#i fear i am becoming extremely invested

[supercomms]

these little bitches are absolutely deranged! good for them! good for them

[esotericpluto]

your life 5 years from now

from left to right; intuitively choose the pile you feel more connected to. To make it easier, you can take a deep breathe, close your eyes and ask for guidance to your deities or guides. These are all general messages, so just take what resonates and leave what doesn't. This reading is timeless. If it resonates, feedback is always appreciated and motivates to keep doing pick a card readings. You can donate here.

dividers credit: @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

pile 1

fully intuitive, no cards

I feel like you will have a lot of success in your life, mainly financially. You will be very financially stable and living out your dreams. I see most of you will be in your desired career and learning everyday more about it, advancing in it and adquiring new skills. I see some of you investing money in various ways too, as buying properties, jewels or art pieces. Others might be investing in actions/stocks as well and building a diverse portfolio.

For some people in this group (mainly those who will be 25 plus in 5 years) I'm seeing that you will be building a family too or preparing yourself to build one, however I do advise you to be very careful with the partner you pick as some of you might be investing in a rotten apple without realizing. Do not ignore red flags and be 100% sure this person is fulfilling you and doing more than the bare minimum, as you do not want to regret the person you build a family with. Some of you might even receive warnings of this through dreams, so dream journal and study dream analysis.

Overall, I see, especially for women who picked this pile, that you will be highly successful. I see you having very close friends who are there for you and who are successful themselves, so no jealousy or envy in the scene. I see you all going on trips and nice fancy dates together and truly uplifting each other up.

You will be extremely well educated by then and might even be beginning to take on a PHD by that time. I also see you taking some free courses here and there and truly building yourself up and becoming very well read. You will be a real catch and grow into yourself both physically and mentally. You will be very grounded in all aspects of yourself. I am also seeing some travels around the world and possibly owning a cat or two.

pile 2

2 of cups, 10 of swords, 4 of wands, 7 of pentacles

For those who picked this pile, you will be entering a harmonious time in your life after a long era of suffering and worrying. I see, however, that all this depends on you. You will have to remove your blindfolds and actually take control of your life and make a decision once and for all about yourself and the direction of things. This might be working on yourself, working on limiting beliefs, putting end to toxic behaviors and thoughts you have about yourself or others, going to therapy and doing shadow work. For some of you, this will require the end of friendships/a relationship that won't serve you anymore and you will have to put yourself first, choosing yourself over them, even if hurts you for a while.

For others, this might indicate you are going to be entering a new relationship after worries of never finding the ideal person for you. However, I see that you will be plagued by fears that the relationship won't work or that the person will leave eventually and that you'll have to start from zero with someone new all over again. This is a valid fear, but you will only be allowing these thoughts to drain you out of life and happiness if you don't address them. Not only that, but you will end up easily minsunderstanding your partner or jumping to conclusions that will only put a strain in the relationship. You have been hurt before and you didn't deserve that, but be careful to not project the aftermath of that pain onto innocent people.

I do feel like this partner could be the end game for you, but only if you are willing to truly work through these issues and I'd recommend starting now. When the time comes, be willing to be open with them about the things you have been through as they'll be open minded and understand you better than anyone has. Consider going to therapy too and even couple therapy with them if you have the chance. People tend to think couple therapy is only for when things are going through rough patch or to "fix" things, but the truth is that every couple can benefit from couple therapy and it can help them heal from expectations and fears they carry on from childhood or past connections.

Working through all this will require some time dedication and patience from both, but I see it strengthening the relationship and even possibly leading to marriage and a lot of happy moments together.

I also feel like you might be going through a lot of tiring moments when it comes to your career in 5 years. I feel like most of you will still be trying to find a career/workplace that fits you and where you feel welcome. Others might even not be enjoying your job/employers for being too strict, non-understanding and draining. While you should be collaborative, you should never take abuse or energy draining vampires. You are strong enough to leave and find a better job for you, there are enough of them out there for you and you might even find a better area or truly follow your childhood dreams.

Your efforts when it comes to work will definitely pay off after a while and you will even receive a financial bonus/reward due to this.

I see a lot of celebrations. I feel like some of your friends or even family members like cousins and siblings (i'm also seeing an younger aunt possibly) getting married, engaged or having children. You might also be going to parties or hanging out with friends, trying to maintain a healthy social life. I'm also hearing to keep family close.

pile 3

Lovers, Temperance, 6 of cups, 5 of cups, Knight of Cups, 6 of wands, 7 of pentacles, 3 of cups

So I feel like for most of you 5 years from now this will be a time of self-love and balance in your life. I also see that you will be surrounded by life, with a stable partner/relationship (possibly already marriage for some of you) and expecting a new family member/child, whilw trying to balance things out in your life and home to make space for the new family element.

Because of this new addition to your newly founded family, I feel like you will be reminiscing a lot about your own childhood and how things went with your parents. I feel like they committed many mistakes that you feel resentful over still and that you'll fear repeating. It could also apply to anyone who might have hurt you during your childhood and you fearing the same happening to your kid. However, you're going to choose to look at this as a new beginning and as a way to give someone else the childhood they deserve, since you didn't have yours. I feel like this will help you heal your inner child and release the unwarranted guilt you might feel.

I feel like around this time you might even receive texts from ex partners trying to reconnect, which you will of course decline since you'll be in a happy relationship expecting (although this could also apply for people adopting/using surrogacy btw). Some of you, old friends will reconnect and want to catch up with you. I'm hearing to be careful with who you let back in, but a few of them will be trustworthy and you'll miss them in your life. I feel like some of them might just try to get into your life again for their own benefit and to ask you for money, so be careful. This could also be a family member for some of you.

Overall, it will be a time that you'll see many things come to fruition and you will feel truly victorious. I see a lot of happy joyful moments and celebrations, especially when the little one gets in the picture. I think it will be a very united and bonded family which is adorable.

There will be one month or two that you might need to go into introspection/solitude until you feel better and ready to face the world too. I feel like for some of you this could sadly be some form of postpartum depression, but I see you getting counselling for it and overcoming it without many struggles.

You will be pausing your career for a bit with this, however once you do get back I see people welcoming you with open arms, missing you and wishing you the best. I see you will also be able to get promoted/salary raise in a few months after you get back and so will your significant other, bringing more abundance to you two especially after being a bit tight on finances to make space for the baby.

[alexa-nowak]

One of my old texts from YouTube arguments about Astarion endings

I am not that invested in this discourse nowadays because I lost hope to change anyone's opinion and also, I am simply tired from dealing with toxic bs that I am getting as a response to some of my old comments on YT to this day. My favourites are those who will reply to my every comment to say how delulu I am and I probably just dreaming about being in a toxic relationships myself, while being unable to understand that people have their own ways to heal through art and that throwing poison on people like that is not helpful at all.

I will leave it there and funny enough, I am not even so much of AA fan, I just don't like people being ignorant and rude.

And I like writing essays, so here it is.

So, what this dark romance fantasy is about for me personally,(even though i prefer spawn romance, i absolutely understand the appeal of A!Astarion because honestly, i was all about this kind of romance during my childhood and teenage years, hardocore the Phantom of the Opera girl is here, inside your head 💀), and why it's also healing route for some players,and no, it's not about kinky vampiric banging.

1)A lot of people feel extremely worthless and insecure, lonely, like no one really cares for them at all. It's a very deep wound that hurts and it's difficult to overcome even in perfectly loving, healthy and supportive relationship with a good partner,and even with therapy. So fantasy about a vampire, being obsessed with you so much that he is ready to do absolutely anything just to be with you for forever is really comforting. Also,you don't have to think too much about your imperfections, because for him you like a center of his vampire heart.

