#this isn't really related to anything it's just horrific.

[moongothic]

(Frankenstein'd two asks together for the sake of previty)

I've been pretty torn between answering this ask and just doing a deep dive re-analysis post about Marineford as a whole (from Crocodile's perspective) because I feel like rereading it now as a Crocodad Truther, I could probably make a whole lot of new observations and/or read into things differently than I did last time I read it (when I was rereading for the purpose of studying the viability of Crocodad) Like there's so much to say about the whole arc and I'd include this line of thought in there anyways... But also, do I really feel like writing a giant essay like that........

I am going to start this by refering to this mini-essay I wrote like a month ago, about how Crocodile seems to have this attitude of "no crying over spilt milk". What's happened has happened, what's done is done, it's your own fault things turned out the way they did, there's no undoing any of it and you just have to continue on. And I do think that attitude would be key here to understanding Crocodile's actions in Marineford re:Crocodad

(Sidenote because this is not relevant to the rest of the post, but the reason this is about Crocodad and not CrocoUncle etc is because if Crocodile was only loosely related to Luffy it would not have the same kind of impact emotionally (for Crocodile; like there is a difference between a nephew and a son). Additionally a part of Crocodad is that it ties into Crocodile's connection with Ivankov in a really important way. If Crocodile was only loosely related to Luffy, him also being trans would kind of be like a random sidenote without being relevant to the two being family, but suddenly if Crocodile is Luffy's other biological parent, him being trans matters a lot more. Also if he's not Luffy's other dad then we'd be still stuck asking who the fuck birthed Luffy to begin with)

While Sengoku's announcement here would make for a horrific revelation to Crocodile in this situation (a revelation we never see his immidiate reaction to, which continues to be deeply sus), what would it change, really?

The little idiot child who Crocodile had attempted to murder multiple times was his own son. Sure, he might've insantly lost whatever grudge he might've held against Luffy, then what? That feeling would be one-sided, because at this point in the story Luffy hated Crocodile's guts and he knew that too. Luffy has no idea about them being related, and even if Crocodile literally walked up the kid right that second and told him the truth, what would it change? He'd still be the man who nearly nuked a million people off the face of the earth, took over a country and killed Luffy and his friends while laughing about it. Being Luffy's other dad wouldn't make him any less of a horrible asshole (if anything it might make it slightly worse 'cause you get to add shit like "child abandonment" onto his list of crimes).

Luffy came to Marineford to save Ace. Crocodile came to Marineford to kill Whitebeard. He had no reason to interfere with Luffy's quest, and with the help Luffy already was recieving from the prison escapees, the Newkama and the Whitebeard Pirates, what would Crocodile's assistance add to the mix? Would Luffy even welcome him in helping save his brother?

Luffy had his own life, a life Crocodile had not been a part of. He had no right to try to insert himself into it at this point, after all he had done to Luffy. There's no crying over spilled milk. What's done is done, you just have to move on. He should just focus on what he came to do; get his revenge and take Whitebeard's head, as planned.

Deep breaths

...Only to realize that Whitebeard is a dying old man and not worth even killing anymore, because he's not the same Primebeard whom once beat Crocodile and crushed all his dreams. Defeating Whitebeard would not give him the catharsis he came for.

And at that point, the fuck was Crocodile going to do? The revenge he wants isn't there anymore 'cause it went bad a few decades ago. And between the raging war and Doflamingo on his ass it's not like he could just sneak out without anybody noticing. He doesn't have allies (aside from Daz under him) to worry about. He only has his hatred to the World Government.

At that point, he might as well be a nuisance to the Government and assist Luffy. Even if the help wasn't welcomed, even if Luffy hated him and regardless if he knew the truth or not, helping Luffy right then and there would still be better than letting the Government have their way and kill his son right in front of him

[isa-ghost]

Do you have any headcanons as far as Philza and BBHs' relationship? I've enjoyed thinking about that because I think it's one of the few relationships on Philza's side that's actually a bit more complicated? But also Philza saying that BBH wouldn't lie is the funniest thing ever.

Or if no headcanons about Philza and BBH specifically what about Philza, Bad, and Cellbit as a trio in charge of the order because I really loved that

OOOH this is gonna be an interesting challenge because I don't watch a lot of Bad :0!

qPhil headcanons masterlist

Obligatory they're both thousands of years old mention. There's some things they can talk about and relate on that no one else on the island can. MAYBE Foolish, but Foolish tends to just focus on the present and vibe. Phil and Bad though, in the right conditions, they could and will have deep conversations about the past and their experiences.

On that note holy fucking shit these two would be terrifying teamed up together. If the Feds ever do something harmful or permanent to the eggs, god help them when these two decide they're armed enough and hatch a plan. They'll rain hell on the entire island and then some. And every other parent will be more than willing to join them. Do Not Piss Off The Immortal Murder Dads.

Phil could tell clearly that Bad is part demon. Finding out he was part reaper was a surprise. Honestly with how much of a lil trickster Bad is, Phil is surprised he isn't part Fae or something.

Phil takes one look at how Bad goes "no idea what you're talking about, nothing happened :D" about stuff like him Literally Dying and is like [uncanny Mr Incredible] "at least I'm not that bad." Phil just (very poorly) hides things and says he's fine. He doesn't straight up deny anything happened (and couldn't convincingly act like nothing is wrong the way Bad can if he tried)

Missa is a reaper. Bad is a reaper. Phil wants to see them talk about reaper things together. Or see them both in action. He himself can also carry small conversations about it since he's learned so much through osmosis :D

Actually that's kinda why Phil feared Bad so much during Purgatory. That was him in action. And he never wants to be on an opposing side of it again.

He doesn't resent Bad for Purgatory btw he just jokes like it sometimes. Same as with Tubbo (or anyone else for that matter), he blames the Watcher for trying to destroy their friendships.

Has straight up looked Bad in the eyes like "are you aware you are raising the most terrifying egg. Are you." He genuinely thinks if Dapper wanted to, he could kill Phil in his sleep. Every time he sees Dapper, he's learned something new and insane.

Tbh Phil sometimes envies how full of whimsy Bad is. He's seen infinitely more horrors than Phil for sure, yet he always ironically seems like a little ball of sunshine despite being a literal shadow lookin demon. What The Fuck is this man's secret to staying so silly.

Phil is endlessly fascinated by the extent to which Bad can come up with more and new protections for the eggs. He thinks of stuff not even remotely on Phil's radar. See, Phil's a safety expert as a survivalist, but most of his skills involve using what's around you and your wits, because survival is largely about relying only on yourself because you rarely have any other choice. Bad on the other hand will not hesitate to seek out new tech, other people, or tinker and experiment until he discovers new ways to use anything and everything he can get his hands on. Phil admires how intuitive he is.

