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brewing-radianite · 2 years

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good morning (it is 4 am)!!! (if it’s bad, it’s bc it’s 4 am and i’m not proof-reading it again at 4 am)

the first chapter of my brim/sage/viper longfic has been posted:

“How do you take your coffee?” now up on Ao3, with the 1st chapter bearing 7k words. rest assured not every chapter will be this long, but i had a Lot i wanted to put into this one bc there’s a lot of scenes and parallelism to set up for later on.

more info under the cut:

so! firstly, thank you for checking this post out. anyone who has followed me for a while knows this longfic is a concept i’ve been wanting to fulfill for literal months now LMAO it’s kind of nice to finally say it’s been officially started!

that being said, here are some things to keep in mind:

this story is LONG. 30+ chapters. which means things can be slow sometimes, but that’s also the nature of this fic; i want to emphasize and punctuate the slower and calmer styles of falling in love i believe this trio to have. honestly? i’m kind of very nervous about doing this correctly and in a way that is at all interesting to a reader but... there really is no better way to learn to swim than to just dive in...

i’ve mentioned before this story is rated Mature for a reason. there is no porn or nsfw content, nor severe gore or graphic depictions of like crazy violence, but there WILL be canon typical scenes (fighting, gunfire, stabbing) and other mature topics (nightmares, PTSD, profanity, partial-full non-sexual nudity) so yeah. i’ll also give individual warnings per chapter just to be on the safe side, but like by this point i’ve mentioned it already 3 or 4 times so you know what to expect p well.

and lastly, i really have no idea what updates will look like anymore. i’d definitely like to update more than 2-3 times a month (perhaps more with the shorter chapters too bc i assure you i am not making every chapter 7k+ words!!!) but i’m also a student and working part-time, and i have other fics to do too! so things will be CONSISTENT but dont expect a new chapter every week. if i ever do go like 3+ weeks without a mention of the fic though, i’ll definitely try to let you all know there’s a delay and/or when to expect things to clear up for me.

this really is my first like... major longfic. i have never written a story beyond 3 or 4 chapters and as we’ve seen it takes me sometime to progress those LOL so your patience would be appreciated and please understand if i need time to rework or rewrite things along the way! it’s a big project that i have a very specific vision for but i’ll do my very best!

and thank you

#my fics #macch talks #tired parent trio #riot games #valorant #sage #viper #brimstone #brimstone/sage/viper #brimstone valorant #sage valorant #viper valorant

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gracedcoup · 2 years

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quick meta post bc i am Thinking about the new characters I said “quick” when I started writing this but it’s gotten way too long to qualify as that anymore. Anyway here’s a look at the figures that inspired/may have inspired the new students + some predictions about what they’ll be like. I’m excited dude

(slight spoilers but nothing major)

THIRTEEN

✧ Solomon mentions that he’s known her for a long time, and that she makes some “interesting traps” – it’s possible she’s attempted to use said traps on him. It’s unknown what sort of relationship the two of them have. Seeing as Solomon competes in various ‘games’ for his soul with the only other Reaper we’ve seen thus far, they may have something akin to a rivalry going on.

✧ Based on her pose and what we can see of her expression, Thirteen seems like she’ll have an upbeat or otherwise energetic personality.

✧ Since Obey Me! is a Japanese game, it’s possible that Thirteen may be based more on shinigami than on the Western concept of the Grim Reaper.

Thirteen may also wind up bearing similarities to Izanami, a major figure in Shinto (and wider Japanese) mythology who is heavily linked to death. Despite pursuing her to the land of the dead (Yomi-no-Kuni) to bring her back, Izanami’s husband Izanagi abandoned her and sealed off the entrance to the land of the living after he saw that she had become a uhhhh rotting corpse. Screaming at him from behind the barrier, Izanami swore to take the lives of a thousand people every day.

tl;dr i don’t really expect it to go this way but also i am not above the cheesy “learning to love again after a lousy ex” trope

✧ Unfortunately there’s only so much analysis I can do here in comparison to the others, since “Grim Reaper” isn’t exactly a specific literary or mythological figure.

MEPHISTOPHELES

the man LIVES

✧ His currently-known ‘crimes’ consist of falsifying ballots in the popularity contest to put himself at 10th place (and Mammon at 1st), helping design the Prince Lucifer and Princess Diavolo chat stickers, and iirc using the official RAD Newspaper Club account to message said stickers to students.

✧ Diavolo mentions that Mephistopheles has a younger brother whom he dotes on. Considering that the character of Mephistopheles is most frequently associated with that of Faust when it comes to popular media, the younger brother could very well be based on Faust. (That is, assuming we get any info about the little brother other than that he exists.)

✧ In Faustian legend, Mephistopheles acts as the middleman between Faust and the Devil when Faust goes to trade his soul for knowledge. Working for the Devil is, in fact, Mephistopheles’ personal hell. He warns Faust against going through with the trade, lamenting that he himself will never again experience the comforts and joys of heaven. Mephistopheles is noted as not looking to corrupt humans, but instead appears to people who are already corrupt.

✧ In Goethe’s version of the legend, Mephistopheles displays a tendency for dark humor. Faust asks if God only wants his soul to stay out of hell for the sake of adding it to His kingdom; Mephistopheles replies that misery loves company (Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris, “It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery”). Mephistopheles also states that if he weren’t already a devil, he’d give himself up to the Devil without a second thought.

(Other hit lines include variations of “I think you’ll find that most people would rather not die” and “humans cause so many problems for themselves that I almost feel bad about making things worse for them”)

✧ Something worth pointing out is that although Mephistopheles is quoted as serving Lucifer in the legend, Lucifer in the legend is meant to be the Devil, ruler of hell, top of the hierarchy, all that jazz. There’s some disconnect between the legend and the game on that front, since the Demon King and Diavolo are the rulers of the Devildom, not Lucifer. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucifer tries to keep Mephistopheles on a short leash tho, especially considering Mephisto’s apparent mischievous streak.

✧ Whether or not his cane serves as a mobility device or if it’s just for aesthetic is unclear. I would LIKE it to be a mobility device and for it to be actually acknowledged as such, but I’m not about to get my hopes up bc uhhhh y’know. My personal experience witnessing disability be treated as taboo in media.

✧ long story short i cannot wait to help this man raise lucifer’s blood pressure by an unhealthy amount

(Raphael’s segment is under the cut – featuring in three different religions means there’s a lot to say about the dude, and this post is already pretty long)

RAPHAEL

✧ Belphegor states that Raphael is a meticulous, methodical angel who takes care of Michael’s requests regardless of how unreasonable they are. Raphael frequently appears sullen, to the point that he gets referred to as being like a demon in disguise; this may very well be a result of working for Michael, who even Simeon has expressed exasperation with.

✧ Raphael was, and likely still is, on bad terms with the 6 demon bros who were formerly angels. Whether or not he’ll get along with Satan is up for debate, but it’s unlikely considering the apparent state of anti-demon bias in the Celestial Realm (read: hating demons on principle).

✧ In both Judaism and Christianity, Raphael is associated with healing.

In the Book of Tobit (Judaism), Raphael used a fish to bind Asmodeus (who was a demon by then) and heal Tobit’s eyes. This probably won’t be referenced, but I’m interested in how the writers would explain it lmao. His name comes from a Hebrew root word meaning “to heal.”

In the New Testament (Christianity), Raphael is identified as the (unnamed) angel in John 5:1-4 who is tasked with periodically stirring the Pool of Bethesda. He is considered the patron saint of multiple things, including (but not limited to) healing, medical workers, pharmacists, happy meetings, eye disease/blindness, and travelers. Though he’s invoked to protect travelers in general, in Catholic Europe he was most frequently invoked to protect sailors.

Raphael is often depicted with a staff or walking stick in Catholic art. Iirc, someone (I think Leviathan?) said that he had his spear with him when he went looking to scold Asmodeus for sneaking out to go to a party; the spear may be a reference to this.

✧ In Islam, Raphael (or Israfil, rather) is heavily linked to music. Israfil is meant to sound the trumpet that signals the Day of Resurrection. He is considered a master of music, and as such sings praise to God in a thousand different languages. It’s possible that he is the technically highest-ranked amongst angels, as he acts as mediator between God and the other archangels.

Also in Islam, Israfil is cited as having four wings and being tall enough to reach from earth to heaven. Thus far Lucifer is the only Obey Me! character to be shown as having wings in his angel form, so we probably won’t get to see Raphael’s wings even if he supposedly has them. Raphael is also noticeably shorter than Mephistopheles in the new student lineup.

✧ Given his apparent attitude, work ethic, and possible predilection for music, he may wind up being very similar to Lucifer. He appears to have white or light-gray hair, which combined with skintone means he may physically resemble Mammon. Considering his association with sailors, it could be interesting to see how he interacts with Leviathan, since Levi is Grand Admiral of Hell’s Navy.

✧ Judging by his silhouette and the small bit that’s been revealed, he appears to be wearing a half-turban or similar head wrap. In Japanese media, this is apparently a popular accessory to use on characters with Arabic or pseudo-Arabic origins – a couple examples are Kalim Al-Asim (Twisted Wonderland) and Claude/Khalid von Riegan (Fire Emblem: Three Houses).

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me meta #obey me new characters #thirteen #mephistopheles #raphael #obey me thirteen #obey me mephistopheles #obey me raphael #this is all i've got for now rip it's like 5 AM and i need to be awake in 5 hours #little d no. 2 speaks

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tendercoretroglodyke · 3 years

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... I’m interested in legitimately gay Reese (I assume one piece of evidence is “look at what they’re doing and tell me you’re not gay”)

okay this is like 2 days late but this is why reese malcolminthemiddle is legitimately gay:

(side note: did anyone need a queer media thesis paper or something... I am willing to share lmao)

so none of this is like... rock solid evidence or anything but I need to believe at least one main character of a show is gay and/or trans to maintain interest and reese is the most plausible gay character. also it’s early 2000′s so he just gets a lot of vaguely homophobic jokes lmao

first of all, yes, the biggest piece of evidence he’s gay is those lines from that episode I quoted the other day--thinking malcolm is gay, he tries to show his support by giving him a gay porno: “’Naught Pool Boys 3!’ I watched 10 or 12 of these, and this one seems to have the most stuff you guys like.” and when malcolm says he isn’t gay, reese responds “Malcolm. Check out what those guys are doing in that movie, and THEN tell me you’re not gay.”-- so, 1) reese sat down and watched like a dozen gay porn movies to ““find a good one for his gay brother”” and 2) he thinks malcolm would reconsider his heterosexuality if he watched what was in that movie, implying that HE reconsidered his sexuality after watching that movie, or at the very least found it hot

in the same episode, the character tricking malcolm into thinking reese is gay lists the following as evidence: he obsesses over his hair and his looks, loves his gourmet cooking, has a bunch of magazines covered in comically muscular men, and that he’s angry and acts like a jerk because he’s “dealing with something weird and confusing.” now obviously, the obsession with hair/looks can be chalked up to the fact that he’s a teenage boy, and there’s nothing inherently gay about enjoying cooking. the dozen magazines of muscle-bound men could certainly be taken as gay evidence, though, and it IS established in the show that his entire bully persona is his way of masking his inner feelings and insecurities. there’s literally a whole episode where he & malcolm realize they have no friends because they act like little shits to push people away because they’re afraid of rejection and/or abandonment from their peers. they ostracize themselves before they can be ostracized by the other students at school. I could probably write a whole other essay on reese’s psyche tbqh lmao there’s a shocking amount there!!

