Long Post - Blog Posts

Noemata: Background, definition, and use

noema (plural noemata) - noun From Ancient Greek νόημα (nóēma, “concept”, “idea”, “perception”, “thought”).

1. (philosophy) The perceived as it is perceived 2. (philosophy) That which is perceived in the noesis/noema duality 3. (rhetoric) An obscure speech or a speech that only yields meaning upon detailed reflection⁽¹⁾ 4. (otherkin community slang) Knowledge about oneself, one’s kintype, or the life of one’s kintype

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Almost from the moment I joined the community I lacked a word to describe the distinct images, knowledge, and ‘memories’ that would pop into my head in relation to my psychological kintypes. I was (and still am) very adamant that these kintypes were not past lives, and yet I had many experiences that were similar enough that I, at the time, begrudgingly referred to them as my “kin memories”. Upon sharing my reluctance around using this terminology, I found that many others – both psychological, spiritual, both, and neither – were experiencing the same lexical gap. So when I set out to find a word to bridge that gap, my intentions were to make it as broad and inclusive as physically possible.

It took a day or two of intense googling, before I found the word ‘noema’, which is a very rare word in daily speech, and is almost exclusively reserved for one specific branch of philosophy. It has several overlapping definitions (the three main ones listed above, followed by the community’s use), but the one that particularly caught my attention was: “The perceived as it is perceived.”

Now, fair warning, I took a philosophy class in high school that I haven’t been able to shut up about since, so when I saw that rather cryptic definition, it was of course love at first sight. How I’ve come to interpret “the perceived as perceived” after reading a some analyses of Husserl’s philosophy, on which it is based, is as a subjective truth - a noema is something that is real, not because we can prove its existence by scientific measurements, but which is simply real because a person experiences it as such. When discussing noemata in the context of memory-like experiences in the otherkin community, it is thus irrelevant if they’re “real” in any objective way, and the only thing that matters is that the individual experiences them as real.

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To define is to limit, so with the purpose of the word in mind (to be useful for everyone who felt the lexical gap) I had to be very careful with my phrasing. In my very first attempt at a definition I described a noema as “something in between a memory and an intuition, knowledge that is inherent but has been forgotten/has to be recalled.”⁽²⁾ This is not a definition that I stand by now as I find it too limiting and too focused on memory-like noemata.

In my next post⁽³⁾ about the topic, I didn’t attempt to define it so much as clarify a few things: A noema is not a “kin memory with a psychological explanation”, nor does it have to have any of the qualia of a memory. Any knowledge that has been gained about one’s kintype can be called a noema, including detailed episodic memories and knowledge as simply as your kintype’s eye color or the layout of their house.

In my final attempt to define it, when prompted to because Kiera wanted to add it to their dictionary, I described it as “inherent knowledge you have about your kintype. This may include memories, things you experience as memories but likely aren’t, or general knowledge about your looks, life, habits, or surroundings. Noemata may have a psychological or spiritual basis, may be a mix of the two, or may have unknown origins.”⁽⁴⁾ This is a definition I stand by to this day, though it still prompts some further questions and discussions.

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For starters, why did I include the word ‘inherent’ in that definition? It’s a word I’m very fond of, and you’ll often see it pop up in my long-form writings. I use it to mean ‘essential’, 'core’, and sometimes 'permanent’ or 'natural’/'instinctual’. In other words, for something to qualify as a noema it has to be ingrained with your kintype, one way or another - so things you only know because it was taught to you (for example, statistical facts about an animal species) would not count as noemata, but things you discovered on your own would. Even here we run into grey areas, though, because if a piece of knowledge was revealed to you in, say, a dream, would that count as a teaching or a discovery? Or would knowledge you didn’t discover through introspection, but instead felt compelled to seek out and study, count? I can’t say, and I think it’s up to the individual to decide if they want to call something like that a noema or not.

Next, I feel it important to mention that the examples listed in that definition (“memories, things you experience as memories but likely aren’t, or general knowledge about your looks, life, habits, or surroundings”) are only examples. There are other ways to experience noemata, for example (again, only examples and not the be-all-end-all of the word’s coverage) as precognition, visions of a parallel life, feelings about certain things or characters, and confabulations. However, there is one tentative exception: I have not created the word with consciously created scenarios in mind. If you intentionally decide that your kintype has red hair (instead of going off a gut feeling that they have red hair), I would not count that as a noema. Again, with room for grey areas such as OCkin, who have created a character and later come to realize that that character is their kintype.

Though the word has mostly found use as a stand-in for 'memory’ among psychological otherkin, that by no means covers all the ways in which it can be used, and in the past year I have seen it used more and more frequently by nonhumans and alterhumans regardless of the cause of their identity. My intention with introducing the word to the community was always to fix the lexical gap, and as such everyone who feels that gap can use the words 'noema’ and 'noemata’.

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Sources: 1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/noema#English 2. https://aestherians.tumblr.com/post/181836451574/ 3. https://aestherians.tumblr.com/post/190929635719/ 4. https://www.beyondhumanity.net/alterhuman-dictionary/dictionary-n

Photographer  Chen Chengguang’s Photos Of Ospreys In Hunting Mode Show How Calculated Everything In Nature Is.

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one_becky_blue

Canadian photographer Eiko Jones

Know what I’m salty about?

In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.

Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.

I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.

tldr: Art Teachers: teach your students what different tools do. PLEASE.

In case anyone is having a bad night:

Here is the fudgiest brownie in a mug recipe I’ve found

Here are some fun sites

Here is a master post of Adventure Time episodes and comics

Here is a master post of movies including Disney and Studio Ghibli

Here is a master post of other master posts to TV shows and movies

*tucks you in with fuzzy blanket* *pats your head*

You’ll be okay, friend <3

I was discussing with a friend about the translation choice for The Fellowship of the Ring in French. In the first translation, the translator Francis Ledoux uses ‘communauté’ for ‘fellowship’, in the meaning of ‘a group of people united by a common goal or shared traditions’*. This is almost exactly the same definition the online Cambridge dictionary** gives for ‘fellowship’. However, ‘fellowship’ has another meaning, a little outdated, that keeps the idea of a shared goal or interest but with the added nuance of a bond of friendship formed over this goal.

And that’s where the new French translation comes in, with the title La Fraternité de l’Anneau instead of La Communauté de l’Anneau. Daniel Lauzon chose ‘fraternité’ for fellowship, meaning ‘the bond between people within a same group, working toward a same goal’*** There is an outdated and specific use for ‘fraternité’ in the context of a medieval, feudal society, to design the bond between knights who swore to protect each other in battle and always fight for the same cause. And knowing just how much Tolkien was influenced by the Middle Ages for his universe, this seemingly trivial difference of translation has me foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. Because it means the translator, Daniel Lauzon in this case, really took the time to study and look for the exact nuance of a word to best render the idea of The Fellowship of the Ring in the translated title of the book. This is so in line with Tolkien’s love for languages and words, I am over the moon.

There is a big debate amongst French speaking Tolkien fans about old vs new translation but I am a hardcore defender of Daniel Lauzon’s translations of The Lord of the Rings because it’s the one that made me fall in love with Tolkien’s style and poetry even though it was not the original version, and that’s a feat. It’s not perfect, no translation is ever perfect, but it had this feeling of deliberate choice for each word to best render the multiple meanings of a sentence or poem. Francis Ledoux’s translation feels too dry and artificial to me, even though I love how he translated Strider by Grand-Pas, or ‘Big-Steps’

* https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/communaut%C3%A9/17551

** https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fellowship

*** https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/fraternit%C3%A9/35113

My Jason Todd Rec List and Character Manifesto!

This is a fuckin mess my ghouls, but I got categories and I got opinions and who can stop me from typing em out? Certainly not @lazaruspiss who is the reason this thing got made!

