#it’s a good start and honestly so much easier to connect with these more recent characters

[aymethyst]

It took so fucking long Marvel is finally making interesting content again

[baldursgate3tempobsessed]

Hiii!

I love your writing, especially Mirror, Mirror! Are you still taking request? I‘ve been thinking about Ascended Astarion and female Tav/Reader attending a ball for the politicians and nobles of Baldur’s Gate, getting all dressed up and socializing, dancing and Astarion flirting with her all night long. Astarion obviously wouldn’t waste a chance to be alone with Tav/Reader, takes her on a romantic stroll in the gardens and has his wicked way with her somewhere in a dark corner 👀

I can not make Ascnedant Astarion not dark I am SORRY but I can't help myself. The intro to this is sad bad, but honestly it gets pretty fun later down the line. Gotta set up that Stockholm syndrome. You gots it here.

Tw: Murder, Violence, not much but it is there, graphic smut, 18+ sweet dark fluff. I do consider this Stockholm on your end. Very inspired by the in-game quote of locking you away for a decade. Also, never write shit only in tumblr post editor, I lost half of this right before I was going to post last and it almost killed me

~

Astarion was.... aware that you'd been having a hard time as of late. If anyone could empathize with the complications of being a vampire spawn, it was certainly him. Even though his circumstance were obviously much, much worse than yours ever could be.

He was no Cazador. Astarion was different, he loved you. He knew what was best for you. All that needed to happen now was for you to accept it.

And in your defense, you were trying. It had taken a long time for you to finally come to terms with the full extent of power he had over you as his spawn. He would always know where you were through sensation alone. Always ready and willing to drag you back home if need be. He could compel you to his side at any moment, though he did have a bad habit of going out to find you during your little tantrums. It seemed to work better to put you in your place, especially since he had very little self-control when it came to who you associated with. Many a possible friend had died at his hand, in front of your eyes. A waste, really, one that wouldn't be necessary if you would just listen.

But the demonstrations had been useful. Slowly but surely you were learning that the option of secrets between the two of you had died the second he sunk his fangs into your wrist. He had personally put an official stop to all of your extracurricular activities. The things you used to do in your spare time were silly and dangerous, always going out of your way to help the undeserving. But now he had the control to stop you, to sequester you at the estate where you were safe.

You had nowhere to be besides his side and you were finally starting to understand that. Things were so much easier when you gave in and listened, happier and more fun.

Lately, it had almost felt like another honeymoon phase, with your sudden predilection for extreme loyalty. It helped that he could still see into your mind through the new connection, fully aware that your love remained real and pure, if not a bit melancholic. It was silly really, the guilt you felt towards him for letting him ascend. Never mind the thousands he sacrificed, you were too concerned with how power had chanced him.

It was cute. Stupid, but cute. Because obviously it had changed him for the better. How else would he be where he was now? With his hands already in nearly every major part of Baldur's Gate's governance? He had made wide, sweeping moves to gain control in the past year, banking on your dual hero status to deflect from his more... unsavory attributes. But it was working, and in a few years time this city would belong to him. Then the two of you would be on to the next major conquest. A future that you were just now coming to terms with.

And Astarion wanted to reward you for that acceptance. He had been a bit paranoid of late, paranoid enough to not let you out of the house for a solid fortnight. But for good reason. The last of the Gur had come out of the woodwork recently, looking for revenge for their children and fallen comrades. With a specific interest in you. It had made sense, in a way. You were his greatest weakness after all. So of course he had to take it upon himself to personally hunt the last of them down to tear them limb from limb.

But now they were officially gone, and he was finally feeling comfortable with letting you out into the world again. Just not out of his sight. And tonight was the perfect opportunity. He had a mandatory soirée to attend, populated by neighboring nobles and a few powerful foreigners. One that would be so much more entertaining with you willingly by his side. Or forced, if need be. Depending on if you decided to be in one of your moods, though they were a rarity nowadays.

But no, you turned out to be too excited at the prospect of leaving the house to even attempt being a brat. Astarion watched you with a smile as you appeared at the top of the staircase, dressed to the nines. He whistled as he watched you descend, beyond pleased with how you looked. He met you at the bottom of the landing, easily wrapping an arm around your waist before setting a quick kiss to your temple, "You look beautiful pet. Absolutely stunning."

You truly did. A navy satin gown that matched your skin tone perfectly, fitted with delicate straps and a low bodice. Perhaps the slit in the leg was a little high, revealing too much of your perfect thigh for the rest of the world. But you looked too good for him to complain.

You really were so gorgeous, could he be blamed for wanting to dress you up?

You rolled your eyes, but Astarion didn't miss the tiny smile dancing on your lips, "You're the one who picked it out."

"And you wear it perfectly," Astarion praised, already leading you out the door. He kept you close to his side during the short journey, his eyes darting around your surroundings every few moments. His paranoia had been quelled, but it hadn't completely died out. But he had already made the decision that he was going to be on his best behavior tonight, and that included not indulging in his protective nature. You deserved nothing less.

But that didn't stop Astarion from taking some mental notes on those who stared at you too brazenly when you arrived. Part of him couldn't blame them, not when he could understand your thrall better than any one else. But the other, more fun part of himself was too busy imagining ripping them apart for the audacious, lustful stares.

But he didn't drag the two of you out for strictly fun, a fact that he was quickly reminded of when you were approached by the main host, "Lord Ancunín! I'm so pleased that you could make it."

Astarion vaguely remembered who he was, though he was much more interested in his friends than the man himself. The man turned his attention toward you, brow raised, "And who is this beautiful creature?"

Astarion could feel his brow twitch at the insolence. How dare he not know who you were? The Hero of Baldur's Gate, his consort, the love of his life, how could someone of his breeding be so ignorant? You had to many titles to choose from for introductions, so Astarion decided on the most important, "This is the future Lady Ancunín, my fiancé."

He could feel you tense at his side, staring up at him with wide eyes like what he said was surprising. Which was odd. He had been extremely clear about his intentions since the day he ascended, marriage was the obvious next step for the two of you.

"Well it's lovely to meet you," The noble said with a smile, his attention going straight back to Astarion, "Now if you'll excuse us, I have a few matters to discuss with your future husband."

Astarion was startlingly close to hurting this man. What on earth made him feel as though he had the right to dismiss you? He tightened the arm he had around your waist, sneering at him, "There is nothing that you can say that she won't eventually know. Don't waste our time."

Then he proceeded to do just that, wasting Astarion's time with useless information and worthless attempts at allyships. It seemed to be an unfortunate trend as the night progressed, just reinforcing how utterly useless the gentry could really be. Not to mention their constant passive dismissal of you. He really was going to need to start letting you out more often, though he had to wonder if they were even worthy of your presence. He would have been a bit more forceful regarding his own displeasure at their arrogance if you weren’t so distracting.

It was hard to hold onto his own indignation when you seemed so content. You were leaning into him the whole night, smiling softly through all of his inane conversations. Never failing to be adorably pleased at your introduction. It made Astarion want to fawn over you, alternating between whispering sweet nothings in your ear and sweeping you onto the dance floor. All of your pleased laughs and giggles music to his ears.

He kept you close all evening, never allowing you to wander past his sight. His arm stayed firmly around your waist, never quite shaken off after your first waltz together. But you didn't seem to mind. If anything you were glowing under the attention, happy in a way he hadn't seen for a long time. Too long. Beautiful enough for him to have the overly romantic thought that he never wanted the night to end.

Even after he had done his rounds, engaged with all whom he had planned on, he wasn't quite ready to leave. They had all been dreadfully dull, but at least a few conversations would prove useful in the future at the very least.

He started to steer you towards the back garden doors, whispering in your ear, "Take a walk with me?"

You followed him easily, happy to leave the bustle of the ballroom and step into the coolness of the night. You both started walking, hand and hand in a comfortable silence. It was a pretty enough garden, hedges and ivy lining the walkways, a white slightly weathered gazebo placed in the center.

"You know," You said eventually, as the two of you went up the gazebo steps. You leaned against the railing, looking at him with a coy smile, "I don't recall you ever proposing."

Astarion barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes as he crowded around you. It was an unnecessary question, considering how you would have no choice in the matter. But he was playing nice tonight. Astarion grinned at you, bracing his hands on the railing to cage you in his arms, "If you want a proposal, I'm more than happy to oblige."

"I do," You were playing with the lapel of his jacket, looking up at him through your lashes, "Sooner than later if you don't mind."

"Your wish is my command," Astarion murmured, shameless as he started to kiss along the line of your throat, "I'm proud of you pet. You've been an angel all night."

"You haven't given me much to complain about," You said with a small laugh, your breath hitching when his fangs scraped against your delicate skin, hard enough to make pinpricks of blood bubble to the surface.

"You know..." Astarion started, pulling back to look you in the eye. His voice gentle but serious, "It could always be like this. If you let it."

"I... I know," You admitted, biting on your lower lip as you struggled for the words, "I-I want that. I want you. Even if... it's like this."

Astarion would take offense at the subtle dig if it was anyone else. But with you? He was just happy that you were finally coming around, at long last willing to accept the fate he'd set for you.

"You have it," Astarion promised, tilting your chin up to press a light kiss to your lips, "For as long as I breathe my love, you're mine. And I'm yours-"

You kissed him before he could finish, wrapping your arms around his neck, forceful in a way that he had desperately missed. But you were pulling back too soon, your mouth swollen and your lipstick slightly smeared, smiling at him like the precious thing you were.

How could he resist?

"I think you deserve a reward for tonight my pet," Astarion said, leaning in to softly kiss along your jaw, "For being such a sweetheart."

His hands were wandering, already moving to pluck at the delicate straps of your dress, slowly teasing them to drop down your shoulders.

You made no moves to stop him as your eyes darted around the empty space, "H-Here? But what if someone sees?"

"Then I'll tear their eyes out and feed them back to anyone who stumbles on us," Astarion said simply, smiling at the way it made you laugh softly.

"Violence isn't always the answer you know," You said, your breath hitching as he lightly bit your neck. Your dress still slinking down all the while, "I thought we talked about that?"

"Perhaps," Astarion murmured, "But it seems to usually work in my favor."

He had already managed to slip the straps down enough to ease the way, brazenly tugging the fabric until your breasts spilled from the top. He leaned back in, taking the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth as you gasped; mewling when he began touching you, shamelessly pinching your nipples just to hear you whine.

He adored all your little noises, so easy to coax out of your mouth. He could feel his own cock pulsing in the confines of his trousers, the feeling getting worse and worse as you started to whimper.

Astarion let one of his hands travel further down, right through the slit in your gown. He traced the seam of your pussy through delicate lace, smiling into the kiss from how the simple touch had your hips pitching forward. He could feel you getting wet, already seeping through the fabric of your panties, your needy cunt already begging for his touch. And Astarion was more than happy to oblige.

He tore them from your hips, letting the tattered pieces fall unceremoniously to the ground before he started to rub his palm against your clit, more slick gushing out as you moaned.

