggy.

But a vibe I do get from Rose, is that despite clearly being incredibly compassionate, she's someone who lacks empathy in the case of the ability to fully realize others' autonomy and thought processes. There's just a lot of decisions she makes that feel aloof in an odd way, and when combined with how childish she can be it can give the impression she sees everything as a game. But it's still clear that she cares and is genuinely moved by the Earth, and when her entire truth is revealed you can see how ideologically honest she was. Even if it feels like her beliefs are just so she can have fun, but that is part of freedom, the freedom to vibe and explore and do silly things she couldn't.

That attitude clearly just comes from her position as Pink Diamond. It was an oppressive role emotionally, but not as literally oppressive as the lives of those around her. I think her relationship with Pearl is where I find the most of the part of me that sees her as compassionate but unempathetic. Pink can't fathom what it's like to have been born to be an obedient servant and how that would cloud Pearl's judgement. How telling her "I'm going to fight for this world but you dont have to" would mean nothing to her because she is still obsessed with her, how entering a romantic relationship with something while they're still effectively your servant is unhealthy, or how spending her life flirting with other men would probably tear your servant-to-lover-to-ex up inside lmao. With the first she obviously meant to be giving her a choice because she cares about Pearl, but she can't understand how to truly give Pearl freedom of choice she can't treat her like a fully freethinking person. With the second she doesn't understand how her power has an unhealthy impact on her bond with Pearl. And with the last it's not at all that Rose isn't allowed to move on, but I just always found she has a lack of awareness of Pearl's jealousy and misery that's a bit inappropriate. Not that you can't assume she has already let Pearl down easy or cares about her coping, but it's never shown, which feels like a deliberate choice.

I'm working on a more organized theory about Rose's characterization, but it is deeply fascinating. Her and Pearl's relationship is as well, I feel like it's sometimes characterized as just a mean jealous ex situation but like it's way more fucked than that, and is a great exploration of power dynamics, obsession, and grief. Love me some toxic doomed yuri.

[thegoldenshi-shi]

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Song: Love and War by Diane Birch

A small Twisted wonderland animatic for the first two overblots. I learned a lot and had fun, may go back and do the rest of the song at some point.

[phosbogey]

[hellolulu]

[Damian in the Minecraft server excitedly showing Jon his extensive (and ethical) farms that he made while Jon was banned from Minecraft to focus on studying for tests at school]

Jon: ... yeah, you're so shit at Minecraft. Looks nice though!

Damian: ?! what do you mean? I worked hard on these????

Jon: *sigh* I'll show you what a real Minecraft farm looks like!

[Jon brings him to his "farm" and proudly shows off the fact you cannot tell the pixels apart as there are so many animals in one spot]

Damian: I....... have no words for this. Our friendship is about to end over this. Think of their feelings.

Jon: but this is how you play Minecraft 😭😭 next you're going to tell me you don't even eat the animals at your farm and they're just decorative 😭

Damian: I'M A VEGETARIAN. 😡😡😡😡 I MAKE BREAD. 😡😡😡😡😡😡 LOG BACK OUT. 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

[quiltofstars]

The "Diamond Ring" during the April 8, 2024 eclipse // kgav84

[anarchopuppy]

man we rly fuckin need gamecube style face buttons back or something. these days i cant go back and forth between multiple games bc the face button functions always feel so arbitrary and i cant keep track of which one is jump or dodge or attack in each game. no such issue on the gamecube, every game had a primary face button, a secondary face button, and two tertiary face buttons, and that forced them to actually think about which functions make sense to put where

nevermind the fact that different systems have different orientations of abxy so i cant even physically find them on the fuckin controller when im playing on multiple systems. its so frustrating and we literally already had a solution that worked fantastically

[brainrot-has-overtaken-me]

I’m surprised it has taken until now since X introduced the trophy idea for two Hermits to come together and plan to commit fraud/loophole the system. Good jobs Beef and Hypno for being the first with that idea!