The format is gonna be

title and page numbers (No #s if I'm recommending the whole title) picture Summary and general notes My estimate of how unhinged he is in this portrayal What his morals are like; note this isn't about whether he's a protagonist or antagonist

Since cream rises to the top, let us start with:

The Creme de la Creme

The best of the best. The most fun, the most compelling, the most interesting looks into his character.

Green Arrow (2001) #69 - #72

This one really does have it all. Jason runs rings around both Batman and Green Arrow at the same time, all the while going after a goal neither of them ever truly figures out in large part because this story wasn't afraid to let Bruce be either wrong or lying about Jason's motives. It also wonderfully leverages the ways in which the Bats and the Arrows are really good foils for each other. I think I'm going to be turning over the ways these interactions went down for a long ass time. I've been really wanting to go page by page for a comparison between the way Jason treats Mia in this and the way Jason treats Tim in the Titans Tower showdown. Bottom line for this one: It's just so good!

Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's got a solid grip on things, is reasonably level headed, only problem is he might have completely forgotten how to interact with other human beings outside of combat. Love him for that.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. Decidedly willing to mow down some "brain donors", and his goals are pretty morally grey, but he clearly still has a strong code of ethics.

Joker: the Man Who Stopped Laughing

With Jason's return to being an antagonist after a long stint in the Hero bin comes his return to being really fucking dangerous and whip smart! My boy quotes serious philosophy that gives him a real point to make against non lethal vigilantes and cops! I also think the part where he lets himself be arrested just... it says so much and all of it is wonderfully interesting and feels fitting for his character. He's kept deeply human, and just all of this portrayal gels together really well.

At the time of writing, this comic hasn't even been properly published yet, so I'm going off of like 9 issues in which he appears less than the Joker, but what is there is phenomenal.

Also I like that he's friends with my favorite, Stephanie Brown :3

Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. Level headed, calm, careful, really the only reason this isn't a 10/10 is cause he's obsessively focused, which like, honestly is pretty reasonable I think.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Clearly Justified Antihero. I almost put down Hero on this one, but ultimately he is just far enough over the line with how he treats the less threatening of the rogues like Killer Moth.

Batman (1940) #408 - #411 Jason's debut featuring Ma Gunn's School and his first ever outing as Robin fighting Two-Face

Just LOOK at this PRECIOUS BOY! I wanna pinch him on his cheeks and give him a handful of these bad boys

Jason has a ton of personality to him right out the gate. The first story has Ma Gunn as the villain and she's a lot of fun. The second story in here with Two-Face is also enlightening with regards to Jason's early personality, even if it's not quite as fun.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Under the Red Hood would be next if it wasn't already filed under ->

Foundational Texts

This is the shit that defines Jason as a character. Much is mutable in any given comic, but somehow, someway, all depictions of Jason are impacted and informed by these three stories. Enough has been said about all of them that I'm gonna keep it brief.

Red Hood: The Lost Days

Jason's sanity level: Eight out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. He kills some incredibly nasty people, while also doing some genuinely heroic shit. The only places where his morals deteriorate are in the presence of Batman and the Joker.

Under the Red Hood

Jason's sanity level: Four out of Ten hinges affixed. Remember how his morals deteriorated in the face of Batman and the Joker? Yeah, that's mostly because he's way, way too personally invested to think straight about them. He's strategic as fuck, but this is not a stable man's strategy for dealing with his issues.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Sympathetic Villain. He is a revenant, a vengeful juggernaut, and breaks an awful lot of eggs making this brilliant disaster of an omelette.

Batman (1940) #426 - #429 A Death in the Family

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

Joker becoming an ambassador to Iran plotlines count: One too many.

Solid Storylines

These ain't the vaulted heights, but not everything has to be the Sistine Chapel. They're solid, and if you're wanting more Jason I do certainly recommend them.

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer and Countdown to Infinite Crisis

Jason is in what I like to call his Purposeless Depression Era during this. It's after his plans in Under the Red Hood fail and he's really just got no place to go, no place to be, and in fact is keenly aware that on a cosmic level, he truly does not belong in this world anymore. He's supposed to be dead. There's something I find quite neat about this team up, with Donna Troy and Kyle Raynor and Bob, it's out of the ordinary for Jason, it's not bat related, and the ways he fits and doesn't fit with the other characters are just neat.

I especially recommend Gotham by Gaslight. The plot will be a lil hard to follow if you haven't read the others, but Jason by the end hopes to return to Victorian Era Steampunk Gotham and the moments of him hoping to literally leave his universe behind are both sweet and sorrowful.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's just sad and lonely.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. Even if only Donna is willing to tentatively try to see him that way.

Robin (1993) #177 and one page of #182 and the front half of #183

Despite how much Jason is known for it, I think this is the only time we see him trying to run organized crime outside of Under the Red Hood (and uh debatably Battle for the Cowl). Short lil string of appearances, but critical for understanding how he's seen by Tim during this era if you care about that, and it really cemented my understanding of Jason being strangely honest and forthright.

I think the major way other Bats fail to comprehend him is that they expect him to manipulate through lying, which just isn't his style. He doesn't lie about his motives; he doesn't obfuscate his tactics; he doesn't hide how he's feeling. Hell, he doesn't even try to lie his way out of prison! I could not tell you why this series of interactions gave me this impression but it is why I have such faith that when Jason says something, he probably just means it, even when characters like Dick or Tim assume otherwise.

Pity this was the lead up to Battle for the Cowl.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. He's even attempting to pick himself up out of his Purposeless Depression Era slump at the start.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero.

Nightwing (1996) #118 - #122 aka Brothers in Blood aka the One Where Jason Gets Tentacles

COWARDS and KNAVES will tell you "the tentacles are so icky and everyone is so OOC" or whatever but again they are KNAVES and COWARDS because bitch this shit is GREAT

Jason: Wow! My bestest big brother killed someone who deserved it, so now I (the person he's rejecting only because I kill people who deserved it) have a real chance at being his family again!! :D Hooray! :) Dickie-Bird why don't you look happy to see me? :) Dickie-Bird I went out of my way to get us matching outfits and stalked your work and killed people in your name so it's nice and easy to make room for me in your life! :) :) :)

Dick:

Jason's sanity level: Two out of Ten hinges affixed. My mans is off his rocker and I adore him like this. Frankly, the entire storyline is unhinged, and it only feels appropriate that Jason is similarly bonkers in yonkers.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. You can sympathize with him, and he is still trying to carry out justice, but I have to call it for straight villain when he's threatening to bomb a building full of innocent people.

Batman and Robin (2009) #23 - #25

I don't have much to say about this one. It's good. The above page is pretty much the highlight.

Wait actually I do have something to say and it is that I would like to lick Jason's abs, pls & thx, because the other highlight is that Winick clearly believes in redeeming Jason's value as a villain through sex appeal and it is working lmao

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. Certifiably sane, he's passed all his psych exams!

Jason's moral compass bearing: Villain. He threatens to bomb a train station full of innocent people. While he does do that in service of freeing himself and Scarlet, thus making it not completely self centered, I still gotta put him firmly in Villain.

Nightwing (2016) 2021 Annual

In high contrast to the previous two in which Jason acts as a villain to Dick, this one has them working together and the tentative peace and cautious trust they've got going is interesting to me. This Team Z era Jason is interesting to me in general, though I don't know much about him.

Jason's sanity level: Nine out of Ten hinges affixed. He's quite chill, but there's just this little edge to him that says his relationship to violence is a little too casual a little too deep to really be fully hinged.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Edgy Hero.

Your Mileage May Vary

These stories I can't recommend without major caveats or warnings, but I still think are worth mentioning.

Batman: Three Jokers <- I read it while typing this up, so I got a lotta thoughts

Guh, this one is just fucking sad

So, I don't mind a story being blunt with its message as long as the message actually holds up. Unfortunately, this three parter's attempt at the cycle of violence lesson is... bad. Real bad.

