#and constantly be negative about every fucking thing

[physalian]

On Hyper Independent Characters (and how not to make them the bad guy)

So many characters with “trust issues” are painted out to be cynical little gremlins who just need to ~open their hearts~ and ~let the love in~ like doing so, repeatedly, has only proven them right every single time, but this one love interest will swoop in and save the day.

The people who write these characters tend to do so in bad faith, as if their fears and trust issues are unfounded nonsense, like they’re wrong and Negative Nellys for being wary.

So!

From experience (thus this is hella biased), here’s some thoughts on writing an independent character with trust issues that isn’t belittling.

1. It’s likely not that kind of trust they have issues with

I said this before a while ago, but “trust issues” paired with an extreme sense of self-reliance isn’t “I think everyone is a liar,” but rather “I think everyone is unreliable”. It might stem from a place of constantly being let down, of constantly having the people in their life drop the ball on major events, but also little things, even something as simple as “hey yeah I’ll totally do the dishes” and then they continue to sit there, forcing the person to be a nag about it, or just do it themselves.

These kinds of personalities tend to grow up surrounded by unkept and empty promises, where, while it might not be every single occasion, it happens one too many times for them to keep giving the benefit of the doubt. Even when people have the best of intentions and mean it when they say they’ll do XYZ in the moment, and they really just forgot, the person they made the promise to is impatiently waiting for them to remember 12-day-old dishes.

2. Why don’t they just remind people to keep their promises?

If you’re in my boat, many people with commitment issues are also narcissists or just mean, who, if you even gently remind them, make you out to be a nagging, impatient brat. And to avoid hearing that again, you just don’t speak up. Too many times where ‘forgetting’ has been from a source of a weird power fantasy, intentionally screwing you over, leaves people sitting in a state of unknowing whether it’s benign neglect or very much on purpose, and afraid to voice their concerns to be proven right.

If you’re not in my boat, chronic “forgetters” aren’t going to change without intervention. So if I ask you to do the dishes once, and you forget, that’s one thing. If I ask you twice, three times, four times, nagging over and over again, then the benefit of the doubt is shredded, and I can’t help but assume that the “forgetting” is on purpose. Either weaponized incompetence or something more benign, doesn’t matter. Even if you have some executive dysfunction, that's an explanation, not an excuse, and the people you live with aren't your maids.

Either way, these personalities might grow up with a whole slew of self-worth issues, and be reluctant to make plans with people, invite friends to important events, or get excited about big milestones, because they’re so used to people they care about “forgetting” or canceling last minute that the only one they can trust to reliably show up is themselves.

3. Why don’t they just communicate these fears?

See the “narcissists” in point 2

4. Isn’t it lonely never letting people in?

Fuck yeah, it is. The thing is, though, that if you spend your whole life learning how to do everything alone—pay your bills, do ‘couple’ or ‘friend’ activities, run errands, take yourself out to places—the idea of having to squeeze in the wants and needs of someone else might start to sound incredibly inconvenient.

If you’re so used to being on your own schedule and reaping the benefits of being a party of 1 in crowded spaces (I just took myself to dinner at a place with an hour long wait, able to be seated immediately at the last remaining barstool), of not having to wait for someone else to confirm plans, negotiate who’s driving, negotiate a time to meet up, food to order, a movie to see, a roller coaster to ride, a game or streaming service to buy—everything is entirely under your control, sacrificing convenience for the chance that the person you invite actually shows up on time and is invested as you are isn’t really worth the risk.

That's not to say I don't enjoy when I get to do things with friends, but I can equally enjoy doing things alone as opposed to whining about it.

Personally, while I can daydream about having a romantic partner, that thought is always immediately followed up by the understanding that they’ll be an inconvenience to my independence. But I’m someone who’s always had to do the emotional labor in a relationship, who’s always the most organized, the most mature, the most level-headed in tough situations. Always been the person in groupwork who does all the work. The idea of being “a team” is a fantasy meant for other people. “Team” to me is “me and this deadweight that I have to drag around”.

5. How I’d like to see this represented in characters

Dropping “the one” into their lives and having this person swept up, broken out of their little pessimistic shell, in some epic romance, as if they only needed to find the right person and nothing at all goes wrong… is bad faith.

It’s bad faith because it minimizes this kind of independence as just a little mood problem that can be fixed right quick, that it’s inherently wrong—what was all the fuss about?

What I’d like to see is examples that prove they’re not crazy. Big and little things. Dishes, and big events. Then, they can meet “the one,” but not without some trial and error. A lifetime of “people suck and are unreliable” isn’t going to be snapped away bibbidi bobbidi boo after one good date. This magical person will have to show up, and keep showing up, and keep showing up, and the one time they don’t, because they won’t, then A and B can hash it out like adults.

