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disdaidal · 9 months

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I can't remember the last time I've cried this hard, but I guess it was time.

So my new school is pretty much now pressuring me to find a place to train at, which is not stressful at all, because the workplace I went for an interview last week hasn't returned my calls or my email, despite the principal initially seemed genuinely interested in my application.

Thing is, I wouldn't be this stressed out at all but my new teacher made it pretty clear today that next week is gotta be the deadline for that contract - otherwise my studies really aren't going anywhere.

I also missed my doctor's appointment yesterday because I missed the train. I had to wait for that appointment for 3 fucking months, and because it's related to my financial situation (I'm really trying not to get more student debt, especially with the way how I've been and how I barely managed to keep my shit together during pandemic). Luckily I was able to talk on the phone with her and the social worker, but my new appointment was rescheduled at the end of the month. I also talked to my nurse on the phone a little after that; a nurse who I haven't seen in the last six months because all our appointments have been cancelled at the last minute. So I got a new one in September.

My sleeping schedule has been pretty much fucked up all July-August, and for the last two days that I've been going to the city and attending these classes, I've slept like 6 hours in total these two days. Both days I've come home feeling extremely drained (besides those 6 hrs in total, I napped all evening yesterday). And last night I slept something like 2 hours before school and when I finally got back by train a couple of hours ago, I tried to sleep on the train but I felt so nauseated that I thought I was gonna hurl. Needless to say, my car ride back home was all but fun.

When I finally got home and laid down in my bed for a while, I started crying. Like I know it's probably because I've literally slept like 2hrs last night and it wasn't even a deep sleep, so, think I've just had it. My body and brain couldn't take it anymore.

But when I was on the train, I was going to call the school's office (the one I went to that interview for), but naturally their calling hours had already ended at 2pm. I also thought about sending another email but like I said, I felt extremely tired and anxious; making more phone calls and sending more emails when I'm feeling this way really isn't the way I want to go again. Especially since I already tried both on Monday when they were supposed to inform me last Friday, and I haven't got any response since. Which is not very nice to be honest (my new teacher did comment it's kind of unprofessional of them, and I gotta agree a little bit there).

But seriously, the only thing that's even made my last two school days tolerable, were the other students in my class. I kind of took up smoking again (bad habit I know) because of all this stress and shit that's been going on with me lately, so at least it was an easy way to get to know some of our other students, and got to spend some time with them, so at least I didn't have deal with my worries all alone. Our Moroccoan student (whom I've talked a lot with; I got along with him already on our entrance examination on May) tried to encourage me today when we were smoking, and even said I could try and apply to the same place he works at - which is working with immigrants mostly. Since I did choose international studies as one of my optional subjects, that could also work, because sooner or late I'm gonna have to work/train at a place like that anyway.

But obviously my first and foremost goal right now is try to find a place near where I live because obviously traveling isn't cheap, and I might indeed have a couple of places around here in mind that I could ask for training opportunities.

In any case, if I don't get an answer by tomorrow (we'll have another long school day so I probably won't have any time to be making extra phone calls anywhere), I think I'm just gonna ditch this thing and start calling other places on Monday.

If this is how it's gonna be and I'm on a strict deadline here, I don't suppose there's any other choice. I'm not willing to give up just yet - though I admittedly thought of that for a moment, too. Since I've become somewhat depressed lately again, clearly, and that must have something to do with my bpd. Which is fucking *nice* because right now I'm supposed to be active and efficient so I can actually get shit done and get my studies properly started - and yet right now, I'm feeling all but that.

So I guess I'll go to another class tomorrow - we have a special day anyway as we're visiting a local museum at the end of the day, so. Maybe I can try to forgive myself for being the way I am and give this whole thing a rest until weekend. And if the teacher asks about it tomorrow as she might, I'm just gonna say I'm going try again on Monday.

