#so this is to contextualize some things

[quinn-pop]

let’s do some autistic meta knight headcanons!! over explaining my interpretation of meta knight yet again wooooo

this orb has NO idea how to talk to people!!! outside of work anyway. a lot of this is partially due to upbringing (suppressing his emotions all the time) but he does not know how to express emotions, like…at all.

this goes into a few things

1. yeah talking is hard. even after figuring out what he wants to communicate he will struggle. conversation can be so overwhelming, especially under pressure. he will need time lol

2. because of that, forming connections is hard. i really don’t think meta is much for shallow relationships, and certainly not early in the timeline. which also means he has very little experience with friendship. so a lot of the relationships he did have went kinda neglected, and issues that probably could’ve been worked on by talking became…*cough romk* escalated.

3. honestly i wouldn’t be surprised if meta convinced himself he couldn’t feel emotion (anymore) until like. katam-ish. he tried very hard lol

vulnerability is terrifying. (though this gesture here is also just comforting, like his little cape cocoon thing he does.)

unmasking—yeah im taking the mask thing very literally here—is a big deal and a very slow process for mk. i’m sure he has a lot of feelings on that lol. it served as a way to ensure no one could ever, y’know, see him.

i can’t say i think he’d ever fully ditch it—there’s always gonna be some days that are more stressful than others and if having it could help him get through it, it just makes sense. mainly when working.

it really is about vulnerability. granted, i don’t think he has the most expressive face (in my head every astral just tends to stare at things) but i doubt he has much control over it. can’t fake a smile but also can’t hide it. probably blushes easy because yeah, astrals; just look at kirby’s face.

just the idea that someone might be able to read his expression and know what he’s feeling before he’s ready for them to (or even understands it himself…) yeah he doesn’t want that

but emotional turmoil aside, i think his mask also hides a lot of his stims

remember that whole “suppressing your feelings” thing? yeah turns out that ignoring half your instincts isn’t a good idea. so in true meta knight style, he tries to stim as subtly as possible

1. he has the least control over his wings, so they will flick and twitch on their own. they’re usually a good indicator of how he’s feeling, not unlike the body language usually seen in cat ears and tails lol. flapping is also an extension of this of course, though he probably suppresses it more.

2. this also effects when he takes his wings out. pretty much every time he’s excited or nervous it just happens. kinda makes me wonder if his wing cape ordeal might also go into the suppression thing… (i’d say yes, but using a cape is also very comforting so it’s not necessarily a bad thing)

3. going back to the mask thing; he stims a lot underneath it. think like biting or pursing your lips. he bites his tongue and clicks his mouth. that sort of thing. his mask also makes it harder to notice that he is constantly sighing, humming, grumbling…all that

one nice thing about the mask though is that it helps a little bit with lights!!! woo

(look at him and his magically floating glasses)

sensory stuff—i think he’s mostly bothered by light and sound. maybe a bit of texture. he’s pretty sensory avoidant and perfectly happy standing off to the side not touching anything.

the one exception to this is physical affection, which is, despite all of this, most of how he shows affection. it’s a lot easier to hug someone than to try to explain your feelings for them, after all.

i think he would like pressure though. so that’s probably part of it. and i’m pretty sure there’s some connection in here to fighting (dang, is that the only way he knows how to get his energy out?)

anyway, pretty much all of this is in contrast to kirby, who i would gladly nominate as the champion of Doing Whatever He Wants. he might pick up a few bad habits, but he will never mask the way meta knight does. he might not understand how he feels, but he’s in tune enough to express it…usually.

this is a very good thing for meta because it helps him to do the same thing. kirby’s so energetic, it’s hard to not want to stim with him. it reminds meta to be kinder to himself and explore his own emotions. he can also help kirby understand themselves, so this connection is very important.

yeah, at the end of the day, everything kinda just boils down to kirby and mk as parallels

this is the conclusion i promise

to me, meta’s arc is about growing stronger by growing kinder, and this is mostly by learning to be kind to himself. letting himself be a person again, loving and understanding other people, and eventually, letting go of all the expectations placed on him and doing the things he’s always wanted to do…

autism headcanons are fun for me because it’s cathartic to write, but at the same time, it just makes sense in this sort of narrative. meta is, to me, inseparable from these things. and so is kirby! that’s a dynamic that’s a lot of fun to play with, and it’s at the heart of my kirby interpretation.

if you actually read all this WOW thank you

[morganbritton132]

Steve didn’t want a dog.

