#because I'm trying a little bit to keep this succinct

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Born leaders + Jamil discovered that Yuu is a girl?

I know I definitely did Malleus but here are the others! 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Riddle Rosehearts 

• "W-what?"

• I'd feel like the time that he gets to know is much later than Ace and Deuce

• And I can see him being angry at them because of it

• In truth he's angry with himself he didn't notice before 

• But he'll be a bit awkward 

• a blushy baby <3

• Still just trying to compute your not a boy he was sure you were

• "So...have you been well...?"

• He's a bit fidgety but after you tell him not much has changed and you still want to be his friend

• He lightens up

• He's not going to admit he has feelings for you

• He's going to rationalize this as just being excited of the new challenge

• Yeah, that's it

• So he totally is justified when he is using his unique magic to rectify the students

• Inappropriate comments? Rude gestures? Having genuinely nice pictures to fawn over?

• "OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! And I'm confiscating this..."

Leona Kingscholar 

• "Finally the sheep sheds their wool."

• Don't sleep on Leona!!

• Those lion senses sniffed you out in the garden 

• He keeps acting tough with you around your friends but he knows

• He honestly always treated you differently just not openly

• He let's you sleep in his room during Azuls seige on Ramshackle 

• Now since your no longer hiding it he doesn't either

• And while we know he treats ladies more politely 

• It's on a more comfortable level with you

• So while typically he wouldn't ever invite a women to his bed 

• He has no qualms scooping you up and carrying you away

• It's one of the less violent ways he scares off students from being anywhere near you 

• "Oi prefect, lay with me."

Azul Ashengrotto

• "W-what?! I-is this a thing that's often done on land?!"

• He's shocked 

• reeling back the confidence for someone succinct and docile

• He's not openly jumping at a deal to screw people over especially if they're close to you

• But after that he's probably even worse 

• He finds that he so much more efficient when you're an incentive

• And not to mention the business opportunities 

• Paying for pictures, him getting pictures of you, selling some and then keeping the best ones for himself

• He's shy when you talk directly to him 

• You're just so precious

• I can see him trying to spoil you from afar 

• "I-im just...building rapor with her, yup. It has nothing to do with how she complimented me."

Kalim Al Asim

• "Okay!"

• His friendly party nature doesn't change

• He doesn't stop with his hospitality 

• And if you didn't know any better you'd say he's clingier

• Feeding you more when you start trying to leave

• Or having a really long display before he's like:

• "Oh its so late why don't you stay until tomorrow!"

• Using his magic carpet to abduct you from whatever your doing

• Or getting you swept up in whatever activity he's enraptured himself in

• He knows by now he isn't the only one after you 

• And he knows he's not the smartest

• But he knows that everyone loves fun 

• And in turn you'll like him

• "Ne (Y/n)-san come ride with me to see the Scarabia moon!"

Jamil Viper

• "How'd I miss this?!"

• He's angry at himself

• how'd he nor notice!!!

• He'll mostly dwell on it for a little while 

• Thinking of the possibility of Kalim wanting to pursue you 

• But ultimately he knows they'll either refuse or scare you off

• If he doesn't decide to take you as one of many wives

• He'll mostly not make too big a deal about it

• Unless he starts to see the way Kalim misses on cues or doesn't realize when others a flirting with you

• He may not be able to take the dorm from Kalim 

• But he can surely take you 

• But if push comes to shove he'll partner up 

• With Azul? no way

• Kalim or really anybody he deems to be easy enough to control 

• "(Y/n) can you look me in my eyes and tell me you want to leave."

Vil Shoeinheit 

• "Im sorry (Y/n). I've made the mistake of including you with the potatoes.."

• All he means is if he knew you were a girl sooner he would have forced you to cultivate your feminine wiles sooner

• Watch out Epel your the next victim of his dance mom craze

• He's going to send Rook or whatever unlucky student he influences to retrieve you

• Makeup, face masks, facial routine, wardrobe change

• You name it he's doing it

• And he'll say this all to train you 

• But he's honestly just enjoying you relying on him 

• Whether your into it or not your not you're not going to stop someone who's willing to pamper you

• And he loves to pamper you 

• Loves you having to answer to him

• In a way I can see him making you match his level of beauty so that you have no reason to deny him on the grounds of being imbalanced in your relationship

• "Strut! Did I say walk funny like those potatoes (Y/n)!" 

Idia Shroud 

• "Y-your a-a g-girl?!"

• Flustered and thrown off 

• Finds out while watching on one of the multiple cameras he has trained on you throughout the day

• Mini panic attack before finally getting over it

• Finds himself getting incredibly upset with anybody with immediate contact with you 

• Or even worse is actually able to talk to you

• He'll kick himself as many times as he wants 'but youre just too hot to talk to!!!'

• When he is forced to talk to you he's patting himself on the back after his initial blushy shock

• But when he gets the gumption to have Ortho invite you to play some games 

• He's both thrilled and horrified 

• But should some no-good npc distracts you with something else

• He's enraged and he pulls out all the stops

• "So this NPC feels like he's won (Y/n)? Think again because I'm the boss here!?"

#yandere dorm leaders #yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yanderexrea #lovelyyandereaddictionpoint #yandere jamil viper #jamil twst #vil #idia #kalim #yandere kalim al asim #yandere kalim x reader #yandere idia shroud #yandere idia x reader #yandere vil schoenheit #yandere vil x reader #yandere rosehearts #yandere riddle x reader #yandere riddle rosehearts #yandere leona kingscholar #yandere leona x reader #yandere azul ashengrotto #yandere azul x reader #yandere twisted wonderland x reader

[giamee]

CHAPTER X! play stupid games, win stupid prizes

<- prev masterlist next ->

and now, finally, everyone was heading back to the hostel to rest. now, finally, you had a chance to talk to alhaitham about what exactly had happened between the two of you not even 24 hours ago.

he wasn't miles ahead at the front of the group now as you walked back, something that you silently rejoiced in as you didn't think that you had it in you to walk any faster than you already were. the universe seemed to have some good in store for you, as everyone else was a few metres ahead, with just the two of you trailing after them.

it took a few moments for you to build the courage to go up to him, a newfound fear of rejection taking root whenever you initiate an interaction with him. ultimately, you didn't want everything that had happened last night to grow into something worse. you missed the looks that you shared with him across tables, across rooms, and his silent presence that you had grown more than accustomed to. you didn't like its absence, not one bit.

"can we talk?"

your voice was clear this time, thank god, and alhaitham froze a little before slowing to match your pace.

"about what?" you couldn't believe him right now.

"you know what."

his face didn't give away anything, again, and you found yourself envious of his ability to do so. if he were to look at you properly, he could probably read every single thought of yours just by the look on your face, and easily decipher just how much you were putting on the line with this conversation.

alhaitham paused again, and you wanted to shake him and scream.

"let's talk back at the hostel."

"okay." at least it was something. barely.

there was silence again, the maddening and uncomfortable type as you walked back to the hostel, feeling so much like a doomed repetition of the night before.

thoughts churned around your head as you walked, not even sure of what you wanted to say. you were too tired to do so during the day, with dehya and nilou keeping you distracted. and now that it mattered most, you were drawing blanks.

you felt hazy for the rest of the walk back. to any passerby, you probably looked like a couple in the middle of an argument, walking back to your room while sulking at each other. any reality would be better than this one.

and finally, alhaitham pulled you to the side, ever so subtly, into a small alcove in the corridor leading up to the room. he was close, enough that your shoes almost touched as you stood opposite each other. that fact didn't help you in trying to organise your thoughts enough to ask him a question.

"what did you want to talk about?" his voice is a little softer now, probably more hushed to avoid anyone eavesdropping on your conversation.

you paused for a second, thinking about what exactly you did want to say to him.

"i guess.... i just want to know what you were thinking when you did.... that." you couldn't even say kiss right now. it felt too sweet of a word to taint with what you were feeling right now.

"look, it was a mistake, alright? i'm sorry that it happened, it shouldn't have-"

"did you do it because you have feelings for me or because you were drunk?" you didn't even expect to blurt that out, and it hung suspended in the air as you searched his face for any sign of emotion.

there was a long silence after that. he didn't drop your gaze from where you stood chest to chest in that little alcove in the hallway. you could make out the barely there movement of his chest as he breathed, and only now could you get some idea that right now he was thinking hard about something. the pit in your stomach grew.

"if i were you... i would just move on."

in less than 24 hours, he had managed to rip your heart out of your chest and trample on it twice.

"i see."

it was succinct enough- you doubt any more words had to be spoken even if you could think of some. alhaitham nodded, a crease between his brows as his inner conflict became more obvious to you.

he left you stood there to turn towards the room door, only pausing once to look back, muttering an "i'm sorry" before disappearing. the soft click of the door shutting behind him

some small relief was that the tears only began to fall when you were alone, with no audience to watch your face scrunch up as you slumped a little against the wall, feeling so small and insignificant as you began to cry silently.

you didn't even want to tell your friends right now, sure that their sympathy would only make you feel even more sorry for yourself. no, this was a time to lick your wounds in private, and allow yourself these ten minutes of weakness before you put this behind you once and for all and just move on.

his words left a bitter taste in your mind, and while it hurt to come crashing down to earth from the fairytale version of him that had dissolved in front of your eyes, it had to be done. so you cried until your eyes felt dry, and only then got your own key out and joined the rest of your friends in the room.

just move on. alhaitham's words were still rattling around in your head as you came back inside the room, checking your reflection in the mirror as you brushed your teeth and got ready to sleep, making sure that you definitely did not look like you had been crying for the past ten minutes. running cold water over your wrists helped, as did washing your face right after.

another small relief from the universe was the fact that the door separating the bathroom from the beds was closed, hiding your blotchy and puffy face as you tried to return back to normal.

just move on. it really was no big deal. just a difference in expectations. some juvenile part of you still clung to the possibility that this was all because alhaitham had feelings for you, but the cynicism was beginning to take hold, extinguishing those burning embers of hope.

you paused now, face still wet, and just looked at your reflection. other then your eyes being slightly bloodshot, there were no other signs of what had just transpired in the hallway. good.

you heard the door open, turning your head just in time to see cyno slip into the bathroom as well. he shoots you a bashful smile, one that you return as the cogs in your head start to whirr.

just move on, right?