Cause I really don't see any other choice right now. But again, I'm really not lying about this. I'm not feeling my best right now, and this kind of pressure and stress is not doing me any favors.

#personal #a vent i guess #i'm kind of losing it right now and barely keeping it together #i guess #i don't know yet

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lollytea · 2 years

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I’m sorry but you MUST let me ramble about Willow. I love her and I love her characterization as someone who aim for strength and wisdom and what that means for her. We know that she has grown and she is a strong witch but she still struggles with second guessing her decisions. So I find it fascinating that she is also that character that gives second chances (yes amity’s change of heart was mostly because of Luz but it was never her call to let her in Willows life again, and while Hunter teamed up and betrayed luz and amity first it wasn’t until Willow that he straight up stood up to a coven head without cover ups or possible deniability). It just seems that with this new trend of everyone demanding that every antagonist be redeemed always no matter what (and while I firmly believe that Hunter escaping his abuser is not him redeeming himself) I just love that the show uses Willow as a character who’s growth is shown with strength to protect her friends and crush her enemies but wisdom to recognize when someone has done the work to deserve a second chance

She is so good I love her so much!!!

She is absolutely SO strong and powerful but yeah what I find really really interesting is how she deeply wishes to be wise too. Protecting loved ones isn't all about magic duels after all. Sometimes it's about understanding when they need a nudge in the right direction.

Willow is already a magical prodigy. She's already got muscles for days. Strength isn't that difficult for her to achieve. But wisdom? Wisdom is a lot harder because it's not as straightforward. It's far more subjective. It requires experience, maturity and introspection, something that any fifteen year old would struggle with. There aren't always objectively correct decisions so all she can hope to do is trust her brain and her heart and hope the choices she makes will work out in the end.

But more often than not, Willow chooses kindness, forgiveness and second chances. This is what she believes to be the right decision, the wise decision and that says a lot about her as a person. It's development too. Willow wasn't always like this. She spent a decade resenting Amity, dwelling on the past, which significantly hindered her growth and self esteem. Obviously she wasn't in the wrong for being upset. It was completely within her right to do so. But Willow decided to accept Amity's apology. She established boundaries ("I can't say we're friends.") but opted to move forward. ("But it's a start.) Again, was forgiving Amity the right decision? Who knows, it's a subjective matter. It was simply Willow's judgement. What she believed to be the right thing.

Moving Forward is a big theme of Willow's arc. Once she came to an understanding with Amity and the painful memory of their ruined friendship stopped weighing down on her, Willow's confidence improved in a big way. She became far more ambitious, determined to be the witch she wanted to be. All eyes were on her future. And during the height of her self love, she even rekindled a tentative bond with Amity. They couldn't fix the friendship that was broken but Willow sincerely wanted to build a new one. They both did.

So yeah I feel like somewhere between Understanding Willow and Follies of the Coven Day Parade, she really reflected not only on how she saw herself but how she saw others. Willow decided that she was going to be more perceptive of people so she could pass judgement with a little more clarity. Obviously not everyone deserved her kindness but she would like to offer it to as many people as possible.

(Side note: Skara being on her Flyer Derby Team speaks volumes about Willow’s capacity for forgiveness and reflection, with Willow even stating that Skara had "been misjudged." I wonder how the two got to this point.)

Any Sport in a Storm and her interactions with Hunter is brilliant example of Willow's genuine wisdom but also the inherent flaws in her mindset. Like was it the wise decision to let the extremely suspicious oddball on her Flyer Derby Team? Objectively speaking, no. But it worked out in the end, didn't it? Somehow, yeah. That's just Willow Park's magic I guess.

But her actual maturity and power of perception really shines in that moment where Hunter calls her team pathetic. Willow has no intention of letting that slide. But then comes "Where I come from, even chances have to be earned. Especially if you're considered half a witch like me."