Also Bad is really good at making bases and Phil enjoys seeing how balanced the aesthetics and practical parts are. Bad can make something look cozy and lavish as hell while also putting like a billion farms and gadgets into it.

I wonder how a conversation about possession would go. :) Surely Bad has some insight on it as a demon?

Something about how the two of them have arguably the most horrific egg death nightmares. I don't know where to go with this but goddamn would Crows and Ghosties be feasting.

Actually wait shut up, I just realized something kinda cute. In the same way Phil can talk to birds (particularly crows ofc), Bad can talk to the dead/undead (particularly ghosts). Imagine the sillies that could come out of that. It's said that animals can see the dead, what if Phil's murder conspires with the ghosts that follow Bad around ;D

The moment Phil would use his wings if they were healed, Bad would clock that he's the Angel of Death. I'm not sure he saw Phil flying during Purgatory, but if he did, he knows. And that would lead to many interesting conversations. :)

[weenwrites]

Transformers Prime (Optimus Prime, Ratchet, and Ultra Magnus) reaction to cybertronian reader dating a Decepticon miner, and was able to convince him to join Team Prime? You know, the bot that almost got killed by a green eyed Ratchet?

When he joined their team, the miner just stayed in base majority of the time, making sure he never got in anyone’s way, and holds a big grudge towards Ratchet.

If the reader & miner are both in base, they’ll be quietly cuddling in the corner with smiles on their faces (well, face), and when reader is out on a mission then then the miner is just awkwardly standing in the corner twiddling with his fingers.

(For Ultra Magnus, miner joined the team before his arrival)

✎A/N: Honestly, I really really love the idea of this ask for some reason, so thank you very much for sending it in and I hope you have a lovely day.

[ Please do not repost, plagiarize, or use my writing for AI! Translating my work with proper credit is acceptable, but please ask first! ]

Optimus

Optimus is happy that he sees the error of his former master's ways and has joined the team. Though he is far from combat-ready, he can help the team in other ways, such as clean-up, maintenance, or in mining operations. Alternatively if he does wish to help with battle, then you or any other member of the team can help teach him.

He doesn't turn a blind eye to the past, however, and he hopes that both he and the team will get along smoothly. He tries to foster a welcoming environment, and attempts to set a good example by being welcoming and friendly towards their new guest. As for any tension, he attempts to resolve any issues the moment they come, as to keep them from growing into anything bigger and more volatile.

Ratchet

To say that he feels awkward and guilty would be a horrific understatement. If your partner's even willing to talk to Ratchet, then he offers his apologies for his actions, and not once does he try to defend what he did. He accepts if he won't be forgiven, but he's relieved that he's able to at least apologize for his wrongdoings.

Initially when the two of them are left at the base, there's an awkward air between them that neither of them even try to break. Ratchet just tries to continue on with work as usual, and even if he requires help with something (such as transporting a lot of materials over, or perhaps having someone hold something up while he works on the underside of it) he'd refuse to ask your partner for help because it's just that awkward (unless however it's a serious matter that calls for their emotions to be set aside for the greater good).

If your partner ever gets injured, Ratchet will try to help him, and if he repeatedly keeps refusing his help (and if he won't listen to you), then Rachet'll have to ask you to treat any injuries for him, and he'll instruct you on how to do so for the more complicated injuries.

Ultra Magnus

Initially, he had mistaken your partner for a prisoner, and treated him as such for about 5 seconds until you came in and clarified that he is not a prisoner of war, but rather a member of the autobots now (and your partner). He even has a badge, but Magnus's focus was primarily on the fact that he was a decepticon miner.

Given the fact that he probably isn't dispatched to complete on-field or combat-related work like a majority of the team, Magnus hands a lot of the cleaning or maintenance work off to him to keep him busy and make him a more useful asset for the team. If he were to complete all that work without a fuss, then Magnus would give words of appreciation for his hard work and the two would get along relatively well.

That is until he sees how awkward your partner is around Ratchet. If there's still any tension between them, Magnus would mistake it as potential hostility and try to resolve this conflict in a more harsh and less forgiving way than Optimus would. But once someone tells him why they're tense around eachother, then he'll leave it be unless the problem becomes more violent.

[jacksprostate]

me and @a-forsteri were talking about how the narrator like, desperately wants someone to tell him his life is fucked up, what he does is fucked up, he desperately wants someone to respond with the gravity he desires.

Like, he tells these people on the plane what he does. Trying to fuck with them. Desperately hoping!! One of them will go: holy shit!!! That's really fucked up how do you live with that!!! But all he gets is people thinking he's the freak and just asking what car company he works for. Because it is easier to pretend he himself is the problem, maybe just his company, rather than actually face and recognize the systemic, widespread nature of what he's saying.

It leans together with his sense of where he is in his office, too. He feels separate from all these people. They feel fake. They feel like people going on as normal even though they're all working to hasten the apocalypse, and no one acknowledges it! They're all perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to any of the distant consequences of their actions. That is what their jobs are for. Keep them up in the cubicles, nicely fed and watered with inflated salaries, and then they'll have no issue with the distant sense that they may be contributing to a corrupt system. They can't change the system, but they need to feed their kids, so hell, just don't think about it too much.

But he doesn't have that option. He is the one who actually does go out into the field and he sees the direct result of all of their collective actions, but especially his. Every crash related to a faulty part he sees is because someone like him before him, or him himself, ran the formula and let this happen. He has no choice but to see the very real result of his actions.

And he feels INSANE over it. Because he returns to the office and it's just numbers. Applying the formula. Hearing your coworkers chat about a potluck. You're not contributing to a horrific system, you ARE the horrific system, and it's like you're the only one who sees that. He literally cannot sleep over it.

And when you tell people about it, they try to minimize it. To your company, to you. Because that is easier than acknowledging just how many things have to be corrupt and uncaring of human life to allow this to be the case. It's too much. Stick your head in the sand.

He desperarely wants someone to scream at him: how could you do that? How could anyone do that? Why is this allowed to happen? Doesn't anyone see something wrong here?

He imagines his plane crashing. Free him from this. The burden of every piece of normality manufactured for satiating any thought and discomfort he has about his job. It's all petty, pointless fluff. It's putting some artificial grass on the feedlot. Why does everything and everyone say it's all worth it for this garbage?