of the brothers who are actually old enough to be attracted to girls (reese, malcolm, and francis), he shows the least interest. now bear with me here. you might be thinking, “well, yeah, it’s malcolm’s show, we’re not gonna see things from other people’s perspective!” but that is actually surprisingly untrue, the show is very much equally shown from each family members’ perspectives. starting about s2, when malcolm is in early middle school, he starts getting crushes on girls and pursuing them. francis goes after a few women in the first couple seasons and then marries a woman we see a lot throughout the show.

in the roughly... 130?? episodes I have watched so far, nearly all of reese’s “interest” in girls involve either: competition with malcolm, genuinely just liking her as a friend, or some completely ulterior motive. the only exception to this I can think of is in the early seasons where he has a crush on a cheerleader and tries to get on her good side by joining the cheerleading squad, which the writers clearly set up as a way to make gay jokes about reese. let me give you a few examples of his relationships with girls

the first relationship we see him in is with a “stupid girl” that malcolm tried (and failed) to date, and the main reason they get together is that they think on the same wavelength and genuinely seem to enjoy hanging out. they take breaks from their bro chats to make out every once in a while. eventually he gets her to break up with him because he doesn’t want to go to the school dance with her (he doesn’t want to go at all). years later, he’s dating some girl we meet for like 5 minutes, before he goes to confess to her that she’s the first girl he’s ever loved. she then breaks up with him. he’s sad, but taking it fairly well. he’s about to leave when he sees malcolm hiding under the bed, and learns that he stole his girlfriend. he then runs away to join the army. he was clearly MUCH more upset that his brother stole his girlfriend than he was that his girlfriend broke up with him. there are many more instances of him and malcolm competing for a girl’s affections, and he seems mostly motivated by the competition itself.

in addition to “stupid girl,” he also manufactures an “attraction” to his female army buddy in the last season. the premise of this episode is that his old army buddy (a girl he play-wrestles with and insults like he would his own brothers) comes to visit him, and malcolm convinces reese that she’s attracted to him, and that reese’s nervousness at learning that fact is proof he’s in love with her. there’s a misunderstanding where reese asks her if she has certain “feelings” and she says she does, but what she ACTUALLY means is that she has a crush on reese’s MOM. she’s a lesbian. reese later propositions her (saying he’s saved his virginity for this--he’s probably about 18 here), and when she says omg no im gay, he is HUGELY relieved they can go back to being friends. CLASSIC mlm/wlw friendship moment.

there’s an episode where these cute girls pick up reese (& nerds) to kiss in front of their boyfriends to make them jealous. reese is all for it, and when malcolm argues that it’s not worth his dignity and the beating he’ll get from the girl’s boyfriend, reese counters that that’s WHY he wants to do this--he’s completely invisible at school, and thinks getting beaten up for kissing some guy’s girlfriend will at least make him known around school. at no point does he indicate he’s actually attracted to this girl, and when it comes time to kiss her, he finds the weakest excuse to run away at the last minute.

im not gonna list all of these but there’s more lmao

the following is a random assortment of one-off gay jokes and out-of-context lines with gay reese implications, often homophobically bc its early 2000′s writing:

says “I’m gay” to a girl to give malcolm a better shot at her

(again in competition with malcolm) tries to flirt with a girl by spraying milk in her face as the punchline to a joke, which is. well. hm. self-sabotaging, to say the least!!

Reese: “Do you think it’s right to totally change who you are and turn your back on EVERYTHING you believe in, just to impress a hot guy??” [his dad gives a long, blank stare, before asking:] “...Burt Reynolds hot, or Sting hot?”

“YEAH I like clouds! I call them sky kittens :)” (I just think that one’s sweet!)

“Look, Christie, here’s the thing. When I first met you, I was just messing around. But we’ve gotten so close that, now... I really like you! I can’t keep this up anymore. I’m not the person you think I am. I’ve been pretending since the day I met you. It’s so hard having to constantly cover my tracks to keep my story straight... and I don’t WANT to anymore! I’m tired of living this lie! I’m done with it. I’m sorry.”

he catfishes some guy to blackmail him, but is implied to continue the flirtation even after the catfishing/blackmail is revealed

reese is, technically, married to a man. this particular plot point is played as a joke and manages to be both racist and homophobic, so I won’t go into it. but I believe he is still married to that man. technically.

reese takes care of a huge box full of caterpillars until they pupate and become beautiful butterflies. I feel like there’s some kind of gay coming out metaphor here somewhere.

I think there are a couple other times where he comments on a guy’s attractiveness but I couldn’t find specific instances.

In conclusion: Reese is a deeply repressed gay kid who was socialized SO thoroughly as an early 2000′s straight boy that, despite his attraction for men and his obvious compulsory heterosexuality, he still cannot admit to himself that he is gay even as he enters adulthood. Furthermore, his subconscious frustration about this fact is turned outward to form the “schoolyard bully” costume he uses to mask his insecurities and keep others from getting too close to him.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I could be convinced to come back for another talk about how Dewey is trans or about how each and every member of that family is neurodivergent in entirely different ways. Assuming anyone has read this far in the first place!!

#sorry this was so long lmao I legit spent 2 hours on this #I have 2 modes: not doing the thing and overdoing the thing #hey anon if you actually see this I'd appreciate a quick message saying so lmao I'd hate to write all this only for you to miss it #I'll probably rb sometime tomorrow at least #also liz if you're reading this i was GONNA add a bit about francis' gay potential like you mentioned but I ran out of steam so remind me t #i think reese has the most gay potential tho #mitm #malcolm in the middle #anonymous #Anonymous

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zevlors-tail · 3 years

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So, I'm through episode 2 in Tears of Themis, and I would like to give a little review and say some things.

Spoilers for episodes 1, 2, and the beginning of Vyn's story BTW!!!

As far as functionality and storyline, those things are great. I am extremely interested in where the story is going, and the characters and plot are captivating. The game runs pretty smooth too, and it's not too different from Obey Me in terms of a card system and the episodes, though I do feel it could have been made a bit simpler...

So now that I've given my praise, I want to address a couple...issues that I have with the actual content of the game. 😬

I'll just be blunt. I don't like the fact that so far, mental illness has been portrayed the way it has. Quite frankly I think it's not only extremely harmful and misrepresenting of those who actually are affected by it, but also in poor taste to include it in such a prevalent way in an otome game. I'm not sure I understand the point behind it other than using it as an excuse for a motive for some of the cases and situations, which to me is absolutely just...yuck. And for that matter, there have been no warnings whatsoever for players who might be sensitive to those subjects either. It just pops up in the story randomly.

In Vyn's very first story segment, you literally see someone with SH marks, and it's MC's job to somehow read into that and come to the conclusion that one of Vyn's students is suicidal. In epside 2, bipolar disorder (idk the current/correct term or if that one's outdated, I'm sorry! I'm only quoting the term from the game!) is literally used as a piece of evidence and the motive as to why a man murdered his wife. Also, let's not forget the way Estelle literally used Janus' illness against him to try and manipulate him to go public with their marriage, saying "I have to take care of you and your depression, but who's going to take care of me?" That was quite possibly the most toxic line from this game I've read yet. And even in episode one, there was a brief mention of Grandpa Vern having depression after everything that transpired with Pedro and Penny's Comfort Foods, but MC and Artem quickly pass it off with something along the lines of "Well the trial's over now, so he'll be fine!"

Are you kidding me? 😳 I just feel like if you can't write a compelling murder mystery plot without having to make someone mentally ill to give them a motive, maybe you shouldn't be writing that plot. Also, you're misrepresenting everyone with mental illness and spreading misinformation about what it's really like. In real world situations, it's never black and white like that. It's so different for everyone, and it cannot be 'cured' or just 'go away' just because the main stressor or source of the problem does. It doesn't work like that, but I digress...

Note: I didn't really mention it here, but because I bring up Mystic Messenger in a later comparison, I would like to note that while MysMes also had a similar issue to this (ie. Rika, her cult, and mental illness), I feel that it was handled significantly better and multiple characters recognized her wrongdoings and condemned her and her actions for it. I haven't played through Saeran or V's route, so I can't vouch for that content. I just feel that MysMes handled it better (not perfectly), which is why it wasn't brought up here.

I think I've said enough about that. On to my next qualm:

I've noticed there have been several conversations about MC's figure and weight already, including Luke saying something akin to "I've always thought you looked too skinny," and MC thinking they were fat or asking/acusing Luke of calling them fat. I can't remember exactly what was said or mentioned but it made me feel uncomfortable for several reasons. The first is that weight didn't really need to be mentioned at all, and that is a particular sensitivity of mine, and the second being that Luke calling MC skinny is, well- it assumes that every single player is...skinny.

That is quite obviously not the case. Whatever their reasoning for it, they've now made every person who isn't considered skinny feel left out and shitty. I would even go as far as to say it's borderline fat-phobic with the type of comments that were made.

And on that topic...there is also no representation for POC whatsoever when it comes to MC. As far as I know, MC isn't customizable. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I never saw an option to change skin color, hair color, eye color, or just icons in general. Why? I'm tired of the "skinny white girl" rhetoric. Not everyone is skinny, not everyone is white, and not everyone is a girl or feminine.

Which leads me to my final big issue! I understand that an otome game's target audience is usually women, so I understand MC being a girl. I do. However- in comparison with Obey Me and even Mystic Messenger, the MC in Tears of Themis is overwhelmingly feminine. Again, I understand target audience, but come on. Even Mystic Messenger only occasionally poked at the MC's specific gender and even hid their eyes so make it slightly more anonymous/neutral (not to say the game wasn't in the wrong for it, bc they very well could have made the MC gender neutral apart from the CGI's), but I feel like this game specifically really paints a picture of a female MC that's extremely hard for me to relate to as a nonbinary person.

Also, even though I'm supposed to be the main character, it feels like I'm playing through someone else's life. They've fleshed out MC so much that she isn't actually relatable anymore, at least in my opinion. She's unnaturally upbeat, has an entire story about her childhood, specific hobbies and a designated work place, and has an entire appearance on screen. And unlike in both MysMes and Obey Me, you actually don't get the option to choose different responses to characters. It's just a set story. The only place you get to choose anything is when you're presenting evidence and testimony in court. So no personalization of MC is really my issue here, I think.

Props to Obey Me for making MC gender neutral, and props to MysMes for at least keeping MC relatable and giving them choices to respond with even if the game set their gender. And hey, MysMes even had different icons to choose from for MC too. Tears of Themis, what's the hold up? 🤨

It's generally a good game when it comes to it's working functions and systems, and I understand that no one is obligated to tag triggers, really. But it's still a game, and it's not above critique.

I give this game...3 stars out of 5. Functionality is great, plot is interesting when it's not misrepresenting, and the love interests are interesting and attractive. The art is beautiful. However, it ranks third on the list of otome games I've played so far (and I've only played three, meaning it's last on the list).

Obey Me takes the cake at number one with it's beautiful art and gender neutral MC as well as its multiple love interests and ridiculously hilarious plot. Mystic Messenger comes in at a solid second place, also with beautiful art and an interesting plot. MysMes also gets props for the way their hourglass system works and the way the story unfolded in different routes and all the different endings you could get. And finally we've got Tears of Themis in third...it could stand to do a bit better.

