#but fear of rejection

[lacependragon]

One of the worst parts of not having friendship decay is sometimes you have a dream about someone you don't talk to anymore, and you wake up missing them so desperately and achingly, like you last spoke yesterday, and it just never goes away. It's been a month of these dreams and a month of this pain that just slips in whenever I'm not actively guarding myself against it.

I can't just go talk to them brain. I ruined that relationship. I said all the wrong things. I lashed out and was cruel. I was rude. I fucked everything up out of pain and jealously and fear and I never bothered to explain myself. I was wrong. And I'll never get to fix that because I ran. And I have to live with that every single time I have one of these dreams.

You can't fucking just go send them a friend request you're being a fucking asshole and an idiot.

We'll see if it ever stops.

[captainswan618]

there is a person standing 73 yards some distance away, watching you. they look like they’re trying to tell you something. you can’t get away from them, nor can you get close to them. they’re just...standing there.

so your friends and loved ones try to help you by talking to them, and the person must be saying something to them, because they look at you differently now. but you have no idea what it was, all you hear is static.

you try to tell them not to listen to the person, but no matter what you do, no matter how much you plead with them, they look up at you with suspicion-hatred-fear and just run. they don’t care where they’re going, just that you’re not there. and you can’t do anything to stop it.

the more that the people in your life care about you, the worse it is, because anyone who tries to help is turned against you. so you are just gradually shut out of your own life by the people you love the most, until eventually you no longer recognize your surroundings.

there is a person standing 73 yards some distance away, watching you.

[awetfrog]

thank u dungeon nights for making all the yaoi dreams come true

[twilightcitysky]

Hypothesis: Aziraphale HATES that Crowley is living in his car.

Supporting evidence:

The very first thing we see him do in the present is stop Maggie from moving out and making sure she feels welcome to stay as long as she likes.

He clearly knows Crowley’s unhappy before anything happens in the plot: “Does it calm you down?”. And also clearly feels helpless about it. Enter the conspicuous Eccles cakes: Aziraphale’s offer, which is rejected.

Crowley’s obviously, for all his hedging, spending a lot of time at the bookshop— so much that he has his own glasses perch and feels immediately comfortable removing them. See also: “Technically my bookshop but we both get plenty of use out of it”, “Why don’t you wait inside? You like waiting inside”.

It’s Crowley who immediately shoves the box of plants into Aziraphale’s arms after Aziraphale returns from Scotland.

Speaking of Scotland, why wouldn’t Aziraphale take the train? Why insist on driving the Bentley? Is it perhaps because he wants to get Crowley and his plants into the shop, and thinks if he creates a situation where Crowley has to stay there, maybe he won’t immediately leave again?

He’s got an empty bedroom and an apparently pathological need to make the person staying there very comfortable, creating cute little customized souvenirs like he’s an Air B&B host (displacement!).

He immediately jumps to having Gabriel stay with him— he didn’t have to. Arguably, both Gabriel and Aziraphale would be safer if Gabe stayed elsewhere.

That’s what I’ve got for now but I’m sure there’s more. Throughout the show, watch what Aziraphale gives to others and does for others, and it’ll tell you what he wants to do for Crowley. He’s living so deeply in displacement in makes him come across as manic and brittle.

(What probably happened is Aziraphale offered the spare bedroom and Crowley, who unconsciously didn’t want to be his roommate or sleep in a single bed with Aziraphale right downstairs because how could the poor lovesick boy cope with that, told him he wasn’t a “good deed” for Aziraphale to do and stormed off.)

Conclusion: Aziraphale asked Crowley to stay at his place, immediately and probably repeatedly. They had a row about it, and Crowley refused, and to this day Aziraphale doesn’t understand why.

And it hurts him.

[thelesbianthespianposts]

something about how Lorraine Baines McFly raised her son to be someone that her younger self would have felt safe around. Especially since she was mistreated and harassed near-constantly by Biff. She raised her son to be kind and emotional and unafraid to stand up against bullies. No wonder she fell for him in the past.