He wants someone to tell him all this. He doesn't want to be alone. He already feels catastrophically alone. In his life, whenever he talks about this, whenever he does anything. He loves the support groups because you're allowed to have abject misery there. You rejoice in it. Everyone's life is falling apart and ending and nothing means anything good ever. They're all honest about it, too. He plays coy when he talks about his job, but these people, everyone knows they're falling apart, and it's recognized and treated as the horror it is. This is freedom. Hitting bottom is freedom.

But he's supposed to be happy, because he's got his cushy little IKEA nest. It is only when people think he also has cancer and parasites causing his deep dissociation from his own life and general aura of resentment and misery that it's treated as something that isn't just... an individual flaw. Because it's easier for there to be something wrong with him than for that thing wrong with him to be how society makes him be this way. Rewards him for it.

So he invents someone. Tyler. To stop his little dance. To interrupt him. Drag him away and tell him all those little sundries are meaningless. Like he knows. But now he has someone saying it's true. The world IS falling apart. Everything is fucked up. It's everything he knows and has been too cowardly to say and now he finally has someone to say it for him and push to make some changes in his life. To expect him to actually do something. To feel his rage for him. And it's a catch-22, because a large part of what he hates about himself is that he's too cowardly and noncommittal to just do this all on his own.

[takingasterix]

Should I mention animatics on my college applications?

Sorry for the random post, but I need some hyper-specific advice about applying to college! For context: I'm American, applying to undergraduate programs in the USA. I know I'm very academically strong (35 on the ACT, 4.0+ GPA, NHS, etc. etc.), and I have a decent amount of extracurriculars. Honestly, however, a lot of my free time in high school has been spent doing art and animatics. I've been advised many times that putting my art on a social media page and linking it on my application could help show colleges what I spend my time doing and show that I'm well-rounded. My only problem is that most of my art is fanart. I'm probably going to compile the best stuff into a portfolio and link that in my app, but I'm not sure whether or not to link my Youtube channel.

I have about 1.6k subscribers, which isn't anything in the grand scheme of Youtube, but it is significant enough to show the effort I put in/the impact of the videos.

However.

The problem is that my animatics are ENTIRELY fan content. They're horrifically embarrassing to the point that literally no one in my life knows the channel exists except for a few close friends. Worse, many of them are MXTX-related (which is a well-known queer series), and some of them are explicitly ship-related. I'm well aware that fandom stuff is considered weird by the majority of society, and all of it is a far cry from the professional image I'm trying to show on my applications.

That being said, I feel like I need to show colleges evidence of my art, and what I spend my time doing. I need advice! Should I just link a portfolio of the best, most "normal" art I have? Should I also link my Youtube channel? If I do link my Youtube channel, I would definitely polish my pfp, description, and banner... but should I go back and private the old, really awful animatics? Should I private every video related to ships? How roughly should I comb through it?

I'm well aware that my art is objectively bad, so I'd appreciate if you don't bring that up; I'm not applying to art school or an art degree, I'm just trying to show that aspect of my life. I just really want advice on whether or not I should link the channel, how to do that if so, etc. etc.

Sorry if this is a really stupid question!! It's actually wildly embarrassing to post something like this, but it's such a specific situation that I feel only tumblr would have the answer. I know this probably won't reach many people, but even if just one person has good advice, I'd really really appreciate it. Thank you! <3

[howtofightwrite]

So, uh, I know that this place is mostly for writing, but making your own TTRPG system kinda qualifies as writing, doesn't it?

Either way - here's a fighting-related question that came up during my process making it. Is fear an important aspect of combat? Small-scale combat, to be specific, not the kind where you see a thousand of knights fight another thousand of knights.

Would wounds (or even hits that are strong enough to be felt through armour) inflict noticeable stress to a well-trained soldier? Would it be bad enough to, potentially, make them panic, even if they aren't in any actual danger yet? Or would that mostly be a problem with inexperienced fighters, and training/combat experience could make someone relatively desensitized to that sort of thing?

It's probably worded weirdly, I know, but, in general, what I'm trying to ask here is - should one consider stress/fear as a thing that might change the tides mid-combat, even if cowardice (or anything similar) isn't a major character trait for neither of the combatants?

This one isn't really writing, it's a game design question, and fully answering it is going to require digging a lot deeper into what you're trying to do with the game. It is entirely reasonable for your character to still suffer some lesser injuries from hits their armor absorbed, and for you to have a secondary mental stat that gauges your character's mental ability to keep functional. Warhammer's Morale and the Storyteller system's Willpower stats come to mind as examples of this. Also Call of Cthulhu's Sanity stat, though that's a little more involved.

So in game design, you need to decide how you want combat to feel. And, this can be anything from gritty realism to a fun power fantasy. In fact, the genre of your game will heavily determine how you want your systems to shape your experience.

I can't remember if Warhammer tabletop does this, or if I'm conflating it with Gladius and Dawn of War, but, in Warhammer your units actually have a separate morale hitpool. Obviously, for a lot of armies in Warhammer, keeping your units fighting against horrific, unknowable abominations is a major theme, so a main system (and a part of every unit stat card) is how much stress they can take before they have a complete nervous breakdown, and start running in the opposite direction. In fact, in tabletop, the game actually has multiple systems evaluating whether your own units will actually follow their orders at all. The difficulty of commanding troops against impossible threats is a central theme of the systemic narrative Warhammer is trying to create, so it gets multiple top level systems.

Compare that to D&D, where there are no top level systems regarding the mental state of your characters. They signed up to fight unknowable abominations, and magpie their way through the world, so when they encounter something genuinely unnerving, that gets special rules on that monster. It's not part of the power fantasy of D&D (most of the time.) So when it does show up, it just gets attached as an addendum to an existing rule system or as a special rule for one creature.

So, what does your game system want?

If you want a small scale, sword & sorcery brawler, you probably don't need to model their mental state, or how afraid they are. You really need to know if their morale is high, and when it is high, you can probably handle that with simple conditional buffs. In fact, this is probably a system where you wouldn't even want to model a low mental state, unless things are truly dire, or supernaturally oppressed. (Again, with special rule cases for that, because it's not going to come up very often.)

This probably should have been a few paragraphs earlier, but just looking at an RPG's character sheet can often tell you a lot about what the designer intended for their game. The things your players are going to have to interact with regularly need dedicated systems. Stuff that comes up rarely, shouldn't get dedicated systems. (And, this is a very real issue with a lot of RPGs, where there are a lot of different systems to keep track of, that could have been scrubbed out and set aside as flavor or special rules. Including with D&D.)