Well, that's pretty much all I got. Others are welcome to add on to this as well. If I'm wrong about something, please let me know respectfully.

#tears of themis #mystic messenger #obey me #tears of themis analysis #tears of themis review #tw self harm mention #tw self harm #tw weight #tw weight mention #tw body talk #tw depression #tw mental illness #tw suicidal

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leejungchans · 3 years

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— reunited.

🆕 ask juliet anything!! | juliet’s masterlist

word count: 1.3k

warning(s): none!!

note: words in bold are spoken in english!!

set in early 2017

summary: in which juliet bumps into someone very, very familiar and dear to her heart.

Juliet nods her head along to the music playing from her earphones as she peruses the snack aisle in the supermarket. Her classes ended a bit earlier today, giving her more time before she has to be at the company for training. What better way to spend that time than getting snacks to share with the others during their breaks?

Definitely chocolate, she thinks as she grabs a bar from one of the shelves, pausing for a few seconds before grabbing two more. Who am I kidding? We’ll inhale it within thirty seconds if I get just one. What if I also got chips? Or is that too much if we’re going to get tteokbokki after training?

Sighing, Juliet looks wistfully at the assortment of snacks before lowering her head and speed-walking through the aisle. If I can’t see it, I won’t be tempted.

Stopping by the dairy section, she reaches for a bottle of banana milk after much deliberation between it and the strawberry milk. This specific brand of flavoured milk was the first thing she had after landing in South Korea, and since then she’d always try to have either before practice or evaluations as a good luck charm whenever possible.

Juliet is about to head to the cashier when she spies a boy around her age standing only a few feet away from her looking at the selection of bottled tea. Her heart skips a beat when she catches the side profile of the boy. It can’t be him... can it? But he looks so awfully similar to...

Before she can be sure, the boy makes his choice and disappears behind the aisle she was just in. Juliet finds herself following after him. She wanted—no, needed—to confirm she hadn’t been seeing things, that he is indeed who she thinks he is. It’s been so long since she’s seen him, she can’t just leave without being sure.

Doing her best to act natural, she walks back to the snack aisle and grabs a bag of spicy chips, pretending to read the label when she’s really trying to get a better look at the boy out of the corner of her eye. Unfortunately, the boy isn’t near enough for her to be sure, and before Juliet can inch closer to him, he leaves the aisle.

Damn it, I knew I should’ve put on my glasses.

Hastily shoving the bag of chips back into its original place, Juliet hurries to catch up with him, carefully peeking behind the shelves to see which section he went into.

Wait... do I look suspicious right now? What if someone’s watching me through the CCTV and thinks I’m trying to steal something? The thought causes her to shudder, hoping she’ll get her answer as quickly as possible so she won’t have to act like this anymore.

Passing through the aisles, Juliet finally finds the boy looking at the instant ramen before casually slipping in and grabbing a random one from the shelf, once again watching him using her peripheral vision. Is this weird? This is so weird. Man, if he’s not who I think he is, I would’ve done all this for nothing... Fuck! He’s looking this way! Don’t look at him, don’t look at him, don’t look at him... 1790mg of Sodium... interesting... what riveting information...

So deep in thought, Juliet doesn’t realises that he’s approaching her until she feels him trying to squeeze past her in the narrow corridor in an effort to leave. Jumping in surprise from the sudden contact, the bowl of ramen slips from Juliet’s hold and falls to the ground with a clatter.

“Sorry!” they both squeak in unison, the boy crouching down to pick up the ramen before she can do so herself. When he looks up to hand it back to her, they freeze upon getting a good look at the other’s face, eyes widening with realisation.

“Felix?”

“Juliet?”

Huge smiles slowly spread across their faces after getting over the initial shock before they pull each other in a hug.

“It’s so good to see you!” Juliet squeals. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here now!” Felix explains once they separate, laughing when her eyes widen comically at his revelation.

“Shut the front door. Really?”

“Yeah! I auditioned for JYP a while ago and got accepted, and they told me to move here immediately. I wanted to contact you, but I think you changed your phone number...”

“Oh, I did,” Juliet says sheepishly. “But I’m glad we ran into each other here! Well, not really ran into... I was kinda following you around the store like a creep because I was trying to make sure if you were really... you.”

Felix giggles. “Were you? I didn’t notice. I just thought you were another student trying to buy snacks after school.”

“I mean... that part’s true,” Juliet says with a grin as they walk back to the cashier to pay. “But anyways, it’s so great that you’re with JYP now! Are you doing okay with settling in and stuff?”

He nods slowly. “I think so, I’m still adjusting to the culture shock and practising my Korean, but the boys there are helping me a lot! One of them is also from Sydney, can you believe it?”

“You’ll have to introduce us sometime then,” she says as she hands the cashier some money while he scans her items. “Plus, you found me now! So if you need anything or just someone to talk to, you can reach me! You have a Korean number now, right?”

He nods again, rummaging for his wallet and phone in his bag before handing the latter to Juliet so she can enter her number in while he pays. The two leave the supermarket with a quick “thank you!” to the cashier as she returns his phone.

“‘Aussie sister’?” Felix laughs, reading the contact name she saved for herself.

“Yeah! You can change it if you want, or if you already met another Aussie sister at JYP,” she pouts. “In that case, I can be ‘Aussie sister #2’ or ‘Julie’ or whatever.”

“Nah, I don’t know any other Aussies here other than you and the boy I mentioned earlier. His name’s Chan, by the way! Where are you going now? To SM?”

Juliet smiles melancholically. “I’m not with SM anymore, Lix,” she says softly, watching his eyebrows crease with worry. “I’m with another company now called KQ. It’s much smaller compared to SM, but I’m happy there and they treat me well, so don’t worry.”

“Well, if you’re happy, then it’s all that matters!” Felix says brightly. “I have to go back to JYP too, but we’ll meet up more now that I’m here, right?” he adds the last part hopefully.

“Definitely! When we have time, I’ll take you to all my favourite food places in this area,” Juliet promises.

Felix beams. “I can’t wait! Take care, okay? And good luck with training.”

“You too. Again, it’s really, really nice seeing you again.”

“Likewise... so, this is goodbye?” he asks when they come to a intersection, being able to tell that Juliet has to go the other route from the direction her feet are pointing at.

“Yeah... but only for now! Remember to text me later so I’ll have your number!”

Felix nods. “I will. I’ll see you around?”

“You bet. I still have so much to tell you,” Juliet tells him before they hesitantly go their separate ways, knowing they both have to be at their companies soon but still wanting to catch up more.

It doesn’t take long for her to turn around to watch Felix’s retreating figure, though she immediately bursts into laughter when he does the same, and the two friends give each other one last exaggerated wave before disappearing into the crowds of people.

Despite the freezing temperature, Juliet feels warm and fuzzy on the inside, overjoyed from seeing her childhood friend for the first time in years while also knowing that there will be more to come now that Felix also lives in Seoul.

Things really are starting to look up.

She walks into KQ’s building with a spring in her step, arms clutching her banana milk and chocolate securely when her phone chimes from a notification. Clumsily fumbling with her uniform skirt’s pocket, Juliet fishes out her phone, instantly grinning at the message that pops up on the lockscreen.

[Unknown Number] [16:03] your aussie bro right here!!! 🐨 fighting today!!!!!!

— bonus!!

juliet following felix around the supermarket trying not to look sus like:

a/n: i can’t believe it took me this long to write a scenario with felix but here it is 🥺🥺 bc they were both in a hurry, they didn’t exactly have time for an emotional reunion but rest assured they were very, very happy to see each other :3 especially for juliet, she was still adjusting to everything and everyone at kq, so when felix came into her life again it made her so happy 🥺💕

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clvmtines · 3 years

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welcome aboard, clementine martinez, student #2. we are excited to set sail with you ! has anyone told you that you look like alexa demie? according to our records, you hail from florida, usa, prefer she / her pronouns, are a cis woman, and are here to study creative writing. we also see you received a spot on the ss university because of your online lottery win — we won’t tell anyone. during your first few weeks here, other students said you were + charming, + free-spirited, but also - restive. it sounds like you spend most of your time at the billiards room. upon checking your luggage, we noticed you packed a casino chip carried around for luck from home. hopefully your roommates don’t steal it!

hi friends! i’m very excited to be here. i’m jay (est, she/her) n i used to play astrid nyland a few months ago if anyone remembers bt i had to leave for personal reasons. i’m so glad to be back now that i hve life sorted and some free time for summer break <3 read on for some details abt this new muse of mine, clementine.

01. biography !

so ! clementine was born in florida. & yes, her real name is clementine. her mom thot it was the cutest name idea ever. clementine mostly goes by clem. she comes from the town [redacted] in florida bcoz i am too lazy to look up a specific town <3 but alas ! it was swampy and humid and she lived in a trailer park.

her parents got knocked up at nineteen. clem was born nine months after a particularly wild 1999 fourth of july. her birthday is march 26th and she’s an aries.

(TW: addiction, child injury) clem’s dad was a gambling addict and petty criminal—he wld steal credit cards n whatnot. he wld gamble away diaper money n it would cause constant fighting until her dad finally left. her mom took this very hard n began drinking a bit too often, leaving clem to to make cereal for dinner n fend for herself. once clem tried to make hot dogs on the stove and spilled boiling water on herself. got a p bad burn on her arm/shoulder and still has a big scar.

the soundtrack of her childhood was cicadas buzzing and stray dogs barking. the sizzle and pop of natty light cans. turning up her ipod to max volume to drown out the sounds of her mother fighting with her new boyfriend.

throughout her upbringing, clem’s dad was always in and out of the picture. he’d blow into town when he hit it big. he’d take her on these little “adventures” like staying in a motel 6 n renting movies at block buster n ordering good pizza nt the dominos shit she ate with her mom lol. ofc he was charging it all to someone’s stolen credit card. he’d always promise to, like, take clem away. n clem was a daddy’s girl so she believed him. the last time it happened was her h.s. graduation. her mom didn’t show ( "overslept” after a bender ) but her dad did and surprised her n said everything wld be different. bt then he bailed on their plans for the next day n when she called his cell, the number was disconnected. tht was the defining “i’m done” moment. clem promised to never be disappointed by her father again.

(TW: racism) her mother has mexican ancestry and clem’s always been called her twin. but clem was raised in a predominately white area and honestly ?? it was really hard without her even realizing it. she’s still unpacking a lot of things today abt her youth that jst weren’t okay bt she thought were normal. like microaggressions, stereotypes, being fetishized by boys in high school. gross shit.

as a kid, clem was rumored to be really poor bc she wore tattered clothes n got free lunch at school. once she invited a friend to her house & the next day they told everyone it’s in a trailer park. that reputation—the “trailer park girl”—was really hard to shake. and clem got almost desperate to shake it. she was endlessly trying to set her old self on fire and emerge from the ashes like a phoenix.

eventually clem became more “popular”. in school she was, like, a straight b student. very average although super creative and quick-thinking. she always had street smarts. problem solving skills. independence. more of, like, practical intelligence as opposed to book smarts because academia bores her tbh. she was like why am i reading these overrated boring books by dead white men or learning abt polynomials when i know nothing abt how to pay a mortage or do taxes. like...she saw the american education system as bullshit and put in modest effort because she didn’t believe it deserved her sweat and tears.

however, she entered the online lottery for the seas program on a whim and got in. so she’s studying creative writing now.