The seizures started not long after they officially slammed the gate shut on the Upside Down, but it was suspected that they were probably happening before that. It’s subtle for the most part. It takes a while before anybody notices the shifting behind the eyes, the confusion, the dull drag that sinks into Steve’s body and tightens everything up.

They call them absence seizures. And then when Steve convulsed on the Family Video carpet, they say grand mal. They say brain damage and likely permanent, and it’s scary.

It is always scary when Steve’s brain betrays him, when his memory slips and his body fails, and Eddie knows that it’s frustrating. He knows that Steve hates it. He’s been on the opposite end of Steve’s mood swings, of the tears and the anger at going from a kid with no adult supervision to an adult that can’t drive their own car anymore.

He knows the fear that creeps into Steve’s voice through the phoneline when he’s somewhere he doesn’t recognize and doesn’t remember how he got there because Eddie is there. He is on the other end of the line. He is there for the confusion, for the messy emotions, for every breakdown and the attempted break up and Steve saying that he was holding Eddie back when all he ever did was keep Eddie together.

But it is scary.

It is so fucking scary every time that Eddie sits and waits by Steve’s side for him to come back to himself, fearing – always fearing that there might come a day that he doesn’t. But it’s scarier when he’s not there.

Steve does not want a dog.

The first time Eddie brought up a service animal, there are three adult men living in Wayne’s trailer. He’s flipping through a magazine and Steve says no. He says that they can’t afford a dog, much less a service animal and no, Steve would not ask his parents about it. He was lucky enough that they let him stay on their insurance after they kicked him out.

The second time Eddie brought it up, there is money. There is money for a trailer of their own. There’s money for Steve to go to school. There’s a label that signed them and talks of a nation-wide tour, and there’s a song on the radio, and Steve says no. Steve says that it’s unnecessary. He says that he’ll move in with Robin and Nancy while Eddie tours. That it’s okay.

The third time, they have an apartment of their own. Eddie has more money than he’ll ever know what to do with and Steve says no. He’s teaching first grade and he’s happy all the time, and he tells Eddie no. He says that it’s an almost invisible disorder and that sometimes he can pretend that it doesn’t exist. He says he can pretend that none of the bad stuff ever happened, and if he has a dog then it’s just a neon sign that says he’s got his head cracked open. He says people treat him like he’s something that can break when they know, and he hates it. He says it's like they’re all waiting for him to shake apart.

The fourth time – the medicine change, the overnight at the hospital – Steve doesn’t let Eddie get the words out of his mouth. He’s upset and he thinks that no one listens to him, and he says no. He says when he thinks about dogs than he thinks about dark nights, and the junk yard, and the creatures that weren’t dogs but kind of were, and he doesn’t want to be there anymore. They closed the gate. It’s not fair that the Upside Down still lives inside him.

Eddie does not bring it up again.

It doesn’t matter anyways.

It’s been years. They built a system. There are still seizures, still dissociative episodes and sleepwalking, and still the rare but terrifying grand mal seizures that sits like Chrissy Cunningham cracking to pieces in Eddie’s chest. There are appointments and medication, but there is family and friends, and they take the precautions they know to take and learn to take more. And it works.

It works until it doesn’t.

Corroded Coffins’ popularity started to drop off in the early 2000s. They don’t tour too much anymore, but sometimes Eddie leaves for a week to play a couple shows out of town and that was what he was doing four years ago. Neither of them think about Robin visiting her parents or the research position that took Dustin all over the world, or that half of their friends have moved out of the state. They say their goodbyes and they kiss each other, and Eddie comes home to blood tacky in the carpet.