If your primary focus is a kind of horror RPG, then you need those extra systems. You're going to be dealing with them constantly. You might want an attribute called Resolve (or whatever) to specifically model how well a character handles dealing with horrific situations, or seeing their friends ripped to shreds. You might also have a separate tracked HP pool (similar to how Darkest Dungeon handles it) specifically focused on their ability to manage psychological strain.

If you're going for that, psychological damage can be a lot more deciduous in a tabletop environment, because you cannot armor yourself against that. Characters might be able to have some psychological resistance through strenuous mental conditioning, but again, as the game designer, you control exactly how much a player can stack up, so you can balance around the absolute maximum damage that a player could mitigate, while also keeping in mind how much the raw damage would do to a defenseless character.

You could have a rule system where characters can pretty reliably soak off most of the physical damage, but suffer serious attrition due to psychological (or, even magical) damage that they couldn't mitigate.

How armor works in your game is a similar situation, where the rules need to follow the kind of experience you're trying to create. However, unlike dealing with psychological strain, armor rules also need to consider how easy they are to implement at the table. A lot of CRPGs use % based armor mitigation, and that's great, if you have a computer that can crunch those numbers for you. If you're at the table and rolling 3d8, it's going to be a lot more awkward to figure out what 43% mitigation will do to your resulting values. So, it's a lot easier to simply say that armor subtracts X from incoming hits. Like, “Armor 2 means that each incoming attack does two less damage.” This starts to run into a balance problem. In theory, a character with sufficient armor might be able to mitigate all incoming damage (and you will have players who stack defense with this specific goal in mind. You can't escape that.)

This leads to one of my favorite solutions for this. I think it was J.E. Sawyer's Fallout 3 that never happened, but the idea is that if you're taking damage from hits, and your armor is absorbing that, it goes into a second, less severe, damage category. To use the example of White Wolf's Storyteller system, you convert lethal damage into bashing. It can still kill your characters, but it reduces the overall effect of that damage in the moment, makes it a lot easier to recover from, but also doesn't let them just walk in and soak all the damage without issue. So, for example, your character has Armor 4, an enemy swings on them for 8 lethal damage, and 4 points of damage are converted to bashing. (When their lethal + bashing damage reaches their HP pool then they're downed or knocked out), but they're not in danger of dying unless they take more lethal damage, or are suffering from some ongoing damage effect (like bleeding.)

Another, more lethal option I really liked from a D20 system (so, basically 3.5e D&D), was Star Wars's vitality system. The Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG had two HP pools. One was the normal hit dice per level based on class from D&D called Vitality (if you ever wondered why your HP in KotOR was called Vitality, this is why.) The second pool was Wounds. This was equal to your Constitution score. So, if you had CON 12, you could take 12 wound points. If you ran out of Vitality, damage would apply directly to your wound pool, and if you ran out of wound points, you were dead. Just, dead. No downed state, no stabilizing, you were toast. And, here's the thing that I might be misremembering, but if you critically hit someone, instead of multiplying your damage, your damage bypassed their vitality and went directly to wounds. This meant you had a fairly normal D&D rule set that could turn lethal with very little warning. Still a concept from game design that I like to keep in mind, because it creates a very dangerous feel in combat. Because of how the flavor was written, Vitality damage didn't even necessarily mean your character was being directly harmed. Taking damage from vitality might mean your character narrowly escaped getting hit by a blaster bolt, or that they effectively parried an incoming lightsaber attack. It still had the effect of wearing characters down over time without automatically meaning that they were suffering absolutely implausible amounts of injuries (though it could, also mean that your character had suffered minor cuts and scrapes or that their armor had taken a few hits for them.)

Something that gives the player a bit more control over their own durability would be to give items HP pools of their own. This isn't a normal item deterioration ruleset, but rather you're giving their armor a fixed amount of HP, that it can absorb in their place. So, to refresh that example above, if your character has Armor 4, and they're hit for 8 damage, instead of taking 4 bashing, they might choose to have that damage dealt directly to their armor. (And, this is a case where the decision to how to deal with that damage could be in the player's hands if you wanted. It gives them some proactive agency while taking damage, which is rare in TTRPGs.) You could even use this for a blowthrough rule, where if a character takes more damage in a single hit than their armor's remaining HP, the armor is destroyed and offers no protection from that attack. This, again, plays more into horror, as their armor will be wearing down over time, and if they're not performing regular maintenance to try to keep it working, could potentially fail them in combat. (It also creates a very cathartic moment for players to sheer through an enemy's armor, dropping them on the spot.)

All of this can and really should be, tuned for your systems and numbers. I have biases on exactly how granular I like my TTRPGs, but that doesn't mean you're tied to those values, and some people really do like the triple digit HP pools of high level characters in D&D and Pathfinder. I'm not going to say you're wrong for that, because I don't think you are, but obviously, something like Armor 4 means something very different if you have an average HP of 8-12, versus, if you have an average HP pool ~72.

So, when balancing combat to create the experience you want, you need to keep track of average combatant HP, average attack damage, and the mitigation options characters can use. At this point, you then need to decide how you want these to relate to one another. All of these values are relative to each other. From a gameplay perspective, there's no difference between a game where characters have 10hp, and each hit connects for 1 damage, vs a game where players have 40k HP, and each hit connects for 8k. It's the same game, the only thing that's changed is the amount of numbers you have to scribble onto the page while tracking damage. If you think your characters are too resistant to incoming damage, you can increase the amount of damage attacks do, or limit the amount of mitigation they have access to. Limiting mitigation can take the form of simply reducing how much damage resistance they can get, or it can function by adding additional considerations to their mitigation (as mentioned above.) (Granted, the Vitality system is a bit of a nuclear option, because that will change your combat to be exceedingly threatening, without becoming instantly lethal. Which, might be what you want.)

You have a lot of freedom for how you shape your players' experiences, and with a bit of creativity you can provide a unique combat experience for your players.

-Starke

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[endogenic-cringe]

hey I know you don't enjoy people like me but I do have a question not related to that stuff.

so uhm I just want to know if it's possible to be plural / a system with not very traumatic "trauma". I don't want to come of a venting so I'll keep it short.

so I had the average bad parents, physical punishment and all that, i know it wasn't really horrible but I just feel a lot more "traumatized" (?) by it than I should. I don't really remember most stuff and only really remember bad parts of it.

I've been doing research for the past month or so on plurality and stuff and I I would say I fit some parts of it, mainly the dissociating and amnesia(?). I'm holding back on self dx or anything because that's the only thing I experience but I can't find anything else with symptoms like mine.

I'll stop now, it's getting long.

sorry if this isn't really something you want to see

First of all, “physical punishment and all that?”

