#so as an abstract idea it's much less scary

[mmikmmik2]

Owl House season one Mediocre Parent Eda Clawthorne is so real and so underrated. She does so much child endangerment. She has multiple "oh whoops, yeah, I guess I haven't actually been teaching you anything" moments with Luz. When Eda misses the bell ringing in Understanding Willow, Luz says "yeah... she is not super reliable". Eda called King her roommate. He's based his entire self-image on the outright lies she's been telling him about his past for years. Eda loves King and Luz, she takes care of them, she's good for them, she wouldn't actually let them (or any kid, I think) get seriously hurt, but it takes her time to step up as a really great parent and that's not where she's at throughout most of S1.

This is way more interesting and complicated than Eda being a good parent all along who just got a little more openly affectionate over time. Eda talking about how much Luz improved her life in Agony of a Witch and Separate Tides wasn't just lip service - Eda had serious problems. There's a lot going on with how she kept pushing people away and refusing to admit that anyone is important to her. And I mean, no wonder - as soon as she let herself acknowledge that she's a mother in Eda's Requiem, she opened herself up to all the pain and fear of possibly losing those relationships.

[vaxxman]

What do you think about 5cp TF2 map Gullywash?

Getting autobalanced on Gullywash feels especially tragic.

More sketches and more impressions under the cut.

In order to draw this, I watched some highlander matches on Gullywash, due to finding no matches in competitive, and the aimbots going rampant in casual. I was only able to play 5 proper matches on casual, (2 of which my teams won purely due to team imbalance,) so some of this is based on what I saw other people were doing in competitive match recordings, as well as how it feels to play on community servers with AI train bots. No one was playing whenever I was queueing up :(

I learnt very fast that Gullywash is one of these maps where you will die a lot, or steamroll the capture points, and there is no in-between, because you either position yourself correctly or you don't. While this goes for every map in tf2, I never really felt frustrated when dying here. I could always find a reason for my mistakes and generally it turned out to be a very rewarding learning experience.

I think Gullywash is extremely fun and fast paced. I especially enjoy giving scouts and pyros overheal buffs, because of how much flanking you can do here. The symmetry of the map is immaculate and the amount of objects that just lie around allows demos to place a lot of traps and players to just hide in corners.

(Using Scouts as your Uber Driver here is also especially fun, so many near death situations!)

For some reason, the soldiers and demos who play on this map are really good at protecting medics? That's the impression I got, everyone knew when to retreat and not push, everyone turned around when they saw my health go down, everyone was shooting the spies for me when we were in the open and I was too focused with healing the people fighting death matches at the front so we could capture.

(My personal heroes who just rocket jump over to you just to shoot the spy 2m away from you, and then just rocket jump away again)

Snipers aren't much of a problem, since there are so many options for hiding properly while still being able to reach your team mates. The same sadly doesn't apply to spies and I think I have died more to spies on this maps than to sticky traps.

While I love the vaccinator, I think Stock and Kritz are the better options on this map. Nothing cries geneva convention war crime more than entering the door to the last capture point and ubering a soldier who starts spamming everyone with rockets in this rather crammed up room where everything can give you splash damage.

Shoutout to a pyro called Joey who carried the last game I played, it was a blast ubering you through the last capture point.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

Any tips on creating monsters? Especially if these monsters are simply some of the native life forms of an isolated location our heroes find themselves on? I mean sure, I think of whatever creepy and scary idea you can think of and chuck it in... but there would probably be reasons they evolved that way naturally and it isn't to terrorise outsiders.

Also, if I have one of those monsters secreting a toxin, how possible is to to have one of my humans someone be immune to it, or otherwise has minimal effect on them?

Addy: If you're looking to make something fit an ecological niche, start with what already exists and work from there. Not necessarily a cut-and-paste, but take inspiration from it.

For example, there's something to be said about the simple bear. Bears are scary. They're big, they're tough, they're pretty fast, they can climb trees, they're reasonably clever, and they're very hard to kill. The word "bear" basically means "the brown one," as people used to be so scared of bears they wouldn't say their name, in case a bear got summoned.

Also wild boars. Pigs are freakishly big, and wild hogs are worse. Boar spears have a crossguard to keep the hog from just running the spear through its whole body as it runs at you. You also get into jaguars (they're like IRL drop bears in the shape of cats), crocodiles, and all sorts of kinds of things. Even hippos.

You want somewhere to start? Take a large, bulky predator (or omnivore or big herbivore) and give it some weird traits. Adapt it to the demands of your local environment. Give it a niche to fill, with a lot of the basic premise/heavy lifting done for you by nature. How about a giant bat? Or a coyote with mange (likely the origin of the capybara tale)? Or a cannibalistic giant lizard? Then add spooky and scary stuff, go for it. But remember - some of the creatures that we find very normal and commonplace? They were once considered monsters too.

For toxins... it depends on what the toxin is. If it shuts down specific metabolic processes, then your characters could be totally immune, as they have different biology. Or maybe it's like how alliums (garlic, onions, and leeks) are super toxic to most pet and livestock species, but not us. Our blood is just a bit different in a way that makes n-propyl disulfide (the compound that makes alliums toxic) wayyyy less toxic. The toxin could also be intended for birds or reptiles or whatever else, and therefore have a lesser effect on mammals. Or maybe humans are just special.

Also, threat displays are very much a thing. They're big, they're flashy, they're scary. You can have a critter that hisses and growls and blows up a neck pouch for intimidation, and the intended purpose of that is to scare off creatures that would try to steal its food.

Feral: I’m gonna take a slightly different approach to monster making than filling an evolutionary niche. Classic horror monsters often derive from thematic or symbolic exploration. Vampires are a seductive Other; although they come from older folktales, the vampire of today was born in the early 19th century to explore the racist, xenophobic, and homophobic anxieties of English society.  Werewolves also have much older origins than the common version in modern media but have always blurred the line between a civilized human and a primal beast. 

Looking to the horror King, It fed on fear, taking the shape of the children’s fears - monsters from B-movies like werewolves, a clown, a woman from a creepy portrait, a syphilis-infected homeless man, a zombified Georgie - which the narrative used to explore more abstract fears - leaving childhood and going through puberty, not to mention the overall terrorizing effect of racism, misogyny, and homophobia on the population. The Shining doesn’t even try to pretend it’s not about alcoholism and the effects of substance abuse on a family.

You mention that this story will take place in an isolated setting. Isolation is terrifically thematic. How can you lean into it? What if everyone who dies seems to be totally alone when it happens? And even after they realize they’re in danger, they keep putting themselves in a situation to be alone? Pair that with your monster’s evolution to better survive. Does the monster have some way of peeling one person off from the pack as part of how they hunt - maybe they have some form of vocal mimicry like some birds or a cat that makes the person think they are going towards a crying baby or wounded animal? Does it have exceptional camouflage so no one suspects they are not alone when they’re in a vulnerable position? You mention there being a toxin - instead of killing, can it produce hallucinations or paranoia that would cause a person to split from the group? These could all help the monster hunt whatever its normal prey would be while still tapping into much more abstract fears that you want to explore.

[butchsophiewalten]

for character bingo (if not done already) rosemary please!!

I really love these two.... I should draw them more, I always thoroughly enjoy it.

WOW THIS GOT REALLY EXTREMELY LONG. ITS UNDER THE CUT OK:

I'll start with Jack. I wax poetic about Jack a lot. He's a character that I find incredibly interesting, even if we don't really know particularly much about him yet. A lot of the things that I really like about him are like... interpretive? Or things that I've assumed. Hence the "not technically canon." I think a lot about "Jack Walten" as a like, a concept, within the universe of The Walten Files. Like, he was a man, who lived and had a place and a purpose within his community, but in the wake of his disappearance he's become sort of abstracted. I'm struggling to articulate this. I think of Jack as a character who has lost the ability to contextualize his own existence, and has instead become sort of an icon of himself.