And boom. Willow gets it. She understands the root of Hunter's problem because this used to be her problem. He expresses it in a far more aggressive way than she did but she knows that everyone is different. She also knows that he's not gonna stand around and listen to her say "You're not half a witch!! You're awesome!!" Nor will he believe it. Willow has already gouged the kind of person Hunter is and she figures he'll learn best by demonstration. More specifically, she believes he'll benefit from seeing the inherent worth of others who are like him. Seeing a parrallel of yourself from an outside perspective makes these kinds of things a lot easier to accept. Real smart girl, Willow is.

This decision to put all her faith in Hunter did backfire eventually and they got tossed in the cell. And its heartwrenching because yeah. Willow isn't wrong as she laments on what went wrong. They are in that situation because she made a bad call. Willow isn't perfect. She tries to be strong and she tries to be wise but she's gonna slip up sometimes because she's young and she's emotional and she can be impulsive.

Which makes it all the more poignant when, after everything he did, Willow still decides that Hunter deserves her kindness. It's not like it was a baseless decision either. She recognizes just how much it took for him to throw himself in front of Darius for them. Hunter declaring that he doesn't deserve to be the Golden Guard must have stirred something in Willow. That would be like her giving up and stepping down as Flyer Derby Captain. It would be like sacrificing the witch she has tried so hard to become. Hunter is making that sacrifice before her eyes, and he's doing it to protect them. And then he looks back at her and says "Please, Captain..." Like That and Willow's mind is made up.

Kindness, forgiveness, second chances and moving forward are what she lives by. Willow Park fiercely believes in seeing the good in people. In conclusion, she's fucking epic.

#miss park my beloved

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tyrannuspitch · 1 year

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collecting some thor thoughts from last night:

humility is definitely a repeated lesson from odin. thor doesn't learn it, but it's not because odin isn't telling him he should. it's just that odin is... a hypocrite. he has contradictory and impossible standards. he tells thor that arrogance is a great evil, but he ALSO tells thor that he only has worth if he's literally the best person in the universe (which inevitably doesn't just have the effect of making him want to be better but of making him feel threatened by others potentially being as good), AND that the royal hierarchy is natural and good and that royalty have a right to reassert their power/status by force.

and on one hand. considering all that i think thor is doing his best lmao. he could be so much worse!

on the other hand. god this is just so cruel. odin is always punishing his children for being exactly what he asked them to be.

re: the competition between thor and loki, especially odin's hints that loki might be a candidate for the throne, or maybe not, but maaaybe, wink nudge teehee... hmm. i think part of the intent of this is to humble thor - to remind him that he is (theoretically) replaceable.

and i don't think it really works! i think thor copes with this through denial. in general, i think thor copes with all odin's contradictions by picking one message to believe and sticking to it. so he hears odin dropping weird hints at loki now and then, but he goes... hmm... no. obviously it's POSSIBLE loki might have to take the throne, so we need to prepare him for the POSSIBILITY, but odin would never actually CHOOSE him over me. i'm the eldest, he calls me his heir constantly, this is how it is. he. he wouldn't REALLY get rid of me hahaha (<- guy who is about to get so exiled.)

like... thor needs stability? he's built his whole life and identity around being the heir; if that crumbles, he has nothing. and also, because being king is SO important (kind of a divine mission / key to holding back the apocalypse), he needs it to be stable for the WORLD to feel secure. AND. i think the idea that he has no choice in being the heir, that there was never any other possibility, probably helps him cope on some level with like... fears or doubts or weariness, etc. of course i'll keep going. i literally can't do anything else.

basically. thor doesn't cope well with doubt, so he just doesn't let himself feel it. he just goes. there IS an order, there IS a plan, i am here for a REASON and it's not going to go away. thor's problem is not even so much arrogance as stubbornness, and he's grown up needing to be stubborn and dogmatic just to draw any kind of sense out of odin's constant, vague, contradictory bullshit.