6. How this person might act

I’ve never actually met somebody like me and we’d either be best friends or loathe each other. But this person might be the most reliable friend you’ve ever had, because they’re so afraid of becoming like everyone in their life who let them down before. If you ask a favor of them, it gets done with supernatural haste.

This person might also have their own commitment issues, where instead of failing to keep their promises, they punish themselves by keeping promises they hate, showing up out of spite and resentment because they said they would, lest they be called a hypocrite.

They might under-share or not speak up about accomplishments in their life until the time for hype and anticipation has passed, lest they share expecting the same level of excitement only to be met with apathy. They might not show visible excitement about objectively exciting things, because they’re so used to plans falling through that they won’t believe something is happening until they are physically in the location and it’s staring them in the face.

Thus, they might look frequently bored or unhappy and unmoved by something important to you, or something you thought they’d like (especially if you’ve let them down before, trust is a privilege, not a right).

7. What I’d like people to understand most of all

First, that some of us tend to live by the “if you want something done right do it yourself” mantra, so actually asking somebody for help with something is admitting that X cannot be done alone, which makes failure to keep a promise even worse. As in, if A goes out of their way to admit they can’t do F alone and risk being let down to ask B to do this one little thing for them, and B still drops the ball, A is going to sit there and think “this is why I have trust issues”.

Can’t speak for everyone, but yes I do acknowledge that the suffering in silence isn’t helping anyone and am working on it. Counterpoint: Weaponized incompetence is very real and an adult should not have to remind another adult to keep their living space clean, at the bare minimum. Agreeing to do a thing is at least equal responsibility on the inviter and invitee and "you didn't remind me" isn't a valid excuse.

But most importantly, if you have a friend or relative who is fiercely independent, I’d implore you to learn one thing: Do not make promises that you can’t keep. And if shit happens and you have to cancel even when you had the best of intentions, have the decency to tell them and make the best effort you can to reschedule ASAP, instead of putting the impetus on them to do the rescheduling. Make it absolutely clear that you do, in fact, care, and weren’t going out of some apathetic sense of obligation.

I cannot count the amount of times I have asked a friend to do something for me, they eagerly agreed, and then my very real deadlines come and go and they say absolutely nothing, so I have to nag them, and nag them, and then they turn it back on me with a “obviously you can see that I’m busy and you’re not paying me for this” when all they had to do was say “no I can’t help you” (two whole humans; we are not friends anymore).

The ability to be approached with a request for a favor, step back and think about it, and go “No, I don’t think I can do that in that time frame/at this moment I’m going through a lot/with the skill the task requires” is apparently ridiculously rare. I’d infinitely prefer a no upfront than a yes, bank on that yes, and then wait around hoping someone follows through.

Not saying anything is really rude. If you agree to X, the person who asked you is fully expecting you to do X. They shouldn’t have to be lining up backup plans and last minute helpers scrambling to do the job you promised would get done.

—

Not exaggerating when I say it happens in so many areas. I’ve needed very important things like recommendation letters, or actual paid beta readers on a very hard deadline and still scrambled at the last minute to find replacements that sometimes cost real money for rush fees. I’ve been left waiting at an event for an hour minimum only to finally receive a ‘hey I can’t come’ text and then go home. I’ve told people multiple times, “hey, if you’re going to do X, please do it like this and have some consideration for my things that you’re borrowing” and just… be ignored.

As somebody who gets whatever’s asked of me done immediately, no matter how busy I am, man is it hard to keep accepting “sorry I forgot” as an excuse, from multiple people, multiple times.

The nice thing, though, the big benefit of hyper-independence is that I have learned so many skills out of a compulsion to just do it myself instead of gambling with the accountability of another flighty human. Handyman things for my home and my car, but artistic things, too. So there’s that.

[twistedappletree]

LMAO IT HAPPENED THE OTHER GIRL QUIT AND STORMED OFF AHAHA back to having no days off for meeeeee

[godblooded]

….fucking Spotify requires you to buy more fucking audiobook credits????

