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Object Relations: Helene Deutsch Pt. 2

The Actual Conflict

Patterns we can see in the prior episode on feminine psychology can apply overall to humanity and how we face reality. Reality is going to hit you with constraints and resistances, and many of those things can't be avoided. Psychoanalytic vicissitudes lead to defenses which then lead to pathological life choices. The healthier you are, the more doors you can unlock in the maze of life, and therefore find more fulfillment, but there's a progressively reduced accessibility as pathology is increased. Like an escape-room, there are lessons to learn from some locations, and sometimes there are limitations that one accepts and tries to make do with. For a person with constitutional factors that can't be cured by talking therapy, that person is working in a smaller building with limited amenities, warmth or contentment. Psychoanalysis is not like engineering and analysts aren't locksmiths. Those with more talent, skills, and overall mental health, they can experience consistent well-being in a spacious environment, even if they take it for granted. But any changes in the pathological direction, and the walls close in. With this understanding you can see the positives, and also the limitations of Psychoanalysis, especially it's narrow focus on regression. It's true that many people experience open doors at first to only find later a door that is uncooperative, forcing one to walk back to familiar environments, but without a possibility of a complete cure, therapists can only focus on stress related to any one condition.

Blur - St. Charles Square: https://youtu.be/8Iidpm1YLRM

"We might compare a frustration to a wall against which a forward-moving mental force rebounds so that it is compelled to strive backward. This process...we call 'regression,' and this regression continues back to those deserted stations of former developments which exercise a peculiar power of attraction. This persistent power of attraction corresponds to 'fixation.' It is fixation, and neither the actual cause nor frustration, which is responsible for the type of neurosis, and thus it acquires the character of a dispositional factor...Inner neurotic conflicts arise when the libido is deprived of the possibility of finding an ego-syntonic gratification in the outer world, or when intolerable narcissistic injuries have prevented it from making satisfactory sublimations...[When the] other world appears insoluble to the person concerned, the 'external frustration' becomes an internal one, and a vicious circle is set up...The ego disappointed in the outer world finds itself compelled to look for substitute gratifications, and thus enters upon a familiar path of regression...What makes a reality-conditioned actual conflict a neurotic one is its subjective insolubility...[but it] need not necessarily lead to symptom formation...Every civilized person is really in a continuous state of latent conflict, with the real world on one hand, and with his own inner forces on the other, since he has always frustrations to endure and inhibitions to overcome...The latent conflict will become an actual one only when the boundary of endurability for the person in question has been passed."

Sublimation - Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gv2fr-sublimation-sigmund-freud.html

Like most religions acknowledge, Helene noticed how the desire that propels us forward, to unlock some of these doors, with successes or regressions, involves the same choice between pursuing the more bumpy road of bliss or the less intense experience of peace, which looks similar to later positive psychology perspectives. The advantage of pursuing bliss is that one can create beautiful memories to bask in later, because memories do release healthy affect. Peace on the other hand has the advantage of reducing risk and it supports the feelings of sobriety, rest and renewal. In reality, most people find that their sense of self is in the bliss, but they need periods of peace to recharge, and therefore a moderate path is usually carved out. On the bliss path, Helene found that no matter what, all desires lead to more or less a feeling of dejection or depression. The way forward is an autotelism where goals are the means and the end, and the repeated solution to the depressing ending of a goal, is to simply choose another goal. People can also use their intelligence and find where predictable conflicts will arise in the pursuit of bliss and find a way to avoid those problems, or just dump those goals altogether. Skills have to increase or goals have to be replaced with ones at the right level of challenge to return to a feeling of zest and aliveness. That brings up the old idiom that "if you're bored, you're boring."

Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: https://rumble.com/v1gvked-how-to-gain-flow-in-7-steps.html

The feeling of bliss is going to be challenged from time to time so a deep rest, with enough hours of sleep, and periods of meditation or inactivity, is needed to recharge. For those on the path of peace, rest is just the beginning. There is a search to maintain that peace for longer periods of time throughout the day. This usually involves a letting go of excessive survival alarms, which can feel like a surrender or an acceptance of death, but the wisdom of meditation is that there are many safe places to do this to give that alarm a rest from overwork. On a third path, one can moderate and bring that wisdom to the world of effort and learn to ramp up effort to efficient levels because work isn't so bad when there's better concentration and needless habits to tighten and flinch one's soma weakens over the years. Part of the moderate path is also to notice that we tend to miss things we don't have, and by moderating activity or consumption, many things that were boring, can regain some of that allure. For example, if you drink alcohol, tea, or coffee less often, when you reunite with those things, there's more pleasure, but if you repeat too often, it's taken for granted. This is even easier to do if one has many sublimations that take up the extra time so that one can't be addicted to only one thing. It's an art to use hobbies and interests to regulate your emotions and grief.

The Anapanasati Sutta: 4 stages of meditation: https://rumble.com/v1gon6r-the-anapanasati-sutta-4-stages-of-meditation.html

Grief

That area after bliss, grief, is the wheelhouse of most therapists. Psychoanalysts trace where patients fall from motivation into sadness, and learning about one's childhood coping mechanisms helps to make aware to the adult how those patterns developed. In A Two-year Old boy's First Love Comes to Grief, Helene found examples of grief acceptance already at this early age. Part of creating object solidity in the mind, which are memories of important figures in one's life, is based on the emotional exchange one has with caregivers. Helene referred to an example of a boy, Rudi, who's mother was a hardworking professional that hired a nurse to handle the day to day child rearing. As you would expect, Rudi treated this nurse like a surrogate mother, because she served "all his autoerotic (self-stimulation) needs; it was she who fed him, assisted him with his excretory functions, and fulfilled his wishes." When that nurse finally left him, he went through stages of loss and acceptance.

When a younger replacement nurse arrived, the child oscillated between temporary acceptance of the new situation and a strong resistance. Back and forth he was treating feeding and excretory activities as things that can only happen in this loving bubble created by the prior nurse, or begrudgingly for his biological mother when she was present. "Rudi, now fully toilet trained, now wet and soiled his pants. When attempts were made to 'catch' him and put him on the 'potty,' he would let go a few drops of urine, only to wet his pants a few minutes later. Sometimes he would announce his need to go, but when the nursemaid hastened to help him he would say, 'On no, Rudi goes wee wee only for Mommy'...Rudi had shown great obstinacy in withholding his excretory products. He had clearly enjoyed retaining his always constipated stool and waiting until the last moment to urinate. Now he relinquished his source of pleasure. His feces, found in his bed or in his pants, were now ideally soft, a state of affairs no medical or dietary measures had been able to produce. It is as if he were protesting, 'I have something precious, but it is a gift. It is only for my loved one.'"

As the days went by, Rudi jumped into a mode of giving affection to his dolls, trying to embrace and kiss everyone around him. The autoerotic love was transforming to an alloerotic one looking for external objects. From the Freudian standpoint, cravings look for objects but when those objects are lost, there can be pathological consequences, or in healthier situations, children can move onto new objects. The fear that new objects will abandon them or abuse them can be a transference onto these new people that leads to either some kind of fear and avoidance or aggression to control. In Rudi's case, by the ninth day of separation he was returning to his regular personality but with more of an interest in other people. With more displays of affection and interest in others, he became regular on the toilet.

Psychoanalysts expect certain milestones to be passed at different ages, but when those markers pass without visible development, it's time to find out why. Hinted at in her paper is a suggestion that a healthy attitude is one where people accept losses, discharge grief by expressing it, and move onto new goals, while at the same time one is interested in other people and willing to have relationships where everyone is working together to find joint fulfillment. Pathology would instead be avoidance, phobias, chronic depression, paranoia, mania, etc., as listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Helene's writings also clue the reader into another one of the ways one can detect pathology, which is to compare normal vs. abnormal losses and vicissitudes. "Our analytic experience has forced us to recognize this 'dispositional factor.' It became abundantly clear that many children were unable to overcome completely normal experiences in a normal way...Even the normal conditions of infantile life make demands which are by no means infrequently beyond the child's psychic powers. And the incapacity to deal with these difficulties can produce various pathological reactions...[A] type of neurosis [can rest] in a constitutional factor, which can be recognized even in earliest infancy."

Awareness increases control

Even with problems related to constitutional factors, the role of talking therapy is to focus on stress, especially stress that is optional, and to reduce it. You want to reduce pain and increase pleasure and satisfaction. Awareness in all these early modalities is about having the patient acknowledge their reactions and see what they are doing to themselves, and ideally an analysand can see the worthlessness of their reactions and lose the attraction to repeat them, because having less pain is good and having more pleasure is better. In psychoanalysis, one of the main ways to see reactivity is to realize that a lot of the reason why people have "locked doors" in their life experience is because they feel that someone has purposefully locked them in. Those bad memories of people trigger defenses that then are mentally rehearsed and transferred to other people in a series of predictions, and some of those reactions are pathological and get in the way of satisfaction, especially in relationships. One way to clarify this is to imagine the life of a person with no trauma. They likely go where they please, speak to who they please, and satisfy their libido without the anticipation of punishment or a fear of loss. On the contrary, a person who has had a traumatic life experience, they will likely have many expectations that anticipate abuse, rejection, neglect, and further loss. This limits adaptive behavior, which is like a self-sabotage, and healthy relationships suffer or are not pursued.

Following Freud, Helene agreed that a therapist has to be willing to be in the role of an authority figure or a reminder of a past caregiver. The reactions of the patient afterwards bring up a lot for awareness to digest, and the best information comes from developing a positive transference first and then seeing how things evolve or devolve from there. "The first aim of the treatment consists in establishing a well-developed rapport, in attaching the patient to the treatment and to the person of the physician. To ensure this one need do nothing but allow him time. If one devotes serious interest to him, clears away carefully the first resistances that arise, and avoids certain mistakes, such an attachment develops in the patient of itself, and the physician becomes linked up with one of the imagoes of those persons from whom he used to receive kindness."

Case Studies: The 'Ratman' - Freud and Beyond: https://rumble.com/v1gu9qj-case-studies-the-ratman-freud-and-beyond.html

For the analyst, a lot of clues appear when they are brought into the mental world of the patient and are treated like a family member. Positive transference is first setup and then afterwards negative transferences begin to appear at the first sign a therapist is being viewed as disappointing, or the patient feels slighted, even if it's only in their mind. While listening to their stories, different pathologies provide different clues. In Helene's example of phobias, patients can have an "inner danger [that] is projected outward and attached to a situation or a particular object." Tracing those reactions to actual incidents in the past helps to bring awareness to the patient that their phobias are a number of degrees away from the current situations they living through, for example, a fear of animals, a fear of large spaces, or in converse, a fear of enclosed spaces. Interrupting false associations allows patients to find safety in the real world and also to accept without delusion the real dangers that do exist. This way reality is not over or underestimated, and the ego can now navigate a more accessible world, and ideally find many forms of satisfaction.

With obsession, the patient has to see the "...unrelenting severity of the super-ego..." and see through the superstitions of obsessive rituals and the inaccurate beliefs that "if you shun the instinct you will escape the punishing authority." Instincts are there for a reason and punishment should only happen when people are encroaching on each other's territory. The obsessive patient has to realize that they have rituals that prevent a normal life from eventuating and the fact that these rituals don't work, or there's no real magic to them, should be a reason to abandon them. The therapeutic results also comes from all the energy saved when rituals are not taken up anymore, and when there's confirmation that the world is essentially the same even when rituals are not followed.

With melancholia, the patient has to see "the cleft between the ego and the superego and the murderous struggle between the two psychic systems which this gives rise to." Again, there can be rituals that are created to appease the superego, but a way to face the reality of life is to balance the expectations of the superego with the ego's understanding of the very real limitations found in life. Melancholiac patients also need to look at their goal systems and de-cathect, or abandon emotional investment, from people and projects that predictably fail or abandon. When there are failures there can be overly strong signals of inferiority from the superego that devalues one's actual skills and strengths in the ego. It's like the superego stops believing in the ego's ability to learn from trial and error. This creates a depressive impasse where no learning is possible, and healthy satisfactions are denied. Reengaging with goals with persistent reality testing, and acknowledging small wins along the way, can help to rehabilitate self-esteem. Again, the talking therapy aims to bring awareness, and as patients progressively abandon useless rituals or perfectionistic beliefs, it should be easier to choose better goals which naturally motivate action towards fulfillment. If there are any pathological resistances left, it is usually some kind of constitutional factor that thwarts well-being.