(and all this also means... okay, i don't think loki would directly ask if thor understood odin's weird hints the way he did. and i think by the time the film starts he's already mostly given up them. but i do think loki would watch thor closely and maybe sort of. gently probe the subject. and the only response he would EVER get out of thor, no matter how direct he was, would be. "what are you talking about??? father absolutely did not say that. you're imagining it." which is... i mean, thor has his own problems! they're both being horribly manipulated! but this is definitely not HELPING with loki's... gaslighting-adjacent mind game situation. not helping at all.)

#space viking tag #cutting this post off here but i have many many more things to say #i will be sooo annoying don't worry <3 #meta #s: t1 #ch: thor #ch: odin #ch: loki #r: odin + thor #r: loki + thor #th: manipulation + mind control #th: saint thor #th: mjolnir #th: fate + hierarchy #th: redemption #th: servant prince #highlights

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house-of-laminations · 2 years

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Ok in one lesson (i dont remember which one sorry) its said that mc isn't really a human.

I think it was where Lucifer and the brothers turned into angels? Idk, but from what i remember, when lucifer asked what were we, we could reply "human". Nothing strange right? The problem is, Lucifer denied it.

He just replied smth like "whatever you are". Now idk if its for lore or just funsies, but considering we were lilith's descendant, it could be that we aren't completely human. Or maybe a whole nother species. Lucifer flat out denied us being human at that lesson and it got me thinking, what are we exactly?

Lilith turned into a human right? So her angel powers would obviously be gone. But angels, unlike humans, aren't created through procreation. They are made by god. Lilith was originally an angel, and even if she is human now, it begs the question where her powers had gone? You can't just erase her powers, its practically engraved into her soul (do angels have souls? Idk)

It has to go somewhere right? I'm not saying that mc could be this eldritch horror, but its clear that they aint fully human. Mc has an abnormal amount of magic that even solomon was shocked, and thats saying a lot since hes the most powerful sorcerer. For now I'll just stick to it being some leftover magic from lilith but damn that magic must be strong to be able to casually command 7 demon lords willy nilly.

Sorry for rambling, i just like to explore the lore in obey me and i don't rlly have anyone to talk to about this :')

ANON!!! Don't apologize - I'll talk about this with you for hours if you'll let me!!!!

One of the first things we teach in Worldbuilding 101 (an actual subject I get to teach at uni - though the name and unit code are different) is if you’re going to include magic (or ultra high tech) in your world, you need to define your laws clearly. This is so that your writers (or your game designers or your GMs) can have a solid structure to play within. But more importantly it gives you something to break when you want shit to get scary. Nothing says ‘this villain is out of your league’ like their flaunting of some magic or ability that goes against everything the main characters know to be possible. It works in the inverse too - if you want to give your protagonist a moment of ‘ascension’, you need to provide expectations for them to break.

Obey Me just…. Doesn’t have that. We don’t have a baseline of what’s possible by ‘typical’ magic beings or sorcerers. Part of this could be a ‘power creep’ problem - we’re immediately allied with some of the strongest beings in all creation. We’ve seen nothing that poses a legitimate threat or challenge to these demons outside of themselves. But honestly it’s mostly just the lack of clarity about how magic works in the first place. How do normal people channel it? What are ‘regular’ sorcerers and witches capable of? Solomon isn’t a very good baseline because he’s old as balls and I’m assuming very powerful (though the cause and effect for those two statements is up in the air). I’m not going to complain though - it’s what makes this world fun for people like you and me to play in and write about!

We know MC can resist some of the effects the brothers have on humans but then again we also haven’t really seen what they can do to normal humans anyway, so it’s not a good indication of power. Solomon’s birthday event helps here slightly - we learned that MC’s magic potential is ‘infinite’, a rainbow rather than one color, though what those colors mean is still super vague. There's also the central conflict of S2, with MC's power spinning out of control... I choose to believe it’s something to do with their soul, but to do that we have to talk about Lilith.