"hey, wanna watch a movie with me? i'm not really tired yet." you cringed internally at the sickly sweet tone of your voice, though it seemed to have its desired affect as cyno began to deliberate. you already knew what the answer would be despite the hesitance in his face.

"... yeah. sure." not even a false pretence of asking if you were sure.

"cool, just get into my bed when you're done." you breezed past him, getting comfortable despite what you were sure was some sort of adrenaline rush starting to invade your system.

those few minutes cyno spent in the bathroom seemed to stretch for too long, with you having already pulled up the movie that you had initially downloaded for the plane trip, leaving it ready and you growing increasingly antsy.

by the time he came back into the room, the lights were all of, and except for the slither of light let in as the dokr opened and closed, it was completely dark as cyno carefully approached your bed, getting in with minimal effort or noise on his part. he always had been particularly agile.

his arm brushed against yours as he shuffled up so that you would lie side by side, both huddled transfixed at the small screen of your phone for the movie to play on. and when you were both comfortable, you pressed play.

the movie was nothing special, really. some half-hearted comedy meant to kill time instead of sleeping. but then again, this wasn't ever really about watching the movie. it was obvious by the way both of your breaths hitched whenever one of you would lean in a little too close, ever so gradual over the course of the movie until your sides were pressed flush against each other, your soft skin meeting his, angles and curves complementing each other and slotting together.

and it felt nice. it felt familiar. it was a nice distraction from the movie.

"should i go back to my bed?" it was silent in the room by now apart from the two of you lying side by side. the credits of the movie rolled, now forgotten as you turned to look at cyno properly. you would really hate if he accidentally awoke anyone right now, disturbing their precious slumber as he climbed down from your creaky bed and into his.

"only if you want to." cyno paused, though there didn't seem to be much conflict in his eyes before he stared resolutely back, giving you your answer.

was this a good idea? absolutely not.

did you feel bad about it? hard to say.

but by now, cyno was getting comfortable, laying down properly on your pillow. his arm brushed against you, and you didn't shy away.

despite every warning you screamed internally, you shuffled even closer to his touch. he was warm, chest solid against you just how you remembered. you vaguely thought of just how easy it was to lie next to him, a bitter pang of remembering how there was once a time where this would be part of your nighttime routine. the synchronity of you and cyno, all the joy and love that had been shared in those moments.

you even realised that you were in what had once been your favourite sleeping position, with him on his back, arm looped around you as you rest on his chest. one arm resting on him, the other looped around your middle with his hand holding yours. his fingers, you noticed, were even idly playing with yours like he used to do every time the two of you laid like this.

yet things were different now. you weren't dating any more. you just got your heart broken by a man who wasn't even lying next to you, but a few beds away, and your thoughts kept straying back to him.

just move on. the arm looped around you now felt foreign, the breathing pattern underneath you no longer sounding familiar, and you suddenly felt like a stranger to cyno all over again.

you're not even sure of the exact reason as to why tears begin to fall. you let them drip down your face, onto the soft material of cyno's, your ex's, shirt, letting the liquid trek past the contours of your nose and cheeks.

and as you cried quietly, cyno laid there, arm still around you but otherwise still. despite the fact that you were lying on him, it still felt like he was a thousand miles away, leaving you truly alone to let the tears continue to fall.

all in an attempt to just move on.

✦ ⠂⠂୨୧ trivia :: when cyno climbed into your bed, not everyone was asleep. kaveh noticed, and simply shot alhaitham a puzzled glance, which the grey-haired man refused to meet, deciding to instead feign sleep instead

✦ ⠂⠂୨୧ gia's notes :: another text only chapter yayyyyy. this officially marks the beginning of things getting Messy™️ also L haitham rn sorry guys :( this chapter was so cinnamon girl by ldr coded icl

✦ ⠂⠂୨୧ taglist :: ( if you would like to be added / your username changed let me know! ) @makimakimi @aeongiies @sukunasrealgf @ssoliva @sakiimeo @eggn0gcookie @yxcade @fiona782 @heartswonder @eunchaeluvr @clumsyphuq @pinksodacan @aelxr @themusingsofmany @obervation-subject-753 @kittycasie @aimno256 @maxineshearts @mafuyuslover @meigalaxy @mintydump @v4lerixxq @artwitchh @geo-hew-hew @imkaaayy @c4tsfr0mh3ll @kokoscutie @erzarq @eu-la @ddiluc @ichikaisflowers @rahhhmen @esmetrees @rain-and-a-nice-nap @g8mmaaaa

#୨୧ gia.txt :: all i think about now! #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin smau #genshin impact smau #cyno x reader #cyno angst #cyno fluff #cyno x reader smau #genshin cyno x reader #alhaitham angst #alhaitham x reader smau #alhaitham x reader smut #alhaitham fluff #alhaitham smut #alhaitham x reader #genshin alhaitham #genshin alhaitham x reader

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hello sex witch

this might be long and ramble a bit but i’ll try to keep it succinct. 

so i’ve always thought that the concept of polyamory and having multiple partners sounded nice in the abstract, i don’t really date a lot so it hasn’t come up but i figured it was sort of a thing that most people would be open to or like the idea of (like me). this was until today when i saw someone objecting to the notion of being in a throuple or polyamorous relationship. i didn’t know that was a thing people did. i just thought we all wanted to date lots of people if given the opportunity. the fact that the other people in the couple were a man and a woman didn’t deter me. i’m now considering the fact that i might not be quite as heterosexual as previously assumed. 

when i considered sexuality before it was always a clear cut “yeah girls because i know i like girls” and also maybe that sex with dick seemed sort of weird, but upon further consideration it might just be that i think all sex is sort of weird. 

and now i’m not sure what to do about this, i don’t think that experimenting with people is right because i would feel so shit about it because they’re people and also the fact that i have some strong anxiety about sex in general. someone seeing my naked body makes me feel a little sick. and also i’ve never had sex so don’t really know how sexual attraction is supposed to feel or what i would do with myself if the occasion (sex) was to arise. i feel sort of similar / the same when thinking about sex with both men and women. 

i’m unsure if it’s all a desire for close male friendship or if i might be a little gay. 

tldr i might be polyamorous and attracted to men after a good 19 years of staunchly Not Thinking About It. would appreciate advice or help. 

i guess this isn’t as much a question as more of a asking for advice. this might not even be in your wheelhouse considering the sort of tangential connection to sex. sorry if not

hey anon,

boy, this one is a real buffet. it's legitimately very hard to decide where to start with this, but I'm going to do my best.

let's get this one out of the way first and foremost: if you're into guys that's totally fine. love that for you. if sex with men is something you ever want to explore I would encourage thinking bigger than the stigma that's currently associated with "experimenting." it has a very dehumanizing connotation, but there's no reason that trying out a new kind of sex has to be a cold or impersonal experience! it's fine to approach someone, either via the apps or in real life (honestly! the latter is better!) and be up-front about what your interests and intent are. people have sex without intending to form long-term partnerships all the time; it's literally fine and a thing that many people enjoy doing. so, like, this is my endorsement for respectful, mutually-informed experimentation lmao.

but hey, listen: I don't think that having sex with men is actually, like, a pressing issue for you, based on everything else you've told me here. it doesn't sound like sex is really a huge part of your life, and honestly that's great! it doesn't seem like sex would be great for you right now! can I point to some reasons why?

i think all sex is sort of weird

i have some strong anxiety about sex in general

someone seeing my naked body makes me feel a little sick

[I] don’t really know how sexual attraction is supposed to feel or what i would do with myself if the occasion (sex) was to arise

all of these are, like, perfectly fine things to feel, and also they are pretty good indicators that it's probably for the best that you're not having sex right now. genuinely I do Not do this lightly, because I have a whole thing in my FAQ about not wanting to tell other people their orientations, but has the possibility occurred to you that you might not experience sexual attraction at all? you can like people of all kinds of genders but not want to have sex with them.

let's maybe just take sex off the table altogether while we explore this "maybe you're a little gay" thing, alright? because it seems like that's just going to stress you out a needless amount. what if instead of thinking about having sex with guys, you give some thought to dating guys, forming romantic connections, doing things together that aren't having sex. would you date a guy? I mean, hell, would you date a girl? would you date anyone? does that sound good to you? it's nice to actually interrogate these things; the worst thing that can happen is that you get to know yourself a little more clearly.

you can date and love people without ever having sex with them. does that sound fun for you?

this is the most important thing: you're not under, like, any obligation to figure this out immediately or even soon. take your time, you know? there's no correct timeline for this and self-discovery is perpetual.

also hey listen this one isn't, like, bad and I'm certainly not addressing it as a problem but PLEASE I have to know where you grew up that you didn't realize that most people are actually not polyamorous. are you perhaps the spawn of the greater Seattle area polycule?

#sex edventures 2023

[khaleesiofalicante]

arthur's destiny was to die??????? oh dani you are sick, i can't beleive i'm saying this but as a critic of literature, i love your mind and i cannot fucking wait for the chaos in the next chapter. also, have there been hints of arthur's predicament since the beginning? aside from the obvious misdirection that is lance's prophecy, we knew that something had to trigger him to destroy idris, but did you ever hint what that trigger it was and if you did can you share it? i want to see if i am stupid or if it really wasn't obvious.

Ah, there is so much to say here, but i’ll try to be succinct. 

Yes, Arthur’s destiny is to die. This will make a lot more sense in the next chapter. 