Why the perception of reality is so important is because what we believe to be true triggers stronger affect than fantasies do. For example, talking therapy doesn't cure Schizophrenia or Bi-polar disorder, but being aware of how internal feelings are projected onto the outside world, like with Schizophrenia, it can help to reduce anxiety when those delusions arise and they are not given the significance of reality. Helene also saw the role of denial, particularly in Bi-polar disorder, and how the superego can blame-shift to the outside world while at the same time deny very real boundaries when acting in the world. With a reduction of boundaries a manic episode can easily arise. A vicious cycle can then develop when out of control impulses invite blame, making the patient depressed, and then when new excuses are found to project blame to the outside world, another bout of mania can arise from the continued lack of boundaries. Being aware of one's denial could introduce more self-reflection so that the peaks and valleys of manic depression can be smoothed out somewhat. But, as Helene later stated, "what we conquer are only parts of psycho-genesis: expressions of conflicts, developmental failures. We do not eliminate the original sources of neurosis; we only help to achieve a better ability to change neurotic frustrations into valid compensations." As a reminder, we need a sense of reality to find places where we can effectively discharge affect and enjoy compensations. If there are serious mental illnesses, then it's still the same situation but the compensations provide only a partial recovery.

The Power of Suggestion and Induced Insanity

One of the ways of getting a grip on reality is to continually assess information that one receives and whether it leans more towards fact or more towards theory. For most people, they don't operate completely in the world of science, but more in the world of suggestion. Suggestions are a way for people to share ideas of how they can find fulfillment in the world, and ideally share those ideas and pursue gratification individually and as a society without the need to go to war with other people and fight over scarcity, or to succumb to deprivations or health issues when following a pathological suggestion. Suggestions can be word of mouth or come via mass advertising, propaganda, or awareness campaigns. Suggestions can be pathological when they point to satisfactions that don't conform to reality and steer a healthy person towards addictions, health problems, or conflict. Regular people can fall into periods of life where pathological suggestions were operating a lot of the decision making. It's true that some suggestions are well-informed and one can see that when suggestions bare fruit, but when there are no "valid compensations" found when following a suggestion, it's time for a reality check.

For most normal people, what Helene calls a "valid compensation," would include a significant part of the economy. A lot of our economy is about temporarily numbing the pain related to stress, and not necessary finding a healthy long-term sublimation or lasting fulfillment. This can be seen in addictions, but these patterns can be also found in normal pursuits and leisure, which fall into the category of a healthy sublimation. She published an early version of Sports Psychology that really could apply to all hobbies and interests. Life can be full of negative feedback and for her the purpose of leisure is to "...compensate for the inferiority feelings in which that complex expressed itself." One of the main complexes is the Castration Complex, starting with parental authority figures criticizing and ridiculing, and through transference, that complex develops an expectation that other authority figures will behave the same way. Unrelenting criticism and demands require a release somewhere, and hobbies can "...[project] a source of anxiety into the outside world and discharge [it]." The way to separate a valid compensation that discharges properly, from an addiction, would be a loose demarcation that highlights some kind of damage sustained or reduced well-being. One could make further distinctions between activities that provide thriving in the real world from entertainments that are solely releases in the imagination, and an even further devaluation for those pleasures that cause physical or psychological damage. Even healthy things like exercise suddenly change if it's excessive and there's injury. Intimate relationships can release a lot of instinctual tension, and provide opportunities for bonding, but if one is sleeping with a toxic person, the opposite is true.

With one example of a patient, Helene was able to define emotional compensation or satisfaction. This person had a phobia who "...ineffectually took to flight, while in games he endeavored effectually to master the situation...The possibility of discharge in an ego-syntonic form lessens the conflict between ego-tendencies and sexual instincts, and the harmonious operation of the two leads to an increase of feelings of power within the ego...The original situation between ego and external world is thus restored; the whole battle is waged no longer between the institutions of the ego, but between the ego and the external world. The social value of sport, too, from the point of view of psychology, lies partly in the fact that, through this process of displacing the battlefield, aggressive tendencies are discharged in a manner consonant with the ego. By the increase in narcissistic gratification the wound inflicted by the castration-complex is assuaged, and, above all, the subject is afforded a possibility of getting rid of part of the dread of castration or the fear of death which is common to all mankind."

The benefit of activity in leisure is that at least there is some reality to it. If you won the game, then that is real too, but there can be further pathologies related to the superego when it takes over the reality checking function of the ego. Via the vehicle of idealism, Helene found in the story of Don Quixote, that one could live in a self-created world and try to operate within it and deny reality in the senses as far as possible. "With relinquishment of the real object there takes place a [suppression] of all instinctual drives...There is no doubt that in connection with this impoverishment of the ego in the interest of the ego ideal, reality testing likewise undergoes impairment...beyond any adaptation to reality...The demand that these idealists make upon reality—that it shall adjust itself to their narcissistic ego ideal, instead, vice versa, of subordinating the latter to the demands of reality—this is the eternal quixotism of the human spirit. It is in poets, artists, and in fanatics that it is particularly well-developed...[but] those who are adjusted to reality and accept rather than deny their instincts enjoy a pleasing triumph in seeing the ascetic ego ideal robbed of value by its caricature. This devaluation, however, refers equally to the infantile past in which the child believed himself the possessor of every perfection..." Here you could say that being in reality and getting satisfaction that is real is better than fantastical satisfaction because the affect, assuming no constitutional pathologies exist, will be stronger and more satisfying.

As idealistic people persist in ignoring reality, they can become chained to unscrupulous manipulators and other deluded authority figures. This especially happens when people put leaders on a pedestal and expect extraordinary results from them. Both leaders and followers have wishes to be fulfilled and Helene saw the power of suggestion and how it can spread like a virus when whole populations act without reality testing, and the predictable consequences of misery. "...In the form of mass suggestion they can take the form of psychical epidemics such as were especially frequent in the Middle Ages and occurred sporadically in later times; and in the individual they can take the form of the illness known to us under the clinical picture of induced insanity." How the brain feels satisfaction through suggestion is via the ego-ideal, which is the entity individuals want to serve when in this mode. Randomly bumping into a meditation book by Jean Klein, I noticed how Advaita types and Buddhists are very familiar with this particular superego imago and how powerful it is, and possibly dangerous because of how one's idol worshiping can be exploited by others for money and resources. In a way, you are getting lost in thought when you follow a conceptual version of yourself as a hero or villain in a story about one kind of consumption or another to master. "A wealth of second-hand knowledge, [a lot of it via suggestions from others], has given you a certain image and when you say, 'I am this,' you identify yourself with this image. Every time you look at a flower, or you look at a tree or a child, or face a situation in your life, it is the self-image that looks and everything refers to this image that you have of yourself. So, my advice is: Free yourself from the self-image, be nothing."

Now I wouldn't go as far as Jean Klein and I prefer to look at the language itself. In English the superego feels distant like it's a goal post that keeps moving away, especially when you've achieved something. Following a self-image that chases something unreal is definitely a problem. This is called an unreal conditional in English grammar. Eg. "I would like to be," but the Ego under a real conditional opportunity, has reality testing on its side and says "I will be..." The self-image is only a problem when it is disconnected from the real obstacles that exist and has no plan for them, or is pursuing something that isn't going to provide much satisfaction. Whether someone is more or less in reality, it's about living up to the ego-ideal, but as Freud also stated, it's a "rebuilding of the vanished object world." We don't only want new things, but we want lost objects returned to us. This can easily be seen in mass movements, like trends, fads, and political initiatives to restore a golden age.

The danger of replacing reality testing with suggestion is relying on the fallacy of appealing to authority, which is part of the reason why people think they are responding to what is real, and feeling strong emotions in consequence. Leaders throughout history have disappointed people and caused nightmares because they aren't as all knowing as they present themselves to be. "All education, for instance, depends, strictly speaking, on suggestion, for the transfer of ideas and intellectual content owes its strength solely to the suggestive resources at the disposal of the person in authority." When the wish-fulfillment energies get harnessed by the authority figure, which also have their own wish-fulfillments that may not be in your interest, it's very easy to lose control of one's autonomy and one can turn into a puppet. Then the only way out of cult-like influences is a "separating [of] those involved from each other, preventing them from influencing each other, sober refutation of their delusional ideas, and finally confession of deception on the part of the suggesting parties..." Of course the last part is difficult to get out of authority figures who usually gaslight people into more beliefs about the reality of their fake world or move onto the next delusion or willful manipulation.

Mass Formation - Mattias Desmet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmloBdLnX3A

As If

The consequences of abandoning the reality one sees in one's own life can be a life long problem with self-disorders that Helene lumped together into her category of "As If" personalities, where satisfaction is only mediated through authority figures and we are in turn controlled by the honor and affection that they can bestow or withdraw from us. She quibbled about the differences readers saw in the character pathologies of her analysands and quick associations they made with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), but the similarities are striking, and it's not comforting when she states that "...the 'as if' personality is common among leaders and political figures." Yet her examples often involve people who are in fact not leaders, but followers. One could also argue that current leaders were once followers in the past.

"The 'as if' is such a widespread psychological phenomenon that we can almost speak of a 'type' rather than of pathology." Like the puppet on a string analogy, there is a lack of inner guidance. All work and endeavour is permeated with imitation. "They are intellectually intact and gifted and show great understanding in all intellectual matters. When they try to be productive—and efforts in that direction are always present—their work is formally good but totally devoid of originality. It is always a laborious though skillful imitation of a model without the slightest personal trace. Close observation shows that the same applies to their affective relationships. These are generally intense; they bear all the marks, for instance, of friendship, love, and sympathy, [yet]...these relationships lack all trace of warmth and that all their expressions of feeling are such in form only—it is like a performance by a technically well-trained actor who lacks truth to life—and that inner feeling has been totally eliminated. Thus the first characteristic of this human type is that formally they behave as if they possessed a fully felt emotional life. The important point about this behavior is that the patients themselves are not aware that anything is missing in their affective life and that they believe their empty performances to be identical with the feelings and experiences of others."

These pathologies often start young, and when there is a lack of acknowledgement, let alone development, of a self, which is the feeling of love for people and activities, the individual ends up with "...object poverty and its persistence at a narcissistic level..." To simplify, it's like the ego is totally subservient to the ego-ideal which is molded by a series of role models in the outer world and those role models point to some kind of godly example of success we should aim for. Subjective love towards real objects is weak, but the need for love from fantastical authority figures is strong. In a parasitical way, one needs to receive love much more than one can give. Real satisfactions always pale in comparison for the deluded person with promised forms of happiness. The way to notice this, especially when an "as if'' person is a good actor, is to pay attention to how they behave in different environments. They usually change their personality to suit the authority figure at present, even if there are wild swings in ethical values. It's "...mild benevolence that may nevertheless be capable of any kind of evil." This can be dangerous when environments themselves provide bad influences and it's possible that there are "...many criminal acts carried out by previously completely noncriminal personalities..."

As many experts point out about narcissism, there is no cure at the moment because of how early these pathologies arise. It's hard to develop a self when there isn't a childhood foundation. In agreement, Helene also acknowledged that "the result of this defect is the persistence of the earliest ego-identifications, in which the dependency on the object [parents] expressed itself in imitation as a method of adaptation." When you get love only when it's 100% conditional, the only rewarding pleasures available are one-up comparisons with others to prove one's value to parents, and then eventually to authority figures in society, hence the need for early childhood mirroring where parents love their kids as they are. Without that you see a skill being developed in children to play act the emotions they think they need to feel in order to receive affection. For example, Helene described one patient as having "no primary, vital, warm object relations with her parents. These were impoverished from the outset; their role in her fantasy life was narcissistic, in that the objects served only to substitute increased self-feeling for the lack of love."