I want to expand on your idea about Lilith and her power and that power’s relationship with MC because that’s so interesting and full of potential!! Especially with the knowledge that Angel!Lucifer immediately saw through MC’s human guise (I’m only mid S2 and any Angel lore I do get is from the wiki or @demonfamilytherapist as she plays through S3 and very kindly sends me the spicy screenshots).

What we do know:

MC can resist Asmo's charm right from the very beginning, which means they either have an extremely good bullshit detector, or they've got some other type of natural protection.

MC isn't related to the brothers - meaning that their tie to Lilith is either purely genetic or spiritual.

Lilith became a powerless human, when before she was an angel. We don't know where she ranked (was she an archangel or higher?), but we can probably assume she was quite strong if she was an 'equivalent' to Belphie and Beel.

Lucifer is the Oldest Brother. Regardless of his status of demon or angel, he’s likely very familiar with human souls. He was probably around when they were first created.

When Lilith dies her human death, her memories linger in Devildom, watching over the brothers. She then 'lends' MC her 'power.'

That last point is confusing to me because 'lend' implies a return date and I don't think MC can return it at this point. I'm gonna just apply the law that 'power cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed' to the unknowable, cosmic entities that don't function within the human understanding of physics bc I Get To Do That And So Do You.

Lilith’s power had to go somewhere. It wasn’t just destroyed.

So we have three options:

Lilith's power is broken up and scattered. Some of it ends up gobbled up by other angels or demons. Some of it lands in the earth and becomes little miracles. And some of it becomes fragments of souls, or maybe even a whole 'human' soul. MC was lucky enough to get one of these souls. With it comes a fraction of resistance to the brothers, only because they are 'familiar' at such a deep level. And vice versa - the brothers are more likely to listen to/obey pacts with someone they remember loving, and have come to love. I do like this option, but I do think it could be spookier. Which leads me to...

Lilith's power is transformed into something living or inanimate for safe-keeping. This is probably what the writers intended with the Grimoire. She can't be perceived as a soul, and it's not until MC messes with the grimoire that she starts having an actual, real effect on the world around them. You could almost say that MC becomes 'possessed' by Lilith's power - it takes over them mind, body, and soul (explaining how they unlock Belphie's door without realizing).

-and this one's my favorite, but very niche so...- Souls-as-Cosmic. This is a spicy sub-trope within Eldritch mystery/horror, and basically it's the idea that all that a person is, their memories, their loves, their values and their beliefs is not their entirety. Entire souls are unknowable, infinite, and in human flesh we only scratch the surface. MC was always a vessel for Lilith's full power, but it's not until they come into contact with her memories that their human-shaped body gains the ability to be able to use that power.

Whichever is the case, I like to believe that MC's less-or-more-than-human status isn't something physical, but rather, at the soul level - which is why Lucifer recognized it but MC could still grow up as a ‘normal’ human. I personally headcanon that magic is also at the soul level, though it can also be transactional - something that I want to write about in another post. I definitely agree with you in that getting the brothers to submit so forcefully is a big thing - but some of that could also be their ability to make everyone fall in love with them and become wrapped around their finger, which... well. That's a whole other avenue for discussion re: is that just being human and kind or is that Actually Powerful (or both! Love-as-magic-or-divine!).

There was a paragraph in here about Solomon and his 72 pacts but that's just overcomplicating things so I'll stop here (for now)

But really all this is in my head and I’m just throwing spaghetti at walls and seeing what sticks. I’d love to hear your own ideas on this anon!!

#cant wait for this all to be jossed by the time i get to the end of s2 #I hope this makes sense! eldritch stuff is incomprehisble by definition but I want mc to be able to cast ‘power word fuck’ at lvl20 #obey me hcs #obey me mc #obey me lilith #obey me headcanons #i talk to a real human #long post

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cherrykindness · 3 years

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let's make babies |

pairing: Harry Styles x Actress!Reader

summary: you and harry are doing a live on instagram, you've drunk a lot of wine and now the world knows that the future Mrs. Styles is ready to make babies.

warnings: mostly cute, but the title tells you what you need to know 🤪

"What is your favorite song from the Fine Line album?" Y/N read aloud, twirling in her right hand the second glass of wine of the evening, the one already halfway through. "Adore You and Watermelon Sugar, of course."