The prophecy wasn’t meant to misdirect - not so much as it was misinterpreted. Because, you see, in any story, prophecies mean so many things. You can interpret it in so many different ways. Percy Jackson girlies know what I am talking about. We’ll explore the prophecy a little bit more in Chapter 19. 

Yes, Arthur can see the future. As we know, children/heirs of priunces of hell inherit their father’s power/s. Like Magnus got Asmodeus’ teleporting and max got Leviathan’s water powers. Lucifer, as we know, has two big powers. One is that he controls the pandemonium (because he created it when he fell from heaven) and he can see everything. This is what Ben was telling Lexi in the previous chapter. Similar to the Princes of Hell and Eldest Curses, Lance got one part of David (Demon blood) and Arthur got the other (Angel blood), one of them got one of Lucifer’s powers and Arthur got the other.

I cannot tell you how many fucking clues are in the story (and in my writing) about Arthur’s ability to see the future. I’ve sprinkled it everywhere (carefully) ever since I started writing about it character. Even in IALS! I answered separate asks about these! Hope you can find them!

I tried to be very sneaky about it and always referred to them as ‘dreams’. It’s very in character of Arthur to refer to his visions as dreams because the latter sounds less scary and more romantic. So, every time you see him say something like “I dreamed” and “he dreamt” - we are literally referring to a vision of the future. Some examples below. 

6. One of the bigger/obvious examples was when he rescued Harry. I really thought y’all might figure that out. Because there is no way he could’ve known Harry was in danger unless he didn’t see something that scared him. 

7. We also see many examples of Arthur zoning out and losing concentration when other people are talking (which usually happens when he gets pulled into a vision). It’s often misinterpreted as ADHD, but now we know it was a bit of a Marcus Devlin situation here. 

As for whether I hinted Arthur was the prophecy trigger, I did and I did not. I think many people guessed this anyway - that Lance will only be triggered if he lost someone he loved dearly and I have hinted many times that Lance loved Arthur the most in the world. So, yeah. 

There were some hints that Arthur was going to die. For example, Arthur often mentions that he doesn’t ‘dream’ about certain things - most of these things are things that will happen when he is older (Sex/marriage/university) etc. Arthur never saw himself in the future doing any of this because he dies young. 

There were some clues about Arthur being the strangler too. Magnus often describes the hands as soft and lean and long fingers. I've described this feature in Arthur a lot - David/Lance/Arthur have the same hands.

Also there were little things like this:

There are a lot more, of course. I don't remember most of them. I never 'plan' foreshadowing ahead. I just keep peppering it in while I write because I know what's going to happen in the story way ahead so it's quite easy to tease.

#lbaf #okay now I need to go take a bath I'll be back

[twistedtummies2]

Heyo, what opinions do your twst bois have about their Housewardens?

Oooooh...this is hard, because with a LOT of my OCs, I don't have really solid development towards the relationships they have with their housewardens. It's one of the points of character development on the bois that I'm weakest with, to be perfectly honest. I'll try to give you what I can without rambling too much... Something common with ALL of my OCs is that their relationships with their Housewardens are frequently...unusual. Billy is the one who has the most developed relationship with his Housewarden, so I'll start with him and attempt to be succinct. When he and Vil first met, they didn't get along at all. Because, frankly, Billy does not fit the obvious standards of Pomefiore: he's a hulking mass of blubber and muscle who is utterly shameless on many levels, and frequently seems to possess the mental faculties of a child. He is, in many ways, the diametric opposite to EVERYTHING Vil personally stands for. HOWEVER, over time, Vil has come to, at worst, tolerate Billy...and, at best, actually develop an affectionate fondness for the big oaf. He recognizes that, deep down, Billy does have the ideals of Pomefiore in his heart, he just expresses them differently; Billy, for his part, respects Vil immensely, and even looks up to him, always trying to please him, sometimes despite himself. He's one of the few people at NRC who can truly keep Billy in order. Nakoda and Leona have a relationship that is difficult to describe. Nako is something of an outlier in Savanaclaw; he's not a very good "team player," and isn't someone who enjoys following another person's rules. He's also someone who effectively is lost at sea, life-wise: he has ambition, and he has strong desire, but he doesn't know how to use them. I think, in some ways, Leona sees a little bit of himself in Nakoda: someone who has never been fully accepted by others, and who yearns for respect, admiration, and control. While the two often argue, Nako is always the one who ends up backing down first, and he will, eventually, do what he's told. Since it's bound to come up...Nako does think Leona is one hot number, but despite the physical attraction, he has no desire to eat Leona, and...well...SUPPRESSES the desire to get him into bed. This is mostly because he feels he has absolutely no chance with the latter (and he's entirely correct), and he pretty much has it figured out that he won't SURVIVE attempting the former. XD

Next, Reno and Idia at Ignihyde. On the one hand, Reno - just like Billy - doesn't really fit in with the typical standards of Ignihyde: he's not a media junkie, he's not a scientific mastermind, and he's at least somewhat more extroverted than the infamously reclusive housewarden. So whenever the two are in the same room together, sparks will inevitably fly: Idia gets frustrated with Reno's slowness to respond to things and crude behavior, and Reno just sort of rolls his eyes at a lot of Idia's...um..."Idia-isms," if you will. HOWEVER, there are two things that keep the relationship from truly being inimical. First of all, Reno is surprisingly dependable: his power is one Idia can use to his advantage in certain circumstances, and while he's not very good at UNDERSTANDING a lot of scientific stuff...he IS good at APPLYING things. Like, Reno can help BUILD machines or mix formulas, so to speak, he just won't fully understand why or how they exactly WORK. But if he's given good reason to obey, and is put to the task, he'll get it done. Second of all, Reno - just like Idia - is a gamer of all sorts. Idia is shown to love video games, board games, dice games, and I THINK card games, too (I'm not sure about that one, forgive me if I am incorrect); Reno is the exact same way, and I think the two get along VERY well when it comes to shared interests there. I imagine they actually do like gaming together pretty frequently. Heck, maybe Reno occasionally joins in on Idia's streams...double-heck, maybe Idia gets Reno to do some streaming on his own, much to Reno's delight. So they aren't enemies, nor even "frenemies," but they work best when their mutual strengths combine. James and Smitty are "problem children" for Riddle. Especially James. Riddle, of course, is a well-organized, orderly person who seeks total control, and has a hard time dealing with change or anything that doesn't go with his ideals and laws of conduct. He is a stickler for the rules, and even after the events of Chapter 1, it is hard for him to bend them TOO much without breaking, so to speak. James, really, is more like Azul than anybody else at NRC: a scheming ne'er do well who is very, VERY good at finding loopholes and exploiting things to his own selfish ends. As a result, he's often causing headaches for Riddle: he doesn't exactly IGNORE the rules or outright BREAK them, but he gets juuuust close enough that it's annoying. However, much like Reno with Idia, James is dependable in a pinch...and one thing he does have over Azul is that, when it comes to Riddle and his dorm-mates, specifically, he actually WON'T expect recompense. Why? James sees Heartslabyul as his "crew," and he feels it's important for the crew to work together when times get tough. The clash between himself and Riddle, essentially, is wondering which of them is REALLY the Captain. On that note, Smitty and Riddle get along a LITTLE better, mostly because Riddle understands that anytime Smitty DOES cause trouble, it's only because he's trying to do good by his best friend. When Smitty is independent from James, he is obedient, helpful, cheerful, and tries his hardest to be a good student, and Riddle respects that...it's just upsetting to him that, whenever James decides to act up, Smitty almost always goes along with that without question.

Maelstrom and Azul I've actually been trying to figure out a bit more. I don't have a lot to say on this one's front. Suffice it to say, Maelstrom - despite his own ego and the fact that sperm whales and cephalopds don't exactly get along in the wild - is actually quite respectful of Azul, and will do as he's told, most of the time, without much argument. He acts as muscle for Azul on many occasions, as he is the first to admit Azul is much more crafty and strategic than he is, and he does see this as a good thing. Azul, meanwhile, appreciates Maelstrom's strength and appetite much in the way he appreciates those elements in Floyd...and unlike Floyd, Maelstrom is less likely to go off the rails on a random tantrum. The remaining three bois in my roster - Elias and Theo in Diasomnia, and Grit Gravelle in Scarabia - I don't really have solid concepts for, in terms of how they get along with their dorm leaders. I know that Theodore and Malleus have a rocky relationship, and that will actually be explored when I get to Theo's "Chapter Story" in...you know...five billion years or so. 'XD But beyond that, there's not much I can say for any of them. These relationships, more than all the rest, definitely require development.