[enobariasdistrict2]

i just remembered that on my reread of tbosas snow talked about taking a calculus test and i was like "lmao wait calculus still exists in a dystopia damn" and then i remembered... the capitol has universities for higher education, and there's even a chance that a "poor" person like snow could get scholarships if he really really wanted that education. as compared with the obviously poverty-ridden district's education is a priority in the capitol, because that's how you get power and wealth to put other people (the districts) down.

and it's crazy to me because as established by the original books, in District 12, you either learn about coal your whole life + minimal basic reading/writing/math skills and then work in a mine from 18 until you die by natural causes/starvation/accident, or you go win a hunger games and kill innocent children to maybe live the rest of your life in peace/reasonable wealth provided you don't disrupt the capitol authority which is the only way to get out. and even with that you still have the fear or losing your entire family or being sold to sex slavery.

even in district's 1/2/4, the education options are also equally bleak: you work for your industry (luxury/masonry/fishing/etc) or you get mindwiped into believing propaganda, become a brain-corrupted child soldier, and then either die in a games you were coerced into volunteering for or become a soulless murderer. obviously they get treated better than the people of d3-12 regardless of whether you're a Victor or average citizen - as katniss said, they're apparently allbeing well fed - but you're still a servile pet without useful education beyond basic skills, and there's still the fear of sex slavery for victors of 1/4.

the way education is a commodity for people who are "deserving" of it... it's horrible and unfortunately really reminiscent of the real world systems

[six-six-cicada]

Did (in joy and ecstasy) your eyes begin to water?

[luckyphilosopherchocolate]

I love the "pre-murder diamonds" so much.

The pure confusion and questions they lead to is everything to me.

I will not elaborate where or why they're there and I hope no one else will for a while, I enjoy the confusion to much.

They also show case how the economic system works by showing how specific diamonds keep wandering because people keep buying things with them

[sophieinwonderland]

i know you like talking about characters being plural a lot, so heres a fun question. what are some characters who you think are plural, not because theres canon support for it but just because you think they are/should be?

Hmm...

I think, maybe Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond might qualify. I don't think there's really sufficient evidence to say that they're plural, but I think a plural interpretation of their characters could be really cool, with Rose Quartz over the course of the war becoming a separate headmate of Pink Diamond. It would be fascinating to see that internal struggle as the debate on the best course of action, and Pink Diamond finally decides that the only way to save Earth would be for her to "die."

The idea of Rose Quartz as basically being a tulpa who evolves into the permanent host is just something really cool to me. And I could imagine Pink Diamond still staying with her for all those years until they ultimately decide the only way to escape their past is to create a new life in Steven, triggering what is essentially a system reset.

I don't consider them plural, but it's a story that could be improved even further by adding a layer of plurality to it.

[circular-jerkular]

If One Alter Believes It... Adult Edition(TM)

Way back in the day, I made a post about system accountability. Here's a link to that post, in all it's clickbaity glory, for those curious. I still believe this post holds true for myself (though, obviously, not every system works like mine, and not everyone will find this framework helpful; I just find it incredibly helpful for myself, as I hope others will too).

But I want to talk about the 18+ side of things now, particularly as I see more discussions about paraphilias and problematic alters in system spaces. Consider this a continuation of that post, but with more severe triggers and discussion of mature topics.

The TL;DR: If one part (or whatever you call yourselves, headmates/alters/people/brainmates/buddies/pals, etc) believes it, then as a collective whole, you need to work together to overcome it -- if one part believes it, you all do. And yes, this applies to the harmful things as well.

Let's dive in.

If one of your parts is a pedophile, then to some degree, you have a part of you (collectively) that is a pedophile. Part of YOU would have that paraphilia.

If one of your parts is torturing other system members, then to some degree, you have a part of you (collectively) that is torturing yourself. Part of YOU believes you deserve to be tortured.

If one of your parts is an abuser, then to some degree, you have a part of you (collectively) that is abusive. Part of YOU is abusive.

I want to say, out of the gate, the most important part: this does not and will never mean that you are evil. You are not somehow tarnished for hurting yourself or others. You are a person worthy of love, respect, and care, regardless of the things that you feel make you unworthy in some way. There is nothing wrong with abusive, hurtful, "problematic" parts, and anyone who says otherwise is not supportive of recovery, in my opinion.