It also doesn't help that most people have some narcissism and it's very common for people to look to authority figures for inspiration, and narcissists will point that out while not noticing more independent manifestations of libido in personal preferences, and they likely will say that "everyone is like me. Therefore there's nothing's wrong." Like in previous episodes of Psych Reviews, the "as if" imago operates powerfully like an exercised muscle and if people are unaware of what it's like to have an independent love for people and activities, which allows one to use personal experience contra social suggestion, one doesn't know what one is missing. The advertising and the promise of happiness dominates personal experience. It's like being stuck in thoughts and questions about "what do cool people normally like? What should I dislike?" Like a slave, the instincts need an ego-ideal permission slip before acting, and love for someone is based instead on how it affects one's self-image and reputation. Any weaknesses in the person can appear as slights to the ego-ideal and motivate rejection and the need to find another circle of people. This deficiency of self further passes down the generations the same desire to make others into useful tools, and to ignore any inherent human value. If you didn't receive love, can't feel it, then logically you won't be able to impart it to the next generation. As described above, authority figures can then overrule preferences and exploit the 'as if' personality's "...passive readiness to be influenced..." It's very easy to see how a totalitarian society can arise from such a population.

The following are common patterns of the "As If" personality and how it can be seen in the modern world:

Patients experience a depersonalization where there's a lack of affect.

They have incredible abilities to imitate and learn behaviours and skills from role-models, but without any healthy passion, love, warmth, creativity or originality.

One finds abilities to move between perversion and morality with relative ease and swiftness. There are no signs of remorse, but if there are signs, it's just a pantomime to make one appear like others with the exact same goal of getting affection and sympathy from authority figures. If there are any values, it's environmentally dependent. Change the environment and the values change.

He has abilities to change professions quickly in order to launder one's public image.

She has placid emotions that can cover an ill-will underneath.

They obey rules and laws with great exactness in order to get more positive attention from authorities, if they are in such an environment, so as to feed an omnipotent narrative that one is closing the gap between oneself and the role model, which is a primary motivation of these types.

He had parenting that was emotionally cold or excessively spoiling, or a mixture thereof.

She feigns warmth and excitement to solidify a relationship, but partners repeatedly realize that the affect was always simulated. Confrontations about this lead to a quick exit and a chameleon-like transformation to attract another partner.

There can be past sexual interference with parents during a time when role-models are supposed to provide healthy super-ego development for the child.

They live in ego-ideal fantasy worlds that can't be supported by facts or reality.

After undergoing analysis and achieving some success, the patient finds it easier to return to the habitual false self that is so well practiced and effective. This is also supported by a modern society which rewards compliant and subservient behavior, and detests independent people who threaten their power and control.

The Narcissist - Blur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gr8Z3rUeJM

The False Self - Various Authors (Narcissism 2 of 4): https://rumble.com/v1gth6h-the-false-self-various-authors-narcissism-2-of-4.html

Like other composite illnesses of these early days of Psychoanalysis, the 'As if' personality could cover a range of Cluster B Personality disorders and has Schizoid features of depersonalization that many clinicians have since separated out into their own categories with different treatments for each. It has also been noticed that Helene herself had 'As if' tendencies, based on content in her memoirs. For example when Helene didn't feel satisfied with her relationships, or partners disappointed her ego-ideal in some way, she thought about replacing them. Her parenting also involved abuse and neglect while Helene vied for her father's attention to be the most beautiful and smart child. Lisa Appignanesi suspected that Freud's early termination of Helene's analysis was because "he was refusing Helene’s tendency to love by identifying herself with the object, then experiencing that love as betrayed and running to the next object. It was a tendency she herself explored in her various studies on the ‘as if’ personality. Indeed, her memoir sometimes fills one with the sense that she experienced her own existence to be an ‘as if’ - living her life first ‘as if’ a socialist in her identification with Lieberman; ‘as if’ a conventional wife with Felix; ‘as if’ a mother in her identification with her saintly friend; then ‘as if’ a psychoanalyst in the identification with Freud." Regardless of how Helene expressed her personal experiences along with that of her case studies, or making herself into a case study, she moved to the United States in the 1930s when politics was becoming more extreme, and managed to pull off many successful seminars on psychoanalysis that helped to popularize the method. She also hosted Saturday night card games with students who wanted to learn more, and in turn influenced new generations of analysts, including "the Hartmann's, the Hoffers, the Krises, the Waelders, and the Bibrings."

Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst's Life by Paul Roazen: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780385197465/

Confrontations with Myself: An Epilogue by Helene Deutsch: https://isbns.net/isbn/9780393336412/

The Therapeutic Process, the Self, and Female Psychology by Paul Roazen, Helene Deutsch: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780887384295/

The Psychoanalysis of Sexual Functions of Women by Helene Deutsch, Paul Roazen: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780946439959/

Neuroses and Character Types: Clinical Psychoanalytic Studies by Helene Deutsch: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780823635603/

Freud's Women by Lisa Appignanesi: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780465025633/

Beyond Knowledge - Jean Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780955176289/

Psychology: http://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/

#anxiety #agoraphobia #As if #avoidance #bipolar disorder #depression #distraction #ego ideal #happiness #imitation #manic depression #melancholia #narcissism #obsession #obsessive compulsive disorder #OCD #suggestibility #suggestion

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enneagram-reblogs · 6 months

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Enneagram Types in Relationships: Type Six.

From NineTypesCo by Steph Barron Hall.

In relationships, Sixes are often steadfast, devoted, lively, responsible, and compassionate. Sixes value consistency and commitment. Sixes prioritize relationships with people who are trustworthy, kind, and steady. While Sixes crave connected relationships, they also hold that desire in tension with uncertainty around whether their partner is in it as much as they are. Sixes tend to be fairly transparent because they want to know early on if they can trust others, if others truly like them for who they are, and if they are well-matched. It can be deeply hurtful for Sixes to learn later that the relationship was not what they thought it was. When less aware, a Six’s suspicious nature may cause them to be insecure, and their fear that the relationship will end may actually lead to the demise of the relationship. In general, Sixes are trustworthy and in it for the long haul.

Type Six & Type One

Strengths: We are responsible, committed, and courteous. We both value loyalty and duty, and we have a high view of com- munity. We want to make the world a better place, and we can find little ways to do so every day. The Six is witty and helps the One lighten up. The One grounds the Six and creates a safety net. Sixes are able to see various possible outcomes, and while this can create uncertainty, it can also help the One see there is more than one way things can unfold. Ones tend to be more self-assured and decisive, which can inspire the Six to find these qualities within as well. We can count on each other, and that's really important for us both to feel loved.

Weaknesses: When Ones become critical or resentful, Sixes find them- selves increasingly anxious and insecure about the relationship. Sixes can be reactive in conflict, which may cause the One to feel that the Six is hypocritical: expecting predictability while not being predictable themselves. Both of us can feel uncomfortable with conflict (since it's neither appropriate nor safe), and we may find ourselves lobbing blame back and forth to avoid accepting fault.

Type Six & Type Two

Strengths: We are steadfast and loyal to one another. We both value a deep, unwavering connection, and we will do what is necessary to serve one another. The Two's empathetic and affectionate nature offers the Six the comfort of knowing their partner will always have their back. The Six's desire for steadiness inspires them to build a good foundation for the relationship, which offers the Two a sense of feeling valued and prioritized. We are both responsible, attentive, and supportive. We make great partners because our connection is built on friendship.

Weaknesses: Sixes tend to pull others close and then push them away. This ambivalence is often rooted in a subconscious need to test their partner. For the Two, being pushed away is their worst fear as they believe they've done everything in their power to make the Six love and trust them. The Six's reactivity can sometimes cause the Two to feel cast aside. The Two's desire to help can also cause problems since Sixes often work through concerns by verbalizing them. When the Two goes into "fix it" mode, the Six can feel misunderstood and bulldozed because they're not feeling heard.

Type Six & Type Three

Strengths: We are hardworking, resilient, and faithful. The Three loves to highlight the strengths in others, so they tend to point out the best in the Six, giving the Six the encouragement they need to pursue their passions. Meanwhile, the Six keeps the Three grounded and helps them slow down and enjoy life a bit more. The Six's transparency and honesty can help the Three feel more comfortable to open up and find the emotional connection they're looking for. We are both dutiful and responsible, and once we trust each other, we make a good team.

Weaknesses: The Six values loyalty, so the Three's shapeshifting can cause the Six to feel like they can't trust them. The Three's hard-driving energy can conflict with the Six's cautious nature, which can cause the Three to feel like the Six is holding them back. The Three may get exasperated with the Six's questions and may charge on ahead without them, stirring the Six to lose trust and move into self-protection mode. When the Six expresses a lack of trust, the Three may feel they've done everything they can to be trustworthy and give up.

Type Six & Type Four

Strengths: We are expressive, sensitive, and affectionate. We both tend to react emotionally to one another and the world around us, which actually helps us deeply understand and care for one another. We can be really similar, and that's comforting. The Four brings compassion, self-awareness, and emotionality, while the Six brings loyalty, practicality, and perseverance. We can both find the depth we want in the relationship because the Four always wants to go deeper, and the Six is committed to sticking together.

Weaknesses: No one likes to hear that they lack common sense or practicality, and this is especially true for Fours, who have spent their lives hearing they are "too much." When the Six insists on being practical or calls attention to the Four's tendency to be driven by their passions, the Four can feel deeply wounded. The Six's desire for predictability and steadiness can be challenging to the relationship since Fours tend to reject being boxed in, limited, and told how to navigate their life. The Four's pursuit of authenticity doesn't always fall in line with the Six's need for consistency.

Type Six & Type Five

Strengths: We are steady, capable, and trustworthy. We have similar worries and fears, but our different approaches bring balance and stability. The Six is stabilized by the Five's steadiness because they can trust their careful research, their cautious approach, and their willingness to think through difficult things. The Six's thoughtfulness, loyalty, and attentiveness all help the Five stay more connected and less isolated. We have a deep comfort in our relationship that allows us to fully be ourselves without fear that we will be overwhelmed.

Weaknesses: Moving forward with a decision can be a challenge for us. The Six's tendency to trust existing rules and procedures can be frustrating for the Five who trusts their own intellect more than they trust others. The Six can get frustrated with the Five's out-of-the-box thinking, and tension may grow as we come to very different conclusions after pondering the same situation. We usually embrace our analytical approaches to life, but when we find ourselves at odds, we might start to pick apart the relationship rather than focusing on the issue at hand.

Type Six & Type Six

Strengths: We are best friends who enjoy mutual safety, trust, and commitment. We get along well, but sometimes it can take a while to establish the deep level of trust necessary for a lasting partnership. Once we've found that trust, nothing can separate us. We love that we are able to relax and have fun together because we know we've got each other's backs. We are able to talk through things easily, and we have a connected, devoted relationship.

Weaknesses: We are both reactive in conflict, and we may say things we don't mean in a heated moment. This can cause a breakdown in the trust we have shared, and once it's gone, it's incredibly difficult to recover. Even though we're both Sixes, we might be really different from one another since Sixes are so varied. This might mean that one of us is bold and aggressive while the other tends to shy away, leading to a cycle of fleeing and chasing. When this happens, the relationship can become guarded and hostile.

Type Six & Type Seven

Strengths: We are kindred souls who play off one another's strengths. The Seven brings fun, lightness, and adventure to the Six's typically careful disposition, while the Six offers stability, light caution, and balance to the Seven's enthusiastic energy. The Seven may feign annoyance with the Six's caution, but deep down, they appreciate that someone has their back (since they believe they have to meet their own needs). The Six loves the Seven's spirit and enjoys their exuberance.

Weaknesses: We both have underlying fears and anxieties, but we cope with them differently. The Six copes by creating structure, stability, systems, and plans as a safety net for their life, while the Seven copes by looking for a spark of energy or magic around them. The Six prefers predictability, so not knowing what to expect from the Seven can be deeply unsettling. The Seven can get tired of the Six's "pessimism" and just wants to relax without being fenced in by rules or other silly considerations.

Type Six & Type Eight

Strengths: We are both deeply loyal. We both tend to be direct in communication, and we like to get everything out on the table. This offers a deep sense of security since we don't have to wonder what the other is thinking. Because Sixes crave safety, the Eight's clarity, decisiveness, and transparency open the door for building trust, and the Eight's protective nature can be comforting for the Six. The Six's warmth and kindness can help the Eight feel embraced and cared for, and we both enjoy having a partner that is dependable. We complement each other well.

Weaknesses: We are both reactive in conflict, and when we don't feel we can trust each other, we avoid showing all our cards. The Six might find the Eight's bullish approach to life off-putting or destabilizing and may revert to self-protection. The Eight might see the Six's questioning, concerns, or alertness as a lack of trust (at which point, the Eight might throw in the towel, especially if they feel they've done everything they can to garner trust). Both may attempt to control the situation, which can cause further division. If the Six is counterphobic, conflicts can become explosive since neither party will back down easily.