Besides, you sympathise with him - it's like a selfcomfort mirror, i love this monster despite everything, so in a way, i accept myself despite any flaws i see in me.

2) Safety. When the world around you feel like a wilderness, full of monsters, it feels like only the most terrifying loving monster can protect you from it. He is powerful and protective, and i am so precious to him, that he will set the world on fire just so i would be safe.

3) Responsibility. As you may see, this kind of relationship have daddy issues vibes and codependency, and in real life, you can't just fully submit safely to anyone, I don't think i have to explain why it's a dangerous idea to seek this kind of relationships in real life. You have to stay a grown up independent person and seek safety for yourself without expecting someone to come and heal all your wounds. But this is fantasy, so finally you can use this as a comfort fantasy with no fear about being taking advantage of, without shame to be called childish and etc.

4) Independence. Spawn ending is very terrifying for anyone who has issues with feeling safe and independent, because some of us prefer violent power fantasies over "we have each other and that's all that matters", second of all, this ending also has some shady co-dependency undertone to it that can be triggering for some people. I love Spawn Astarion a little bit more more than Asc and yet my heart stayed absolutely broken after running away from the sun scene, and i hate that he is so dependent on Tav. Larian owes me some emotional refund after this.

5)SA trauma: it wasn't even seen as a possibility for healing way by writer, but it is for some.Asc Astarion feels like he is the most powerful creature in the world,and he is fully controlling everything that happens between him and Tav,so finally, it's a kind of situation where there is no chance of him being abused again. It's one of the reasons why some people become Doms in BDSM dynamic relationships: finally, full control of the process and a partner, who trusts then enough to fully submit, trust issues is also big deal in Astarion story of healing. I find idea that that only Subs can enjoy Asc Astarion a little bit naive. Because,well, some news for you: Doms like it too because they understand why he is so eager to be a top

Unrealistic, not the healthiest way? Probably! But this man and this love is not real anyway.

Yes, i think many of us, especially folks who went through therapy and a lot of self reflecting are already aware that it's basically romanticized version of narcissistic obsession and in real life this is creepy, but it's not real, it's a fantasy. People use BDSM to heal, romance books and all other forms of art to deal with their inner demons and it's absolutely normal. Even if someone is blind to see what is wrong with Asc Astarion, I highly doubt that toxic bucket of shame and aggression are able to help see anyone problematic side of things. Do you know who is usually up to romanticize toxic dynamic in romance? Victims of abuse. In real life, if you just scream and yell at any poor girl/boy/whatever about how stupid they are for believing that their abusive partner really loves them, people will either break down and cry or tell you to f#ck off and they will have every right to do so, but they won't see what's wrong with their partner,in whom quite often victims of abuse see their only source of love and safety in life.

Hells, I am so sick and tired from this "white cloak knight saviour from cycle of abuse" toxic flood in this fandom. If you really want to educate people - do it with extreme care and compassion. Real life healing is not working like it's with Astarion in the game,few right dialogs and boom, dude is on the right path.

It takes enormous amount of patience and love, be kind to one another, and stay safe, darlings. Being toxic on Asc fans you are not helping anyone, you just hitting your superiority complex button in your ass.

[utilitycaster]

You have such a way of articulating things I’ve been vaguely feeling into intelligent coherent statements. Would you care to elaborate on the way that how Laudna+Imogen “went canon” was a curse?

Hey anon,

Thank you! So this is the thing: obviously I tend towards a fairly critical and snarky demeanor, but like, the best way to put it is in the context of the impending Nein show. I, and most of the people I chat with who are also not feeling Imogen and Laudna's relationship, are not of the "if that PURPLE FLOATY HOMEWRECKER SKANK SHOWS UP I will EXPLODE and SCREAM and DIE" or "fjorester divorce" or pretending Yasha doesn't exist persuasion re: this relationship (or for that matter the WELL if Percy dies after 70 years of marriage to Vex and then she's with Keyleth for the rest of her life WE WIN type of person either). Like, honestly, there was a post advocating for a breakup, but I think it included within it an argument that they reunite after some time apart, and that's kind of the mood. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. There's no ship war to be had. I don't dislike the ship because of competition or some fundamental dislike of the characters, and I honestly would like to be able to like it, and the path for it to not suck would have been immensely simple. That path even still exists, though with every week it grows narrow and less smooth and far more awkward, but I think it will require a pretty serious out of game conversation that as far as I know hasn't happen, and I am not holding my breath given the lack of movement.

That's why it's a curse: the generic form of this curse would be "may your ship become canon prematurely, with with only one person really invested, and that person not actually prepared for it or expecting it, and may it have virtually no moments and exist in a very plot-heavy work where it is almost certainly going to be largely out of focus, after the groundwork when things were quieter was never laid, and may it be so close to being good but consistently miss the opportunities for that to happen."

Just to recap the issues, stripping away all the past snark:

It's never really felt like these were two people who had been best friends for two years. They've always felt like friends of circumstance - like people you meet the first week of college and kind of go around with so as not to be alone, or the only other person your age on your street. Because they were both extremely lonely they clung to each other...but they really don't actually connect with each other much in conversation other than just kind of blandly repeating how much they mean to each other and never showing it. They have no real boundaries or limits with each other, likely because of that fear of being alone, but they aren't exploring that in a Heavenly Creatures or Thoroughbreds kind of way either. There's virtually no sense of history - no inside jokes, no shared experiences prior to Zhudanna except for one throwaway line that, like many of their interactions, fell flat. Like...I don't actually think that it's bad to aim for a platonic female friendship and end up with an F/F ship but like. Beau and Jester had a great platonic female friendship that happened to also include Beau's brief crush. Imogen and Laudna didn't even sell me on them being friends, let alone lovers. They have always felt like oddly clingy roommates. Their respective interactions with quite literally every other PC - few of which I find romantic and many of which I find explicitly not romantic - all feel like they have more depth. Orym is explicitly not attracted to either of them and they've both had more meaningful and honest moments with him. Pun unintended but they both felt infinitely more alive during the party split when they couldn't just go to their dull gray comfort zone of each others' meaningless repetitive affirmations.

Zooming into that lack of boundaries and conflict, there's no arc. Once characters get together often the conflict resolves, but there needs to be a build to that point, and we simply don't have that. The two points where this could have happened were: the gnarlrock fight, had it actually played out, could have led to a deepening of the relationship and some honestly and character development but due to what I am again interpreting as fear of losing the other to the point of never addressing any of these points of friction, it just resumed the status quo. Similarly, as I mentioned, Laura flat out said she went in expecting to be rejected. I think that story would have won me over. I think that if Laudna had rejected her, and Imogen had to grapple with that (and, by extension, Laudna's justified anger and trauma from the Team Issylra didn't disappear into thin air) and they spend some time actually figuring out who they are as individuals and Laudna lets herself be more than a validation machine who pushes her emotions down, and then eventually they come back around to each other? I'd be unbelievably on board. And you can go back, to my posts and others, in which we were pretty harsh on the fanon cottage cheese (yes, I am going to try to make this happen) version but said "I trust Laura and Marisha to do this in a way that is interesting" and then they straight-up didn't.

Obviously this has the potential to change - I even think the next episode is finally a case of maybe bringing all the Delilah stuff to a much needed head which in turn might introduce something into the relationship - but man it's been a whole lot of nothing since they kissed. I think Laura's initiated every single conversation, as mentioned Laudna can't even reciprocate 5 minutes of dancing on a ghost pirate ship without wandering off, and they didn't even bother to take watch together.