#ask #answer #q&a #disney #twisted wonderland #oc ask #kink-related #but only peripherally #vore mentioned #ocs #grit #grit gravelle #theo #theodore #theodore hamilton #eli #elias #elias inque #maelstrom #maelstrom baleno #james #james killian #smitty #smitty mccarthy #reno #reno rovar #nako #nakoda #nakoda spivak #billy

[deadboyfriendd]

hello i hope ur well. firstly, i want to apologise from ahead because this is likely going to be a long ask as i am very bad at being succinct and precise and i truly am sorry about that. this ask is basically a lengthy compliment(s)(?)/maybe some questions about your series "cochise". i confess i hadn't read any of it before you posted the last one because i'm not a very big eddie fan (i felt quite neutral on him in the show up until his death), but i decided to give it a go, partly because i was missing the wild west from your bisbee letters, and partly out of curiosity. and my god. what a fool you made of me. that shit was so good dude, genuinely. you answered in a previous ask that your writing style can lean towards purple prose, and i really felt like it's a feature, not a bug in your case. i really felt the vivid imagery you described, especially of the heat and the dryness of the desert, and i really appreciate the tone that your intricate words built, both in terms of feeling the age of the story, as well as lent it a gothic western feel that really struck a nerve with me.

like i said before, the descriptions of the desert setting itself really stood out to me, but i wanted to point this one in particular from chapter 1: "When it brought the heat back with a haughty laughter and a heart full of vengeance...The cereus blossom fragrant with rot that filled the stagnant night air and its timely beauty". this line of the blossom reminded me of my grandfather's home in karachi from over a decade ago. his birthday was last week and for a moment, i could smell the jasmines climbing up the boundary wall in his garden again. you've spoken before how you feel connected to your grandfather through your western works because of his love for the desert and for his western novels, and i just wanted to share how much that line meant to me, truly. he passed away a long time ago and i find myself forgetting things, so it's really nice when i get parts of him back, so. thank you for that.

i also really loved the way you described Nellie's grief. I remember once I asked you something a long the lines of how your characters all felt so unique to each story despite al being reader inserts, and you talked a little bit about how Nellie was a way to process grief and heal with Eddie. There was such a feeling of Nellie's grief lingering throughout the story, at times large and somewhat violent, but mostly it felt just present in the home, like it was a part of it. This description in chapter two really fascinated me: "He laid in bed at night next to the shell of grief that resembled you, the decanter on the table filled with tears of loneliness and guilt." Idk the image of someone's grief so shapeful, and so essential to their being that it makes their form was a very powerful image, and the thought iof it cast in shadows because of the decanter really played into that gothic western aesthetic i enjoyed. Later on in the chapter, when you wrote, "That holy shape becomes a devil, best.", I thought it was so interesting how the grief over their spouse, a loyalty to their marriage, could turn into a "devil", and i think it really beautifully summarised the whole deal with guilt specifically. That no matter how righteous or justified we feel it is, it's not meant to be held onto, and it's best to let go of it, and can really turn into a much darker thing the longer you keep it with you and allow it to shape you. i also loved the way you mirrored it to eddie's grief here, "He stared at the hole in the floor, the discolored groove where you had scrubbed your knuckles bloody and raw. He thought about the him-shaped divot he had scrubbed into the frozen planes of Montana". The contrast of the desert and the cold, both equally difficult terrains to navigate and both nellie and eddie trying to scrape their grief out of that terrain, mapping out both their desperation and the difficulty of trying to get the grief out is so powerful and oh my god the description of her bloody knuckles was so raw, i could like feel the sting of bleach on my own fingers. And as much cool work you did with pointing things out, there's also this cool line here in i think chapter 2, "That emptiness would always linger, but that coldness of keys was now not for the absence of his warmth. They just were." and i think it's so powerful to describe how the absence of something can be it's own thing, that can then drain away into being not-about-the-absence-anymore. i've heard a lot of writing advice about how the worst thing to do is to try to explain something that's not there, the darkness, the silence, the not-thereness, and instead focus on what the absence leaves behind, and this was a really good example of that.

i also loved how many small descriptions were sort of called back on and made a reprisal in the beginning and ending of your story, and it makes me wonder how much of this was pre planned and how much of it was sort of improv/ a decision made later. For example, in chapter one, you have this paragraph that describes eddie watching nellie's bet time routine, "He watched the way your skin rippled at your lower back as your bare skin pressed against your vanity stool, and the way your skin stretched over your shoulder blades as you pulled your hair to the side, raking through it with the brush in front of you. Your lips fell into a supple pout in concentration, and your lashes kissed your cheeks as you looked down. He could feel the windowsill digging into his palms, it grounded him– kept him from free-floating into the stagnant desert air." and it's sort of right before he has that wet dream about her, but it's repeated in i think chapter v, and i think it's such a cool way to show how his "dreams" have come true, that this sort of dreamy, idea of a person was made more real for them, that instead of watching her intimate ritual from a distance and imagining being with her, he gets to see it from inside her bedroom and actually be with her. But then there was also the description of death twice, once in chapter 2, "There is a split second in which you can see the silver line between life and death, in which you can walk the plane between realms. There reaps a morosity heavy on your heart in the fractions of a second before a man’s life ends." and in chapter 4, "There is a gilded line between life and death. In that moment, the sun shines too bright, the hum of the earth becomes deafening. The desert respires one heavy and pungent sigh. And all is silent again... A silent prayer washes over the desert." This mirroring in the ways you describe witnessing death is so interesting and i think really striking about that final second before it happens, and calling it this silver line, this gilded line, filling in this in-betweenness with something extra and sort of suspending it between two worlds, is really special, especially when you suspend the moment in two different halves of your story, making readers feel equally suspended in the in-between, though with lower stakes. I also feel like this in-between space makes perfect room for your final chapter that also sort of takes place with a lot of in-between dimension with christine and wilhelm, of grieving someone but not letting them die, of dying but not dying, of seeing and having dinner with ghosts but not dancing with them. And it sort of cuts through the injustice and harshness of michael and milt's deaths as well, that were bloody and violent, and sort of, not neutralises them, but creates another mode of death for them which is super interesting in this terrain that's been described as ever expansive, ever present, and ever difficult, an escape from a place that has no escape.

i also really loved the way you wrote about nellie and eddie's affection for each other. These two lines from chapters 3 and 4, "Tonight, you think you will unmake the left side of the bed." and "He feels real again, like he’s standing in front of you. You reach for his hand but find Eddie’s instead." is soooo good in contrast and extending from the house described as a large ghost for wilhelm. the sort of impression that eddie leaves in the house of his presence getting stronger and stronger, until his boots are in the same spot as wilhelm's, is really cool and just a nice way to sort of build up the fractured feeling that nellie's house has. also there's this line, "This feeling was not akin to butterflies and moths. It was frantic, more persistent. Like that of the hummingbirds that drank from the cactus blossoms in the cooler mornings.". i don't have anything to say about that other than it's very pretty and i like it a lot. there's also this line i found very interesting, "On this day, you wear white. Married to your grief and eloped to this place…You would not be healed today, but you say you will never die." It's very stark imagery for sure, both the idea of a bride to grief and mountain, it makes these characters feel very elemental and not totally of this realm, and i understand they are like totally human, it does feel like it gives them access to the in-between realm of life an death, and the idea that there is a place between life and death where you don't die, feel like a very plausible thing. and it makes sense too, for someone whose healing as a widow, that half her heart is in another realm, that she's married to someone whose in another plane of existence, so like, why can't she marry a mountain where she's having sex??

also, everytime you mentioned steve alli could think was "my man my man my man" and reaaaaaalllyyyyy excited me for bisbee! this line especially, from chapter 2, "Steve’s eyes had hardened from something stone-cold to something ablaze. His eyes reaped the anger of the afternoon sun, alight with anger. Anger from defiance. Anger for Milt." captivated me so much. all that anger both for the in justice of milt's death as well the injustice of the mob was welded together so well, it made me very excited to get to know him more whenever/if you ever decide to continue bisbee, and the line in chapter 4 when he apologises to michael before putting the noose on him made for a very great snapshot of what justice looks like for steve, as like this duty that must be done by him with a backdrop of endless injustice and hardship but also hates that it's him that has to do it because of the necessary violence that comes with it. it made the sort of monologuing on violence he did in bisbee letters sort of more foreshadow-y for me. Also, i'm very excited to see nellie's cousin, you mentioned once that she was like more naive and sort of pushing steve's buttons, which fascinates me because steve seems just so stoic and like singularly focused that anything getting underneath his skin seems sort of funny, and makes me that much more excited to see the hijinks this girl gets to.

i think this is all i want to say, and i am aware it's a monster giant of an ask, and i really am sorry about that, i just had a lot of thoughts about your lovely story that i wanted to share both because i want you to know how much your story means to me and how in awe of your talent and skill i am, and how excited i am to read any and all future works from you, and if you have any insights to share about anything, please please please do tell, they would all be valuable!! your a real talent and i know it takes skill and drive and determination to build on a craft and i just want you to know that it is appreciated very much.

oh my god hi!

Sorry I'm just not getting around to this, I, unfortunately, am one of the people that take 7-10 business days to reply to a text message.

So, first off, PLEASE don't apologize to me about this response because I'm still flabbergasted that anyone thinks I am as smart an talented as the people on this website do. I mean, seriously, everyone here gives me way more credit than I'm worth.

So, in reference to the night-blooming cereus. I LOVE writing about it in any sort of desert setting. I am so touched that you thought of your granddad because it also makes me think of mine. He had a night-blooming cereus cactus that he tended to relentlessly and that we continue to care for. We haven't been lucky enough to see a bloom for it yet, but I hope one day I get to. As I've mentioned before, my first real taste of mourning and grief were through his passing, and this story was my way to rationalize that for myself.

As for Nellie's grief, I think one of the hardest things for me to navigate in this was how to write the mourning as "old enough to be healed but new enough to still hurt". I wanted it to be a nagging feeling, something in the back of her mind constantly, always threatening to bubble back up, but simultaneously trying to figure out how to not make it consume her. She was always Nellie, the grief was the obstacle for her to overcome. It was never her entire character and I never felt like my own grief was ever an extension of myself but rather this big ugly storm cloud that likes to loom over me sometimes. Again, my first real, big struggle with it was through my granddad's passing. It's been three years and it still looms around. I don't think I will ever NOT feel it. And I really wanted to encompass that in this story. I'm still ME, just like Nellie is still Nellie and Eddie is still Eddie. Just with new, big feelings. The reason she feels it so much in the home is because I felt it so much in mine. A big part of my granddad was his antique collection. We ended up with a lot of it and then it served as a constant reminder. It literally felt like every little thing reminded me of him because I searched for him in everything. As for the depiction of guilt as the devil, especially in the constant back and forth incantation of Faustus. That was a happy accident. They watch Faustus in tombstone and this bit ended being left in. Eddie was originally supposed to be a lot more closed-off. There was going to be way more of a storyline with him as a vigilante lawman or a bandolero. Eddie wasn't supposed to be a good guy, he was supposed to be someone way more hardened off my grief than Nellie. He was supposed to have more blood on his hands and be way more rough around the edges, but as I wrote, the story turned into Nellie's story- MY story, and Eddie became a mirror reflection and a catalyst for the softening woman. Feminine rage was a huge turning point for their dynamic because I felt that rage. I felt like scrubbing my knuckles raw and I felt like the devil and I felt like the villain because I, myself, was being overtaken with feeling.