[lovesick02]

Please don´t fall in love with somebody else

[bestworstcase]

the first thing. the very first thing we see salem do besides the non-diegetic bookend monologues. is tell off watts for being mean to cinder. “watts, do you find such malignance necessary?”

and it isn’t just a passing remark, salem makes a whole thing of it. “then i see no reason for your cruelty towards young cinder,” effusive praise and then she turns back to watts and says, “so, i’m curious, to what ‘failures’ are you referring?”

well, watts says, the girl with the silver eyes. even without her new power, it should have been effortless—

—and salem shuts that down hard. “it is because of the maiden’s power.” it’s not cinder’s fault. “make no mistake, cinder: you hold the key to our victory. but your newfound strength brings with it a crippling weakness, which is why you will remain by my side as we continue your treatment.”

then, after salem gives her orders, cinder asks about ruby. watts scoffs; what about her, she’s cinder’s problem, not ours. but: “tyrian? spring can wait. find the girl that did this to cinder, and bring her to me.”

and scene. that’s our first real glimpse of who salem is, and it lays the foundations for everything that develops from this point with salem and cinder. 

before salem walks into the room it’s established that cinder is at the bottom of the pecking order. watts and tyrian gleefully pick on her; hazel doesn’t give a shit. and then salem enters and makes this deliberate, protracted point of not just “don’t be cruel to cinder” but she is at pains to demonstrate that cinder’s wellbeing is her first priority. salem is personally involved in treating her injuries. watts is taking over the haven operation so that cinder will have more time to heal. she pulls tyrian off the hunt for the spring maiden because cinder wants ruby dealt with, and salem again intends to deal with the matter herself. 

“it’s important not to lose sight of what drives us: love. justice… reverence. but the moment you put your desires before my own, they will be lost to you. this isn’t a threat; this is simply the truth. the path to your desires is only found through me.”

but for cinder fall, spring can wait.

cinder has always been the exception to every rule. salem put what cinder wanted ahead of her own agenda. salem effectively postponed haven to do cinder a favor, without a second of hesitation. salem spent all of V4-5 focused on cinder and what cinder wanted. 

her parting words before cinder leaves for haven are: “you will have the power i promised you when the time is right, but remember that it comes with a cost. if ruby rose has learned to harness her gift, you must take care to protect yours; there’s only so much i can do to aid you.”

<- “be careful.”

and then cinder is not careful. now consider this exchange:

SALEM: Emerald. I want you to tell me whose fault this was… Now. EMERALD: Ci-Cinder! We failed because of Cinder. SALEM: ……That’s right. I want you to understand that failure; I want you to understand why Cinder must be left to toil in her isolation until she redeems herself.  MERCURY: You mean… EMERALD: She’s alive!? WATTS: You’re joking. How could you know that?

ok. really think about this. 

salem is the only person in the room who knows cinder is alive. everybody else takes it as a given that she died at haven. “maybe cinder survived somehow?” is not a possibility on anybody’s radar.

emerald is on the brink of collapsing in abject grief because she believes cinder is dead. and then salem grabs her shoulder and is like “listen to me very closely, it is emotionally important to me that you understand why we will not be going to cinder’s aid. she MUST be left to TOIL ALONE. BY HERSELF. until she redeems herself. do you understand?”

and the entire inner circle is like excuse me

what do you mean cinder’s alive

how do you even know that

“NO FURTHER QUESTIONS.”

i just—hrgfjfk

“apropos of nothing, i am NOT sending you or cinder’s other little friend to her aid and i will NOT be altering my plans in any way to help her i am not going to lift a finger for her. until she redeems herself.”

the lady doth protest too much. 

for cinder fall, spring can wait. 

salem is projecting her own desire to rescue cinder from the haven mess onto emerald for the express purpose of shooting it down. watts asks how she could even know cinder survived and salem’s like >:( and changes the subject. 

“it’s important not to lose sight of what drives us. love—”

she goes through her whole little spiel about not putting what they want before what she wants and then, with her back turned to all of them, she glances out the window and the mask just crumbles. her shoulders hunch. she is acutely unhappy. “and so we must… press on.”

this song and dance is not for them. it’s for her. it is half of an argument salem is having with herself. 

“spring can wait; find the girl that did this to cinder, and bring her to me.” -> “but the moment you put your desires before my own, they will be lost to you.”

“you will have the power i promised you […] but remember that it comes with a cost. if ruby rose has learned to harness her gift, you must take care to protect yours; there is only so much i can do to aid you.” -> “the path to your desires is only found through me.”