I think to the community of Brighton he is a tragedy. He's a scary story. He's the memory of a man who was so well-known and so well-liked and then he up and disappeared one day and left countless rumors in his wake. And for Felix, I think he's always struggled to think of Jack as a person, and has always considered him more of a representation of his own inadequacy, and then a representation of his guilt. Felix has always kinda used Jack as a way to gauge himself. Like, Jack has always been a point of comparison. But then, Felix's relationship with Jack, to me, has also been a means for Felix to kinda improve his own self-image. I think a lot about Felix's very pleased sort of reaction to Jack's "You're a life saver, Felix." during the phone call in Bunnyfarm. I think Felix really desperately craves that sort of validation from Jack, because it makes him feel like less of a fuckup. Jack is a Good Person who has a Good Life and has his shit worked out, so if he's telling Felix he did good, he must be doing something right. That sort of dynamic where, for Felix, it's less about doing a favor for his friend, and more about chasing that dopamine hit that the validation will give him. Jack is a means to an end for him, where Felix wouldn't really care if it was Jack, or any other man who has a perceived position of success and privilege. (I have a lot more to say about this specifically, but this is turning into a Felix Analysis on my Jackmary Post, so I'm going to save it for the Felix bingo)

I got very distracted. I was trying to say that I think Jack is a person who, like, only really exists in the way the he is remembered, in the eyes of the people who remember him. Which is why Felix trying to scrub away his history with BSI is such a big deal, and why I also think it's really narratively and thematically interesting that Sophie *really struggles* to remember him. Like, she remembers him the least of anyone, almost. I think that's a really weighty sort of thing.

I don't want to talk for too long about this, because I've complained about it so many times already, but the sort of fandom perception of Jack Walten really irks me. And there's a lot of facets to his mischaracterization, I think. I could complain about the 'where the fuck are my children' TikTok audio for the millionth time, but I won't even bother. But I'm excited to see more of Jack. And I'm excited to learn more about him and to get a better idea of the sort of character he is and isn't, because I'm sure even my characterization of him is deeply flawed. Because we know so little.

ROSEMARY TIME: I love Rosemary Walten. This is another character where I think the Fandom Perception of her is so flaccid and boring. She's just Mother. She's just Woman. like so much of the time. And in fairness we don't really know very much about her, but I'm, again. very excited to learn. I like that she seems very headstrong, and I like how Martin characterizes her as being very ferociously protective of her family. I really want to know more about her relationship with Sophie during that month (and a bit) when everyone but the two of them had disappeared.

Really everything we've seen so far relating to her relationship with Sophie has been very striking to me. I'm sure this is to no-one's surprise. The "Am I still beautiful to you, Sophie?" Is still, to me, like the ultimate crescendo of the series. It's so stark. It's so fantastic. I think it's really easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of thinking about just how difficult and horrifying this character's life has been. And I'm exciting to see how this upcoming batch of episodes will continue to humanize her, and put that much more emphasis on the tragedy and horror of her death. And of her possessing a big animatronic sheep. I think a lot about Sophie hearing the a woman's dying screams through the speakers of that arcade cabinet, and recognizing it as the voice of her mother. I think that's really terrible and fantastic.

I wish I could talk more about her, like, independently, as a person, but we still know so little. So much of what I feel is assumptions. I love Rose though, I'm excited for more Rose. I'm excited for more everyone.

[tyrantisterror]

Can you give some advice on how to write scary/dark fantasy media for a younger audience, like Gravity Falls, Coraline, The Owl House and Trollhunters (to some extent) etc? How to balance scary and silly elements so it doesn't get too frightening but still keep an eerie atmosphere, and make the story feel like a folktale/have folk-tale-like elements.

I haven't written anything with children/young adults specifically in mind, so I don't know whether I can really be considered an expert in this subject, but I'll try my best.

So, the examples you listed all work in part because they don't talk down to their audience. They accept the idea that children/adolescents/young adults are still, you know, people, people who understand that there are things to be afraid of in this world and that it's not all sunshine lollipops and rainbows. Kids, even little kids, know the world can be violent and dangerous, even if they don't fully understand how harsh those dangers can be. 3 year olds will draw pictures of lions with red scribbles around their mouths to show they've been eating meat from their prey - kids know the world is dark.

The purpose of horror media is to allow us to explore the things that make us afraid in a safe, fictional context - to get the experience of confronting what lurks in the shadows without actually risking getting eaten by it. And it serves that function for kids as much as adults - kids LOVE a good scary story.

So good scary kids' media isn't really different in overall content than good scary adult media. The stakes have to be real, the characters have to react with real fear, et cetera. The difference is really just in how severe you make it.

Like, Gravity Falls had zombies, child-eating monsters, etc., but it didn't have, like, scenes of zombies tearing people open ala Day of the Dead, or cracking open skulls to eat the brains like in Return of the Living Dead. The Owl House has some pretty intense body horror, especially with Emperor Belos, but it's abstracted enough not to be too visceral, too real, too traumatizing for children. It's all about pulling your punch just enough to keep from actually showing children something they're not prepared for, but not so much that they don't flinch in response to it anymore.

Artists complain, mostly rightfully, about how corporations force censorship on them, especially when they're working in kids' media, but it's noticeable that often that censorship creates something exquisitely creative. Batman the Animated Series was barred from showing the Joker kill people, so instead he hits them with a nonlethal gas that leaves them with a horrible rictus grin - a nightmarish and unique image that still scared the piss out of many a kid, while never crossing that line into the inappropriately grotesque.

So I guess the rule of thumb is to write your story like you would any other scary story, but whenever you hit upon the normal scary payoff, think of how you could do something technically less gruesome yet more creatively awful. How can you take a normal horror scenario and replace "death" with, well, something like the Joker gas?

[buncoreclown]

CW: Love and Deepspace BL ooh spooky scary!

Just ideas and head canons!! They all still love MC btw

Thinking about the trio being inexplicably connected to MC and in turn connected to each other in a weird way and maybe things work out this time because they're all there working together and it leads to an appreciation that turns into something else as they all hang around together.

Rafayel annoys them in an endearing way that they scowl but it doesn't last long before they're smiling because he's so charming. Xavier is soft spoken and gentle always showing his affection in small ways like leaving a small coffee on Zayne's desk and dropping some protocores that he knows Rafayel uses for paint in his studio. Zayne caring for their wounds softly asking them to take better care of themselves as he patches them up fingers lingering on their sensitive skin maybe using his evol to make it hurt just a little less.

Them working together when MC is in trouble but also keeping an eye out for each other. Them having so much love for MC and in turn having so much love for each other and what they represent to her.

Rafayel gets kissed first annoying someone to the point they want to shut him up and his pretty mouth just won't stop moving so they do it for him. It's a bit of a shock but it's not unwanted but he didn't know he wasn't alone in his attraction. How could he not with Dr. Shoulders and Mr. Light and his puppy dog eyes. It's such a casual thing and they just keep up just gentle intimacy. Zayne trying to teach Xavier how to cook at least basically so he doesn't destroy the kitchen again hands grabbing his when he tries to do something stupid. Rafayel asking them to help him paint an abstract piece and it ends up with them covered in it laughing on the floor as they look at their masterpiece and it's not his usual thing but he likes it a lot because it's from them and their hands.

MC loves to see it, loves to see her boys love each other so dearly that maybe, just maybe, they'll be fine if they lose her once again. She doesn't want that of course not, wants to stay in this perfect bubble of paradise of their own making. It's just hopeful thinking if her heart does give out yet again that maybe they'll be okay until they meet her again.

[the-s1lly-corner]

An stressed and extremely explosive reader x Kinger, Caine and Ragatha. (The old hags trio haha) let me explain it to ya

Reader is always stressed because of they are pratically stuck in a digital world with (supossedly) no way out, so instead of freaking out and/or getting slowly insane, Reader is very agressive and explosive all the time.

Especially in IHA, because they have to bare the fact that they need to pass through "stressing" situation who sometimes could be a near-abstraction experience.

Everytime reader gets too stressed because of something, Reader explodes and they are screaming around or with the cause of the problem if its a person (AHEM, JAX-) and only calms down when they are stopped by others or when they spend some time alone.

Anyways i just basically wants to see how would they react seeing reader have something similar to female & male rage moment.