As for the story itself, the original storyline was already planned. Everything with mudsill and milt was always going to be the plan. The biggest major change I made to the storyline was the finale. It was going to open in their wedding during the superbloom, and, the more I tried to write a wedding with vows, the worse it felt and the more it felt like I was writing it because that's what everyone else wanted to hear. And then I realized that this is MY story and this isn't who they are. They can be tied to each other in their grief for now and learn how to not be tied to that later. They aren't happily ever after people. The west never was. There is happiness in content, and content was what they were searching for the entire time. I wrote the finale in a single evening because it it felt right for them. I wasn't going to push more purple prose and draw the story out to a 15k word chapter. I summarized them the way they needed to be. Even if it was weird and dreamy. It was right for them. As for everything else you mentioned, I will say this: Yes, I refer back to previous parts when I write a lot but I always thought it was lazy writing lmao. You give me a LOT more credit for my work than I deserve.

Okay okay okay, I will admit that I'm completely going to be leveraging milt's death in bisbee. So, the way I'm finding the storyline working out currently is, he was writing letters back and forth the Elsie the entire time. In my most recent letter, he is discussing hanging Mudsill and the blood he feels on his hands. I am SO excited to write how the events in the Doten v. Tombstone case will affect the rest of my characters, and how the sheriff will have to navigate situations as the singular resident lawman from now on. It is a HUGE part of where Bisbee is headed and I am SO EXCITED to dip my hands in it and torture this ken doll. This Steve is going to be violent. He's going to be more impulsive. He's going to be drenched in blood and really play into what I think the actual character could come to when he gets pushed that far. And this violence and impulsiveness will 100% be tested by Elsie. It's going to be a huge part of their story.

I am holding this ask gently in my hands and kissing it. THANK YOU for bearing with me through cochise and THANK YOU for letting me scream about my cowboys, because I love them a lot.

#flea writes #flea speaks #flea answers #flea's friends

[blueaizu]

Aizu Updates: Uploading Older Art, Other Social Media Activities

Lately I've been busy doing book illustrations for a friend and I've reached a point where they have to be done now now now, so I haven't had much time set aside for making new stuff. I've got a few older drawings in my backlog, though, so to help my page feel more complete I'll be uploading some of those in the meantime. They may not completely reflect how I draw now, but rest assured they all still fit the criteria for being something I still like enough to share!

That was the actually important thing, so I'll put the rest of this post after a cut. It's basically just rambling about observations of social media I made.

So in the interest of covering more bases when I become a vtuber, I've been looking into some more alternatives for Twitter. Don't get me wrong, Tumblr's been great and I'm happy to keep using it! But while Tumblr's suited for more in depth blog posts, there's a succinct immediacy to the more rapid fire nature of the Twit. As a regular person I don't actually miss using it (I mean seriously Twitter's a goddamned cesspool); but I recognize its power in sharing quick updates with a large body of users that are scrolling through content like a naughty child unravelling a roll of toilet paper.

The platform that seems the most promising is called Bluesky, which is currently invite only because it's still in beta. It was founded in part by Jack Dorsey, the previous CEO of Twitter, so Bluesky's striking resemblance to Twitter is no coincidence. Supposedly it will allow communities to run from their own servers, but it can also carry over your account information seamlessly between them. People used to say the blockchain could have good uses when NFTs were still going around, and at the time I didn't believe them, but now I think I'm starting to see what they meant (but I still hate NFTs).

The limited supply of invites driving up demand on top of the Muskman seemingly doing everything in his power to sabotage his own platform is giving Bluesky quite a bit of hype, so I think it might actually have a chance to flourish. It will for sure start off basically being Twitter 2.0, but its more open nature supporting outside servers run by smaller communities instead of one big monolith can let it grow into its own thing. But who knows when Bluesky will open its doors to the public? Even if I do get in right now, you (yes, you, the person reading this) likely wouldn't have access.

Another alternative that's available right now and very similar to what I described is Mastodon. While I could see its potential as a platform, it's difficult to use and the audience just doesn't seem fully there. A number of people fled there from Twitter, but they didn't stick around because it's actually nothing like Twitter. They still had a net gain of new users, but I have my doubts about sticking with it. Still, I wouldn't write it off just yet since Mastodon does power Pawoo, which is a Japanese-run community that's associated with Pixiv and is quite lively in its own right. This is the true power of a platform with an open source network of community-run servers.

Anyway what was the point I was trying to make with this again?

uh

I hope these developments mean we're on the cusp of a new age of social media where we have the power to run our own communities and not be at the mercy of one big corporation? Yeah, something like that.

Also being a vtuber is cool.

Actually, you know what? Speaking of vtubers, you deserve a little reward for making it this far. You didn't have to do that, but you did! Don't tell anyone, but...

SURPRISE PEEK AT MY VTUBER!!

#twitter #bluesky #mastodon #Aizu Updates

[smokeys-house]

Sorry for your loss, Smokey. It is always hard to lose someone close

thanks I appreciate that. yeah it's been real hard. I don't wanna talk alot about it here bc my blog is sposed to be a place for folks (including me) to escape to. I don't even usually like to talk about or reblog world events or anything on here.

I'm gonna say a few things about the situation under a cut, but I'll warn you it's really sad. Death tw I guess. It's also very personal but I need an outlet.

I'm serious when I warn that this is going to be a hard thing to read, and you don't have to read this. In fact I recommend you don't. I'll try to be succinct.

So basically my mom died. She wasn't super old, and she was mostly healthy in regards to that kind of thing. She had a lot of medical issues but none that would have taken her out this suddenly. I'm not strong enough to talk about what things may have happened, we don't really know yet either way until after they look at her a little longer.

I lost my dad when I was 8, and my extended family is mostly estranged. My support network is very thin, but for the most part I think we've got it handled for now. I don't want to get too personal, so I'm being a little vague. It's kinda just. Me and my siblings right now.

My mom's dogs are also very distressed, one of them is having seizure issues because getting him his medication on time is challenging since my mom handled that. Her other dog had troubles eating so she used to hand feed her, but now that she's not around to do it she won't eat. She's a bit older, so we're worried about her.

I'm also fairly young. I won't say how old I am but I'm in my 20s so I'm not really prepared for any of this. We have a lot of issues to sort out like phone plans, bills, her house, her car, and all her like. Special retirement and life plan stuff and what not. Dying costs a lot surprisingly, and the funeral costs alone are over $10,000 USD. That's not a typo nor a joke. Everything's been so impersonal and hard. Going through catalogues and discussing plans with the funeral home they talk about it like it's buying a used car.

Of course aside from the logistics side of things, like the bills and figuring out how to get the money together and how to be a fully sustainable and "got-my-shit-together" adult right out the gates, I'm also going through another death in the family. I've got very few people left. There are many things I wish I would've said or done or asked. I had a near complete breakdown, I'd go into details on things but honestly it's just. Really really sad even for someone else to just read. Even now I'm either barely functional or I'm in full repression mode. The dogs keep looking for her, it's incredibly heartbreaking. I keep "forgetting" what's happened and why I feel so weird and why certain people are here or why I can't do certain things.

When I lost my dad, I lost my ability to tell time and dates. That's also not a joke. The grief effected my entire life until this point. I'm intellectually and emotionally stunted for a number of reasons, that included. I have been diagnosed with PTSD from how things happened with my dad. I'm not a well adjusted adult. I've had so many setbacks and issues that I'm basically in my third childhood now. I'm worried as to what will happen to me mentally following this. I've never been very stable. I've got a lot of issues.

Baseline, I'm not well right now. Things are going to be very hard in the coming days. Idk what's going to happen with everything. Financially, I don't make much and my siblings don't make much either. We don't have a lot of time to come up with the money and there are a lot of other considerations to make. Emotionally is one thing, but I don't even know if I'm going to have a home or internet. I think I will. But it's hard to think about just now. I'm not sure if I'll be posting donation links bc it's a lot of personal IRL information but if I run out of options I'll post about it I'm sure.

It's taking a lot just to keep things kinda ordinary typing on here. In truth I want to say a lot. I want to say a great many things. There's nobody for me to say them to. There's so much. There's so much

#death mention #smokey answers

[bardicbeetle]

odd OC asks!

Moira: 🍋 (What is your OC's most painful memory?)

Jesse: 🍹(Does your OC have any funny anecdotes told about them?)

@flyingbananasaur Fuck it you're getting these like I'm running a roleplay blog because I feel like writing in character.

"Funny ones? God, maybe? Ninety percent of them are depressing as hell, gimme a minute..."

It's not, in fact, a minute.

You probably sit alone at the kitchen table for a good half hour until Moira comes through the front door and sees you there. That's fine, you've got a question for her too.

She makes you a cup of tea (it smells like citrus and...maybe rose? Not quite, a little lighter than that. it's a definitely floral but you can't place it. There is probably an alarming amount of honey in it.) and one for herself (whatever is in her mug smells like cinnamon and smoke, you can't taste it, but you did see her heap just as much honey into it as yours) before joining you at the table with an open sketchbook and a handful of pens.

You ask and she wrinkles her nose a bit.

"Uhhh... I mean, I try not to dwell on that shit. Daniel is the curse my past mistakes, oh what a fool I've been flavor, I'm more the hindsight-is-pointless-keep-moving-forward variety." Despite the words, she shifts a little uncomfortably, letting the sketchbook drop from where it's propped in one hand to flat on the table.

"I guess probably the day I left home. Not in like the sense that it hurt to be there, or it hurt to leave the place itself--but it's hard to think about the fact that it was the last time I saw my family. That it was the last time they saw me and it wasn't even me they were seeing. I dunno, it sucks to think that they've still got an image of me in their memory that isn't anything close to who I am." She smiles a little then, discomfort fading. "I guess that gives you an answer. I'm not much of a stick-around-the-hurting kinda person. I've got too much ahead of me to enjoy to bother with giving much attention or energy to the stuff that sucked."