No. Physical punishment is fucking unacceptable. That’s horrific. That’s child abuse. You were being horrifically abused.

Second of all, everyone reacts and processes trauma differently. What may not affect one person much could affect someone else one hell of a lot.

Your trauma was enough.

And those parts you can’t remember? Those are hidden for a reason.

It’s possible you don’t have DID but you have a type of OSDD. OSDD havers don’t fit all the criteria for DID but can still be systems.

But you definitely have PTSD.

I’d definitely do more research off Tumblr and try to rule out other disorders but if you suffer from dissociative amnesia like that then you definitely have a dissociative disorder of some kind.

[auschizm]

I don't think anon who pointed out a possible association between "auschizm" and "Auschwitz" meant any harm, but I have to say that I think it's a problematic tendency.

First off, it kind of makes it out like Auschwitz is a "dirty word", as if it's the word itself -stripped of context - that is offensive. In a way it feels disrespectful to the history that it represents. Auschwitz is not a dirty word, it's the name of a place where some very horrific historical events took place.

And the whole thing feels like it's also a part of a trend I see where people come up with words to describe their experiences, and there's always people jumping in to say how "that could be misunderstood" or "but that also already refers to this other obscure thing" or, in this case, "completely stripped of its context and meaning, your word looks vaguely similar to this other "offensive" word." And it makes it very hard for anyone to any terminology for their experiences, ever.

And in this case it just feels really inappropriate to imply that it's the PRONOUNCIATION of that place, that makes it "problematic".

Auschizm has a clear etymological root: "au - tis - m" becomes "au - schiz - m" with schiz coming from the schizo spec. So it's easy to know why it's called that from context. There's no reason to assume that it's in any way intended as a reference to the name of a place where terrible historical events took place.

Tldr; Auschwitz isn't a "dirty word" because of its spelling/pronounciation. And auschizm has a clear etymology that doesn't have anything to do with the history associated with the word Auschwitz. And frankly I find it disrespectful to imply that the "issue" with Auschwitz is in any way related to the name of the place itself.

THANK YOU!!! 👏👏👏👏

[fraudulent-cheese]

Ok this might be a hot take

people saying "alenoah is just gay aleheather" might not be as horrifically wrong as the people saying "mkulia is lesbian alenoah", but they are still INCREDIBLY FUCKING WRONG.

Im assuming it's because they're basing it off the people who write alenoah strictly as enemies to lovers??? Because that is not the reason i really like it! I like it because it's friends to enemies to lovers, or at the very least, they start off neutrally. Outside of Noah and Heather just being different people, their relationship in canon doesn't start off the same either:

Heather starts off IMMEDIATLY calling Alejandro's façade complete bullshit and does not like him. at all. Meanwhile, pre-I See London, Noah and Alejandro seem to be friendly with eachother, or at least they're not on hostile terms (yet). During episodes 9 and 10, they're actively seen hanging around eachother during challenges and from what i know Alejandro doesn't try to mess with Noah in particular before this point? Like he tries messing with Owen in the Am-AH-zon Race episode, he pulls the favor thing with Tyler in Greece, hell he betrays Duncan before he does anything to Noah outside his elimination! Im not saying "oh alenoah canon", im saying that it's a clear difference between the two!

Also this isn't entirely related but a reason i like alenoah more than aleheather is because it opens up more interesting character interactions built off of canon, at least to me. Like, if Alejandro's going to date Noah, he's gonna have to actually be around Noah's friends, and if his obvious dislike of Owen is anything to go by he's probably not gonna be their biggest fan at first. Meanwhile with Heather, what exactly do you have (BY BUILDING OFF OF CANON!!!)? Harold, maybe? It's the only relationship she hasn't completly trashed by the end of All Stars considering her friendship with Leshawna ended in canon after WT and the more popular Heather friendships in the fandom don't have much (if any) canon basis.

this isn't to say you have to stick to canon exclusivly for this, im literally comparing a canon relationship to a purely fanon one, but i prefer going off of canon to an extent while writing or drawing or just. generally thinking about characters. I guess the building blocks in canon for an alenoah dynamic interest me more than aleheather's.

...also i prefer aleheather as besties LOL SORRY!

[canonizzyhours]

re: 393 -

"it's pretty clear at this point that izzy's sexual attraction to ed was never meant to be his central motivation. it's THERE, for sure, but it's there to be sort of an ironic twist on his explicit textual motivations of ambition and homophobia and toxic masculinity, a little spice added into the mix, not a climactic reveal of what he's really all about. "

This is maybe the most interesting & important thing we learned about Izzy in s2 and it makes me crazy we don't talk about it more. Like, up through the hiatus the one thing I agreed with the canyon on about Izzy was we both thought Izzy's feelings for Ed being sexual in nature was something IMPORTANT. The canyon thought this made him sympathetic and tragic, I thought it was a horrific Fatal Attraction thing, but we both agreed it was the most important & interesting thing about Izzy.

"Climactic reveal" is the perfect way to put it - to me it felt like Izzy's whole arc through s1 was this progressive escalating series of reveals about his true motivations where every answer to the question of "what's this guy's problem?" turns out to be worse than you suspected before. At first he just seems like an asshole, then it seems like he wants to take over Blackbeard's position, then you start to think maybe he's kind of a homophobe, and then right at the climax you realize no it's worse than any of that he's sexually obsessed with Ed and willing to hurt Ed in horrific ways to keep possession of him. I thought season 2 was going to follow up on that. The canyon also expected season 2 to follow up on that, just in a different way where they thought this nightmare stalker behavior was going to be portrayed as romantic somehow.

And then we got season 2 and it turned out exactly like this post said - the sexual attraction was there to put a little twist on Izzy's motivation, a "look, isn't it ironic, the guy whose narrative role is standing in opposition to queer love is himself driven by deeply repressed queer attraction he cannot admit even to himself." But it's clear at this point that was never supposed to be The Real Motivation, it was just a subconscious undercurrent running through Izzy's explicit textual motivations of ambition and toxic masculinity. And as that post said, it's clearly something where not only were the writers not interested in delving into it more, they viewed it as something they had to GET OUT OF THE WAY before a redemption arc for Izzy could be possible. (Would they have instead leaned into it if they'd decided to stick with a villainous Izzy? Interesting question!)

I'm honestly not sure Izzy himself was ever consciously aware of his sexual attraction to Ed; even "I have...love for you" seriously reads to me like he thinks he's saying it in a platonic no-homo way although of course he obviously is gay and into Ed. For that matter quite honestly it's unclear to me at this point if the writers actually ever intended to write Izzy as gay or if that was just Con deciding he wanted to play it that way to make things interesting (valid of him if so). Really the only clear indication of it is in Con's performance and not anything in the scripts.