(if this makes you uncomfortable, feel free to ignore this request, and im very sorry for making you uncomfortable if thats the case).

- 🐈

Caine, Kinger, and Ragatha w/ a reader who blows up!

WEEEE speed running this request before i have to pop my macarons into the oven eheheheheheh i think i might write itward stuff tonight but idk!! need me some ideas for itward stuff when in doubt for gifs use slime mmm mmm yummy

CAINE:

he can and he WILL put an immediate pause on the current IHA when he sees its making you really overwhelmed. he may even dismiss the entire event just to make sure youre okay; you mean so much to him and if youre getting this close to abstraction just from getting upset hes going to be there for you. i think it would actually make him tone down the intensity of IHAs , at least a little bit... he doesnt really know what qualifies as "too much" so please be patient with him!

makes sure to do everything he can to help; want him to go away? hes already launching himself to the other side of the grounds. need him to talk to you? hes going to be saying whatever you need him to say for as long as you need him to. very nice very silly i love him chews

RAGATHA:

similar to the other two she takes you off to the side, probably takes you to her room or yours and lets you work your own feelings out however you need to get them out. this isnt the first time youve have an outburst, but it doesnt make the glitching any less scary. tries to calm you down with her voice, giving you things to squish and mess with.. just as long as youre not hurting yourself she wont intervene with your method of calming down. very sweet about it. if youre anything like me, then youre probably going to be tired afterwards, and she will let you sleep. will crawl into bed with you if you want here around, if not shes going to respect that... if it was someone who riled you up shes going to make sure they get an earful, as well as keeps a closer eye on that person when theyre interacting with you because she doesnt want you to be this miserable all the time

KINGER:

nearly dies when he sees your body momentarily glitch, well at least as close as he can to dying in that moment. hes immediately rushing to you and talking a mile a minute trying to ask if youre okay, which admittedly probably makes you snap at him. overstimulation is one hell of a thing, but as long as you explain yourself and apologize when youre in a better place then its going to work itself out. kinger tries to take you off to the side, away from whatevr it is that was upsetting you. be it an IHA or another circus member, hes going to take you into his pillow fort and leave you be. he waits outside by its entrance, anxiously waiting for you to give him the go ahead to enter... very stressed out man he wants more than anything to comfort you and talk you through it but he knows you need alone time during times like this

[tsarisfanfiction]

Fall of the Sky, the Starting Verse

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Angst/Supernatural Characters: Jerry, Apollo, Zeus After Hal, Apollo tried to stop his children inheriting his prophecy domain. Unfortunately, sometimes the Fates have other ideas. TOApril day 20 - Chaos Soup. I couldn't not go revolution!fic with this, so enjoy a symbolic variant of the much awaited Olympic Revolution, as witnessed by a poor demigod.

In Jerry’s experience, there was three different types of dreams.

The first one was the regular ones, the daft ones where he was climbing up the side of Big Ben except Big Ben was actually a giant marshmallow, or running through Hyde Park when Hyde Park suddenly turned into Lords and he was streaking through an active cricket match, burning with embarrassment and horror because he’d probably just ruined his chances of ever playing for England – at least until he woke up and the dreams faded from memory.

Everyone got those dreams, that was normal.  Sometimes they were scary instead, but nightmares were still normal, Mum had promised him over and over again when he was a kid.

The second one was the demigod dreams, where warnings were wrapped up in just enough symbolism to make them seem vague but were actually clear as a bell for any demigod who had had more than one of the things.  It was an open secret in cabin seven that those were sent by their dad (less an open secret in the rest of camp; Jerry didn’t even know if the other campers got those sorts of dreams much, or if it was Apollo giving them special attention.  He didn’t much care, either).  Those were the ones they talked about in the cabin, trying to pick apart what their dad wanted them to notice and making plans to avoid whatever dire consequences seemed to be barrelling their way.  Jerry also included their dad’s casual dream visits in that category, even if they were usually less warning based and more chill.

Then there was the third type of dreams.

For years, Jerry had thought they were the same as the demigod dreams, the ones they all got, with varying frequency.  The ones that Apollo sent to keep them safe.  They were just… vaguer, more nonsensical and far harder to puzzle out.

He’d asked Apollo about them, after his dad’s re-ascension to godhood, when they were actually father and son and for the first time, Jerry knew he was talking to his dad when the blond guy showed up in his dreams with a warm smile and music in his hands.  Why some of them were so abstract, and how he was supposed to translate them.

Jerry was never going to forget the look on his dad’s face, the heartbreak in his eyes, as he’d told him they weren’t from him.  That, somehow, and despite his dad’s apparent efforts to the contrary, he’d managed to inherit a fraction of Apollo’s prophecy domain.

(He had asked why Apollo tried to hold it back from them.  The short story about a big brother he’d never meet with prophecy in his veins and a curse on his voice thoroughly convinced him.  It also terrified him, and he knew Apollo hadn’t told him everything about Hal.  He didn’t want to know any more.)

To everyone else, he pretended that there were only two types of dream.  Just the normal ones and the demigod ones.  It was easy enough to do, because until that chat with Apollo he hadn’t known there were more than two.  The only change now was that whenever he had one of those Prophecy dreams, he was under orders to call his dad as soon as he could and tell him what he’d seen, which he was more than willing to do.

(He was also under orders to never, ever try and change what he’d seen.  Leave the decisions and potential aversions to Apollo.  If they were needed and possible, his dad would handle it, while Jerry stayed safe.  There were no complaints from Jerry about that arrangement, either.  Not after the horror story.)

This dream was unmistakably the third type of dream.

It had that ethereal vagueness that Apollo’s gifted dreams just didn’t, a feeling that there was something missing – or maybe something extra there.  Jerry didn’t have a physical manifestation, here.  He wasn’t there, despite being there, and the dichotomy of two impossibilities clashing together with him in the middle only happened in a Prophecy dream.

He was glad of his lack of physical manifestation, though, because nothing had one, not really.  There were no humans, no beasts, no monsters in his dream.  Instead there were what he’d come to think of as representations, stand-ins for things that his waking mind could never compute.

This time, the main attraction of the dream was a mass of sparking, vibrant electrical discharge that shot out mega bolts of lightning that would blind him in an instant, if he existed, swirling around inside a tempest of clouds of every conceivable colour.  Monochromatic whites, blacks and greys churned with greens and purples and the red of a warning dawn in an inconceivable amalgamation.  Every micron of it screamed fury, anger, distress as it lashed out again and again and again.  Worlds crumbled, crushed by the weight of falling skies.

Yet through it all, the light never faded.  The light just was, in a way that its absence was an impossibility that could not be overthrown and forced into the realms of possibility instead.  Lightning crashed through the light, but lightning was also light, and the light trumped the lightning at every turn, with an endless endurance as the lightning grew more and more chaotic – frantic, if that was a word that could be applied to a force of nature.

There were other things as well, horses made of seafoam and lathering at the mouth darting through the tempest as though it was little more than a light breeze, skeletons of unknown beasts with eyes of gemstones not yet discovered by humanity charging in the wake of the horses, leading the way for the horses, ignoring the horses entirely whilst working together with them so seamlessly they could have been of one mind.  More things still, but even in the dream to expand his comprehension further would be to break his mind.

Jerry comprehended what he needed to, what he could compartmentalise with the waking mind, and nothing else as the light flared, brighter and more vibrant than the most violent of lightning bolts and swallowing it up, devouring it until there was nothing left.

Then the sky finished falling, crashing through the worlds it had crushed and going down, down, down, further and further and further, away from the light and through the dark and beyond that again, into something Jerry would never, ever be able to describe.  It was nothing and everything all at once, beginnings and endings, immeasurable in its abyss.

If you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stare back.

He jerked awake with a gasp, lungs taking a moment longer than they ought to before remembering how to work and drag much needed oxygen inside.  Sleeping on the top bunk was cool, normally, but he could feel the vertigo clutching at him tightly, the world spinning around and threatening to drop him onto the ceiling from where he lay.  The concept of moving felt like Jerry’s mortal enemy, even when he came back into his body enough to realise that he was shaking like a leaf.