[kkujo]

something i don't see people talking about is the way hyperfixations come in like stages and cycles like it's not just "i'm obsessed with this thing" it's like. euphoria from finding something new and it brings you so much joy and then as that initial dopamine rush wears off you start to get more and more down and feel isolated as you start to realise that no one else cares about it as much as you do and you feel silly for being so into it and the thoughts become repetitive and boring so you get more and more depressed and lonely and then you inevitably lose the hyperfix which leaves you drifting feeling miserable and hopeless until you start the cycle again. idk if i explained this well or if other people will understand but it brings genuine phases of euphoria and straight up depression and this is why i get annoyed when neurotypicals use words like hyperfixation to describe like, an interest. bc it's not. just an interest it becomes who you are and when you lose it it's like losing yourself and you spend so much energy thinking about it that it interrupts your daily life and it's so fucking draining 👍

[honey-skulls]

HUGE VENT

I'm sorry but i need to get this out, just please don't worry too much or take anything personally/gen

My routine these last two weeeks has been:

-Wake up at my 10 am alarm and spend the whole day in bed, mentally and physically exhausted, brain fog and no motivation for anything, only getting up to eat, having to wait for the "food time" hours to roll around that my therapist gave me because I'm not allowed to eat outside of those hours and if I'm hungry but missed the last food time then too bad, struggling to stay awake because again I'm not allowed to sleep out of the "sleep hours" she gave me and that includes naps, excitedly waiting for 21h30/22h to roll around so i can finally sleep

-Spend the evening mentally screaming in my mind because, while my body is still just as physically exhausted, my mind is suddenly sharp and full of ideas and motivation, but i'm still too tired to get up and draw

-Then spend midnight and onward rolling around in bed, hot and bored out of my mind because my physical tiredness also vanished, but i'm not allowed to get up and draw because it's "sleep hours" and i need to reschedule my body, and end up falling asleep at around 5 am

I'm totally not slowly loosing my mind 😃👍

Edit: Oh also the constant noise in my ears has gotten worse, i don't know what silence is anymore

Silence is actually worse than loud rooms

It's driving me insane

It's so loud

[daz4i]

oh my god earlier this week i was talking to my mom abt how i used to constantly feel bad even at elementary school despite having good grades and not having social issues or mental illnesses yet (undiagnosed autism aside). and she really helped me crack the code by saying "yes you always came home angry about (kid in my class) getting better grades than you in math or (friend) being better than you in english even though you knew she is american" and then it clicked. i was simply always a jealous competitive annoying little bitch who has to be the best and most specialest at everything or i may as well die

[juice-enjoyer]

being on tumblr more and seeing literally no discourse has made me realize

1. how much I need to do a serious purge of my twitter timeline

2. how fucking irritating my twitter tl is

[queer-ragnelle]

Some people wouldn’t know good taste if it was spat into their mouths.

[ff2-soda-pop]

i feel like the stuff with lloyd and garmadon is really complicated and i looked in the tags for a couple minutes and i keep seeing people being like. making it like one extreme end of a situation or the other and tbh i dont like or get it-

[binnie]

i!!! hate!!!!!!! being borderline!!!!!!!!!!

[foreverxdaydreaming]

never realize how many useless notifications you get until you put your volume on.. all of these emails / scams / marketing have ruined the importance of calls/notifications entirely,,

[ranger-kellyn]

.

[nexus-nebulae]

quick question. if someone says they're "trying to change" but still after 5+ years has shown zero effort (like, even when called out in conversation about it they still have the excuse "sorry i wasn't thinking about that" EVERY. TIME). are they actually trying

[dameronswife]

girls when poe has a personality that isn't being obsessed with a man he's had maybe ten scenes with in the first two movies and has his own agency and doesn't always agree with his mentor instead of bending over backwards to constantly say she's right (when she isn't):

[snowsinterlude]

need someone older.

(teacher!coriolanus × student!reader.)

summary: a teacher can do a lot in private lessons.

c.w: reader is 19 for repeating a year, age gap (coryo's 29), fingering, tummy bulge, heavy smut, edging (f. recieving), overstimulation, stuffed panties, mild public sex, petnames (coryo calls reader bunny, pet, good girl.), reader thinks coryo is married so . cheating implications, marriage proposal

being a dumb girl was something you tried your best to do ever since you repeated the first year of high school, watching all your friends graduating before you was something you weren't proud about- not for them, but for you. you were supposed to be by their side.

thankfully, you had your professor, coriolanus snow. god. he was the only reason for you to pay attention to class (or at least try to), you were hungry for his approval. for you to be called a "good girl", and be said that you've done well in your tests? yeah, you were willing to do anything for that.

when he offered you private classes, you said yeah without even thinking much. you needed to learn, and spending more time with him was something you craved for. the ring on his finger? fuck it. you wanted it. you deserved it. more than his wife – if he had one.

you've been day dreaming about it constantly, eyes always searching for his on every class you had with him, and he would keep that smile painted on his face, not wanting anyone to think you were the reason for him to be smiling, even if you were, the didn't need to know about it.

"bunny," he voiced, leaning on your desk and taking advantage of the fact that you both were on the library, every student on the school had gone home and the teachers had gathered to go to a nearby bar. "stop looking at my dick now, will we?" he said, chuckling at you.

"huh?" you asked, finally waking to your reality.