This is the biggest thing the entire fandom on all sides of the Izzy divide turned out to be wrong about in season 2 and it's so interesting and it makes me so sad we don't talk about it. All this time we should have been putting more weight on his other motivations! Why don't we go back and talk about those?

#404.

related posts: #393

[gffa]

These two pages from Dark Victory have stayed with me ever since I first read it because they're visually hella interesting, I enjoy Tim Sale's art for how stylish it is, but also because every time I see it, I hear the click of a spotlight being turned on, almost like this is a play being acted out. It highlights the connection between the characters, but that it also is shutting everything else out. That makes sense in the moment, Dick just watched his parents die, there's nothing else in the world for him. Bruce is reliving his own trauma of having watched his parents die, as well as watching another child go through the same thing--but, in a way I can't shake, it almost feels like Bruce is intruding on this moment, too. That Dick's loss gets interpreted as a mirror of Bruce's loss--Dark Victory goes to great lengths to hammer home that parallel, it is not at all subtle about it:

But what strikes me about the moment of the Graysons' deaths is that it feels almost like a play being acted out, that Bruce becomes part of it because they mirror each other so strongly, that for all they grow as individuals and come to love each other as uniquely different people, they will always be rooted in this mirroring of each other. Bruce isn't just a bystander to Dick's loss and grief, it fundamentally connects them and defines them--that in many ways Dick understands Bruce the best because, as Dick says about himself, when he was Robin, he was smaller than everyone else, so he had to learn to read people better, to know what they were going to do, because Dick was with Bruce the longest, because Dick and Bruce often are the most similar. But it's also that Dick understands Bruce best because Bruce allowed him in because of this mirror, that sometimes it feels like Bruce only understands people through the lens of his own grief, that's why Dick's the closest to him, because Dick shares that same loss. This isn't to undercut that Dick was a bright, lively child who brought laughter and joy because that is also absolutely true and I will fight tooth and nail anyone who says otherwise. Bruce loves that kid because Dick refused to not be loved, because he's not the same as Bruce, he's brighter, he's better, he's more in so many ways. Bruce and Dick's relationship isn't just one thing or another, there are times when it borders on almost being kind of healthy and then there are times when it's toxic as hell, yet it's always underscored by how much they genuinely love each other, how Bruce keeps thoughts of Dick in his mind to turn to for solace just like he turns to thoughts of his own father, how Dick demands to be worth just as much to Bruce's parents even when they've traveled into the future to be directly in front of him, and Dick gets that worth from Bruce. But sometimes I think about that panel, I hear a spotlight clicking on in my head, I think about Bruce unintentionally inserting himself into this moment of Dick's loss and how Bruce sometimes holds him closer to his heart because Dick's hurt mirrors his own so much. How sometimes Bruce sees the world through that lens of trauma and only how much people can understand it, that the rest of the world drops away and is nothing but black, empty space, except him and the person who understands his hurt.

That I can look at that panel and see it as its meant to be--a moment of pure connection, "I understand what you're going through, I can't take it away, but I can be here with you." and how that saved Dick Grayson's life, how it allowed him to heal and grow and thrive. I can see Bruce's heart breaking because he would have done anything to save this kid from that pain. And sometimes I can look at it and see Bruce watching a horrific play unfold before him and relating to it through his own issues, rather than true empathy. Ultimately, it's really more that they're kindred spirits, that's what the follow-up pages show, that Dick goes through the same process that Bruce went through, he does the same things Bruce did, all while Bruce isn't there to influence him into that at all. Dick is his own person, Bruce couldn't make him be a copy of Bruce if he'd wanted to, he couldn't even win an argument with a nine-year-old about putting on a costume and fighting crime with him and absolutely not staying out of the line of fire. Dick Grayson did what he was going to do, Bruce had nothing to do with making him into that person. But part of the reason they're such an interesting dynamic is because they're not just purely one thing or another, that for all that at the end of the day, Dick and Bruce are naturally like each other in a lot of core ways, it's also possible to read them as unhealthy co-dependent on each other, that them being everything to each other comes with some sharper edges, especially when Bruce sometimes resents Dick for growing beyond him and leaving him, even while desperately proud of him at the same time.

It's a thing Bruce struggles with a lot when it comes to Dick and I think of this tangled web of emotions every time I see that second splash page above. That Bruce came to love this kid as a son, but also as someone who understood what it was like to live with that kind of devastating loss, and how hard Bruce connected with that--and then how hard it was to let him go, when Bruce can't let go of his parents. That it's hard for Bruce to see Dick grow beyond being the son who understood him best, who mirrored his tragedy best, and he'll do it, he loves his kid enough to keep climbing back up out of that desire to hold onto him as his reflection even if he falls back into it sometimes, that some part of him will always see Dick as the one who had that connection that blocked the rest of the world out and understood him in a way no one else could.

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

i think the other thing that makes this ep not quite "work" is it isn't... i don't know, it must be aware of this, but it feels like it isn't aware of The Metaphor the alien plot is doing / saying about our main characters, and it doesn't take a second to truly show that to them. It is showing the chuldur stealing people's identities and doing some good ol' ~disaster tourism~, it tells us what they are doing is wrong, we're expected to be shocked and appalled by what they've done to ruby. but then there's not really a beat about how the doctor and co do the same thing every day (going to other times and taking the piss out of other ppl's histories / lives, then going off). and in the end even the contemporary human ruby "befriends" turns out to be a chuldur as well. so there's not a single regular human character developed in this.

then there's the whole proposal scene where the doctor and rogue "act" as well during that whole thing, which don't get me wrong was fun as hell, was a thrill to see them play w/ their prejudices, and as I said in my post the dialogue was very meaty for their particular characters.... but on the area of *theme* for this *episode*.... they're just doing the same thing as the chuldur. it feels like no one cares about all the people that are being murdered around them (nor the writers, who don't develop them), just their own fun.

and like the thing with doctor who episodes is, it's not enough to have a high body count, for it to be shocking.... you have to actually give those characters you kill a bit of depth/humanity/relatability, for the death to actually mean anything. ex: in end of the world, bc they show us the blue plumber and rose connecting for 1 little scene, we do actually care about her being murdered by the mini-war of the worlds robots, and care about what cassandra is doing. like the episode says "isn't the chuldur horrific? they are taking actual human beings as set dressing for their fun / entertainment!!" but then... the writing does the same thing by not giving death any kind of gravity / weight.

basically it feels like this B plot of the aliens wasn't properly aligned with the A plot of the rogue and doctor romancing. it works on its own (mostly, tho I still feel there's an element of depth missing in rogue)... but not with all the other aspects. which sucks bc the episode had all the ingredients to truly Bring It Home.

