divine hindsight

| 20+, they/them | many long-form thoughts...

[butterflypeaflowertea]

it’s so nice being fond of people on here :-) like yeah maybe we only know each other in a very limited way but i care abt you guys & hearing abt your lives makes me happy & i like listening to the things u have to say & i really truly wish the best for you all!!! sending my love from a couple states, countries, oceans away

[willgrahamscock]

I do the opposite of gatekeeping, I’m not going to shut up until you like this thing as much as I do

[willgrahamscock]

here’s a wet pathetic man in a gifset to get you started and then I’m going to send you memes as propaganda

[destinationtoast]

gatetossing: hurling the gate at passersby and attempting to capture them, regardless of whether they wanted to pass through the gate

[ihni]

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i want all my friends and followers and mutuals and acquaintances to know from the bottom of my heart: i don’t respond to your messages because i’m an insane person, i am insane medieval hermit software running inappropriately on modern queer hardware and social media scares me. it is not your fault

[cheaphalloweencostume]

when i get a notifications on my phone i try to kill my phone with a rock

[tls12lessthan3]

the final chapters of orv to me are like this. youre feeling tired and insecure and your friend invited you to a party later tonight but you think they'll probably have more fun without you. so you fake sick and don't go. and you do that often enough with enough friends that you look back at your life and realize you never took a single person up on a single offer. and then you die and god hands you a big book and you open it and its full of every single time someone wished you were there. every single person who wanted to be with you longer, every old friend and passing acquaintance who wished they still knew you. every single person who you could have built a life with and didn't, and their life was colder as a result. and god says here is proof that you were loved and you say what do i do with this now. its too late. i missed it all. and god puts her hand on your shoulder and says you're not too late at all. the invite is still open. we're still here.

[wolfythewitch]

Zoey sketch

[asteropewpew]

it kills me sometimes, that phainon was created to be a vessel of hatred, but he lives because of love. that phainon understands, to an extent, that all his pain and suffering are manufactured variables that sees his losses as mere data to be analyzed, but he can't help but become attached and suffer just as much as expected anyway.

poor phainon. the first cycle, the 0th eternal recurrence, already placed him in a position that allows little leeway to be remembered as, "Phainon from Aedes Elysidae". and over and over again, like a sisyphean tragedy, phainon chooses to dehumanize himself as the "Deliverer, the one born without a flaw", a living mausoleum of all that he's lost and losing every single time.

and when learning about some of the cycles that he's gone through, there's always an underlying tone of grief and resentment. you can see the resentment first when phainon would say that the chrysos heirs are "acting the same as before", and then the grief on the few moments where we would say, "this is new." in response to the other chrysos heirs if they would say something different from the usual cycles.

in a way, it's such a poignant metaphor for grief. it's like he's constantly discovering these reminders that he's not yet done with being human, that he's still someone capable of enduring so much grief and suffering despite the manufactured horrors that he could seemingly never escape from.

and that's how he endures another cycle, over and over again. there is resentment because of all that he's lost and keeps on losing, but there's also love with how he remembers all the new and recurring encounters with the chrysos heirs.

this orv quote fits him so well i think, "Even so, don't resent people too much, my disciple. Because they're just happy that you were born."

thing is, lygus' relative non-interference of all those 34 million plus plus cycles (from how i understand it), is that he believes that his goal will always be achieved regardless of phainon and cyrene's defiance. that the "answer" that he's looking for will always appear, despite all the "delays" that phainon did by his continuous resetting.

but that's just it.

lygus, in all his essence, approaches what could be considered a human subject experimentation by how a machine interprets signals (the outcomes of each cycle) from the instrument (amphoreus).

he fails to consider that phainon will always be saved, simply because he deserves and is worthy of being loved. from how anaxa tried to bargain with him regarding his approach to their current cycle, to castorice wanting so badly for him to take refuge in her domain in the cycle when they meet again, and to hyacine choosing to try and get close to him despite the pain of the flames eventually consuming her.

phainon may resent his own existence, knowing that everyone's tragedy (even his own) will always be rooted back in his creation. and yet...

yet there's always going to be someone who is happy that he's been born 🥹 that there's always going to be someone that thinks he's worth being loved and cherished like he loves his flame chase companions so much

[fullmetalfisting]

Me: *looking at a porcelain hand in the home decor aisle of a store* if I lost my hands in some kind of tragic accident, I’d decorate my entire home with hand-shaped things. Then I’d invite guests over for like, dinner parties and such and sit there expectantly just basking in their discomfort.