Something I keep going back to, and which ties into the above, is Brennan Lee Mulligan's whole discussion of how important character creation is to story. The thing is, these characters were created as close friends. Why does this feel so lacking? Like...why do Kima and Allura, two NPCs, feel like they have more weight? Why did the platonic relationship of Molly and Yasha, for which Ashley wasn't even present, feel like it actually was a friendship of 8 months? Sam and Liam came up with an entire system of grifts! Why is literally the only detail we have from the time between leaving Gelvaan and the time arriving in Jrusar is that at some point Imogen and Laudna saw someone with nipple tassles, and that came up once, like 60 episodes ago? Why are people so frequently sold on say, Loquatius/Laerryn, which had less than 24 hours of gameplay over a single night in-game? Why does every single Circle of Needle and Thread member relationship feel more real? Why were Aabria and Travis able to convincingly play ex-lovers in a handful of episodes despite Aabria deliberately surprising him? Like...I am not saying preparation wasn't done, because it very well might have been, but it's not coming through at all and plenty of other people have managed to get across an existing friendship or relationship in a fraction of the time, within the same campaign, so it's not that the plot is moving too fast for it. And again, if prep wasn't done, or if it's not coming across, that's really fixable, but it hasn't been fixed. I think of the 4SD episode where, five or six episodes later, Marisha and Laura still hadn't talked about the relationship and it's like...yeah. We can tell. Literally a two hour trip to a cafe would fix this but god I don't think there's been one.

Anyway, obviously this was an incredibly popular ship, but it's honestly slowed down noticeably since going canon because...it's not that great, and there's not much content in canon. I think a big appeal of the ship was the anticipation and the fanon and now that it's canon...I suspect a lot of people are quietly realizing that actually yeah this is kind of all it is, at least for now, and something is going to have to happen to bring about a change.

And I hope so too - I joke about being a hater, and I am very much a critic...but this really is the realization of that post about being more of a dismayer than a hater. Laura's past two ships are probably my favorites, and Beauyasha is high up there, and even as Vaxleth isn't really up my alley it's sweet and it makes sense and has a lot of great moments. It really would not take a lot of work to make this ship good or at least okay and not...nothingness, but it does take some, and I haven't seen it.

[babytarttdoodoo]

This isn't a fic request (though I am looking forward to a lot you've got on your pending list!!) but you write Roy x Jamie so nicely as an established couple. Would love to know your thoughts on how they get together and how that relationship works?

Oh, gosh, well, thank you for asking! This all may well make it into a longer fic one day but in the meantime have my disjointed ramblings.

Firstly, I do think it would be a decent amount of time after canon before they got around to it. Like, a year at least.

Roy is taking steps to work on himself (namely, he has to deal with his temper and communication before they would ever be able to work) and needs space to work through that. Jamie is also experiencing probably the most stable period of his life he's ever had and deserves time to enjoy it.

If we think that Colin and Michael's kiss didn't cause an absolute riot in-universe, I could see Jamie coming out as bi (even if only to take the heat off Colin) and dating a few men publicly. We love a sexy little king getting to safely explore his sexuality with a rabidly invested support network around him. This could also be what triggers Roy to start thinking about him in that way.

Might be controversial but I don't think either he or Roy would have a lot of experience being involved with other men from pre-canon. Between football culture and the potential risk to their careers, women were just an easier option. I do, however, believe Roy knows he's attracted to men (20 years in locker rooms pls), but is just repressed enough to have never seriously considered that his fixation on Jamie might be romantic or sexual in nature.

Realising he feels jealous is a genuine surprise. It's probably still a while before he does anything about it.

Honestly torn between ' a heat of the moment kiss followed by lots of Talking' or 'Roy invites Jamie to dinner and A Very Mature Conversation'. Either way, they definitely need to talk extensively before anything happens.

Roy is Jamie's manager. Yes, I know there are instances of it happening in the women's game and being fine. A relationship between two very famous male sports personalities would, unfortunately, be a whole different kettle of fish.

Therefore they agree to:

Go slow and feel out if this could even work before getting too deep.

Having a few confidantes in the know (Keeley, Georgie, Rebecca, maybe Beard) so they're not in a closed loop of secrecy with each other.

Keeping professional decisions out of it as much as possible.

That last one is contentious because so much of who they are individually and to each other is tied up in football. When they do, in fact, think they can have a serious relationship, it becomes apparent very quickly that they also have to tell the team. One, because it will keep them accountable; two, because the number of times they're nearly caught fooling around is genuinely ridiculous.

Roy smiles at Jamie a lot. It's a bone-chilling sight without context.

Jamie will move to another team eventually. It's what makes sense for his development and career path. I have more thoughts on that trajectory but for this I'll just say that, when he starts getting offers, he does consider that it might make keeping his work and personal lives separate a lot easier.

There are a lot of good times. They understand each other extremely well. They push each other towards self-improvement across the board. Jamie is wonderful with Phoebe. Roy and Simon develop a baked goods based bromance.

There are some tough times. Their careers takes them all over the country and beyond. Distance strains them. They both internalise a lot of negative feelings for fear of ruining what they do have.

(They each think the other deserves better. They are idiots.)

But talking to each other always gets them over the hurdles. Loving each other always brings them back together.

Once Jamie steps back from playing, falling back on modelling and charity work with underprivileged kids, they finally, quietly, go public.

The wedding is beautiful.

[saturnine-saturneight]

Writeblr interview tag

Tagged by @tragedycoded [here] 💕

I thought I was going to sleep a little longer this morning, but looks like I'm up for good, so off we go. Good time to answer this.

Short stories, novels, or poems?

Novels (working on one) or poems (used to write a lot of them). I'd love to try my hand at short stories, though!

What genre do you prefer reading?

I am not a voracious reader. I used to be, I'd like to be that again, but right now, I am not. Those posts that are like 'if you want to write you need to read'? Those are about me.

When I do read fiction, it's usually detective fiction. Easy to digest, no greater emotional investment. I also love horror, but haven't read much of it in the past few years.

Most of the things I read nowadays are nonfiction, generally medical or political (or a Wikipedia article in the middle of a conversation to clear up a question), though I also love reading about monsters and fables.

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

I go back and forth on this question. I'm a planner in that I know what I want from a novel or a chapter, and then a write as I go-er when it comes to getting there.

What music do you listen to while writing?

Less of a specific genre and moreso just songs I know in and out so I don't pay too much attention to them! Often on repeat. This is even more extreme when I draw. I drew those chibis I posted the other day to the living tombstone's cat song, lmfao.

Favorite books/movies?

I love horror comedies. Beetlejuice, death becomes her, little shop of horrors. Things like that. Nope was also incredible and has stuck with me, but that's not a comedy.

Any current WIPs?

Just Reburial :) I like to focus.

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you what would your standard outfit be?

Oversized black T-shirt, grey jeans, black converse. Phone in hand, headphones always either around the neck or being worn. I'm boring 🤘

Create a character description of yourself:

Jules stands at average height, their blond hair reaching down to their back, their face caught in a permanent expression of mild worry. They talk too fast, always fidgeting.

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

Archetypes and ways of speaking/thinking/acting, yes. Whole people, no. I always mix and match traits I've gotten to know in others and myself, and I pay close attention that I don't write 'in attack mode', meaning portraying certain mindsets as negative after someone annoyed me.

Are you kill happy with your characters?

I'm not! Side characters die in Reburial, but I don't enjoy killing characters I like if it means that I can't use them in the same story again afterwards.

Coffee or Tea while writing?

I'm a tap water kind of guy ✌️ Caffeine gives me heart palps.

Slow or fast writer?

Medium? I don't make an effort to write fast.

Where/who/what do you draw inspiration from?

The majority of my horror comes from things that I personally find scary. When I get scared of something, I start reading, thinking, and talking about it, trying to understand it from all angles. And then sometimes, that also includes writing about it to see what exactly makes that fear tick, where it comes from, and which components are important to elicit the emotions. Fear based special interests, hahaha.