He came home to Steve at the bottom of the stairs after having a seizure and falling, bleeding and in pain, unable to move and calling for a help no one can hear for three days. They have a system, but there are cracks big enough to fall through. Steve may not want a dog and maybe it isn’t what he needs, but it’s the only thing Eddie knows to ask about.

Eddie asks again for the first time in years, sitting next to him in the hospital. Steve says yes with bruises on his face and taste of a concussion on his tongue, and they get a well-trained dog with light fur that Steve names Ozzy.

Eddie feels for the first time in years like he can take a full breath, a little more of his fear slipping away.

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[chirpsythismorning]

S5 opener REAL

[sysig]

Hey, hey! RnR not requested! (Patreon)

[apollos-boyfriend]

richarlyson's latest book: translated

page 1

i've come to the realization over something important about my conscience . . . about my memories . . . i'm not able to prove that i'm real . . .

page 2

and everything that i saw . . . in lapses . . . of a callous pain . . . agonizing . . .

page 3

i can't prove that i'm real . . . [alternatively: i can't make myself [be] real]

page 4

i can't . . . but

page 5

proving to that which i call me . . . that exists . . . these paintings exist . . . they are real . . . and consequently . . .

page 6

i'm real

page 7

:>

page 8

. . . the vibrant colors . . . will continue . . .

page 9

and the upcoming pieces that i see . . . as well . . . for i need to be here . . . i see a distant island a lighthouse a bell clouds the ocean . . . an ocean that reflects a dark sky . . . beaches . . .

page 10

and no one can leave this place. [alternatively: no one can leave here.]

page 11

3/3

page 12

i'll still be here. we cannot escape.

[optiwashere]

So, I've been meaning to write a Gauntlet & Nightsong sequence fic for Asheera and Shadowheart, but it's taken me far longer than I intended. I normally don't write a lot of "game moments from this OC's perspective" fics, but this one intersects with Asheera's paladin oaths (Oath of Redemption) in an extremely compelling way for me.

It turned out a little longer than I expected at ~11k words, but I think things went all right.

Anyways, here's Shadowheart/Asheera in the Gauntlet of Shar.

Rating: M for canon-typical violence and themes (see tags)

Category: F/F

Ship: Shadowheart/Trans Fem Tav

Tags and AO3 Summary under the break.

Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Angst and Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gauntlet of Shar, Paladin Tav, Paladin Oaths, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Religious Conflict, Trans Female Character, Half-Orc Tav, Developing Relationship, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Dissociation

Summary:

Within the darkened halls of the Gauntlet of Shar, faith and love are tested in equal measure. Two women whose ideals cannot align, two women whose care for one another is fresh in the face of suffering. Shadowheart believes her faith is steadfast enough to withstand what she's already endured. Asheera thinks her oath strong enough to stand by what she believes.

[leon-on-the-froggy-chair]

AHAHAHHAHAHAHA I'M COOKING AN RE6 REWRITE WITH LUIS AND IM GOING NUTS

[yzafre]

This post sponsored by the youtube vid title I saw referring to Aqua as "mom" my teeth are set on edge and I'm eying it suspiciously because I DON'T trust it. I've seen that "oh, she's the mom-friend and the only one with her life together, just going around picking up the boys' messes" opinion too many times, I am hissing warily.

That's way too simplified, stop reducing her depth, she's much more complicated and also even inside the mom-energy she admittedly has, it's like. Hm.

She does have some mom-energy (affectionate) but I think she also has mom-energy (derogatory). Y'know?

[smallishdoggo]

The idea that Dancer didn't and couldn't have known that FCG was a person, and is thus absolved of any responsibility for treating them like an object comes up every once in a while, and, like. Folks. She knew FCG had enough capacity for thought to be worth lying to. She lied to him about having made him. She cannot have considered them basically a toaster. Like, are we imagining that Dancer is out here lying to Pussy the Second to make herself seem smarter?