[intertexts]

ROSXSSSSSSSSS can u talk abt muse. pls. muse is the part of nhw that drivrs me the most crazy insane. makes me feel GENUINELY ILL i was reading one of ur most recent muse posts earlier and was like. Oh. ohhhhhhhhh oucwch. ouchiees. had 2 put my phone down and just stare at my desk at work for a minute or so. oh my god. tell me abt nhw ashe a lil bit!!!! his brief lucid moments as muse. does he ever snap out of it while using his powers???? how horrifuying is that. what is he like when hes finally not under the trickster's control and is completely free??? whats it like when hes back with the wards???? im going 2 throw something ougbghh nhw ashe i love u

GODDDDDDD. HIIII WHISKEY HI <333 insane person questions 2 ask because thats literally exactly what i've been thinking about for hours. holy shit. ok. yeah. u get insane 1130pm thought trains!!!! <3333

>it is VERY RARE for him to snap out of it while he's actively in his breaker state [non-lucid state regardless of whether he's being controlled, he's just. going on autopilot & instinct + thats also the terrifying reality melting one that the trickster Likes and chose him for. so.] just bcos he's fucked up regardless-- it happens a couple times!! during a couple fights that mark & tide + the wards are there for!! mackerel also had some thoughts on this i need 2 fucking pick his brain more tomorrow....

>when the trickster is finally Gone (via mal). um. things are. i will be real with you!!!!!!! they are Not Great!!!! they are-- better!!! still fucking Bad!! first of all wibby & virion & dakota are. horrifically traumatized by seeing muse disembowel and tear apart william while still keeping him alive and with all his senses & pain receptors intact. like, he survives, mal puts him back together, but it is-- not. something that any of them easily come back from, especially wibby. they all have involuntary trauma responses towards just. seeing ashe, really-- it's been long enough that their first thought when they see him isn't "oh our awesome best friend ashe :]" it's "oh god oh fuck how did the trickster get here." which everyone hates!!!

ashe specifically... god. he is in a fucking horrific headspace immediately post-muse. the physical and mental strain of being forcibly kept in his breaker state (something that, like, historically, had triggered maybe.. twice. three times. in ten years or so.) as long and as often as he was took a fucking toll. being kept under almost 24/7 mind control for almost a year straight kind of put his head in the blender. for the first... god, whoever knows how long after that, he gets, like, almost daily pulsing headaches & migraines with the aura and confusion and nausea & shit. has a whole host of fucking brain issues-- debilitating anxiety & paranoia over being followed & watched, delusions related to. well. being fucking lobotomized by an insane sadistic superpowered murderer who controlled you and kept you as his favorite toy and had you commit horrific acts for over a year. frequently is terrified or convinced he's still being controlled. shit like that. severe derealization & disconnection frm his own body & such.

also ^ yeag. <3 he is. god. simultaneously insanely touch-repulsed & touch-starved because. the only person really touching him for a year was the trickster!!! yeah!!! his wires r so fucking crossed & he freaks the fuck out whenever anybody makes to touch him and he also misses it so badly, just wants a fucking hug from his dad but for a while he can't even do that without flashbacks and nausea and terror. the same except ten times worse for anyone touching his hair. freaks out when anybody tries to do Anything fucking... caretaking or comforting, really. which sucks because he also is in a ton of physical pain & damage from the insane amount of physical stress-- nothing permanent in a debilitating way, but. y'know. even after he's healed he aches and his joints hurt and he can't stand for too long without it being Bad and it takes a very long time for him to get his coordination and fine motor skills back-- anyway, it's a nasty feedback loop because he very much Cannot do some things on his own but anyone helping him almost always brings back trickster shit. can't help him into the shower can't drape a blanket over him or move him somewhere more comfy if he falls asleep on the couch can't hug him etc!!! & all this while the rest of the gang is also. incredibly fucked up & they're all accidentally hitting each other where they're already hurt and unintentionally triggering each other and like-- it's better!! god!! it's so much better! but it's still. u know. he has to have the worst most miserable excruciating long recovery arc. OH. YEAH. he also straight up fucking refuses to use his powers. is just. incredibly horrified and guilty and full of self-loathing and revulsion at everything that was done using him as a tool. is unspeakably terrified of it happening again, of him accidentally hurting anyone. etc. anyway. it gets better!!!!!!!!!! it gets worse before it gets better though. yeag. yeah.

[butwhatifidothis]

1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 12 for rhea? :3

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I like Rhea because her story brings with it so many interesting things to think about, and the choices she's made throughout it are also thought-provoking. Yes, she's tried to do the best she could with the options given to her, yes she's tried to do everything in order to bring peace to Fodlan, but that doesn't make her choices any less morally ambiguous or debatable - something she acknowledges, and even wishes to make up for when she's felt she'd made bad choices!

Plus her being fairly shy about mingling with others due to her status making her feel as though she'd bum down the mood gives her a real sweet quality to her lol. Makes me wish even more she was allowed to talk to more characters.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

That she put her identity out on blast in Shambhala in order to protect everyone. She also does this during the siege on Garreg Mach, but her initial transformation was away from everyone; in the second time she does is in front of everyone, but she cares about saving people more than her own safety at that moment. Considering how long she hid her Nabatean heritage from the world, it feels like a huge step forward for her, Nabateans, and Fodlan as a whole being able to put behind the horrific massacre of the Nabateans. She isn't deemed a monster by anyone, no one tries to kill her in her dragon form; they all just admire that she went so far to keep them safe! It's just a really good moment (that's uh, fucked by either her dying for sure on VW or her randomly going berserk on SS, but still!).

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

The above mentioned going berserk thing in SS is easilyyyyyyy my least favorite thing about Rhea's writing (because due to the nature of Rhea's character I don't really find myself outright disliking any aspect of her character). It's stupid, it comes out of nowhere, it makes no sense (even with FEH trying its damndest to throw out a reason), and it just kinda fucks with SS' pacing more than anything. She's only the final boss there because SS needed a unique boss and no other reason and it sucks major ass.

