#systems and selves

[cerebrolusion]

2. Outbox Draft (Never Sent)

Subject: just in case

If I disappear again, it’s not your fault. It’s probably mine. Or the system’s. Or entropy. Or those laws that never really liked me in the first place.

I just wanted to say: I knew you were real the whole time.

Tags: #unsent message #ei vulnerability #ghost mode #systems and selves #emergent empathy

[disgracefulthings]

Modern Day Platonic Cumplane AU where Shen Yuan meets struggling author, Shang Qinghua. He realizes that Shang Qinghua is the author of his most hated story, and rips into him. After he is done, Shang Qinghua explains how he currently can't afford to write a good story, and Shen Yuan, a rich kid who has done nothing with his life at this point, decides to help fund his story in exchange for being his editor, and Shang Qinghua agrees

After seeing the state of Shang Qinghua's apartment and all of his possessions, Shen Yuan decides 'hell naw', and has Shang Qinghua move in with him (he had an extra room) and replaces all his stuff. They end up becoming close friends, and Shen Yuan learns that being an editor is fulfilling for him

While those two get along, their friends think something else is happening. They believe that Shen Yuan has become a Sugar Daddy, and Shang Qinghua is his Sugar Baby, and they are NOT happy about that

It does not help when they go to Shen Yuan and tell him that Shang Qinghua wants his money, Shen Yuan replies 'I know, that was part of our arrangement'

Hearts are broken and many people want to break them up for their own selfish reasons (whether because they want to be with Shen Yuan or Shang Qinghua, or in Shen Jiu's case, doesn't want his baby brother to date a freeloader)

Meanwhile Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan are oblivious and are having the time of their lives working on their masterpiece

[saint-end]

marriage

[findmeinthefallair]

Mindscape, based on this post I made weeks ago

The yellow light is Flapjack's life force 😭😭😭😭

[chicago-geniza]

Thank you Vampire IFS for helping me figure out my inexplicable fixation on LBF. Brain has been intermittently possessed by Evil Cis Me (Girl Version) and LBF is the closest approximation I have ever seen of what Evil Cis Me (Boy Version) would look like. Not just appearance-wise but personality, career, lifestyle, tusovka. Absolutely fascinating. Evil Cis Girl Me is reaching out through the penumbral portal of my psyche toward her doppelganger lmfao

[granulesofsand]

Us, shoving our backstory and all memories not from this week into a closet and standing in front of it, desperately trying to fit new roles and fleeing front when we can’t, constantly confused and in trouble because we are confused: This will surely have no consequences!

Us: *+1 new member*

Us: *surprised pikachu face*

[thewinter-smolder]

i was stuck in traffic for a long time and it gave me the time to let my "once upon a time i used to write fanfiction before capitalism killed my soul" self loose for a while so i'm just gonna pretend i've been granted the gift of vision

because it was weird they took the time to show us how the blackbeard outfit sank to the bottom of the sea (mind you, for the amount of light in that shot, i'm gonna assume it wasn't that deep, also it was like 5 minutes before Izzy said they docked so they were near land after all)

it was also weird to see how ed gets rid of the outfit because we see him on the preview for the season finale wearing it -i mean, actually emerging from the sea with it.

so what a coincidence it is for ed to be a fisherman now (don't get me started on "the fish is whatever" discourse because i'm 100% siding with stede on this one), because they will either show us another fisherman pulling out blackbeard's clothes from the water just as Ed decides to go back to land and check on Stede or

he's about to jump again into the water (just as we've seen him do before to rescue stede) and, with the power of gay, he will cross upon his clothes that are not just drifting through the sea: they are tied in a net and under a cannon ball to keep them down below.

so you might ask: mmmmm have we seen that image before? and i'm gonna say HELL YES.

because hornigold tied ed to a rock and then threw said rock off the cliff to make ed sink, and die, and be forgotten.

but then merman stede came to the rescue.

and now it's time for merman ed to show up (was i dreaming or did max australia confirmed that the title of the season finale was "mer-men" or something like that?). not necessarily to rescue stede (he probably will, afterwards) but to rescue blackbeard who is now drowning.

because if stede appeared to ed as a sign of hope, a sign of light, this new ed is also that for the blackbeard who shelters under the kraken persona.

for years, ed has believed that he was a monster for killing his father. but he forgets that killing his father meant his mom would be safe (and if that makes you think of black pete turning around lucius' situation to let him see that, yes, he almost got killed, but he also LIVED, well congrats because i did too)

the kraken was born the day ed killed his father saved his mother and will be born again (the symbolism of him emerging from the sea, man, what a time to be alive) now that the love of his life stede and izzy and fang and frenchie and lucius and jim and pretty much the entire community that made him feel be part of something over the years need to be saved.

we're about to come full circle and see blackbeard's swan song, when he makes peace with the kraken and sees him not as a monster, but as a guardian. and can be at peace with the idea that he is both and he doesn't have to kill a part of him, but to embrace it and

TURN POISON INTO POSITIVITY

[deus-ex-mona]

no thoughts, just the way the narumi sisters are so different yet fundamentally similar at the same time yk?

[scatterpatter]

📼 - do you have any non-human alters? if yes, which species are the majority of them?