Jason in it is neat! This is a good Jason portrayal somehow despite literally everything about the way this comic frames him! The narrative expects us to believe he is a danger to society on the cusp of becoming another Joker, because he *checks notes* shot the Joker dead, shot at a Joker loyal guy, and roughly interrogated an injured child abuser. At no point does he show signs of wanting to hurt innocent people. At no point does he show signs of doing any hurting without premeditation or a need to defend himself. I'm baffled by this.

My kingdom for a fucking CRUMB of nuance, I swear, smh...

I hear a lot of people hate his one sided romance towards Barbara. This is understandable as it squanders the opportunity to have a female character not be stuck as the narrative sponge for man emotions. I like it from the perspective of a Jason fan, and give condolences for the Barbara fans. It's not healthy, and good fucking job on the janitor sweeping away his letter to her so poor Babs doesn't have to deal with that shit, but I do like Jason's desperation to be loved by someone, anyone, who might show him compassion.

Jason's sanity level: Six out of Ten hinges affixed. He's sad, he's lonely, he needs some PTSD specific therapy, he's a bit creepy about his crush on Barbara, but quite frankly he has it together a lot more than the narrative would like us to believe. The way the other characters treat him like he's some kind of monster just waiting to snap and start maiming people indiscriminately makes me really uncomfortable.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. Quite frankly I'm tempted to say Hero out of spite.

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016) #1 - #43

There are three transcendental character moments in this run that I think make it worth reading even if not all of it's your cup of tea. On the other hand though there are some big issues that could very easily be deal breakers. Oh and anything after #43 is a wasteland and #43 is included purely for the implication that being transgender made a woman immortal.

The narrative structure is really heavily dependent on rule of emotional impact/cool/allegorical usefulness. Many events will not make any fucking sense based on petty things like basic logic or the laws of physics, but they do work just fine in the area of what makes the story more fun or the emotional beats hit harder. Stronger than average suspension of disbelief is necessary for the reward of getting a lot of stuff that's, like, just really fuckin cool.

The romantic side plot with Artemis is... odd. Either the author, Scott Lobdell, intended to write Jason as a desperate loser trying to date his uninterested lesbian friend who he co-parents with, or he accidentally wrote a romance so awkward and comp-het that I cannot wrap my head around reading it as reciprocated. This works for me because I have a lot of fun reading Jason as a desperate loser who's not even actually in love with her, he just is desperate to cling to the closest thing he's ever gotten to a nuclear family and in denial about being either aro/ace or gay.

Now, lets explore a lil bit of the whole Jason is a loser angle, cause it's not the whole story, there are many points in which Jason gets to be a badass motherfucker, but he is much, much less of the hypercompetant, highly determined, murderous threat he used to be. Almost none of the newer renditions of Jason are. This Jason in particular though is very soft and cuddly, and fits the archetype of man trying to be the edgy bad boy but who secretly just wants a hug and a warm glass of milk.

If I were to describe my personal Jason in a few sentences I would say that he is someone who loves himself viciously. He feels he has been wronged and is willing to burn down the world to rectify that. He will hold your ass at gunpoint and demand the hugs and warm glasses of milk that he fucking well deserves!

This Jason is about as far away from that as you can possibly get. I still like him though, and I do not count him as being a different character, because when you start with emotional logic that goes like this:

It wasn't my fault + I deserve better = I get to burn the world down in order to get better

It becomes extremely difficult to ever stop burning the world without also deciding "It was my fault" or "I don't deserve better". Jason is meant to have changed a lot, and this is a plausible evolution of the Jason I prefer.

Finally, the handling of Bizarro, a mentally disabled character, is a sensitive enough topic that your mileage will vary, even if I can't think of a bad thing to say about it. Jason and Artemis are really pretty good about treating him with respect, giving him help where he needs it and autonomy where he's capable of taking it. They raise him, but don't control him, and he is literally three days old when they find him so this isn't infantilization. It takes the framing of Lenny from of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon and rejects them in a way that I am satisfied with. You'll just have to read it for yourself to see if you're satisfied as well.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed. I kinda wish he was more unhinged.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero. He even saves a puppy and gives them pats.

Knight Terrors: Robin

Have you ever been in the mood for a syrupy sweet hurt/comfort fanfiction in which Jason and Tim were magically forced to talk about how much they like each other in order to overcome their own insecurities? Do you wish that existed as a lavishly illustrated two issue comic?

If you answered yes to those two questions then congratulations! It does exist, this is it, go have fun!

If you think that sounds like ham fisted garbage turning what should be several long arcs of serious reconciliation and deeply meaningful character moments into two issue fan service schlock then condolences! I wish you all the best in denial, as all comic fans sail that river sooner or later and I shall join you upon it someday.

What category do I fall into? Well I think this is definitely ham fisted, but I won't kick a boar out of bed as long as they ain't a bore, and this little ditty is certainly entertaining.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason't moral compass bearing: Hero.

Batman and Robin Eternal

This is a decent portrayal of Jason in his modern, much friendlier, and much more bat family integrated rendition. He has some fun moments in it, and I like his staby bracers.

I don't like this comic. It commits the most dire of writing sins: Being boring. I think about Jason every second of every minute of every day; if your comic that majory features a good portrayal of him cannot hold my attention, then something has gone very wrong. Hopefully one of you will like it more than I do.

Jason's sanity level: Ten out of Ten hinges affixed.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Hero.

A Hot Take

I bet you thought the tentacles were the hot take! HAH! MuahahaahhHAHAHAH - Prepare now, puny mortals, to witness me defend Pill Helmet Jason AND his fashion choices!

No, I am not talking about Winick's redo late in the game, we've already been over that one. I mean I will defend Grant Morrison's flop era, three foot head gear wearin, goofy ass, unwashed ass, "how to build ur brand" reading maniac

It's time to talk about Batman and Robin (2009) #1 - #6

The interpretation of one scene makes or breaks this Jason:

If you believe he is being insincere and manipulating her into putting all her emotional eggs in the basket of his crusade, ignoring her wellbeing in favor of his 'brand', then this is probably the worst mischaracterization of Jason ever written.

If you believe he is being sincere, genuinely comforting her in the only way that he's got to deal with his own trauma, giving her real affection and not pushing her to take either option with the mask because he trusts her to make that decision for herself, then this gets Jason very right.

No matter what Morrison might have intended, I choose to believe it's the latter. This is terrible advice to give a trauma victim, but it makes perfect sense for Jason to believe that about his own trauma, and thus to pass that maladaptive view along. He doesn't try to assure her that the mask can come off safely or that he'll get her a doctor because he really can't promise her either of those things. It would be cruel to her to pretend that he's got a solution. Jason can't undo the damage that was done to her any more than he can force a dead Bruce to kill the Joker.

Instead he offers her purpose, and reassurance that she's gonna look badass if she never does take it off, and protects her when she's in trouble.

You can claim this is just him acting out his chosen Hero role, but like, WHY would he have chosen to method act that role 24/7 if he wasn't trying to BE a Hero who protects people like Scarlet? There's nothing in it for Jason to fake this.

I also think if he was being written out of character as a manipulator we would have seen him use a romantic or sexual angle which he absolutely doesn't do.

Dickie, you are such a funny Batman, they never shoulda brought Bruce back tbh.

Instead, he seems to be taking a more parental role, in a near perfect reflection of how Bruce took him in when he was a kid. Just he's doing it his way, meaning that whenever Scarlet goes further with the violence than Jason seems to want to, he backs her up instead of chastising her.

Speaking of violence and morals, Let the Punishment Fit the Crime is a coherent moral position to take, even if you (understandably) disagree with it, or disagree with what punishments fit which crimes. It's basically the same moral position as every other version of Jason there's ever been! Like, is he even killing more people than he used to in stories like Under the Red Hood? No, I don't think he is.

The branding thing is weird, lil annoying too after a while, but ultimately it still makes sense. And brings me around to my promised defense of his fashion choices.