"you need to learn that if you don't want to repeat a grade again." he said, sitting by your side, his hand holding your thigh. "you don't want to repeat now, do you?" you shaked your head negatively, and he loved seeing you like that, shy as a kitten even if you usually had his dick on your mouth when that used to happen. "c'mon, don't look at me like that. we have to put these things on your brain if you want to graduate already." he said.

his fingers slowly travelled all the way up on your panties, finding a small damp on the fabric, he looked at you with his usual smirk, his pupils blown already from everything he was about to do to you.

and now you looked like a mess. hands gripping on the library desk as your legs trembled with the aftermath of every time you almost came. you counted six till now, crying from how good it felt having him behind you, his fingers thrusting lewdly into your cunt.

"c-coryo- t-teacher, please. please stop it, i have to cum- i can't hold it in anymore!" you begged, clenching as his fingers rubbed deliciously on your clit after thrusting so many times inside you.

"well, it's not my fault, pet. you're the one getting your questions wrong." he said, pulling his dick to tease the core of your pussy, your cries only making him feel and making his ego bigger. "tell me, baby, how do you want it?"

"q-quick, pleease! if it get slower i-i think i'll die!" you said, legs spread as your skirt revealed a small part of your ass.

"oh, c'mon, i'm sure you can take it, baby" he purred in your ear, the tip of his cock teasing your pussy and slapping your clit slightly, making your body jolt slightly. you bend over, your elbows being now your main support at that table.

"please, teacher..!" you begged. but he didn’t even bat an eye to your cries, slowly sliding his dick inside you, and fuck, you both fucked on wednesday, how come he always seems to stretch you up so good? the pace he choose to torture you with was so slow, making sure you felt every inch of his dick inside you, stretching you, making you his. "please, don't do that to me. j-just ask something easier!" you cried.

"easier? okay... let's see" his hips bucked slowly into yours, your pussy gushing around him as if your own body needed that- as if he was the hair you breathed for. "what's your age, babe?" he asked, a playful tone being cast as his free hand massaged your boob, pinching on your nipple and freeing both your boobs from it's cage.

"n-nineteen." you said, and he laughed again as he said: "good girl, you're right.", his hips giving you a powerful thrust that made you cum with only that, making you cry from your own humiliation.

"ah, bunny, don't tell me you came already only with that." he said, joking with your face as you cried.

"i'm sorry- too good. i-it was too deep." he laughed, pulling back and thrusting deeper again, this time, you made sure not to cum again, edging yourself as he changed your position to put your leg over his broad shoulder, his dick making a bulge appear at your tummy. he loved that view- much more than he loved you.

"look at you, taking me so well. how does it feel, baby? use one of the words we learned at the literature class," he grunted your tightness coating his dick with your own juices, "use them, even if it's just two, and i'll let you cum."

"tortuous," you begin, crying from how good it felt, from how dumb you were getting. "spiralling, it's twirling my insides!" you cried. and he smilled, kissing and licking your tears before placing the most gentle kiss on your lips, pouding faster into you as you closed your eyes shut, moaning and grunting from all the pleasure- and yet you tried your best to avoid moaning only to hear his moans and the sounds of flesh slapping against flesh.

"good girl." he said, his hands holding your hips as he fucked you. it felt truly out of your world experience. his phone ringed just at the right moment he hit your cervix. "t-teacher, your phone- it can be your wife." you said, earning a frown from him as he turned the phone off.

"wife? baby, i'm single." he said, chuckling at you. "you've been walking around school with my cum stuffed in your panties even thought you thought i was married?" he pounded into you with a more quicken pace. "god, what a dirty girl you are. fucking around with married teachers." he teased you.

you felt a heat on your cheeks that you never felt before. god, how much would you end up humiliating yourself? "b-but, fuck! y-your ring-"

he showed you the ring. taking it off his finger with his mouth and sticking his tongue to you, an invitation for you to take the ring.

"keep it." he said once you took the ring

"but- s-sir, i-"

"mm, bunny, i'm a faithful man." he said. "and right now, i'm faithful to you." he said. you squirmed deliciously at the feeling of his cock filling you up again, his tip on your cervix as you came again, and soon enough, he came too.

he helped you get dressed into your panties again and straightned your clothes, a cast kiss on your lips before he smiled sweetly at you, putting the ring on your middle finger.

"i hope you know what that means."

"i-i do." you said, for both questions heavily implied in that context.

"great. then make sure to graduate, bunny." he smiled. "i'm sure the honeymoon will be great."

[snekdood]

theres something very frustrating about ppl shaming me for being gross all the time and then i do everything to Remain Clean so they leave me alone and then ppl act like im a neat freak. which one do you fuckin want?