✨salem✨ is the one who set the expectation that what cinder wanted took priority. salem told cinder to rely on herself first and salem second. she warned cinder repeatedly and explicitly that the power she promised to cinder would expose her to greater harm.

as far as salem knows, because watts certainly wouldn’t have painted a fair picture of why cinder made the choices she did, cinder didn’t heed that warning, fumbled haven, lost the lamp, and very nearly got herself killed in the process. 

and salem wants to throw her a lifeline. 

she doesn’t want to be wanting to throw cinder a lifeline but it is, obviously, a thought that crossed her mind often enough for her to feel the need to declare out loud that she is Not Going To Do It, No Matter How Much You Might Want Me To, Emerald.

“the sword under vacuo’s academy, shade—” and then hazel drops the bomb on her that ozma has the lamp and he’s taking it to atlas. watts and tyrian are rattled because oz might talk some sense into ironwood and spoil the plan. but salem?

salem isn’t thinking tactics or strategy. she is getting run over by the freight train of discovering she feels the same way about This Situation—cinder trying to get the lamp away from ozma alone—as she feels about her daughters.

and she cannot fucking do it. 

cinder must be left to toil in her isolation until she redeems herself (by recovering the lamp) -> what do you mean oz has the lamp -> never mind we’re all going to atlas right the fuck now. cinder can toil in isolation with the covert support of salem’s most formidable pair of agents while salem churns out a zillion grimm over the course of a few months ITS FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

“she thinks; she wants. as if she’s done something to warrant me caring about either of those things.” i don’t care, she says, caringly.

but:

“your newfound strength brings with it a crippling weakness, which is why you will remain at my side while we continue your treatment.” -> “you will have the power i promised you when the time is right, but remember that it comes with a cost. if ruby rose has learned to harness her gift, you must take care to protect yours. there’s only so much i can do to aid you.” -> “i would like to think i’ve shown a great deal of patience during my many years walking remnant, but i do hate repeating myself. you will remain here. is that clear?”

it isn’t that she’s punishing cinder for the failure at haven.

cinder comes home from beacon maimed, salem keeps her at evernight for months and replaces the arm she lost with a grimm (<- symbolically, she gives cinder part of herself;  the arm ties them together and that goes both ways, salem knows she’s alive and cinder knows when she’s back; she makes cinder like herself). waits as long as she reasonably can before sending her to haven, with parting words that amount to be careful, i won’t be there to save you.

cinder gets clobbered at haven and barely survives, salem is at war with herself over it when hazel blindsides her with the bad news that ozma has the lamp and she panics.

salem drops everything to rush to atlas with overwhelming force and arrives to find cinder waiting for her not only in one piece but also in possession of the lamp; her eyes go fucking glossy for a second as an enormous amount of tension just melts away. and salem like? teases her? about her habit of bringing home strays. “hm! you certainly do like collecting assets,” fondly indulgent. oh you. like genuinely is is the one and only time salem has ever sounded like she’s having fun. 

…then cinder reveals that she tried for the staff, too, but the polendina girl “interfered” and became the winter maiden instead. (salem isn’t stupid she knows this is cinder-speak for “a girl who could beat me without magic is the winter maiden now.”) and cinder wants to turn right around and hunt her down? NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. YOU ARE STAYING HERE.

the hammer drops because salem is scared. she resorts to cruelty in a desperate stab at clawing herself back from the ledge of Caring About Cinder; but salem is so, so, so painfully cognizant all the time of how mortal cinder is. she sent cinder to beacon and cinder came home missing her eye and half an arm. she sent cinder to haven and cinder almost didn’t come back at all, it’s a miracle she survived. and salem brought an incomprehensible number of grimm to atlas specifically to avoid round three of feeling terrified while cinder crawls through a meat grinder for her. and now cinders like BUT I WANT TO CRAWL THROUGH THE MEAT GRINDER!