My boyfriend: Do you hear what you say when you talk? Do you know what you just said to me?

[inahiddenplace]

I love kids they’re all like.. “when i grow up i’m gonna be an astronaut and a chef and a doctor and an olympic swimmer” like that self confidence! That drive! That optimism! Where does it go

[alexundefined]

It gets destroyed by adults not believing in you and telling you to pick a realistic career. And by society creating all these obstacles to the point that you’re too tired to try.

[thechargrey]

But they’re not really unrealistic, SOMEBODY is going to be an olympic swimmer and it might as well be you.

[thechargrey]

Actually I want to talk about this a little more than I did, because olympic swimming is incredible and works perfectly to talk about attaining goals.

I used to be a varsity swimmer, and I was damn good, but I was forced into it by my parents and completely lost my love for it and therein my drive. But in high school I was swimming against such talented swimmers like Olympic Swimmer Missy Franklin. I’ve met her, and the main difference between her and me was that I was strong but had no passion, but she was strong BECAUSE she had passion. 

And I could have been good, really good, maybe even Olympic good. I even have the predisposition for it, been swimming since I was 2 years old, have a mom who was almost an olympic swimmer. Missy didn’t have either of those things, she just wanted it, loved it, had been doing it for a long time, and decided she was going to kick ass at it.

Right, that’s great and all, but I completely missed my opportunity to be an olympic swimmer, yeah? and can never achieve those dreams I had as a kid? No, not even though. There was this whole thought that female athletes peak when they’re 17 years old and lose their skills quickly after that, and male athletes peak around 19. But then Olympic Swimmer Dara Torres shows up. She was an olympic swimmer when she was 17, 21 and 25. Pretty normal age for retirement. She had a few kids. She kicked butt at being a mom. 

And then at 33 years old she decides she’s bored or something gets back in shape and kicks so much ass at the trials that she lands herself on the Olympic Team ONCE AGAIN. And then 8 years later, she decides, heck I’m 41 now, no one has ever made the olympic swim team as old as I am, I want to get in shape yet again and teach these children how sports work.

And she still has the record for oldest US Olympic Swimmer, not even any men have beat out that record.

So basically what I’m saying is you could be an olympic swimmer, you really could be. And there are obviously a lot of things stopping you and trying to get in your way: your brain, society, too much chocolate cake for example. But if you really dedicate yourself to it and love it with all of your heart you could, you really could.

And lets say olympic swimming isn’t your jam? That’s cool too. There isn’t a single skill in this world that you can’t learn if you absolutely love it and want to. Any skill you want is going to take time. There are countless famous people who started learning a skill after 20, 30, 40, or even 50. Not a single person has even been president under age 35 (most likely because you’re not allowed to be, but there’s a reason for that). Whatever you want to do you’re probably going to be bad at first, and I’m talking really shitty.

Van Gogh got started in his 20′s and was thought to have no artistic talent at first and was forced to sit in the back of classrooms where the worst artists in the class sat. So yeah you’ll probably be bad, like really bad and everyone including you will think you’re bad. If you stick with it though, if you’re willing to work for years and years, if you keep loving it after all the pain it’s given you, 

then you might just paint Starry Night.

[ooksaidthelibrarian]

#looks like there’s still time for me to learn how to draw … YES. As someone who started drawing at 35 and who always was like: ‘eh, I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life, but I would love to be able to’ this is near and dear to my heart. If you want to draw, start drawing. Keep drawing. Be shit at drawing at first. Keep it up, doodle things on scraps but also draw stuff you don’t think you can draw. Challenge yourself, you will be surprised what you can do. It will be frustrating at times, but it will also be awesome. It is SO much a matter of practice and dedication, not talent.