You were clutching at his shoulders, panting into his mouth as he played with you. Your thighs tightened around his hand, your cunt wet enough to fill the air with messy, indecent sounds.

Whatever trepidation you had before was quickly dissolving, a small chant escaping your lips as you two kissed, Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

Astarion was more than happy to oblige.

"Hold onto me darling," Astarion ordered, giving you a split second to tighten your grip around his neck before he was lifting you in the air, settling you on top of the thick railing with your legs spread wide. He made quick work of taking his weeping cock out, rubbing it along the seam of your cunt as you moaned. And then he was pushing inside, the slide soaked and easy.

You felt so tight around him, tight and sopping wet as he started to fuck into you. He bent his head down, popping one of your hard nipples into your mouth as you cried out, your nails clawing into his shoulders. You wrapped your legs around his hips, trying to pull him in even closer, despite the fact that he was pressed deeply inside of you. Hitting all of your sensitive places.

He could tell that you were close, your whining getting more and more high-pitched by the second, your sweet cunt pulsing around his cock. Astarion started to rub at your clit again, at the perfect angle to make you tense up and cry out. And just like that you were squirting against his hand, breathing heavy as your orgasm ravaged through you.

Astarion grinned, popping off your breast to kiss your slack mouth. Naughty thing that you were, making a mess all over your fancy dress. He pulled back to look at you, debauched and panting, your pupils dilated at you stared up at him. You looked gorgeous, fucked out and perfect.

He started to fuck you harder, the erotic image was too much for his mind to handle. You where whining with each thrust, no doubt oversensitive as he roughly slammed into you. But you were a good girl, taking it without a single complaint as you held on for dear life, tears springing to the corners of your eyes. But lucky enough for you, you didn't have to wait long.

Astarion spilled inside of you with a drawn out moan, grinding circles into your cunt as you quivered. You pulled him in for another kiss, messily sliding your lips together as he filled you up. The two of you stayed like that for awhile, lazily kissing as he softened inside of you. It felt good, it felt right, the perfect end to a great night.

Astarion pulled out slowly, cooing at you as you gasped at the feeling. Your legs were still trembling as he set you back on the ground, bad enough for Astarion to wonder if he should just pick you up before you crumpled on the floor.

But first...

Astarion dropped to his knees, ignoring your surprised gasp as he spread your legs back apart.

"Hush darling," Astarion ordered as he pushed your dress back up, "Let me have a look at you."

Astarion was aware that he had gotten a little rough near the end there. It wouldn't be the first time he made you bleed during sex, nor the last. But he would hate to do so accidently. But no, your pussy looked perfectly healthy, if not a little swollen. Flushed and pink, your hole still twitching the slightest bit. The sight of your pussy all slick and red was nearly enough to make his mouth water.

"Spread your legs a little further pet," Astarion murmured, looking just to look. He gently added pressure to your shaking thighs until you complied, "That's it. Good girl."

His cum was already starting to leak out of you, the smallest bit of white making it's first appearance amongst your wet folds. No doubt it would be sliding down your legs soon enough. He could do something about that. But then again... the alternative sounded like too much fun.

Astarion stood back up with a smile, patting your pussy once before letting your dress fall back down, "Try to hold it in darling. We wouldn't want to make another mess, would we?"

You nodded slowly, still looking half out of it. A sweet, hazy look still plastered onto your face. You were already leaning in for another kiss, naturally desperate for more contact. Contact that Astarion was more than happy to give. He pulled you closer, kissing you deeply; your fingers tangling in his hair to pull him even closer. He wrapped his arms around your back, dipping his tongue between your lips as you dreamily sighed.

You pulled away first, to his displeasure, but you didn't go far. You rested your forehead against his, smiling softly with loving eyes, "Hi."

Astarion couldn't help but smile back, taking the time to tuck a wild piece of hair behind your ear, "Hello my treasure. Did you have fun tonight?"

"I think you know the answer to that," You giggled softly, "I'm not even sure I can walk."

That he did. And there would be many more nights like it. Though for now, he'd prefer to get you home. He felt a bit reluctant to parade you back out there for the masses eyes, so obviously debauched by his hands. No, the sight of you happy and flushed was for his eyes only. Your night would be ending here.

You squeaked as he swept you up in his arms, already muttering the magic for a portal under his breath. And just like that the two of you were gone, completely uncaring to give any good byes.

The two of you popped right into the entry hall of the estate, sudden enough to nearly scare a maid half to death. Astarion paid them no mind, too busy with carrying you upstairs to the sanctuary of your quarters.

You cuddled into his chest, looking up at him with a nervous look, "Did... Did I do good tonight?"

"Of course you did," Astarion cooed as he kicked the door to the bedroom open, trying to softly drop you on the bed, "Perfect creature that you are, what else could have possibly happened?"

But you didn't let go when he tried to pull back, clinging hard enough for Astarion to simply follow you. But he didn't mind, no he preferred you like this. Needy, wanting, and his. He twisted the two of your around, settling only when he had you laying on top of him. He would set a bath for the two of you later, but for now he was more than happy to lay here, watching as your tired to stay conscious. You always got so tired after sex, just one more silly thing that he was endeared by.

"I love you," You mumbled, your eyes falling closed, "Thank you for taking me tonight. For trusting me. I... thank you."

"I love you too darling," Astarion murmured back, kissing your forehead, "You get better by the day. I really am proud of you."

It was true. You were learning, adjusting. Give him a decade and you'd be completely immersed in your new life, all thoughts of useless things like "freedom" forgotten.

You were his. Until the end of time, you'd be together.

He'd make sure of that.

[eatingfireflies]

2.2 is coming and if I don't write this now, how can I get jossed later?

This is the moment when I started to wonder if their 2.0 conversation was a role play.

Like, we know this issue is a sore point for Ratio. The fact that this guy he called a loud peacock in 2.0 made a joke about his failure to get into the Genius Society and all he said was 'I was being sarcastic'?? Babe, is something wrong? You barely touched your sharp and witty comeback.

(Btw I checked both Cn and Jp, he says 'It was just a joke.')

And I don't want to bring up the voice acting because the way voices sound is subjective and what I hear might not be what you hear, but the Double Indemnity scenes with Ratio are probably the most relaxed we ever see Aventurine ever. (I'm talking about the Cn version, but I played in Jp audio and I could hear it there too.) He's playful and his voice is higher pitched, so different from what we've seen of him so far.

It sounds like Ratio and Aventurine have known each other longer than they want us to believe in their 2.0 convo.

I mean, the implication here is Ratio did some research on Aventurine's background recently and that's how he found out about Aventurine's past. So we make the assumption that they haven't been working together for long.

Look, they even did a Penacony remix of their Final Victor conversation

But honestly, you'd think Ratio would have figured out if he trusted Aventurine or not at this point, considering he came back for more after Final Victor (lmao??)

Also, we know Aventurine had been planning for Penacony since his call to Topaz, where he asked for her help. It's hard to believe that he went through all the trouble of asking two different Stonehearts to lend him their cornerstones and then went to Penacony and the Dreamscape with Ratio, whom he barely knows. That's too much gambling, Aventurine!

We know the Family won't let anyone from the IPC to enter the Dreamscape and Aventurine only gets a pass because of the Watchmaker's invite

But Himeko is wrong here: Aventurine didn't go inside the Dreamscape alone and he does have someone backing him up. It just happened that almost no one else saw Ratio in Penacony and the one scene where we did see him talking to Aventurine was 2.0, where he got angry and left Aventurine babbling to himself.

But now that we're here, what did Ratio do in Penacony aside from bicker and betray?

His initial job is to gather intel, afaik. Aventurine tells him to go look into things in 2.0 before he left. And he does give Aventurine updates in 2.1 (Aventurine finds out about Firefly from Ratio) so good for you, professor!

Ratio is Aventurine's connection to his colleagues outside. Once Aventurine's plans enter the Dead phase, Ratio is the only one left to tell Topaz and Jade if the plan had been a success or not. (Aventurine also makes a joke about the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites offering to be his undertaker. In the Jp version, he says 'So the Genius from the Council of the Mundanites wants to claim my corpse? What an honour.' So there's also that... Uh. Idk how dead dead Aventurine really is, but at least we know someone's looking after his body while he's gone lmao??)

But also he's Aventurine's bait to Sunday, the (fake) weak link in Aventurine's plans that Sunday thought he could exploit.

And the 3rd one is a bit complicated, because it is a gamble. Remember Aventurine's E1? Prisoner's Dilemma? Yeah, it's kinda like that. I talked about it before, but let's copy paste it here for easier reading (and because this post totally needs to be a wall of text)

Let's zoom out a bit again and remember that Aventurine was sent to Penacony because Diamond thinks this whole affair could still have a peaceful resolution. Meaning: Aventurine is the kind option. The IPC could have sent Opal instead, but it sounds like that means there would be a body count.

And I think that's why Ratio is here and why he agreed to cooperate. Because if Aventurine's plan works out, only Aventurine's life will ever be in real danger. (And we know from Ratio's note that he also took steps to increase the chances of Aventurine coming back.)

Ratio being there is important to the plan because

Him being from the Intelligentsia Guild removes some of the heat from the Family. If Ratio is coming in as a plus one, the IPC (in this case, I'm assuming it's Aventurine because he's the guy in charge of the operation) chose the best person for the job. It makes the Family happier knowing there are not two IPC envoys walking around the Dreamscape and Aventurine has a buddy who can move around more freely than another IPC employee could

But because Ratio is an outsider, he's also the weak link in Aventurine's plans. Another IPC employee will probably not betray Aventurine, but the Guild has no particular horse in this race. We were also led to believe from their 2.0 conversation that Ratio doesn't like Aventurine very much. This is what I meant when I said Ratio is a bait: Aventurine was pretty much dangling him in front of Sunday, making Sunday think he could use Ratio to ruin Aventurine's plans. The important thing of course is the trust the two of them have for each other (yay, Prisoner's Dilemma). Ratio could ruin Aventurine's plan if he wants to (very bad for all involved because I'm guessing Opal is the next step) and Aventurine could fail (not as bad for everyone involved after 2.1 because the IPC has already won regardless. There's still a Phase 2 in Aventurine's plan and Ratio seems to want him back after that, so I guess he'd consider it a failure if Aventurine doesn't return?), but trusting each other means they win.

Tl;dr Ratio's presence in Penacony is a bit of a gamble on Aventurine's part but it worked well for him so far. Ratio is here to make sure everyone stays alive. (And maybe the Phase Flame? I honestly don't know if the Annihilation Gang will ever come back again, but for now I'm going with the obvious and assuming Ratio is here because he thinks Aventurine's plan will work and work with the least amount of pain for everyone.)

Thank you for getting this far. Why do we think they deserve Oscars?

Aside from the movie references (we'll get to that), we have 3 different instances where Aventurine mentions acting / the 'script'.