Type Six & Type Nine

Strengths: We both desire stability, comfort, and love, and we find that in each other. The Nine can offer the Six a sense of predictability because Nines tend to be steady overall. Their calm demeanor can be stabilizing for the Six, who may be more skeptical and alert to issues overall. The Six's tendency to be more quick-minded and action-oriented can help the Nine be a more active force in their own life. Mutual devotion, loyalty, and shared values are important to us. We can cultivate a deep friendship marked by unity, affection, support, and healthy interdependence.

Weaknesses: In moments of stress, the Six's questioning can feel accusatory to the Nine, while the Nine's withdrawal can feel like abandonment to the Six. In general, Sixes can be reactive in conflict, which can leave the Nine tip-toeing to avoid setting the Six off. Meanwhile, the Nine's reluctance to share their thoughts, express themselves, or deal with conflict can leave the Six feeling like the Nine is not being fully transparent, which can leave the Six suspicious of their motives and doubtful of their connection.

View the image version of this post!

#ninetypesco #steph barron hall #enneagram #enneagram 6 #enneagram types in relationships #text posts

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f1 · 11 months

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Hamilton sees fighting chance to beat Verstappen if he can hold position | 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton says he must “hold position” over Max Verstappen at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix to have any chance of winning today’s race. The Mercedes driver claimed pole position for today’s race by just three thousandths of a second from the championship leader. While they have tended to be quicker in races than in qualifying this year, Hamilton said Verstappen’s performance in Friday practice showed it will be hard to keep Red Bull behind them. “Normally it’s not a bad race car, we tend to have decent race pace,” said Hamilton after qualifying yesterday. “Max’s race pace yesterday was, I think, quite extraordinary. I think they were quite a bit quicker than us. “But if there’s a way to hold position then maybe there’s a fighting chance for us.” Hamilton hadn’t achieved a front row start in a regular qualifying session since the final race of 2021, when he and Verstappen fought for the world championship. “Just even being up there in the top three is new,” he remarked. “We’re going to have a great race, for sure.” Mercedes have only won once since 2021 – courtesy of George Russell in the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix – as they failed to master the technical regulations which were introduced the following season. But Hamilton said he never lost faith that the team would rediscover its form. “Last year we were nowhere,” he said. “There were ups and downs, there was a moment where George was up here, but I don’t think I’ve been on the front row since 2021. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free “I’ve always had belief that someday if we apply ourselves in the right way, we will get there. I guess it was just a question of how long would that be. Analysis: Hamilton has pole but Verstappen’s strongest threat may be behind him “We started this season basically with – I’m not going to say it – but it’s like the twin sister or brother of the previous year’s car. And so I got in it, it felt identical and that was worrying. “So we’ve been on this journey of trying to undo some of the wrong decisions that we’ve taken and it’s taken far longer than we ever hoped it would take. But we’re starting to see those benefits slowly and we’ve still got some big steps that we need to take to really be even more comfortable in the car, to be consistently challenging the front row.” Neither Mercedes driver ran the soft tyre compound on Friday and they ended the day near the bottom of the times sheets. But Hamilton headed the final practice session ahead of qualifying after they made changes to their set-up overnight. “The simulator sometimes feels good, sometimes feels terrible, and then we come to the track and you’re just always hopeful that when you get in, you’ve got somewhat of a decent balance and the car doesn’t feel bad,” he explained. “But nine times out of ten you get in the car and you’re like, damn it, this really feels terrible, the balance is off, front to rear temperatures, there’s always just an imbalance going through corners. “Yesterday just wasn’t great for us, but what we do best is we work hard through the night. The team work hard on the simulator and we get new direction for Saturday. “We made some really great changes to the car, naturally, last night, and it put us in a much better window. So I was then able to just build on that. But as I said, these guys were rapid. It feels great to be up here fighting with these guys.” Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix Browse all 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix articles via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net/

#F1 #Hamilton sees ‘fighting chance’ to beat Verstappen if he can ‘hold position’ | 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix #Formula 1

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wondereads · 1 year

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Personal Review (03/13/23)

Damsel by Evelyn Skye

Summary

The barony of Inophe is a poor one, plagued by drought and a lack of natural resources. Elodie has always been ready to sacrifice whatever would be needed for her people, and it seems almost too good to be true when the wealthy kingdom of Aurea proposes marriage. Turns out it is too good to be true; there's a reason Aurea is so prosperous, and Elodie is about to be sacrificed for the cause.

Plot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This was an interesting take on the classic story of a hero saving a damsel (haha) from a dragon. I liked how much of the story was devoted to Elodie simply surviving. The sisterhood she found in the princesses who had come before her was wonderful, and it worked really well for worldbuilding and plot development even when Elodie is trapped away from everyone.

Unfortunately, it just took way too long to get there. It was around a third of the way through the book before Elodie is even sacrificed. I probably would've been much more involved in the building of tension if it weren't established what happens to her in the summary and on the cover. Getting through those first ~100 pages was a slog. Once I got into it, I was much more into it, but it was mostly the action. There isn't much intrigue in this book, and everything is pretty straightforward. While I definitely liked the 'twist' (you'll be able to predict it a mile off), it isn't explained enough, and the whole ending feels pretty rushed.

There's nothing wrong with simpler stories, and I think the big picture for this book is quite good. Most of my issues with the story could be fixed by allotting maybe 30 pages from the beginning to the ending, and then it'd be much better.

Characters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Elodie is a distinct, likable character. She has a strong personality; her devotion to her people is admirable, and her loyalty comes through well. Her struggles in the cave are compelling to read, and she has complex relationships with multiple characters that go beyond just liking or disliking someone. Her connection to her younger sister, Floria, is sweet, even if it sets unrealistic expectations for sibling relationships.

Elodie's family, which consists of her sister, Floria, her father, Lord Bayford, and her stepmother, Lucinda Bayford, are interesting, particularly Lord and Lady Bayford. I do feel like Elodie's connection with her father could have been explored more, but I loved her and her stepmother. Their relationship wasn't perfect, but them coming to understand each other was great.

The villains, Prince Henry and Queen Isabelle, were potentially interesting characters but ultimately underdeveloped. I would've loved to see more about their motivations, especially Isabelle. Henry was raised in this culture, but Isabelle married in—why did she decide to let it continue?

Writing Style 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

For the most part, this book is written in a way that neither stands out nor falls short. I appreciate the decision to have all the perspectives be women since this book does emphasize that it is all women who are sacrificed, despite that not being necessary. Unfortunately, the different perspectives are pretty similar in terms of voice. The characters are distinctive, but that mostly comes from their actions, not their voice. This is most egregious in Floria and Cora who, despite being much younger than the rest of the cast, speak the same way as them (no nine-year-old is speaking like that).

Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This book touches on and has the potential to go much deeper into the issue of violence against women. Elodie is rightfully furious when she discovers the sacrifices must simply be of royal blood, not specifically princesses, but it doesn't really go much further than that. Why? Why would it have to be princesses? What does it say about this world that so many women disappear and no one notices or that people willingly sell off their daughters like they're valuable objects and nothing more? I feel like the rushed pacing contributes to this; this book just didn't have enough space to properly explore all its possibilities.

Overall 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This book was just pretty average. The big picture of the book was quite good, I really liked Elodie as a main character, and the character relationships were interesting. However, this book falls short in a few different ways. The pacing was too slow in the beginning, and then too fast, not allowing for the characters or message to be explored enough. I must admit, my standards going in were high since I once another book called Damsel dissecting the same sort of story, so I was a little disappointed. A decent read, but really not anything special.

The Author

Evelyn Skye: American, also wrote The Crown's Game and Circle of Shadows

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every week, and I do themed recommendations every once in a while. I take suggestions! Check out my about me post for more!

#books #reviews #damsel #evelyn skye #fantasy #na #dragons #retelling #feminism #survival #no romance #betrayal

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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What Does Our "Motivations” PSA Mean?

@luminalalumini said:

I've been on your blog a lot and it has a lot of really insightful information, but I notice a theme with some of your answers where you ask the writer reaching out what their 'motivation for making a character a certain [race/religion/ethnicity/nationality] is' and it's discouraging to see, because it seems like you're automatically assigning the writer some sort of ulterior motive that must be sniffed out and identified before the writer can get any tips or guidance for their question. Can't the 'motive' simply be having/wanting to have diversity in one's work? Must there be an 'ulterior motive'? I can understand that there's a lot of stigma and stereotypes and bad influence that might lead to someone trynna add marginalized groups into their stories for wrong reasons, but people that have those bad intentions certainly won't be asking for advice on how to write good representation in the first place. Idk its just been something that seemed really discouraging to me to reach out myself, knowing i'll automatically be assigned ulterior motives that i don't have and will probably have to justify why i want to add diversity to my story as if i'm comitting some sort of crime. I don't expect you guys to change your blog or respond to this or even care all that much, I'm probably just ranting into a void. I'm just curious if theres any reason to this that I haven't realized exists I suppose. I don't want y'all to take this the wrong way because I do actually love and enjoy your blog's advice in spite of my dumb griping. Cheers :))

We assume this is in reference to the following PSA:

PSA to all of our users - Motivation Matters: This lack of clarity w/r to intent has been a general issue with many recent questions. Please remember that if you don’t explain your motivations and what you intend to communicate to your audience with your plot choices, character attributes, world-building etc., we cannot effectively advise you beyond the information you provide. We Are Not Mind Readers. If, when drafting these questions, you realize you can’t explain your motivations, that is likely a hint that you need to think more on the rationales for your narrative decisions. My recommendation is to read our archives and articles on similar topics for inspiration while you think. I will be attaching this PSA to all asks with similar issues until the volume of such questions declines.

We have answered this in three parts.

1. Of Paved Roads and Good Intentions

Allow me to give you a personal story, in solidarity towards your feelings:

When I began writing in South Asia as an outsider, specifically in the Kashmir and Lahore areas, I was doing it out of respect for the cultures I had grown up around. I did kathak dance, I grew up on immigrant-cooked North Indian food, my babysitters were Indian. I loved Mughal society, and every detail of learning about it just made me want more. The minute you told me fantasy could be outside of Europe, I hopped into the Mughal world with two feet. I was 13. I am now 28.

And had you asked me, as a teenager, what my motives were in giving my characters’ love interests blue or green eyes, one of them blond hair, my MC having red-tinted brown hair that was very emphasized, and a whole bunch of paler skinned people, I would have told you my motives were “to represent the diversity of the region.”

I’m sure readers of the blog will spot the really, really toxic and colourist tropes present in my choices. If you’re new here, then the summary is: giving brown people “unique” coloured eyes and hair that lines up with Eurocentric beauty standards is an orientalist trope that needs to be interrogated in your writing. And favouring pale skinned people is colourist, full stop.

Did that make me a bad person with super sneaky ulterior motives who wanted to write bad representation? No.

It made me an ignorant kid from the mostly-white suburbs who grew up with media that said brown people had to “look unique” (read: look as European as possible) to be considered valuable.

And this is where it is important to remember that motives can be pure as you want, but you were still taught all of the terrible stuff that is present in society. Which means you’re going to perpetuate it unless you stop and actually question what is under your conscious motive, and work to unlearn it. Work that will never be complete.

I know it sounds scary and judgemental (and it’s one of the reasons we allow people to ask to be anonymous, for people who are afraid). Honestly, I would’ve reacted much the same as a younger writer, had you told me I was perpetuating bad things. I was trying to do good and my motives were pure, after all! But after a few years, I realized that I had fallen short, and I had a lot more to learn in order for my motives to match my impact. Part of our job at WWC is to attempt to close that gap.

We aren’t giving judgement, when we ask questions about why you want to do certain things. We are asking you to look at the structural underpinnings of your mind and question why those traits felt natural together, and, more specifically, why those traits felt natural to give to a protagonist or other major character.

I still have blond, blue-eyed characters with sandy coloured skin. I still have green-eyed characters. Because teenage me was right, that is part of the region. But by interrogating my motive, I was able to devalue those traits within the narrative, and I stopped making those traits shorthand for “this is the person you should root for.”

It opened up room for me to be messier with my characters of colour, even the ones who my teenage self would have deemed “extra special.” Because the European-associated traits (pale hair, not-brown-eyes) stopped being special. After years of questioning, they started lining up with my motive of just being part of the diversity of the region.