First of all the symbolic importance of the fact that he wears white cannot be overstated in my mind. Will I elaborate? No, this post is way too long already lmao! Second off, it's supposed to be silly. I believe the silliness was a conscious, calculated choice, and the right one to make.

Jason doesn't believe that fear works, he's not trying for pure intimidation, and he knows that he's going to have to appeal to people in his bid to be seen as a Hero. Making himself seem big but non-threatening, a bright patch in the night, makes real sense.

Take a look at this view of Jason from Scarlet's POV when he comes to rescue her from the cops after she kills her dad:

He's got a smoking gun in his hand and he just shot two people dead, yet we're hard fuckin pressed to find him intimidating aren't we?? Cornball dialogue, and the silliest fuckin hat in the universe, because he's not meant to be from this era, he's emulating the Golden and Silver age comics and all their goofiness. He's trying to be the older, happier, sillier batman that used to exist (at least in his head), while doing what he believes is right and necessary.

The costume makes sense dammit!

Also it just doesn't look bad, I can't provide an argument for this, it's just true!!

Also also every one of these fuckers should be wearing a helmet too, this is basic brain safety, if you're gonna go around antagonizing fuckers with guns you need to make your head at least nominally bulletproof, it's that simple!!!

Now... do I recommend you read this? Well, Jason shares panel space with such characters as:

The living embodiment of the F-slur

A sneer directed at fat and genderqueer people

And our main villain: Schizophrenia is Evil + Transes are Scary

I do have the sneaking suspicion that Jason isn't interested in Scarlet in part to imply that he's gay, and I think that mostly because of how consistently every other villain is made queer.

I cannot in good conscience recommend something this openly bigoted to the vast majority of people. It's also besides that just... not terribly good. The writing is B tier at best. Pyg is probably the most likable element other than Dick tbh. Scarlet is also pretty neat, I like her. Damian is... okay. Uhhhhh Jason is not likable. I will defend this as a valid rendition of his character, but he's not likable pretty much at all in this.

However.

There are some people I know who I would recommend this to. They're all other queer people who enjoy grotesque, violent, provocative presentations of queerness as much as I do.

Reading it did not ruin my day, and it does not stoop to the ultimate low of being boring. If I had to reread this or Batman and Robin Eternal, I would reread this in a heartbeat, no competition. If you can find enjoyment in stuff like the Silence of the Lambs' sequel and prequel movies, you can find enjoyment in this.

Jason's sanity level: One out of Ten hinges affixed. Obsessive, not taking care of himself, possessed of some really maladaptive trauma coping frameworks, completely unhinged. My condolences to his mental health, but I do love to see it.

Jason's moral compass bearing: Antihero. It's weird because this is undeniably a much darker comic, and Jason certainly feels darker, but in terms of what he actually does, and what the other characters do, his violence is honestly very tame.

So, cards on the table, here is the core of who Jason is to me:

He's got clear moral motives and a drive to help as well as harm.

When confronted he does not back down; he does not let himself be overshadowed or silenced. He is confident in his decisions and every bit of push back is already accounted for in his head.

Everything he does is premeditated. He is not impulsive whatsoever.

He is painfully sincere, the way fire is painfully hot.

He desperately desires love and connection, but it will take many years of constant rejection and fighting before he is willing to accept any kind of compromise to his ethics for the sake of civility.

Under all the hurt and combativeness, he's a pretty goofy guy! He's got a sense of fun and likes to be flamboyant and silly when he can!

He's a villain, a hero, a protagonist, an antagonist, and everything between the extremes. He exists as a powerful counter-thesis to Batman, and as such DC can't ever fully answer the question of what to do with him. He exists in this waffling limbo state as his morals are debated, stretched, refuted, turned on their head. I think that makes him a wonderfully fascinating character to love.

I hope you enjoyed this and, like, go have fun reading comics!

This just made my whole day!

Tons more at the source!

GIRL WYD????? DUMP HIM.

I’ve decided I’m only going to answer my dads texts with pictures of Ben Wyatt

Love and Nature

Osdea, the god of love, fell hopelessly in love with the god of nature, Ezella. Osdea tried everything she could to have the indifferent god acknowledge her, but Ezella never gave her the time of day. Osdea tried helping the flora and fauna, hoping to appeal to the god of nature through kindness. She tried befriending the different nature spirits, attempting to learn anything about Ezella. She tried just being in the same area as Ezella often, so maybe they'd take an interest in her, like she had in them.

Finally, when Osdea had given up hope in all else, she brought Ezella a small bouquet of flowers, ones she had seen them care for, and tried talking to the god. Ezella curtly turned Osdea down, but Osdea saw this as progress, for she had finally gotten Ezella to acknowledge her! And so Osdea brought another bouquet of flowers the next day, with the same result. She continued bringing flowers every day, each time with the same result.

On the fourth day, Ezella, growing steadily losing what little patience they had left from the frequent irritations said, "Every day you cut and bring me flowers that I have grown. Every day I turn you down, but that still does not seem to dissuade you. Your young naivety seems to know no bounds, so let me put this as plainly as possible. For as long as you continue bothering me and cutting the flowers I have grown and calling it a gift, I will never return your affections."

Osdea, stunned, watched as the god of nature swiftly turned and walked away, her eyes never lingering from their back, not even when her face grew warm or when the world in front of her clouded too an unrecognizable blur of colours. Only when Ezella was long out of sight was Osdea able to move, collapsing to her knees, and crushing the flowers.

She didn't even remember dropping them.

Hastily, she tried straightening the broken stems and rightening the misplaced petals, but the tears and her shaking hands only worsened the damage until her lap was covered in flower petals and leaves. She held the broken and baren flower stems to her chest, head in her lap and arms wrapped around her trembling body.

Gradually, slowly, her tears sprouted new flowers, wrapping first around the edges of her feet, then her dress and legs, her torso, her arms, her neck, her hair, her head. Oh so gradually, the suffocating pain in her chest took on a new shape; a shape that made more sense. Oh so slowly, her tears did dry, and the flowers clinging to her form began to bloom.

The forest nymphs were the first to find her. The rising sun painted her skin a brilliant golden colour through the shadows of towering trees and their vibrant green leaves. The delicate white of fresh blooms sparsely covering her form seemed to sing at their first sight of light. The god's chest rose and fell slowly as she laid sprawled across the forest floor, as if asleep. The nymphs, simply relieved that the poor god was no longer weeping, left her to sleep.

Osdea was not asleep. How could she sleep with the ceaseless, creeping pain inside her chest?

As the nymphs left, tears escaped and trickled down their familiar path over her skin and in between the delicate flowers.

The nymphs returned at sundown, the god's chest still steadily rising and falling, eyes closed to the world. The white flowers from before now more thoroughly covering her, and new flowers blooming at the edges of her face, there was very little of the god that was left untouched now. Small pin-pricks of blood scattered across her body where the flowers weaved their way through her skin.

Still, the nymphs left Osdea to her slumber. Still, Osdea was not asleep. She was paralyzed, as if the flowers had taken root in her muscles, rendering them completely useless. If nothing else, the whites and greens of the flowers and their stems, set against the dimming light of the falling sun brought some small glimmer of happiness to the sorrowful god.

'Perhaps,' thought the god 'this is the true nature of life; holding onto the smallest glimmer of hope and joy, no matter the cost.' Tears welled along her eyes once again, now hidden beneath a thin layer of foliage.

The petite white flowers weaving and sprouting through her skin were not what troubled Osdea. What troubled her was the feeling of small, sharp barbs being dragged through the inner linings of her being. Treacherously slowly, the talons clawed their way up her chest and into her throat. Every tentative rise and fall of her chest, every movement, no matter how small, pressed the stabbing blades in further.