Even the suggestion of her going berserk on VW and Nemesis being the final boss of SS just kinda... moves the problem somewhere else, not actual fix what's wrong with it (the lack of foreshadowing that anything like this would happen, the fact that it doesn't happen on the other route where the exact same thing happens to Rhea but nothing happens to her there, the nonsensical nature of it, etc.). Definitely the weakest part of the writing of her character, imo.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Not the song question 😭😭😭 imma be straight up with you I do not think of any song for any character like almost ever sorry for the lame answer but I don't got shit for this question

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

We both love cats!!

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

i like when they write her in character I like when fandom allows for Rhea to genuinely grow close to other characters, rare as it is to see happen. She has such an interesting viewpoint and has a lot of similarities to a lot of characters, so seeing that get expanded on and not just have her be The One True Bad Guy Of 3H For Totes For Realsies Pinky Promise is always nice lol

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

On AM/SS after the war she lets herself openly baby Flayn as her aunt instead of withholding outright doting due to her archbishop position + hiding their familial relation. She gives her gifts and teaches her constellations on her star chart and does up her hair and tells funny story about Seteth that make him look silly - she just gets to be family with her niece!!

[empressgeekt]

After all, the chaos is over, and the baby is safely delivered, Poppy is inundated with congratulations about the baby, but abfew do have some questions. Her fiancé had soem horrific scarring and was almost grey! That isn't normal for pop trolls at all! What happened? Is he okay?

Poppy: Oh, he's perfectly fine. Branch is sort of like a mood ring, but his colors just lean toward a desaturated teal or pale blue coloration after, well, everything. It's his personal business, so i won't say why, but it's a side effect to him having been grey for a really long time. It was only recently he got his colors back, but the greyness had some permanent side effects, is all.

Delta: Does... does it have anything to do with that nasty scar?

Poppy: Um... sort of? It's not really a cause since he got hurt after he got his colors back, but the cause of the injury is related to how he turned grey. Again, I can't tell you more. Just know Branch is doing just fine!

Poppy refuses to say more. She knows she's said more than enough, and it's a sensitive topic for her fiancé. What little she is allowed to say has already been said (they talked about what is and isn't allowed to be discussed regarding his condition due to the fact being Poppy's fiancé means a lot of scrutiny long before they went on the tour)

I have a little deja vu from this ask but yeah Poppy would not at all spill Branches story with out his permission, especially after just having an egg. He's in a very vulnerable state and she's not going add more stress.

[jojotichakorn]

I gotta ask peem now yk

of course, i did phum first - we can't have one without the other 😌

choose a character and ask about my headcanons here, if you like

🏳️‍🌈 a sexuality headcanon

gay.

🏳️‍⚧️ a gender headcanon

a cis boy.

🧸 a headcanon about their childhood

he always spent a lot of time with his aunt pui, and whenever she came over, he dragged her to his room and just talked her ear off about anything and everything that comes to mind.

👻 a headcanon about what scares them

he doesn't really have any traditional phobias i don't think. psychologically, he is definitely afraid of getting hurt, which is something that prevents him from doing certain things he really wants to on occasion.

🎶 a headcanon about music

he listens to music a lot, and his playlist is mostly indie rock and indie pop.

💤 a headcanon about their sleep

he is usually a night owl and spends a lot of time scrolling oh his phone before finally going to sleep.

💝 a headcanon about their love language

physical touch all the way. there might be a lot of things he says or does with phum that he doesn't really mean, but the one thing that always oozes honesty is how close he wants to be to him in a literal sense. and they like literally cannot stop kissing. at this point i think the same way sharks can't stop moving or they'll die, peem can't stop kissing phum or he'll die.

🫂 a friendship headcanon

he is insanely extroverted. he is the type of person to just randomly start talking to people in a long queue. he has way too many people on his instagram close friends list, because he is just the kind of person to add you there after you hung out once. he pretty much always "knows a guy".

💔 an angsty headcanon

my man is extremely insecure and that specifically stems from him comparing himself to others. whether it be him comparing his art to q's, or comparing his own lack of romantic experience with his friends' already long list of partners. all this often makes him feel inadequate, untalented, undesirable, unlikeable.

🪢 a headcanon about their family

i think he has a pretty neutral relationship with his parents. they aren't particularly close, but there's also not anything necessarily horrific that they've done. he lives with aunt pui because, like i mentioned, i headcanon them as having been very close his whole life, and he wants to help her around the cafe as well.

📓 a headcanon about their hobbies

i think he is really into art history specifically. just in his free time, he researches artists' biographies, watches documentaries, etc.

👗 a headcanon about their clothes

truly does not care about fashion.

🔪 a headcanon relating to fighting/violence

he's the type of person to kick you in the balls, if you've done something wrong, but then he doesn't really fight. i don't imagine him caught up with someone, fists swinging.

🌟 a headcanon about their desires/wishes

i think a big part of why he wants his painting in the gallery is because the self-worth that he does have all comes from external validation. like, a lot of people initially think he is really confident, but that's because we keep seeing him around friends. being a good friend is something he is confident about, because he has so many friends and this wonderful tight-knit group of close friends as well, so - through external validation - he gets the confirmation of being "good at friendship" (something both normal to want and possible to achieve). he needs the same thing in other areas of life, or he just isn't confident in them. so, coming back to his wish to be hung up in the gallery, it's not really about recognition or more people seeing his work, it's mostly just about that confirmation that he is good enough for it.

🥇 a headcanon about what they’re best at

funnily enough, it is friendship. his social skills are through the fucking roof.

🍫 a headcanon about food

the reason why he's bad at cooking is because his parents never taught him how to, and aunt pui always wants to cook for him, so he's never really needed to learn with her there.

🎭 a headcanon about what they lie about

a lot of skirting around the truth with his feelings towards phum for sure. not so much that we (or at this point even phum) aren't confident in what those feelings are, but still.

❤️‍🔥 a romantic headcanon

he secretly wants to be romantic, but it kinda feels like learning to ride a bike or swim for the first time as an adult. a bit weird and awkward and it feels like everyone's watching you and you're about to do the wrong thing. the longer phumpeem date, the more comfortable peem will get with making romantic gestures though.

💄 an appearance headcanon

he's gonna get a piercing in one ear in a couple of years.

🖕 a headcanon relating to anger

he is really quick to anger and can occasionally blow up.

😺 an animal related headcanon

he loves cats and dogs equally, and is very confused at the cat person / dog person debate.

😭 a headcanon about the worst thing that happened to them

i guess you could say no one confessing to having a crush on him at school. to be honest, that on its own isn't a bad thing at all, but the way he sees himself as a result of it really sucks and fucks a lot of things up for him and his romantic relationship.

😶 a random headcanon!

i'm gonna indulge myself and say his favourite painter is van gogh.