But, inherently, being a system means you are part of a team. Regardless of what language you use, you are working together -- and since you are all part of one body, you have got to mitigate those problems together, regardless of if you fully agree. Simply put, their beliefs must be taken on as part of YOUR beliefs. And treating them as entirely separate beliefs can often lead to lack of communication, compromise, or structure, and can lead to a rise of conflict. By thinking of specific part's problematic "issues" as collective beliefs instead, we better understood how to work together to solve them.

This is how we combated our grief about murdering a part of ours. This is how we mitigated our distress over our own paraphilic thoughts and how they impacted us. It's how we came to accept that, yes, we are abusive in many ways, even when we try not to be, and that does not make us evil.

These traits are inherent to who we are. They were baked into our parts. For instance, Debra was split specifically to abuse us. And she did! She tortured us relentlessly because she believed, wholeheartedly, that she was stronger than us; that we deserved to be abused, because it would teach us our place. This was a belief inherent to her formation.

And we formed her, collectively, due to our trauma. Part of us believed so strongly that we deserved to be abused that she then appeared in order to abuse us. She's even a part of ours that we understand to be willfully created, rather than split solely from trauma; we remember thinking of her, talking to her, and purposefully telling ourselves that we deserved to be hurt. And she was there to torture us, to the extent that we split more parts due to what she did to us.

But that does not make her unworthy of love, or evil, or forever scorned and abandoned. In fact, the idea that she was evil and could never change -- that something inherent could not also be changed -- was what led to us murdering her. The fear that we were evil, horrible people for what she did to us led to us killing her, thus setting off further guilt, fear, shame, etc. It led to further breakdowns, pain, suffering... and when she came back, she doubled down, because we were not working together.

Regardless of your feelings, as a part, on matters of 18+ material, you must work together to solve problems. You must work together to find compromises. (And, well, that goes for everything -- not just problematic stuff.)

Viewing Debra's beliefs as collective instead of just her own... that's what led us to understanding why she was there. It made us realize the connections she had to us: how Wade believed so firmly that she was teaching him a lesson, or how Numb believed someone needed to be hurting us for him to protect us. Her beliefs were part of our beliefs, as a whole. And only once we started understanding that did we begin to dismantle the beliefs entirely.

Because it was far harder to say, in isolation, "Debra, you are wrong, and YOU are hurting us" than it was to say, collectively, "This line of thinking we share is hurting us all."

And those beliefs are still inherent for her, even if she has changed! She still deals with those thoughts that she is better than the rest of us, that we deserve to be punished, and that she is the one who has to do that. But, now that we are working together -- now that we take on her beliefs as ALL of our beliefs -- we can help her when it is distressing to have those thoughts. And, through that support, she has those thoughts less, and less, and less.

Everything in this post is a personal example. We have to deal with all of these things. But it applies to others as well. If one of your alters, or headmates, or brain buddies, or pals, or chums, or whatever have you, has a problematic belief -- then it may be helpful to view that belief as a collective, team belief. Collective, system-wide, whatever phrasing you want.

This may not help you. But I really, really hope it does. It helped me greatly.

Good luck out there, y'all.

[cerealmonster15]

they saw the meme breach containment

[the-unconquered-queen]

*The key to both of these features is that the necessary amount of points for success is in no way paywalled and you can get the best of every outcome provided you make good choices

[lara635kookie]

Please, if someone knows a YouTube or anything that posts all of the love and deepspaces complete 5 star cards, I beg you, let me know. In Zayne's last event I only got one card(I got Snowfall Encounter and couldn't get Snowfall Embrace)and while I will try until the very end just like I always do, to get AT LEAST Zayne's Entwined Shadows card(the three of them would be way too unrealistic for my broke ass even though I love Xav and Raf)(Gosh Sylus arrival will make me even more poor than I am today) I still have to prepare myself for the worst case scenario so if anyone can help me I'd be really grateful