That was a new dream.  That was a Prophecydream, and the details beyond his comprehension were already long gone, but the core of it remained, and Jerry was terrified of what it was trying to say.

“Dad,” he rasped, feeling like he’d done nothing but gargle sand for a week.  The corners of his eyes were tight and a little bit hot, and something unpleasantly cool trickled down the side of his face and into his ears.  “Apollo.”

His dad needed to know about that one.

Except he didn’t come.

[wabisabireiki]

How deep is your pleasure

Inspired exploration by Sabrina Lynn's work. (Find her on youtube, IG, Facebook, etc.). I also listened to Ethereal Astrology, Brittany (also on youtube) while I wrote this to remind myself of the sensations I've been processing.

Full Moon Lunar eclipse in Pisces + Venus opposing Chiron

A lot of resistance is coming up for me around expression. I have had several epiphanies about being addicted to self healing and having the realization that the brain will create whatever you focus on.

Personally doing ( physical action) anything has been very difficult. My mind wants to be terribly distracted. I am also seeing how much I am addicted to consuming: food, content, information, education, well being, style, fashion, aesthetics, the list goes on and on.

Even given that, I do feel a need to move something out of me- like these thoughts. I have been becoming aware of an old, ingrained, conditioned mindset ( solidifying more the last 3 months) that has been the imaginary chains I've had on myself for probably my whole life. This is so interesting as I have been digesting a lot of Jung's work on the anima/animus. This has provided a lot of experiential context in relation to myself in my relationships. The invisible chains being certain thoughts, feelings ( as sensations) and emotions.

For me this was identified as Jung's animus- the masculine partner a woman has that is the unconscious aspect of her mind, if she is unaware of it. I do believe that because of my experience with parts work ( IFS) and my own previous education through polarity consciousness in spiritual circles ( an actual somatic class I took with Jennifer Joseph, naturalmagics on instagram) I already had a bit of an awareness to him. I had conceived some ideas of him like going through someone's belongings in their house and making up narratives of what they might be like. The belongings, one could say, made me believe perhaps more than one masculine being resided there. I went down a rabbit hole and should write the story of Cowboy and Shaman someday.

Of course being abstract concepts of our mind, they are not actual people. Though I could see their projections in my life in different people I'd known at one point or another. Now, according to Jung, if the animus is maladapted he actually has his own anima ( which makes sense to me now, why cowboy was Gay & why he was kinda evil). These figures seem to be going through a transformation process with the awareness I've gleaned about them. Like the tail end of THE dragon. Careful now, you know what they say about chasing THE dragon.

Anyhow, He (my animus) seems to be getting clearer... almost like he's still a ghost haunting ( more like a scuddle these days) the house but he goes in and out of being something more jello-like than ether and even though he's still wearing a sheet around- I am very aware of him. Perhaps his speech is less OOOOooooooooh like and more coherent as grunts and uh huhs and mmm's. Far less cryptic, not scary and mostly frustrating if not comical or annoying.

Which brings me to Sabrina's prompt about pleasure. Imagine not being able to interface with your lover in a way that was pleasant? Just thoughts and ideas about what that should look like, and then using stand in's to kill time, subs to get experience? Not understanding your animus is like playing charades with someone from another planet. You don't speak the same language, cannot translate, you have no context, and you have no way to relate. This of course will not stop anyone from existing, it just makes your inner workings complicated, confusing, conflicted, and hard to understand. From that point of view it is difficult to allow pleasure to be alive in your life. Some aspect of you is always on the defensive for how you will mishandle it, because historically denying it is all you have done. Painful, suffering, uncomfortable existence, anxiety are normal. Which makes sense to me why addiction to substance is so palpable. To finally get some pleasure through immobilizing those deafening, defensive rigid parts, just long enough to have some relief in pleasure... makes too much sense. I did that a lot in my life.

So now, knowing the jello-ghost animus is on his way to have a Beauty and the Beast like transformation is quite exciting. I'm still reading up on how it works ( which is why he's in a chrysalis stage).

Looking more at exploring aspects of pleasure for myself and being able to dialogue with him looks like it will take some time. But can't help but imagine my own little Helen Keller genius making waves soon.

Visual meditation:

In the middle of writing this I did a 10 min heart centered meditation because I felt compelled to for some time and saw a corridor between a narrow stretch in a mountain like chasm. The ground was covered in a soft spongey moss and I was barefoot. As I moved forward I couldn't see anything in front of me, it was all thick mist. A few yards in and I start seeing colors peeking through of different colorful flowering plants. I walk past dense flowering blooms and looked down when I noticed the ground seemed to be more wet. Blood, intermixed with water covering the moss.

Moving forward it appears there is what looks like body parts of something strewn about. The mist is receding to reveal a vast field. It looks like a war has just occurred, but is over now. A river is rushing ahead and it is clearing this field of the blood and parts. I also see being's I don't have descriptions for... they seem to be ever changing in shape of creatures I do not recognize. It also appears these are what was in parts in the bloodied field. They are also carrying off the parts; like ants away from the field. I watch them. Very quickly they seem to be building structures. A tree house structure forms ahead of me, they build other tree/vine like bridges and other structures near the river... I move towards it with feelings of excitement and well being. The meditation ends*

[shmowder]

Do you have any tips for developing OCs? I want to fill out the template you did on your BG3 blog so bad but my Patho OC isn't very well-defined yet and as of now, I feel like it would take me 800 years to fill it out. Did it come easily to you or did you have to spend a long time thinking of your answers? How can I make sure I don't just end up describing myself?

Aside from the mini heart attack I had at the information that ended up being just a dream, I want to say DEWWWWW IT to your "tell me about your Patho OC" event. I feel awkward sending my Sim to you unsolicited (silly, I know) but at the same time I don't know if I'll ever be ready! I catch myself making the tiniest changes to her (and then reverting to the way she was before, lol). She's a plague doctor. *cough* assistant to a plague doctor. I actually found a beak mask to use <3

Have you turned any of the reader concepts/backstories you had into an OC? This is your invitation to tell me about them!!

🐿️ anon

Do I have a tip? Yes, and it's pink

But seriously, my only advice is to be as cringe and authentic as you can. OCs are just dolls for you to play with, you can gift them a fragment of your soul to love your less than ideal sides through them, you can also just make them bc you wanna make a cool little guy.

Be as creative as you want, make them a mary sue, or edgy, or loveable by all or whatever you think is cool. Make something you actually like, a purée of self-indulgence.

It might be hard to fill out because you're unsure of if you're going to change your mind about a certain subject or side of them later, it's scary to put things in stone.

Good news! OCs are as fluid as water. You can simply go back and update it whenever you want. There is no consistency required. Much like real life, people aren't always consistent in their beliefs and valus.

Your OC will evolve with time with you. No matter what, you can always tweak them and make a million different versions.

"How do I make sure I don't just end up describing myself?"

So what if you do? you're the person you know most. Of course, you'll use yourself for reference when told to come up with a whole new person on the spot.

Your OC can still share a lot of traits with you without being a self-insert—if that's what you're aiming for. You can also use yourself as the opposite of a reference sheet? Since you know yourself well, you also know what you're not, and you can give them that.

You can also base them around a concept! Personification of an object. For me, Sol, was a Personification of the sun and the worst of the worst of bpd symptoms. I wanted a character that is horrible and can't control being a bad person, not only that but they do not want to change themselves, they don't want to put in all that effort just to meet the minimum standards that others take for granted. They like their bad traits.

Sol is also very red-dragon insp heavy. So shallow, greedy, self serving and possessive.

Don't be afraid to give your OCs bad traits, it humanises them more, if anything. But also try to come up with why, no one is evil for the sake of evil.

Or you can simply not. There are no rules. You are the judge, jury, and executioner! Who gives a shit what I or anyone else has to say about your OC? IT'S YOURS. I don't go into people's bedrooms, rummage through their drawers just to comment on their choice of socks

Start with something simple and watered down then build off of it. Three abstract ideas to define your character, their basic form, their essence.

For Sol, it's red dragon, sun and bpd. A major oversimplisation.

You can also do the same with already established fiction characters! Pick any character you like and try to condense them down to three abstract ideas–not personality traits but concepts.