Osdea learned what she could and could not do quite quicky. Movement was strictly forbidden. The god was still allowed to breathe, but gradually even that privileged had been restricted until her breaths were slow and shallow and her head grew light. She was not allowed to speak. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn't be able to croak out even a single word. But she was fine with that. She had no one to listen to her words anyways.

The stars above shone so brightly. Somehow, they seemed brighter than usual, almost as if they wept for the god, their small lights ever so slightly growing before trembling and shrinking again. The stars and their weeping slowly began to fade away as dawn drew near, and clouds covered the sky like a heavy blanket. Osdea could feel the plants blanketing her body still in anticipation. The world around her seemed to hold it's breath as she swam in and out of consciousness. She could still breathe. She didn't know why she was struggling. Her head felt so heavy.

The clouds were painted a brilliant ruby red, painting the forest in hues of pink. Osdea had never seen a sky quite like that, and she knew she never would again. A faint smile spread across her lips. This much she was still allowed.

She couldn't breathe.

The world fluttered in and out of existence, as if a butterfly were sat on her nose.

She was okay.

The sun began to crest its head over the horizon, vibrant scarlet to match the clouds above. The birds did not sing, nor did the deer begin to stir. The nymphs would not visit this morning.

She would be okay.

In and out, the world faded and re-ignited repeatedly. Dark crimson shadows fell over the forest. White flowers were painted pink.

It would be okay.

The world of reds and dark shadows swam in front of Osdea's eyes. From the darkness, her eyes landed on one figure, slowly approaching. The darkness encroached and consumed her vision. She pried her eyelids open, even if only once more. She would not let herself be robbed of her sight. Not yet.

She was out of time. She was not okay. She didn't want to die.

Light returned to the god. A soft face filled with love and sorrow stared down at her. For a moment, Osdea forgot about the tearing thorns in her chest, about the flowers covering her body, about the air missing from her lungs. For a moment, Osdea felt like she was dancing through the forest again, wanting nothing more than for Ezella to turn their attention to her.

Osdea watched as Ezella's lips moved, but no sound ever reached her ears. Why couldn't she hear the god? Why couldn't she hear the one person who's voice had rung through her head for days now?

Osdea opened her mouth, but the words she wanted to say were torn apart by the thorns within before they ever knew the breath of life. The scene before her clouded to a blur of reds again with only Ezella remaining in focus.

Ezella leaned down, filling Osdea's vision. Soft lips found her forehead, as if the flowers had parted specially for them. A drop of water rolled down her temple. It was warm. It was cold.

The clouds faded from her vision, and the thorns in her lungs disappeared. The god of love no longer felt the pinpricks of flowers weaving through her skin.

The god of nature rose with the rising sun, and began their daily care for the earth and its creatures.

The sun rose on the second morning. Where had previously laid Osdea, the god of love, now laid a beautiful flower bed, alive with dusty blues and pure whites. Sat in the center of the bed was a bush of roses, petals and thorns dyed the same blood-red colour.

Sex stuff you probably won’t learn from fanfiction and/or porn:

Erotic fic and porn can be a lot of fun! But if you aren’t being provided with adequate sex ed through other channels (comprehensive sexual education, frank and open discussions with trusted adults, etc.), turning to fanfic and porn for your understanding of sex is gonna leave some major blindspots and may leave you with some unrealistic expectations. While there’s nothing wrong with these kinds of erotica, they are fictional and tend to leave out a lot of the more realistic, human parts of sex - they serve a great purpose, but that purpose isn’t primarily educational. The following is an incomplete list of some things you should probably know about sex that a lot of fic and porn tends to leave out:

It isn’t always super hot or super sweet. Sometimes it’s super silly. Or sometimes it’s sort of mundane and you’re both simply scratching an itch. That’s fine too. (Hell, sometimes you’re talking about comic books while boning and your partner is laughing that you’re getting REALLY ANGRY about spider-man while they’re going to town on you.)

You will probably not climax at the same moment. It’s a sweet idea, but extremely hard to coordinate, and if all your concentration is going into coming at the exact same moment, you’re probably not enjoying yourselves as much as you might. 

Sometimes bodies make weird, goofy noises. Squelching, slapping, air-escaping, un-sexy noises. It’s okay to laugh at this. 

Hell, it’s okay to laugh during sex in general.

Sometimes you fart. Sometimes you fart while someone is going down on you and it is embarrassing as hell. This isn’t the end of the world. Embarrassing body things happen. Heck, sometimes, with anal, there’s a little poo. You get over it.

Sometimes sex is… kinda bad? This doesn’t mean it’s assault, or something traumatic – sometimes it’s consensual but just kinda bleh and not what you hoped for. The best thing to do (if you’re talking about sex with a partner and not just a hook up who you can not call back) is talk to them about it. Figure out what went wrong, what you enjoy and what you don’t, and communicate what techniques you do and don’t like. Also don’t be afraid to stop someone in the middle of the sex act you’re not enjoying and offer guidance on how to help make it good for you too. (Side tip: masturbation makes great research into what you personally do and don’t enjoy sexually)

You won’t enjoy every sex act. Not every body is wired to find every thing pleasurable. You might find anal does nothing for you. You may find g-spot stimulation just makes you really anxious that you’re about to pee. You may not enjoy giving or receiving oral. You’re not broken if you don’t like something that every pornstar or smutty fanfic protagonist seems to have earth-shattering orgasms from. Everyone’s got nerve endings in a range of places – it’s quite literally, different strokes for different folks.

On that note, not all orgasms are earth-shattering. Sometimes it just feels warm and nice. That’s fine too. 

Sometimes, if you’re neutral on a sex act and your partner loves it, you can suck it up for them, and they’ll suck up something they’re not crazy about for your pleasure in return. But communicate preferences with each other! Know that when a partner does that thing you love that they don’t get much from, that it’s an act of care, and vice versa. 

Falling asleep in each other’s arms right after wild passionate sex seems really romantic, but dried and crusty fluids are gonna be a bitch in the morning. Also, after sex, you should both (regardless of your equipment) go pee to clear out the urethra of any gunk or bacteria to reduce risk of a UTI. 

Putting a towel down on the bed before sex means you don’t have to sleep on wet funky sheets. (it’s also verrrrrry useful for period sex if you or your partner menstruate.)

A lot of people don’t like dirty talk, or rough sex. Always ask first. (Fanfic on the whole does a better job than porn at showing communication, but a lot of it is still highly fictive on this point)

PROTECTION PROTECTION PROTECTION. Use condoms, dental dams, etc. not just to prevent pregnancy, but to reduce risk of STIs. (Yes, even couples with the same genitals who don’t need to worry about pregnancy).

Lube is great and very important, but random goopy things around you are not good lube. Random oils especially, since oil doesn’t flush out well and can trap bacteria inside the body – oil-based lubricant also degrades condoms. Use lube specifically designed for intimate purposes. Water-based and silicone-based lubes help sex feel really good!

Bigger isn’t necessarily better. A lot of people with vaginas don’t enjoy the feeling of being repeatedly punched in the cervix by a monster cock. Some people enjoy a larger size when being penetrated by an appendage or toy and some don’t.

Bodies are hairy. Genitals are hairy. You may get a pube stuck in your teeth at some point. If your partner is WAY fuzzier than porn ever led you to believe they’d be, well, that’s normal. 

Not everyone loves the taste of ejaculate. Sometimes it’s nasty (flavor tends to vary from person to person depending on their diet, but sometimes you just really don’t like it no matter what. Some of us hate the taste of peanut butter. People don’t always like things). It’s okay not to swallow, or to request a penis-having partner warn you so they don’t ejaculate in your mouth (in fact, it’s polite for them to do the latter). 

If you’re gonna have shower sex, get one of those rubbery mats for the shower floor that gives you traction, because otherwise it’s super embarrassing to call for an ambulance while dripping wet and naked because you slipped and accidentally broke something and your partner got a concussion while you were trying to bang in the shower. 