Motive is important, both in the conscious and the subconscious. It’s not a judgement and it’s not assumed to be evil. It’s simply assumed to be unquestioned, so we ask that you question it and really examine your own biases.

~Mod Lesya

2. Motivations Aren't Always "Ulterior"

You can have a positive motivation or a neutral one or a negative one. Just wanting to have diversity only means your characters aren't all white and straight and cis and able-bodied -- it doesn't explain why you decided to make this specific character specifically bi and specifically Jewish (it me). Yes, sometimes it might be completely random! But it also might be "well, my crush is Costa Rican, so I gave the love interest the same background", or "I set it in X City where the predominant marginalized ethnicity is Y, so they are Y". Neither of these count as ulterior motives. But let's say for a second that you did accidentally catch yourself doing an "ulterior." Isn't that the point of the blog, to help you find those spots and clean them up?

Try thinking of it as “finding things that need adjusting” rather than “things that are bad” and it might get less scary to realize that we all do them, subconsciously. Representation that could use some work is often the product of subconscious bias, not deliberate misrepresentation, so there's every possibility that someone who wants to improve and do better didn't do it perfectly the first time.

--Shira

3. Dress-Making as a Metaphor

I want to echo Lesya’s sentiments here but also provide a more logistical perspective. If you check the rubber stamp guide here and the “Motivation matters” PSA above, you’ll notice that concerns with respect to asker motivation are for the purposes of providing the most relevant answer possible.

It is a lot like if someone walks into a dressmaker’s shop and asks for a blue dress/ suit (Back when getting custom-made clothes was more of a thing) . The seamstress/ tailor is likely to ask a wide variety of questions:

What material do you want the outfit to be made of?

Where do you plan to wear it?

What do you want to highlight?

How do you want to feel when you wear it?

Let’s say our theoretical customer is in England during the 1920s. A tartan walking dress/ flannel suit for the winter is not the same as a periwinkle, beaded, organza ensemble/ navy pinstripe for formal dress in the summer. When we ask for motivations, we are often asking for exactly that: the specific reasons for your inquiry so we may pinpoint the most pertinent information.

The consistent problem for many of the askers who receive the PSA is they haven’t even done the level of research necessary to know what they want to ask of us. It would be like if our English customer in the 1920s responded, “IDK, some kind of blue thing.” Even worse, WWC doesn’t have the luxury of the back-and-forth between a dressmaker and their clientele. If our asker doesn’t communicate all the information they need in mind at the time of submission, we can only say, “Well, I’m not sure if this is right, but here’s something. I hope it works, but if you had told us more, we could have done a more thorough job.”

Answering questions without context is hard, and asking for motivations, by which I mean the narratives, themes, character arcs and other literary devices that you are looking to incorporate, is the best way for us to help you, while also helping you to determine if your understanding of the problem will benefit from outside input. Because these asks are published with the goal of helping individuals with similar questions, the PSA also serves to prompt other users.

I note that asking questions is a skill, and we all start by asking the most basic questions (Not stupid questions, because to quote a dear professor, “There are no stupid questions.”). Unfortunately, WWC is not suited for the most basic questions. To this effect, we have a very helpful FAQ and archive as a starting point. Once you have used our website to answer the more basic questions, you are more ready to approach writing with diversity and decide when we can actually be of service. This is why we are so adamant that people read the FAQ. Yes, it helps us, but it also is there to save you time and spare you the ambiguity of not even knowing where to start.

The anxiety in your ask conveys to me a fear of being judged for asking questions. That fear is not something we can help you with, other than to wholeheartedly reassure you that we do not spend our unpaid, free time answering these questions in order to assume motives we can’t confirm or sit in judgment of our users who, as you say, are just trying to do better.

Yes, I am often frustrated when an asker’s question makes it clear they haven’t read the FAQ or archives. I’ve also been upset when uncivil commenters have indicated that my efforts and contributions are not worth their consideration. However, even the most tactless question has never made me think, “Ooh this person is such a naughty racist. Let me laugh at them for being a naughty racist. Let me shame them for being a naughty racist. Mwahaha.”

What kind of sad person has time for that?*

Racism is structural. It takes time to unlearn, especially if you’re in an environment that doesn’t facilitate that process to begin with. Our first priority is to help while also preserving our own boundaries and well-being. Though I am well aware of the levels of toxic gas-lighting and virtue signaling that can be found in various corners of online writing communities in the name of “progressivism*”, WWC is not that kind of space. This space is for discussions held in good faith: for us to understand each other better, rather than for one of us to “win” and another to “lose.”

Just as we have good faith that you are doing your best, we ask that you have faith that we are trying to do our best by you and the BIPOC communities we represent.

- Marika.

*If you are in any writing or social media circles that feed these anxieties or demonstrate these behaviors, I advise you to curtail your time with them and focus on your own growth. You will find, over time, that it is easier to think clearly when you are worrying less about trying to appease people who set the bar of approval so high just for the enjoyment of watching you jump. “Internet hygiene”, as I like to call it, begins with you and the boundaries you set with those you interact with online.

#PSAs #asker concerns #diversity #motivations in writing #writing with diversity #blog housekeeping #internet hygeine #asks #WWC

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dededaio · 2 years

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Kirby Light Novels Retrospective (Part 1)

Early-installment Weirdness Era.

I sure hope this won't die after part 1!!!

Kirby novels. This weird, weird thing that exists and recently started getting more and more traction among western Kirby fanbase. Despite the series starting in 2013, it didn't get popular (or even translated) in english (at least via fan efforts) until mid-2020. Ever since then, novels started to become essentially our bread and butter during times where HAL wasn't willing to share any game news coming up.

Kirby novels have a lot of great qualities and interesting stuff going on that I would love to dissect. In this retrospective I decided to look over novels in chronological order.

At their best, Kirby Light Novels is genuinely great series of family-friendly books that take it's target audience actually seriously and provide entertaining character writing with engaging world-building and consistent continuity.

At their worst... Well. You'll see.

There's a reason that novels caught the eye of western fans only years later after they first started coming out. And the reason for that being that early novels... Especially the first two are... Rough around the edges, to put it lightly. Let's dive into them then, shall we?

1. The Dangerous Gourmet Mansion (2013)

Score: 2/5.

After 00s which was a fairly rough decade for Kirby, franchise started to expand again in early 10s in Japan after few successful game titles in a row. Super Star Ultra (which was at the time the fastest-selling Kirby game upon launch in Japan specifically), Kirby's Epic Yarn, Return to Dream Land: all notable titles that started redefining Kirby as a Nintendo game series force to be reckoned with. So naturally, a series of light novels launched in 2013. What, it seems random to you? It shouldn't, since light novels based on videogames is fairly common Japanese practice. What is peculiar is that barely any *platformer* series get such luxury.

If you go looking for Mario or Sonic light novels you won't find any, trust me, I looked.

So why Kirby? If I were to assume it's kind of match made in heaven if you think about it. Epic Yarn introduced storybook "motif" into the series, it's full of colorful memorable characters full of personality and fairy-tale like setting that lands itself perfectly to children's book series.

The Mysterious Gourmet Mansion and all novels afterwards were written by Mie Takase. A veteran writer, who worked on many various light novels (including videogame adaptations like Shin Megami Tensei, Ace Attorney, Persona 2 etc) as well as stuff like horror-stories.

In hindsight, it seems like a bit of a random choice, because from my research of her bibliography, she never really wrote anything so specifically children-oriented before. But perhaps her skill and reputation was the reason she was taken for the job. And I mean, hey! This series still goes strong, nearly 10 years later, so it was probably a good choice in the long run.

Doesn't mean that this series didn't need a bit of time before coming into it's own however.

I won't be afraid to say that The Dangerous Gourmet Mansion is kind of. Bad.

Going back to this novel after all the ones that come much later was honestly a trip in itself. It's been almost 2 years since I first read this one so I had memories of few "iconic" moments, but otherwise, I mostly forgot a lot of details. And oh boy, there's a REASON why I forgot a lot of details.

Plot of this novel is remarkably simple --

A rich lady called Mrs. Parfaitski (or how she was "localized" in currently available fan-translation, Mrs. Pairfaitlike) moves to Dream Land and announced a party dedicated to her birthday with a huge feast with a ton of delicious food.

Obviously, Kirby and King Dedede, being huge gluttons they are, want to get to said party, but since the only way to get there is through invitations and neither of them got any, the only way they could get there would be through becoming Meta Knight's "partner", who conveniently got such invitation which can also bring one other person...

Obviously, this leads to Kirby and Dedede stacking together and pretending to be a different person entirely, a woman called Dedeby.

This plan works well (to huge dismay of Meta Knight who got greatly embarrassed during the party due to "Dedeby"), until a conspiracy starts to rear it's head with Chef Kawasaki going missing.

Right off the bat, plot of this novel is super messy. It's a lot of different elements that just don't go well together.

I didn't mention it in my general overview of the story, but novel doesn't jump straight to Meta Knight having invitation, no, first 3 chapters or so are focused on pointless sub-plot of Kirby trying to become one of Parfaitski's chefs to get to the party.

It's a very useless plotline because it does nothing to progress the story nor it does anything to tell us about the characters. Kirby being food-obsessed fanatic who isn't "picky" about what he eats or makes and Waddle Dee being neurotic cautious friend is a dynamic that was apparent ever since their very first interaction in the novel. There was literally No Need for this plotline to happen.

You can argue that this portion of the book exists to establish Kirby and his abilities to new readers. But considering Dedede and Meta Knight for the rest of the book are literally just... There. They don't use any of their fighting skills (hell, I don't think Galaxia even shows up on any of the illustrations until 4th novel, though I might be wrong on that) through out or anything, this argument seems moot since it's not like novel goes out of it's way to establish abilities of every character. Kirby himself demonstrates copy ability in the latter portion of the story where it actually has relevance, which makes this "introductory" portion even more redundant.

One third of the book is essentially filler until Meta Knight comes and SOME semblance of the plot started to get going.

Now, don't get me wrong, Dedeby sub-plot is probably the most entertaining part of the novel, partially due to overall absurdity of the idea of Kirby and Dedede cross-dressing together, but it is, also, is quite useless in grand scheme of things, considering both of them discard this disguise midway through, it never gets brought up again nor it impacts their characterization going forward (it doesn't make them bond or grow together as a team).

Nothing would change if there was some other way they could sneak to the party or even if Meta Knight could just take both of them from the start no problem. It all feels like padding because the actual plot of this novel been resolved in literally 3 chapters. Even then I would argue it didn't need to be 3 chapters since there was a lot of unnecessary fake-outs and build-up towards Wheelie and Lord Kibble being actual "bad guys" of the story, despite Parfaitski being the villain is incredibly obvious twist at this point.

Considering she's just a stuck-up rich lady, she doesn't really have any combat skills, so the actual climax of the story is our good old trio of Kirby, Meta Knight and Dedede arguing with her on why her locking up chefs in the secret rooms in her mansion forever (which is honestly kind of messed up when you think about it) is bad and it's. Very interesting way to handle third act of the story.

The way it actually resolves is also very interesting. Kirby uses mike ability to sing a song and "change Parfaitski's mind" but all he ends up doing is sing nonsense very loudly to the point of causing this woman to have a breakdown which they read as her having "remorse" for her actions. Mind you, other than that, they don't hold her accountable. Like, even if she freed all of the chefs, she's like... Not gonna face any further punishment? No? Alright, then, book.

It's such. Weird resolution. I guess it's supposed to be comedic subversion or something, but it didn't really work for me.

But honestly. Weird plot with weird pacing is not the main reason I dislike this novel. Main reason I dislike it is characterization.

Kirby and King Dedede in this novel are awful.

And I mean it.

Kirby has essentially no personality in this novel outside of loving food. None of his noble heroic, compassionate qualities are demonstrated. All his actions are motivated by food. And it genuinely gets grating after a while. It seems like only point of reference for Kirby's characterization Mie had while writing earlier novels was Squeak Squad, because I swear to god.

There was not a single action in this story that Kirby did that wasn't motivated by food somehow. It's so one-note and the running gag of him being carried away and mishearing everything and starting mumbling about food gets grating as well. This running gag actually reappears in future novels, but the reason it works there, while it doesn't work here, is because "Kirby loves food" is the only character trait he has here, while in the future he gets much more fleshed out and becomes more believable character in the process.