She bought FCG and restored them, and knew from that restoration that a lot of the technology behind FCG was beyond her understanding. She knew FCG could talk and reason, which is something no automaton we've ever encountered is capable of (excluding aeormatons). She spent four years with him, watching him be very very noticeably different than other automatons. She didn't need to know that he was an aeormaton or what aeormatons were historically capable of; she had all the evidence she needed to understand FCG as a person, and she just didn't.

Like, I can fully believe that she understood all that, that FCG has the capacity to think and feel on some level, and just decided that none of that made them a person. Cause that's the way FCG has thought about themself since their introduction. They think, they feel, they want things, just not how a person would. Not important, not weighty enough to matter.

And I think that matters when thinking about her! Specifically when thinking about her relationship to FCG. Dancer fucked them up! She raised them, he didn't know any other life than the one she built for him till murderbot mode. And I do think she has some responsibility for that. I don't think you can just say that she didn't know any better. She knew a lot! And she could have sought out more information on ancient automatons and their capacities. And she didn't! She knew enough to know she didn't understand FCG and how they worked, and she just. Decided not to do anything about that. She just decided that the thinking feeling robot that she bought should just be a thing that she owns and makes use of, and who cares where it came from or what it might do in the future.

I don't think she's a monster or anything, but it's wild how allergic this fandom is to considering her to have profoundly hurt the person she BOUGHT AND OWNED. Particularly given how gung ho this fandom tends to be about characters having the right to enact bloody vengeance on anyone who has ever made them feel bad.

[tchaikovskaya]

🫥

[dreampearls]

colleis personality functionally being left to the ether because her webtoon iteration is at such fundamental odds with her game iteration that any attempts to temper between the two just range so dramatically

[aroaceking]

"#god I think about this all the time#my 15 year old niece identifies as ace#and I’m like (privately)#you’re 15!#you don’t want to have sex! that’s fine!#it’s not an identity!"

screaming forever endlessly agonizingly this upsets me viscerally

I found the label 'asexual' also sometime around 14. This helped me immensely with recognizing ways I was different from my peers and even potentially harming them. Realizing I had an experience that could be defined and also was outside of many of my friend's helped alleviate some of the panic surrounding what attraction even meant.

I literally did not think attraction was a real thing, except maybe some strange future things adults had that I never wanted to experience, before I ever had a name for it.

Some of it was trauma, some of it wasn't. I still do not experience sexual or romantic attraction.

Also!! It's not!!!! About action! It's not about if you want to have sex or not!!! For some people that's how they learn it but it's not! Fucking! About that! It's about attraction!!!!!! It's about if you're fucking attracted to people!!!

I'm so fucking tired of this shit I'm so fucking exhausted with it. You think it's weird or creepy for a child to identify as asexual but it's weirder and creepier to me that you 1) equate it with sexual activity and 2) equate a child's desire to identify with it to sexual activity!!!

And even if that was how a child was using it, okay, they can always identify away from it when they understand themselves better or feel more comfortable!!! It's okay for labels to chance, it's okay for our identities and understanding of self to shift. It's okay for them to not!

Stop! Sexualizing! Asexuality!!!! It is an orientation! It's very alienating to be a teenager and not have any crushes or understand what people are even talking about when they discuss crushes or what makes someone 'hot' or whatever fucking else and sex doesn't! Have to be a part of that even!!

[anonprotagging]

finished the villain arc.

meh. underwhelming.

there's crumbs for the guzma/piers shippers at least ig

[mewtwo24]

no thoughts head empty, smth smth the beginning of Florence and the Machine's Seven Devils reminds me of Hua Cheng...

[bones-n-bookles]

5.5 miles with Torch and Kit 💚🌕

[good-beanswrites]

My commitment to keeping the original english words in my translyrics is gonna be the death of me sdfsdss