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

Some kind of imp or a puss in boots type of creature.

Most fav book cliche:

You know what, I have no idea. Nothing comes to mind.

Least favorite cliche:

I am, however, a little hater. There are a lot of romance clichés on this list, which is a genre I tend to avoid. (I'm fairly greyro ace and would count myself as that if I wasn't also engaged.) If I do read A Romance, it's always with something else going on, and even then I get annoyed often, haha. I want two or more characters to be profoundly, boundary blurringly weird about each other. I don't want to read that they locked eyes across the room and now I'm supposed to believe that they should be partners for life because they find each other attractive.

There are also countless fantasy tropes on this list. Chosen one stuff, holy wars against pure evil, stories with 'good kings', the list goes on. You have to be REALLY good to make me read fantasy.

Favorite scene to write?

I just really like writing dialogue. Banter, arguments, confessions, etc.

Reason for writing?

It's fun. 👍 I daydream about putting Reburial on Itch for free when it's done, illustrated and type-set, but that's as far as my publishing aspirations go.

Tagging @cowboybrunch @marlowethelibrarian @gioiaalbanoart @paeliae-occasionally @writingrosesonneptune + open !!

[nomoreusername]

Silent Coffee Dates (Part 2)

Pairing:Sonya x female reader

Summary:As you spend more time at her house, you find yourself truly warming up to Sonya.

Eating at someone else's house was weird to say the least. I've had dinner with Chuck before, but I was watching him. Plus, his parents always kept something specifically for me. From little candies to entire meals, they wouldn't take no for a answer when it came to food. There really wasn't a choice. I certainly wasn't going to waste it, and they refused to touch it. Eventually though they become my second family so I wasn't as worried about it.

Sonya and I have an extremely different relationship. I guess you could call us friends but only while we're in the coffee shop. It was a mutual agreement that we sat there together no matter how empty the place was.

Now I was sleeping over at her house. Not only that, I was accepting an entire meal from here. It wasn't just a frozen t.v dinner either or something you could easily buy for a good few bucks at the store. This was an entire meal that her brother and her had enjoyed less than an hour ago. That's how I ended up eating pasta in their clean, almost magazine perfect living room in complete and awkward silence. It was a much different atmosphere than our little bubble in the coffee shop.

"Do you want to watch a movie?"She suddenly offered. I just shrugged as I fixated on the ground. Despite the way I had focused on her so intently and how half of my sketchbook was just drawings of her, looking at her in her own home was different. It wasn't in a way I could quite explain, but I am more than aware of the goosebumps it left on my arm.

"Where's your sink?"I settled on, putting my fork on the plate.

"I've got it,"She waved me off. Before I could get another word out she took it from my hands leaving me with her brother. If I remember correctly his name is Newt. Not that it matters. Being alone with someone new always brought a fear in my heart that I couldn't quite explain.

"So uh, you two seem close?"He asked, or stated. I couldn't quite tell, but I don't know if it's because I'm not good at reading people or if he did that on purpose.

"Yeah. We're friends,"I nodded, still avoiding eye contact.

"You don't seem to talk to her much,"He pointed out.

"We've never had a conversation before,"I admitted, individually cracking my knuckles to give me something else to focus on. When I popped all ten of my fingers I moved on to my ankle.

"That sounds painful,"He mumbled.

"It's not,"I shook my head, internally wishing Sonya was back already.

"So how do you really know her?"He questioned. Taking a breath, I decided to look him in the eyes. His hair, despite still being blonde, was a shade darker than hers. He didn't have those small, barely noticeable freckles like Sonya either. His eyes were more of a soft, almost golden brown while Sonya's were more of a light hazel. Despite the little things the resemblance was clear as day.

Then, he furrowed his eyebrows which let me know I had been staring. Shaking my head, I looked back at the ground.

"We sit at this coffee shop together. She reads, and I draw,"I answered

"What do you draw?"He asked quickly.

"Just scenery, houses, and people."

"Who do you draw?"He continued interigating. My face flushed as I thought about whether or not to lie. Would he find me odd if I admitted how often I would sketch Sonya?

It's just that she's so perfect. Whether her hair is down, cascading down her back, or in a braid over her shoulder, there was no reason not to get every lock just right. Her eyes, invested in a book, or glazed over as she stared out a window, always shone brighter than a sun every could. Her lips, in a barely there smile as she kept reading, a small frown as she seemed deep in thought, of pursed as she went over an assignment, were another effortlessly gorgeous feature. Even when she was half asleep, she was always so pretty.

"I'm back so Y/N, let's head up to my room,"Sonya said, walking in and thankfully ruining whatever was happening with Newt. Without hesitation I followed her up the stairs while still looking away from her brother.

Sonya's P.O.V

I genuinely thought that maybe my brother and friend could like each other. That's why after I put the plate in the dishwasher I stayed around the corner and waited to see if a little bit of time alone would make them warm up to each other. To my disappointment it seemed to be the opposite. Newt was questioning her like a police officer while Y/N was almost dead silent as she answered his questions. I kept waiting and eavesdropping a little longer. When Newt asked what she drew I assumed she might be more than willing to talk about her talent. Unfortunately, there was complete silence. Realizing that it wasn't happening any time soon I walked in the room and invited Y/N up to mine, while setting an internal reminder to tell Newt off for acting like she was some kind of criminal.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We had settled on an old kids film, and to be honest I couldn't help but glance over every other second to see if she was enjoying it. To my relief she was more invested in Coraline than I had ever seen someone be.

"Why do you think the other mother is the way she is? We have theories from the cat, but why do you think she takes all the children? Does she just like the power? Is that what actually feeds her or would loneliness kill her the way it could kill some animals?"She rambled, sitting up and looking at me. Her eyes seemed to have lit up even more than they had during the movie as she seemed to be trying to make sense of it all. I couldn't help but laugh at how different and admittedly adorable she was when it came to something she enjoyed.

"Sorry,"She murmured, looking ready to shut down again.

"No, no, no. You just look cute when you're happy,"I absentmindedly said. In the dim lights shining through my window I saw her face turn a light shade of pink.

"I'm happy when I'm with you at that coffee shop,"She admitted. This time it was my face that heated up.

"Yeah. I'm happy when I'm with you too,"I agreed.

"That means a lot to me. I'm not good with people, but you never make me talk. It's nice to have someone who's truly just there for your presence. Do you know what I mean?"She asked.

"Yeah. I usually hate silence, because it can be uncomfortable, but it's nice to be able to have a real friendship without that kind of pressure,"I nodded.

The thing is that I didn't realize how much this meant to me until I said it. Y/N truly is my favorite part of the weekend. Being with her is the only time that I can actually unwind. Everyone needs that kind of special person in their life, and I'm happy that she's mine.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I don't know how long we had been up watching stop motion films. She was more than into them though so I didn't mind. My guess is that the art part of them is what had her so invested. When I found out she hadn't even seen them as well, it was obvious that we needed to binge them.

Halfway through The Nightmare Before Christmas I felt her head on my shoulder. I glanced over to see her eyes shut as her breathing evened out.

Being careful not to wake her I shut the television off before laying her down so her head was on an actual pillow. Pulling the blankets over both of us, I got some sleep of my own right beside her.

All Parts

[raviollies]

Hey! I love what you've done to characters and Lorelei is now living in my head rent free! Raha and Blythe are amazing and adorable!

It's very inspiring the way you keep yourself together even when everything falls apart! Keep it up!

If my question is annoying or if it bothers you, you may not answer on it.

Originally I followed you when I saw your Ireena and Blythe art. It amazed me how much both of them and Ireena in particular got fleshed out!