02. personality !

first thing you shld know abt clem is that she’s a compulsive liar essentially—she tells various stories to make her life seem better than what it was. to one person, she’s an heiress to a real estate company and grew up wealthy. to the next she was raised by nomadic hippies. some of her lies are small fibs while others are grandiose tales. she rarely talks about her actual upbringing. she hates talking abt her family or the v real trauma of growing up in a household where both parents struggled w/ addiction; the uncertainty, the broken promises, the fact that she had to grow up so soon and deal w/ so much. it wasn’t fair, and if she thinks about it too much, she feels this anger. anger at the universe. anger at her circumstances. she doesn’t know where to put this anger. she doesn’t know how to shrink it. so she avoids it.

despite her rough upbringing, though, clem is actually really sweet and kind. she’s adventurous, fun-loving, free-spirited, and bold.

bt ! she can also be closed-off, competitive and restive.

she’s seemingly tight with everyone? like she’s jst that girl who can get along with anyone tbh.

in her spare time you can catch her tanning by the pool, hanging at the bar, playing pool ( which she learned from her dad ), and socializing. she’ll never say no to hanging out with people.

she learned a lot from her little “adventures” with her dad, who was very good at conning others and often involved her in his dumb little scams. clem is suuuper good at pulling the ‘im baby 🥺’ card to get what she wants.

she can be a little selfish, because she grew up looking out for herself.

stubborn and dogmatic as hell !!!

she doesn’t do too many relationships but when she does fall, i imagine she falls hard and fast. she refuses to be made a fool of, tho. when she gets vulnerable she flashes back to being a kid, waiting all day for her dad to show up only to have him bail on her. again. she hates that feeling. so if she, like, senses a shift in someone’s energy she’ll b like, “i’ll break up with u before u can do it to me” and the person wasn’t even tryna dump her lmao.

has a lot of sex. too much ?? sex?? mayb. but she’s v sex positive.

her personal style is v late 90s. hair clips, big scrunchies, neon, fur trim, crop and tube tops, hoop earrings, chokers, patterns, platform shoes, biodegradable glitter cuz it’s good fr the earth *winks*. clothes from o-mighty.......actually jst google o mighty, pull up the images and That is clem. she dresses like a bratz doll. she’s dedicated to the aesthetic.

03. headcanons !

her item brought from home is a hot pink poker chip from a casino. her dad gave it to her. he said it reminded him of her because of the color; he got it during one of his winning streaks and said it was lucky. she has a complicated relationship w/ her dad n doesn’t even speak to him anymore, bt she will never go anywhere without it.

she’s a smol bean—only 5′4

an astrology girl and she reads palms ! she absolutely makes astrology tik toks that people only watch because she’s hot. her flirting technique is to ask you to read your palm.

she doesn’t typically drink to get drunk. but she does love a good sugary cocktail. to her, a drink is like an accessory. a blue fishbowl by the pool, a jack and coke as she stands around a bar. usually she'll nurse the same beverage for a while. if you see her wasted it usually means she’s going thru it emotionally lol. the one thing she does do is drugs tho

pretty much listens to exclusively female artists.

a bit of an activist. environmentalism, feminism and the like, she’s v outspoken. vegan for ethical reasons (TW: drugs) bt still does cocaine. she wears shirts with ‘my pussy my choice’ bedazzled on the front.

loves to rollerblade ! back home she didn’t have a car so she’d bike or rollerblade. now she still has her blades and she’ll use them when the ship docks.

03. wanted connections !

Friends, bffs, ride or dies, friends who are like siblings to her, maybe a friend with an unrequited crush on either side ??

an ex she dumped/cheated on/otherwise self sabotaged their relationship because she was afraid of vulnerability.

an ex friend who realized she lies a lot abt herself n felt betrayed. OH ! ESP if they opened up to her on many occasions abt intimate, personal stuff. imagine the betrayal they felt when they found that everything they thought they knew abt clem is a lie.

someone who she actually opens up to. a confidant. or, maybe, like, a stranger she drunkenly spilled her soul to and now she avoids them like the plague.

a rival. clem can be competitive.

her drug dealer

someone she knows she shouldn’t hook up with and… does it anyways. like a friend’s ex or smthing. spicy <3

i welcome anything !

#seasintro #addiction tw #alcohol tw #drugs tw

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waveridden · 3 years

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JAMIE have you ever considered a modern AU for blaseball because I would love to hear your thoughts on one

cola... have i told you lately that i love you

i know i’ve talked a little about various modern aus however tonight i am thinking about the marijuana family so i present to you:

HIGH ON LIFE: a marijuana family sitcom (name subject to change) (many thanks to @leonstamatis because some of this comes from conversations with them. mostly the jokes.)

here is the setup for this mini universe that lives in my head

dom (23) is the pseudo parent to randy (19) and lenny (14 but she’s almost 15 guys she’s basically an adult) and the three of them have lived in new york city their entire lives but dom gets a job offer that’s too good to pass up... in denver*. so the entire family has to pack up and move to denver.

( * i would do somewhere in utah, bc hellmouth, but i have to be honest. i’ve known several people from utah and all of them have been just like... horrible to be around. so this is a personal bias thing. colorado’s better anyways.)

so our family is in denver now! denver is a major city ofc but it’s still a MAJOR change from new york so that is our inciting sitcom incident. Uh Oh What Kind Of Wackiness Will Our Protagonists Get Up To!

dom works at a warehouse, he’s a shift lead or something like that, and it’s his first ever full time job (as opposed to stringing together three part-time jobs). it’s supposed to be a great job and he fucking hates it but the pay is better than anything in new york and it’s better for the family if he’s here so, well, he’s here

andrew solis is a local union rep who dom gets in touch with because his job sucks and they have a lot of clandestine meetings about union stuff that turn into non clandestine meetings because they enjoy spending time together that turn into a nice normal committed relationship

andrew gets along really well with randy. he’s a nice kid, if a little much sometimes. it’s fine.

andrew is terrified of lenny

you know that john mulaney bit about how a group of thirteen year olds can sense your insecurities? lenny is an entire group of thirteen year olds on her own. she is mean and powerful and andrew is afraid of that.

obviously a lot of dom’s friends (ie the mills) are back in new york but he calls them CONSTANTLY. like, once a day. they are very loud and they love him and they miss him and are so proud of him for helping his job unionize and shit like that. they can’t visit in person often but every now and again they do.

randy gets a job at a local theatre company, which is the last thing he expected to be doing but it’s kind of... awesome? everyone here is super chill and funny and loud and he gets along with them great.

this is the jazz hands. i know they’re in breckenridge. this is my au. they’re in denver today.

his immediate best friend is layna, who does bit parts in musicals and more importantly writes a lot of weird experimental short plays that the theatre produces. she’s a couple years older than him and is far too cool and pretty for him. she tells him this every day and he agrees. she works at a zoo/botanical garden and lenny is constantly hounding her for free zoo passes and stuff (layna agrees because she adores lenny and also it’s an excuse for randy to visit her)

is the botanical garden an excuse to have the flowers players here? yes. geography is less powerful than I Want Everyone In The Same Place

randy’s OTHER best friends are nagomi (community college student/works in the aquarium part of the zoo) and emmett (computer science student at a four-year). most of the time the three of them just chill out and get high and do dumb 19-year-old shit together they’re just three chill friends

do not leave nagomi and lenny in a room together. don’t do it.

lenny isn’t allowed in costco anymore. this is nagomi’s fault

one time randy leaves both emmett and nagomi to watch lenny because surely emmett will prevent any shenanigans. when he comes back nagomi and lenny have stolen three street signs. emmett allowed this to happen because lenny and nagomi specificall stole a sign that said “emmett drive” and they can’t drive and they think it’s funny. so emmett is ALSO not allowed to watch lenny/nagomi

(emmett’s fine watching lenny on their own, it’s just that nagomi “fuck around and find out” nava is too powerful to be overridden)

occasionally nagomi’s twin sibling margarito also hangs out with her randy and emmett. when margo/randy are together they’re A Force To Be Reckoned With. they’re chaotic and easy to manipulate so nagomi can convince them to do some wild shit together. it rules.

lenny loves margo. xe’s never allowed to know this. but she adores xem.

meanwhile lenny is experiencing the worst thing that a teenager can experience: moving during high school. she is doing her absolute goddamn best to fit into the social scene here but it’s so different from new york and she doesn’t know how to handle it

her first friend is kiki familia because i just think fourteen year old girls should stick together and because i think lenny is not above very loudly very rudely making sure that kiki gets all the accommodations she needs

andrew visits one day and lenny is practicing asl in front of a mirror and he’s like oh do you want a conversation partner? because he knows enough to hold a conversation. this is how lenny and andrew form an actual relationship

(andrew is also fluent in spanish and he helps her with spanish homework but she resents this because she thinks it’s nerdy. at least with asl it’s for a good reason.)

and then a couple months later another new student shows up and she is having the opposite experience from lenny because she lived in wyoming for a really long time which is... not a big city... and denver is comparatively HUGE and she’s just really overwhelmed? and lenny is like. oh i can show you around! for sure! definitely! new students have to stick together!

kiki, suspiciously: you’re not new anymore

lenny, very non-subtly: kiki shut the fuck up

this new student is chorby and she gets along great with both kiki (i’m not sure what the analog for magical girl is in a modern au but like it’s something and they bond over it) and lenny, who immediately has a massive big huge crush on her

kiki knows this. kiki mocks this relentlessly.

lenny makes it super super clear that kiki is never going to be the third wheel and kiki’s like yes i am and that’s fine

dom and randy both absolutely adore chorby. she’s so polite. lenny knows that chorby can curse like a sailor and has very specific opinions about screamo bands but when she meets lenny’s brothers she is a saint and lenny is like... swooning over it

and like lenny/chorby are teenagers which means sometimes they get into fights over dumb things and sometimes they get into fights over serious things but they always work it out in the end

there’s definitely a whole Thing because chorby goes to the sadie hawkins dance with juice collins and lenny is like. what the fuck.

is juice a teen? she is in the jamie cassidy extended blaseball teen universe. at least for today

anyways you might notice that there is not a lot of plot here. that’s because this is a sitcom and it is really just a very long setup for me to think about various ideas happening in (i.e. lenny trying to intimidate andrew for absolutely no reason, randy/nagomi/emmett shenanigans) it’s genuinely just like. a fun little world for me to play in when i need it.

the MOST IMPORTANT PART of this au is the family tho. cannot stress this enough, dom and randy and lenny all have family time constantly. they love each other so much. and that family expands to include andrew, and chorby, and emmett and nagomi and kiki and layna, but at its heart This Is A Sibling Story and i love them. the end

#waveridden.ask #queen-eevee #i need a blaseball tag #i was like 'this'll be an easy quick thing to answer' spoiler alert it... wasn't #under the cut i present to you THIRTEEN HUNDRED WORDS of self indulgent shenanigans #weed family sitcom tag

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collectivefandomstuff · 4 years

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Hey mom! I’m stressed at 1am, any advice? I’m having trouble in school via studying sometimes it feels like we’re going from 0 to 100. And I need better study habits, do you have any advice? Bc sometimes it feels like I’m so afraid of failure that if I do study to my full potential (sounds weird) I feel like I loose the excuse of saying oh I got a bad score bc I goofed off. Like if I actually do all my effort to study and do bad, then is there something wrong with me??