“remember that [power] comes with a cost; if ruby rose has learned to harness her gift, you must take care to protect yours. there’s only so much i can do to aid you” -> “everything is already in motion; all you need to concern yourself with is your ability to act when i tell you to.”

she doesn’t have the nerve to say it or maybe she just doesn’t know how but she is trying to pull cinder out of the line of fire. this is not your game to win (this is not your fight) and just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn (you are not just a pawn to me) and everything is already in motion (i will take care of it this time) and all you need to concern yourself with is your ability to act when i tell you (don’t worry just let me handle it).

if she can crack down and keep cinder under control with cruelty and intimidation then she doesn’t have to confront the feelings driving her decisions, but of course she can’t because she never had control over cinder in the first place; cinder is legitimately stunned when salem shuts her down in 8.1 because Salem Does Not Treat Her Like That.

so naturally cinder goes: well fuck you i do what i want. 

and almost fucking dies. 

again.

they hit amity in the middle of the night. it’s dawn in vacuo during the broadcast, vacuo is six hours ahead of atlas (2.3). cinder does not wake up until dawn. she is unconscious for six hours. six. hours. in a world where aura can fully heal a thoracic impalement in about fifteen minutes.

think about how badly cinder had to have been hurt for emerald—who loves cinder and is terrified of salem—to bring cinder back to the whale after they did exactly what salem directly ordered cinder not to do. think about the level of desperation necessary for emerald of all people to weigh the risk of salem’s fury against the severity of cinder’s injuries and decide she had to bring cinder to salem. 

“you chose to disobey my specific instructions, just to fail again. and… i’ve realized it’s all my fault. you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up. you deserve so much more than i’ve given you.”

<- that is the sound of salem falling off the ledge.

like

as a manipulative tactic to get cinder under her thumb this is, quite plainly, not going to work, and cinder sees right through it, and salem knows that. by literally ✨rewarding✨ open defiance she accomplishes nothing except proving to cinder that when the chips are down, salem will blink first.

but. 

salem is not about getting cinder under her thumb. she wants the relics and she’s also been losing her gods-damned mind for months now because every time cinder leaves her sight for an extended period of time cinder has gotten smushed like a bug and the legion of grimm did not even slightly improve the situation. and the only way salem can think of to thread the needle between having her cake and eating it too is to go REBELLION IS OKAY. LET’S TRY THE BUDDY SYSTEM. 

the minute salem reconstitutes, she beelines to where cinder is. pretends not to notice cinder’s bald-faced lies. “you did well” and “our work here is done” and not interrupting and making a point to demonstrate that she listened to what cinder told her (“you said they used the staff; i assume you rid the world of their creation.”) and asking carefully non-threatening follow up questions (“what did you create?” as opposed to, like, what happened to watts). 

salem isn’t trying to put cinder on a leash. she’s twisting herself into knots in search of a way to move forward with her actual agenda without getting cinder killed, and her increasing desperation to keep cinder alive is not primarily motivated by strategic calculation; it’s emotional. 

her establishing character moment is salem Making a Statement to her own inner circle that cinder is more important than the plan. she says she’s going to leave cinder to ~toil in isolation~ and sticks to it for all of, like, two minutes before she finds out it would mean abandoning cinder to face ozma alone and just shatters. she is visibly relieved when cinder surprises her with the lamp and proceeds to make “you will not go hunting a girl who can definitely maul you” her hill to die on until cinder tries to actually die on it, whereupon salem snaps like a stretched rubber band back to “you can do whatever the hell you want just please for the love of fuck slow down and let me bend the odds as much in your favor as i can.” this woman is immortal and cinder is still shaving years off her lifespan. 

and this is going to keep happening until she can get her act together and say outright that she Cares About Cinder, because to cinder all of this just looks like salem yanking a leash to remind cinder she’s worthless. the second beacon arc is going to be hysterical. 

[chuthulhu-reads]

[ID: Two panels from Dungeon Meshi. The first scows Senshi clutching his face as tears start to spill out of his eyes, saying, "I've always... always wanted to have this soup one more time." He's not wearing his helmet in this panel, so his face is unusually visible, detailed and vulnerable. The second panel shows himself as a youngster, surrounded by his old mining team, all smiling at each other, one of them rubbing Senshi's head. Modern-day Senshi continues, "Thank you. All of you. Thank you." End ID.]

Holy shit. I anticipated some tragic backstory from the "I must feed the young ones" panels, but what I'd guessed was that Senshi might have become so devoted to cooking and eating literally whatever because he'd previously survived a famine and had seen children starve to death. I did not expect him to have been the child who was the sole survivor of a doomed travel party, one of whom was determined to feed Senshi first because he was the youngest, and that Senshi has lived with the fear of having inadvertently committed cannibalism by eating stew that he'd never quite known the contents of. I'm happy for him that Laios deduced and confirmed for him that it was griffin meat, that he was able to taste the meal that saved his life once more and remember the friends he lost. Seriously, I'm crying, and also earnestly relieved that while his backstory is pretty dark, it's not the type of fucked up I'd been preparing myself mentally for.