Now, King Dedede. OH KING DEDEDE. King Dedede in this and few following novels is essentially "Anime Dedede Lite". Despite having a passage in the very first chapter about how he has "empathy" and "manly traits", he demonstrates none of them in this novel and in fact won't demonstrate any of these qualities until at least the third one. Here he has little to no redeeming qualities, ALSO can't shut up about food and not taken seriously by anyone, not even his subordinate Waddle Dee.

Speaking of which, he is awful to Waddle Dee. I assume that Mie is genuinely been taking inspiration from anime while characterizing Dedede (because, look what's on the cover here?)

Anime Castle Dedede. Y E A H.

And what do I mean by being awful to Waddle Dee? He quite literally physically abuses and insults him a few times in this novel? Like, what in the actual fuck, pardon my French?

Anime Dedede's treatment of Escargoon was already pretty questionable, but at the very least they were both adults. While Waddle Dee's age was never really stated, in this novel and all novels that will come later, he's essentially treated as a kid, the same age group as Kirby himself.

Which essentially means, that this Dedede literally kicks around a kid who does nothing but pampers him even if he doesn't really deserve it here.

This is actually so wildly out of character for Novel Dedede, I forgot this was ever a thing, so when I reached the part when it actually happened I had a huge whiplash. At this point I wouldn't doubt that this novel is not even considered to be a part of novel's "canon" due to how weird and out of place many of it's writing decisions are.

Waddle Dee in general is treated pretty terribly here, he's basically only genuinely likeable character in the novel, gets no respect and kicked around AND shafted for majority of this novel, basically vanishing after 4th chapter until the very end, missing from the part of the book that actually tackles the story.

Other somewhat tolerable character is Meta Knight, who acts as a straight man of the group alongside Waddle Dee. But while he is tolerable, I can't say I particularly enjoy the way he was written here either. It's not bad, it's just kinda. Vanilla? Anime influence showing.

Novel's new character, Mrs. Parfaitski left no impression on me except for out of place resolution of her "conflict".

But with how much I berated this novel, is there anything I enjoyed about it? Even though writing and characterization in this book ranges from mediocre to annoying, there are some genuinely amusing bits of character interaction here and there shining through.

Kirby and Waddle Dee's friendship is genuinely sweet and pretty pure (for the most part) as early as this novel and will continue being one of this series' highlights

Look at them... Babies...

When Meta Knight comes into picture, I must admit, preparation for "Dedeby" and banter between Kirby, Meta Knight and King Dedede genuinely can get pretty amusing at times.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

These are the moments that showed potential of Mie's writing. It felt like she genuinely enjoyed herself writing these characters interactions when they didn't involve mean-spirited bickering every 5 seconds or forced jokes about how much they love food.

Ultimately, this novel didn't age the best exactly.

2. The Big Panic in Gloomy Woods! (2014)

Score: 2/5.

First novel was very rough around the edges. But that's what sequels are for, right? To iron them out, to focus on the aspects that worked, to throw aspects that didn't work... Yeah, this novel didn't really do that.

Well, and did and did not at the same time. Quick summary time.

The band of frog kids that want to become "the more vile villains in the universe" decide to use Kirby's powers to get to the tastiest fruit in the universe in the Gloomy Woods all to themselves. Problem being that they don't know how Kirby looks like... So they confuse Dedede for him (since their characteristics of being very round and gluttonous are very similar). Dedede wanting to get to said tastiest fruit pretends to be Kirby.

This doesn't last very long however, as the ruse gets exposed and he gets split up from the rest of the cast, which makes him meet up with shady fellow who presents himself as the wood keeper and confusing Dedede for "a hero" wants to use his strength to get to "the starlight fruit" and mysterious "starlight crystal".

Let's start with the improvements from the last time, plot this time a bit more coherent. It still has quite useless elements, but not as much as the last novel and most of them feel like they justify certain plot-points more or less well. Climax in this novel also feels actually... Climactic instead of whatever was in the previous novel, which is also a plus.

Genuinely raw illustration.

My main issue with the plot of this novel is that, considering it came out in 2014, it's essentially a tie-in to Kirby Triple Deluxe. But unlike all following novels which actually *adapt* videogame stories into novel format, this one just... Takes broad strokes of Triple Deluxe's plot and "babyfies" it.

- Kirby and Dedede get mixed up because of them being "similar".

- Dedede is confused for a hero by a main antagonist and uses him to achieve his goals (even organizing a "fight" between him and Kirby, however not through possession, but misunderstanding, because Novel Dedede at this point in time is still asshole and dumbass)

- Setting overall is nature-themed (forest and shit)

- Debut of Bell Copy Ability and Ringle

- There is miracle fruit and hypernova involved in the climax

Which on one hand helps the plot of this one feel more coherent, but on other hand it feels frustrating that instead of just straight up adapting the plot of the game (which would help rerail certain characterizations like Dedede or Kirby) they decided to do this weird roundabout approach. Another reason why I believe Mie didn't think much of these novels at first and treated them purely as books for very little kids, knowing the lengths she will go while adapting some of the later game stories.

Majority of my complaints with previous novel also still stand.

Kirby is still characterized as food-obsessed brat who doesn't do anything out of goodness of his heart but just because FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD. He is not concerned that Waddle Dee is worried for King Dedede, he is not worried for the fate of so-called "stardust crystal", he does everything in this novel only for the sake of food. And it's genuinely, so, so, SO grating.

In this sense, it's even worse than the first novel, because first novel at the very least was very low-stakes slice-of-life sort of deal. This one attempts to to tell more "adventurous" story and it doesn't really work all that well. Not only because a lot of the story is meandering around these woods with no memorable setpieces/scenes to break up the pace, it's also because none of the characters have any "heroic" motivations per say, except Waddle Dee, of course, who keeps being only likeable characters in these books for now.

King Dedede's characterization once more suffers from the same issue as the last novel, so I don't have as much to say on it here. Admittedly he's slightly *less* insufferable than in the last novel, but it's probably purely because he gets less spotlight than Kirby this time.

Meta Knight in this one feels even more like his anime counterpart, because he essentially doesn't do anything except for dumping exposition about Gloomy Woods and the stardust fruit. Once again he doesn't do anything fighting, but at least he brought his sword with him this time, I guess.

Now, what about this novel's original characters? There's much more of them than in the last novel, after all.

Honestly, I genuinely have nothing to say about them. Their designs are... alright, I guess, the wood keeper looks like Magolor rip-off while frog kids look like Kirby anime OCs rejects.

Issue with them as characters, is that there is too much of them for this kind of story. They all kinda blend together. I don't really recall personalities any of the frog kids and all I can say about them is that they went through "redemption arc" before they could even do anything of their own agency as characters, while wood-keeper is genuinely just. Magolor-lite. Pretends to be a good dude, but lies through his teeth and wants some sort of artifact.

Only lacks any of Magolor's charisma or personality that made him such iconic character to begin with. Fairly mediocre cast all things considered and I don't see the reason why there needed to be so many new characters introduced at once.

This novel feels more competently made than the first one, but it doesn't go above it too much in terms of quality. It often faces the same faults and got a few of it's own (like being fairly poor tie-in into then recent videogame).

Though, honestly, I think I might prefer the first one over this. Why, you might say? Well... First one might be very bizarre and have unlikeable mean-spirited characterization of the cast, the fact that it's SO WEIRD makes it very memorable and it has genuinely funny character interactions at times.

This one didn't really make me smile one bit and it being more straightforward in terms of the story just made it more boring in the result. It being slightly more competent kinda removed "so bad it's good" factor first novel had going for it, so it ends just being "eh".

Ultimately, what it comes down to it, both novels aren't awful. But they are very mediocre kids books with nothing special about them.

I can see the target audience getting the kick out of them and they probably did, considering that series continued way past those two. But again, issue lies that this novel series itself proved that it can be much more than this. It can be more than mediocre kids books that sell you with colorful cover-art and familiar characters. They can be genuinely great stories with great characters that give you insight on the side of Kirby's universe you wouldn't get in the games.

But these novels don't really give you that, which is a shame. However, I'm glad that they exists. Because thanks to these two novels being a success, we have all actually good novels to read and enjoy, where all potential that shined here and there in these novels finally got to be fully realized.

However, there's really little reason to go back to this one unless you really want to read entire series through. It might just give you wrong impression and discourage you from trying reading out future installments. I recommend going back to these ones only AFTER you got into the novel series, just to see these humble roots of what became one of the most long-running tie-in Kirby series.

And to laugh at Meta Knight Blimp.

#kirby #king dedede #meta knight #waddle dee #kirby light novels #kirby light novels retrospective #gosh this is a LOT lmao #longpost

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thesunicarusfellfor · 3 years

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Hello!! Do you think you could do a part 2 of my request? An maybe a lil bit of angst with fluff where the reader comes to the mansion crying because someone hurt them?( Maybe techno or dream? Possibly jack manifold? 👀) Hopefully that's ok I just love the way you write it's so good plus it makes my day whever I read :D hopefully your day or evening is going good

imhereforfan-fic : Omg can you do another yandere tubbo x reader x yandere ranboo romantic relationship please? Maybe where they get kidnapped by the dream team? Oh and adding on to my request can it also have some cuddling towards the end haha I’m touch starved and crap lol but can it a full length fic Okay okay okay. So. I'm so damn happy people loved this fic and I got two requests that I can easily add together. I hope neither of you minds too much having your requests mixed together ^^ I deadass wanna cry from how many positive reviews I've received from Too Sweet. ALSO. I'm a little wary of making romantic fics for characters Ranboo and Tubbo so I'm gonna play with the platonic marriage, just making it really fluffy and affectionate. PS: THIS ISNT AS FLUFFY AS I WANTED IT TO BE SOOOO OOOOPS. AAAAND. TOMMY ONLY TOOK ONE OF DREAM'S LIVES IN THE FINAL DISC WAR

LIKELY TO HAVE MANY ERRORS DUE TO BAD WIFI AND LACK OF SLEEP TW: Knives (+injuries that come from knives), kidnapping, taking of canon lives, Dream being power-hungry, minor panic attack, referenced strangulation.

Part One

Too Sweet (For This World) Yandere!C!Ranboo x F!Reader x Yandere!C!Tubbo Part 2

A few months had passed since you had moved into the mansion and some... How ended up involved in Ranboo and Tubbo's marriage, as well as being Michael's mother. At first, you were quite unsure about being a wife or a mother, but you saw how happy you had made the three boys and realized how happy they made you in return. In the beginning, neither of them wanted you leaving the mansion much without either of them, but then Ranboo started to notice small and minor declines in your physical and mental health. This caused him to panic and study your symptoms for a few days straight, to the point where you didn't see him once and you were genuinely scared he had lost his canon lives to the point where you kept checking your right wrist constantly for the message confirming Ranboo's death. But thankfully you never got it. When he had figured out what was causing your health to be less than absolutely perfect, he had spoken to Tubbo about letting you out of your room more often and getting you the sunlight you needed. It took a little bit to convince him, but once the goat hybrid learned that you could, or even would, become a lot sicker, he decided to allow you to go outside without them, as long as you stayed within Snowchester. You met a man the first few days you were out, who wore white glasses with blue and red lenses, and a headset with a mic, although he ran away from you the second you introduced yourself as Ranboo and Tubbo's (platonic) wife. Foolish had quickly become your friend around the same time though, which caused Tubbo and Ranboo to be a little unsure because of how he made you laugh and smile, but they noticed how you always kept him at arm's length with friendship and almost physically. Sure you didn't mind too much when he gave you a friendly side hug or pat on the head etc, but you were never really the one to initiate the contact unless you had to. Thankfully he didn't mind your awkwardness around strangers, trust issues, or lack of social exposure, so Ranboo and Tubbo didn't have to threaten a literal god. After saying goodbye to Michael for the day and putting him down for his nap, you got dressed into something more appropriate for travelling the snowy lands that Tubbo owned. Ranboo had to go to a Syndicate meeting, and Tubbo was working more on some buildings around Snowchester, saying something about prepping things to attack Dream who apparently escaped from prison? Not sure could've been rumoured or could be true? You had no clue honestly. You trusted Ranboo and Tubbo to protect you. The crackling of a few pine branches caused you to lift your eyes from the icy water below to turn your head. Walking out of the bushes were three men and one woman, pushing their way through the branches decorated with freshly fallen snow. One of the men was your crown-wearing platonic husband, although dressed up in an outfit you had never seen before, although not too far off from his normal get-up. Ranboo had a long black cape with golden edges and a high collar, held up together by a golden chain. His vest was now a deep royal purple with an eye of ender pin clasped on his tie, and his pants were half purple half black with golden designs sewn in. Beside him was a short female with shoulder-length pink hair and nicely done dark purple and black makeup. Her outfit consisted of a thick and warm lavender sweater with dark purple pants. On her hip was an enchanted netherite sword with a diamond-encrusted handle. You were quick to recognize her as Niki Nihachu, the baker who had lived in L'Manberg, but you hadn't heard much of her since the Pogtopia war. Off to the side, was a man you recognized easily as you had only seen him a few days ago when Ranboo invited him to see Michael, Philza Minecraft. His outfit wasn't too different from what he used to wear when he was a resident in the country, except for the black and gold cape and a black mask covering the bottom of his face. Then... The sight of the final male was the one to make you visibly react. A tall and buff male with a golden encrusted netherite