(A/N: this answer is so long I almost feel ashamed to post it. I’m very sorry everyone. Anyway, if you’re looking for the concrete tips they’re at the end :) )

Hey :)

This doesn’t sound weird at all because I’m the exact same way. This way of thinking is actually more common than you’d think, and is often a part of the cognitive profile of perfectionism (btw, perfectionism isn’t that apt a name but I digress. Also, this way of thinking doesn’t mean you’re a perfectionist.). Anyway, I know a bunch of people who’ve experienced this, and the common factor isn’t fear of failure, but rather what it is you think you’re failing at. For example, I once told my therapist that I was super stressed over a bunch of stuff and I also had a paper I had to get done, and he asked me what would happen if I didn’t turn it in on time and I was like “academically? nothing. mentally? I wouldn’t be me anymore.” And that’s the stitch.

The people I know who struggle with this are often (though not exclusively) girls, and often people who’re pretty smart. They spent their childhood being told over and over that they were gifted, intelligent, and good at school. And back then, that was easy to live up to. They danced through the first few years of school without any issue, and enjoyed it a lot. They did their homework, understood stuff, and were usually “good kids”.

Now, we’re always growing and re-shaping our sense of self, but the foundations are lain when we’re children. So, when people around you keep identifying you as a smart/good student, then we start identifying ourselves like that too. Especially if it is being reinforced by your actual achievements. And then, suddenly, getting good grades isn’t about doing well or working hard, it’s about identity. It’s about who you are at your core. Thus, the stakes become infinitely higher. If you fail at a math test that you really studied for, then that means that you don’t have what it takes, and that means you are no longer yourself- the intelligent kid who’s good at school. A test might not be that anxiety-inducing, but losing your whole sense of self is. So, in that case procastination makes a lot of sense, because as long as you don’t fail while doing your best then you never put your identity on the line.

(This also applies if failing at school has become synonymous with being a failure, i.e. if you’ve been taught that doing well academically is the only way to be a successful/useful person in society, or if academic success has merged with the idea of a happy future so it feels like failing autmatically leads to an unhappy life. Essentially, mental structures that lead to a misconception of the stakes involved in a single exam/paper/task.)

That said, I do have some more practical things to say here. First off, sometimes we’re in a situation where we can’t do our best and that’s okay. I’ve failed exams, tests, papers, you name it and I still have my degree in the end. It’s never the end all of things.

Now, my own biggest freak out like this came when I started uni. My first paper I went completely insane and procrastinated like crazy, and I failed. And then the though crept in “what if I can’t do this? What if this is it. I can’t handle higher education, even if I try my hardest?” The anxiety was... big bad and mad.

I should say for this next part that my therapist once told me that I have a strangely aggressive approach to handling anxiety. Moving on. I sat down and said to myself “what is worse, to try my hardest and fail or half-ass it and never be able to live the life I want?” Since the answer was pretty obvious, I got to it. I had about 5 weeks until the next exam, and I sat down and planned every single hour until then. I studied for that damn test like I’ve never studied before, and whenever I felt anxious I would tell it to FUCK OFF and focus on the task I had planned. I didn’t allow myself to think beyond that first planning session, I just did what was next on the agenda. What am I supposed to do right now? read these 10 pages? Ok.

I’ve had two exams during my studies where I failed (the second due to the situation I was in) and ended up in this spiral. And here’s the funny thing: I have a small number of courses in uni where I got a higher grade. They include 1) courses that I found extremly interesting and 2) those two courses.

Okay! I know this is already so fucking long but I want to give you some actual tips too. Number one is obviously to plan. Take a whole day, sit down and plan the next month. Consider all your assignments, when they’re due, what you need to do to study, how long that’ll take and when that is done most efficiently. Plan everything in your calendar. Give yourself enough time for each task that you can do it even if you’re not super super focused. Do not study outside these hours. When you’re done for the day you’re done for the day. This way, there’s a clear, reachable end to each study session and you don’t feel as compelled to postpone tasks. When you sit down to study, don’t worry about the other stuff you have to do, or other subjects that you haven’t done yet. They’re all in the plan, all you have to do is what is in front of you. As long as you keep doing that you’ll make it. (If the plan goes to shit for some reason, take a day to plan a make a new one. It happens).

Some things to consider:

Different subjects are best studied in different ways. I used to set aside 15-30 minutes every day in high school for Italian, where I’d sit down and read the chapter we were working on out loud. I didn’t even focus that hard, I just did it every day- the chapter and the glossary. I STILL remember some sentences from that book. Math is best done in longer stretches, but not too long. 1-2 hours preferably. Think about how YOU work. Do you best read a textbook in one go or in increments? Do you learn better in a coffee-shop or your room? Silence? Music? This can also change depending on your subject. Plan accordingly.

For reading, time your reading speed for the book. Read a page at normal speed and clock it, then multiply that by the pages you need to read to see how much time you’ll have to plan for. Round up to give yourself room for spacing out.

Plan for breaks. Think about your normal need for it, but the uni standard is 15 minutes for every 45, making an even hour. Find a break activity that’s has a specific end, for example making some more tea/coffee and snacks and doing some stretches, or maybe playing one race in mario kart. Avoid things that you can get stuck doing beyond the alotted break time.

Buffers. For every five hours or so, plan one hour of buffer time. This is time that you can use if something takes longer than expected. If you do everything as planned, this is surprise free time! :D If you have a long study session, plan 30 minute buffers every two or three hours to be used for extra breaks and to keep panic at bay. Buffers will save your life.

Make a chart with different tasks and have little boxes that you get to fill in with fun colours when you’re done. If you have to read 100 pages, do a bar with ten boxes, that way you can see your progress visually.

Plan for days/evenings that are free. Plan what you’re going to do those days, like “movie night with X”, “play videogames and eat cupcakes”, “take a long bath and read a good book”. That way, you use your free time well and can use those days and evenings as incentive.

Prioritize your work. If you have too much to do, make a list of what’s most to least important and focus on doing the important stuff first. This includes studying tasks. What’s more important, reading that text for the third time or really understanding integrals?

Drink lots of water and eat sugar. It’s brain food. I usually bake before an intense week. That way when I feel myself going down I can go get a cupcake instead of taking time to make something to eat, or worse- try to soldier through which never works.

I hope this helped a little at least :) Good Luck! I believe in you! 💙💜

#long post #studying #academia #tips for students #asked and answered #lovely asks #tw anxiety #fear of failure

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whoslaurapalmer · 3 years

Text

there’s, so much that makes me angry about, internet culture and ao3 but I think some of the big things are like, and there’s a lot here but I just get so fed up about it all

the romanticization/sexualization of dark topics is such a sickening but insidious part of internet culture, and has only gotten more insidious and more prevalent over time. it’s so easy to run into on accident, even with tags (you can’t imagine everything you’ll want to exclude. I have tried, and I have always, always missed something I didn’t even fathom bc it was that disgusting.), and it’s especially so easy to read that stuff as a kid and not even think twice about it, and then to grow up and become an adult that defends it because you saw it so often, you thought it was okay, it remained completely unchecked in you, when it is wrong. I went on for some time thinking the teacher/student pairings I saw as a kid were completely okay, because I just didn’t question it, until I was like 21 and finally realized it wasn’t okay!! and the fact that I found them as a kid wasn’t wrong, it was the fact that they existed in the first place!! and that the internet keeps happening like this over and over is so frustrating

and I think we need to stop saying ao3 exists only as an archive so they can host anything and everything because it clearly isn’t just an archive anymore. there is a specific culture that exists there, and that thrives there, because it’s encouraged by the moderators. it should not be hard to draw the line between “we can discuss dark topics” and “romanticizing dark topics is not okay”, and it’s not hard to say “rpf shouldn’t exist, because why do you want to write real life people who are out there living their lives right now like they’re fictional people and give them completely different lived experiences”, it’s not hard to say “rpf child porn is not imperative to the ‘fannish experience’” because they’re saying it’s imperative when they refuse to take it down, they’re letting that culture continue, it shouldn’t matter that it’s written and therefore “legal” or whatever, it’s still reprehensible, unnecessary, should not exist, that should not be arguable, people shouldn’t be trying to do the mental gymnastics they do to get away with supporting it

and really, the fact that it’s been 12 years that ao3’s been around and they only added ‘exclude tags’ within, the last 4 years, maybe? and user IDs only started showing up very recently, I’m pretty sure, and that users have to change the code in the skin themselves in order to block users, because ao3 has taken an age and is still taking an age to implement an actual block button??? and literally, the website just has not changed, and the moderators will never change????? it’s outrageous.

I get it if you still use ao3 to post or read fics, it’s the easiest way to post fic and to find fic, it’s why I stayed as long as I did, but if you donate to them or defend them then yeah I am gonna judge you, because they don’t need your defense, they don’t need your money, fanfic exists right now without them and will exist without them, fanfic isn’t the end all be all, it’s great and wonderful and i love it but fanfic and the people who write it and the places we host it are not above criticism

#i'm so tired. i'm so tired :)

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yume-fanfare · 3 years

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hi i am that anon from like 29th Dec (last dang year) who said i read ur tsuki no hime and loved it and that u understand Aizou. i have read more of ur stuff since then and now i NEED to ask you for writing advice, on both characterization and general writing tips since I didnt mention it before. Sorry about that! i just forgot i sent an ask and i do not get notifs at all (or does anon asks not get notifs?) Also, ART STUDENT! That's why the nice art and art leaning!! I feel smart for sensing it

oh yup, tumblr doesn't send notifs for anon asks! but i'm glad you did see the answer anyway

this post is hideously long, so answer under the cut!

so, on characterization: it is mostly a matter of what would they say, rather than what you want them to say. the joke about "the characters do what they want to" instead of what the writer wants is pretty much true if you want them to be in character lol (that's why sometimes a little bit of OoC isn't too bad)

checking the source material is the most important thing: look at prior similar interactions the characters have had and how they reacted

this is kind of hard with LIPxLIP, as there aren't that many translated texts about them but with honeyworks the most canon and reliable thing to use as reference are the mvs. the mvs are drawn in a way that can pretty much be understood even if you don't have the lyrics, and sometimes it's even better if you can't read them, to properly focus on the images better

look at their expressions closely: while aizou is always explosive in his anger, yuujirou often has a more indifferent expression. so, when they fight, aizou is probably the one to blow up first while yuujirou maintains his composure better. it's kind of the classic "this was only a brief passing panel but i am going to expand on it" www

but the thing about fanfiction is that it's always a bit of a character analysis in itself. you don't start writing having already a color-coded folder of possible situations and reactions a character would have for each setting. you just throw the characters in a scenario and then think from there onwards, and eventually you'll be able to have the folder of situations and what you think their reactions would be like. (though, this links back to the prior point, if the characters have gone through a similar situation in canon, use that as guide! plus, finding little references to canon when reading is always fun)

for general writing, i'm going to mostly talk about my own experiences and process! i'm in no way a professional though

the basic is reading a lot. not just books but also fanfic. in fact, since you're writing fanfic, i Encourage you to read fanfic. even if your story ends up novel length, the way of treating the story is different from that of an actual novel. for example, because you're working under the premise that everyone knows the characters already. the general style of fics is different as well.