Yulia, indifference of the universe, mathematics and circulation.

Artemy? Love, the past, faith.

Daniil? Spite, the future, science.

Clara? life and death, stasis, magic.

Think about the basics of the basic building blocks making your OC, what resides at the root of the tree? It doesn't have to be three, it can be as many as you want.

And since we talk regularly, feel free to send me concepts and ramble about your OC in dm! I'd love to try and help you with the sheet as well.

-

God you made a plague doctor-er assistant of one and NEVER showed me? Betrayal, agony, mistrust. Jail. Jail for squirrel for 1000 years.

Sim OC pictures NOW or you're staying there.

-

Thank you for the offer for me to ramble about my OC, how could I ever refuse it.

For patho, I don't have any defined named ones. I just jump from concept to concept and reinvent a new person each time.

Rn I'm thinking about an OC that's part of the inquisiton.

Okay so, we never see how Aglaya dies, correct? And it's a little suspicious that the army stopped the train immediately after her attempted escape with Artemy, as if someone tiped them off.

So I thought, what if I made an OC that was the person who did that, the one who killed Aglaya.

Now we need a motive, why?

They're also part of the inquisiton, but they're still in training if it makes sense? They haven't earned the inquisitor title, authority, or privileges yet. They need a way to prove themselves, a first case to show their abilities.

That's where the town and the plague come into place, if they solve it, it will definitely earn them respect and a title.

They need to keep Aglaya alive until the very end before they kill her themselves in order to take all the credits for curing the plague instead of having to share it with her.

Now we have a motive and a goal. What's their personality like.

Manipulative, clever and cunning with an innocent facade.

They want you to think they're your friends so they can use you. They want the other healers to confide in them so they may steal their research. Coming from the capital and looking very cute, it's so easy to underestimate them and buy into their enthusiastic kind facade.

They have no shame, they will lie cheat and constantly play the victim. Spin false tales to make themselves look better, pretend to help only to sabotage instead, like a fox with no good intentions.

Why are they like that?

Well, the inquisiton takes kids from when they're young and raises them. This character stood out bc of their lying ability, inventing trophies they pretend to win at school for their parents to praise them, inventing sad stories for the teachers at school in order to raise their grades. The inquisiton simply nurtured these traits.

I'm not sure if I want to make them a healer or a side character.

For now, I want them to be so used to lying all the time that they eventually realise they forgot their true self. Who they are, what is even the truth anymore. They can't tell if they genuinely like a person or are simply pretending.

Also, I like the idea of them protecting Aglaya from all the assassination attempts by the army, only to end up being the one to kill her.

[quinnfebrey]

hello! next to normal is basically the only thing i've thought about for the past month and i'm dying to talk about it with someone so i'm just gonna leave a bunch of questions here please feel free to answers as many or as few as you like :D

would love to know what you thought about the west end covers you saw

who is your favourite person who has played each role?

you mentioned in your review that you find the west end gabe less creepy than i'm presuming aaron tviet's interpretation? would love if you wanted to elaborate more on that cause personally the west end gabe is the first time i've ever found him 'creepy'. aaron's always had a distinct jockish confidence to me that made him scary because he felt powerful but still not creepy imo

what're your favourite songs? mine are i am the one (reprise) and didn't i see this movie?

do you have any strong opinions on a movie adaptation? personally i hate the idea. i think so much of the power of the show comes from the fact that it's happening Right In Front Of You and i also think no matter what they did they'd butcher how gabe appears

if this version goes to broadway, who is your dream cast? (pretty sure caissie levy's a lock in bc according to the director he wouldn't have done the show if she didn't agree to play diana, but dream big or whatever)

hello!! thank u so much for this omg. i just replied to an ask about the west end covers

favorite person in each role: jessica phillips as diana, brian d'arcy james as dan, meghann fahy as natalie, louis hobson as madden/fine but trevor dion nicholas could usurp that i think! random but there's this regional production that had a gabe i LOVED (landen starkman), and then of course adam chanler beret IS henry

re: creepy gabe, what i mean by that is the freudian aspect to original gabe (think the original blocking of i am the one). they really took literally "he's a hero a lover a prince" which works and makes sense for bway but in the west end one it doesn't have the abstract/dream feel to it and that's probably they removed that aspect of gabe, it wouldn't transfer well. he's just less physically close and touchy with the goodman family

ahh i don't even know what my favorite songs are, they change depending on my mood lol. but i think i always love light and i've been

nooooo movie please they already let riverdale butcher the show i cant take a dearevanhansification of it. and you're right, there's no way to make gabe on screen work well. it needs to be a live production

for a broadway cast i wouldn't be mad at caissie levy!! if it takes a decade or more to get it back on broadway i'd love meghann fahy to return as diana. ben tyler cook or josh colley could do a great gabe, jordan fisher henry?? let adam chanler beret come back as madden/fine?? and this is kinda random but i saw josh groban in sweeney and was like oh that's dan goodman

[novaalexanderwrites]

Blood and Thorns - Chapter 7 (part 1)

Chapter 7 (Part One): Parties and Invitations (Read Chapter 1 (part one) here) - (See here for a complete list of chapters) **Updated with minor (though important) changes April 30 2023

Just a quick Author’s Note: if you’ve read B&T on other platforms, you might notice these parts going forward will be different. I’m currently going through another round of editing! Thank you everyone who’s read any part of this and please leave your feedback/comments and/or like/share/reblog/etc. 😘

   The Magnus-Monroes hosted the engagement party a week after Frigga’s birthday. It was small, just the coven members and their families, and much more relaxed than the formal ball had been. It was a calm environment, the witches mingled easily, mostly talking about their own magical work or some work that was going on as the summer solstice neared. Frigga and Marcus were arm in arm, accepting congratulations from different members, and Frigga was in a good enough mood that evening that it was almost nice. Everyone had something to say, mostly about how good the match would be for everyone and how they were relieved for Marcus to finally settle down.