The most direct is the conversation with future!Aventurine in the garden maze: future!Aventurine praises Ratio's acting while Aventurine says 'Or he might not be acting at all' (the inability of these two to admit they are friends, but more importantly they don't think the other person thinks highly of them, is2g).

The next one is hidden in the mission description

And the other one got lost in translation. This was translated to 'You catch on quickly' in En. In Jp he says something like 'You have a good sense for drama, professor' (Sorry Idk what this is in the og Cn)

Finally, Double Indemnity. I haven't seen the movie, but it seems to be about an insurance salesman who gets seduced by a hot wife femme fatale into helping her get rid of her husband so she could claim his insurance. Double Indemnity refers to this clause where the insurance gets doubled if the person suddenly dies of an accident.

I've thought about this so hard, let me tell you. What could this possibly have to do with Aventurine and the mission? (For example, 'Hot wife Sunday seduces Ratio the insurance salesman into helping him get rid of Aventurine' etc.) And I honestly still don't know but one detail does help my theory so I'm pulling it out:

The relationship between the insurance salesman and the hot wife femme fatale was known only to the two of them. To the insurance claims adjuster, who was investigating the case and trying to prove the husband's death wasn't an accident, those two are unrelated people who might have seen each other once or twice. The claims adjuster suspected the wife, but had no idea of the insurance salesman's involvement. The truth is, they actually knew each other a full year before the plan was set in motion. Hey, doesn't it actually fit nicely now?

(Spellbound otoh, I still don't know. I have a Sunday and Gallagher reading of it, but Hvy keeps telling me no and making it gay instead so Idk.)

[system-of-a-feather]

Alternative System Mind Mapping Method for Communication

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a professional or scientifically or anything really backed method, this is something coming solely from peer / personal experience.]

In regards to an anon ask earlier, I was thinking about it and one of the ways we've approached improving communication - particularly internal - in a way that is a lot less prone to flooding or dealing with trauma or anything too overwhelming - is by approaching it following the concept of Memory Webs

I haven't read up on them recently, but "Memory Webs" were a thing that our AP Psychology teacher in highschool made us do because the AP Psych test was term / jargon heavy. Memory in the human brain has been shown to be HEAVILY associative and the ability to remember and connect things tends to rely on following a "web" of connected topics, ideas, concepts etc from one idea to the next.

So in our AP Psych class, she gave us these GIANT books for Vocabulary Webs that we had to slowly work on, each of which required 6 other vocab words / related concepts, a summarized definition, and an image to represent it. By doing this, you added 6 cues to recall the word (increasing the chance you'd remember it), a visual cue, an episodic memory of working on it, and a definition - all in all improving how connected the word is to other concepts in your brain and making it easier to recall it.

I personally like to look at DID and our parts in a similar manner sometimes where the large issue is that a lot of the nodes in the web of associations are either disconnected or connected through a hard-to-find and/or small chain. In that sense, parts struggle to be held together because they are not associated concepts. It's hard to reach other parts because the dissociative walls (which in our unsubstantiated opinion is less a 'wall' and more so a lack of reinforced neural connections, so I would call them dissociative caverns) keep associations from forming

As a result, alternative to more traditional ways of mapping your system and parts, a method I've liked to internally visualize systems and navigating system dynamics is through a memory web manner. (I actually have never done it physically cause the Ray part of my brain - also the most prominent part writing this rn - rarely liked to front if he didn't have to and did a lot of stuff internally)

Here's a bit of a breakdown using six of our parts if any of you want to try it out.

We personally like it because it strips a lot of trauma and stress off of it and makes it a lot more of a positive and present engaging activity. For the purposes of this, I'll be using the free online app of Milanote cause we've used it before for OC associative webs and I think it'll do fine enough. (Honestly it actually might just be a good way to log alter information now that I'm looking at it if you are at a place in recovery where keeping track of that physically helpful)

So we can start by dropping down the parts we want to include in the form of boards

So from here, we have a bunch of disconnected parts. However, we find that a lot of these parts have things that mean a lot to them, that illicit a strong emotion or reaction from them.

Some parts may lack it more than others (often in our case trauma holders and/or trauma locked parts) and that's okay and to be expected. This is a visualization method and if there isn't much connecting a part that is 100% okay.

For demonstration sake, I will now add bubbles around each part of things that were pretty early apparent that each individual liked.

Also for the purposes of how I know our system works and how I plan to do this, I am actually moving Riku to the center and you will all see why Riku is such an S tier center point with this model

So you can see some connections forming.

Some key things you can take from this visual that also applied to earlier stags of how we connected

Lucille and Riku are and have always been pretty darn connected, they go back as one of the longest duos and were split almost as a pair to deal with academics

Chunn and Ray have a very shared interest of "I don't want to do anything leave me alone"

XIV literally was just a piece of shit early on and didn't have any immediate HARD connections with anyone largely because he never was interested in actually engaging in things he liked in a positive way as his "favorite emotion" at the time was "being pissed off"

Lin - an originally trauma stuck / loop - is very very poorly associated with anything that isn't overtly trauma related (and that is saying something cause Vocaloid is trauma related) and thus has very few connections to other parts

So looking at this though, there are a few things that have some similarities between parts. What you can do is make plans to try to foster the interests that you do have and try to generalize it a bit more to also encompass what interests other parts have. So lets engage in hobbies a little more - explore a few concepts that mean a lot to parts independently - and find some more generalized version of those hobbies

(forgot to add easy listening to Ray's and "only wearing monochrome*" to XIV's earlier) (*there are a lot of nuances and caveats)

Damn, look at that. It's messy and ugly to have in a 2D form. I absolutely hate it, this would be so impossible with our whole system. But HEY, it's very connected - and that's the goal.

Compared to the previous one, you can see how easily it can be for one part's interests to start to drift into another. Because they are largely and strongly associated features to each part, they are a lot more accessible when engaging in their shared / associated connections and interests which makes it easier for the them to stay together near the front, stay associated with one another, and work with and communicate with one another.

Of course anyone following this blog goes "Where tf is Birds" and that I left out because it would ruin the point of the web as it actually is one of our traditional "you are around the system a lot? okay pick a bird" which serves to 1) be a fun system culture thing 2) be a means of welcoming a part in and 3) helps establish a foundational connection; we do the same with music but with music its a lot more elaborate and I probably wont explain it for other reasons.

But overtime, by fostering interests that were already present and encouraging parts to broaden and generalize their specific interest a bit, you end up with a lot of overlapping associations that can greatly improve internal communication, co-fronting ability, and just general fluidity and easy of moving around the brain web.

It becomes a good way of trying to figure out what you can do to encourage and help build connections and associations between parts by seeing where things are similar / could have more overlap (combat and martial arts, different types of fashion, different types of music, different appreciation for arts, taking over the world, yada yada yada)

And you wanna know the coolest thing? When you step back from the whole web you can see certain things appear that stand out the most and have some of the most connections.

If you ever intend to go to Final Fusion, those are the things that will likely be the most prominent traits of your whole self

For us? [REDACTED BIRDS for the point of the demonstration], Music, Fashion, Taking over the World, Recovery and Healing, Buddhism, Martial Arts, Arts in general - they're all some of our largest traits that persist in almost all forms as individual parts, partially fused parts, and fully fused parts.

And the BEST part? Doing this didn't require us to touch trauma at all.

Of course in recovery that will come up cause PTSD doesn't ask permission, but its a very low stress way to help improve internal communication and engagement with one another.

[babiebom]

Hello hello. I just recently stumbled across your blog and in celebration of the 1.6 update (and also just outta pure curiosity), I wanna ask about the SDV bachelors reactions to a farmer who's ace/uncomfortable with intercourse but still wishes to pursue a loving relationship with them. If this ask isn't up your alley, feel free to disregard it. Hope you have a good day ✌️

A/N: hiiiiiiiii!! Obligatory I am not a part of this community(I am cishet lmao) so I am just going to have to try my best!! I am not ace or aro or anything but like never feel bad for sending an ask like this!! By the time you see this it’ll probably be like next week or something bc I do take little writing breaks so it isn’t absolute trash but I hope when you see this you enjoy it!!

Tw:mentions of sex, some cursing maybe,

Bc: idk at least 5 or 6 for each bachelor

Stardew Masterlist

Sebastian

Is this a joke?

No? Okay.

Would be disappointed at first because let’s face it dude is constantly horny

But would get over it rather quickly like just because you don’t wanna have sex doesn’t mean he can’t run one out

And now that you’re dating it’s easier than ever to do that because he finds you so attractive.

So not really all that disappointing when he thinks about it, really

Sam

Dude for real? Like ever? I mean I guess that’s okay

Sex isn’t the top thing on his list so it’s fine

Like yeah he would like to have it but it’s whatever

Would rather give up skateboarding and music than give you up so not having sex is easier than that by a long shot

Can he still get kisses tho??? That’s all he’s really worried about

Shane

I think the least affected and disappointed out of the bachelors

He has more things to worry about than having sex

It’s not that he isn’t attracted to you

It’s that you loves you for you and sex is the last thing on his mind when he’s thinking about bettering himself and taking care of Jas and his chickens the list goes on

Would actually be so chill when you have this conversation like “yeah okay, that’s fine.” And would never make you feel bad about it because he honestly doesn’t mind

Elliott

Tries not to react on the outside.

I think before you two start getting hot and heavy it probably wouldn’t have come up

Because I think Elliott would want to be a gentleman and not bring it up until you do

And during a particularly heated makeout session he tries to take it further to test the waters when you stop him in his tracks

And he’s like oh…okay!

He’s good with whatever you give him

Sometimes he’s disappointed when he gets the urge but gets over it very quickly because he obviously knows how to handle those feelings himself.

Alex

“Like…at all?”

Would be high key disappointed because dude likes to fuck tbh

BUT at the same time you aren’t just some random whose pants he’s trying to get in

You’re quite literally the love of his life (if anyone asks him he will never say he believes this because he’s scared of rejection)

So it takes a minute but he accepts this with literally a “welp back to using my hand” mentality

Like when he thinks about it, sex is literally the least important aspect of your relationship, he fell for you because of who you are not because he just wants to fuck.

Harvey

I think he wouldn’t really be disappointed but like dang y’know?

Like he doesn’t care that much about sex to really be disappointed

But does enjoy the act of sex, especially with a person he’s connected to like you two are

So it’s not as far as disappointment but is still like oof okay.

Out of all the bachelors understands the lbgtq+ community better than the others so isn’t really all that surprised when you talk to him about it.

He knows what it is and doesn’t mind, you don’t have to explain yourself, you’re valid how you are he doesn’t mind and he won’t and doesn’t want to force you to do anything.

[gomzdrawfr]

Gomz rambles about something again so feel free to scroll pass :]

Recently had a video recommended to me on youtube and gave it a watch: how you play games is how you do everything so I wanted to give some thoughts after watching it

for starters, the video was pretty simple and straightforward and easy to watch, it got me thinking how true that statement is and I started reflecting a bit.