Moaning and screaming wildly during sex is fun but it will make the neighbors in the apartments adjacent to you hate you. Make choices accordingly. 

These are the only three flaws I will concede, when it comes to the Jedi during the Prequels.

“They got lax/complacent.”

Yeah*. If you listen to the director’s commentary, George Lucas states the scene in AOTC with Jocasta Nu is there to indicate how unprepared the Jedi were before the Sith’s plan. They thought they were secure and ready but they were not and it turns out humble restaurant owners like Dex know things they don't.

*HOWEVER: Who wouldn’t be complacent, in times of peace?

The Sith were thought to be extinct and Dooku was once a Jedi, a revered one at that. Nobody could have suspected he’d betray the Order that raised him and loved him.

Nobody could've suspected that he'd abuse of their trust and delete a system from the Archives using the credentials of his best friend who he'd had assassinated. That's a verrrry specific scenario, and expecting them to be prepared for that is unreasonable.

"They should've sensed something!" Well, by this point in time, everything surrounding the Jedi was tainted by the Dark Side, which clouded everything. So on the one hand, this situation granted Sidious the gift of foresight and allowed them to always be one step ahead, and on the other, it caused the Jedi to be stuck trekking ahead in a fog, unsure of what the next move would be.

“They were politically-inept.”

Yes**. That’s how the Sith ran circles around the Jedi. They figured “there’s only two of us, if we march into the Temple we’ll get slaughtered, but wait, the Jedi serve the Senate and the Senate is run by politicians… what if we become the politicians? Then we can destroy the Jedi and the principles from the inside!”

**HOWEVER: The Jedi were politically-inept by choice.

After all, their function isn’t setting policy but carrying it out. They’re not politicians, they’re diplomats and as such they're not allowed to get involved in the political process.

But if they were... they still wouldn't. Because power corrupts, and if you let the space monks (who already have magical powers) have political power too, then that will lead to a very dark place.

The Jedi knew that if they tried to play politics, they’ll lose because they have neither the ruthlessness nor the status to do it well, so they make it a point of never going anywhere near it.

Unfortunately, that leaves them open to situations where the Senate or Palpatine corner them into doing something they really don’t wanna do.

It's how they were forced to expel Ahsoka, how they lost the favor of the citizens and it's how Dooku, then the Emperor, framed them as power-hungry sorcerers with his propaganda.

“The war made them hypocrites.”

Sure***. The Jedi were meant to be diplomats, not soldiers. By waging war instead of keeping the peace, they’ve compromised on their values.

***HOWEVER: The Jedi know this and they’re not happy about it at all.

Firstly, because they were forced into this situation by the Senate and Palpatine, who drafted them into service.

Secondly, because they know they’re essentially moving ahead blindly and playing right into the Sith Lord’s hand by fighting this war he orchestrated.

But finally, it’s that they know that not joining would’ve been worse. Sticking by their principles would’ve resulted in the enslavement and genocide of many populations. Sometimes, the spirit of the rules must be prioritized over the letter. Either do nothing and be true to your principles, or go against them but save lives.

It’s a bad choice to make, but not as bad as not making one.

It's a bad choice, but it's motivated by a desire to do some good and it did. They saved countless lives (sometimes at the cost of their own) and inspired countless more to form the Rebellion, later on.

So... three flaws.

But they all come with asterisks. There’s a reasonable (sometimes, even admirable) justification for each of them.

I’m pointing these out because a lot of people seem to conflate “the Jedi were flawed” with “the Jedi were at fault” when talking about their own demise. And the answer to that is:

No.

The Jedi were not at fault. Everybody else was.

The Senate was at fault for growing corrupt and self-serving.

Big Corp for their never ending greed.

The Separatists for being so blind and naive as to think Big Corp would tooootally value their principles and absolutely not commit war crimes every chance they get.

The Sith for being the mass-murdering egotistical assholes who started this whole mess.

And the citizens of the galaxy for not taking up arms in the face of blatant injustice.

Sometimes bad people win.

That doesn't always mean the good guys are at fault. Sometimes, the bad guys are just… better at the game. Mostly because they see it as a game, and the good guys don't.

Luckily, 20 years later, most of the above faults were rectified by the Rebellion, which was led by the best of the Senate, and composed of Separatist remnants and brave citizens of the galaxy.

if the requests thing is still up, can i request another double/last/3rd life ariana griande? maybe with scar??? their dynamic is just hilarious to me.

Girllight gateboss gaskeep or whatever

Plus a little comic

why are star wars planets more boring than earth and our solar system like sure we’ve seen desert, snow, diff types of forest, beach, lava, rain, but like… 

rainbow mountains (peru)

red soil (canada/PEI)

rings (saturn’s if they were on earth) 

bioluminescent waves

northern lights (canada)

salt flats (bolivia, where they filmed crait but did NOTHING COOL WITH IT except red dust?? like??? come ON)

and cool fauna like the touch me not or like, you know, the venus flytrap.. and don’t get me started on BUGS like… we have bugs cooler than sw aliens

BASICALLY like???? come on star wars you had one (1) job where are the cool alien species

On Journaling

Hi, so i LOVE journaling. im obsessed with it, i love talking about, its my main personality trait, i try to convince everyone i meet to journal (and have succesfully convinced many of my friends to do so).

I would like to talk about it, and answer questions about it. More than anything i think this is an interest and hobby of mine that has become so integral to my being and i cannot live without it and i think its super super helpful and fun. Obviously for many people it isnt helpful or inspiring but it could be! give it a try! so here is a LONG post about my basic journaling practice, why i journal, and how i became consistent and happy with it.

My journal collection.

Currently im actively using a 3 notebook system, and i have 4 total journals. the first (A) is my regular journal one that i will habit track, write my goals, ramble, diary entries, collages. anything. the second is my commonplace book (B) (the most recent additon) which i use to collect information i want to reference back to (everday reciepes, facts, excersizes/activities) and i also use it as a on the go notebook since its small enough to fit in my purse. 3rd (C) in my system is my planner. its a blank notebook that i draw a calender in and use it for to-do lists or things i need to remember, its the messiest of the 3. the 4th is a bit of a wildcard, i have a journal that i am making for a friend and they are making one for me and we trade them once they are done. fun little bonding activity, i do more prompts and artistic collages and lists for them.

I am pretty picky but also broke so i wanted to share the types of journals i use. type A is currently a art creation sketchbook (im canadian so a win for us) i adore it and its a good length of pages for me since i can finish them quickly and they are thick enough for me to draw in on occassion. B is a A6 spiral bound blank muji notebook, small enough for my purses and i like the hard cover so i can flip it over and write even without a hard surface. C was a gift, a grid notebook a freind got me but i have in the past used an A5 muji blank notebook, im the least picky with this type. Just no lines, my handwriting is messy and lines get in the way.

My History + Why

so i have been doing diary writing of some sort since i was a kid, if very sporatically. i was definitly inspired by dork diaries <3 and i for sure think it was a way for me to talk to someone about the traumas i was experiencing without guilt or shame. I have journaled on and off for years. i started taking it a bit more seriously in highschool, I'd finish one journal every like 2 years/1.5 years. last fall i had a pretty thin notebook that i didnt love that i had for oct-dec since i didnt want to start a new nice one so close to the end of the year and for some reason i just poured into it. i think the goal of finishing it was motivated 1. because i was excited to use my new one for the new year 2. i was very conciously working on my mental health and developing new hobbies, 3. i was away from my friends, and 4. I decied that instead of having the like 5 journal system i previously did (why idk) and being so precious about it i would mush them all into one and build from there. this year I have finished 2 journals and started my 3rd one yesterday. not even that i was trying. infact my first journal of the year i thought was so beautiful so i was a bit precious about it sometimes. It just got solidified as a habit, and i needed it as a coping mechanism. its definitely something i use more when I'm feeling lonley or my friends are away at school, but even during the summer i love it. I dont force myself anymore which is a wonderful feeling.