[arialerendeair]

This applies for writing, too.  

Don’t ever think for a second that it doesn’t!  Want to start writing?  Then write!  You will get better the more you write, the more often, and you will improve, all of the time, as long as you dedicate yourself.  

[lauraannegilman]

The worst lie we tell ourselves is “it’s too late.”

[boodlesandtonicplz-deactivated2]

[adriankyte-writes]

Talent is a pursued interest.

Human’s are pursuit predators.

Be awesome.

[greelin]

doesn’t everyone constantly feel like they’re acting. All the time

[greelin]

[valtsv]

emptying and reloading a gun with practiced efficiency so you think i'm an expert marksman but you later find out that's just how i stim

[valtsv]

turning the safety catch on and off like i'm clicking a pen until everyone gets really mad at the noise but no one says anything because i have a gun and they don't

[harpieisthecarpie]

this is what makes people get into butterfly knife tricks im pretty sure

[asteropewpew]

this too, is anaxa

[yffresbeard]

i think it is important to recognize the ways in which your favorite thing sucks. i think it keeps u normal

[rabbithaver]

prev im so sorry to put you on blast like this but please know this had me in hysterics

[whateeveeer]

Please retire the "we are made of stardust" phrase I am so tired of it

[bluwubewwy]

Stars are made of flesh

[whateeveeer]

I change my mind bring back the original phrase

[weiwei-uplink]

no i like this one

the stars will bleed the same as us

[footlongdingledong]

love when theres a character whose entire existence is spoiler tagged by default. go behind the curtain boy

[asteropewpew]

this too, is the things i can say about mister anaxagoras

[gilkenansmonsterhouse2006-deact]

i wish i could say “?????????” in real life it would be very useful

[gyrovagi]

[asteropewpew]

the more i sit on this, the more i get struck by just how much it fits to have castorice's trial and anaxa's own trial to occur so closely to one another. no wonder anaxa gave the culmination of his life's work, the philosopher's stone, to castorice for her trial.

of course. they both know what it must feel like to be eternally separated from their loved ones between life and death.

consider anaxa who lost his sister to the black tide, despite praying to the titans for salvation. then castorice, who had grown up not knowing what she had lost but suffered keenly what she had lacked apart from everyone else. and perhaps polyxia too, to an extent—she who lost her sister for the simple, damning price of having authority over death.

"Why could I not sacrifice myself in order to resurrect my nearest and dearest?"

what must it remind of polyxia thanatos of who saw anaxa's desire to seek death, yet his deepest wish had only ever been to gaze at the family that he had forever lost?

"If such a mighty power existed... I would use it without hesitation."

and so, she they gave it to him. perhaps this was the beginning of anaxa's eventual self-destruction, serving as an impossibly sharp fragment that gouged into his heart and unearthed his long-buried grief. or maybe it was the greatest acknowledgment to the depth of anaxa's love, who loved so passionately and deeply enough that he would brave the netherworld just to be able to reach his sister for one more time.

"Equivalent exchange... all I received for that price was an opportunity to see her for one final time. Nothing more."

what does it feel to anaxa then, to see his sister whole and untouched by the horrors of the black tide, to wear the peace of death with such grace in front of him who sacrificed half his sight just to see her for one more time?

so i can't help but really think that anaxa's giving of the philosopher's stone to castorice has another meaning, something a little kinder perhaps. from one grieving soul to another, in order to help feel a sense of closure to the loss that they had both felt for so long. it was through that stone, after all, that thanatos was finally able to feel relieved that castorice had lived well—despite weathering such a selfish act (of resurrecting someone long gone) born from the purest of love.

maybe thanatos had intended to give anaxa some sense of closure by seeing his sister so peacefully like this, just as anaxa had intended for thanatos to have their own closure in the shape of his student's innocent joy

[maidthings]

"this is unbecoming of me" is genuinely a useful thing to have in your mental toolbox

[maidthings]

Like. you probably shouldn't say it out loud, but if you hold yourself to any principles or standards, you should really really be able to recognize when you've failed to meet those principles