I rarely play games any more, simply because sometimes I couldn't bring in the time and commitment to games like I used to be, or that it feels like I'm completing tasks instead of enjoying the game (kind of what the original author felt)

That applies to some games I've played in the past, Minecraft, Valorant, Dont starve - when I play a game, I clock tf in LMAO I just tend to focus so much on it that everything else didn't matter. I guess irl this applies to me too, whenever I want to do something I make sure to put in 110% into it, very meticulous with completion and deadlines and ensuring the work I do are good quality, I spend time on researching every single questions or queries I have and yeah just, being into something. Though lately, I've dialled down a bit and take it easy (bcuz stress isn't fun)

Honestly, in another aspect, say Minecraft again, I used to be very active in a community, being the lead builder and just pumping out ideas and making builds after builds while still having fun, I loved brainstorming idea and vomit it out in blocks, being able to use part of my interest that are less relevant in my studies to something else, you know? but ever since the said community grew larger, I got overwhelmed and stepped away from the people. They're great friends, really, but sometimes it's a lot when a friend circle grows.

Reflecting this to irl, I tend to work in smaller groups and have a close-knit of friends instead of many friends. Better yet, working alone or just with another one person. It's easier to focus and manage things. Another takeaway would be, I guess, is the way I tend to walk away when things gets more than what I like, or can handle.

I used to be part of a group of friends online too, I liked what we had going, we were silly we were honi (lol) and things were more light-hearted. But as more and more people join, I started feeling overwhelm or a sense of disconnect. There's a lot going on, like a bouncing ball started yeeting against each surfaces at lighting speed and I can barely catch the ball kind of feeling.

I wouldn't say it's entirely their fault, it's mostly myself, which is more comfortable in controlled or slower pace(despite being hyper as well- brainrot goes brrrr). I guess what sucks the most is also watching a friend who liked hanging with another person that you don't really vibe with can be uh something(idk what or how to describe it, it's not jealousy either). The main issue is always around the aspect that I like person A, B, C and F, but not the rest of the bunch. Yes, I could bring it up, talk to them about it, and then highly possibly creating drama and beef with that process (relationships are so fragile). Knowing the people I was dealing with, I decided to just leave quietly (which, to no one's surprised, caused drama itself too - sigh)

I do miss them sometimes, the people I like talking to and be friends with, some of us kept the connection, some burn the bridge for good, some remains a mystery.

That brings me to another aspect in decision-making games, where I tend to walk the passive, most diplomatic route ever to finish the game. Well because irl I hate dealing with conflicts XD I also lean towards neutrality most of the time, unless it's something important then only I pick a side strongly. Using persuasion, communications and understanding, compromising and delegation to let a project or anything really(like relationship) run smoothly. Some of this cost my sanity, patiences and often, gaining less from the agreement lol

I stopped caring more than I do, I stopped trying to please everyone in the room after going through some stuff, and I learn to let go a lot of things because of those experiences, which for now feels like a good experience for me (Literally my page motto is my life motto, it is what it is)

This also made me think, that I am a person who likes to stay the same, more often than I'd like to admit. I mean this by saying like for example, no matter how many times I play Stardew Valley, I will follow a similar route. If irl, the mix rice shop I visit for almost 4 years now? I'll pick the same veggie and meat choices everytime I go there. I find comfort in repetition, I like following the same pattern, I enjoy being safe in a known routine.

If i want to ramble about this, I do like to change sometimes, explore different options, pick a different route etc. But, only if I finished the "foundation" first(both in game and irl)

So for example, stardew valley right? I tend to go min max route, getting my greenhouse and my plants, relationship, all those jazz to maximum first before I actually try something else. What's funny is the something else can be as small as picking a different spot to fish, wearing a different hat, try defeating the dungeon without espresso(that was awful) or romance other people(I still love Harvey more than anyone, sorry Sebastian, I do love the frog though)

Same with Minecraft, Im a builder yes, but I also grind a hell lot in the game, building industrial district and shit ton of farms to get whatever I need.

I think this is kinda reflected irl, where I like to have a strong stability of foundation before I try something different, something that is not part of the route Im used for. It's like once I am sure that our project presentation has the right amount of slides, informations and delivery, then only I try and test out animations, maybe some infographics and whatnot. Same with patient counselling, I usually follow a flow strictly in patient information gathering because that is what we were taught in University (name, age, height, weight, etc), but one time I decided to switch it up a bit to and try to make small talk in between info gathering (like when a patient tells me they're married, instead of moving on I congrats on their marriage instead) and has found it a nice experience and change of pace. You may find this a silly or heck, an obvious thing that I should've tried, but you need to understand every video, notes and lectures always follow a systematic manner with stuff like this. I've only started incorporating this style after being in the med course for like, 2 years, so when I transitioned to Pharmacy, it came naturally to me when it comes to building rapport with patients. The patients and lecturers love it, because the process can feel more like a conversation rather than an interrogation you know, it feels more lively, more empathy and whatnot. I hope to continue to improve on this actually, Im really happy that one of the change I made on an impulse stick through and benefitted my career.

Id say one bad thing with this habit (with how I approach change) is sometimes I miss out opportunities and again, missing out the fun. Heck, sometimes the process to finish the "foundation" itself feels like a chore that sucks out the fun from games. Like rn with tears of the kingdom(totk), I like collecting Light of Blessing to get more hearts and stamina, but god- totk is so much bigger now compared to the first one, and I got overwhelmed and stressful to play the game. So I dropped it on my previous semester break. (I wanna go back to it one day, hopefully)

This kind of also tie into something Im aware of, is that I get weary and overthink in the face of uncertainty. Like there are a lot of places in totk that I have yet to explore, because I have thoughts like

oh shit does this have important story plot? wait what if im suppose to go place A before going place B first? will it mess up the timeline? oh no that place is new what the heck let's just put a marker first-

you get the gist, same applies irl too. An invitation to quizzes, participating talk shows or experiments, most of which I usually don't attend in fear of my lack of skills or just, nervousness in new environment. There's always a lingering thought that I am not good enough to go to events that clearly, required skills and competence beyond what I have. Im no 4 flat student, hell my cgpa is shit lmfao, the only thing Im good at are soft skills and maybe level 1-2 clinical judgments. I still regret that one time I didn't join a community event where they've explored and talked about stem cells intervention, they had a whole freaking lab!! of cells!! like in the movies!!!!!!!!! ok anyways

Idk what im tryna say with this ramble, I just wanted to share and relate my experience to the video, maybe this is like a self reflection. I've been trying to be better at managing some of the issues I talked about, building confidence or maybe facing confrontations instead of dipping entirely.

If you read till here, thanks I guess! maybe you can relate to me or maybe you just wanna read my yaps, either way I appreciate it :D if you want to share your thoughts or experiences as well go ahead!

[spinchip]

Cut The Act

Wordcount: 1900 Ship: Gen A/N: This is a fic set in the movie!Verse :] I wrote this ages ago, after i first watched the movie, and only recently cleaned it up enough to feel comfortable posting lol. This takes place a few years after the movie, and Zane has grown a lot during that time so he's a bit uhh OOC, sorry lol Warnings: Mentions of an off-screen injury that's already healed.

Summary: After Zane get a bad scrape in a fight, he decides to acknowledge the elephant in the room and come clean about his nindroid nature. It'll be anxiety free- All of his friends have connected the dots and figured it out by now anyway... Right?

In his defense, he was pretty sure they already knew.

It’s not as if he thought he was dropping some huge life changing bombshell on them, because they had been dropping pretty un-subtle hints that hey! We know you’re a robot, and we love and support you anyway! Which is why, when he walks into the hangar on that Saturday afternoon, he didn’t think to like, brace them or anything. It just that he wanted to share this part of himself with them more intimately, and also in one of their last fights he’d been damaged- he’d walked it off, fine enough to make it home so Father could see to it, but now he couldn’t quite stop thinking about what would happen if something were to go really wrong, and he needed emergency maintenance on the field.

Of course he trusted Jay and Nya more than anything, and would gladly lay his life in their hands if it came down to it- they were nearly as capable as his father, and should honestly meet him, but that's a story for another day. The duo had worked together to build their mechs, and if anyone could put his intricate wiring back together in a worse-case-scenario type of event, it would be them. So really, this was all very practical, and the obviously logical choice, made totally easier by the fact that he honestly thought they already knew.

So the reason he was at least 95 percent sure they’d caught on was that, during the early years when he was still learning, he was very much not so great at blending in. Turns out, being a normal teen did not involve dropping the words ‘normal teen’ into every other sentence, or casually downloading yourself into most electronics, or perfectly vocalized dial tones. With upgrades and time, he’d picked up on some of the intricacies of human emotion and nowadays people would rarely look at him twice (This isn't exactly true- even as much as he'd grown and learned, he's pretty sure he'll always be on a different page than everyone else, but that stopped bothering him a long time ago. He was weird, and his friends liked him that way.) if not for his friendship with Lloyd Garmadon and his status as the white ninja, he would totally blend in. To people who knew him from the start, though, there was definitely a clear… learning curve, so to speak.

When Father had been repairing him after that particular fight and Zane had brought up the idea, Dr. Julien had been all for it.

“Being honest with your friends is good,” His father had said, pulling back his goggles to smile kindly at Zane, “If you trust them, you should tell them.”

Though his father had probably not intended for Zane to make a very forbidden copy of his own blueprints to give to his friends, but what dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

And, well, it’s not like they ever acted like they hadn’t caught on. Most other kids in their grade would look at him like he’d grown a second head, voice turning stilted and judgemental whenever he let slip his more mechanical aspects- but never his friends. They accepted it, and loved him anyways.

For example, last year during English class after a particularly comprehensive personal software update, Zane had sighed. As in, for real, actually sighed, instead of just saying the word out loud. Cole, who had English with Zane each year, had smiled at him with this playful sort of look and said, “Hey, your voice modulator got an update!” And he’d winked as if in on a joke, “Sounds good on you!”

As endearing as it was after the fact, that Cole not only noticed but complimented his fathers work, in the moment he’d felt his processor drop into his feet, sensors flooding with adrenaline. They’d never outright stated they knew like that, and it’d never been so obvious. Sure, sometimes they asked him to run statistics or look up something really specific, but never before had they directly referenced his voice modulator or anything of the type.

He’d ducked his head, anxiety and nerves ramping up, hesitating for a fraction of a second before what Cole had said sunk in. Sounds good on you. He brightens a little at the support, “Thank you,” He says honestly, smiling, “Father installed it over the weekend.” he offers timidly, still dancing around fully admitting he’s a robot, though coming closer than he ever figured he would.

Things like this happened more and more frequently over the years, where they would super obviously hint they had connected the dots. It would be something everybody knows but no one acknowledges sort of situation. He was comfortable with that.

Until he very much wasn’t.

So here he was, one saturday afternoon, very seriously walking into his friends hang-out session with a fancy document tube containing xeroxed copies of his own blueprints, all ready to lay out his innermost mechanisms to his friends in the ultimate show of trust, and to finally acknowledge the elephant in the room. Plus, over time, it started feeling weird and wrong to keep such a serious secret from them. He wanted to be completely open and honest… And now he was finally ready to make that leap.