"I thought of one--" Jesse is back, "--like I said, most of the memorable things are pretty depressing--" Moira suppresses a laugh that gets one of her own pens thrown at her. "--shut up. I--

"--spent the first six solid months of college taking ice cold showers because you thought there was no hot water--purely because there was no separate hot tap. Rich boy problems." Moira sighs dramatically, pretending to faint against the table.

The next pen Jesse throws lands directly in her mug, prompting her to pull the remainder of them into her lap. "Rude." Jesse grumbles, though it's not hostile in the slightest and he's still got a grin splitting his face. "Anyways. We had a proper bounty hunter show up once for one of the--Moira they already know--anyway--Avery, really truly looked like a fucking Texas ranger kinda guy, showed up on a horse. I think we had him convinced the whole household was possessed--" The more Jesse talks, the more evident it becomes that this is not somebody capable of telling a succinct story, at least, not verbally. "It was pretty clear he wasn't going to just, leave, so eventually we talked him into staying to get a death certificate so he could get paid, I got him to let my nieces ride his horse--although to be fair I think Jamie would have found some way to do it regardless of if she got permission--and I actually kept contact with him after he left."

Moira frowns slightly at that. "I didn't know you still heard from Avery."

"Yeah, he wanted help picking off the guys who left him in the desert, including his ex, who was a massive asshole." Jesse looks back over to you, smile soft and a bit apologetic. "I know that wasn't particularly funny, sorry, I'm a little empty on funny."

"You could have picked any of the times you met the other three people who live here, which--as a reminder--include: Immediately offering to fuck Daniel after knowing him for approximately ten minutes, handing me the bullet I used to shoot my old boss and promising me it would look accidental, and basically begging Alex to let you adopt them after--surprisingly long for you--a whole hour." Moira counts these off on her fingers as she speaks, a look caught halfway between confusion and amusement on her face.

Jesse just shrugs, "Pretty sure those are all common knowledge--and if not, now they get them as a bonus from you."

~*~

Goodnight, Quinn

#the magician cries #questions concerns and or rotten tomatoes #character ref ja #character ref mh #have some silly little vamp!house antics #Jesse is genuinely a very bad verbal storyteller #he can write. cannot speak to save his life. #sitd #screaming about it #lsdente #my wriitng

[patchwork-crow-writes]

Crow Diary | 14/06/2023

I've been back to the bench three times since my last update. Each time, something new and interesting happened, so I'm going to record each incident here.

The first time I went back was at 5:00 pm, a few days after my previous update. This time, a few crows came down to see what was going on, but only one of them approached directly - the others kept their distance and sort of strafed around in a wide semi-circle. Knowing that crows gather in heirarchical families, my guess is that the lead crow was in a high-up position in the pecking order, while the others were further down and thus had to cede this feeding opportunity to them. My other guess, which is less based in facts and logic and more on wishful thinking, is that it's the same crow as the other times and its fellows were too wary to approach directly.

There also seemed to be some discord within this murder, as on a couple of occasions another crow would swoop in, cawing loudly and dispersing the group that had gathered nearby. But instead of seizing this opportunity to feed, it flew back to its perch further away. I'm wondering if that crow was trying to impart a warning of some kind. It was fascinating to witness, in any case.

My second opportunity was a few days later, at about 6:00pm GMT. I had my partner with me this time, so I was interested to see whether this would affect anything. We sat at the bench for a short while, before a stanger (human) came over to talk with us. We had an interesting conversation about the local area and property prices because we are all Of An Age, and it was rather pleasant.

While this was going on, one crow did come by - again, I don't know if it's the same one, but since it was alone, and this was the third time this has happened, I have a suspicion it might be. I threw it some food while we talked, which it took. I noticed here a preference for the toasted almonds and hazelnuts, followed by the pumpkin seeds, with the dried raisins and cranberries being eaten last. My acquaintance seemed somewhat perturbed by the presence of my partner and this third person all on the bench, but seemed to adjust rather quickly.

Today, I went down a little earlier than usual, at about 11:00 AM GMT. It was very hot and bright - indeed, it still is! - so I didn't want to spend too much time waiting around.

I did see a number of crows perched up in the trees nearby - the gathering place of a murder about twenty to thirty strong. However, no-one came down to meet me this time. I have a few theories as to why this might be - the differing time of day might have thrown them off, the heat might have disincentivised them from coming down from their perch, and there was someone mowing their lawn very close by, the noise of which may have made them reluctant to come down. Based on my observations, it seems the ideal time for these encounters is later on in the day, as it gets cooler. You often see many crows pecking around on the path and in the grass at this time. So maybe I'll try again a little later and see if anything different happens.

So there you have it for now. Bit lengthy, this one. If I am going to keep up with this, then I'll try and keep them a little more succinct. However, I find that I am currently learning a great deal about our feathered friends, and so I'll try and keep those observations as intact as I can as well. A delicate balancing act, to be sure.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time :)

#rambling #crow diary #long post #welcome to my new bit #Will have to see about investing in a (good) camera so I can take some pictures #to break up this massive wall of text #Would be good to have a camera for other things too #such as showing off my notebook collection lol

[lavenoon]

Hi<3 hope you are having a nice day today!

💞 and 🍭 for the writer asks

Hi hi! <3 I'm still a tad sick because my fever simply refuses to leave me alone, but after spending most of the afternoon napping I at least no longer feel like a truck ran me over, so I'm taking that as a win!

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

Talked about other factors here and here, but the last big thing is definitely grammar/ form. I'm always a little paranoid about the grammar in particular since German grammar is a bit different, and I wonder if I'm mixing things up or if the linguistic choice I make only sounds good to me because I have been mixing up languages for 10 years now, so I can't expect other people to like the way I write. Also a big source of imposter syndrome right there! I tend to think my experience with my writing cannot in any form be universal, because anxiety is mean. But also the form - line breaks. If there are no line breaks I'm out I cannot write like that, I cannot read like that. I sometimes worry I use too many paragraphs, but I try to stick to the TIP TOP rule - time, person, topic, place. If one of those changes, new paragraph! (Sometimes I break that rule, if I think the impact is better like that!) I also try to keep my run on sentences to a more reasonable amount, because adhd brain says "many commas good. let's throw in some parenthesis and also crossed out text, or maybe some dashes and then return to the main sentence." It's a curse sometimes, because I simply cannot be succinct!

🍭 why did you start writing?

In general, well... I always loved indulging! I was always very very daydreamy, and used to roleplay a lot of stories with friends. When they decided we're "too old" for that stuff and it's too childish, well... I just turned to writing! I think more in words than visuals, so bringing myself to imagine more and more elaborate things really helped me flesh things out, and made the dreams so much more fun! Plus, I can write stuff that's catered to my taste exactly, and that's just a huge perk!

This time around (because, well, I was writing for just myself after a lack of feedback for my last fic made me lose nearly all motivation to publish my writing) I started writing publicly again just because the reception for Accidentally Undercover was so good! I kept getting excited messages and feedback and interactions, all exactly the things I felt like I was missing last time, so I decided to try again! And it started out a bit awkward and clunky, but now I'm extremely happy I started writing for AU, and get to share all of that with you guys <3

#answer let luce #betweenblackberrybranches #ask game #also just remembered I have a mutuals tag that I always forget <3 #we're holding hands #think there's probably *reasons* why I love indulging in fantasies so much but yknow. that's the general reason #the specifications depend on what I'm writing #escapism? catharsis? wish fulfillment? take your pick #but yeah I hadnt. actually realized before. #but my very first story I definitely wrote around the time I grew apart with my childhood best friend and we stopped playing a lot #we started “hanging out” instead of “playing” and I missed it so dearly #BUT YE writing fun #indulgence fun <3 #and now it is exactly time for dinner so im hitting post gfhdjs

[tinygumdrops]

hello hello!! i've been a reader of your works since about 2020, when you were posting a bit abt haikyuu, and i reread your fics as a treat since your writing is special to me. there was always this certain feeling to your works that i could never pin down, and i finally realised what it was. it was kinda like the acknowledgement and romanticisation of the mundane that is always present in hayao miyazaki's studio ghlibi films, yknow? you always let your stories breathe, which is something that tends to be sorely lacking in even a lot of critically acclaimed stories and media nowadays. your stories are probably why i like character studies so much, ahaha, since you explore whatever character you write as much as possible. i gotta say though, i did trawl your feed a little and was wanting to ask if luffy inspires in you what hinata does, and if you were going to write about him. knowing now that you hate the process of writing and only really do it if your love for a character is sufficient made me see your fics in a new light, because they were labours of love. i'll have to print out your fics for safekeeping at some point though, even if i am scared to death of people stumbling onto my fandom tendencies, ahaha. seeya!

HELLO TO YOU TOO omg pleasure to meet you, anon! And *sobs* 2020 really was that year, yeah? So happy to hear that my fics made you feel better in that sucky year ;-; I can relate in a way; I honestly don't think I would've made it out sane without writing to keep the unpleasant thougths at bay. I guess that's why my earlier works for the Haikyuu!! fandom had a lot of, uh, "ghibli-esque" vibes, as you described. So yeah, you finding that I "always let [my] stories breathe"? *tears up* honestly one of the biggest compliments I've ever received, considering I've always feared I complicate things too much in my works, thank you so much!!!

Oh man, you mentioned Luffy---please know that you will never have a comprehensible, succinct conversation with me once you bring up Luffy, but I will try to truncate myself since this isn't really the appropriate place to ramble :DDD BUT YES, I'm actually dying to write about him!!! I do have a simple thing in mind, something about Luffy and two other Strawhats who I'd like to explore more, but it's probably going to take me some time... real life, god, such a pain. It's going to be a challenge writing in Luffy's POV though *crying* it's so strange how foreign his mind can be to me even though we've known him for 1000+ chapters already.