chest plate and a velvet red cape with gold accents as well. There was a rather majestic crown on top of his long braided pink hair and his dark eyes were narrowed behind a set of cracked glasses... His gaze pointing directly at you. Technoblade. Giving a shaky gasp, you stood up from your spot on the edge of the dock and turned to face the visitors. "Where's Tubbo," Techno growled softly, watching as you visibly trembled under his gaze. "Techno, mate. You're scarin' the hell outta her." Phil put his hand on his middle son's shoulder before stepping in front of him, blocking him from your gaze. "Hey, (Y/n), can you tell us where Tubbo is? We just have to ask him some things." "I'm here." An almost unfamiliar voice came from beside you before a hand was placed on your shoulder. When you looked over, you saw the goat hybrid with the coldest look you had seen him wear yet. "(Y/n), please, head into the mansion." Without another glance at the piglin hybrid, you quickly scurried towards the wooden mansion, faintly hearing the worried buzzing noises of your enderman husband in the distance before you slammed the large door shut. You almost ran towards your's or Michael's room in the basement, but then realized if any of them saw you heading down there, Michael's safety could be compromised. So, you quietly sat down in the living room and curled up on the couch, trying to keep your breathing stable as you fought to keep your mind off of the fact that the man who had almost killed you was standing a few feet outside the door of your home. You pinched your eyes shut and wrapped your arms around yourself, trying your best to simulate the hugs you would usually receive from your platonic husbands after a nightmare or a panic attack. ".../n)." "../n)!" "...(Y/n)!" With a terrified gasp, you flung your arms above your head to shield yourself from any oncoming attacker but only felt a gentle touch on your knee. It took a few seconds to muster up your courage, but you slowly brought your arms down and opened your eyes to come face to face with Tubbo, who immediately sat beside you and wrapped his arms around your shaking frame. After an hour or so with your face buried into Tubbo's shoulder, you felt another pair of arms wrap around you, causing you to look up and see Ranboo burying his face into your hair, "I'm so sorry... So sorry... I didn't think they would come to Snowchester..." You murmured a small, "it's okay," to him as you sat up a bit to return the hug for a few moments. Tubbo got up, murmuring something about going to get you a snack and a glass of water, knowing you must've been hungry or thirsty from panicking. After a few moments, Ranboo let go of you and briefly explained that Phil had given him some potions to help Michael adapt to the overworld, and he needed to give them to him. He rested his forehead against yours affectionately for a few seconds before turning towards the bookshelf and walking down the set of hidden stairs after opening the secret door. Once he shut it, you shuddered and rubbed your arms to get rid of the cold chill that had suddenly washed over you. Frowning slightly, you looked around for the source of the sudden cold, only to freeze as you saw the door cracked open, allowing the snow and cold wind to slip in. Ranboo wouldn't have left the door open... "Sorry kid." A deep and growly voice came from behind you, causing you to spin around and come face to face with Technoblade. The tall tusked male watched your expression go from confusion to horror in less than seconds, "It's nothing personal. Really. I just got a favour to pay off." A scream of terror escaped your lips before everything went black. "Hey, Michael!" Ranboo crouched down to greet the small zombie piglin child as he held a few potions of varying colours in his long arms, he set them and a thermos filled with a hot drink down on the table. "I got some new drinks for you to try today! Philza made them a little extra sweeter than last time." The small child squealed and made small tippy tap noises with his

hooves against the quartz flooring before he sat on the chair. He watched as his tall father sorted through the bottles carefully before uncorking one of the light red ones. Before he could pick up the small pipette, there was an almost unearthly shriek that came from the top of the stairs. "(Y/n)!" Ranboo screamed, unintentionally startling Michael, but that wasn't his main concern as he sprinted out the door then teleporting up the stairs and pushing the bookshelf door with his sword drawn and gleaming with enchantments. In his peripheral vision, he saw Tubbo dash out of the kitchen with his axe drawn and bloodlust in his eyes. Glancing around, the only thing the two men spotted was moonlight and snow spilling through the open door. Tubbo ran out without a second thought and screamed your name at the top of his lungs as he spun around, searching for any sort of sign that would give away your location. Ranboo decided to start looking around the mansion, even though part of him grasped that you wouldn't have screamed without reason. "She's gone..." Tubbo whispered, standing in the doorway, the moonlight creating a dark shadow over his wide eyes. "Footprints are leading to and away from the house, but they disappear on the docks..." Ranboo stayed still, a violent growling noise bubbling up in his throat before escaping past his lips as both his eyes turned purple. He threw his head back and took a breath to scream all his anger out, but froze upon hearing sad whimpering. He turned his head and saw Michael standing at the top of the hidden stairs, whimpering and shaking quite violently. There was part of Ranboo that refused to move, but his brain seemed to flick onto autopilot as he walked over to the child and picked him up. "Sorry... Michael... Something happened..." "Mama?" "...Mama... Won't be home for a while..." "Wake up!" A voice growled before something sharply came in contact with your cheek, shaking you awake. Your eyes shot open and came into contact with... A smiley face? "Aha... Sleeping Beauty graces us with her gaze. It's about damn time." A harsh grip landed on your jaw, making you realize there was a dull throbbing pain in your head. "Huh... Dre... Dream..?" You whispered, barely recognizing the white mask that helped destroy your home and turn it into nothing but a crater. "W-What?" His mask was lifted up enough to the point where you could see his mouth curved up into a sadistic smile. "You, my darling pawn, are just the piece I needed to make life easier for me... I just need to raise the stakes enough for them to be... Well... Stakes. I'm sure you understand." You went to move your hand to slap the gloved hand away from your face, only to give a small whine of pain as you felt a tight pinching on your wrists, making you realize that they were shackled together and likely chained to a wall. "What are you talking about you psychop- Ah!" He tightened his grip on your face to the point where you knew there would eventually be dark bruising. "I don't think you're in a position to be calling the king any names, pawn." Screams and shrieks of pain bounced off of the blank stone walls as the two people standing outside of the door put their heads down with their eyes closed. "You still sure he's doing the right thing, George? Are you still sure... He's the good guy in this story?" "You know better than to question him, Nick." "Don't call me that."

(Y/n) (L/n) was slain by Dream using Nightmare. Life: 2/3 (Y/n) (L/n) suffocated while trying to fend off Dream. Life: 1/3

"He just took two of an innocent woman's three lives. Just to use her as a hostage to make Tubbo hand over the nukes and to force Ranboo to follow his orders... He's a stranger, George. This isn't Dream anymore... Don't be stupid." Sapnap lowered his right arm that he read the messages off of and looked in the direction of his former best friend. The screams of agony were almost haunting as they echoed through Snowchester as silence fell down upon the entire Dream SMP. Shock slipped through the veins of everyone who read the message that appeared on their right wrists. - "I'm gonna kill him..." "I'm going to activate the nukes..." - "Techno... What did you do." "I owed him a favour. What he does after that is none of my business." - "...Isn't that Tubbo and Ranboo's wife?" "Yeah... She was my friend..." - "Tubbo's definitely not happy about this..." - "Ah... Atta girl..." Dream murmured in a mock soothing voice as he gently dragged his knife threateningly along your cheek. "Y'know... You would look better... With a smile." He leaned closer to you, the drawn-on eyes of his mask staring into your dull and tear-filled eyes as a stinging pain came from the corner of your lips. "Sh, sh, Relax... They're just shallow cuts, they won't even leave a scar. I'm not a monster." Time had passed quickly, but also excruciatingly slowly. You had no clue how long you had been down here, or how long you had been dead in between respawns. Dream just didn't seem to be leaving you alone. "Now..." He flipped the switchblade closed and threw it in his pocket before tremours shook the earth below and around you. "What the fUCK?!" He growled deeply before the door slammed open. "How did they even find this place!?" The door was blown off its hinges with a loud bang, causing Dream to duck out of the way of the flying piece of scrap. Light flooded into the room as you shut your eyes tightly, your ears ringing from the explosion. Once your eyes got a little bit adjusted, you opened them and saw five figures in the newly widened doorway. "Let's just say... It was an anonymous tip." "Sapnap?! You dare betray me?!" The black-haired male fell silent as he turned around and walked out, putting his hand on the shoulder of the tallest silhouette in the doorway as he walked by. Once you got completely used to the new light, you began to recognize the figures. Tommy, Tubbo, Foolish, and Ranboo. Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo immediately ran forward and started a barrage of attacks on the masked psychopath while Foolish ran over and began to work on the chains binding you to the chair. After getting them off of you, he silently picked you up as you turned your head to look at the blond, brunet and monochrome boys. Dream's mask got knocked off and was thrown across the room as he was pinned below a growling Ranboo, whose skin looked almost purely black from your angle. Tommy was off to the side, rummaging through Dream's equipment, he already got his revenge when Dream was put into prison, this was Ranboo and Tubbo's revenge now.

"̷̛̲̪͝Ỳ̵̧̖͒̉o̸̟̔̆û̶̩̟̍͊'̸̧̺̎̉ṟ̷̰͘ế̴͍̰̎ ̶̤͆̎̒g̶̭̋̇o̸͍̐͑i̸̼̟̾ņ̷͊̈́̈́ĝ̷̰̤̈́ ̵̘̉t̵͖͠ȯ̸͎ ̴͎̐̈́r̸̰͙̾̑͝e̸͚͌͑g̴̛̗̦͑ř̷̳̳̱e̵̲̿̕ṫ̶̨͓͗ ̷̢͊E̷̬̪͒͊͂V̷̟̒͝Ë̸̜R̷͐̄̏ͅ ̶̲̟̤͗͋t̴̝̎o̵̖̐ư̴̞̾̇c̶̡̙̐h̵̹̜̣̒͂̂į̴̙̤͠n̴̤̼̻̅̚ǧ̵̹̙̌͜ ̵̥̞̏m̶̱̳̦͗̌y̴̱̮͒̒̄ ̶̮̈͑͆f̸͉̽̄à̵̹͠m̵͕̓̅͋í̸͇̩͔̿l̷̰̫̳͗͑y̸̡͌̊́.̶͓̇͝"̸̡͆ ("You're going to regret EVER touching my family.") Ranboo hissed lowly before he and Tubbo began applying weight to the sword pressed against the speedrunner's chest. You shut your eyes tightly for a moment before you felt a bottle press into your hands, causing you to re-open your eyes to see Foolish trying to hand you a healing potion. You eagerly took a small sip from it, feeling the small slices on your cheeks form back together and the pain from the bruises around your neck vanishing completely.

Dream was slain by Ranboo and Tubbo using Ranord

There was a clattering noise before two sets of footsteps running in your direction. Slowly tilting your head in their direction, you saw Tubbo with dark bags under his eyes and Ranboo with plenty more scars on his cheeks from tears. You were pulled from Foolish's arms and brought down to sitting on Tubbo's and Ranboo's laps, their arms completely wrapped around you. The goat hybrid was nuzzled under your chin while the enderman's face was buried in your hair. "We should have come sooner..." "We shouldn't have even left you alone in the mansion..." "I'm sorry... I should have never left the manor..."

#tubbo x reader #yandere tubbo x reader #ranboo x reader #yandere ranboo x reader #mcyt x reader #yandere mcyt x reader #mcyt #ranboolive #ranboo #tubbo #dream smp #dsmp #ranboo dsmp #ranboo dreamsmp #tubbo dsmp #tubbo dreamsmp #tubbo mcyt #ranboo mcyt

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alwaysmarveling · 3 years

Text

Storm

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x reader

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.5k

Summary: Storms are the perfect weather for building forts, and Wanda’s going to make sure you don’t miss out on it.