“My friends.” he announces, stepping in front of the old TV Kai and Nya had brought in sometime sophomore year so they could play video games and watch movies together, “I have something serious to discuss.”

“Wait- I’m almost done with this lap!” Jay stretches his neck to try and see around Zane, mashing blindly at the buttons on his controller.

Nya reaches over and smacks him playfully on the back of the head, “He said this was serious, Jay. Just pause it.” He blinks a little and nods bashfully, tossing the controller aside.

“So whats up?” Lloyd prods, as the rest of his friends all sit up a little straighter to offer their attention, Cole going so far as to take his headphones off his neck completely.

Zane feels a surge of nerves rush through his head and he fiddles with the cap of the document tube for a moment to gather his courage, “My friends, as I believe you already know… I am an android.” he says the last part without pause, pushing through it so he doesn’t stumble or second guess himself.

All of them, who had been getting increasingly tense as Zane stood there, seemed to exhale collectively, “Is that all? You had me scared there for a second!” Kai jokes.

Cole smiles, “Yeah man, we know about the robot thing. It doesn’t change anything.” he picks up on Zane's anxiety, smiling reassuringly at him.

Feeling emboldened by their response, Zane finally twists the cap off of the document tube, “You have no idea how much this means to me. I feel it is important, now that our fights are getting more dangerous, that I give you all these.” He clears a spot of the coffee table before dumping out the papers across its surface, kneeling down to smooth out the stack and organize them, “My blueprints.”

He glances up and sees them all smile easily at him, Jay and Nya leaning forward curiously, “You have to keep these a secret. My Father built me, these are his notes, and he doesn’t know I took my own copies.” he notes his friends expression pinch, like they don’t quite compute what he’s saying, and he assumes they must not like that he took these without permission, “It’s the logical course of action to share these with you all, in the event that I am damaged and need emergency repair, you will be unable to help without studying my build.”

He spreads the pictures out, sliding a few closer to his friends so they can look themselves, and Nya carefully picks up a page. She laughs awkwardly, analyzing the information in front of her with wide eyes, “These are… awfully detailed, Zane.”

“Yeah, I mean, how long did these take to make?” Jay peeks over Nya's shoulder, the others looking at the different pages themselves with wide eyes, “These mechanics look actually legit!”

“My father has been working on my mechanics for his entire life.” Frowning, Zane looks back down at the papers, “Of course they are legitimate, they’re mine. Here, look-” He strips his sweater vest off, folding it and setting it aside and starting in on unbuttoning his shirt.

“Woah!” Lloyd holds up his hands to shield Zane, “Lets keep your clothes on, Zane!”

Zane’s confused, his button up pooling in his lap, leaving him kneeling on the floor in only his shoes, khakis, and undershirt, “My construction is completely unique to anything in Ninjago, I do not mind showing you.”

Cole tilts his head, the crease between his brows growing more pronounced, “You’re… not making this up, are you?”

“Making this up?” His frown deepens.

“You mean you’re actually…” Kai trails off, eyes widening.

“But… a fully recognized AI is years off…”

“I already told you I am like nothing in Ninjago.” Zane explains, “You thought I was… lying?” The word rankles, and he feels his emotions plummet.

“Not lying!” Lloyd is looking at Zane like he’s seeing him for the first time, “We just thought you were… playing. Y’know, like, pretend.” He finishes with a wince.

Zane lets that process before a laugh bubbles up out of his chest, and he covers his mouth to stifle it, looking back at all his memories with a new filter. All the playful smirks, the joking comments! They must have thought he was so strange- and still, they had embraced him and even joined in! “I do not mean to laugh, just- thank you. For playing along, I suppose.”

The smile fades as the reality sinks in, he has no idea how they’ll truly react to his robotic nature, “But… I am telling the truth. I am an android, my father built me to protect those who cannot protect themselves.” At this, he tugs his undershirt off over his head, revealing the seam where his synthetic skin stops, metal casing continuing and taking up most of the expanse of his chest. He slides his hand along the panel embedded where his ribs would be, popping open his front compartment and revealing neatly routed wires and the glow of his power source, “This is not pretend. I hope you can still see me as your friend.”

He looks up earnestly, hoping their playful enthusiasm from before will come back, and each of his friends have varying reactions. Nya and Jay look intensely curious, Cole looks calm as usual, and kai and Lloyd…

“I support you one hundred percent, bro,” Kai points out before Zane can assume the worst as he cringes away from the imagery, “But from a strictly human perspective, I am looking at your guts, and that’s a little…”

“Morbid.” Lloyd agrees, looking bashfully green around the gills.

“This is so totally cool!” Jay announces, grinning, “You’re like a- a nindroid!”

“A what?”

“Ninja Android. Nindroid.” Jay explains before he calms down, smiling sincerely at Zane, “This doesn’t change anything. You’re still one of my best friends.”

“Same for me.” Nya nods, “We support you through thick and thin!”

“We’re your family.” Cole confirms, “Nothing could change that. You’re still our Zane, just more… gears.”

Zane closes the panel, smiling brightly, and Kai perks up, “No matter what you’re made of, you’re still our brother.”

“Thank you all.” He says sincerely, feeling lighter.

“Yeah!” Jay grins, “Yeah, and how cool is it that I can honestly say "My brother is a Nindroid?"”

[quinloki]

hello, sorry if this is too real of an ask if you're not feeling too well recently, but I've been meaning to ask if you have any advice when it comes to tackling really dark topics in fanfics?? I've been meaning to write a darkfic with the Kid pirates main 4 as slasher movie villains (think Jason Voorhees vibes) with a touch of yandere tendencies, so there's not gonna be a lot of comfort/fluff in this fic. this is naturally gonna be hard to write especially when it comes to wanting to write dark and disturbing scenes without wanting to glorify or romanticise abusive behavior or stockholm syndrome, not to mention not wanting to upset or trigger survivors, especially as one myself, so any advice would be lovely. thank you ^-^

I’m going to start this off with what I think should be your most important takeaway from this:

It’s okay to romanticize abuse in fiction.

It’s okay to romanticize horror, murder, etc. etc. in fiction.

Fiction is where we can do the really uncomfortable stuff. Where we can explore the darks part of existing, because it’s good to be able to go “I connect with this and I should consider why.” Or “this brings me comfort, how can I break that down?” Stuff like that.

Sometimes it helps us realize a view or understanding we had that we thought was good is inherently flawed. (I am reminded of viewers being very angry when they realized the character in The Boys they connected with was *not* a good guy and did not get redeemed.)

What we have to be careful about is not condoning such themes in reality.

Horror movies and books go into deep dark territory all the time, but often hobby writers can be held to odd standards by comparison, which gets a bit frustrating at times.

How to avoid that AND present dark fic properly?

On Ao3 and tumblr just tag your story - character death, gore, stalking, Stockholm syndrome, abuse, toxic relationship, dubcon, noncon as applicable, excessive descriptions of blood and gore, etc.

You don’t have to get specific - you don’t have to say who dies/survives. You can admit to “this has a bad end” if you want - I had a webcomic warn me about that and it was NOT kidding.

Some responsibility is on the writer for dark fic, yes, but honestly that’s just in terms of being sure you label it well. Avoiding and heeding those tags is solely on the reader - as long as you didn’t, say, write about disarticulation in exacting detail without warning “excessive descriptions of blood and gore”.

You can put additional warnings in the summary, or even as a heads up before a particularly intense chapter.

And, you’re not going to be perfect. If someone says “hey can you add [x] tag?” Be open to it - but don’t add any and every tag requested - sometimes people can be demanding in tag requests and you have the right to decide where the line really is.

For example someone might ask that you add a tag involving eye-trauma. It’s a squick of mine, people getting injured on, in, around their eyes, and I wouldn’t be upset with a heads up - but I also think it’s covered under warnings of gore.

Someone might ask that you tag a specific character’s death - personally? I wouldn’t. “Character death” is enough. “Slasher/horror” honestly should really be enough cause even though I don’t watch horror movies I have a keen understanding that you do not get attached to characters in a horror story.

As long as you hit the broad strokes, I think that’s enough. The idea is that no one wants to walk into a slasher when they were expecting fluff.

As for taking care of ourselves as writers while we write dark content, that’s harder to give advice on. I really have to be in a steady frame of mind to write dark stuff, but if I know there’s vindication in there somewhere it’s much easier. (There’s a stalker in A Light Touch that gets his due and as someone who has had more than 6, it was cathartic to write.)

But sometimes there’s catharsis in the bad guy winning too. You’ve got to understand those lines for yourself - I can’t really give you advice cause it’s so different for everyone. But listen to yourself.

If it feels like a slog, leave it.

If it’s not getting out of your mind, write it.

You’re not “weird” if you write your darkest shit when you’re happiest, or vice versa. What you need to do is just keep an eye on yourself - there is no world in which you should suffer in order to write “good dark content”.

For better or worse, that’s the best advice I have - I hope it’s helped ^_^

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hihi so I recently discovered I have at least one alter, and communication is super difficult, but we are working on it. He's expressed the desire to try to front but bc he feels so faint and has only ever been able to sort of cofront with barely any control compared to me I have no ides how to go about trying to help him. Do you think it might be impossible or is there a way we can try or something?

hey, so we don’t have much personal experience when it comes to controlling switches or encouraging a switch to happen, as our switches always seem to happen due to an outside trigger or as a result of our gatekeeper helping (or making) us switch.

honestly if y’all don’t have great or even good communication, and you don’t already switch naturally, it may be a good idea to focus on building communication more before you try to switch. this could save y’all a lot of difficulties down the road. we wrote a post a while back on establishing contact with headmates - even though y’all are in touch maybe it could help strengthen y’all’s connection:

cofronting is a great way to start encouraging a switch, in our opinion. maybe you can try and practice giving up a little more control each time y’all front together. we can assure you that, for many systems, communication at least will grow easier with time, patience, and lots of practice.

it’s also important to have reasonable expectations for yourself and your system. our host (parker, hi) is almost always fronting in our system to some extent. for us, a switch looks more like someone taking over the wheel while the previous fronter moves to the back seat. some of us are able to switch out fully, but others just can’t. as far as we know, they never have been able to. so we manage our expectations and never try to force a headmate out of the front entirely, especially if they haven’t been able to achieve something like that in the past.

we’ll also go ahead and link our resource post for questioning systems:

in that post ^ we have links to sites like tulpa.io, tulpa.info, and tulpanomicon. while these sites are geared towards created, nontraumagenic systems, there’s a wealth of guides and resources for those hoping to switch and how to go about achieving this for systems who haven’t been able to switch before.

we’re not sure what your system’s origins are, but if you’re trauma-formed or you suspect your system may be traumagenic, it might not be good to use the sites listed above. this is because, as far as we understand, many paromancy systems achieve switches through purposeful dissociation, which could be incredibly dangerous for systems who already have issues with dissociation.

finally, we’ll say that if you are in therapy, and have a therapist who you trust who is at least somewhat knowledgeable about systems, it may be well worth it to bring this up to them and ask them for suggestions. our therapist has successfully helped us switch a couple times before. however, we understand how lucky we are to have a therapist who is kind, patient, and educated about systems and dissociation. if you don’t have a therapist, or aren’t sure whether or not you could trust your therapist to help you switch, it may be best to ignore this suggestion.

sorry if this reply is long winded and frazzled. we’re kind of all over the place at the moment. though we do hope that something here will prove beneficial for you. good luck with everything.