in fact, the style is the main reason i'm saying this slfkslfkslkf

read a lot of stuff and find a style you like. think of it as sewing together pieces from here and there to make a frankenstein amalgamation: this person's metaphors, the comparisons from here, the descriptions from there

personally, i adore the "long one-shot with a long title formatted (like this)" fics that are mostly feelings and descriptions and as little dialogue as possible, and some that occasionally play with the "show don't tell" rule, and some months ago i read a book whose descriptions amazed me because you could feel what the character was focusing on the most, rather than being general descriptions of the situation (i actually have a lot of thoughts about descriptions but that's a post for another day). but also i really like dialogue and plot-driven stories, descriptions can get boring and before trying to break rules, you have to be really good at following them

but, let's go step by step: developing an idea

for this i'm going to mostly reference the multichap i finished a while ago as an example

i started with just a few vague concepts in mind: non-idol au with aizou who does some sport and likes music but is insecure about his singing and yuujirou who does some music related thing and encourages him to sing in a way that's somehow related to the hozier song to noisemaking (sing), because it's what inspired me to write in the first place

then, from then onwards i wrote down what would happen in the first chapter of the story bullet-point-list-style, including things like the roommates part or the clubs the boys were in (at first yuujirou was in the choir club lol the change was a last second decision that idk why i took) and then bits of dialogue here and there that would be The Turning Points. those first dialogues were for the fight at the end of ch 1, the apology-date in ch 3 and then some vaguely unused ones for the "yuujirou encourages aizou" part, as those were the first key moments i thought of

because, since it's enemies to friends to lovers, an important aspect was character development

not all fics have character development bc not all of them are long enough (if you're aiming for short and sweet then there's no need). but if they do, i recommend you write down how the character was at the beginning of the story and then how they were at the end and then fill in the middle later, think of what those key turning points that made the character change were (the more little things you add, the more gradual it'll be)

samishigariya illustrates this very nicely: the song starts and finishes with the same lines, but the ending ones feel more light-hearted. the beginning has pre-arisa ken and pre-getting-along-with-yuujirou aizou, when they were the lonely people the title mentioned, and the ending, when they're not lonely anymore. the in between can be seen in depth during the other songs: ken before arisa was a playboy who didn't take love seriously, but after meeting her he realized that games were not all there was to love; and aizou used to be quite cranky and high-key a loner, but then he "meets precious things and knows of love". i will not elaborate on that because this isn't an aiyuu post but Oh You Know

for the fic, aizou would go through that same process, more or less: someone who doesn't really form meaningful connections with people but who, in the end, would end up having quite a bunch of people who care about him as his relationship with yuujirou advances too

since the relationship was the main focus, i wrote a very simple outline for how it would develop throughout 5 hypothetical chapters that was just: 1. civil w each other but mostly bad > 2. bad > 3. half friends > 4. pining > 5. date

and then with that in mind and the bullet point list, the final basic outline ended up like this:

there were scraped ideas and ideas that made it in later, but i believe having a simple outline, a bare skeleton to add things to, is important. stories need continuity, development requires a prior buildup

it's especially important in multichapter fics where you post as you write, you need to have a more or less clear idea of what's going to happen because you can't ignore scenes you've already posted

shorter stories don't need it as much, you can think as you go, but it's still helpful to know where you're going with things to avoid getting stuck

and, on getting stuck: don't be afraid of deleting things. if you can't figure out how to continue things, then delete the situation and start again. it might feel like you'd be wasting time but in the end, it is so much better than being stuck on the same scene for weeks

in fact, you don't have to write in order. jump to the next scene and you'll figure it out later. you Can write the scene you want to write and then build everything else around it

it's normal to write a scene and then realize it would make more sense later in the story, or that it would be better if you added another scene earlier, or sometimes you just find it easier to jump from one part of the story to another. rely on your outline to keep track of what you've written, what you have left to write and what's the best way to arrange your story. make your story understandable

which bring us to editing

there's a lot of much better posts on editing stories, but yeah ctrl+f is your best friend: don't repeat yourself too much. and be sure to vary sentence and paragraph length, as well as sentence structure, to give dynamism to the writing

now, i've mentioned before the show, don't tell rule, but i'm going to talk a bit more about it because it's quite important

once again there's a lot of posts that explain more in depth what it is, so i'm not going to expand too much on that, but, very basically, try to avoid things like "then some time passed and they became friends". explain it: what happened exactly? how did they become friends? if it's important, show it to us, instead of summarizing

since things like these make the story longer, it also gives room for more development and proper explanation for things that happen

for example, the fic was originally going to start with them already in the room, and the whole situation would have been explained in a single paragraph somewhere, but by actually adding the scene where they first arrive to the dorms and argue with the lady at the main desk, the story flows better and it let me actually describe their first meeting

and uuuhhh i think that's all? this took super long to write i hope i didn't forget any super basic stuff lol

i want to add that for enemies to lovers i greatly recommend this post bc it's super good but yeah i think that's basically it, if you have any more specific questions just shoot me an ask

#god this is so long #how should i tag this #tutorials #i guess #anonymous #preguntas

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metalbatandzenko · 4 years

Text

About me taking breaks from this blog

Hey everyone!

You might have noticed that I’ve been taking intermittent breaks from this blog. I try to announce it when I am, because falling off the face of the earth isn’t exactly courteous of me.

I’ve been getting a lot of asks asking if I’m alright and/or if there’s a reason why I’m kind of shutting myself off.

And here’s the thing. I know I don’t technically owe anyone an explanation for why I’ve been doing that.

But I do want to give one.

So think of this as more of an update I guess? Anyways, update under the cut.

Warning: it’s long.

So, about why I’ve been taking breaks/why I haven’t been as interactive lately.

I’ve been rolling this around for a long time and trying to form the words to express all this.

There’s several major factors going on here, but the TLDR is I have an issue with feeling guilty about everything, even when I have no obligation to a person or situation, and it’s tanking my mental health.

1. The first, and most inconsequential, is I’m back to school.

I’m a full time college student generally and have been since I started this sideblog. But as of this semester, I’ve officially transferred to a new university, which means school is taking up more of my time.

I’m also in an honors program now, which means maintaining a 4.0 is—for financial reasons—more important than ever. I’m a bit stressed out, I’m not gonna lie!

Also, the switch to remote has been a particularly rough one. I’m having a really hard time defining the boundary between “school and homework time” and downtime, which means anytime I spend not doing homework is really just spent with me feeling overwhelmed with guilt that I’m not trying to get ahead in class.

2. The world is kind of going through shit right now.

I’d be a liar if I said the state of the world isn’t killing my motivation. There’s a lot of shit going on, and it’s overwhelming. It feels like the second we slow down to catch a breath, a new tragedy hits.

3. My depression is kind of killing me.

Like everyone, isolation is fucking with me. It has the fun side effect of piling onto my depression, so I’ve been really having a hard time finding the will to do anything, even things I enjoy.

This also links to that feeling of guilt over not being productive: I want to do something I enjoy, but I can’t because I’m consumed with guilt over the fact I’m not meeting some perceived “productivity quota”, so instead of doing that work, or doing something I enjoy, I do nothing. I’ve been sleeping more these past few months than I ever have, but I’m still tired all the time.

4. Family matters.

I’m lucky in that I’m quarantined with my parents, so I have some interaction, but that also means that I am quarantined with my abusive father. As a closeted, nb gay mixed-asian, being forced to spend almost all my time with my violently racist, homophobic and transphobic white dad has been uh. not great for my mental health.

He also just finished his second round of treatments and we’re waiting on a prognosis to see if he’s cancer free or not, so I’ve been grappling with my extremely mixed feelings surrounding him (as well as the fact that I’ll likely be outed at some point and have to plan for an emergency exit when I live in a different state than the rest of my family and the majority of my friends in the middle of a pandemic) for the past six months or so.

5. I have been teetering dangerously close to full burnout for about five months now, and I think it’s finally hit.

Like I mentioned, I’m sleeping more than I ever have in my life. I’m tired all the time, and I keep getting hit with waves of just. really aggressive sadness and isolation. I’ve cried more in the past month than I have in uh. years.

Writing fanfic is a hobby. The problem is, my hobby overlaps with my major: I’m a creative writing major, so a lot of my creative energy has been going towards that.

Trying to balance both is a really tricky line to walk, and I just can’t do it right now. I’m struggling enough with class as it is, so content creation has fallen to the wayside, and I feel really shitty about that, especially since it’s something I enjoy.

I also felt like I always had to be “on”/accessible for this blog. (This is a personal problem that stems from growing up in a very service based culture, and one I’m working on, but it required time away and better boundaries on my part.)

6. Increased sense of alienation from the fandom at large.

This is kind of linked to 5.

Being able to keep anon on is really important to me, I know I personally don’t always feel comfortable sending asks to people off anon (I’ve joked before that even with users I’m genuinely friends with, I send asks on anon bc I don’t want them to feel like I’m waiting on an answer).

I only answer about a quarter of the asks I receive (I won’t say a quarter of the asks people send me given tumblr’s tendency to eat asks). About a third of the asks are: asking me when a fic of mine will be updated/a wip will be posted, accusing me of something, flat out rude/hateful, or asking really invasive personal questions.

I’ve gotten a few asking me to elaborate on specific traumas that I don’t think I’ve even mentioned on this blog, which is both violating and extremely entitled: as if someone else gets to decide if my trauma is legitimate enough or something.

There are also the asks that I either don’t have the energy to give the love they deserve and avoid because I feel guilty about that, or just flat out I don’t want to answer.

But deciding not to answer the asks sent in good faith makes me feel incredibly guilty and ashamed. This, again, is a personal problem, and one I’m working on.

I also feel my hyperfixation on opm beginning to fade.

But generally, I just feel less connected to the fandom. It’s mostly because my lack of spoons means I’m not reaching out to people as much, but there are other factors too. It sounds dramatic, but I’m still a little shaken by the spat I had with another opm blog a couple of months ago.

And generally? I don’t think the fandom is as active anymore anyways. Some small, self-absorbed part of me still blames myself for some of that, because the timing of the fandom dying down and fracturing came right after the dispute I mentioned.

7. I really want this account to stay associated with happy things, and I’m not feeling too happy right now.

This blog was one I made because I enjoyed opm and wanted to have fun with it. I still love opm, and I love some of the friends I’ve made on here, but I just. I don’t feel the love for the fandom as a whole right now, and given all the negative emotions/things I just laid out, I’m worried about it somehow rubbing off on this blog, both for me, and for the people who follow me.

---

So yeah, that’s what’s going on on my end. I’m trying to stay positive and take care of myself, but I’m beyond overwhelmed, both for reasons related to, and entirely unrelated to this blog.

I want this blog to feel positive, and I worry this feels like I’m fishing for pity. That’s not it. I just need to get it off my chest, and kind of lay out where I am for you all, because I care about you.

Anyways, that’s all I got. I don’t know if I’ll delete this for now, but for the time it’s up, I’ll have it pinned to my blog.

Love you all, and be gentle with yourself.