In my dnd game and tbh in many other games, players don't get invested in Ireena's journey, they don't fall for her and don't care for her sadly. That's why many DM's usually replace her with a player character, in order to raise the stakes. In half a year I will be running a new cos game, for the group of three and I am honestly considering to replace Ireena with the PC, but don't really want to (especially fearing how the game might go, if the player will turn into strahd-simp).

Could you please describe Ireena's character in your game? Perhaps her bonds and flaws? So other DM's and I can do a better job of her portrayal!

Thank you for the kind words! Here is an updated Lorelai WIP for your to pay rent

(and Blythe and Raha are very married yes)

So rather than referencing my game, as I am not the DM, I will provide my own suggestions as I was planning on running CoS as well. Spoilers for the campaign

I will also suggest against a Tatyana PC. Everyone is very much free to write and interpret the character however they want but to me it is very important that the Tatyana reincarnation does not want Strahd. In fact I would remove the interaction with Sergei too. Having her instantly forget herself as this new person in favour of Tatyana erases the entire point and kind of proves Strahd right in him refusing to see Ireena as her own person.

The way I would approach Ireena; she is her own person. She grew up with her family that wasn't Tatyana's. She lived a life that wasn't Tatyana's. She's met different people. It doesn't MATTER if she's a reincarnation of someone else, after all everyone in Barovia is a reincarnation of someone else. It's very important to establish that the main crux of the issue is that Strahd does NOT see her as Ireena, but Tatyana. He does not know Ireena. He only knows Tatyana. I would even have him call her that rather than "Ireena".

Ireena's story would be one of becoming independent and confident in her identity. To no longer be just Ismark's sister, Burgomaster's daughter, Tatyana's reaction, Evil's bride --- she is Ireena Kolyana. Nothing more, nothing less. I would start her off as unsure of herself, and being hesitant to take up space and over the course of the story become more confident in standing up for herself, with an eventual climax of expressing extremely clearly to Strahd that she is not Tatyana. She never was. He doesn't know her. That that person is gone, and she will never be back. He can chain her, do whatever but that will never make her Tatyana nor will it make her love him or know him. She is a woman who is constantly assigned identities by other's, but she want's to just be Ireena, she wants to do her hobbies, decide on where she wants to go, what books to read, what food to eat.

The relationship between Strahd and Tatyana is irrelevant. It could have been real, or a figment of his imagination, but the point is that...she is gone. If he had a soul of someone else, would it be fair for them to lay claim to him?

As for personality wise ; I would write her as sheepish at first, she is someone taking their first steps into adulthood in a way, outside the comfort of their home, their village. She should be curious and wonderstruck, curious and wishing to explore every nook and cranny. Because of that she would be unfortunately naïve to the problems that arise in bigger cities as Vallaki. A village and a town are very different - a big thing she's be stupefied by how impersonal everyone is. Rural villages often have people knowing everyone, it's commonplace to help your neighbor because you KNOW them. Vallaki is different...people go about their day and do not care, after all there is so many people. You physically can't know everyone.

She is down to earth and finds camaraderie with someone simpler than a noble, providing practical suggestions and being very handy with most tools and identifying local flora. On a flipside, I would say she struggles when dealing in very formal settings where it's less about honesty and more about saying a lie by omission to get what you want. When interacting with Vargas or Lady Wachter, she's visibly uncomfortable and stumbles over her words; they speak in such a way to purposely confuse her, like a lawyer would. Not only that but she most likely would refuse to do anything morally questionable, her heart is very pure!

So in all, a kind hearted, down to earth little lady who values honesty, hard work, and family but is naïve, stubborn and socially awkward. She will support and protect the party, even to her detriment but she will not stand with them to commit Crimes (so RIP if your party is murder hobos)

[velvet-vox]

INDOCTRINATION F####NG SUCKS

AND WHY IT HARMS ART TOO.

The title is self-explanatory yet it cannot overstate the massive damage and impact that culture, society, and any other type of long term influence has on the human mindset and its artistic output.

You may be thinking, what is this post talking about? Well let me explain.

You see, the thing about me is that I tend to enjoy more complex stories with complicated characters and dynamics, but not in just the political, real world type of way like Arcane politics, I am towards the type of stories that allow for good characters to remain good and for the status quo to change in a substantial way; for antagonists to be complicated while not having them all be morally grey but showing that even the more seemingly black and white ones are not just pure evil atrocities and are still worthy of a shot at redemption; to not have said redemption be served on a silver platter but not just permanently locking people out of society just because they required said society to invest too much time and effort in helping them become the best version of themselves, because unfortunately, despite the opposite being also true, we are not born equally and some people are going to struggle more than others due to things outside of their control like their personality type and lack of mental fortification.

I want balance in storytelling! Not just gore or wholesome, not just morally grey or black and white, not just big spectacles and pause moments, but all of those combined in ways that force me to reflect on the media I consume and the way I consume it, to dig further in the limits of artistic expression and the classification of art as a whole.....

And indoctrination just ruins all of that, period.

We all, from a young age, are conditioned to uphold certain standards and to not challenge said standards in fear of being cast out by the people around us and the world we live in.

Art, as a medium, should be used to counteract the rigid lines of thinking that we're asked to uphold, but unfortunately, even if just subconsciously, the harmful, more strict lessons that we learn growing up still make their way into our works because of the mass consumption of simplicity we endured in our childhood.

From a very young age we are taught simple, clear cut definitions of right and wrong, and then we are subsequently told to simplify all of our real world problems into easily computable boxes so that we can be more efficient at our job, from moral decision making down to choosing what to eat for dinner; the adults tell us that it's ok to ask questions when in reality we're often punished or ignored for asking them and we all grow to internalise a passive acceptance of the status quo because that's what the status quo taught us to do in the first place.

I wanted to write this post because I was getting angry at myself for screwing up my own ideas due to my pathological need to divide right and wrong into easily checkable boxes and thus creating issues of the "these two ideas cannot interact or mix with each other anymore because of the way I segregated them" kind. I am always afraid of punishing my villains too much and not punishing my heroes enough and it's very hard for me to find that balanced middle ground that all works of art should strive to achieve; and then I realised: the problem has less to do with me and more on the unfortunate mindset that I internalised in my youth that keeps popping back up slowing down my output for thought provoking stories.

Admittedly, this is a larger issue that (contrary to what our collective nurture has drilled into our heads) cannot be easily resolved and probably requires a vocal discussion of some kind since typing can be extremely tiring and doesn't have the same engagement value of a dialogue, I'm very sorry if you found this post amateurish or you think I haven't conveyed my ideas well enough, I hope someone with a cleaner picture can show me what I got wrong and would like to share their opinions with me.

[wordsandrobots]

Jotting down a half-formed thought.

Some years ago, I went to an XML conference in Oxford (that makes it sound fancy but off-season college food is universally terrible) and one of the speakers was a gentleman who worked for Wikipedia. And one of the things he said was that what he aspired to, with Wikipedia, was something akin to the ship's computer in Star Trek, where you could go, "Computer tell me about pottery on Bronze Age Cyprus," and it would return all the information you could want. An aspirational idea, to be sure, and not an aim I object to, but an example of how fiction shapes what we want out of technology.

A couple of weeks ago, my workplace held one of our semi-regular informal meetings about so-called 'AI' and the impact on our industry, which I generally avoid because I am an avowed Luddite when it comes to this latest round of 'wonderful new technologies' being promoted at break-neck pace by investment capital. My contributions to the meetings when I do go are generally of a wet-blanket kind and this time was little different even though we were talking about 'fears around AI', because a well-intentioned colleague started the discussion with Roko's Basilisk and the Paper-Clip Maximiser. Politely speaking, these are two rather implausible scenarios concerning the creation of general artificial intelligences, which do not have much bearing on the subject of large-language models and supposedly-assistive automation. I bit my tongue a lot, despite finding myself talking more than usual, mostly on account of thinking that focusing on these fantasies is a distracting waste of time when 'AI' tools are being deployed willy-nilly in efforts to devalue people's labour, to say nothing of exposing the tech sector's childish disregard for creativity as a part of human experience.