  In between the well-wishes, Marcus would lean into Frigga and crack some joke or make an observation. After Victoria Bloodswell had politely and somewhat coldly congratulated them, he took the opportunity. “That woman is almost as scary as your aunt. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s turned into a ghost herself. Should we ask the Blackwoods to hold a seance the next time we need to hold a business meeting?” He stuck the tip of his tongue out and winked.   Frigga giggled, lightly slapping Marcus’ arm that linked with hers. “Shush, she’s just like that. She’s not my aunt’s biggest supporter.”   “Really? I had no idea! I thought she constantly looked like she was trying to explode your aunt’s brain telepathically for fun,” Marcus teased.   Anyone who saw Victoria Bloodswell interact with the Thornehearts would see the bad blood. Something about leadership being stolen from her family, blah blah blah, generations ago founders did a thing, et cetera. It was all very abstract, and Frigga wasn’t sure there was any truth in such claims as the family had never been able to produce sufficient proof to back them up.     She briefly looked around the room, taking in the scene. Who hadn’t they spoken with yet? They’d seen the Morgansons and Cromwells, Ophelia and Aphrodite Rynauld were in a lively conversation with Morgan Blackwood about something, and the Downspires were in the middle of searching for their youngest daughter who, Frigga was pretty sure, was hiding under the table with Leland in the opposite corner of the room.   It was cute, actually, Leland’s friendship with Celeste. She was about a year older than him and was quite gifted. Leland had some kind of crush on her. Frigga couldn’t blame him, she was a cute kid, and it was honestly good for him to be around someone his age who was magical. He wasn't very interested in the comings-and-goings of the coven, so being around Celeste was a good way of getting him involved in the group’s social life.   A small exploding noise followed by surprised yelps and coughing of two small children captured Frigga’s attention. She quickly glanced at Marcus, who nodded and released her to investigate in the other corner of the room. She was readily joined by Sapphire as it sounded like Leland might be hurt. But when the two children crawled out from the table they were uninjured. Leland was covered in some sort of neon blue dust, like it had exploded in his hands. It painted the entirety of his pastel blue button-down, his palms heavily coated, most of his face, and some even settled into his mop of short red curls. Celeste giggled, less heavily affected though was decorated with a significant coating of blue down the front of her pink dress and in her black coiled buns as well. “Something magical happened!”   Sapphire and Frigga looked from Celeste to Leland who laughed in a carefree way, who was starting to get to his feet. “She was showing me her conjurations, and I wanted to try!”   “Wait, Leland, did you do that?” Sapphire asked breathlessly, grabbing a napkin from the table they’d crawled out from under.   “Yeah, it didn’t go very good! It exploded!”   The room froze when everyone heard Leland’s explanation. And then Aurora Morgansons began to excitedly clap closely followed by the rest of the guests, and Frigga and Sapphire gathered Leland up in a big hug, his aunt planting a kiss on his cheek much to the young boy’s obvious embarrassment. He had finally confirmed it: he was a witch and Frigga was ecstatically proud of him.   Once the applause died down, Frigga took her brother to get cleaned up while the party continued on, more excitedly and energized than before. It was rare a youngster would be confirmed around so many people, but everyone had been privileged to see it. It was a happy thing.   She carefully led Leland to the nearest powder room and had him sit on a chair after making sure he wouldn’t accidentally ruin it with the blue dust. “Hang on, I’ll get us a towel or something.”   “Sure, thanks Frigga.” The young boy peered around the room curiously, his legs kicking the seat.   She found a rag, dampened it, and pulled up a stool next to him to start working on the stain. “This is exciting, huh?” she asked cheerfully.   Leland shrugged. “I guess, but I don’t think it matters.”   His sister frowned and looked at his face. His complexion matched hers, pale skin littered with freckles, but he had their father’s brown eyes. He looked a lot like their father, actually. “What do you…why do you say that?”   Leland laughed, as if the answer was obvious. “Auntie already said you had to be the next heir, right?”   Frigga shrugged, rubbing forcefully at his shirt sleeve, checked to see if she was making any progress, and winced slightly because there was absolutely no change at all. “Sure, but that doesn’t mean anything at all. Magic isn’t just for coven work, my magic helps me too!”   Leland rolled his eyes. “But auntie is going to make me study more. I already get so bored. It’s borrrring!”   The stain wasn’t coming out. Frigga scowled at it, her nose wrinkling in frustration. “Yes, it can be. But,” she paused and looked at her brother, a mischievous smile on her glossed lips, “there’s lots of things that make it fun. Want to see?”   Her brother grinned and nodded furiously. Frigga sat up and looked around the room for inspiration. It was a small room, painted soft pink with white crown moulding, shiny marble tiles, and wall-length mirrors. There was also a large painting in an ornate hardwood frame hung on the wall behind the pink velvet chaise Leland was perched on. The painting was of a woodland scene. Someone had fallen asleep in a pasture and was surrounded by all sorts of small animals. It was perfect. Frigga focussed in on a small rabbit in the front of the painting, pointed a finger at it, and released a soft burst of energy at the painting.   It impacted, bursting like fireworks, and suddenly the rabbit began to animate, jumping out of the painting and around the room leaving footprints of blue sparkling light behind it. Leland shrieked with laughter, and Frigga couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s reaction. She pulled a few other creatures from the painting, a bird, a mouse, had them join the rabbit in running around the room and under the chairs, one even hopped into Leland’s lap. His eyes were huge with wonder, and when he went to pet the rabbit, it and the other animated creatures dissolved into white light, reappearing back in their original spots in the painting.   Leland burst into applause, and Frigga nodded in a smug bow. “Why thank you, sir!”   “Cool! Why don’t you do that all the time?”   “There isn’t a lot of practical uses for this kind of illusion, but sometimes if I can’t sleep, I animate a few of the angels on my ceiling to dance for me.”   “You think I can do it too?”   Frigga nodded, picking the rag back up to half-heartedly wipe at the boy’s mussed up face. At least that was coming out though it still left a small tint of blue behind. “I think you can do anything you want, Lee.”   He looked down to where she had scrubbed at his shirt. “You can’t use magic to clean it?”   Frigga sighed in frustration as she finished wiping his face and started at his hair. “No, you can’t clean magic stains out with magic. Or anything it seems. I think you’ve gone and changed the colour of the fabric itself, but I don’t want to mess with it until you’re not wearing it anymore.” She grinned and leaned in close, as if to tell a secret. Leland mirrored her. She whispered, “Wouldn’t want to accidentally explode you.”   Leland cackled. “I don’t think you can do that, Frigg!”   She crossed her arms, a brow raised comically high. “Oh, you don’t do you?”   Leland rigorously shook his head. “Nope!”   “I think I could!”   “Nu-uh!”   “Uh-huh!”   And they had about ten rounds of “nu-uh” and “yeah-huh” before dissolving into a fit of giggles. Frigga knew she was going to be missed if they were gone much longer, but it was nice to spend time with her brother away from it all. And honestly? It was nice to escape from all the social chess she’d had to play all evening. When the siblings calmed down, Frigga sighed. “I think we should be getting back.”   Leland groaned. “It’s boring, though.”   Frigga smiled sympathetically as she stood to hang the rag on a nearby towel rack. “Yes, it is.”   “Isn’t it your party?”   “It’s still boring. And stressful. Just be thankful you don’t have to deal with coven stuff.”   “Why?”   Frigga thought for a way to phrase her complaint that wouldn’t turn him away from magical practice generally. “I love our members, of course I do. And the magic we do is so much more powerful than any one of us can do on our own… But I’m not fond of all the social duties that come along with it, let’s say that.”   Leland nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Do you think Gertrude will make me a cake when we get home?”   Frigga chuckled as she held her hand out for Leland, offering to help him from his seat. “Maybe. Like a birthday cake?”   Leland took her hand and jumped up from his seat. “Yeah, but for magic-day.”   Frigga took a deep breath, steeling herself against the thought of returning to the party. But her chest softened with a thought. “I think I know someone that could do that for you, Leland.”

[terrisartwork]

how 2 become a girl [wip]

so you've decided that you can no longer be male and you want to purge the maleness from your body and replace it with femaleness. boy have you come to the right place. so it turns out that i also experience these emotions but every time i experience them it's like "woah, what the hell. this is esoteric and weird." and i go through harrowing emotional moments like "this feels good, actually i need to get this. i need to work on something. oh god, i feel bad again. oh wait, reconciliation. i need to." and it all becomes super abstract. turns out that gender is just fucking everywhere and is both pervasive yet understated in society, people just have no idea like how to talk about it. trying to wrap my head around it is probably the most laborious task i've ever done and even still i need it to eventually even out in the end.

[radio silence, that's all folks!]

actually uh, weirdly i think the whole process of realising myself as being female is quite bewildering. 'male' seemed like a best-fit model. After all, why would i grow facial hair, be into some guy-ish things but then [i hate men's deodrant, more masculine activities like foodball, i hate my body/facial hair, yet for some reason it just grows back so i just stop shaving after a world. too much of a pain in the ass.] anyway, so my body is like "hey bitch, you're going to be male and you're going to like it." but now i've tricked my mind into being like "nah-uh." and it's not actively realising that hey, maybe my body is just telling me lies about who i am. maybe i should stop paying attention to it. after all my body does not think but my brain does!

[this is the trick folks]

uh, how did i figure this out. now uh, turns out that like i always had these feelings but then like even realising that was just a harrowing whole-ass process and for the longest time i just put a pin in being female and then like never really acting upon it. acting on it and thinking, how to plan ahead, it becomes torturously speculative but then at the same time also exhausting, but sometimes little things come into place. hey, i like wearing dresses, i'm okay at wearing make-up and like it turns out i did have a naturally feminine vibe to myself that people just took objection to. so now it feels unnatural and the whole process is just about how do i feel less weird being female.

[shit, is it really this hard to be a girl!]

hormones, surgery, people are like "oh shit, these are EXOTIC healthcare options" but then actually they're just bodily autonomy. you would feel like shit if you were a girl and your body was producing testosterone like crazy. now, my first port of call with dealing with this. do not care. this is a temp strategy but then it's like CBT and rewiring your brain to figure out that "huh, maybe i actually do like being female. maybe there are things about this that appeal to me." and then just repeating that until it should become second nature to you.