#personal #anyways. now that I have that all out. time to pass out dshlkasdjh

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locktobre · 3 years

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Could you expand on your idea of Emily Willows seeing/communicating with ghosts? (sorry for asking so many questions hdhfhhdhf I really like Barbie, especially PCS)

Oh boy, that’s a doozy... I honestly don’t feel like I have very much, as I haven’t had the idea for very long, but I’ll talk about what I do have! (I guess I came up with it last year, but for me, that isn’t really a long time.)

I’ve mentioned before, but I debated for a long time about even bringing Reginald and Isabella back, bc it has a lot of implications about life and death in the barbieverse. I’m currently operating on the assumption that while ghosts can exist, as souls trapped here on the mortal plane, if they ever cross over to the great beyond--that’s it. They’re gone, for good, and can’t ever be brought back.

Now, that goes against Marie’s appearance in Christmas Carol (which I used to justify having ghosts in the first place), since she clearly wasn’t hanging around that whole time... But as I mentioned the other day, Eden is actually a lynchpin in my barbieverse (the Brilliant Echo timeline, specifically). The universe would unravel if she ended up in that bad future, so an exception had to be made for Marie to come back. It was a one-time-only deal, and not something that can be done by just anyone. Certainly not Emily, in any case. (I’m still debating on who facilitated the Marie visit, as it could be one of two ppl. It might end up being both of them working together. But that’s way down the road.)

Anyway, I joked the other day about the possibility of Emily seeing more ghosts, but honestly, I don’t think I’ll end up doing that. Having ghosts at all feels like it raises a lot of questions, and I don’t really want to open those cans of worms, so setting very rigid rules about it seems to be the best compromise. And even aside from that, I don’t think a lot of ppl would even become ghosts in the first place; I really do like the classic rules of sudden/violent deaths and/or unfinished business being the reason they stick around. So she’ll most likely only ever see Reginald and Isabella, and her power will probably never expand in any way. I could change my mind later, but right now, that’s what I’m thinking.

And also, just like... seeing the two ghosts is more than enough drama, honestly.

The way I envision Isabella is very specific, but basically, she struggled a lot with paranoia and she’s very guarded. It got worse after she died, due to her being convinced she was murdered, but she had actually made some progress due to going to a therapist for the majority of her death. (Yes, I send a ghost to therapy. Yes, her therapist knows she is dead.) She managed to get to a place of... not really no paranoia, but much less. And then, she finds out that she was, in fact murdered, so suddenly all of her fear feels VERY justified, and that’s a huge setback. So her 18 years of trying to deal not only with her anxiety but her grief over the death of her child suddenly feels like it was all for nothing. She was murdered and her baby is alive and she missed her daughter’s entire childhood.

On Reginald’s side, he had always tried to support Isabella as best he could, but the one thing he was adamant on was that his sister would not murder them. Like, she’s mean, sure, but murder? That’s a step too far. Especially after seeing her with students, he knows that she can be cruel, but killing her own brother and his family? Her queen? She wouldn’t! She couldn’t! And then he finds out that she did, so not only does he feel duped for believing that she wasn’t capable of it, he feels guilty for not being on Isabella’s side all those years. Isabella doesn’t exactly hold it against him that he didn’t believe her, since she’s well aware--especially after therapy--that her fears were not always rational, but it is kind of an ‘I told you so’ moment that neither of them ever wanted to be true. And obviously, he’d grieved for Sophia, too.

On the side of the living, Sophia is thrust into a role she never wanted and now has a million responsibilities she wasn’t prepared for, and she’s got to deal with all of the princess stuff while also having to deal with the re-opened investigation into her parents’ murders and Dame Devin’s subsequent trial. Her life isn’t her own anymore, it belongs to everyone else. And she doesn’t even know how to feel about Reginald and Isabella. And she especially doesn’t know how to deal with everyone comparing her to Isabella, her appearance, her mannerisms--is anything really her? Is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of her life, being compared to her dead birth mother that she doesn’t even remember? How is she supposed to deal with that?

So when Emily first stumbles across Reginald and Isabella, they’re still reeling. They desperately want to reach out to Sophia, of course, but they know that they’re really in no position to talk to her right away, nor is she ready to see them. Or even if they should reach out to her--would it help her to know that her parents aren’t really gone? Or would they only be serving themselves?

And there’s also the question of if Sophia is the only one they should talk to. Should Reginald tell Delancy that she still does have one family member left who’s good and believes in her capacity to change, that he knows she doesn’t have to become her mother? Should Isabella speak to her father and half-sisters, and tell them that she’s wanted to reach out to them for 18 years? The more ppl that know a secret, the greater the chance that it will get out--altho, in this case, probably no one will want to broadcast the fact that they’ve spoken to a ghost, but still.

And kind of in the middle of this is Emily, who’s 13 and in no position to be moderating this kind of discussion. She wants everyone to be able to talk to each other, for the family to be reunited, but she understands that it’s a multi-sided thing. She offers up the compromise of acting as a mouthpiece, if they don’t want to talk to anyone directly (since ghosts can manifest themselves at will, if they wish; Emily’s special bc she can see them in their state of rest), but even that doesn’t do much good. As far as anyone else knows, she’s obviously never met Reginald and Isabella, so she can’t exactly say with authority that they would be proud of Sophia, or that Isabella misses her father, or anything like that. It would just sound like a platitude.

I don’t even know what side I’m going to come down on, tbh. It’s such a multi-layered discussion, especially with Isabella and her father--he’s already grieved for her, so is it fair to tell him she isn’t (quite) dead? She now knows, firsthand, what it’s like to grieve a child and then to suddenly find out that child is alive and that she’s missed so much--and she would be putting her father in that same position. Is it selfish? Or is it more selfish to never reveal herself, especially with the way that she died angry at him, since he carries that guilt around, even if she ended up moving past it (in therapy). I may end up compromising on that front, and have Isabella write a journal or a letter, something that Emily can “discover” in the palace and pass on to Isabella’s father. Maybe.

As for Sophia... It’s trickier, but I’m leaning toward her finding out. Maybe not for awhile, it might take years, but I think they would eventually tell her. She might be the only one, tho... But then, at some point, does Nicholas need to know? Especially after they’re married, is it a secret that still needs to be kept from him? And, again, I don’t think there’s a single good answer, bc it’s just... such a weird quandary to find oneself in. There’s pros and cons to every side.

So... That’s where I am with Emily and ghosts, right now. And that’s why I feel like just the two is enough, bc it just dominoes out so quickly and becomes a LOT of emotional turmoil and moral dilemmas. As such, Emily will also end up seeing a therapist at some point, for sure, but all things considered, I think she’ll end up being remarkably well-adjusted lol.

#mel irl #barbie babbles #anonymous #thanks for asking #brilliant echo: princess charm school #brilliant echo: cosmology #lucie don't look

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latefrequencies · 4 years

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okay so here’s what i did this weekend. idk if i’m leaving tumblr or not. i haven’t been using it a lot lately, mostly bc i haven’t felt like i’ve had an awful lot to say in general. i’m either going to go away or else start using it again in full force but i do want to tell you what’s happened.

ever since the start of this year, my boyfriend Dylan and I have been making plans for me to move in with him so I don’t have to live with my family any longer (they’re very LGBT-phobic - i was closeted the entire time - but in addition to that were also just really controlling and manipulative and idk i’d go so far as to say abusive esp considering that i have a background of heavy abuse that my family’s behavior doesn’t come close to, but suffice to say it’s Not Good). anyway we were making plans for me to run away from them and move in with him, much like was the case five years ago when i left my father’s house. we figured out the logistics of things like how I’d get to school, where we’d keep my stuff, and so forth. every time I hung out with him at his house, i’d sneak some of my stuff there so that i’d have less of it to take with me when it came time to actually leave, and all throughout i kept trying to plant hints with my family that i might want to live with Dylan at some point and that i knew how to figure things out if i “had to” leave suddenly or whatever (which wasn’t a wholly unreasonable idea given that I live with my grandparents and What If One Of Them Dies but w/e)

this Friday, on the 20th of February, we finally made our escape and I moved in with him.

we loaded up all my stuff minus my instruments in his car (which i said I was going to give to my friend, who is also called Dylan, I’m henceforth going to call him DM as those are his initials - anyway it was not a total lie bc i did have some stuff i wanted to give him and we were gonna hang out with him first, but that’s how i explained having all my stuff outside the house like that), with the plan to come back to get my instruments, say that we “forgot something” and leave a note that i wrote, much like the one i wrote for my dad and that my aunts gave him after i left his house to live with my grandparents. in it, i addressed a conversation i had with my aunt just that week where i talked about things like how i had wanted to move out of my dad’s house even before my family helped me but i didn’t have friends who would help me but i do have friends who can help me with things now, what if i’d left a note at my dad’s house and left it at that without my aunts meeting him face to face about it, my aunt claimed that she cares about my wellbeing and wants me to be in situations where i can feel free and okay and like i’m actually getting something out of life, et cetera.

we met up with DM and his friend Sol, I was nervous as fuck and was more than a bit high on clonazepam and ashwagandha, i told them what i was doing (DM knew i was going to do this At Some Point, Sol didn’t). they were both happy for me. Dylan and I decided then that we’d leave the public place we’d met up at, i’d get my instruments and leave the note (i’d made multiple photocopies of it so different members of the family could all have copies). we did so, i got my instruments, the last thing i did was leave the note, Dylan and I got into the car and I put on “I See Through You” by Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats because i felt like it was really good getaway music. for anyone in my situation who likes stoner metal and needs a good getaway song, that was indeed the perfect soundtrack and i am never ever going to forget how i felt as we left that place for good.

we hung out with DM and Sol for a few hours at DM’s house. i kept feeling afraid that my family would try to call me or message me (i explicitly told them not to call me in the letter). they didn’t during that time, but after i got home with Dylan, Teacher Aunt tried to phone me twice and had sent me a text asking me to call her, saying it wasn’t anything bad. it might not have been related to the note though because she ended up sending a message saying something to the effect of “I got your note. We love you.” Nurse Aunt later sent a text saying “We love you. Text us if you and Dylan need anything.” As every LGBT person knows, “We love you” is family speak for “Come back so we can fix you.” Anyone who knows me knows that I won’t be falling for it.

last night was the first night my boyfriend and i were able to fall asleep together, and this morning was the first morning we were able to wake up together. he made breakfast for us and we talked about things and we both agreed that we were happy that we’d finally done it and we’d finally gotten me out. i’m going to start medically transitioning as soon as possible (DM, who is trans himself, knows all about how to go about transitioning and has agreed to help me with that). i’m going to work on legally changing my name and gender too. by the time i graduate, i’ll hopefully be able to pass well enough that i won’t have to out myself to future employers.

my aunt sent me a text in which she told me i needed to call her (for reasons that were actually fully reasonable and i did need to call her about them, i’m not going to get into it). i did so and we talked about it and she claimed she wanted to respect me and knew that i was afraid that my family wouldn’t love me and they’d judge me and she wanted to assure me that that wasn’t the case. despite that, she continuously addressed me by my birth name. unsurprising. i might have to call or text her again, but i’m almost definitely not going to have to see her face to face again. and if and when i do, i’ll probably have been on testosterone for a bit so haha fuck you aunt, she’s gonna hate it and i’m gonna love it.

anyway. i’m doing okay. i’m doing better than I have in my entire life. a lot of things are going to change but most of them are going to be for the better. i’m not going to have to be around anyone i Don’t Want To Be Around. it’s exclusively going to be people who actually respect me and accept me. (i mean i’m sure i’ll encounter some shitfucks now and then, the world is full of them and i can’t expect everybody to be decent, my point is that they won’t need to be part of my life now). on Monday, i’m going to meet with my German teacher and tell him what happened, which seems like a weird thing to do but he’s one of the few people in my life who seems like he cares about me in any specific individual way (he says outright that he cares about all of his students), and being that i still have that psychological need for the approval of authority, i’m going to tell him because he’s certainly going to approve and he’s the only authority figure who will.

but. yeah, i’m living with my boyfriend, i’m going to probably spend a lot more time with DM too (and I’m becoming better friends with Sol too, AND after talking to a classmate in my German class about the situation - we had some time in class where we just talked about whatever together so i told him i had great weekend plans - anyway there’s a guy in my German class called Mitch who I might end up becoming friends with, yay). and also i don’t need my family’s approval for who i’m friends with anymore, which used to be the case but No Longer. so my social life is gonna get a lot better. and everything’s going to get a lot better. this is the thing that i’ve been waiting for. longtime followers of my blog undoubtedly have been waiting for this very day as well. i’m happy to tell you all that that day has come.