🐢 kip and 💫 parker

[miniar]

To mourn the memory of innocence.

Most if not all of us can remember something from our youth, something that meant a lot to us, something that coloured our world in a positive sense, that we later learned wasn't all that great, and I've been thinking of that recently in connection with the ongoing conversation about a certain wealthy author and her crusade against the human rights of a small marginalized part of society.

The innocence of youth is a frequent guest star of these conversations and while ignorance is often the more accurate word, innocence isn't exactly wrong, it's just, the children aren't the ones who are innocent in that context. I mean, children are innocent, but the "innocence of youth", to me, is more about how in our ignorance, in our naivete and lack of worldly experience, lack of knowledge, we tend to assume that all the things we enjoy are innocent.

There are two ways this hits.

One is that we don't see the damage done by prejudiced tropes baked into our media because we just don't have the knowledge or perspective, the other is that we want to believe that the authors, singers, actors, creators of all kinds that have brought us such joy, relief, etc, are generally good people.

And then we grow up.

We grow up and start to unpack lessons we internalized from that which we truly and honestly enjoyed, and start to see the damage.

We grow up and start to learn how even the most beautiful art can be created by someone capable of selfish cruelty.

And it hurts.

It sours the memory of things that meant so much to us, that helped make us who we are today. Things that are still a part of who we are.

Songs we sang along with feel bitter in our mouths when we listen properly to the words, knowing what we now know about the people who made the music, the background sound of our youth.

The tv-show laugh track feels cold, mocking, cruel, in the background of the photo of our smiling faces.

The book's spine feels heavy and crooked and wrong on our shelves, not because of how we used to read it under the covers when we should be asleep, but because we now know where the money the author made from it is going.

And It Hurts.

We find ourselves mourning our own ignorance, sure, but more than anything, each of us has been betrayed and we may even feel as though we've been taken advantage of, tricked into becoming complicit with those that have and still do harm.

Every time we sang their praises to a friend before we knew, before we could understand, feels like a sin.

And It Hurts.

I get why it'd be easier to pretend that the harm never happened. To close your eyes and choose to remain ignorant, but that doesn't solve anything. It doesn't heal us. It doesn't help us. And it doesn't stop the harm.

It makes sense that some of us aren't ready to mourn, aren't ready to face the reality of the situation, but that will not change it.

Maybe, one day, a person will grow up and learn that people are flawed and some people are really very not good at all, without looking back at their youth to find the ghastly presence of bigots and abusers dotted throughout the background of memories, and have to work through and reconcile the harm fed to them and fed by them to find their peace with their own past, but that person is probably not born yet.

The world hasn't become what it needs to be for that to happen... yet.

The only way we can get there is to demand better of our entertainers than bigots and abusers. And that starts with refusing to keep promoting and funding bigots and abusers.

It hurts to mourn the memory of presume innocence of that which gave you joy. It hurts to grow sometimes.

But we have to let go of that which does harm or the harm will only continue. Choosing to hold on to these things out of desperate nostalgia makes it worse.

[jjungkooksthighs]

Has it really been a year since Chapter 15? I thought I remember reading it in November or sometime towards the end of last year. There are so many parts of it that I remember vividly, like it wasn't that long ago that I read it.

Chapter 16 was well worth the wait. While I admit that I am one of those that are eagerly awaiting the mating chapter, the way you wrote this chapter was necessary. It would have been different if he only sustained a scratch in the duel, but that did not happen. It was brutal and he was badly injured. So it wouldn't have been possible to go right to a mating chapter. He needed to heal first, and she needed to tend to him. He was literally bleeding out in front of her, so how could they possibly mate? Even though this chapter was the fallout to the huge battle, it was still very tense. I was definitely worried about him, especially when the vision spots started happening. I was very nervous, and I think I held my breath throughout most of that chapter.

I really liked how you had her blood heal him. Like you mentioned in your chapter notes, you wanted to show that their bond isn't based solely on desire, and that's what this part of the chapter did. It built their bond on something more substantial than just desire and sex. It solidified their bond in a different way. A deeper way.

Now a most important question. Is the next chapter the long awaited mating chapter? I hope the rest of the story comes a bit easier for you now, since we've gotten away from the doom and gloom. It should all be happy from here on out right?

Did I post in November? Feels like it has been since summer of last year. Honestly, time is such a blur to me these days that I often forget how far apart posts have really been. Though, I’m glad that the chapter preceding this one was memorable in the details of it that you mentioned.

I’m glad that you liked the trajectory of the most recent chapter. I had to do a lot of research, incidentally, for this one to be possible. The extensive treatments that reader gives to the alpha are ones I actually had to study and learn about myself. Though this is a fantasy romance story, it was important to me to capture a sense of realism that could be connected to and understood beyond your basic “true love’s kiss” saves the day. As you mentioned, I wanted to build depth not only in their bond, but in their relationship and characterization as well. Quite ambitious, I know, but that is partly why this chapter took so long to be produced. As you said, it simply did not make sense to me to write one of the most anticipated parts of this story when the alpha had been hurt the way he had. Even for him, the pain would have been unbearable. I couldn’t bring myself to write something like that when the prior chapter had been developed the way it had. I had been aiming to get you to feel worry, fear and even doubt with the reader as she tended to him, so I am pleased to hear that you were right there in her shoes while it all went down.

After all, it is rather hard to love a story where you cannot invest yourself within its words.

Anyhow, I appreciate your kind words. They are very sweet and it makes me feel like I’ve done a good job with this chapter! I had so many goals and ambitions for this chapter, and it looks like I was able to hit the biggest ones based on your feedback. While this story is built on the a/b/o dynamic, I had wanted to make certain that it wasn’t just another alpha/omega story that could easily be forgotten or buried under the mountain of other alpha/omega fics.

So easy is it to write something like this and make it purely out of animalistic urges like desire and breeding, and a lot of this story does contain elements of that. But, as you said, I wanted to ensure that the alpha and reader’s relationship is not one founded only on attraction. There is so much more to a relationship, to a significant other, than that. And that’s what I was hoping to establish.

As far as your question, I think that the next chapter will indeed be what you seek. Or… perhaps there’s another twist that you just simply didn’t see coming….

[galactic-pirates]

For the fic emoji game: 💖, 🤷‍♀️, 🎬, and ⏳, please! :)

Oh yay thank you for the ask! 😍

💖Which of your fics is your pride and joy? Oh wow! This is such a good question, I love it! Erm... also hard haha, let me think.

I'm tempted to say Time Will Tell because that started as a thought experiment. Can I take a trope I don't really like and make it work for me? The answer was yes so it was a really cool exercise. However, I feel like I might be being overly swayed by the kind comments I've had on it. I have legit teared up reading them. They are frame-worthy. I have the best readers honestly.

Also it does occur to me that time plays tricks. It's easier to remember the stuff I wrote most recently, and not how I felt when I wrote things in the past. At different times, you'd get a different answer. I have more nostalgia for my older fics these days. I'm in a very different place in my life.

Honestly I think I have to go for one of the crossovers. I questioned my life choices while writing both of them because they were such an investment of time and effort. I also knew they were both niche and I could well be writing for an audience of one. However, I still wrote them and that says a lot I think.

So ultimately I'm going to say and the Sins of Atlantis. The Sanctuary/Librarians crossover. I unironically really enjoy it and I have read it more than once. Is that egotistical? Probably. But it's just so much fun.

🤷‍♀️What's a fic you didn't expect to be popular, but really took off? and the Brighter Side of Life. It's a little Librarians oneshot where Eve takes Flynn home to meet her parents. The comments and kudos just poured in (comparatively). I remember being stunned at the time. It was one of half a dozen oneshots I wrote for the Librarians Prompt Month the first year I really took part. That one just went whoosh.

🎬One of your fics gets turned into a TV series. Which one is it and what network is it on? Ooooh. Hmm... interesting. Well this goes back to what I said earlier about time. I don't feel much of a connection anymore beyond "awwww nostalgia" for my older fics. There are some cool details and dynamics, and I feel like taking notes in case I want to incorporate them somehow into a novel in the future. However, that's about the extent of my feelings.

I haven't written a true AU really since those days though. I love AU's, they are a chance to be inventive. When I read back my old fic I'm like "oooh" about the 'clever' choices I made in how to bring in various characters (sorry egotistical again). But that's the fun of AU's really, how to make it all fit together in this new way.

Anyway it's kinda hard to say about my more recent fic, being turned into a TV show because it already is a TV show - it's just missing moments, canon divergence etc.

Also I got to be honest I know nothing about various networks and what they are known for, or what networks are good and what suck. Especially because I mostly watch US TV and I live in England so I never see anything on it's original network (unless it's a multi-region streaming thing like Disney+ I guess).

I suppose... I'm picking at writing an original serial which is the closest books get to a TV show I guess. It's structured very much into episodes and seasons. It's an artifact chasing type unit ala Warehouse 13/the Librarians but based in England, with worldwide adventures and predominantly queer. The Librarians was TNT and Warehouse 13 SyFy (thanks google). I think the new Librarians is on Prime like the new Leverage? The queer MC's do make it trickier though. I think all networks suck for that. I don't know honestly.

⏳If you could go back in time and tell your younger writer self something, what would it be? Another great question!

This is difficult because I have learned so much craft over the years, and it would be amazing to go back and be like "here's what you need to know" so I could write better stories, much earlier. However, that's part of learning I guess - it's a journey. I suppose the emotion here is that I mourn the time I have lost, the stories I didn't tell, and that has less to do with skill and more to do with mental health.

I suppose ultimately it would boil down to a cliché of "don't give up" because I did. As a kid I dreamed of being a writer but when I was about 14 I told myself I had to grow up. That I had more chance of winning the lottery than making any money at it, and I had to get serious and pick a real career. I sobbed all night and a few years later had my first complete mental breakdown, but I digress.

Writing is in my soul. I always return to it. That's why I wish so much that I hadn't turned away from it. Those 'lost years' I mentioned. Back in 2016 I indie published a couple of books. I look at them now and cringe, and wonder how I ever got the nerve as I feel they are so badly written (hey maybe that means my skills have improved?). However, I was finally following my dream. Then... my personal life blew up (I was going to write out what happened but I'll spare you). In my fear and panic I made some decisions and I didn't write much for years. I gave up on my dream. It's only now - 8 years later!!! - that I'm coming back to it and I regret that so much.