[speculative territory]

now this is the part that i have trouble with and am still trying to figure out. how da hell do hormones work? should i just inject some random ones that i found off the internet? uh.....

damn glasgow trans healthcare only taking people from may 2018 [as of june 2023]. now if there was a way to go private. ah it's too scary for now. best just return back to a state of.... i can't. ah well, i guess one day in the future that, hopefully, one day, i will become a girl but then it turns out that trying to become a girl.... [sadness kicks in] it's just too hard for me to handle!

[this bitch is too lazy to transition so now she's just 'non-binary' for now. please just ignore anything that points to her being 'male' it's all a lie that her body is signalling.]

guy who hasn't been paying attention to my introspection for the last 5 years or so: "hey, how come this person is now a girl? that's soooooo unexpected and bewildering!"

[marta-bee]

I’m tailspinning a bit over the prospect of Trump being a likely presidential candidate again. If politics isn’t your thing feel free to keep scrolling.

It’s the CNN townhall that really brought me to the crisis-point here. Before I felt a sort of hazy denial that took the edge off a bit; but seeing him on that stage and in that context made it much less deniable. He’s still spewing hateful ideas, but not, like, excessively hateful for the American Right. National abortion ban? Nothing much new there. Reinstate family separation? Da. Pushing for a default on the debt ceiling? GOP Congressmen are already there or we wouldn’t be talking about it. It’s upsetting just how normal that all feels, but at this point there’s very little that was genuinely surprising there.

What’s really upsetting (and I fully admit this is my privilege showing through, that I have the luxury of dreading these higher-level things) is how much we know he’s a liar, how bogged down in scandal he is. And really, “scandal” is hardly sufficient when there are indictments and civil-court verdicts and multiple impeachments on the books. People who support Trump aren’t all idiots; they know he’s lying and morally compromised and just corrupt as hell. At this point, it seems like that’s the main selling point: that through sheer chutzpah he’s decided facts don’t apply to him, and he’s somehow gotten reality to conform to that. That comes across as strength to a lot of people. That what the “elites” say --even when they’re right-- just doesn’t matter for him.

And that’s what’s making the bile raise in my throat this week. Because the thought that so many of my fellow Americans are attracted to that kind of immunity, that they don’t want well-reasoned debates and convincing or being convinced even in the abstract feels harrowing? It’s a direct challenge to a big part of my identity.

It’s also probably been true for a while now, and this is more about illusions being ripped away than anything objectively changing. Still, it’s scary and it hurts.

Anywho. Back to your normally-scheduled blorbage. I think I just needed to put that feeling in writing.

[hyuccubus]

Sometimes the draft comes out right

I come bearing another snippet from tonight's session. This one gets a little gruesome, although in a very abstract sense, but if surgery makes you squeamish, you may want to sit this one out. Although, given the subject matter of Pound of Flesh, you may have to skip that one entirely. But I'm also very afraid of surgery, so I get it. --

“And how do you cope after that… I don’t know what else to call it but trauma.”

“Do you read much Nietzche?”

“Not much, no.”

“Our founder, Victor, is a fan of his work. There was a phrase Victor especially loved to come back to; Nietzsche used it in an essay and then in his autobiography in the same year. It translates to ‘what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.’ Growing up, I didn’t have many chances to succeed. There aren’t enough to go around. But I had plenty of chances to avoid death, sometimes just about as narrowly as you can. The thing is, I was never in control of that. It was someone else being less lucky than me that kept me alive. But all of those surgeries were my choice, my brush with the outer limits of my own brain, the chemical processes that dictated the pain I felt. I had chosen to nearly die from the pain, and when I remember that sensation, because my poor subconscious can’t understand how to tell me to keep that from happening again, I can tell myself I chose it, that my spirit overwhelmed the flesh it inhabits.”

A bitter ball of nothing slips down my throat as I swallow in… revulsion, terror, pity? It’s impossible to tell, and the taste remains all the same.

“I have to admit, maybe I just don’t have much of an imagination, but the idea of feeling everything still sounds… really, really scary to me.”

“Of course it does; it would be very, very strange if it didn’t. However, ask yourself where that fear begins. We fear pain when we aren’t sure where it’s coming from; it could be disease, or decay, or something even worse, somehow. But this pain? You know when it starts, and when it ends. Your imagination is the scariest thing of all, Miss Pruitt. And don’t sell yourself short; I’d say that you have a very active imagination, because you’re imagining it, aren’t you? You’re imagining the cold steel invading the inside of your body, pushing your organs around, dividing your muscle tissue…” She pauses, catches my eyes the second before they glaze over. My mind floods with the endless, bottomless deluge of possibilities, far too many to ever account for. The next word out of her mouth seems to dangle there, off the overhang of her lips, like a lifeline just out of reach. “Rearranging… until you’re a butterfly, free of the cocoon.”

[phireflies]

𝗺𝘂𝘀𝗲

eddie gives you drawing ideas when you're experiencing art block. [wc; 2.3k]

pairing; eddie munson x fem!reader

warnings; swearing and fluff, i think that's literally it (written on my phone so mistakes too)

a/n; is this completely self-indulgent... maybe... i will edit this when i wake up i swear

"i'm at a loss, eds," you say, throwing yourself onto his bed, arms and legs splayed out.

"why's that?" he was fiddling with the strings on his guitar, not looking up at you.

you sigh. "my sketchbook is like, empty and i have to turn it in by friday."

"that's in two days," he states.

"wow really? i didn't know that."

"teasing." he laughs, putting his guitar down, finally looking at you. "all outta ideas?" you nod. "draw me."

when you sit up, your face is so close to his, noses almost touching. "i can't draw you, i'll mess it up."

"then it'll be abstract. c'mon, i'll sit like a statue, i promise!”

you laugh so hard you throw your head back. the thought of eddie munson sitting still, like a statue no less, was wild. he couldn't stop fidgeting as if his life depended on it.

looking over at him, you noticed that he would make a good subject. his hands were really nice after all, the rings the cherry on top. you loved his eyes too, and his hair, and his nose. everything about him.

"okay," you say, smiling. he leans in so your nose touches his, and smiles. "i can draw you."

"fuck yeah, babe! can you do it with a colored pencil? you have those right?"

you nod. "i only have red and blue though."

"red, red's my favorite color."

you nod again, confirming the color. eddie had taken you home, to his home, after school like always, so you had all of your art supplies with you. it wasn't much, a few hb pencils, pens, and two colored pencils.

inside, eddie was freaking out. he loved your art, and would shower you with compliments and kisses when you showed him a new piece, throwing in a few can you draw hellfire posters? too.

he'd never thought to ask for a portrait before. maybe it was because some part of him, something very deep down inside him, thought it would be scary to see someone else's interpretation of him. he was excited nevertheless.

you pulled out your sketchbook with almost twenty-five percent of it filled and sighed, letting your fingers roam around the cover - feeling the divots of when you pushed your pencil too hard in to make a mark, meaningless doodles, and words.

"you can go back to doing whatever, i can go from there."

eddie kissed your temple and leaned back to get his guitar. he started messing with the strings again as if they weren't perfect the first time around.

you looked around eddies room, which had somewhat become your room. wayne suggested you move in, to help keep it clean. eddie even made a stack of your clothes on his floor.

"what's the theme of this one? they all got themes, right?" he asked, half distracted.

"uh, not sure. think it's something like family or your idea of home."

eddie smiled to himself. "yeah? you're okay with putting me with that theme?"

you started sketching out his room, the perspective a little wonky but it would turn out fine. "'course eds, not to be all cheesy but you're kinda my idea of home." you are my home, you want to say.

"that's awfully sweet of you." he teases again, but neither of you can deny the blush creeping onto his face. it starts at the tip of his ears. "just so happens that you're my idea of home too. i mean, you put your shoes next to mine!" he repeats what you said, but leaves out the kinda.

you laugh hard again, but don't reply. you relish at this moment, of eddie doing whatever he does, back towards you, but still touching you, and you doing what you love, of who you love.

your focus is turned back onto the page as you start to slowly add in blocks, mapping out the clothes on his floor, the posters, and little trinkets. crosshatching is used to add depth and shadows and make it all look a little better, more real.

when it's finished, you write home at the top right and sign your name under. "look, eds."