[ask-shane]

PSA

hi it's mod dawn here. i need to address something. i wrote this out in the tags on one post but i'll reiterate. when it comes to any of my ask/roleplay blogs, i CANNOT uphold established romantic relationships with anyone in character. this means the characters cannot say yes to being your s/o (dating or married). flirting is fine. it can be funny and sweet to interact like that. but i have to set the boundary there.

when the characters are 'reciprocating' your flirting, it is not to give false hope, nor is it supposed to be something sad. it's not a shane thing, it's a ME thing. there is a real person behind this. i do not feel comfortable roleplaying a romantic relationship, and i apologize if that makes people feel like the character is leading anyone on. it isn't my intention. if this boundary does not sit well with you, you are free to unfollow me. all that to say, please don't take the blog(s) too seriously. i just feel the need to make this clear due to some lingering concerns lately. thank you for listening.

[mxtxfanatic]

The way people view Bing-mei as a villain for having an appropriate (and I’d argue it’s actually pretty damn tame) reaction to being an abuse victim needs to be studied as a critique of how society very easily turns against victims who do not appropriately perform victimhood. In the story, the cultivation world outside of Cang Qiong Mountain are in the dark about how Luo Binghe was treated pre-Abyss, but we the audience know! We know he was abused horrifically for his first 14 years of life, 4 of those years under his shizun. Three years of kindness before being kicked into hell is not going to erase the scars left by that abuse. And just because we the audience also know that Shen Yuan’s Shen Qingqiu was not responsible for those first 4 years of Luo Binghe’s life as a disciple, that does not mean that he is let off the hook for them as the person assuming Shen Qingqiu’s identity, let alone the fact that he is the one who still forces Luo Binghe into the abyss, not Shen Jiu.

Meanwhile, Shen Qingqiu, himself, knows that he wronged Luo Binghe and spends the rest of the novel attempting to make up for it. After all, the abyss, itself, and that final act of betrayal are a point of trauma on their own level above those previous years of mistreatment combined. Shen Qingqiu never absolves himself of his actions the way fandom does for him, but the fact that he feared Luo Binghe’s retribution is somehow enough to flip who the victim is and who the abuser is in too many people’s minds. Even Bing-ge and Shen Jiu get this treatment: people act like because Bing-ge allowed his resentment to consume him in his thirst for vengeance that this not only absolves Shen Jiu of the grotesque abuse he subjected a 10-year-old to for 7 years in an attempt to kill him but that it also makes Shen Jiu the “ultimate victim” of the relationship rather than the reaper of the seeds of abuse he sowed. Cause as we all know, vengeance makes a villain, but somehow baseless abuse does not (🙄).

People take fear (or claims of it) as the sign of “true victimhood” while anger is assigned as an “abuser emotion,” especially in cases of abuse where the abuser is well-liked, and I see this sort of idea in the stated reasoning behind 95% of the Luo Binghe hate.

[seance]

GOOD OMENS (2019-) / ALL THINGS END (Hozier, 2023)

[hiort]

suddenly i need a pretty occultist to carve sigils into my face

[wylansvanhendriks]

something something kipps telling lucy that everyone leaves lockwood in the end something something lockwood admitting that he wanted his parents and jessica to walk through the door one more time something something lucy being held responsible for her team’s deaths and norrie’s ghost lock something something the fetch telling her that lockwood will die because of her something something lucy leaving the agency so lockwood will be safe something something lockwood building up the agency’s reputation so penelope will hire them something something lockwood asking lucy to join them on the job something something lucy seeing that lockwood was even more reckless without her there something something lucy walked back through the door and returned to the agency

[lilaccatholic]

I am once again thinking about the reluctant ruler whose arc justly and correctly includes assuming the throne and taking responsibility for the people set before them

[lululeighsworld]

THEY DEVASTATINGLY WALLOPED ME FOR THESE BRIEF FEW SECONDS

[mondaynice]

I know basically everyone and their mama has said that everyone in Dungeon Meshi has a dash of the autism but has anyone talked about BPD Thistle? Part of the reason I love him so much is because I see similar traits in myself. I love how well-rounded so many of these characters are. They feel so real in so many ways.