So yeah TLDR - don't give up on the dream. Keep writing.

[katyspersonal]

8, 9, 12, 13!!! World peace wooo yeahhh!

ALSO SILENCE MORTAL YOU ARE STILL THE ROM PERSON IDC LIKE SHE MATTERS TO ME THANKS TO YOU 🕸️🕷️

Ah, really though?? I am so flattered to hear this! There is just... so much lore about her that is told visually and via use of other gameplay elements rather than verbally, and THIS type of lore is easier for me to decipher! Well, Bloody Crow matters for me thanks to YOU, so we are even! xD

(Asks from this ( x ) meme)

8) common fandom opinion that everyone is right about and should say it

Hmmm, well! Opinion that Gehrman is, in fact, not a "misogynist creep" or whatever but rather a complicated, nuanced character with multilayered vibe of grieving, who is not necessarily a good person but made a Doll in such image somewhere on the range from 'Maria herself HAD a gentle, even feminine side that was ruined and he blames himself' to 'He trapped her image in that femininity as last ditch mental effort to pretend she is "safe"'. That's right - in recent couple of years, this opinion on Gehrman became common! I remember how it started in Summer 2021 with my post ( x ) shedding light on some mistranslated lines and missed possibilities, that changed opinion of a few or his haters and shaped opinion of some that never cared for him, but now? Now every popular blog has a nuanced take on Mister Doomer that goes viral in less than a week every time! Moreover, the MOST viral of these takes basically make a peace between "she is legit masculine" and "Gehrman is certainly not a misogynist" takes; basically no one is left unsatisfied and everything is compromised on. I am glad to announce that takes like this count as COMMON! We did it, fandom!

9) best part of canon

Damn, you guys really think there is such thing as "canon" in From's games? xD Okay, okay, I will be serious. My favourite part is how there is a complex affiliation with the Eldrich Truth! There are 'Stars', and the 'Paleblood Moon' boldly hinted to be behind it, and the latter also can be associated with Bloodmoon, that is itself is more the state of being 'nourished' and descending to "bless" the humans, but also Flora does seem to be in charge, and there is the 'Sea' from which Kos presumably came, but 'Sea' seems to lead to the 'Stars', and there are some weird and cursed Kin like Amygdala and maybe Wet Nurse. There are Kin that are each of these and Kin that are both, and Rom is all three affiliations- meanwhile some beasts show signs of Kin, and some Kin show signs of beasts! I dissected the complexity in my Kin headcanons post ( x ) to my best ability, but the variety of the material to work with is pretty much canon, even if the way to go about it is up for the lorediggers. But this is ENJOYABLE. I LOVED connecting these dots!

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I'll say Forgotten Madman! Honestly, find a character that lives up to their name more... He is implied to have been a member of the Choir - dude uses A Call Beyond, that is a secret weapon of the Choir! Also, the only NPC to use Empty Phantasm Shell. Also, the fact that obtaining Cosmic Watcher badge lets you buy poisonous knives, and he happens to be fought in the Hintertomb, a location notorious for being very venomous- Like, what if he came up with those knives? What if he sets his Ludwig's Holy Blade in arcane mist in attempt to recreate the conditions which made Ludwig have his revelation? After all, the 'Madmen' prospectors were ones who went insane trying to gain more Insight in the dungeons, and wrapped husks of phantasms around themselves like lucky charms. He also has very unusual face, and pink skin. Also, whereas all the remaining prospectors seem to be solitary, he has an escort! You know, unusually so, like... a noble man having a butler? Or he needed assistance for other reason? But there is an implication of a tie between Hemwick and Hintertomb (more on the topic in this ( x ) post), and Hemwick is an underling of Cainhurst, and Cainhurst IS nobles, and-

Okay, you see what I am saying. This wholeass character, and his escort by effect, are like a Lego set from which you can craft really interesting stuff! Most of Soulsborne characters will have little to no lore, just 'material to work with', so I don't really see why not craft something with him too! ...or at least include him in the Choir gang. Yeah I know everyone hates his hairstyle, but that IS why they agreed to not take hats off ever again, come on dsnfgsdfd xD

13) best blorboficiation

Hmmmm... Tricky question, because the concept itself has negative implication *thinking emoji* I think maybe Djura? Blorbofication I've seen used in a synonymous concept as idealisation or something. Like, striping character off the flaws, complexity and wrongdoings, and making it all about their good side (sometimes exagerrating it either). Djura must have taken part in burning of the Old Yharnam, seems to have hunted a lot and viciously from how worn his clothes are and how two of Powder Keg weapons straight up celebrate EXCEPTIONAL hatred for the beasts, and there is still some layer of hypocrisy to him (source: analyze all his interaction/questline with the player very hard) and dark implication about defending the beasts like he does... I can go on. But like... I am yet to see the "harm" (if you could call it that?) of blorbifying him to being the cool beasts' dad and liking his redemption arc to the point of forgetting what he redeemed himself FROM...? He is just such a good character that I've grown to like it when people are blinded by his good traits xd There are also some characters with whom 'blind love' opens the gate for controversy and even attacking other characters and/or fans, but 'blind love' towards Djura doesn't... really cause anything bad? There is nothing but wholesome stuff, like... no one gets hurt? besides the Paleblood Hunter lolololol

Thank you for the ask!

[foggyparadisecandy]

Once more ... no need to read this ... just me discussing personal messy stuff ...

For everyone who has been reading these catharsis posts ... I want to give a positive update.

In the end, K proved she was strong and brave as I always felt she was and she reached out to me to clear the air and give me closure.

I will forever be appreciative of this.

It would have been a hell of a lot easier for her to just bunker down and let things slide. It honestly reinforces many of the reasons why I fell for her in the first place. The strength she showed in this action is ... inspiring. God. She still stuns me.

She patiently cleared the air while I basically, straight-up interrogated her. I just don't have the words to describe how I feel about her amazing fortitude and patience throughout.

It not only cleared up a lot of things, it continued a change of perception that I had already begun before she reached out. I had started reading up on trauma and personality styles so I could better understand her pain (not that I could help her at the time but ... I still wanted to better understand ... idk why really except ... caring about her response and pain, and wanting to grow for myself) and I had come to realize how much my style of "concern and care" was most likely just creating more stress for her.

I have no excuses. I feel awful about it. She needed compassion and breathing room and I was crowding her out.

And that conclusion was correct. As she cleared the air, I saw that is exactly what I did. God does that make me ill. I didn't know any better but ... it's a weight that I need to figure out how to deal with.

I'm not saying she was perfect. I think ... the key is ... we both responded in ways that were natural to us. I had no empathy or understanding at the time because "needing space" is so foreign to me. I literally could not imagine that someone would not want my smothering blanket of love thrown over them.

I'm learning.

It is a PAINFUL lesson to understand that she was struggling and I was struggling and we weren't communicating - it all broke down on both sides.

I've said she was cruel. It's so much more complicated.

Yes, her actions cut me and hurt me but ... I understand better now. She wasn't being cruel. She was trying to survive the best she could.

As loving as I was in my style ... and I've said this many times before ... I can be "a lot" and she needed "a little" or even "none."

I was busy worrying about me and giving in to my fears that I was panicky and desperate.

IDK. In the end, it doesn't change the outcome which is what it is.

She's home and safe. My god is this such a relief for me. I have been so ... beside myself thinking she could be seriously hurt or worse and knowing how I had stepped over her troubles and hadn't picked up on. And yes ... I KNOW!!!! people keep reminding me ... I'm not a trained therapist and yadda yadda yadda but ... ugh ... it was still bothering me. If you have never been in that dynamic, you can't understand how important her well-being was to me. I'm still untangling that feeling!!

She is with someone who cares about her. This is such a relief too. Connections are so important. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I feel connections are the heart of our "best lives." This is so comforting to know she is with someone.

She is working on her stuff and getting more in tune with life and all that good stuff. I'm so happy to hear this.

She cleared up so many big and small concerns and questions I had.

I had already forgiven her. I know she read some of my catharsis posts ... where my pain was on display. Honestly I feel uncomfortable about that. I don't like her knowing how fucked up I was and am. *insert super-uncomfortable lol here*.

Plus ... although I recognized that she was in pain and I wrote about that in my posts, I never really UNDERSTOOD her style - her need to retreat from the world when facing massive stressors - until recently. I regret commenting that it was cruel of her.

If anything, her response was natural to her, and if I had paid better attention to her, I would have responded in a healthier way myself.

It's funny in life how people like me who give "too much" are generally considered healthier than people who retreat. But both styles are learned behavior and ... both styles are unhealthy in their own way.

Look ... I'm not saying this to convince anyone of anything but the truth is ... my approach was cruel TO HER as her approach was cruel TO ME.

She needed to be able to breathe. I was doing some very aggressive dom stuff with her at this time and ... fuck ... she was struggling.

And she is sorry for her approach and I am sorry for my approach. At least we both have recognized we bear mutual responsibility. God. I wish it was as easy for us to each forgive ourselves. I know her. I know me.

"FORGIVE YOURSELF" is a lovely idea but so fucking hard to execute in real life.

Even though I can't fully forgive myself ... I'm done beating myself up at least. I can't change the clock. I can't know then what I know now. Those days are done. Things are where they are. I'm growing and learning and getting better, and I'm going to do better with my next partner.

And ... very important to me ... I would love her to understand that, with the understanding and empathy I have now for her situation and style, "yes, it hurt me, but I don't blame you."

She has nothing to feel guilty about or to be sorry about. I had already forgiven her. That forgiveness has grown deeper with my new understanding and my new empathy for what she was going through.

The entire thing was a two-way street and we should have communicated better. WE. Not me. Not her. WE.

I thought we had a solid relationship and ... honestly ... we really really did. It was beautiful and lovely. I will always cherish what we had. She shared so much with me and I'm so lucky to have had that with her.

But we hadn't weathered a tough spot. We hadn't planned on a trauma point.

The truth is ... I still feel guilty for my part so she probably feels the same. My words are ... not enough. She has to get to self-forgiveness for herself just as I have to get there for myself. Forgive yourself is so fucking hard as a principle. So fucking hard.

Either way, for those of you out there who have been reading all this stuff ... and for those of you who sent her good wishes as I asked (ty ty ty!) ... she's going to be fine. And I'm going to be fine.

I am a lot stronger these days, but still fragile af. I'm still low-key depressed but ... tbh ... I've been low-key depressed my entire life. And things will probably get uglier as I dig into my childhood crap ugh.

But I'm learning so much, so fast, and, yeah, getting stronger each day.

Some days are hard. Very hard. But as she and I talked about a lot: progress is rarely a straight line. Some days you stall out and some times you even go back a bit. But that's why we keep our eye on our goal so we can re-orient and start moving forward again.

And honestly ... there are things she's working on and well ... not my business any more and ... I admit ... it's so hard for me because I'm me and feel how I feel ... it's so fucking hard to resist the urge to "help" her but the best help is to leave her be. She's strong. She's capable. She's a fighter. I've always believed in her and had faith in her.