The biggest change i made to become consistent started with me noticing how bad of a vibe my journals had before. i only ever journaled the bad things or the things i was too embarassed to say. So everytime i picked it up i felt BAD. i stopped using my journal at the time half way through and started a new one with the express mentality that i was going to do both good and bad things in one space. make it my life. I started writing out my goals semi regularly, documenting good days like my birthdays, journaling while waiting for friends at cafes, sticking in receipts and packaging, doing pretty/ugly collages, all while also journaling through late night breakdowns, difficult times, therpay sessions, and coping strategies. i used it as a place to extend my joy AND process my sadness and mental health. the point is, make your journal a confidant. Its so helpful for me (a chronic oversharer) to write stuff down and then if i still feel the urge to talk to someone i do. this doesnt limit my social interaction but enhances the conversations i can have because I have already processed parts of my emotions.

So generally speaking i journal because its helpful and fun. I suspect i have ADHD and i also dissacociate from my depression/anxiety so i forget things. both good and bad. so i need a record of not only my plans but also the good things that happen in my life. Nostalgia runs deep in my bones and i cannot wait to read these back as i age. every year i wish i had journaled more in my childhood. its also a way for me to process my emtions and feelings without spiraling, i write slower than i type so it forces me to slow down. I also feel like externalizing my emotions to a book gets them out of my head. there are a few anxiety reducing things i have learned that help A TON

You dont need to be consistent about it, there has been days or weeks where i dont touch my journal because i dont feel the need to. But because of the years of practice i know when i havent been thinking about my emotions or I feel like my brain is a mess that i need to. Even when i've just had a really really good conversation i know its something i want to write down. sometimes i will type entries into my phone and either print them or copy them into my journal.

My journals, past and present, are some of my most prized possessions. PLEASEE feel free and encouraged to ask me things or tell me about your journaling practice!!!!

things to do when u realize u feel shitty

so i have alexithymia (emotional blindness or challenges in recognizing, expressing, sourcing, and describing one's emotions) and i often dont realize why, whats causing me to feel that way, or even if its mental or physical shittiness. so here are things i try to do to reset.

so the first step is obviously realizing the feeling at first, is your brain making you feel bad about yourself? do you feel like theres no point in doing things? do you feel stuck? or has there been any drastic change in energy in a short time? these may look different for you, but learning to notice even something as small as do i feel Good or Bad, you dont need to get caught up in what specifically it is.

FIRST and foremost, medications. did you take your meds? vitamins? please do so if you can. if you've missed the time window that you are meant to or cant for another reason, no guilt please, its ok we all forget.

move! change locations. even if its just where you are sitting in bed from one side to the other and sit up if you can. i try to move to my desk chair. sometimes just sitting up can change the way you feel drastically.

this could also mean move as in take a walk around your room, stand up on your phone instead of laying down.

do a Task, or Activity. copy a journal spread from pinterst even if it takes like 3 hours. write some lists, make a bracelet, play a game. focus on something you like. very cliche advice i know but its great to allow yourself to do something you like.

get a snack/water. unfortunately hydration is important even tho its annoying. make it super cold, put some lemon or mint in there if you want. its all about making it a) more fun and b) different sensory experiences. if you are hungry go down a mental list of most to least effort meal and find what you can do (cook from sratch, add stuff to ramen, eat it plain, get a handful of nuts or fruits, etc)

open the curtains/blinds, let the outside in a bit. even if its dark out open them and look around and close again.

face feels gross? do some level of skincare, exfoliate your lips and put on some vasesline, brush and floss your teeth (love floss picks). if you have bangs wash them in the sink.

if weather + mental permits, go outside. even for 2 seconds to look at it

shower=full reset and rebirth. not a bath, a shower. let the water hit you and soak your hair. do as full of a shower as you can. use so much moisturizer (if you can) with a scent you love. sensory goodness is very helpful. this usually works for me to pull me out. often the reason why i feel shitty is actually just me not realizing my hair is dirty, or i need alone time, etc which is acheived by showering.

aligned with that, put on new clothes, either comfortable and lounge clothes that are good sensory, or you need a new fun outfit because you have been wearing the current one for too long and its irritating you in a way you dont notice.

clean something, same as the food go from most to least effort and find out what you can do. organize 1 drawer or your whole house. my go to is usually rearraging my bedside table top and drawer. because for me thats where i keep things like my journal, headphones, letters from friends, body butter, etc its a chance for me to help future me access this little self care station.

make your bed so you have a clean cozy place to lay and sit, unfortunately a made bed is more comfortable

in general, treat yourself like a littel guy, talk to yourself like a toddler even if it feels silly, the part of you that feels bad is basically a toddler throwing a tantrum tbh. silliness is often a precursor to feeling Good. these things feel so so hard but each time you do them despite feeling bad it will get easier i promise you, you will get good at what you practice so practice trying.

if all of these things seem too hard, or you cant do them, the main thing is thats ok too. and if you dont feel 100% better after doing these things, that is also ok. the truth is some days things will be hard and that is your body telling you to relax, or sleep, or that it just wants to have an off day. no day is wasted if you are still here to see it.

(a lot of these tasks can be made easier by doing prep when you are feeling Good, which is part of the reason why i made this list, but i might do another post on prep stuff. )

care

Change a single letter and change the word game

I decided this would be fun. So reblog with a new word and see how long we can make it.

The starting word is...

Lady

//its 3am that means its ramble time

With Overhaul arc upon us in the anime. i say its high time,for me to reintroduce my very first Verse I ever made for Shimi and the first one ive ever deeply explored for Shitetsu, the issue issss theres no,definite end for that verse... Meaning, the verse basically exists as an everlasting pain and angst route right now, with no definitive ending, which quite frankly, aint very plus ultra of me

Like just an au of consistent denial and emotional turmoil,is fun but only,for so long, so, i will ramble out here with some stuff

So if I keep traitor verse as I have it currently, Shimi is manipulated into becoming a yakuza lackey and over the course of a few months breaks into a personality fed on obtaining power, that which she calls "blighted" and in a way sections off, Shimi from Blighted acting as if she were two different people, but instead of my tree branch route of an ending,

Shimi gets found and 'rescued' from the Yakuza and is kept at UA as a hope to rehabilitate her, which comes with more angst yes, but also, that power she got helps her boost her way into the hero course while attending therapy to help break her from the mindset of being two people.

Tetsu would be mostly unaware of the circumstances but noticeably worried his (girl)friend is missing from,school and isnt be let out to investigate where she is, adding into his fear of failing those he cares for, and when she comes back like... Well, a villain, he gets really pensive and kinda angry that shes like that because she wasnt months before, why is she so????? Cruel and violent now???

And he probably tries to make her talk to him a lot,,sometimes with some luck and other times he takes a fist to the face, and overall hes really torn up about it because thats NOT the Shimi he knew but that is still SHIMI, and hes so mad he cant just go out and fight those people who changed her in such a way, but he knows its for the best he cant do that, and it messes him up so much, but hes trying and he tells it to Shimi,sometimes and occasionally she enables him to like take it out on her since she too was at the time of being with them enjoyed being a villain, even if for a short time

I wanna give it a better end where ultimately Shimi does become a hero just, not one whos allowed to do villain apprehension, and the trauma inflicted upon her by the yakuza can be undone to a healthier state, but also, i want to share some of my really bAD ENDINGS BECAUSE THEYRE SO WilD,

Like Shimis villain verse is actually an offshoot from this AU, where once the Yakuza falls, she wanders around and then gets picked up by the League of Villains.

And Tetsu's villain arc which too could be sprouted from this traitor verse where he does actually go and beat the Yakuza up, but because of just how vigilante it is, (and also because he probably beat them an,inch of their lives) thinks he cant ever be a hero anymore or do good, so he just, "i guess its villain time"

Theres just. Alot I can do with it. And its cool?????? I think??? Its a long ramble,I'm,so sorru

so with the show gone, what's your headcanon on the ventures's future? have the creators mentioned anything about it?