I fear the loss of skill and information at scale as a consequence of another capitalistic fool's gold-rush far more than I do hypothetical non-human intelligences we are not close to creating, and that would reside within extremely vulnerable infrastructure if we did.

Nevertheless, it got me thinking about Issac Asimov and the laws of robotics, his set of impossibly vague rules created to drive stories on the basis of finding all the ways they would go wrong.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

(Please appreciate how many philosophical concepts an AI would have to understand in order for these to be practicable.)

And that got me thinking about 'robot' stories in general, all the way back to Karel Čapek and Rossum's Universal Robots, which is of course not about thinking machines at all but rather the proletariat, 'robota' meaning as it does 'forced labour'. Decades later, Luke Skywalker and his uncle were buying slaves made from steel and gold to work on their farm. 'Robot' displaced 'automaton' in popular language, and injected its original, class-structure meaning into unthinking clockwork. Fictional metal robots become beings capable of thought. Alien, yes, yet in some measure conscious and subject to all sorts of ethical considerations and imagined horrors. We've largely left behind Čapek's conception of human-like beings assembled from separately grown organs, the production-line person, but his tale of a genocidal revolution persists.

Discussion around automation and 'AI' seems to me to be soaked in a morbid desire for a 'safe' intelligent servant. Science fiction has shaped how we hold those discussions, naturally, directing our concerns at 'robot uprisings' and being 'surpassed' in some way (or all ways). It goes without saying that a great deal of the fiction functions as metaphor. To pick an example I've just finished rereading, Ann Leckie's Ancillary books are as much commentary on real-world imperial practices as they are an exploration of personhood and how general AI might be implemented per se. Unavoidably so. Will we ever extract 'robot' from Čapek's work and the industrial models that shaped his writing?

Perhaps not, but this isn't really the question I'm concerned with here. No, what I'm grappling with is the appeal of having an intelligence serve our whims. From the simple humanisation of tools, both in the sense of 'prompts' and 'hints' taking a conversational tone, to the desire to supplant actual humans with pliable alternatives that has Elon Musk wheeling out a bloke in a leotard like he's restaging The Five Doctors, it's a thread that has become wrapped around how we engage with . . . well, with technology. With constructions meant to assist us, that more often than not cannot replace us (yet) and require us to assist them.

In reality, the ethical questions arising are blunt and ugly. Whose work do we value? By what criteria does society judge who it supports and who it discards? How is remote technology used to circumvent natural, negative human responses to violence? Did those companies pay for that data, and do we want them to be able to buy it at all?

Still the fantasy persists. "Computer, answer my question." "Robot, do my chores." "AI, you won't rise up and kill me, will you?"

This is not an original observation, to be sure. I am inclined to seek out analyses of these trends in discussion around new tech, although I fear it would mean going back to Frankenstein and working forward. It just struck me, forcibly, that the metaphors for labour discontent and slave uprisings have imposed their own logic on both the fears and the hype around 'AI', be it the real thing or the glorified spell-checkers used to pretend art can happen at the touch of a button.

I have nothing against automation as a tool for making life easier, just as I see no possibility of that promise being fulfilled while capitalistic priorities rule the world. We have to pivot to centring human good first, and that's the core of the struggle.

But I'm also beginning to think we need to seriously ask why we want our tools to be glorified. Why we would want, not just speech recognition as an assistive feature for those who can't type, but specifically something that can speak to us in Majel Barrett's voice and hold an intelligent conversation. Why we are sold objects intended to play-act being 'part of the family' and why those selling them consider it desirable.

I don't suppose the answer will be less depressing than 'owning people is the highest mark of prestige in the societies producing these discussions. Even so, it's probably worth unpicking.

[99corentine]

Not a question this time but a thought. When I read GHD for the first time, it was for the Miraak romance (obviously) but then Chrysanthe grew on me and became his own character, making me genuinely interested in him even without Miraak. You'd write tiny spin-offs with Chry only or with other characters and I'd still be invested in him, that's telling how well you wrote him and how we readers related to him. A former thrall becoming a paladin with grey morality but trying to do good, with a forgotten past, altmer blood but still foreign to his peers, who saves an ancient being from a demonic plan, fighting the eldritch deity of said plan, who becomes the champion of the literal figure of Love without fearing for his masculinity, who's both serious and goofy and secretly a masochist ? Love him

Thank you, that's very kind of you to say ^^ As I've mentioned before I made a point not to plan Chrysanthe's backstory in every little detail because I didn't want that to get in the way of Miraak's story, and I think I've been lucky that he developed organically through the course of the story, and ended up being so nuanced. A fair few people have said that Chrysanthe was their favourite character, for which I am extremely flattered, because I definitely didn't set him out to be the favourite, just the vehicle for everything else. Sometimes you end up in a position where the (original) character writes themselves.

[fio-renze]

Becoming a citizen was going to take some time — that’s what the lawyer had said, at least. Not that the timeline mattered too much, there were reasons to avoid Silvermoon that weren’t related to her fears around the intelligence wing of the Magistry claiming that the memories of her former projects were government property and seizing them. 

There were reasons to stay fairly well hidden in Dalaran, too; at the very least it made sense to avoid some of the more public spaces where people she knew tended to congregate. The floating city, with its hard boundaries, was still fairly large and had quarters she hadn’t spent much time exploring. Fiorenze’s realtor had tipped her off about the upcoming sale of a modest flat in a tower that had been converted into a multi-unit situation — a rarity, and certainly a situation not worth passing up. 

It certainly wasn’t the Sunmote Tower; just a single floor, segmented up into a kitchen, a sitting room, a guest room with its own small bathroom, a master bedroom with its own large bathroom, and a couple terraces like most of the tower living quarters tended to have. The carefully curated style of the wooden floors and wall moldings made it pretty clear that it had once likely belonged to an entire household that likely spanned a couple more levels above and below. 

Now it was hers, and mostly empty. The down-payment alone had taken a decent chunk out of her funds left over from the settlement with Sheizara Tel’vaiel, and while she certainly wasn’t destitute, she didn’t want to touch the gold she’d sequestered away for investments. Getting some kind of a job was starting to seem more and more prudent as the days drew on. 

Pyraelia had kindly offered to put in a good word with the Violet Citadel for her, they were always in need of clerks and reliable administrators. It was a safe bet, but seemed horrendously mind numbing and tedious. 

Fate, fickle mistress as she was, smiled a bit during one of her small adventures in her new neighborhood cluster. There was a little flower shop tucked away at the base of one of the grander towers, and she’d ducked in to see about a couple bouquets and vases to help brighten up the new apartment. The bell above the door jingled and Fiorenze was met with an immediate shout from the back of, “I’m SO sorry, we’re closed!” 

The florist hurried out immediately, an extremely harried look on her half-elven face as she looked at Fiorenze and the sign on the door that still very much was turned to ‘Open’. Fio raised an eyebrow and smiled politely, “Of course, I.. well, this is probably a bit of a forward question, but do you need any help? My name is Fiorenze Sunmote, I’ve just moved in down the street…” It seemed like she needed help, and it was bad luck to not seize what seemed like a good opportunity. 

“My employee hasn’t shown up for the third time this week and there’s a wedding in the citadel that I have to start setting up in less than an hour—” the florist paused as Fiorenze’s question caught up to her, “Do you have experience with floral arrangements?” 