Oh and *sobs* sorry, I did have this super ugly habit of purging my fics, but I think I've gotten better in resisting that urge over the years! I've seen the discourse around it and I've learned a lot; I'll try not to spread my misery by deleting works I no longer wanted to be associated with but might've meant something to somebody. So please don't fret about my current hq!! works going poof anytime soon! Like, you don't have to print them out; it must be expensive, and I can totally imagine how it'd feel if someone were to find printed fics in my sock drawer ;-; Alsoooo I'm not stepping away from the hq!! fandom any time soon, I'm actually writing a Yachi & Yamaguchi fic (I hope it's okay to soft launch here :DDDD I really want to publish it soon and I want to hold myself accountable). It's absolutely criminal that I don't have a story for them yet when I adore these besties so much ;-; I think it's time to change that this year!!!

So sorry for the super long response, I hope that didn't bore you ;-; Thanks for stopping by!!!

#ask #anonymous

[blackbird-brewster]

It's done.

Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) - Part 3, is done.

I could ramble for hours about how I feel right now and as much as I'd love to lie and say I'll try to be a bit succinct to spare you all a long, emotional essay -- that's not happening. My blog, my feels.

I think it's important for me to start by saying, 'Fooled Around' was a miracle project, it brought me out of years of writers' block. Up until July 2022, I had been writing-retired for seven years. There were a few times during that hiatus where I tried to write, but the words always felt forced and disingenuous. I honestly believed I'd never write fanfic again -- then one night, out of nowhere, I got a comment on an old fic and it reignited my passion.

I spent that whole night re-reading my old works, delving into my personal archives, reading the outlines of WIPs that were never finished and that's when I came across my original outline from 2015 for a Jemily fanfic based on 'Imagine Me and You'.

I even had a couple of chapters already written from back then, it wasn't very good, it was admittedly just a scene-for-scene remake.

And for whatever reason, after seven years, I saw this WIP and went "Huh, I think I'd like to finish that."

With that, Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) was born. I wrote the entirety of Part 1 in ten days and the thing was, it wasn't even labelled 'Part 1' because I had no intention of making this into a series when I was writing it.

But by the time I had it fully posted, I already realised how much I wanted to keep writing these characters. When I began Part 2 in September 2022, there were only TWO other fics on AO3 in the JJ/Tara tag (there are now 26!). I loved writing their story and creating my polyam OT3 which I lovingly call, Je T'Emily.

Part 2 took less than three weeks to write and when it was complete, it was my longest fic to date (87k) and this time, I really did feel contented with where the story ended.

Afterwards, I worked on other projects, wrote tons and tons of new fics, including my 101k Jemily saga: i can't be wrong (to be craving you).

All the while, my Fooled Around characters started popping up in the back of my mind again, little plot bunnies rattling around, keeping me up at night, until finally, I sat down in May and said 'What could Part 3 be about?'

What I never expected was for this fic to take SEVEN months to write. Previously, the longest I had ever spent on a single project was four months and those were babies compared to Part 3.

Part 3 not only eclipsed my previous 101k WC record for longest fic, it more than DOUBLED that. In the end, this fic turned out to be 220,000 words long (equivalent to a 960 page novel).

I wish I was the type of person who could be proud of their own achievements, but I'm not. Even as I write this, there's part of me saying just delete and never post it, because no one cares about any of this -- but I'm fighting that little voice, because I truly do want to document how it feels to complete such a massive fic.

I poured hundreds of hours into this story, I did SO much editing, so much re-writing, re-working. I had a total of four main characters, their individual plots, plus SIX other characters, and their subsequent side-plots. To weave threads and continuity through a project spanning seven months of work was no easy feat.

I learned so much about myself in the process. Both regarding my writing styles, my stamina, and the dire need for me to find balance with writing and my own well-being. I pushed myself into burnout and the last few months have been really difficult on me, but I was determined to finish what I started.

And now, I have.

Six months of weekly updates and it all ends this Friday and I couldn't be happier.

To any of my readers who have made it this far, thank you. Your weekly comments and support really were the motivation that kept me going through the worst of it. Please know your usernames are all known well amongst me and my partner, because I share all of your comments with them and rave about how amazing you all are for coming on this journey with me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. We may not know each other outside of AO3 comments or tumblr, but please know, I consider each and every one of you to be my friends and I cannot express my gratitude enough.

Pleased to tell you all, Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) will be back next year. Not as anything as massive as Part 3, but I'm planning to write a series of individual character epilogues to wrap up the series.

Until then, X.

#faafil #faafil3 #my writing #about me 2k23 #I'm so emotional #je t'emily

[uter-us]

Hello! I saw your post asking how trans people would define a woman, and gender in general. First I just wanted to say thank you for trying to understand different perspectives, in my experience I've not found many people on the internet who actively seek out the opinions of people they generally disagree with. So I genuinely appreciate that you're trying to understand us better.

But I would define "woman" as one of the two binary genders, which is typically but not always associated with being biologically female. And similarly "man" is the other binary gender, typically associated with being biologically male. But obviously that's just my opinion and it's true that a lot of people disagree on what they mean. And I think when a trans woman says that she identifies as a woman, what that really means is that she's just more comfortable being seen as a woman, and she feels a sort of kinship with other women despite maybe having experiences that are different than them. Same goes for trans men.

As for what gender itself is, I would say that it's socially constructed categories (because humans really like to categorize things, even ourselves). That's why different cultures sometimes recognize different genders beyond woman and man, and many cultures have such different gender norms.

I'm sorry for this being so long, and I'm sorry for sending it in an anonymous ask. It's just what I feel most comfortable with right now, which I hope you can understand. But, yeah, thank you for trying to seek out different perspectives. It seems that you're actually genuinely trying to learn more about the experiences of trans people and I really appreciate that. I hope you have a good day!

hey!! i appreciate your response so much!! youre very nice, and i appreciate you too for trying to understand other perspectives through reaching out :))

also please keep in mind i haven't slept in 24ish hrs which is a long time for me so this is more of a ramble than very succinct 👍

since it's through anon ask it might be a bit tricky to get your responses, but if you end up feeling like responding, i'm sure we'll figure something out haha but i am gonna ask some questions !

And I think when a trans woman says that she identifies as a woman, what that really means is that she's just more comfortable being seen as a woman, and she feels a sort of kinship with other women despite maybe having experiences that are different than them. Same goes for trans men.

okay so i see you point to two things that make a trans woman a woman and a trans man a man. the first one is about wanting to be perceived as either a man/woman. I am under the impression that what you are describing is some level of dysphoria, (or maybe more euphoria ?), but correct me if i'm wrong. I am gonna point you to these three versions of that post for a more thorough response w questions this definition or partial definition prompts-- the posts are kinda lengthy so be warned! but you can skim (if youd like) for the parts referring to perception and dysphoria. (again, working off little sleep so the links are a great help. but if you are having trouble finding anything lemme know and i will help!!)

curious what your thoughts are there!

the second part is about having a kinship with other women/men despite having different experiences. this idea is one i don't hear as often! if im working w the understanding that kinship means a strong (family-like) relationship, is that really enough to warrant a role in defining who is a woman/man? like there are people who fit both of these rules (increased+significant comfortability w perception plus feeling they have a kinship w said group), and we can still recognize they don't belong in that group. in my personal opinion that isn't enough for defining a woman/man (especially legally!)

As for what gender itself is, I would say that it's socially constructed categories (because humans really like to categorize things, even ourselves). That's why different cultures sometimes recognize different genders beyond woman and man, and many cultures have such different gender norms.

im so sorry im being super lazy and tired, but in the posts i linked i talk about genders beyond woman and man, different cultures' gender norms, some questions about what gender as a social construct means to yall (vs the radfem perspective), and ultimately the role that plays in this type of conversation, so im gonna point you there again haha. if you want me to elaborate on anything dont hesitate to lemme know!

I'm sorry for this being so long, and I'm sorry for sending it in an anonymous ask. It's just what I feel most comfortable with right now, which I hope you can understand. But, yeah, thank you for trying to seek out different perspectives. It seems that you're actually genuinely trying to learn more about the experiences of trans people and I really appreciate that. I hope you have a good day!

no need to apologize for your boundaries!! an anonymous ask works great :) and i apologize for the lack of sleep interfering w my response, i hope it wasn't disappointing!! still i hope my posts provide some insight too, but more importantly i really hope you check out the questions because i promise my goal isn't to j stand on my soapbox or info dump, i really appreciate any and all feedback/responses-- feel free to send another ask (if you feel up to any response!)

i really appreciate your message!! the kinship aspect was the most eye opening for me because i find it relatively uncommon to hear in my experience. your fresh perspective is well worth reading! thank you! be so safe and take sm care 🫶🫶🫶 (and lemme know if theres something i missed you want further clarification/comment/question on!)

#this is not the most indepth post ever.... #in fact its very shallow.... #but hopefully the links i sent can fill the huge gigantic enormous gaps i didnt write about. #i need sleep. ahhhhggghh #not j a reblog tag #read conversations tag

[youredoingkinwrong]

Hey! Nice to see you active again. Something you posted in one of your other answers had me wondering. I loved the animated Star Wars series "Rebels" especially the mystical side of the Force as revealed later in the series. My wondering was about that aspect of their universe and if you have experienced any of it, or in a way different from what was depicted. Those episodes were often my favorites and fascinating to me because I love mysticism. It often adds a wonderful kind of mystery to any story, and a kind which doesn't really have to be explained to be accepted.

You can reply whenever you like. I'm sure I'll see it. Take care.

Hello hello! It’s very nice to be back (and to see you again)!

It’s funny, it’s been years and years since I first watched Rebels. I actually never watched the last season, which I am hoping to rectify soon! But I do think I remember what you’re talking about - the Bendu, and that kind of strange manifestation of the Force. 