"you're a modern da vinci, babe." he pretends to not see the title at the top but smiles like an idiot to himself when he turns away.

you move on to the next page. anatomy. it was never something that you were particularly good at, everything looking a little off.

eddie's backside turns out to be a great reference. you start out with the outline of his back and his hair, then you slowly add details in, carving them in. you don't offer to show him this one.

next, you draw the guitar, where it hangs in front of the mirror. eddie moved on to messing with his amp. you draw the pick on his nightstand, and the box of cigarettes, though you don't draw the label. it's just a box on paper, but you know it's more.

"s'it working?" he asks. you've gotten caught up in your drawing that you didn't realize he sat right next to you again.

you hum, nodding. "i'm tired already."

it was pretty late, and you were pretty tired. "m'tired too. you sure this burst of inspiration won't disappear by tomorrow?"

"nope, because you'll still be here, i hope."

he smiles wide again. idiot, you think. my idiot. "always gonna be here."

with that, eddie helps you get situated to sleep, and you're out.

when the birds outside wake you up, you're excited to draw, your hands itching. you're excited because you get to draw eddie. the entire day was going to be focused on drawing him, his features and his hands and his tattoos, everything that makes him eddie.

because of how the trailer is set, the sun shines bright through his window, perfectly highlighting eddie. the sheets have slid down to his lower back, so you can see the curves of his back and the few light freckles on his shoulders.

it’s perfect, he’s perfect. you have to draw him.

moving as slowly as you can, you reach down to grab your sketchbook off the floor, along with a colored pencil. you mark down the general shape of him, and then work on his face - half in the pillow with furrowed eyebrows and pouted lips. you wonder what he was dreaming about.

you make sure to get the way his hair falls into his eyes and over his shoulder, a few distinct curls on his cheek.

“freak.” he mutters, opening his eyes a smidge.

“you asked for this.”

he huffs, slowly getting up with a groan. “guess i did. can i see?”

you shake your head and move the sketchbook away. “not yet, when i get it back. monday.” you say, promising.

“monday.” he agrees. “d’you want eggs? think that’s all we got.”

you nod. “eggs sound perfect, eds.” smiling, you think back on all of the other times eddie made eggs and how he dumped salt on them.

he stands up to find a shirt and pants, but not before he presses a kiss to your temple and each cheek.

you follow him into the kitchen, still clutching the sketchbook. wayne’s sitting in his chair, sipping a coffee. it was rare to see him so early.

“hi wayne.” you say, to which he turns back and waves.

“you know she’s an artist right?” eddie says, cracking four eggs into a hot pan. they sizzle.

wayne laughs. “‘course i do, you show me everything she’s ever given you.”

your face heats up at the new knowledge. “you do?”

eddie looks sheepish, like you weren’t supposed to know. he shrugs, a red blush painting his face. “i mean, yeah, sometimes.”

“all the time!” wayne corrects with a loud laugh.

eddie scowls playfully and returns to his cooking. attempt at cooking.

while eddie begins to plate the eggs, wayne departs, reminding you to show him more art. wayne was your second biggest fan, after eddie of course.

eddie, thankfully, learned how much salt is too much, so the eggs were edible. “wish we had bacon or something.” he says with his mouth full of food. you’d scold him for that, but you were too enamored with the sight before you.

his hair was a mess, his eyes were still droopy and half-lidded, and he was smiling at you once he swallowed his food. his smile. you wanted it burned into your memory forever.

“this is good.” you manage.

“you’re staring.” he states, smiling even wider.

you scoff, trying to play it off. “i do not stare!”

eddie’s finished with his eggs, so he gets up to clean his plate. he kissed your head as he passes you. “i stare at you too. in a completely normal way, though.”

“that was a normal way!” you join him in cleaning your plate.

the rest of the morning continues like it always does, brushing your teeth together, and getting dressed together, and leaving together.

the rest of the day, however, doesn’t go like you hope it does. you don’t see eddie for much of it, and all you want to do is draw him. it’s a funny feeling, not wanting to do anything but draw and draw and draw. maybe it was something eddie-specific.

before you knew it, you were walking into the drama room to watch eddie’s dungeons and dragons campaign.

the boys all lit up at the sight of you, waving and greeting you, then getting back into setting up.

“babe! how’d the drawing thing go today?” he asked, pulling you aside.

you shrugged. “didn’t do much, didn’t see you much.” he frowns. “i can do more tonight though!”

“you’ll show me?”

you smile, shrugging. “can’t make any promises.”

“god, you’re awful.”

eddie laughs loudly before running to begin the campaign. you have a seat near the table, where you can see the party to either side and eddie in the middle. the glow of the florescent light make it look like he’s got a halo around his head.

as the group progresses in the campaign and gets more rowdy, you decide to draw it. a little sketch, nothing too detailed. you’ve adopted the younger kids, so they fit in with the theme. found family, you think.

eddie’s in the middle with his arms out, and everyone else is at the sides, smiling wide with unique expressions on their faces.

you’ve still got a good chunk of sketchbook left, so you draw the party’s characters. it’s a little unclear what the exact vision was for all of them, but you do the best you can. you end up with numerous half-rendered pieces of their dungeons and dragons characters with the respective player labeled at the top.

by the time you’re done, they’ve finished the session and are cleaning up.

“was that a good one?” you ask when eddie’s done.

he puts a hand on your waist and leads you out to his van. he nods. “one of the best. think you’re my lucky charm, babe.”

“that’s cheesy.”

he pauses, thinking. “you’re right, but wasn’t that sweet? i just came up with that!”

you laugh and push his shoulder. “i could tell.”

“you’re evil.” he smiles, no real harm behind his words. “what’d you draw?“

eddie starts his van and begins to drive out of the school lot. “just you and the party, their characters, stuff like that.”

“y’know, they’d love to see that stuff.”

you nod. “i’ll tear out the pages when it’s all graded. they can keep it if they deem it worthy of their vision.”

eddie snorts. “they love you, of course they’d love it!”

you want to disagree, but eddie turns up his music so you can’t. you glare at him, but it eventually fades into an endearing smile.

once you’re at his trailer again, you’re quick to pick up where you left off - sketching his hands doing whatever he’s doing, in this case, smoking.

you draw his hand with a cigarette between his first and second finger, lightly sketching a line to make a string of smoke. you make sure to get his rings. you continue onto his arm, where he’s rolled up the sleeve. his tattoos are visible, so you draw them too. accuracy is not a concern, as you already know you’ve got them down perfectly. you know him like the back of your hand.

“think you’ll finish by tomorrow?”

you nod, drawing his side profile. “sure i will, i’ve got enough you to last a lifetime.”

“god.” he sighs, smiling to himself.

the page is full, so you turn to the next and focus on his eyes. what they look like when he smiles, the wrinkles in the corners, eyelashes kissing. what they look like when he’s happy and full of fondness. what they look like closed.

“you’re gonna get frostbite.” he says, pulling you you up and into the trailer.

“it’s seventy degrees.”

“it happens, heat frostbite.”

you give him a look, raising your eyebrows. “so… heatstroke?”

“maybe.”

the rest of the night is filled with laughter and funny looks as you try to get eddie’s not-so-patient expression down on the page. you’d have to see the real thing though, a pencil can only do so much.

the remaining pages of your sketchbook are filled with his hands. floating hands cut off at the wrist, just doing random things - holding a pick, practicing guitar, attempting homework, hold your hand. that was the hardest, trying to hold his and draw with the other.

“fucking finally.” you swear, wiping your forehead. “finally finished.”

“proud of you. all of little ole me too.” he smiles smugly, poking your side. “you’re gonna get the best grade on that goddamn sketchbook.”

you laugh, looking at him. admiring him. “i think i did well. you’re my muse now.”

eddie laughs loudly, trying to hide the growing blush on his face. to be someone’s muse was an honor, to be your muse.

you were eddie’s muse, numerous corroded coffin songs being written about you or with you in mind. two different artists, but you were all the same.