A few things in passing but not too much. Namely just that Dean is gonna lose his hair and that Hank will eventually step foot in Mars as an adventurer. I think Doc and Jackson said as much that they want to keep the door open for future stories in case they do get to come back, and that they'll always have new things they'll want to do, but anyway yes okay, post-show headcanons:

Doc burns through Jonas Jr's fortune and for the most part remains the same, but he eventually achieves a true breakthrough of his own: a permanent solution to hair loss. It comes with a few little side effect mutations but for the most part it does work and Doc is, reasonably pretty happy that for once he gets something to his name that he actually made and isn't something horrible done to him. "Reasonably happy" is as happy as Rusty is ever allowed to get, and he dies a few weeks later by something predictably stupid, like auto-erotic asphyxiation.

It's shitty, Dr Orpheus cries over it, but everyone kinda saw it coming.

Most of Doc's assets get seized and the boys actually don't get much, he forgot to put them in the will because he made it back when he still had the clone farm. Rusty's last wish is to be cremated so nobody gets to clone him, and for his ashes to be scattered at Spanakopita, which has become a big White Lotus-esque resort island since Doc's last visit, built by Giorgo almost entirely off the Venture fortune. On the boat ride to Spanakopita, (WHITE LOTUS SEASON 2 SPOILERS) Sgt Hatred dies exactly like Tanya did and nobody bothers to fish his body back up.

Eventually some Rusty clones will pop up over the years, one of which is gonna be on that offscreen Rusty that went on the Cleveland Time Machine adventure with Billy. Once they leave Rusty's science basement, Billy and Pete White will never make it to the big leagues, but they'll pretty much be together until the end, and they are gonna go on some real weird adventures, like freaky Doom Patrol stuff, St.Cloud is gonna get up to some shit in the future once he bumbles into becoming rich enough to warp space-time around him just by existing and turn into the world's first Level 100 antagonist by the least amount of effort humanly possible. Actually the whole world is gonna get a lot weirder in the future, when stuff like the cloning tech and anti-gravity music boxes bleed over into general public use.

At some point the Earth will be menaced by the return of General Treister, who has absorbed enough cosmic radiation to become Galactus (this one was mentioned in the artbook as something they'd play around with, if they ever brought Treister back). He will be stopped from devouring the planet by a joint effort between Hank Venture, the Guild and the OSI, and Hunter Gathers will sacrifice herself in the process, passing the OSI's leadership to Shore Leave, who will bring SPHINX back every few months just so he has an excuse to interject SPHINX! into sentences again for funsies. Brock essentially becomes the OSI's equivalent to Red Death: basically retired, but he goes on assignments a couple times per year or gets brought onboard for decision-making, some part of him actually does kinda like this life and he stands by the friends he's made in it. He keeps touch with the Ventures but for the most part he flies solo. At some point he will have enough illegitimate children across the world for them to start their own super spy group.

Hank becomes an adventurer, and for the most part he just remains Hank as always. He makes a lot of strange alliances all over the place, he doesn't resort as much to his entourage of personas but some still come up on occasion (the double life of Enrico Matassa is one for the history books), he reforms Shallow Gravy with Dermott (who is totally 100% getting kicked out of the OSI) and Gary and HELPeR and Scare Bear playing the triangle, for the most part he lives up to the idea of being more "Rusty Venture" than Rusty himself ever was and he becomes like the first major Venture adventurer who's not some kind of monster. He completely and totally blows out any chance at settling down into normalcy, but he lives an exciting life. 50/50 on him either dying young doing something incredibly stupid and careless, or somehow stumbling his way into full-blown Highlander immortality just as 21 foresaw.

Dean I think stays in New York full time and is another 50/50 on him: he's either gonna succeed in having a normal life, or he's becoming a villain, I'm taking the fandom side on this one, villain Dean is not the most exciting idea in the world but it has some legs to it and I can't see him being anything else if he's gotta be a part of that binary whether he likes it or not. In the former, I imagine he finishes college, maybe gets a degree in something lowkey, probably changes his name and settles down with somebody and stops answering most calls, basically makes it like Professor Van Helping in that his life is okay and that's just how he wants it. Villain Dean I think happens in largely a similar way to how it happened to Dr Girlfriend taking over the Guild: not something they wanted or planned to, but it's the best way to keep things stable and keep themselves afloat amidst the chaos that surrounds them whether they want it or not. Maybe he finally listens to King Crimson and it breaks his brain into mad science a bit, as it tends to do, or maybe he invokes his blood right to appoint himself Sovereign but otherwise keeps hands-free of the Guild, and only does it so the Guild leaves him alone and he can boss other villains into standing down. He's gonna have freaks in costume trying to get him for the rest of his life so, fuck it, when in Rome or something.

At some point in the very near future Mantilla takes over the Peril Partnership and guts it to make ARCH a real thing, and maybe in the future ARCH kinda replaces the Guild at the forefront of supervillain institutions, with the Guild having the final word in matters of diplomacy and the old guard and ARCH as the new high-tech face of things. She never succeeds in getting to be besties with Dr Girlfriend, but she does hit it off nicely with Sirena, who takes over after Wide Wale and fires basically everyone that was still around after the Morpho saga. The Order of the Triad actually does succeed in making it pretty big, with comparatively few players but some very powerful additions like Lila, Red Death's daughter, and some of Jefferson's old buddies. Definitely not Triana though, she's got better to do than run with her dad's crew. Somehow HELPeR winds up joining and gets married to the Pants Golem.

Gary is gonna keep on being Henchman 21 up until the moment The Monarch dies, at which point he might actually undergo another big transformation of the self and will probably just outright become a sidekick to the heroes. He's never going to truly be a hero or a villain himself, he gave those a try and he's pretty firmly the kind of guy that only comes to life when someone else tells him what to do, so I imagine he's gonna bounce around until he finds something he finds fulfilling, will probably go on plenty of adventures with Hank. Really by this point he's already an honorary Venture, with The Monarch out of the picture so goes the pretense. Sheila, I think she just runs the Guild for as long as she can, probably reformulates it into something more sustainable by the end of her run. Sheila's arc in the show is about her climbing the ranks and moving away from her role as a number two, and distancing herself more from The Monarch because of it, and she's not going back to her old life so I think she's just fully going to remain The Sovereign up until she gets too sick of it, possibly moves into politics at Radical Left's suggestion and hands the Guild off to Phantom Limb. Maybe even becomes President of the United States for a bit, if anyone in the cast is becoming president it's really gotta be her. Or maybe not since she's overqualified, but still, if she does, in the process she hands the Guild to Phantom Limb, who basically makes it a drinking buddies gentleman's club and is too retired and rich and old to care much about anything anymore.

The movie ends with a pretty firm statement that The Monarch is just going to keep on being The Monarch no matter what and that he will in fact never stop trying to arch Rusty, and he's had like a million chances to kill Doc by now and didn't seize any of them so really yes he will just keep doing this until one or both pass. And I'm definitely thinking Doc goes first, Malcolm is torn between celebrating and flipping the fuck out that Doc DARED to not let The Mighty Monarch kill him, and for a brief moment he's completely and totally unsure as to what the fuck is he going to do with his life. He's like this close to genuinely trying to turn his life around and try to be a Blue Morpho-esque hero again if only because he and Gary had some good times and, y'know by this point he hates the Guild more so than the OSI, but then the Rusty clones show up and, you know what, fine, I can work with this, THE SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH IS NO MATCH FOR THE ACID CUMSHOT OF VENGEANCE, DOCTOR VENTURE, MUUUHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! and then he crashes his new butterglider into a cliffside Wile E.Coyote style and he dies like two weeks into a new plan.

Gary cries, Sheila's heartbroken, but again, they and everyone totally saw this coming.