Fiorenze smiled brightly and nodded, “I do, I am well versed in the language of flowers and previously worked in an antiques shop in Silvermoon City, so I know how to work a till.” She certainly didn’t remember how to work a till, but how hard could it be? Not to mention she’d been fired from Brasspride & Birchleaf’s, but that was a different time and circumstance. 

“I’m Emeli Springwhisper, it’s very nice to meet you. I do need the help, but I don’t know you,” she reached up to brush the pieces of black hair that had fallen out of her messy bun back behind her short, pointed ears, “and I really need to be going. Would you mind coming back by tomorrow with a resume and flipping the open sign to closed on your way out?”

That was, at least, not an outright no. “Of course! I don’t mind at all, more than happy to. I’ll come back first thing tomorrow morning — I hope the wedding goes well, the flowers smell amazing from here!” Fiorenze left one of her personal contact cards on the main counter as Emeli immediately rushed back to whatever she had been doing.  

At the very least, Fiorenze liked flowers more than she had liked antiques, and even if it wasn’t the best paying job it was still better than nothing to help provide a cushion for the necessities. She turned the sign to closed like she said she would and started her walk back across the city to Sunmote Tower. 

Pyraelia was going to have to help her write a resume.

[astroyongie]

This might be weird question but how do you feel now about people who were your ults a while back…like taeyong or changkyun,I can’t think of anyone else rn?

I’m starting to fall out of kpop,like i still listen to the songs and everything but I’m just not really invested that much anymore and it’s such a weird feeling😭 It’s kinda scary but i feel extremely nostalgic of the time when i was starting to get to know them and fall in love with them i wish i could go back to those days. I feel like it’s just another thing to throw at my fear of becoming an adult(just turned 21 and am graduating uni this winter).Idk i just think it’s so weird to be so connected to someone and then not be…I mean I’m clearly still invested in kpop idols given that I’m here in this blog for months to begin with lmao but it’s not like before and idk i feel kinda dull,my life used to be soo exciting all the time because different groups always dropping content and stuff.I’m starting to feel what being an adult is like and why people hate it lol

I completely feel you and I understand you, but I think what's important here is to let you know that it's okay and you shouldn't feel guilt or regret if you are falling off something that you used to like. it's part of life.

Honestly, I fell out naturally. Back with NCT it was easier for me because I started to really not like the new music they did so I naturally stopped following and that's when I got into MX ( it kind of replaced it?). And then the whole thing with Wonho happened and I started to again drift away. I then just learned to enjoy music without having to consume the rest of the activities.

I think it's the reason why I never fell out of EXO or Red Velvet. it's because they were groups I got in for the music and not for the content or the image they give.

The thing is, we are in constant changement and we grow up and as we do, there's things we left behind to focus on other things that are more important in our life. So really, see it as a part of your life. It's okay to feel nostalgic, it's normal <3 just enjoy music and things around you without being concered with all the media you aren't catching up on, because at the end of the day, it's not going to make a living for you.

[metaphoricallylotus]

airing my grievances

| aug 2nd, 2024

in trying to stay true to myself, i find myself (for a second day in a row!!) writing out my feelings onto this blog. i am tired of running and want to stick to obligations that i have made, for once in my life. what this looks like is precisely this: writing despite not feeling like it, which i am absolutely not on this fine friday evening. i am exhausted and so emotionally drained that 1. have a harder time expressing them due to fatigue and 2. kind of emotionally numb since i use numbness to protect myself when i feel overwhelmed. however, this technique is not healthy whatsoever. so what has happened today and what have i been stressed about? well i've had to go into the city (without giving out details, i live in a suburb and had to drive further inwards towards the city core to buy some furniture for my new apt as university season is coming closer and closer) to run some errands and the spending aspect of furnishing a place for university is stressing-me-the-fuck-out! more on that later. i've also felt many feelings of nostalgia today, which will also be discussed.

so, why does pursuing an education have to be so stressful? money money money MONEY! the monetary aspect of life, especially in regards to renting out a place + sorting out things related to this have been stressing me out to the point where i have had really bad diarrhea and wake up at 7am in the morning and cannot sleep any longer due to my anxiety, despite still feeling rather physically tired. i am not in a terrible financial place, by any means of course. i am rather privileged in terms of capital. however, i have a rational/irrational (i have not been able to figure out if it is rational or not as i am still confused on how i truly understand the value of money) fear of going broke while pursuing my studies. i am worried that i will become homeless (not that i carry any stigma towards homeless individuals. the system is simply broken and we as a society really do not invest in these individuals as a whole. and don't even get me started on the factors that contribute to this). a question for me regarding this would be: so if you are so worried about being broke, why don't you just live at home with your parents while pursuing your education? well, i just don't think i could do it. commuting has various negative impacts on health and as someone who suffers from anxiety and really bad depression, i simply do not have any more energy to deal with the consequences associated with this (increased likelihood of development certain physical health conditions and the overall negative impact commuting would have on my energy levels + mood). i need a lot of time to recuperate and practice self care. this really cannot be done on any sort of public transportation, especially during a trip that would easily take 2+ hours. yes, this sounds like a "privileged" person problem but i do believe that if i were to commute, it would eventually result in me dropping out of university. on top of that, i really cannot live with my parents anymore. i need to break free as them as they are having a (negative) profound impact on me. i fear that if i live with them any longer, i will never be able to truly recover from the damage taken. the damage? two emotionally unavailable adults that judge me on everything that i do and i simply cannot take it anymore. in being emotionally unavailable, they cannot express their feelings properly. i am expected to comfort them, despite them never reciprocating this and even if they did, a daughter should not have to play this role. uncontrollable emotional outbursts ranging from expressions of annoyance to anything to white hot anger. they are codependent on me, from tech issues to directions to providing them with emotional support. i am tired of taking care of everyone but no one taking care of me. the worst thing is that they are completely unaware of the fact that 1. they are acting this extreme and 2. that it is deeply affecting me. and yes, i have tried to have conversations re: this but i don't get through to them. either this case of denial is intentional or unintentional. either way, it's rather frustrating. i also do not want to be in a relationship (platonic or not) where my major role of mine is to try to fix the other person! this is a useless and exhausting effort! save your energy by saving yourself! some may think that this comes off as selfish as "if you truly cared, you would try to change them no matter how many tries it takes." maybe so, but most of the time, trying to change someone simply does not work, especially if they do not want to or simply have an inability to change. at this point, you can only focus on yourself and do what is best for you. for me, this means putting a lot more distance between me and my parents and in the process, learning + undoing unhealthy behaviours and creating healthy ones instead. i believe at this point that this can only be done if i am on my own. through living long enough on this earth, i find that i am easily swayed by others emotions. i unconsciously mimic the mood of the room, even if it does not align with my actual morals on how should i react

continued in comments^ -------------->

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| aug 1st

| aug 7th

[bracketsoffear]

American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) "It follows the life of Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and handsome investment banker living in Manhattan in the 1980s. Beneath his polished exterior lies a psychopathic killer who preys on his victims without remorse. Bateman's exploits quickly grow more and more extreme, and his mask of sanity starts to slip.

Patrick Bateman's murders (or hallucinations of murders) are often over the most trivial of provocations or for no reason whatsoever. It is a book about the Slaughter."

All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque) ""I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . ."

This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive."

[rescue-ram]

hello pleaseeee i need to know all ur thoughts on bunny/andrew i literally saw the one post u had on them yearsssss ago and i became so invested with the possibilities and i think ur the only other person who is also invested in it? literally every other person ive talked to about the charioteer doesn't get it like not really and theres no content dor ot out there zero nothing idk i think it has sm potential but ig no one else sees it (i think i might be kinda out of it rn bc im just realising this sounds a bit insane but god. i rlly do want to talk about andrew/bunny with wnother person)

Oh my GOD HELLO!!!