#this has been a self related post #family /#transphobia /#homophobia /#school mention /#tldr i got away from my LGBT-phobic family and I'm Living My Best LIfe

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in-tua-deep · 5 years

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First time anon wanted to say I love all of your tua au’s. They are absolutely fantastic and I am soft for all of them. However I did amuse myself with the barking mad au, noticed you never write about Pogo in your au’s (do you not like him btw? No pressure on it just curious), but I just like the thought of him meeting/talking to partially feral!Five and he can’t quite figure out which language (animal or english) is more appropriate to say ‘master five what the ever living F****?!’ in.

!! hello first time anon! thank u for messaging

asdfHJGFSDG you caught me,, i don’t like Pogo and don’t think he should have a place in the children’s lives so I never write him into any of my aus because I lowkey want him to disappear

mainly because Pogo was complicit in their abuse to the point where even after Reginald was dead he was still keeping secrets - like he was complicit in drugging a child almost her entire life and emotionally abusing her by backing up the “You’re ordinary” narrative Reginald built up

and even after his death, Pogo stood up and said their dad left behind a complicated memory but then proceeded to compliment the man because presumably Pogo owed so much to him etc. etc.

Grace I can excuse, because she’s a robot. She functionally had no free will since Reginald was fully capable of tinkering with her programming and forcing her to obey and keep quiet, but Pogo was an adult sentient being capable of free will and he still looked the other way.

Yeah okay you could say maybe he did it because he was afraid that if he turned against Reginald, he wouldn’t have anywhere to go. You could say he didn’t know how to help beyond attempting to be there for the kids and turning a blind eye to some of their shenanigans (like going out to Griddy’s). BUT. After Reginald’s death he continued to keep the kids in the dark about their dad’s plan, withheld information, and made no move to correct anything. Like i’m pretty sure if he told Klaus “the box contained your father’s journal recording your sister’s power, no not allison, actually your dad drugged her all her life and I’d like to set the record straight on her being ‘ordinary’” klaus would have tried a hell of a lot harder to get it back

Grace, after Reginald’s death, was glitched out of her mind tbh but once fixed she made it clear that she did not support Reginald. After all, telling ur son that you’d like to go out when you were never permitted and then telling him that his dad isn’t around anymore to give orders is a pretty cool moment if I do say so myself

and in the day that wasn’t, Grace was going to tell all the secrets she’d been forced to keep over the years in the park as well. She tried to put it right pretty much as soon as she was capable

Pogo didn’t. He purposefully made efforts to continue Reginald’s plan, up to and including attempting to frame Grace for Reginald’s suicide, not telling Vanya about her powers, not telling anyone about that whole skeezy business, fixing Grace but then reminding her to keep secrets (which she rejects), and just generally. continued supporting a man we know to be an abusive piece of shit idk

so yEAH I don’t like Pogo and consider him to be an accomplice to Reginald’s abuse where I don’t hold Grace accountable because there’s free will involved and while he might have advocated for the children, I doubt he ever pressed if Reginald put his foot down which is why i never include him in anything lmao

as far as i’m concerned in all my aus he’s off chilling at one of Reggie’s other properties or something because Vanya doesn’t want him around (and for good reason) so he can live his days in retirement,,, anywhere else

as for the barking mad au, getting back to ur original ask, I think Pogo is?? Too human-ized? I doubt he’s been a proper chimpanzee for many years, a minimum of like. actually when was he introduced to the household? Was it before the kids were there? Average lifespan of a chimp is what, forty years? And he looked older with his cane and stuff so. Probably?

But regardless I doubt he can understand anything Five is ‘saying’ with body language beyond what humans can read, mainly because dogs/cats and chimps are different (though Five also knows some sick birdcalls and can mimic alarm calls and ‘hello!’ and other cool thing) and feral!Five lived with only cats and dogs during the apocalypse. It’s a little like dumping a dog in with a colony of chimps - confusion on all sides rip so while Pogo probably would be like “Master Five what the Fuck” it’s more because Five is behaving like,, well,, an animal. Which all of the siblings are also thinking tbh

dog people or cat people would probably be able to pick up things here and there though. like that specific meow cats do when they Hunger, or the wiggling that says ‘happy and probably overstimulated’, and growls/hisses/showing teeth should be self explanatory tbh but like, there’s other things. Like quietly mirroring to hang out, slow blinks as affection, the way dogs will playfully run up and then run away in an almost crab scuttle to see if you’ll follow to play (with bonus jumping powers!), the either cowering down with metaphorical tail between legs or PUFFING UP to be the BIGGEST when threatened, whines that mean ‘hurry up!! come on!’ when someone is going too slow, the running ahead and running back to check and running ahead again

like look i have a pretty quiet dog all things considered, and i had an even quieter dog before they. She only really barks when people come up to the door tbh, but I Know People who own dogs like huskies who are the most vocal little shits in existence and who WILL scream when inconvenienced or nervous

(my sister, a vet student interning at a vets, has regaled me with tales of huskies brought to the clinic who just screamed like they were being murdered the entire time despite them not even being examined or anything. they were literally just chilling in the kennel.)

Feral!Five is actually more vocal than ur regularly scheduled Five but everyone wishes he Wasn’t (he’s also way less standoffish and very likely to just full body rub himself against his siblings or drape himself across them tbh bc like. if they wanted him to quit all they’d have to do is give a warning snap or growl or grumble and they don’t sO)

BUT HEY if u want to write something for the au then feel free to include Pogo and your idea because it is very cute!! I just don’t like Pogo and refuse to include him in things lmao

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rosyeclipse · 4 years

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my wonderful lovely gf @stonebutchpiss told me to answer these questions !!! EEEEE

red

how was your first kiss? hm. i have 3 that can be considered a first. one was spontaneous, quick, and sheepish. other one was clumsy, lighthearted, and funny. last one was perfect, soft, and magical.

what do you love about yourself? i think i’m a very caring person that has a lot of love within me. i love to love others.

when’s the last time you warmed your hands in front of a fire? yesterday! i was at my uncle’s house and he has a fire pit! we were roasting s’mores.

would you rather watch a sunrise or sunset? i don’t watch enough sunrises or sunsets but i would choose sunsets! i’m not an early riser plus i LOVE dusk.

what’s the best thing about summer? hm. i HATE summer. no structure and it’s really hot: both things that increase my anxiety. mentally the worst time of year for me. i like listening to upbeat summer-type songs ig??? idk really struggling to think of smth here.

orange

what makes you feel warm inside? lots of things!!! especially thinking ab my future home with my gf!

what’s your favorite halloween tradition? since we’re in college we can’t do this anymore but i always got to trick or treat w my best friend! also i like buying a bunch of milky way midnights bc they're my favorite.

what’s the last thing you learned? i read up a lot on prison abolition recently!

when’s the last time you felt obsessed? hm. obsession is a common feeling for me. i obsess over little things pretty much daily so: today i felt obsessed. overthinking babbeyyy

what’s your favorite article of clothing? probably my oversized jean jacket, i had wanted one for something like 5 years and finally bought one, plus its got cool pins! also a super cool jacket my gf embroidered for me w lyrics to ribs by lorde!!! also an oversized hand-me-down brown cardigan!

yellow

if you could have any view from your bedroom window what would you choose? misty mountains and trees or maybe a lake or maybe just a bunch of flowers. idk i’m kinda cool w whatever tho!

what’s your favorite thing to do on a sunny day? i spend an embarrassing amount of time inside but. i’d like to go on picnics and read outside more often.

what do you consider lucky? being surrounded by love

what made you smile today? i had a long shift today and when i went on my break i saw that my gf sent me some VERY handsome selfies !!!! made me very very happy

what makes you happy? my gf!!!! everything they do + everything that they are makes me :-) !!!!

green

what’s your favorite thing to do outside? i like laying down on a blanket on top of some grass n daydreamingg

do you like camping? not really? i would be willing to try again tho! i just feel really icky when i wake up and the people i camped with weren’t too fun so it wasn’t worth it.

what would you spend $1,000 on? spoiling my gf!!! also concert tickets and traveling!

what’s your job, or what do you want to do as your job? currently i’m a college student with a part-time retail job selling shoes. WISH i knew what i wanted to do. my indecisive pisces ass makes this difficult. whatever i end up doing i want it to be important. i want to respect myself.

blue

what do you do when you’re sad? cry. a lot. listen to my sad playlist. then i journal about it. or i try to distract myself by watching something that makes me happy. or daydreaming.

what are some things you do when you can’t sleep? i get really anxious when i can’t sleep and a lot of the time i can’t shift my focus onto anything else. to get myself to calm down tho i start daydreaming ab my gf and that helps a lot.

what was the best (non-romantic) night you’ve had? first thing that comes to mind are my twenty one pilots shows honestly! even tho i'm not a stan anymore those nights were really special. also i don’t have a particular night in mind but this past year i had some really wonderful nights with my friends at college.

what kind of covers do you have on your bed? currently i have these ugly covers i’ve had for something like 5 years? it looks pretty juvenile so i flip it over and then its just an ugly gray. however! at college i use a pretty ikea duvet that's yellow and has white flowers!

who is the last person you told a secret to? here's the thing ab me. i’m a very emotional person AND i’m very impulsive. sooo i don’t have many secrets bc i'll tell myself i won’t tell it to anyone and then like . 2hrs later i told someone bc i didn’t think ab it before saying it. anyways, idk i might have told my therapist something??

purple

what’s your astrological sign? pisces sun, aries moon + rising ! also my suns in the 12th house so . i am very much a pisces

what’s the best piece of advice you ever received? my gf has given me some great advice on being more creative!

when’s the last time you followed your instincts? i can’t think of anything specific but i definitely have lol

what’s your favorite food? sushi!!! especially rolls with avocado in them! i also love pad thai! i like a lot of asian food

what’s your secret dream? i have so many! i’m constantly daydreaming and wishing for them at 11:11! i can’t tell tho or else they won’t come true!

thank you babbyy for tagging me !!! this was fun !!!

#long post #this is basically just for my gf #i love my butch

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