A/N: I meant to get this out earlier, but then my arm turned into a human chicken wing (I know it makes no sense, you’re just gonna have to believe me)... anyway, I apologize for the delay, I hope you enjoy it!

Wanda woke to feel the bed shaking—no, scratch that. She woke up to feel the entire house shaking. The floors trembled, and the bedside lamp shook… Wanda braced herself to make sure none of the pictures on the walls fell down. As the thunder subsided, she relaxed slightly only to tense back up again at a loud whoosh. The buzzing that she was previously unaware of completely dissolved, leaving her in complete silence. Well, complete silence if she didn’t count the pounding of the rain against the windows, the howling wind, or the thunder that was bound to come back again. Sure enough, when she tried to turn on the lamp, no light appeared; the power had gone out.

A flash of lightning and a quick glance to her right told her that you were somehow still sound asleep. Your head was inches from her own, your own pillow forgotten and tossed to the side at some point during the night. No matter how far away the two of you were when you went to bed, as long as you were in the same bed, you somehow ended up using Wanda’s pillow instead of your own. And while some might find your hair tickling their nose or your soft snores right next to their ear to be annoying, Wanda thought it was nothing but angelic.

A catlike grin grew on Wanda’s face as she leaned over to wrap her arms around you. When you still didn’t stir, she began to press light kisses starting behind your shoulder and trailing up to your ear.

“Baaabe,” Wanda whispered. Her voice was both gentle and filled with urgency. “Malysh, wake up.”

“Huh? What’s going on?” With your sleepiness now turned bewilderment, you were able to notice how your girlfriend was trying and failing to stifle her giggles. “Wan, it’s still dark out,” you whined. “I’m sleepy.” You let out a huff and were two seconds away from throwing yourself back into the pillow when Wanda pulled you in to kiss the top of your head.

“Y/N,” she murmured, her voice muffled by your hair, “The power went out.”

“Okay. Night night.” The witch watched with a pout as you slid back down, a small grin playing on your lips as you closed your eyes.

“Detkaaa,” Wanda sang, poking your side lightly, “Let’s build a fort.”

“Okay,” you murmured, not paying attention enough to tell what you had agreed to. When you didn’t shift in the slightest, your girlfriend’s eyes narrowed. The romance movies had always promised her adventure, but here she was, ready and rearing to go, while the only adventure you were taking was from one side of the bed to the other, and not in a good way.

Had you been awake, you would have noticed how Wanda’s eyes lit up, the Cheshire cat grin returning as she realized how to get you up. The witch turned on her side, wrapping her arm around you. A low hum escaping from your lips told her that her plan was working; you thought she was going back to sleep. So, when a flash of lightning lit up the room and Wanda shot up with a gasp, you did too.

“Oh my god! Y/N, there’s a mouse!”

“What?! Where?” Arms slipping and legs flailing, you pushed yourself backwards into your girlfriend’s chest. You were too busy looking for the mouse to notice how your girlfriend was strangely unaffected by the presence of the rodent.

“Can we build a fort now?”

“Are you kidding me? Where’s the mouse?”

“Malysh… there’s no mouse. I just wanted to wake you up.” As much as Wanda wanted to give you an innocent look when you turned to look at her, she couldn’t help but burst into laughter at your raised eyebrows and gaping mouth.

“I hate you,” you muttered, closing your lips and narrowing your eyes at the still giggling witch. With that, you fluffed Wanda’s pillow and laid back down. Wanda watched you as you stared at the ceiling. You both knew you weren’t going back to sleep any time soon.

“So… the fort?”

“No.” Your girlfriend brought her fingers up to brush against the swell of your cheek.

“Pleeeeaaasseee?”

“No.”

“We can snuggle in the fort! And eat ice cream! And I’ll play with your hair after!” You knew she wasn’t going to give up until you said yes. To be fair, it sounded like a lot of fun, but you didn’t need her knowing that. So, with one big sigh and a dramatic eye roll, you slowly pushed yourself to sit back up.

“Fine. But none of this would be a problem if we just stayed in the Avengers Tower because the generator would be working.” Your girlfriend didn’t miss a beat as she jumped out of bed.

“Well, we’re not in the Avengers Tower, so we’re going to make a blanket fort. Now, come on.” She didn’t give you any time to go back on your answer, instead scooping you up in her arms and carrying you bridal style into the living room. She laughed at the squeak you let out before pressing a soft kiss to your browbone.

“I love you,” the brunette whispered.

“You’d better.” Now slightly less wary, you allowed yourself to melt into her arms. “It’s like 5 AM and you woke me up to build a blanket fort.”

“Actually, it’s 2:30…” Wanda barely moved in time as you shot upwards.

“2:30?! Wanda!”

“But, babe, the power is out! And it’s all stormy!” As if the world agreed with her, the walls trembled with another clap of thunder. “Perfect time to build a fort.” Your girlfriend set you down once you reached the living room, but you kept your arms wrapped around her, not letting her move away. “Malysh,” Wanda giggled, “You gotta let me go. We can cuddle once we build the fort.”

“‘S gonna take too long.” You buried yourself further into Wanda’s embrace, closing your eyes as she wrapped her arms around you.

“Cute, but…” You groaned as she pulled your arms off of her. “No more than thirty minutes. I promise.”

---

Unfortunately for you, Wanda was incorrect. One confusion-filled hour later, the two of you finally had the fort set up to Wanda’s liking (You couldn’t really care one way or another, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the absolutely adorable look of pride and glee on Wanda’s face when she clapped her hands together underneath her chin, sighing that, at last, the fort was perfect.).

The witch placed one hand on the small of your back to guide you in between the light blue cotton sheets that hung overhead—”It’ll be like the sky, detka!”—and the pillowy faux mink blankets that cushioned the hardwood floors. With a sleepy grin gracing your lips, you pushed yourself into the throw pillows the two of you had scavenged the house for to line the back of the fort and waited for your girlfriend to join you.

“See? Isn’t this nice?” the Sokovian exhaled as she wrapped an arm around your waist. She wasn’t wrong. The thunderstorms had yet to let up, and from Wanda’s strategic planning, the two of you had the perfect view of the rain hitting the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights shining through the plump drops that rolled down the glass. Small camping lanterns lit the actual fort, and Wanda had even found some fairy lights to string along the top. You didn’t have much time to admire the view, though, because the second you rested your head on Wanda’s shoulder, the house shook again as another loud rumble of thunder boomed, and the entire fort came crashing down on your heads.

As tired as you were, neither of you could help but burst into laughter at the irony of the situation. “Oh, yes... this is perfect… Wan,” you managed to get out in between the contractions of your stomach as you giggled.

Someone could’ve taken the situation as a bad omen for your life together, overanalyzed it until they determined the two of you would never be fit for a future with each other in it, but for you guys, it was perfect; you could’ve stayed there forever, still wrapped in Wanda’s arms, the sheets now draped over your heads making it difficult for you to see anything but the lower half of Wanda’s face. But her laughter was the prettiest thing you’d ever had the privilege of hearing, her teeth sparkled as a beam of light from one of the lanterns managed to catch them, and you could just make out the beauty marks speckled across her face, the ones you loved to spoil with kisses until your girlfriend got impatient and guided your lips to hers.

When the two of you had finally caught your breath, you noticed a flash of red out of the corner of your eye, and the fort was reassembled in seconds. The remaining smile on your face immediately disappeared as you met Wanda’s eyes.

“Wanda, you couldn’t just do that the first time?”

“Nope.” The shake of her head was playful, though, which was more than enough to tell you what you needed to know.

“You totally could’ve.”

“Okay, maybe I could’ve, but it wouldn’t have been as fun.”

“Wan!” Your eyes narrowed further at her growing amusement, and you only relaxed slightly as your girlfriend brought you in closer to her side.

“Do you want your snuggles or not?”

“Yes please.” There was no way that you could’ve said no, especially now that you had already melted into the warmth of her embrace and sleepiness once again tugged at your eyelids. And so the two of you stayed that way for a while, with your legs draped over Wanda’s, your head resting on her shoulder and her head pressed against yours. In between the drawn-out blinks and heavy breaths, you managed to catch flashes of lightning and noticed how the flurries of rain would swell and fall repeatedly, never a consistent drizzle or downpour. Perhaps the one thing keeping you awake was the thunder. Wanda didn’t miss how you jumped slightly every single time it rumbled.

“You scared, printsessa?” your girlfriend murmured as she gently scratched your scalp in an effort to calm you down.

“Just a little startled is all,” you hummed sleepily as you pushed yourself further into her. “Could never be scared when you’re here.” Even though you were almost asleep, Wanda was quite awake, and she couldn’t help but smile at your sincerity.

“I love you,” she murmured with a kiss to your forehead.

“And I love you more.”

A comfortable silence settled itself between the two of you once again as Wanda went back to watching the storm and you played with her fingers. A thought came to you, and with you being as exhausted as you were, you barely noticed when it slipped through your lips and made itself known to Wanda.

“Wands, what would you say to having someone else to watch the storms with us?” It wasn’t until Wanda responded that you realized you had spoken out loud.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” The brunette pulled away from you slightly to study your face.

“Can we get a dog?”

“Yes! Of course!” All you could manage was a drowsy smile as Wanda cheered in excitement. “You have any ideas?” she asked after pressing a quick kiss to your lips.

“Hmm… maybe a bernedoodle? They’re really cute and really sweet.”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” your girlfriend agreed. “Or maybe a-”

“And they have such cute eyes. Oh Wanda, the eyes.” Wanda paused as you let out a dreamy sigh.

“Malysh…”

“What?” You kept your gaze directed at Wanda’s fingers as you continued to fiddle with them because you knew you’d crack the second you made eye contact with her. Obviously, though, it was pointless since she had already figured you out.

“You got one already, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Y/N.”

“Okay, fine,” you sighed. “Yes.”

“Printsessa, I love you, but we’re supposed to talk about these things together!” The continued presence of her warmth and her hand that had never left your waist told you that she wasn’t mad, and you were extremely grateful for that.

“I know, I know, but he was so cute, and I couldn’t say no, and you just had to be there, Wands! You wouldn’t have said no if you were there.” Wanda simply sighed, knowing that, as much as she’d rather not admit it, you were right.

“What’s his name?” she finally asked, resting her chin back on the top of your head.

“Storm.”

“You were really waiting for the perfect opportunity to tell me, huh? And how long have you known about this?” You shrunk slightly at the sternness that filled her voice.

“Maybe a couple of days…”

“Y/N.”

“Okay, maybe a couple of weeks. Or months.”

“Detka! So when is the dog getting here?”

“This weekend!” The witch’s head spun at how long you had managed to keep the secret from her. And while she loved the thought of getting a dog with you, she was certainly not expecting it to happen this soon, especially since you had only just brought it up minutes ago. But she couldn’t help but laugh when you responded with such excitement, your body perking up even though you were so close to dozing off in her arms. As excited as you were, you couldn’t help but tense up after sharing that with Wanda. She’d taken the initial news better than you expected, but this…

“You’re lucky I love you,” Wanda finally sighed, and it was with that that you were able to relax once again.

“What can I say? I’m irresistible.”

“Don’t push it,” the witch grumbled, and you two chuckled, rain still pounding down on the house and the storm just as lively as before.

---

It didn’t take long for you to fall back asleep with the burden you’d been carrying for months now spilled and accepted. Wanda continued to look mindlessly out the window, focusing for one moment on a particularly fat drop rolling down the window before switching to another. She thought about how you’d tensed up each time you revealed a new piece of the secret to her, and if she was being honest, it hurt her a little. She wanted you to be able to come to her with anything, trust her with anything, without having to feel guilty or ashamed. The witch pulled her eyes away from the window to watch your sleeping form.

“I’m always going to love you, malysh. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be sure to hold down the fort from now on, I promise. No more collapsing in two seconds.” With a final soft giggle and a kiss to your head, she allowed herself to rest. She’d keep her promise and prove it to you every day, multiple times a day; she was sure of it. And even though you didn’t hear her, that weekend, when the two of you started your life as a family of three, you knew it too.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x fem!reader #wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff #avengers x reader #marvel #mcu #I wrote something #alwaysmarveling

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