Harry giggled, rolling his eyes upon hearing his fiancée's statement.

"Y/N will always choose Adore You because it was obviously written for her." He accused. "She wouldn't give that answer under different circumstances."

The comments climbed up the screen continuously, most fans gushing about how cute Harry Styles and YN/LN could be while the other part was concerned with wringing even more information out of the slightly inebriated couple who had decided to do a surprise live one early Sunday morning.

As expected after being away for some time to begin filming Don't Worry, Darling in Southern California, Harry enjoyed a lazy weekend in the house he shared with his fiancée and her pets. The days were filled with late naps and relentless Netflix marathons, sublime and ethereal evenings, marked mostly by unexpected declarations and rounds of sex that used to last until the beams of light were shyly coming through the linen curtains. They were not a monotonous couple, so this order could easily be changed.

"Watermelon Sugar is nothing more than about my love for watermelons, don't get too creative." Harry replied to a fan while sporting a corner smile, the message standing out among the rest for its dozens of emojis and large print, questioning the singer about erotic content behind the lyrics of his latest hit. "I really don't know what you guys are talking about."

Y/N laughed, shaking her head before leaning it against her fiancé's chest, propped up on the soft white pillows that were spread practically all over the bed. The air conditioner was on at a minimal temperature and a light rain whipped on the panes of glass camouflaged by the cream-colored curtain, that being the projection of Y/N's favorite nights.

"You can tell them, I'm not shy." She joked, nudging her fiancé's waist.

"You know what it was written about and who it was written for." Harry replied, raising one of his eyebrows. "That's what matters."

It went without saying that much of Harry's newest album, as well as some of his earlier work, had been done in exclusive dedication to his future wife. Y/N had been the muse for a vast repertoire of romantic songs, and even though the singer preferred to keep the story behind his more explicit compositions a "secret", the relationship the two had shared for more than three years was already solid and known enough for the media and fans to distinguish hidden messages in small details.

"It's a song about what usually comes before the act of making babies." Y/N laughed as he pointed at the display. "Honestly, you guys are impossible."

"No, we make babies every day." Harry joked, making a funny motion with his eyebrows. "I would spend my entire career writing just about that."

"Harry!" The actress exclaimed incredulously, slapping her fiancé weakly on the chest. "Children might be watching this."

"You don't want to have babies with me?" He asked falsely offended, accepting the cup that Y/N offered him. "Because I want some babies with you."

Y/N laughed, rolling her eyes as she watched the internet freak out at the dialogue that had suddenly emerged. Since the beginning of the quarantine, it was kind of inevitable that the couple of artists would not become the darlings of all social media; they were fervently active with photos, videos, and lives that depicted step by step daily life in isolation, gaining more and more followers and making the media more and more fascinated by the relationship they both shared.

The wedding was scheduled for the summer of next year and it was perhaps the most anticipated event in the tabloids. Bets about what the model of Y/N's dress would be and lists presuming who would be selected for the short list of guests stood out among countless news stories about the famous people influencing pop culture today.

The possible arrival of a Styles baby was an inevitable topic in interviews. Harry and Niall were the only members of the ex-boyband that had not become fathers yet, and because they had maintained a solid relationship and were seen as one of the most enviable couples during the last four years, Y/N and Harry had gotten used to all this openly asked questions. They didn't mind, they even had fun with the montages and all the anxiety that dominated the whole internet, often mentioning the fandoms' efforts to represent them as such "cool" parents in perfectly edited pictures.

"No, guys, I'm not pregnant." