#Just does something that destroys me inside and I will now pretend that doesnt exist and live in AU world

[jazzy-a]

Me, gleaning from fans that something awful happens in the books that creates a rift between Jesper and Kaz:

[richardsphere]

RWBY Catchup Slogblog V8E10: The one in which Ironwood, actually has a point for once

“I dont give a DAMN about Jaques Schnee”  Cool, this is the first sensible thing i can remember this guy saying. ---- Bad news the cane is apparently the equivalent of a nuke. (this is bad news because nukes are one-time use items and now “on the table” as far as the narrative is concerned. This means the enemy can have the Scepter make a Cane and nuke things if they get the cane while bypassing the “one item at a time” restriction because, i dont need the old nuke after it went off). Also the existence of nuke-type weaponry in this story is just generally an uncomfortable level of powercreep. Even if it turns out to be a one-time use item that still means there is no way for the story to de-escalate back to a sensible scale. So Grimm in the inner city were vaperised, but the people who were carrying the bomb into the whales mouth are fine. (maybe the cane is like Ruby’s Eyes and only affects grimm?) Marrow asks a good question: which characters were still inside the whale? Quick headcount: Salem (immortal) Oscar (presumably alive, i dont think ozpin would make a nuke that destroys its wielder, if only because it would mean more fetchquests to return the nuke-cane) and Hazel certainly. Mercury and Tyrian are off to Vacuo so they’re safe. Watts and Cinder are prisonbreak-buddies Neo seems to have made it out just in time but was definitly in the blast radius. It feels like im missing someone? Wasnt there one more seat at Salems table at the castle? It just feels like im forgetting someone? so in summary: Nuked the enemy base, but it does nothing to affect the overall scores. ----- Team Badguy sucks at communication apparently. “she’s on a set path now”, thats weird, do the baddies know the location of the vault? as in have coordinates for its exact location within Atlas? It feels like the virus should only work if they had like verry specific instructions and im fairly certain that the exact location is like, super-duper-top-secret so its weird that they’d know it to the level needed to code a virus to go exactly there. (just think of the PeanutbutterSandwich test for ref.) Arthur sure likes dangling over ledges. Maybe this time they’ll actually get dropped. Arthur manages to rage her into sparing him somehow? I dont really buy her pulling him closer as a response in this scene, it feels weird for her to acknowledge he’s somewhat right about her. on a related note, wasnt she initially protrayed as this master manipulator playing Beacon for Fools and now she’s portrayed as a fire-themed brainless brute.  -------- Ah so we do only get the explanation about how the cane works after the cane gets used. I’ll be honest i thought it’d just been something i forgot about. (it stores kinetic energy.) Most of the power has been used but at least some remains. Gut feeling tells me the fact its charged by kinetic energy will be significant somehow (maybe ties in with Harriet Speedsemblance for a rapid mini-charge if she’s still on the road to defection) ------- Oh happy suprise, the subwaytunnel refugees arent dead yet. (reminder, this entire ordeal started with burrowing grimm so this is a legitimate suprise with how long the battle feels to have been going) also just now noticed the atlas flag-thing has a spear on it. ----- And James finally stops pretending he didnt snap years ago. Winter is clearly realising that oops turns out my surrogate Dad is about as trustworthy as OG dad. Neo is still Neo. Just noticed, Blake is still wearing the eyeshadow/eyeliner/mascara/some other form of eye-based makeup that I dont understand from the party she attended the day before the election. Have events really happened that much more quickly then i thought that she’d still be wearing that? And of course the show doesnt even have time to give the characters a reunion before it drops another gutpunch that i can barely feel with how numb and bruised i am from the plot. But at least Em’s on the good side now, that should technically count for some form of "win” on the heroes side.

[early2000smovieimagines]

Meeting and Dating Tim Sullivan

(My gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(This movie was genuinely amazing. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.)

- There isn’t an exact memory that you can recall when explaining how you met Tim. It was probably some time around the first grade; you knew you’d gone to the same school since then. You also knew that you’d drifted in and out of each other’s lives; through being placed in the same classes, after that.

- Regardless, you and him weren’t close, not for a long time at least. You were aware of each other’s existence sure, but only as peers, passing faces on the classroom or hallway.

- It wasn’t until around the seventh grade that you actually became acquainted. It was around that time that you started using your allowance to visit the comic stand after school. That was where Tim first became interested in you, him and the other; at the time, two boys.

- You’d just finished buying an issue and were beginning to walk home when him and his friends rolled up on their bikes. You glanced at them for a moment as you continued to walk, noticing that their eyes moved from the comic in your hands to your face in surprise. You paid it no mind.

- You were the topic of conversation for nearly an hour. They voiced their disbelief, then made some raunchy comments, and then, they trailed off with an earnest “maybe we should, I don’t know, ask if she wants to hang out or something.”.

- They were kind of at a loss; a pretty girl who likes comics was a weeks worth of soapy rag material. They all just stopped mentioning you and moved onto a different topic after that.

- The next day, the boys lingered at the front entrance, pretending like they weren’t watching you as you walked towards the school, pausing as you waited for the first bell to ring.

“Well, is anybody gonna go talk to her?” Tim had been the first one to speak. Everyone remained silent and he scoffed. “Fine you pansies, I’ll do it.”

- As you can imagine, you were a bit surprised to be approached by the boy as you leaned against the school gate. You politely returned his greeting before glancing back at the school awkwardly.

“So...swamp thing, huh?”

-The comment threw you for a loop until you remembered the previous day. Nodding, you expressed your interest in the comic and asked if he was a fan as well, prompting a mini conversation that was interrupted by the bell ringing.

- Just before the two of you said goodbye, he invited you to hang out with him and his friends after school, an offer you awkwardly; somewhat, accepted as you began to walk inside.

“Yeah, I mean that should be fine. …See ya.”

- They waited for you in front of the school after classes let out, debating with each other on whether they should just go as you were a bit late. Thankfully though, you showed up at just the right time, apologizing and explaining that Assumpta had kept you late to help her after class.

- They all sweetly assured you that it was fine, as though half of them weren’t just planning on ditching you. And thus, you began your journey to their usual hangout and your subsequent friendship with the group of boys.

- Fast forward a year or so, you’re a certified member of the group, contributor to the comic, and Tim's “secret” crush. Everyone in the group besides you knows that he has a thing for you and it’s one of the few things they can actually make fun of him for.

- It’s around that time that you realize you like him too and; unable to deal with your sudden feelings, start acting all quiet and sort of weird around him. He takes notice of your hesitance to be alone with him and your odd behavior and the next time you wind up alone together, he asks you about it. You insist that nothing is wrong and he starts to badger you. 

- One thing leads to another and soon enough you’re wrestling each other around the room. After a bit of struggling, you manage to pin him down, angrily telling him to shut up as you straddle his torso. Both your chests are heaving as you stare down at him and he stares up at you. You stay like that for a long, quiet moment before you climb off of him, grabbing your things and booking it out of your gangs little hideout. 

- He lays on the floor for a while before he leaves as well, showing up at your house later that day and acting like nothing happened, convincing you to come do something with him. In an effort to forget about what happened and just smooth things over, you agree. 

- Soon enough, everything is back to normal, but after a while of the two of you busying yourselves with whatever it is you were doing, silence falls upon you and he asks if you “want to talk about it”. 

- You tell him you like a guy and he nods, his heart clenching in his chest as he teases you lightly. He asks you who it is and you remain quiet. He nudges you with his shoulder and begins to teasingly pester you until you tell him it’s someone in your group. You cant even begin to imagine how shitty that makes him feel. 

“Francis?” He asks, almost as though he already knows the answer. Your denying it genuinely surprises him. “Wade?” Wrong again.“...Joey?” he asks as though it’s the most unbelievable thing he’s ever heard. You shake your head  without looking at him. 

“Then...,” The two of you sit in silence as it dawns on him. You remain silent when he finally, tentatively asks “Me?”

“Can I kiss you?” You turn your head to look at him before slowly nodding, a small smile threatens to pull at his lips as he leans in.

- His hand hovers at the side of your face as he softly presses his lips to yours. When you break apart, you look into each others eyes for a long moment before his hand finally touches your skin and he kisses you again; this time with more confidence. 

- The two of you spend the rest of the day stealing kisses and wandering around the overgrown and abandoned parts of town. You suppose you could consider this your first date, mainly because it’s so similar to what you usually do for “dates”. 

- And thus, you begin your relationship with the rebellious alter boy. 

- Not a lot of Pda happens in your relationship. You’re both sorta young and inexperienced so there’s that constant “should I, shouldn’t I” internal debate when it comes to affection. Most of the time, he leans towards the “wait until you’re alone” side of things.

- That being said, when you are alone, he’s much more willing to be affectionate; albeit it with a bit of juvenile hesitance.

- While he certainly wouldn’t mind feeling you up, he’s sort of more interested in the innocent aspects of romance. He isn’t really in a huge rush to “make it” with you; he likes kissing and hugging just fine.

- Shoulder kisses.

- Soft, sorta slow kisses. When you first got together, you hadn’t expected him to be so ...sweet when he kissed you. You expected hard and quick but you were pleasantly surprised.

- Makeout sessions.

- Kissing you is therapeutic for him. Whenever he just wants to get away from the world, he likes to lean over and press his lips to yours.

- He likes to be the big spoon and nuzzle his forehead into your hair/back of your neck. With that being said, he can cuddle in just about any position the place you’re in will allow.

- He likes your odd quirks, he thinks they make you cool. You’re out of the ordinary and so is he; you make a good couple.

- Constant teasing.

- As much as he likes to tease you, he likes to compliment you just as much. He’s always eager to tell you when you do something well, insisting that you do or that it’s true when you try to brush off his praise.

- He gives you a specific nickname, something that only he would ever call you. He likes having that special little connection.

- Getting notes sent to you. Excuse me, poems with notes at the end.

- He’s obviously got a pretty rough home life and has dealt with some tough shit over the past few years. He doesn’t really like talking about it so you just have to be there for him when he wants to hang out and get away from it all; though he’s sort of used to it by now.

- He doesn’t invite you over a lot, for obvious reasons.

- Sneaking out at night to go hang out with him.

- Spending hours together. The two of you are out of your houses from early in the morning to late at night whenever you can be.

- You act like really close friends more than you do a couple at times, most people at your school sort of assume you’re just friends because of it.

- The two of you sort of just hang out together rather than go out on typical dates.

- Reading comics. He likes either lying his head on your shoulder or having you lay your head on his.

- Riding your bikes together.

- Dates at abandoned buildings.

- Walking through the woods and marshes together.

- Skinny dipping/swimming in the lakes of your town.

- Cloud gazing. You lay together and just stare at the sky.

- You’ve significantly lowered his need to make trouble since you’re always there when he’s bored. Does he want to go destroy something or kiss you? Its a hard decision.

- Deep, sometimes dark conversations. He’s been forced to grow up sort of quickly and because of that he knows just how cruel the world can be. Sometimes, he just can’t help but talk to you about it and, sometimes without even realizing it, ruin your wall of innocence and naivety.

- Dark humor and morbid jokes. He’s a sick monkey.

- Whenever he gets a cut, scrape or bruise, he’ll always teasingly ask you to kiss it. He tells himself that he’s just messing with you but whenever you actually do do it, he’s both flustered and pleased.

- I feel like Tim would use any injury he gets to draw your attention to him, even if it really doesnt hurt that much. It would be especially common before the two of you started dating. He just likes having you focused on him and touching him gently.

- Drawing and writing on his cast.

- Helping him with his pranks. He always tells you that he can’t do it without you; he knows that it breaks your resolve.

- He’s an adrenaline junkie; he likes dangerous stunts and getting his heart racing so expect to be involved in a few scenarios that would give your parents a heart attack.

- Getting high/drunk with him or just dealing with him while he’s high/drunk. Don’t worry, he’s usually pretty mellow, especially when he gets high.

- He can notice when something’s wrong and will always ask “whats the matter with you”. He’s usually pretty good at making you feel better, even if it’s just by saying something stupid and not judging you.

- Just a fair warning, you shouldn’t trust him with secrets that involve people he knows or involves something that he might just so happen to leak into a conversation.

- Tim hates being ignored, mainly because hes so ignored at home. He always gets sorta angry/upset when you don’t give him attention.

- He can get really jealous in certain situations though he’s just a jealous person in general. It’s primarily because he cares about you so much and doesnt want to take a chance on having the one real good thing in his life leaving him.

- He’s not necessarily protective but he is caring. He’s always looking after you, even when you’re fighting or angry with each other. He doesn’t ever want anything happening to you.

- Aren’t you even gonna ask me if I’m pissed? I wouldn’t say Tim has a short temper but certain things do make him really angry and will cause the two of you to fight. He doesn’t yell, he hates yelling, but he will say the occasional insulting thing or tell you; very seriously, not to do something ever again.

- That being said, he calms down very quickly and remains calm if you’re the one who’s upset. He earnestly asks if you want to talk about it when you seem to just be upset because of something else, even if you just tore into him.

- He always tries to just ignore the fact that you’ve been fighting and move on, smoothing things over like they never happened. He doesn’t need an apology but if he thinks you deserve one, he’ll give it to you.

- He doesn’t tell you he loves you very often but he’ll occasionally surprise you with one, usually when you least expect it or when he’s really thinking about how much you mean to him and how well you treat him.

- Tim doesn’t talk about the future with you very often, sometimes he’ll mention something he wants to do in life or jokingly talk about what you’re gonna do together but that’s about it.

- As awful as his parents marriage is, it surprisingly hasn’t ruined his view on the matter. He; very maturely, tells himself that he’ll never be like them and that when; not if, the two of you get married, you’ll be so much better.

[firekyoshi]

i can't believe yall havent thought of a sambucky the handmaiden au LIKE GUYS LOOK AT THE POTENTIAL

okay if u haven't seen the handmaiden (2016) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CHECK IT OUT OMG ITS ONE OF MY FAV MOVIES AND AS A BISEXUAL WOMAN ITS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES FEATURING SAPPHIC CHARACTERS

anyways here's a very self-indulgent sambucky the handmaiden! au that i wrote at midnight literally 7 hours before my exam

tw // mentions of suicide

- sam is sook-hee and bucky is hideko obvs

- sam is a criminal working for the power broker aka sharon while bucky or in this case, the winter soldier, was a test experiment for HYDRA / is now an assassin + bodyguard for their leader, alexander pierce

- sharon is conducting business w hydra to obtain some weapons and idk black market stuff which forces her to go to siberia, but obviously the ultimate weapon she wants to take home is the infamous winter soldier

- she asks sam to pretend to be her butler/bodyguard but is actually hiring him to get information on the winter soldier program and obtain the code words needed to control them

- they end up staying in pierce's mansion in like a really remote place in siberia

- sam gets acquainted w the other butlers and housekeepers, they tell him that the area is haunted because they would always hear a man screaming just before daybreak followed by complete silence. they also tell him that the forest is haunted by the spirit of a man who killed himself there

- just like the housekeepers said, sam wakes around 3-4 in the morning to the sound of a man screaming followed by complete silence

- anyways the next morning he accompanies sharon to her first meeting w hydra officials, and that's where he encounters bucky

- after the meeting, sharon is all like, "change of plans. we're going to steal the winter soldier." sam's like "and who's that?", "the person u were standing next to earlier,"

- afterwards, sam starts to spy on bucky. he doesn't talk much, sam notices, actually scratch that this man does not talk period

- they were standing by the door a few feet away from where their bosses were talking. "so uh, what do i call you?" sam asks one day, but bucky is like a statue, his response being a mere blink

- sharon and pierce always have their business meetings in the morning, but they also have spend time at night, usually supper or dinner, that's more casual. sam notices that pierce's bodyguard is less stiff and more human during the later hours of the day

- sam and bucky are again standing by the door. "what do i call you?" bucky asks quietly, almost like a whisper. "uh sam, you can call me sam. and you?"

- he freezes for a while before replying, "james barnes"

- another thing that sam notices is that bucky is NEVER alone. either he's with pierce or he's escorted by other bodyguards (who look like they couldn't even take him down altogether)

- one morning, after the usual distant screams, sam decides to figure out where the screams were actually coming from. he goes to the main house, pretending to bring tea for sharon (there's a small camera hidden in the tray)

- he sees the usual group of bodyguards escorting a half-naked and disheveled bucky from the stairs to the basement. when they see him, the group looks like a pack of deers in headlights, one of them reaches for their gun, "i'm bringing tea for ms. carter," he quickly says.

- "go ahead," the leader, rumlow, says, "but next time use the main hallway will you?"

- "right, she just said it was faster this way, and she's really peculiar about the temperature of her tea."

- he shows the video to sharon and she's like "i need u to find out wtf is going on in that basement."

- one night, sharon and pierce are having dinner tgt "since we're on the topic of legends and fairytales, i have to ask about something," sharon says,

- "go, on," pierce replies

- "the winter soldier program, does it really exist?"

- the hydra leader chuckles, "i was wondering when you would ask that," then points toward bucky, "my dear, you're looking at the winter soldier."

- sam listens in on the conversation. the winter soldier program was a program created by hydra in the 1940s with the first successful test subject being an american ww2 soldier named steve rogers. apparently he was given this serum that made him super strong and for 10 years, while the other test subjects were cryogenically frozen, hydra worked to find ways to control him but failed and they had to keep him restrained most of the time.

- one night, rogers broke out of the facility, stole all the remaining formulas, and threw them away before blowing his brains out in the nearby forest

- after rogers' suicide, hydra brought out its second test subject, bucky barnes, and used the remaining serum on him. afterwards hydra froze him again while they worked on something to keep his mind under control.

- around the 1960s they created the trigger words and since then they've been using bucky to do their dirty work for them. "this, my dear, is our greatest creation." pierce says as he approaches a stand displaying a red book. "his trigger words. say them and he will do anything you want. if you need some errands taken care of, i'd be happy to lend him to you. we can talk about the costs later."

- "i don't have anything i can't take care of myself at the moment, but i'll keep that offer in mind." sharon replies

- now sharon's like "okay we HAVE to steal him and the codes." she figured out that all of the mansion's surveillance turns off for an hour to reboot from 1 AM to 2, and tells sam to basically go to the basement and manipulate bucky when he's not under hydra's control. "make him trust you, that way we won't have much of a fuss taking him to madripoor."

- that night, after the clock strikes 1, sam sneaks into the basement and finds a cell with bucky inside. there's a bed, well, more like a mattress, but bucky's not sleeping on it. instead he's sitting in a corner, head against the wall, knees tucked in his chest, hyperventilating and,,,crying???

- "hey," sam whispers, "you okay?"

- the winter soldier stares at him with red rimmed eyes and a tear stricken face. "you're sam, you're her bodyguard."

- "yeah and you're the winter soldier, or do you prefer james?"

- "bucky. it's bucky"

- yeah basically sam visits bucky's cell every night for exactly 45 minutes before he has to sneak back out. he tries to gain bucky's trust and manipulate him but guess what they fall in love surprise surprise

- bucky tells sam his true story. how he and steve used to be ww2 soldiers that were experimented on by hydra. he remembers being frozen and the first thing he sees when they woke him up was steve's dead body. "they told me he shot his head in the forest." the first thing he felt was pain as they injected the serum into his veins then tried to erase his memories. he remembers going into cryo and being woken up over and over again to kill someone or destroy something.

- he also tells sam about the one night he broke out, ran as fast as he could, and jumped off a cliff, only for him to survive. he lost an arm, but hydra replaced it with another weapon. "i thought i would end there, but i just became more of a weapon"

- so sam starts to feel unsure about stealing the winter soldier bc goddamnit bucky's a person and he doesnt deserve any of this.

- also the more time he spends with bucky the more he realises that the actual james bucky barnes is a fucking piece of shit that still uses 40s slang and petnames and makes outdated jokes and is actually a big fucking flirt.

- and sam's heart breaks every time he looks at bucky's crestfallen face when he realises that their 45 minutes are over

- of all the people he could fall in love with, it just had to be a brainwashed assassin

- sharon tells him that in a few days, she and pierce will leave for a week to actually get the business transaction done. basically she tells sam that he should break bucky out of the mansion while they're away, take the trigger word book, and meet with torres so he can take them both to madripoor.

- while sharon and pierce leave, sam continues visiting bucky during the night. also he doesn't see bucky during the day bc they have no reason to bring him out of the cell, and he kinda misses him aw

- one night, he wakes up to noise, lots of it. everyone in the house is running. in the midst of all the chaos, sam hears, "find the soldier!"

- the first place sam goes to is the forest, and there he finds bucky kneeling by a frozen lake, with a gun in his hands. sam tackles him and throws the gun away

- "what the fuck were you thinking huh?!" sam shouts, tightly holding the front of bucky's shirt, and he can't help but cry at the thought of bucky's dead body. and all of a sudden he feels like shit. for manipulating bucky and taking advantage of his trauma for his own gain. so he gathers bucky in his arms and tells him everything. about what he and sharon were actually planning, what his true motivations were when he first went inside the basement, and how he actually grew to care for bucky

- bucky just laughs and says, "i know,” he reveals that sharon's plan all along was to take bucky and the trigger words for herself, and frame sam as the mastermind behind everything. she'll then fake bucky’s death and offer sam as another test subject for the winter soldier program as compensation for stealing (and “killing”) bucky

- "how do you know all this?"

- "she visited me the first night you arrived and we talked. she told me she'll take me away and all i had to do was manipulate you into breaking me out." bucky confesses, "i didn't realise you were a sweetheart, that made everything so complicated."

- anyways sam knocks bucky unconscious and basically helps hydra guards put him back in his cell. "just saying, maybe we shouldn't tell pierce abt this yknow" and the hydra guards r like yeah no totally cause if he knew we're all fucked

- anyways bucky and sam come up with a plan to escape together. sam contacts a friend known as baron helmut zemo, who's basically sharon's biggest enemy, but more importantly, owes sam a big ass debt and asks him to give the two of them safe passage to sokovia

- they plan to escape two nights before sharon and pierce return to siberia. on that night, sam wakes up at exactly 1 AM like he always does, and kills everyone in the house. he puts a bullet in every hydra guard, every housekeeper, everyone. he disables all the techs in the house, steals the trigger word book and breaks bucky out of his cell.

- "wait. there's something i have to show you." bucky says. he takes sam to the facility. the place where they tortured him and experimented on him. the place where every other test subjects were kept frozen.

- (if you've watched the handmaiden, yes this is a reference to the library scene) sam can't contain the anger he feels when he looks at the room. "is this where they tortured you? is this where the screams come from every night?"

- bucky nods. he points at a chair in the centre of the room, surrounded by machines and computers. "every morning they would drag me out of my cell, put me on that chair, and-" he swallows a choked sob, "and read the trigger words,"

- sam can't control it anymore. he grabs a metal rod and starts destroying the place. he breaks every machine, tearing them apart until they are nothing more than wires and buttons. he kills all the frozen test subjects, because they deserve better than this. he rips apart the pages of the winter soldier's mission reports, and gathers them into a pile.

- from afar, bucky watches as sam lights up the pile and everything in front of him starts to burn. when sam turns to look at him, he can't help but think about how magnificent he looks as the fire roars behind him. his hero. his guardian angel. his sam.

- sam approaches bucky and pulls him in for a hungry kiss. something he feels he should've done earlier. "no one will ever control you again." he says, and for once its a promise that bucky believes in.

- sam reaches in his bag and pulls out the red book. bucky starts to cry bc no one, not even before hydra, had ever loved him like this. "i mean it. no one." sam says. bucky throws the book in the fire and watches and both paper and leather melt into ash

- the end they escape using zemo's private jet and live happily ever after haha

[mallowbees]

i dont know much about TMA but ,, could you tell me a bit about avatars? I want to make a sona really bad because they look so cool haha

Oh heck YEAH I can!!

Right so!! Avatars are people who have had experiences with or behavior that aligned with one of the 14(15 kinda?) fear entities and end up serving them!! Throwing people to their, for lack of better words, god, to feed off of their fears and occasionally try to kick of rituals to make their god strong and getting some sweet powers as a reward!

!! It’s gonna be kinda hard to avoid spoilers with explaining this, so I’ll try to keep it to the minimum but some spoilers for avatar people’s stuff :’D !!

The 14 are as follows (I’m just gonna snag most of this from the wiki but anything not in italics is me):

The Burried :

Also called The Center, Choke, Too Close I Cannot Breathe.

The fear of claustrophobia, small spaces, of being unable to breathe and the underground and dust. Being at the centre of everything and it is all pushing down. Fear of being trapped without enough space.

Notable avatar person I can think of is 18th centry guy who worked in a grave yard and would nap in the graves cause it was quiet and when they installed bells incase someone was actually alive when they burried them they could ring it, so someone rang it and he cut the line because he thought they were nice and deserved to sleep, also early episode lost johns cave is a good example but doesnt have an avatar in it so hfgh

The Corruption :

Also called Filth, The Crawling Rot, or The Hive.

This entity is linked closely to our feelings of disgust, of feeling revulsion and fear of corruption, disease, filth. Manifests as mould, bugs, rot, decay, infection. The feeling of your skin crawling.

Jane Prentiss, she wanted to be loved and found love in a bunch of worms in a wasp nest in her attic, so she became their hive, she loves her worms and her worms love her, they sing

Also other guy I genuinely don't know his name he just made everyone sick at that retirement home with disease and hung out at hill top road a few times, got sealed in concrete and he always looked like he was skin and slightly rotting

The Dark :

Also called Mr. Pitch, The Forever Blind, The Sandman

A manifestation of our very primal fear of the dark, of what lies beyond what we can sense. What might be in it?

One of the oldest of the Entities.

Uhh cult kidnapped that one kid i think that was them, i dont know who the dark avatar is actually

The Desolation :

Also called The Lightless Flame, The Torturing Flame, The Devastation, Blackened Earth.

This entity deals in fear of pain, of loss, burning, fear of unthinking or cruel destruction.

Acolytes are enriched by destroying the lives of people who had things to live for, destroying things before their potential is realised. In exchange, the cult members can create heat--but not fire--and gain the ability to make their skin run like wax.

They burn from the inside and consume everything in flames, Jude Perry and Agnes Montague are the two i know, Agnes was born into it and died because of forbidden love and Jude set her girlfriends flat on fire so hgfhfg

The End :

Also called Death, Terminus, The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored.

This entity deals in the fear of death itself, uncaring and unstoppable.

No known attempts at a ritual, presumably because it sees no need to, as Death claims all in the end.

Oliver Banks!! Had dreams of strings that tied people to their deaths, actual rational avatar, also didnt ask for this but he does pretty well. Also commited identity fraud

The Eye :

Also called Beholding, The Watcher, The Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You.

This entity is fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Fear that you’re suffering for the sake of something watching.

Elias!! Horrible man!! Can body hop! Just wants to watch the drama unfold and get more power. Knows lots of things and compulsion ! Also Jon because he reckless curiosity kinda screwed him over there and yeah. And that one security guy who got consumed by a watcher lietner watching other people via security camera, rip that guy

The Flesh :

Also called Viscera.

Born from the fear of animals bred for meat, and in the human realisation that we are just animated meat and bones.

Manifests as strange bodies being twisted, reshaped, and butchered.

Thought to be the newest of the 14, born around the time of the Industrial Revolution

Jared Hopworth! Got a Lietner, runs a gym to change bodies into what people want until they're practically not human anymore, likes most bones if they're good bones

The Hunt :

Hunting and chase and violence, this is an animalistic fear, very old and primal. Fear of being hunted, being prey.

Less able to affect people due to our self-removal from the food chain. Self-proclaimed monster hunters (and those who do the same without referring to themselves as such) run a strong chance of becoming Hunters and then having a need to hunt and kill monsters.

Daisy! Things get kinda messed up when you combine non-human impulses with a person so! Murder! violence!

The Lonely :

Also called Forsaken, The One Alone The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone. Fear of being disconnected.

Peter lukas, Martin, grew up lonely and shunned idk what you expected, can literally vanish, cool aethetic- Also that one girl who married one of the lukas’, nayomi? But she wasnt an avatar just with one

The Slaughter :

This entity feeds off of pure, unpredictable, unmotivated violence. Strong ties to war. Fear of not knowing, where, when, how or if pain will come but that it will. Can be violent like a frenzied killer or calm and regimented like soldiers firing on the battlefield.

Melanie! Anger! Murder! Stabby stab! Justificated feeling that your anger is right!

The Spiral :

Also called Es Mentiras, It Is Lies, The Twisting Deceit, It Is Not What It Is.

This entity is fear of madness, of being lost, that your world is wrong, that your mind is lying to you. It deals with deception, lying, deceiving the mind and senses.

Michael! Helen! I don’t,, really know what to say on this one hgfhfg

The Stranger :

Also called I Do Not Know You.

Fear of the unknown. That creeping sense that something isn’t right. Also of unfamiliar people. Manifests as objects pretending to be humans, like mannequins and taxidermied people.

Theyre not people they arent who they arE

The Vast :

Also called The Falling Titan.

This entity deals in our fear of our own insignificance in this universe, of losing yourself in too much space. Its effects involve void, vertigo, and falling, but also anything to do with openness and open spaces, fears like Agoraphobia, fear of deep water.

Simon fairchild is honest to god just vibing hes having so much fun also reeeally long lifespan he likes watching people fall off this and falling off himelf, also mike crew who didnt ask for this but just kinda ended up there anyway cause he got struck by lightning on a hill and got a book

The Web :

Also called The Spider, Mother of Puppets.

Deals with fear of being controlled, entrapped, being trapped and not knowing it, and your will not being your own, of being manipulated. Manifests as spiders and spider webs and patterns like spider webs.

The Extiction :

Also called The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, The World Is Always Ending

The 15th Entity hypothesized by Adelard Dekker to be currently emerging. 

It is not yet confirmed to actually exist, if it is yet to be officially born, or if it is a combination of other powers and their overlap. It deals with the fear of catastrophic change, the destruction of humanity and its replacement by something different, especially via mankind's own causing.

Man-made elements are one of its hallmarks.

Avatars of other Entities would like to prevent it from emerging if possible.

Nobody on this one yet but yeah!!

So!! Usually it’s either the thing you are scared of embraces you and flips your behavior on its head, (Scared of being alone? Make other people alone! Scared of falling? Make other people fall!) Or something you like vibe with embraces and justifies you even if it scares you (Want to know?? Huh?? Buddy? Wanna Know? Or you just want some love? Get u some worms) Like if your experiences fall under one of the categories you probably go there if you’re not afraid of it, or if something happens and you’re terrified of it but not dead you’ll probably end up there hfhghgfh

Oh also here’s a what entity are you quiz if that helps ghfhfgh: https://uquiz.com/quiz/zxE9GQ/which-tma-entity-are-you-aligned-with?embed=False

Basically, does it scare you a little? Does it vibe with you a bit? There you go! You have an entity now! Have fun! HFGhfh

[edge-lorde]

hp update: its ur favorite tumblr user back at it again with another great post. thats right, as promised here is a more in depth look at the recent dragon themed time sensitive event!

this event takes place in year 6. bill is graduated but has been coming back to the school periodically to teach us bootleg DADA just like harry did in the books. it is on one such occasion that bill lets it slip that his next job from gringotts involves him going to the dragon reserve that we know charlie will eventually work at. bill had not told charlie about this job prior to this discussion precisely because of what happens next, which is that charlie wants to go.

this brings me back to year 4 days with the first charlie focused sidequest, where we scrounged up money to by what may or may not have been a dragon egg (it was not) from a strange man who had been seen trying to approach other unaccompanied minors walking around hogsmeade. this pure of dragon centric heart, but dumb of dragon centric ass quality was what made me start liking charlies character in the game in the first place. he begins negging his older brother in a way that is very familiar to me as a younger sibling. i as the mc of course jump on the bandwagon with charlie immediately. 

bill sounds very defeated in this part because he knows the negging wont end, and/or knows that he will eventually cave to charlies demands. “no you cant come.” he says with a sigh.

but well see about that, because charlie and i go ambush bill at work to ask again. 

as stated previously bill works at gringotts bank, which is run by goblins. i already had access to the location diagon alley, but before this event gringotts itself was closed to me. newly unlocked, charlie and i walk inside. unlike the hogwarts kitchens, it does not feel like walking into hell for me to do this. unlike house elves which only have 1 basic model used for every elf except for the 1 named elf, there is some variety in the goblin designs. there appears to be one basic goblin face that i can tell, but its paired with several different outfits and hairstyles, giving them the illusion of originality typically spent on unnamed background characters. there are also 3 named goblin characters with all their own stuff.  

the first is obviously griphook, the only real goblin character from the books. hes bills supervisor. in the books hes a pretty unlikable guy but here, though hes not nice exactly, he seems at least kind of chill. he doesnt kick charlie or me out for barging in and says its ok for us go on the mission with bill. its nice to see him unstressed. 

the other 2 goblins are the perhaps, hopefully, cool ones. one is younger than the rest and has some friendly dialog with you and his other named goblin friend, who possibly exists so the first one has someone to banter with. they dont do anything else this event but gringotts stays open after the event is completed so hopefully they will come back again and get their own plotlines. 

anyway, charlie and i harass bill at work for a bit. his boss comes in, hears our plea, and doesnt immediately tell us to leave.  instead he tells us the rundown of bills mission: a long time ago a goblin boasted that he could craft a golden dragon egg that would be indistinguishable from the real thing. he did, and it was. so much so that a dragon destroyed his house and stole it, i think he died in the process. 

“so,” says griphook, “that is why we must send you, 18 year old we just hired, to go to a remote location filled with dragons by yourself to rifle through their nests and bring back what is rightfully ours. no we dont know which dragon took the egg or even the type. yes you can bring your little brother and his friends.” 

sounds legit. charlie and i convince bill to not only let us come with him, but also our other classmates from his DADA class due to scheduling mishaps. we go gather the rest of the class to tell them about this but only merula, penny, and barnaby show up and so only they get to go on the field trip, which is convenient because otherwise wed have half the school out there and that would be entirely too many characters for the devs to write at once. 

we borrow the same tent the canon characters will eventually use in all their camping shenanigans in the book from hagrid and get to the dragon reserve via portkey. the reserve now appears on the stairs screen as a permanent new location, not a fleeting one as i once thought. theres dragons flying all around, majestic as hell. 

its too late in the day to start searching so we set up camp and settle in, roast marshmallows, barnaby tells a story about a vampire broomstick. then we go inside the tent and play truth or dare. im asked to pick at one point which of my friends id most like to have with me if i were to get lost in the woods. i pick barnaby because hes the one who asked, but really id probably want merula there more. barnaby is supposed to be into dueling but ive never seen him in a real fight. ive seen merula take a Cruciatus curse and then get up and walk. pennys whole thing is potions too. i thought this choice would be relevant to something in the event but it was not. 

in the truth or dare game, merula gets bill to tell some embarrassing stories about charlie as a kid. he talks about charlie putting wings on their rat and a dragon mask on their owl, pretending that they are real dragons. everyone laughs.  this his a cord with charlie though and he storms out. we wrap up truth or dare and go to bed. 

the next day we begin the search.charlie has not come back yet. we realize this and begin freaking out, start looking for him instead. we scare a mother dragon off its nest for unfathomable reasons. eventually we hear charlies voice coming from inside a cave. we go in, charlie is alive and uneaten, but has a broken leg. he ran off to find the egg by himself in order to prove himself as teen boys are wont to do. bill and i then realize the other 3 didnt follow us into the cave, and a big ol dragon walks in. i gotta fight it singlehandedly while bill heals charlie in the back. 

the boss fight was actually pretty hard. it took me like 5-6 tries to beat the dang thing thing. much enjoyment many high stakes. i put a sleeping spell on it to stop its attack at the end, though i had the option to use the Cruciatus curse which seems a little intense, game. then the other 3 run in and are like cool your safe! sorry we couldnt help u fight the dragon, there was a dragon. im like “yes, understandable.”

bill had given up on finding the egg at this point, but then charlie finds it! its a gold egg. in retrospect this egg might have been the egg that will inspire the gold egg stealing challenge in hp book 4 but i forget if that was inspired by a story or not. 

then we have a cool down level with bill and charlie, where they both apologize, and charlie says what he did was stupid, but i insist its wasnt stupid it was cool and good even though that is factually wrong because thats what i would say in real life regardless. bill and charlie promise to never speak of this trip again, especially not to their mom. 

the last level is us going back to gringotts and regaling griphook with the tale of our journey, including the marshmallow and truth or dare bits. he says “great job, teens!” and then we all jump up in the air and the theme song plays as we freeze midair and the colors fade to black and white. we all learned some valuable dragon based lessons today friends. it took me 2 full hours to write this and i have to wake up at 6 tomorrow. 

[oblio-k]

ANYWAYS ive been working on a mila fic whenever im exhausted and here it is. whether it’s love or manipulation is up to the readers

Invitation

As Mila pulls a weed from the little garden she’s started behind her employer's mansion, she finds it hard to keep her mind from wandering. From thinking about how her life is so different now.

She forces herself to use the word different because if she uses another word she fears she may start crying. And if that happens, someone would undoubtedly see her, and her employer would take her aside and ask her if she was alright in a way that would sound kind but could drag any answer out of her that he wanted. She likes working for him and vastly prefers this life, this job to her old one. Crying will just make things difficult.

Master Tain had been cruel and treated her as if she was nothing if he noticed that she existed at all. She’d been on the receiving end of his wrath quite frequently and had been left with bruises more than she cared to admit.

Agent Tain is cruel, but never to her. To her, he’s careful and kind, respectful. He goes out of his way to spend time with her and never raises a hand to her. When he looks at her, he doesn’t look through her, and she’s glad to be acknowledged.

She knows he’s only so kind because she knows who he really is. Who he isn’t, rather. But she likes to think it’s also because they’re friends. Or, at least, are becoming friends.

But when she looks at him when he’s working, she’s reminded of how they met, and she can’t stop her hands from trembling just a bit. Before meeting Agent Tain, she’d only ever seen people die from old age or illness. She’d never seen people be murdered. She’d never seen people be or had been interrogated, never had to learn how to use a weapon-

“Miss Garak.”

When she stands and turns, Enabran is behind her. At first, his ability to sneak up on her, to appear out of nowhere, had scared her. Now, it still frightens her, but she doesn’t worry he will hurt her. He’s had so many opportunities to get rid of her, to eliminate the last person besides his superiors that knew his secret, but he’s never taken them. She is alive and unharmed, save for a scratch on her palm from a tool she’d grabbed the wrong end of while gardening.

Before she can greet him, she sees the wound cutting across his abdomen. It’s as if someone had slashed him with a sharp knife. One hand presses tightly against the large wound, like he’s keeping himself from spilling open, though it does nothing to stop the flow of blood. A smaller puncture wound by his clavicle bleeds profusely. She forces herself to get over her shock after looking at each injury and takes his free arm around her shoulders. He leans against her and she helps him inside.

It’s not the first time he’s come to her with injuries, and she can never tell if he is in pain. Enabran is silent as they walk to the master bedroom, and his breathing is steady. It’s not typical for an Obsidian Order agent to appear immune to any injury, from what she’s overheard and seen.

She’s not entirely sure she knows why that is. Mila suspects he’s not a normal agent, that these assassination and interrogation attempts come so frequently because he is proof of something his superiors would very much like to erase.

He sits on the edge of his bed and she washes the dirt from her hands and retrieves the medical kit he has hidden away. It takes a moment for the wall panel to open when she lets it scan her palm, and when she turns around, Enabran is pulling off his bloodied, torn shirt. There are no wounds on his back, and he lies down as she opens up the kit next to him.

Mila doesn’t understand why he trusts her. Still, she dutifully heals him and when the medical scanner picks up an odd substance in his system, she asks, “Have you been poisoned, sir?”

“It’s a truth serum,” he replies, an odd smile on his face. His voice is completely level, as if he hadn’t almost bled to death.  “A very strong one.”

“But it doesn’t work on you.”

“Of course it d-doesn’t.” His voice cracks, and he closes his eyes. But he’s too late to hide it when she’s looking directly at him. His pupils dilate. Bizarrely, he begins to laugh. “Why would it work? I’m Cardassian.”

It means something, that. An inside joke that she’s not privy to the context of. But Enabran glances at her, an invitation for her to investigate. He won’t be upset if she finds out what that means- he wants her to, she’s almost sure. The secret she knows could destroy everything he’s worked for, what’s another?

“Miss Garak, are you finished?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you. Would you get me a cup of tea?” Master Tain had never thanked anyone. Agent Tain never thanked anyone unless he was manipulating them, and even then, only rarely. Enabran always thanks her. She likes to think it’s genuine. He rubs his eyes as she turns, and sits up.

He has a small tea set in his bedroom, a little burner and a few boxes of the different teas he’s collected on his travels. It’s an indulgence of his, and he’ll get a distant look in his eyes for a moment when she hands the cup to him.

She’s thrilled and worried about noticing and knowing these little details about him. It’s an exposure of that part of him from before.

A weakness he would cease if she dared to point it out.

“Make a cup for yourself,” he adds.

“Yes, sir.”

She picks an herbal blend with a pleasant taste she knows will help with his recovery and help relax her nerves. Blood still isn’t something she’s very used to, especially not large quantities of it. Perhaps in a few years, it won’t faze her.

A few years. She’ll be lucky if he lets her live that long, and she’s not sure what she’s feeling when she realizes she only ever thinks about her future being here, serving him.

By the time the tea is done, he’s changed into fresh clothing, a garish orange turtleneck covered by a drab green shirt, with black pants that don’t match the rest of the outfit at all. Fashion is not something he’s good at, but then again, he seems to be good at everything if asked. She’s sure if she requested it, and he was so inclined, he could choose an outfit fitting of his position as heir to the Tain fortune.

As he takes the cup from her and doesn’t even check it for poison, she thinks to herself that he would very likely be inclined to do what she asked. But she won’t. She knows her place.

“Miss Garak, how is your garden?”

“It’s doing quite well. My brother sent me some seeds to try growing, and they’ve finally begun to sprout.”

“Tolan, correct?”

“Yes, sir.” She’d never told him her brother’s name before. “I’m afraid I’ll never quite meet his skill for flowers.”

“I never understood why people enjoy flowers so much.”

“They’re beautiful. People like to look at nice things.” He opens his mouth to say something and hesitates. Perhaps the truth serum is affecting him more than he wants to admit, though she doesn’t know what he could possibly say about flowers that he wouldn’t want anyone to hear. She asks a question that she thinks will be inconsequential, “If there’s anything you would like to see in the garden, I would plant it for you.”

“No. I’m sure whatever you grow will look beautiful.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Though perhaps you should grow more edible plants than flowers. It’s been quite some time since I was last able to eat something that I’d picked myself.” That distant look. Then his pupils grow large and he looks down at his tea as he says, “When I was a boy, my caretakers would take me on walks around the estate grounds after I’d finished my studies for the morning. We’d eat from the garden until lunch was ready. It was nice.” They’re as wide as she’s ever seen on anyone as he finishes.

Before she can offer her own story about her and her brother enjoying fruits and vegetables from their father’s garden, he asks her, “Miss Garak, do you know how to play kotra?”

“I’m familiar with the title, not with the rules,” Mila answers, dropping the sir to see what he hopes to gain by teaching a servant a complicated game.

A smile tugs at his lips, and he gets up and pretends not to have noticed. “It’s a game I quite enjoy. I believe you would be a good player.” He retrieves a board from within his desk and brings back to the bed. “I was taught how to play when I was young.”

She expects to find a knife at her throat in an hour, then. “I don’t expect you to play any way but your best, sir, despite my inexperience.”

“Kotra is a game about bold tactical strategy…”

Sure enough, after having quickly lost two games against him and arguing with him after she realized he was allowing her to win their third match, a disruptor is pressed against her throat, her wrists held tight in his other hand. She hadn’t even seen him grab it.

“I think I need to get back to work, Miss Garak,” he tells her, voice cold.

Enough was enough. He couldn’t risk appearing close to her so soon after an incident. Quietly, she agrees, but he doesn’t let her go.

“You understand, don’t you, Mila?” It was too dangerous for them to be friends. To be whatever they were. Mila wonders which one of them he’s afraid for.

After all, why should he care if something happens to her? Attachment was a weakness. He’d said so himself to another agent, and for once, she was absolutely certain he had been honest. “Yes, sir.”

It’s even more likely that he’s not worried at all, that all this is a game to keep her quiet. Still, she enjoyed their time together and will look forward to the next, if it comes.

Agent Tain releases her, lowering the disruptor.

[tumblunni]

hey uhhh YKNO WHATS GOOD brainstorming potential headcanons for a character you know NOTHING ABOUT

i guess its less headcanons and more like.. wishes? hopes? what i think would be cool to do with this dude and like ALL I KNOW is that he is a cool dude and apparantly he doesnt have a backstory or sympatheticness SO consider what if he did and maybe thatd be cooler. like dude he owns THE SINGLE BEST BOSS BATTLE THEME IN ALL VIDEOGAMES EVER and that is ALL I KNOW ABOUT HIM and i just want him to deserve it, yo. also if he turned good i could be his friend and some of the badassness would rub off on me

ANYWAY

COOL SQUID PRESIDENT

i would vote for this man as squesident

seriously the design is SO GOOD!!! how did they manage to get such a cool colourscheme out of his entire Thing being that he has no colours?? like damn i like white being used as an evil colour for once, thanks. it symbolizing emptyness and emotionlessness is like BIG YES and i really hope thats what they were going for cos apparantly the wiki says that all the yokai who join his “we should never be friends with humans” gang turn colourless to match? but like the dude himself is less plain white and more very light shades of blue, grey and gold. MAYBE REFLECTS THAT HE IS A MANIPULATIVE DOUCHE WHO MAYBE DOESNT REALLY CARE ABOUT YOKAI AND JUST WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD PERHAPS dammit why does everything about him scream “great 100% evil guy who is very scary” when man I WANT TO LIKE HIM, DAMMIT!!

ALSO SERIOUSLY the visual effect of the wild spirally red yellow eyes against an otherwise “peaceful” colour whose entire point as an evil is “peaceful” taken to a bad extreme. it REALLY immediately sells that “tries to pretend to be calm, collected and fancy but is actually an angry mofo at heart” vibe i got from his theme song??? I REALLY HOPE THATS ACTUALLY HOW THIS COOL BOSS BATTLE GOES DOWN cos man the best villains are smug asshles who Always Win and then when you FINALLY win you get that much of a better ending!!! but AGH another part of me is like “i hope im wrong because he looks like a Cool Dad and i want him to be good”. Maybe his true design concept was to betray me personality with using all his cool dad power for evil...?

ALSO im not gonna spoil you guys on it cos it is JUST AS AMAZING AS HIS SONG but i was toooootally right that he has some sort of super intimidating second form and its got THE COOLEST DESIGN EVER HOLY SHIT! and also apprantly there’s a recoloured bonus boss called Minister Squisker who’s like a colour swap in a really creative way?? it swaps him being all “blank” themed with scary bright eyes and instead his entire body is a wild ye olde mythological illustration style paint job in every colour ever. okay COOL HEADCANON NUMBER ONE thats actually the regular colour of the species and mckraken is the white sheep of the family lol

also UHHH i dunno it seems kinda weird to me that theyd have this dude running a goddamn political party about humans being bad yet he doesnt seem to have any motivation whatsoever for it? unless it really is just supposed to be ‘he only pretends he wants to protect yokai from humans so he can manipulate and rule the yokai’. but like HYPOTHETICALLY in some universe where he actually lives up to his Grumpy Dad Who Has A Hidden Soft Spot potential, maybe he has an understandable backstory that raises legitimate concerns about how humans are destroying the natural and mythological and forgetting their roots, or other reasonable reasons why yokai could think humans are dangerous and all. i mean we ARE dangerous, we’re just a wide group of people that contain evil bastards and also good people, yknow. And thatd resonate well as a plot probably, cos well the whole point of the series is “in real life ur scared of yokai but theyre actually all goofy pranksters who will be your best friend forever”. Both sides being afraid of each other could lead to some good plotness! and it could be really effective and sad if after hours of joyous childhood wonder the protagonist bumps into the first yokai they couldnt befriend. the first one thats scared of them. the first member of this weird colourless political party who accuses them of committing crimes against yokaikind, of obviously only enslaving these yokai friends cos you have an ulterior motive, just like all humans! it could be effective if its something that shakes up the whole way you saw the world and establishes that hey its not all fun and happiness, and there’s some people you are powerless to convince. maybe even some people you are powerless to save...?

ANYWAY possible idea for ‘what if the dude originally had a sympathetic motive but it got twisted over time and now he’s just a fuck BUT maybe he could still be redeeminated someday ok thanks” What if he’s the spirit of.. like.. ocean pollution? Like there’s some yokai who are ghosts of a mortal person but theres some that are just nature spirits or personifications of concepts. What if he’s the personification of the dying screams of all the wildlife killed in a particular tragic oil spill? hence squid = thematic, and blank white colourscheme = even more thematic reflecting the stain the oil would leave on a pristine ocean and also the blank emotionlessness he was left as after witnessing that tragedy. Cos like his entire Purpose would have been born out of avenging anger but i mean he was just a kid, the only one left alive on a ruined beach and seeing just how powerful humans were and how pointless it would be to try and fight them with his weak power. like he was born to avenge all these souls and he just keeps failing!! his entire reason to live and he’s just too small!! so he ends up becoming bitter and cynical and learning how to use his silver tongue to manipulate others into becoming his weapons, and he vows that someday he’s gonna come back when he has the power he needs to complete his mission. and he’s just forever had this anger seething inside that he’s been unable to get any catharsis from, so when his cold and collected persona cracks he’s really damn scary with all these years of a man who’s grown old fearing he’ll never be able to avenge his ocean friends and just AAAAAA! itd be really good cos itd be a way he could still be intimidating and high stakes as a boss fight but also sympathetic!! also it could make sense why he’d only be redeemable after defeating him? like this entire time he’s been hidden behind a million layers of politics and minions and stuff and its very easy for him to not see the reality of the fact that he’s terrorizing human children just like how humans scarred him as a child. so like his whole big second form transformation super anger mode time would be sort of a last ditch attempt to deny what he already knows, the doubts that have been eating away at his soul now he’s getting close to the end of his life goal. but also like.. he doesnt even know who he IS, under the lies! its been his entire purpose for existing. like he probably uhh.. didnt have much plans after his victory. he probably wouldnt have much will to live left. so yeah you basically beat up this guy’s emotional walls and make him face the face of the people he’s been hurting, when he’s been trying to avoid it for so long. and he gets to see how much all the other yokai genuinely trust you and how much youre personally sacrificing to protect them so maybe you really arent just lying about being a good person...

oh also i was thinking about the inherant hypocrisy present in the fact that this guy is a big spoopy REALLY WELL DESIGNED squid monster that spends all his time in a depowered humansona instead, despite his whole Thing being hating humans. and, yknow, ‘i’ll solve this using a carbon copy of human politics instead of any more traditionally magical way of fighting the humans’. Yeah. So THEORY of SADNESS maybe he like never actually met any other yokai for a long time? I dont think it really makes sense that he’d be hypocritical because he secretly likes humans or something, that wouldnt jive with this backstory idea. So im thinking another explanation could be that he genunely doesnt know much about yokai culture? Like cos of his backstory he just poofed into existance on this destroyed beach in the human world and spent the first few centuries of his life completely alone except for the terrifying monsters that haunted every second of his life, and the knowledge that it was his purpose to defeat them but he didnt know how. And he was a nature spirit of the sea but his sea was empty of everything except death, so he couldnt even hug a cute fish sidekick or something- OH GOD WHAT IF HE DID HAVE A CUTE FISH SIDEKICK AND IT DIED COS OF HUMANS!!! very tiny sad squid monster child holding a dead pet, oh god why did my heart did this to meeee!! so yeah he didnt even know he was a yokai or wtf yokai are, he didnt know anywhere outside the tiny rock pool he would hide in on this barren beach. And then someday he gets found by an older yokai and adopted and like he feels like he owes them so much cos they gave him a reason to live, and a connection to the nature that he was supposed to protect, and.. well.. any companionship at all ever. So thats how his directionless “humans are bad” turned into “yokai are good and i need to protect them from humans like i failed to protect the beach” which turned into “i need to get more power to do this” which turned into manipulating other yokai and seeing them as nothing more than tools to take down the humans, his revenge consuming him until he barely remembered the reasons he originally wanted to do it...

and blablabla thats where we bring in the recolour bonus boss also, and say thats the nice grandpa figure who adopted him when he was all lost and trapped in the human world. and cos he was sorta adopted into nobility thats why he’s so over the top with his pompousness, its like a hint of IM LOVV MY GRANDEPA shining through his grumpface. ALSO maybe a sad situation where the gramps saw his kid growing up into this scary extremist and he tried to reason with him that humans dont need to be destroyed and that led to them fighting and him getting sealed off in recolour bonus boss land. and mckraken sees it as the biggest betrayal of his life and it totally threw him off the slippery slope to feel like the one man he trusted the most was a traitor to yokai all along. but even at his most evil he couldnt bear to actually kill his beloved gramps so he just imprisoned him and tries to stop thinking about it but like THE CONSTANT SPECTRE OF THE GUILT HANGS OVER YOUR HEAD THAT YOU DID YOU GRAMPS WRONGGGG So yehmaybe protag could find the gramps guy and hear about the sad backstory via him and then defeat mckraken and make him realise he was wrong and he apologises to his gramps and atones and all the humans and yokai are friends again and BUNNI CRIES FOREVER the end

cos seriously man this guy’s design is too good to be wasted on a hateable!! srsly he’s like that archetypical goofy big beard chubby pirate dude BUT INTIMIDATING AND BADASS AND COOL FASHION AND DAVY JONES SQUID BEARD SQUEARD I LOVE HIM he is too round to be 100% evil

*slams fists on the table* IF YOU DONT LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS I AM GONNA CRY

aaa i need to stop just sitting here theorizing about this game and actually friggin play it lolllll

[inenaffable]

*hungry tummy noises*

they read it and they ask me "what the fuck is wrong with you" and i just can cry and laugh a little bit cause its funny, you know? its funny when no one else exists besides you and you still cant do anything. youre so stupid, you know that, you know that? you cant do anything because youre caged inside yourself so you create fantasies to pretend your life is interesting and youre not a hollow of a person, a carbon copy of whoever is the closest, unable to survive without a partner, a disgusting parasyte. god, youre not even good enough to ruin people, to mark them in any way possible. you just bore them, then your thrashed to the side. its not even dramatic enough to be written about, its just logical. youre so bad at being anything, its pathetic. you cant be good, great, you cant be filthy, despairful, youre nothing, notghin nothign nothing notghin nogthing nothing nothgin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no one can hate you if no one gives a fuck about you and you know that you know that the only one who hates yourself is you and you are the only fucking reason to all your problems because theyre all in your head and theyre fake, fucking fake, fake fake fake fake fake because you cant entertain yourself on your fucking life because everyone leaves you when they realize you are just a shell a copy a parasyte that sucks and sucks and sucks and doesnt give a fuck and is locked inside their own head and blames people for the crazy things your dumb fucking brain created fuck fuck fuck fuck

no one asks you what the fuck is wrong with you because no one cares, and everyone knows those things are only in your head, because you tell them, and you know, you fucking know, and thats the worst part of it

i dont know how to be a human being , even when imbeing the most disgusting one that exists - but im not, because its all in your head and youve never done anything

im perfect, its incredible, its amazing, really, you should look at me,look at me

i do bad things and dont feel guilty for them, i guilty myself  for things that arent bad, and then i blame people for my own judgement, but i dontknow how to live outside of this

its scary, scary, scary, scary, scary, scary,scary,scary so so scary outside of here, dont let me go, dont let me go, youre gona go back all over again

except you cant go back to something that never even existed

what am i going to tell my therapist tomorrow? lies, lies, unconscious lies that im very aware of, all over again, excuses after excuses

why dont you just fuck me, tell me, why? i dont have to think, i dont want to think,  im spending so much time alone and yet im doing absolutely nothign, im disgusting

but im perfect, so perfect, how can anyone ever hate me? everyone loves me, right? you love me, right? hey, are you reading this? hey, hey, wont you just fuck me? wont you make me forget i have a mind of my own? 

im so disgusting, how can you love me? you like it, dont you? how im so very fake, how i cant take no’s, how im just barely nothing but annoyment when striped down. what, what? you want to see me strip? silly, silly, if i do that, then youd want to go away. its just too bad i cant control myself, right? i just want to be seen oh so badly. 

theres no liquor in this house and i hate it, i hate it how i could just ask for it, but i wont, and ill still hate that theres none. thats me, thats me for you. dont you like it, love it? dont you just want to fuck me now?

i dont need to pretend in front of you, if you dont like it, just leave, im tired of you. i can say fuck and i can act like everything i do is coated with so much honey  its nauseating, annoying, because thats who i am. lousy, annoying, nasty, spoiled, a horrible liar and so much more. but im nothing you guys like, im nothing i like, so ill wear baggy clothing even though i want to show my tits to everyone. my room is just too hot. i must not forget, nobody cares about me, nobody remembers me, no one will come back for me, so i can tear it up. i can say fuck and i can lick every single inch of my mirror and i can be whatever i want to be, because, because-

she said i love myself, i said i loved myself, and thats why. but maybe that was a lie. see, how havent you seen through that? i actually hate myself. oh, i do, so very much. its funny. dont you find it funny? tell me, tell me you laughed, tell me you could tell from the start, and that its okay, that ill learn to love myself at somepoint. i want to have sex with so many people because i hate myself and i dont want to think

hey, look at me, arent i ugly? arent i destroying myself? say, dont you think no one will never apreciate me again?

i dont know if what im preteding is to believe or to doubt. do i love it, do i hate it? its so tangled, its funny. i cant remember what came first. does it really even matters?

im so very hungry. i want to drink and let people touch me and touch them back, i want to feel whole. dont you just want to fuck me? im perfect, see? i promise, i promise, you wont regret it! come, come, just fuck me already.

imagine it,, imagine me, miserably sitting down in my bed, sweating, hungry, and writing all this jumbled mess on my dumb little notebook, typing on this double keyboard, listening to dumb little rain sounds on my dumb little one-sided earphone cause im too scared of the silence but cant listen to music cause my brain is just dumb dumb dumb and cant concentrate on more than one dumb little thing at a time

im so hungry, and its not even a metaphor anymore

im not doing it on purpose, i promise, i could eat so so much but theres just nothing  to eat and most of the things are just icky

i could eat a whole hamburger if i could go out

dad, please, buy me a hamburger, please, please, im so hungry, wont you just buy me one

hey, dont you want to buy me things too? that would be nice, so very nice of you. say, give me your money, wont you? i could buy so much with it! i need it, i need you

fuck, fuck, tell me, how am i supposed to sleep now?

i sometimes wonder if i should take pills for it, but that would probably be a bad idea

i dont need any of it, and starting it would probably get me into something worse

think, wouldnt it be cool if i could stay up till 4am?

but i cant, and i need to sleep

wont you kiss me goodnight?

pretty, pretty please?

ah! thank you! thank you so much! i love you, i love you, i love you!

[intothespideyverses]

what I imagine going down next season (as a result of everything that happened in sesson 3) warning for discussion of suicide/self-harm:

SHINY

-ok since the whole sex subplot was never really resolved (they SAID they talked but we didnt see shit so) I think this would be a good time to introduce ace!Shay. Now another part of me would also like for shiny to have sex just so esme could stop fucking with m'daughter's head but shay seemed way too opposed to the idea of sex in general (and not in a nervous way, but in a "why would I ever have sex?" kinda way). And maybe once Shay's comfortable with being ace she can just deck esme right in the nose idc idc idc she had it coming! Fuck a $230 skirt bih! Tiny would be weirded out and probably disappointed at first but bc he’s literally the perfect bf he'd come around eventually. Hopefully they could highlight that there are ways to be intimate in a relationship w/o having sex. I just want shiny happiness and for people (lola up until she apologized, esme) to stop going out of their way to make shay feel so insecure and then getting mad at her when she reacts to their bs.

-speaking of which as much as I hate to see her miserable I think shay needs an angsty storyline. She solves her problems so quickly and efficiently, we never even see the emotions she must be going through. i don’t think her being ace would cause her too much stress, she'd do her research for a bit, have a fight with tiny about it (maybe even suggest to keep the relationship open, which would offend tiny) but other than that the real source of angst would come from esme. lets say esme finds out, y’all already know she would never let shay hear the end of it. that, on top of esme being EVERYWHERE and the two of them competing to be both the smartest and most athletic girl in school, would probably really get to shay's psyche. maybe esme goes too far one day, and shay just says fuck it and throws hands?? or maybe she breaks her phone?? idk something rly impulsive bc shay doesn't normally make impulsive decisions. of course esme makes shay out to be the irrational one and shay tries to quit the track team, her grades start slipping, etc etc. esme gets bored without having someone to compete against, or maybe she notices the change in shay's demeanor (and bc of maya’s suicide attempt and her mom) is afraid she pushed shay over the edge. they talk after class one day, esme still being bitchy but by the end a little teary eyed. I think their talk would be reminiscent of anya and holly j in season 8?? 9?? where anya was all like "why are you so mean to me" and hj's like "bc u let me bitch :)" so esme CLEARLY isn't gonna take any real responsibility for bullying shay but shay decides that shes NOT gonna be the bigger person for once. Idk how this would end but I definitely want shay to be more confident by the end, and for esme to learn when to stand down.

-Tiny's line about shay just seeing him as a "good nerd boy" rly stuck out to me. How much does shay know about tiny's past?? This definitely has to be brought up at some point, and I really thought the show would've mentioned that but w/e. Shay probably knows SOMETHING about the gang stuff but not how far it goes, or his family, etc. Tiny has an image that he keeps from everyone else but saves only for shay, which is adorable (they have boggle ((is that like scrabble???)) dates...need me a freak like that) but at some point shays gonna have to see the rest of him. Tiny is tired of shay assuming so much about his intentions too. That and shay not wanting sex period will (in my vision for s4) definitely be the biggest conflicts for shiny, but they'll work through them quickly bc unlike every other couple on this show they actually know how to communicate :)

-also how does tiny feel about the crash?? he looked all the way fucked up when they rushed him into the hospital so...he has to have some sorta trauma from that come on now

TRILES/MOLA

-this is gonna be messy lol. triles and mola are two very polarizing ships so we already kno theres gonna be some mess once tristans back at school. tristan may have been all "okay w/e idc" at the play but we all know once his petty ass is able to speak he's gonna go out of his way to make lolas life living hell. its truly gonna be slutshaming for days, and lets not forget the biphobia. he wont really direct any anger at miles, except tight-lipped quickly concealed bitterness. i can already picture these scenes yall like this is literally what is gonna happen WATCH.

-miles is of course gonna still feel guilty about the whole knocking her up thing, and he rly does love her and values her friendship (their friendship was so cute) so he's gonna want to keep hanging out with her (it’ll start off with just checking up on her every now and then like craig after manny’s abortion, but it’ll grow to miles getting an actual job at lola’s, etc). tristan will be okay with this on the surface but as soon as he and lola are alone (maybe tris is @ the hollingsworth household while lolas there for frankie or hell even miles and miles leaves to get some snacks or something) tristan just lays into her!! on some "you were NOTHING to him" shit. on some "you tried to trap him with a baby" shit!! some “he never loved you, just pitied you” shit!!!! and then tris is all back to smiles the second miles comes back. lola’s on the verge of tears but keeps this to herself cause she doesnt want to start drama so soon after tristan coming back and bc she loves miles too much etc etc. miles of course eventually finds out, and he and tris have the fight of the century where it ALL comes out.

-now I just read a list of PERFECT mola headcanons (by @beach-city-mystery-girl!) that should definitely happen throughout the season! idk if triles will stay together or if mola becomes official but at some point someones gonna be all "make. a. DECISION" at miles so!!

-lola should also find value in being alone and being comfortable with herself. she and yael become genuine friends (bc she needs someone outside of frankie and shay and miles) and form a weird almost symbiotic relationship where they give each other advice on things the other lacks. baaz flips between trying to flirt with her and making insensitive comments about her abortion. lola finally sets him straight for once and for all. 

-maybe something goes down at the restaurant? idk I just started caring about lola’s existence yesterday idk how this goes

-I think frankie eventually finds out that miles and lola hooked up, idk how but she does and she’s not happy about it yikes.

-actually after just reading another great post (by tristanmiligay), a lot of tristan’s insecurities could also lie in the fact that he’s disabled now. maybe miles rly wants to get tris up on his feet again and do something FUN and EXCITING but homeboi literally just got out of a coma and can’t make it, so I can see miles asking lola to go instead (like maybe its a couples thing and he already reserved it or w/e) and that kinda sets tristan off the first time. he’ll probably try to force himself to heal faster, maybe even injuring himself further in the process? he’s gonna have a lot of self-doubt and internalized ableism like the post said :/, and all of that is gonna manifest in hate for lola. 

ZASHA/GRONAH (is that what we're calling it??) 

-okay so this section is kinda tied into the maya section and rly just centered around grace so yeah. but thats mainly bc there wont rly be any drama between zasha (except like normal preparing for college type stuff, like zoe wants to go to some rly good school far away and rasha wants to stay in toronto bc she just got there).

-zoe's pretending to be fine with getting kicked out but its absolutely destroying her on the inside. she and her mom were so close despite everything. zoe starts going thru mad identity issues bc everything about her was sculpted by her mom. if shes not in her life anymore then who is she? she keeps replaying "i love you despite who you are" in her head and its killing her. she sometimes sneaks out of grace's room at night and leaves voice messages on her moms phone (which ms. Rivas never responds to) and ends every night crying on the couch. grace grows super concerned for her but has no idea how to balance both helping maya out and helping zoe. one day at school grace tries to confront zoe about the voicemails but zoe brushes it off and says something cute like "being with rasha makes it all worth it" but grace is still like 👀.

-grace then moves on to trying to help maya but maya is sick and tired of everyone walking on eggshells around her and she tells grace shes fine and that she needs to back off, but grace knows somethings still off. later that day she spots zoe in the student council office trying to call her mom and leaving an angry voicemail, ripping mama rivas to shreds!! "you were never a good mother, a mother who cant love her own daughter shouldnt even be having kids, i hate you, go to hell" type of shit. at the last minute she realizes she doesnt mean half of that (or she does mean it but that scares her) and tries to backtrack but by then the voicemail's already been sent. zoe starts freaking out and crying again and leaves another one like "im sorry I didnt mean any of that please just let me come back. Im sorry, im sorry, im sorry" like just saying sorry over and over again, and grace finally steps in like "sorry for the voicemail or sorry for being gay?" and confronts zoe again. zoe tries to get the attention off of her by asking about maya and grace is like "she's 'fine' just like how you're 'fine'. cut the bs binch" or whatever and zoe breaks all the way down, but before grace can comfort her she sees maya and esme fighting outside the office and she runs out to stop it. zoe, now that shes alone and still crying, contemplates self harming again (im gonna end this here cause this is long enough I deadass would write this whole episode if I could)

-anyway juggling between her upcoming surgery, college apps, and two lowkey suicidal best friends, grace is stressed tf out. this is where gronah steps in lol. i dont care much about jonah but i do know hes much more interesting and likeable when he's with grace. he gives her advice and shit and they go on a bunch of golfing dates, grace maybe takes him to yoga or something, they help each other with college apps, and well gronah happens! jonah basically goes from boring to manic pixie dream boy who tries to show grace that life is worth living and blah blah yall know the drill

-rasha needs a plot outside of zoe and i think her pursuing acting could be a thing!! she goes out to casting calls but every director says something along the line of "we just...envisioned someone else for the role" or "we dont rly think you'd...fit" bc shes muslim and then the one time she gets picked up for a student film, its about a terrorist attack and rasha doesnt realize until she shows up to rehearsal. she goes off on the director (and reminds her that most terrorist attacks are domestic lol) and runs off to goldi and they talk. maybe she tries to write her own webseries (probably with the help of winston) and it becomes a hit!! maybe we could have a probably cheesy as hell famous youtuber plot (and vijay gets jealous lol) and they have some sorta subscriber war where everyones taking sides. baaz, yael, and hunter try to sabotage rasha's show and bc our girl loves scheming she hits them back even harder :).

-also maybe we find out what happens to her friend back in syria? i dont want her to have too many depressing plots so maybe her friend is okay physically but not mentally and she has to deal with that :(

MAYA

-so like I already said maya's done with everyone bullshitting her and being overbearingly nice, so she starts closing herself off. this just makes everyone even more worried tho, so she forces herself back into music and her studies. grace and jonah are all over her, zig always looks guilty as fuck and treats her like a baby, miles forgot she existed but if they pass each other in the hall he'll ask how shes doing, zoe hugs her randomly one day, and esme...esmes the worst one. she starts lowkey stalking maya and its getting on her last nerve.

-she avoids saad like the plague at first, but eventually realizes that he's the only person who doesnt treat her any differently (or so she thinks). they go to the roof one day (cause that shit is never locked no matter how many suicide attempts happened up there) to talk things out, and saad completely switches gears. "what were you thinking??? why would you do that???" type of stuff. maya gets mad at him talks shit about his pictures maybe, idk. saad reminds her that its a coping mechanism after everything that happened in syria, maybe he says he once contemplated too?? idk all the ideas I have are depressing moving on

-one day maya explodes on everyone after she dissapears for a bit (umm maybe she was chosen to perform a song at a school event but, after hearing some girls talking about her suicide attempt in the bathroom, she decides to ditch) bc everyone (grace, jonah, zig, esme, zoe maybe) gang up on her to check if shes okay. she goes off, saying "none of you cared before i tried to kill myself so why care now?" and idk where I was going with this, I want maya happiness and closure but idk how to get there smh.

-uhh she finds hoot! she goes home after school and finds hoot stuffed in the back of her closet. she writes a bittersweet song and after a long talk with her mom, decides to call grace. maybe grace invites her over for a sleepover?? and zoe and maya can finally have a real conversation since The Incident too! Also grace can kinda kill 2 birds with one stone.

FRANKIE'S ANNOYING ASS

-I cant stand this child but shes the writers' baby so she'll get at least 5 main plots next season oh my god. My wishful thinking speaking, but maybe she'll learn its okay to be alone and finally learn to like herself! Hopefully she sees the value in sticking to the sidelines and helping her friends through their issues. Ooh, maybe she learns how to be a good ally after gorillagate and educates her brothers on why their many intolerances are wrong (lbr here, hunter probably uses "triggered" as an insult and continues to call all the refugees "scary", same with miles) BUT come on this is degrassi :) so the writers are probably gonna throw in a new male character for frankie to obsess over. Well, either a newbie or someone completely random thats already in the cast like fucking baaz or saad.

Z*SME

-zig and esme spend a lot of their time obsessing over maya I think, esme bc she sees her mom in maya and zig bc he feels like he made her do it. umm noah fence but i dont rly care about these two so thats all I got lol

if anyone has any specific headcanon requests I’d love some!

[viralhottopics]

Dr. Keith Ablow: Seventeen ways to improve your life in 2017

FILE —  (AP)

Last year, as 2016 debuted, I published, 16 ways to improve your life. The year before that, I published 15 ways to improve your life. You get the idea. The tradition continues this year, with the addition of number 17. Ive also added bits and pieces to some of the 16 items from last year, just to keep you on your toes.

New Years resolutions often lose their power so quickly and completely that they have become cliché. But there are real, easily achieved ways to positively impact your life beginning January 1.

Heres your cheat sheet of 17 for 2017. They arent in any particular order, so you can pick any one to start with. 

If you complete just five, youll notice a demonstrable improvement in your existence. But if you get through nine of them, you could remake your life.

1. Try to recall one dream you had as a kid whether it was being a poet or a rock drummer or a multimillionaire stock trader and take just a single step in that direction. So often, the ideas we had as children were good ones, and we abandoned them out of fear. The step in the direction of your childhood dream can be very modest signing up for a symposium on poetry, scheduling a single drum lesson, buying a DVD on stock trading. Even just telling two people about your quiet dream can move it forward.  Frozen dreams have a way of thawing out rapidly when you warm them just a tiny bit.

2. Think of your life story, going all the way back to infancy, as an autobiographical book that you can hold in your hands. Now, imagine which page or paragraph you are tempted to tear out and remove from the story. That page or paragraph might be the one that makes you feel profoundly sad or powerless or guilty or ashamed. Next, share it with someone who knows you well but has never heard about that event or phase in your life. Being willing to disclose the events in life we want to turn a blind eye to takes away the power those events have over us.

3. Give a meaningful gift to a friend of yours on a random day not his birthday or her anniversary or Christmas. Giving gifts on those days is fine, but that isnt the same as an unexpected, unscheduled gift. Those are the ones that feel riskier to give and have more power to bond you to others who receive them. And thats because theyre real and independent expressions of friendship, affection, admiration or love.

4. Send handwritten notes to three people you admire most in the world, no matter how powerful or famous, tell them sincerely exactly why you admire them and ask to meet for 10 minutes. Theres a real chance one of them will take you up on the offer. And that one meeting could change you, because great energy is contagious and being in the company of it can stay with you.

5. Give some amount (no matter how small) to the charity you care most about. Giving is a miracle, because it helps others while also telling your unconscious mind that yours is a life of abundance, not scarcity. And that invites more treasures into your existence.  Heres one I just gave to, which I happen to know is completely legit and does great work:  kulturecity.org.

6. Stop telling yourself you love people just because you grew up with them. This is a big one, but a really important one. Did your parents and siblings earn your love by unconditionally loving you as a child? If so, great. But if youve been wishing that had been the case and have felt unwilling to let the dream of having had unconditionally loving parents or siblings slip away, then loosen your grip. If the people you grew up with werent focused on helping you stay true to yourself, then admit it to yourself. You might stop unconsciously recruiting people just like them into your life.

7. Schedule an initial psychotherapy session. Psychotherapy is the gold standard way to begin to get to know yourself more deeply. In a world of distractions and depersonalization, it remains the technique most reliably focused on restoring your connection to your true self. Hopefully, that first session will convince you of the power of psychotherapy to change your life, and youll schedule more. No one with the financial ability to be in psychotherapy should deny himself or herself that transformational opportunity.

8. Get angry about something unfair, say so out loud and dont stand for it. Anger gets a really bad rap in our culture; its accused of everything from destroying people spiritually to causing heart attacks. But suppressed anger can be more toxic. When youre offended by something you hear about in the news or you see unfolding in your personal life, try saying so, in no uncertain terms, when youre asked about it or maybe even if you arent. For those of you who have been living lives of quiet frustration, letting yourselves be very direct and very mad about something that sincerely outrages you can start to crack the shell that has your most powerful self inside it.

9. Take two minutes to think about life as a labyrinth. Mazes are built to frustrate people and get them lost. Theyre full of dead ends designed to make people give up and call for helicopters to pluck them out. Not so with labyrinths. Labyrinths may wind this way and that way. They may take you far from where you thought you were heading. But they always, always lead to the center. And thats what life is like. Keep walking, keep your faith and life will take you where you are supposed to go. The turn toward the center could be just a few steps away, when you least expect it.

10. Try praying, at least once. If you havent prayed ever or havent prayed lately, youll discover that the act of praying for what you care deeply about has the effect of reminding you what that thing or those things really are. It also has the effect of reminding you that there is a great power in the universe that you are a part of. Theres something interesting about praying; even people who say they dont believe in God are loathe to pray for the opposite of what they really want. How come? Is it because that, underneath all that cynicism, they actually do believe?

11. Read “Franny and Zooey” by J.D. Salinger, “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield, Self Creation by the great psychologist George Weinberg (used copies available online), “Blue Dog” by George Rodrigue, or “Fear God and Take Your Own Part,” by Theodore Roosevelt (or, even better, all five). These five volumes have the power to transform people, and I keep handing them out to patients and friends (along with please forgive the narcissism my book, “Living the Truth”).  If youre really short on time or intention, just read the Afterword to a later edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig.

12. Buy one piece of original art. It doesnt need to be expensive. It just needs to appeal to you. Why? Because art is the antidote to our sometimes sterile, technologically driven culture. It makes humanity go viral in a way that YouTube cant. It also confirms your connection to things that cant be measured like your personal vision of beauty.  A good alternative is to create a piece of art.  Just be sure to buy yourself the proper brushes or paints or glue or wood to create it.  That will be a signal to yourself that you value what you are manifesting.

13. Watch the movie “Miracle,” with Kurt Russell. This film about the 1980 U.S. Olympic mens hockey team defeating Russias team is so good, it can convince you to take on the next great challenge in your life. I dont know anyone who has watched it and been unaffected by it.  Also watch the closing argument by Paul Newman at the end of the film “The Verdict,” the scene of Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire on the beach in “Rocky III,” the monologue by Al Pacino toward the end of the film “The Scent of a Woman” and any performance of God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood.  They can help make you a better person.  No kidding.

14. Tell your romantic partner one thing you would find exciting that you have not yet told that person. In my experience as a therapist, Ive found that people can remain strangers to one another, in terms of passion, even after 10 or 20 years of marriage. We keep sexual secrets. Let one out. You can write it down and pass it to your partner as a note, like we did back in grade school, before cell phones.  You can text it using a confidential messaging app like Wickr.  See what happens. Take the risk.

15. Stand up for someone else. Youll have the opportunity in 2017. I promise. Maybe in your home. Maybe in your neighborhood. Maybe at work. Maybe online. Defending someone will reassure that person and empower you.

16. Take 17 minutes to pretend that you are speaking to yourself, from the heart, as though you are your own ideal parent.  You can do this out loud, if you have the stage presence, or silently.  An ideal parent is empathetic, but honest in assessing his child and giving that child advice.  Sit yourself down, get very quiet and, then, tell yourselfwith the same care you would summon for a son or daughtertwo things you really admire about yourself and one very limiting, very disappointing thing about yourself you really wish you would try to change, because it could limit the whole rest of your life.  That one thing should be so searingly on-target and so necessary that it has the power to make you angry, make you anxious, bring you to tears or bring you to your knees.  Focusing about twice as long (say, 10 minutes) on the admirable qualities is something youd do for your kid, to take the sting out of the next 7 minutes, so do that for yourself.  And keep in mind that 17 minutes is a long time. Youll be tempted to avoid it or shorten it. But, you shouldnt.

17.  If you are a parent, resolve to mimic a habit I stumbled upon, when my kids were younger.  It really helps me stay balanced during times that might, otherwise, cause me lots of stress.  Here it is:  Whenever I get a phone call or an email or a text from someone telling me a project of mine or a goal or a relationship has hit a rough patch, I tell myself, silently, Yeah, well this isnt like a pediatrician calling me. What I mean is that, short of bad news about a child of mine, coming from a pediatrician (or, if your kids are older, like mine, an internal medicine doctor), nothing can really rock me. Because all of us parents know exactly how much time we would have for what seem like the big problems of our day or our week, if the phone rang, and a doctor on the other end said something like, Can I ask where you are? Because Ive seen your son, and I have something serious to talk with you about.  Id like you to come in.  Id have no time for all my other so-called problems, and neither would you.  So, things are actually better than we actually realize, most all of the time.

So, there are your 17 keys to making 2017 a transformational year.  I give them to you with the certain knowledge that you still have, inside you, all the wonderful potential you did the very first day you were born.  You havent lost one bit of it.  Its all there, just waiting for you to discover it.

Dont delay. Start on the list January 1, and by this time next year, God willing, youll be ready for the 18 steps for 2018. Life is like that: a never-ending process of self-improvement.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team. 

Read more: http://fxn.ws/2iBzmPc

from Dr. Keith Ablow: Seventeen ways to improve your life in 2017