because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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As soon as I began receiving asks about Junior regarding my body swap concept a few days ago, I knew I wanted to add him in a short sequence. 💙
I've considered many different scenes in which he would be included, but there was one in particular that kept coming back to my mind, and it was the exact moment he would agree to safely lead Luigi to "Bowser" (aka Mario). In this specific scenario, he would be mostly oblivious to what's going on, and would thus show palpable mistrust towards Luigi at first, who he doesn't really know and hasn't yet opened up to. But upon seeing how distraught the poor man is, Junior would feel for him and let his guard down. 🤲
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Part of me is starting to think all the rules are made up. Everyone who is successful has gone against popular narrative and expectations in some way or form, sometimes in a multitude of ways. Most other people are just operating out of fear anyway and trying to keep you down subconsciously because it defies their narrative. Do whatever the fuck you want.
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something that’s always been funny to me is that long fics with smut tend to do better than long fics without but it’s like. if you write a longggg 10k+ word fic with a build up and plot and sprinkle in smut at the end, people will read that long build up and pay attention to the plot in order to get to the smut. and 99% of the time the tags and comments will talk about the plot itself and the way it was written as opposed to the sex and they will ask for more or for part 2’s and as annoying as the part 2 comments can be sometimes, it also means that they focused on the plot and not the smut. but if you post that fic without the smut—as in same fic and same build up and everything, but the smuts not there, a lot of those same people will simply not give the fic a chance. it’s just funny to me bc yes, a part of it is just horniness, but also i think it’s partly that there is also some conditioning to believe that a “perfect romance” or a “perfect story” of a romance is sealed with intimacy that’s more often than not sexual in order to actually be valid. and yeah. idk. it’s an interesting thing to see from a writers perspective
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[ cw: violence mention / death mention / ]
Will never stop thinking about how Leo, all alone in an endless void and being beaten again and again and again by the only other living thing around, still finds comfort in that space. The situation he was in was completely hopeless, and in any other circumstances he would not have escaped, at least not fast enough to save him from permanent (or even fatal) damage, be it physical or mental.
And yet, despite the bleakness of his situation, despite the agony and helplessness, all he needs is one glance at a crumbled photograph, one glance to remember his family, and that’s enough of a reason for him to smile.
Maybe that’s why his powers center around manipulating space - because no matter how much space is between them, no matter how dire his own situation may be, just the thought of his family, alive and okay, is enough to give Leo hope.
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