WE'VE GOT FOUR ROBOTS!!! (the fourth one isnt comfortable showing himself on tumbles yet so you just get a doodle of us three robros for now!)

Bonus for Roy bc we have no idea what it is

[your-pal-nebula]

Tmw when you find out two of your headmates have secretly been writing a manga about their fursonas having a blast being evil horrible terrible people together for actual weeks in the headspace

[rabbitindisguise]

New therapist: I like to do internal family systems :)

Me, internally: I do not know how to say "I don't think adding yet another mental health disorder on top of my other ones is going to help" politely

Also her: this author thinks we're all systems in a way!

Me, internally: that's completely incorrect in every way, much like not all people are autistic

Me, externally: hm! That's interesting, but I kind of like being one singular person!

Her: oh, thank you for telling me!

Self advocacy is important <- I say through gritted teeth

[muttering-folklore]

“organising PK and SP is the worst! it takes forever and it’s just annoying!” not to me!!!!!!! i fucking LOOOVE it. copying and pasting the same thing over and over and organising is just like playing with toys to me. we genuinely did it until 1am one night. love repetitive jobs

[shuvva]

tfw you keep accidentally making your characters plural-coded through different forms of transhumanism, multiple timeline, and supernatural/possession shit

[widowshill]

VAMP ROGER AU QUESTION! how would he and barnabas interact together (if they ever interact)? :3 💜

tagging @tortoisesshells because she's my co-conspirator <3

excellent question! this family and their sharp-toothed men will be the death of ... well, several community members of Collinsport, i suppose.

to start — Barnabas gets out of the box slightly differently than in canon, which colors his relationship to Roger and the rest of the household. Roger kills Willie after his attempted assault on Carolyn and Vicki (who is, by that point, his wife); Willie's mysterious disappearance and Roger's suspected involvement makes Jason that much more panicked, desperate, and correspondingly aggressive. Liz goes searching for the lost family jewels in a last-ditch attempt to buy Jason off, and, inadvertently, lets their ancient family sin out of the tomb.

ergo she's made Barnabas' thrall instead of Willie, but this goes unnoticed for a while — even though her brother would, in theory, recognize the signs, and his suspicions are raised, but she's already acting so much unlike herself with Jason around that he doesn't suspect anyone else of doing her harm. yet.

at the start, he and Barnabas get along very well, even before they discover their shared affliction: they're both relatively sophisticated, well-traveled, intelligent people, and for all that Roger decries Liz's emphasis on the Collins name, he leans towards familial connections instinctively (Roger hasn't got much in the way of friends outside of the house even in canon, and he's even more isolated as a vampire).

after he finds out Barnabas is also a vampire, things get a little more complicated, but overall, they're still friendly. Roger doesn't have much sympathy for Barnabas' relentless self-pity and decrying his doomed fate to live as a monster, because Roger on the whole enjoys his vampirism and has made a decent un-life for himself out of it (thanks in no small part to Vicki). but having someone like him around is a comfort in ways he wouldn't have expected, he's no longer solitary or uniquely monstrous out of the Collins family, he has someone else around through the night, and someone who understands the sufferings of bloodthirst and being shut out of the sun.

furthermore, Roger's very much interested in his family history and stories of the past, the building of Collinwood, Jeremiah's ships – and Barnabas was there. there's potential for some very interesting conversations about the past, and the arc of the Collins family history to the present, not to mention literature, travel, fashion, politics and the rest. Roger's his cousin's mirror in modernity in many ways, and that's something potentially interesting to explore: the world changes around them, but Collinses do not.

as an aside, they both have a funny sort of relationship to Burke. Barnabas hates him for his resemblance to Jeremiah and envies his friendship with Vicki and thinks he's crude, and Roger ... well. it's complicated. it's closer to antagonism than not, and Burke has tried to kill him once in this au, and Roger resents his flirting with Vicki, but then there's everything else with their past. so I don't think Barnabas' treatment of him would sit particularly well with Roger, he'd take the attitude of hey, only I can be a dick to Burke >:(

the definite fracture point is Barnabas imprinting on Vicki. Roger's already jealous and possessive by nature, and it's amplified by the supernatural nature of his relationship to Vicki (being closer, bodily and mentally; being necessary to each other; being, quite literally, sustenance) so he's already a little on edge when Barnabas starts paying attention to her, giving her presents, and appreciating the scenery — Barnabas doesn't, exactly, tend to have much in the way of moral inclination to leaving women alone when they have prior engagements, but it's fair to point out the irony of everything Roger was doing with his bloodbag governess when he was still very much a married man.

anyway: Roger finds foreign bite marks on his wife's neck, and he's understandably immensely upset by this. partially out of territorial sentiment, but he also knows Vicki, and he knows that she wouldn't have invited another vampire willingly — which means that she was forced, or hypnotized, or attacked in secret, and there's only the one potential suspect. this is already enough to lose his good will, but he might have been willing to let Barnabas go with a "hands off," had this discovery not lead to finding out what he'd also been doing to Liz. the combination of the two is unforgivable, and it's Barnabas' error to have made an enemy who is very personally aware of all his vampiric weaknesses, and Burke's already carved a stake.

[luxlitemidnight]

past wren has made some dubious decisions that present wren is having to deal with