So fair warning I am going to go absolutely bananas at you because I have zero faith in my ability to be coherent about this ship, but PLEASE let me know your thoughts on Bunny/Andrew, they started as a laugh but now they're the OTP and I would love to know your thoughts

(Me explaining the layers of Bunny/Andrew)

So insane statement number one: what I love about Bunny and Andrew is how dialectical they are. Pure perfect yin yang of a couple, mirror images in every way.

While Ralph and Andrew are often described this way, I don't think that's entirely accurate- they are actually extremely similar characters, both physically (blonde, light eyed) and in bearing, both are 19 when Laurie first kisses them. But where Andrew is young and seemingly untouched by life's troubles (SEEMINGLY, he is very much touched), his clear eyed pragmatism becomes cynical pessimism in Ralph, who's been beaten, isolated, and damaged.

Where Andrew and Ralph are continuous, bleeding into each other in Laurie's narrative, Andrew and Bunny are polar opposites. Andrew is not consciously gay, pure, virtuous, honest to a fault. Bunny is overtly self-consciously gay, indulgent, gossipy, mean spirited, totally willing to fight dirty. If Andrew is untouchable, Bunny is getting his handprints all over him. And the way they come together!! Although Andrew and Laurie have kissed and begun to talk about things, it's Bunny storming up to Andrew and yelling "I FUCKED YOUR CRUSH WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT" that really makes it real, that brings blood into it. Andrew awakens to his sexual identity through his love for Laurie, but it's jealousy of "Ralph"/Bunny that pulls the trigger!

Just excerpting the part of Andrew's letter that deals directly with Bunny's interaction with him.

I want you to know it is true if he says that when I hit him it wasn’t even self-defense. There is a belief, which I expect he shares, that a pacifist who has behaved like this must see at once his ideas were wrong. I should have thought there could hardly be a better way of proving they were right. But if that were all I had to tell you, of course I could have written days ago.

...Well, about Ralph. He isn’t like I imagined, so I found it hard to picture you and him as great friends. When he told me it was much more than that, I felt—I don’t know a better way of expressing this—as if I’d had an anonymous letter. I got one once, after my Board. It is like something from another world, but it has touched you, and the touch is real. So then he said why did I pretend to be shocked when I was only jealous; and that was when I hit him.

He didn’t hit me back, he just laughed and walked off. He had a right to. I knew before he was even out of sight that there could be only one reason for what I did. What he had said about me was true. He wanted to see what I would do, I suppose, and I did what he expected. But it taught me something. The thing you want to kill is really in yourself. That is why people become cruel in war, because they are doing what I did.

Screaming, howling, recognition of the self through other, etc. Me fighting the sleepies to elaborate on these thoughts, that essentially come down to the lack of animus Andrew holds towards Bunny, despite everything, and the insight suggested here that Bunny's bad behavior is driven more by jealousy, fear, and loneliness then malice.

Anyway anyway ANYWAY the insane Andrew Epic I AM still working on it WILL be done one day has really come to focus on Bunny/Andrew in resolving what does it mean to be faithful?

Ok, so starting at the beginning of the outline- Andrew is working as a stretcher bearer in London during the Blitz. He runs into Bunny, who he still thinks is Ralph, and attempts to reconcile with him. Bunny is still bitter and heartbroken, and continues messing with him, ultimately culminating in Andrew losing his virginity in a very awkward hook up Andrew is wrestling with the very serious question I will purposefully phrase humorously, "How do I have gay sex in a god honoring way?" and Bunny is driven absolutely apoplectic by the perceived hypocrisy of this, and by Andrew continuously coming back to him no matter how catty he gets. As they start to build a real relationship, Bunny starts to realize he's in too deep and worries if he reveals he's not really Ralph Lanyon, Andrew will leave him.

There is a LOT of middle plot I have outlined and partially written- Andrew goes on the front lines with the ambulance service as he writes about and loses contact with Bunny for a time (Bunny gives him a whole song and dance about censors and military intelligence, rather than trying to explain why he can't address letters to Ralph Lanyon), they reconnect after the war and try and make a go of it, but it gets way to real and intense for Bunny, who gets skittish and walks out without telling Andrew anything. Andrew freaks out, fearing that "Ralph" has been arrested or killed, and encounters homophobia when he tries to file a missing person report on his "roommate". After talking with Dave, he goes to serve in a mission hospital in Kenya (fun facts, there are more Quakers in Kenya then anywhere else in the world, and I am actively debating how much to get into about the late colonial atrocities that occured there at this time period).

In 1950ish, Andrew once more runs into Bunny, and is so relieved to see him alive and well that it shocks Bunny, who assumed he'd be furious if they ever saw each other again. Bunny successfully dodges questions, continuing to pass himself off as Ralph- at first justifying it to himself by saying he doesn't want to ruin Andrew's relief or his memories, that he wants to let him down gently this time, etc, but he keeps putting off either breaking off with him or telling him the truth because he likes the escape from being himself, likes the way it feels to be loved by Andrew, tries to pretend he's not in love himself. Bunny is genuinely frustrated by Andrew's increasingly public role as a peace/nuclear disarmament activist, the potential scrutiny it could attract, the judgment he feels compared to Andrew's high moral standards, etc. Andrew is genuinely annoyed with "Ralph"'s caginess, his refusal to commit or meet Andrew's friends or introduce Andrew to his, etc.

In 1960, something genuinely bad happens to Bunny- he's outed in some way and is arrested/fired, I'm working out the details. He has nothing left but the half-life he's been maintaining with Andrew. At this point it comes to a head, and Andrew finds out the truth. He's initially completely broken by the news and is heartbroken and furious that the man he's been in love with for almost 20 years has never once told the truth, has never even told him his name... But then. The reframe. Andrew has always expected things from Bunny, but Bunny just wanted Andrew to be himself. Andrew has been living his own life, regardless of how it made Bunny feel, while Bunny willingly gave up his entire identity to be with Andrew. Is Andrew a hypocrite, or does he love Bunny unconditionally, regardless of who he is or what he's done? Who is really the faithful one, Andrew who has only ever had one lover, or Bunny who kept coming back, trusting in Andrew even though he had no reason to?

As Andrew tries to articulate this, Bunny things he's given his lover a nervous breakdown and sticks him in the bath with a glass of whiskey and calls Alec to calm him down.

At that point they're able to have a real, honest relationship. Andrew brings Bunny to the meeting and comes out- he gets disfellowshipped for his troubles, but takes it sanguinely because "God knows I love you." The notoriety he gets here puts him in touch with "like-minded" Quakers, I have a reconciliation between them, Ralph, and Laurie, it'll be cozy.

But yeah, these are all the thoughts about Bunny/Andrew I can gather tonight. Normal people project normal trauma onto their blorbos, I've got an unpublished word doc that is half gay sex half narrativized commentary on the Letter to the Romans 😂

But please please PLEASE let me know your own thoughts- the TLDR about all this blathering is I love the contrast between Andrew and Bunny, the potential for drama, and how Andrew in canon is most himself when faced with adversity and the natural challenges Bunny would bring would depend and mature his character, while I think Andrew could be an affectionate, patient lover who could be really good for Bunny's insecurities. What do you think could draw these two together??

(Also I headcanon Bunny's name is Barnaby Botts. Horrible name he refuses to go by, Barnaby shortens to Barney shortens to Bunny, AND I initially picked Barnaby just for the connection to Bunny but then I remembered if means the son of comfort or in Greek son of the Paraclete and the part of my brain responsible for drawing insane religious parables all over these two had a field day with that.)