When I first watched the show, I remember just kind of immediately disliking the Bendu I can’t remember why for the life of me, but I assume I’ll find out soon enough once I actually get there in my rewatch. 

... I actually just searched up “Bendu” on my main blog and found about thirteen different posts complaining about him and detailing why I didn’t like him, and really kind of refreshed my memory omg. And it’s not because I dislike the mystical aspects of the Force! In the Clone Wars animated series, one of my favorite arcs is the Mortis arc which is frankly even more weird! I love the stranger and more complicated stories about the Force, because they make me think harder than the rest - it’s always a mix of “Was that real?” and “That seems like total bull.” and “Oh son of a bitch everything’s real” 

But I’m incapable of being succinct when it comes to talking about the more mystical, difficult to believe aspects of the Force - so if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to put the rest of this under a cut for everyone’s sake.

My original gripe with the Bendu was the fact that, at least from my memory, it was straight-up not possible to “mix” the light side and the dark. It was possible to use them both at the same time, once, a long long time ago (and in the sequel trilogy they do exactly that, since the healing technique used in the Rise of Skywalker is technically a dark-side move), but it just wasn’t something you actually mixed together. It frustrated me because the narrative at the time felt very much like it was saying “this is the true correct way to use the Force, the Sith and the Jedi are too blind to see that” which... well! Perhaps I am just still a little bit upset that tens of thousands of Jedi were murdered by the Sith, and I dislike the near-implication that if they just used the Force “correctly” then none of that would have had to happen.

It’s a similar reason why I hate the theory that “true balance” means having an equal amount of Jedi and Sith out in the galaxy, because the Jedi were originally just a group of people who sought to protect and defend people who could not help themselves (and in doing so ended up being used as pawns by a Republic that did not care for their true goals), and Sith, you know, kept trying to keep the entire galaxy under their rule. The people who studied under Bogan’s power did not necessarily mean for that to happen - after all, not every dark side user is a Sith - but the nature of the dark side, and Sith in particular, is that if you are not careful it eats you up and spits you out, and you are a shell of what you once were. It is dangerous. It is the anger that sharpens your tongue or curls your fists and makes you do something you truly don’t want to do. It is the power that feels righteous in the moment, but when the fog clears you see you’re no better than those who hurt you. Letting that sensation rule you hurts, it isn’t good for you, and that is why it’s not possible for it to be “mixed” with the light.

As a Jedi, I did try to keep my darker emotions in check. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel them - I very much did - but I didn’t let them control my actions. When you have the power to snap someone’s spine with the power of your brain, you do have to be careful not to actually do that. Maybe it wasn’t as simple for other Force users, I know us Skywalkers were unfortunately built different. Using the Force came as easily as breathing to us. Looking back on it now, the best way I can describe how I used it would be by calling it a magical placebo effect - if I thought I was doing it right, I was. There were not many Jedi around to tell me it was impossible to do something. 

Obi-Wan himself did describe it best in the second “From a Certain Point of View” novel: 

“In his early days of training, Anakin had always been so tentative in speaking about the Force, like it was a word in a foreign language whose meaning he still wasn’t entirely sure of. With Luke, there’s no hesitation. Even though the concept was only introduced to him a few years earlier by a stranger he had previously believed to be a hermit gone half mad from sun exposure. Now, when he needs a reason to go, the Force is telling him exactly what to do, like it’s a guidebook I’d been recommending to him for years but he’s pretending he found all on his own. That’s not how the Force works, I think, and resist the urge to rub my temples, a habit Anakin had always teased me about.”

Ignoring for the moment how Obi-Wan absolutely dragged me for filth there, he’s more right than he knew - that isn’t how the Force works. But because that’s how I believed it should work, it did. And because neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda really sat me down and explained to me with painstaking clarity how it worked, I never really had that same trepidation that Anakin felt as a young boy suddenly surrounded by thousands of people who knew more about this mystical energy force than he probably ever would. Had he been in my position, with only a handful of Jedi left in the entire galaxy, he probably would have been much more brazen about using it, too. And it would have worked.

I didn’t realize the Force was weird around me until I met a lot more Force users. Ahsoka, Cal, Cere, hell I even think Kyle Katarn? Possibly Ezra as well. There was a reason Palpatine was after our family more than anyone else. We alone had a different connection to it. 

So, you know, I had to be careful. I didn’t live in fear that I’d be snapping necks left and right if I was in a bad mood, but I also just didn’t want to let it any of it take root. 

The way I see it... the dark side was primarily about weaponizing your emotions to control the Force. Canonically, we only see them utilize the baser, “darker” ones such as anger or hatred, usually brought about by immense and constant torture. The light side, on the other hand, was more about listening to the Force, discerning what it wanted, more reminiscent of a symbiotic relationship. On a base level, trying to mix those two schools of thought just doesn’t compute to me. Perhaps in other timelines, other galaxies a long time ago in a place far, far away, but not the one I come from. 

It is, however, possible to use kinder emotions in conjunction with the Force. Love, joy, hell even contentment - on their own, emotions are never evil. It is when you use them to bend the Force, or other beings, to your will, that is when it turns dark. But I used love when I saved my father - my anger was too terrible when he first threatened to turn my sister, and it was only after I saw his arm - so much like mine - that I loved him so much, and anguished over his pain, that I forced myself to stop. I always thought Anakin would have had an easier time as a Jedi if they had allowed him to focus using things he loved, if they had taught him how to love in a healthy way. 

I don’t think the old Jedi were unequivocally in the right. They had been stagnant for so many years by the Republic’s side, they had forgotten their true mission. It does not mean they had to be wiped out. It does not mean they were using the Force incorrectly. It just means that when I established my own Academy, years and years later, I did it as far away from the New Republic as I could. We were not beholden to any government. I only trained Force users to wield their powers safely, and I bestowed upon them the title of Jedi Knight if they so desired - but what was more important to me, I think, was bringing up a generation of Force users who wanted to help others. Who used love and empathy to protect and defend. 

Now, I don’t know for certain if I ever met any manifestations of the living Force (aside from the ghosts of my family - Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Yoda, who were all Very Opinionated about how I ran my Academy). I am, however, at least 90% sure that somehow, I did meet the Jedi Council during the height of the Clone Wars, due to some convoluted and complicated Force... thing. It didn’t change my timeline, but I like to think debating (read: arguing) with them helped save at least one galaxy. 

As a side note: I started reading the Thrawn trilogy recently! I’m about halfway done with it and the way Luke describes the Force just feels so accurate to how I felt it. It’s very fun, I’m glad I’m reading it! I might just write up a hugelong post comparing it and the sequel trilogy vs. what I know of my own timeline eventually. 

#gryneos #Ask #Force rambling #Mod post

[potatopossums]

i feel like my therapist is looking for some kind of reason to make my relationships all romantic. i know it's not some kind of ulterior agenda, i know she's not the type to try and secretly undermine me or "prove me wrong" somehow. I've been firm and honest about how i feel and what motivates me in my pursuit of relationships. but it still feels weird to have someone asking me that all the time.

it's already something i worry about anyway, freaking people out or getting freaked out myself about "romantic-seeming" relationships. i don't personally care for even using romantic as a label because it just doesn't really fit for me. it's not like you couldn't look at my life and apply the label, i mean sure, especially when it comes to my writing, it can be a bit romantic, but not in the ways people might expect. I've always been a very unromantic romantic.

i was struggling with a friend of mine, having a lot of anxiety and feelings of resentment and fear surrounding them, and we got into a scuff about some things. i had the feeling that it would be best for me to just step away for a while and take a break from whatever was stressing me out.

after a few weeks, we reconvened, talked a little bit about what happened, we seem to have come to an agreement, tied up some loose ends from our struggle, and are back to talking. i still get feelings of anxiety and such, but that's just part of how my brain works right now. it's looking a very strange and unusual person in the eye — not strange in a bad way, just not at all what I'm used to, not very familiar, and lots of differing values — and it's trying to establish safety in the midst of all that.

that's difficult to do. I've never done that before.

my therapist asked me what my motivation was here, trying to keep this relationship going when it caused me so much stress.

first of all, i think im getting much better at knowing what my limits are and taking breaks when i need them. there are things i could improve on, like the way i talk to myself, and i could work on asking for what i need more openly and clearly and often. but I'm doing so much better than i used to.

i told her — despite my fear that she was going to try and suggest my feelings were romantic and pointless and blind — that i remembered the good old days of our friendship, and i was holding onto that. i know that's true. i remember the golden days we had together and i miss those. and there are also good moments now. there are still things i struggle with. but i just like having someone to talk to and spend little bits of my time with. another friend is nice. some of it is me trying to stretch my comfort zone. some of it is curiosity — my friend operates so differently than i do, and it's so captivating to my brain sometimes. some parts of me want to be like my friend, hoping that if i hang around, some parts of them will rub off on me, like their confidence, their entire lack of people pleasing. the fact that they're pretty helps. they feel safe in some areas, and i learned a lot from them. life is complicated and i don't have some perfect succinct answer. i just know that i want to keep people in my life. no one is going to be the center of my life. i just like people being there. and maybe, i can learn to be more grounded in myself and, when it happens, i can show courage when i tell someone close to me that i didn't like something, or when asking for something new.

it's scary to ask my friends for physical comfort. it's scary to allow that in even though it's something i kind of want sometimes. it's scary to imagine having sexual and sensual interest in others and not being reciprocated, even rejected. i hate feeling abandoned and rejected. it scares me and activates a horrible place in my mind that tears me apart from the inside out, esteem and body alike. i want that part of me to learn to slow down, even when other people around me don't treat me the way i hope.

the only way to learn is to keep making mistakes. the only way to grow is to keep trying my best. the only way to get through it all is to keep reminding myself that i have all the tools i need to do my best, and next time, I'll be able to look back upon this time and do even better. my best right now is good enough.

#aromantic #queer #alterous #agender #personal #gynephile #friendship #aromantic lesbian