IDK. IDK. IDK.

I'm working so hard on all areas of my life right now. It still feels like a bit of a sludge but it's picking up steam. I feel like I'm waking up to new possibliities each day and getting excited about stuff that I've had on auto-pilot for way too long.

I'm feeling this blog is reaching an end point for me. I've written hundreds of trances. Most get very little traction and ig that's ok because I write them to express a creative side.

But truthfully 90% of this blog was written for her since late April. lol. It's so crazy that a few months ago, I was going back to tag things I wrote for her and gave up because they WERE ALL FOR HER!!!! hahahaha

So I guess I need a new muse or maybe mothball this thing. Or I can post fun stories from my therapy sessions - kind of a sick vibe - but everyone could hear more about my parental damages and how dark I got in my late teens and twenties. Fun fun fun. The Foggy of today was a lot less sweet and kind and loving and caring back then.

I am not exaggerating when I say he was a dark angry monster who wanted to hurt people. Ahhhhh yeah... maybe I will share those stories.

If nothing else, they speak to how people CAN change and grow and evolve. We are not stuck by our past. Yes ... our past does shape us ... but we can adjust.

Plot summary:

I mostly used daily meditation, pride journalling, HATE journalling (not my fave but I filled notebooks and literally BURNED THOSE FUCKERS to let go of my anger, hate, and fear), vision setting, and reading two specific books each year through my 20s until the lessons soaked in.

NGL I still pretty much live with non-stop depression and a dark monster in the back of my mind who I can sense sometimes when I'm extremely frustrated. And THAT is why I'm seeing a therapist. To help deal with all this shit that I've suppressed.

To that point, K - if you are reading this ... I ran across a post from back in June that reminded me that I was thinking of ending things for myself so ... yeah ... don't blame yourself for my emotions. My pain, depression, darkness has always been in me. I am not sure what triggered it in June.

Probably the store ran out of my favorite ice cream or maybe I misplaced my car keys or some other calamity of equal measure. Depression is a fucker, dear reader, and you never know who struggles with it.

Be kind to others. Be kind to yourselves.

And btw ... I wonder how much I've learned. A very good friend told me today that I was not listening to her. I ... am such an imperfect person. I need to do better at listening.

[siennahrobek]

Sorry for throwing this idle musing as you as I'm unsure if its in your wheel house exactly, but my mind has been somewhat consumed by an idea recently.

Namely, the idea of 'what if' there was a survivor from the Tusken massacre. Maybe an adolescence out and far from the village or the like who comes back in time to put the gist together but not be seen by Anakin.

So, pawning everything their settlement had left, they collect the funds to basically try and chase down the perpetrator and thus causes the truth to come out.

I think it was inspired by some post talking about how "Padme can't tell the Jedi what he did, then he might be kicked out of the Order" and going "So!? Actions have consequences!"

t occurs to me this wouldn't even necessarily be a 'good' AU, in the sense that this magically fixes Anakin. It may well take him to Palpatine's side sooner, but also shift up how the Jedi are viewing things so they can't be taken by surprise or who knows.

Sorry for rambling.

No worries, I really don’t mind at all. I don't really get asks so it was kinda fun. I do apologize for the late answer, however.

Although from what we see about the Tuskens, I find it difficult to imagine an individual doing something like this, mostly because the people seem really attached to the land and the planet, not exactly one to go or even have the means to leave the planet. I’m not entirely sure that a Tusken would even entertain something like that. That being said, I’m generally would be interested in any such way to reveal Anakin’s crime.

            What’s really interesting, would be how this individual would actually find Anakin. I could see a connection between finding/figuring out that Jedi use lightsabers and then working from there. And since the war probably would have started by then, Anakin would probably be gaining ground, traction and attention in the media, due to Palpatine’s influence, of course. Which would both make it simultaneously harder and easier to track him down. Easier, because he has a lot of media attention. Harder, because he is always on the move.

            However, if this Tusken individual thinks about things and is smart about it, he’d make connections and go straight to the Jedi. And it depended on the state of the war at the time and if they can get enough attention (with everything that is going on) to pass on their knowledge. And if Palpatine knows about it, yikes, who even know what he would do with something like that. Frankly, I personally do not think that Anakin is a good General overall, even if he is good with troopers and on-the-fly plans (I think his work a bit more with smaller groups instead of tactics and strategies with entire legions but maybe that’s just me) and even though he has a ton of limelight on him, I honestly do think the Jedi would pull him out. Massacring an entire village – that is dangerous and horrifying. Like, if he could do that to people, who knows what he would do in the battlefield.

            Another interesting thought is how it would affect the propaganda Palpatine has set up. Is Anakin the wounded hero that people sympathize with and have renewed vigor to end the war? Or are the jedi keeping him away from winning the war for [insert ridiculous reason here]? It could spin either way, although I think Palpatine would use a mixture of both himself.

            Maybe it would push Anakin further to Palpatine, maybe, but then again, depending on how far in the war they are in, the Jedi may have enough autonomy to keep Anakin with them. The Jedi Culture, at least aspects of it, are a lot like therapy, but as we all know, Anakin isn’t entirely embracing it and like therapy, this healing does not work if you are not into it, if you are not trying and doing the work. If the Jedi could get Padme really on their side, that may help things, even though Padme is not innocent in this either, pretty much complicit after the fact. At least, considering she knew about the massacre and told no authorities.

            Back to the Tusken individual. I imagine that the Jedi would probably at least attempt to do some sort of retribution (eventually, like I said, with the war, unsure how they would be able to juggle everything. There is just SO much) in the form of whatever the Tusken culture has. I personally do not know of it off the top of my head. If there is something written about this. It all comes down to culture and values. The values of the jedi and the values of the Tuskens are probably pretty different. Not necessarily wrong, just different from each other. And since the Tuskens are the ones that Anakin has wronged (specifically this survivor), I think the Jedi would try to balance their rituals and ideas to some extent with their own.

            I know people use Ahsoka’s situation as the Jedi “kicking people out” but I think that is one; generally very rare and two; her situation was extremely, extremely specific. It wasn’t a “kick you out forever on the street”, it was an “expel from our organization/rules so you can be tried for a crime that killed civilians outside of our justice system”. On a logical level, it makes sense, and I am absolutely sure there are real world situations and applications we can compare it too. (Total honesty, Ahsoka’s Wrong Jedi arc is actually kinda confusing with (and I do not bring this up often) some poor writing and planning as well showing an extremely one sided and emotional view, without anything else). I don’t think Anakin would necessarily be kicked out but I do think the Jedi would try to get him to go through a process to atone for what he had done and heal from the darkness that was lurking inside him. And after that (or during, whatever) he would have to make a choice between being a Jedi and being married to Padme because doing both just does not work for several reasons.

            And we all know that Anakin does not really want to make that choice.

[mx-princey]

Honestly all of your story ideas sound good.... personally I think I'm most invested in your ocs story and I'm a bit curious about the premise for your animal crossing one? Mostly bc with ac stories I feel like there's an interesting amount of flexibility there agdhshdh

Ur always so nice thank u 😊

Actually thinking up Plotlines for My Oc (Tea) has been so difficult I've literally probably come up with and scrapped like 10 different plotlines since her creation LOL. At the moment I'm working on designing a few friends for her, a pair of twins whose designs will be based on insects. I want a story about people who are outcast and how isolating it can be to feel unwanted by the world, but also how much people who understand you are worth and can be like family. The setting is still up in the air but right now I am considering a post-apocalyptic setting which came about due to machinery in some way. Tea would be a robot that spent some time "awake" with her human inventor who she was fond of, before being separated and deactivated before being "woken up" after the apocalyptic event, having lost everything she knew and loved. She grapples with self-blame due to sharing an identity with the one's who brought upon the destruction, despite having no part in it herself. For her arc, I'd like her to realise that in fact, very vew robots had a hand in anything that happened and that 1. She has to stop making judgements on others based on archetypes and such, and 2. She has to move forward from her guilt and start to actually take action to make a better world, even if its just in small ways.

I've always wanted something a bit epic lol, but honestly all I have in mind at the moment is that she connects with those around her and helps people to heal and live a better life.

Maybe if I want something very climactic, something will happen that requires them to find a way off planet, and they try to save and take as many beings with them as they can, but of course can't save anyone. That could play into the themes of guilt and the idea that you should do what you can to help people, but you will never be able to do everything or save everybody.

I wrote way more than I meant to about that and I'm not even onto the AC-Inspired story yet... LOL.

The AC-Inspired story is a bit more recent so I haven't talked about it much, but the basic premise is that, when a person becomes lonely enough and makes a wish (doesn't have to be explicit, can just be a feeling) that they had a friend somewhere, and they fall asleep while going somewhere (ie on a train, bus, car, or god forbid driving) when they wake they'll be granted transport to and given a ticket to a village in a forest populated with other lonely people. This "program" has only recently started reaching out to humans, so most of the people there will be animal spirits from a world that functions like ours. Being in this place ambiently lowers people's hostility and makes it easier for people to open up and be understanding. Anybody there can leave at any time, but their ticket will glow when they're "ready" and confident enough to resume their normal life.

So far the character's I've thought most about are a workaholic who poured to much of his life into work and has found himself dangerously socially detached, which started hitting him especially hard when computers started becoming more advanced and his skills quickly started becoming outdated and unneeded. A jaded gay man who's never met anybody like himself and believed he was completely alone and a lesbian who was very active with her local queer scene but due to her high status felt she had to keep up appearances which kept her from expressing her true, admittedly silly self. A lady with pretty bad agoraphobia who spends her time making sure she "looks good enough" to be seen by people but then is constantly too afraid to go outside and be judged anyway. An old spirit who has lived in the village almost since it had been set up, whose love died before he was invited and who has never wanted to go back to a world without them, choosing to stay after his time to meet everyone passing through. A prostitute who genuinely enjoyed her work but was so afraid of being looked down upon for it she decided to build up a reputation as confident and self-reliant, to the point she would never let herself be emotionally vulnerable with everyone. Then there's the cat-spirit who set up the whole system, who seems outwardly confident and chipper, but has insecurities of his own about the whole project.

Writing it now a lot of the character ideas are very cliche, but it is just a work in progress, and it is just a little story I thought up to help me through hard times. Ultimately it's about 1. Connecting with others, 2. Seeing everybody as equal regardless of background and in spite of differences, and 3. The fact that you can't stay with all the people you love forever. The third point is explored through the fact that even though you might make plenty of friends in the village, everyone has to return to their normal life eventually, but the experiences you had together will always exist as happy memories and the things you learned from each other will always be there to support you, together or not.

Also, the character inspirations in order are Raymond (I am not immune to the Raymond :|), Kyle, Katt, Kitty, Dobie, Tiffany, and ofc my boy Rover.

Annnyway its almost 5am and I should sleep now :P sorry if any of this doesn't make sense bc again its late and I took my sleeping meds a little while ago LOL

Anyway thanks for the ask goodnight and I hope u have a good day /)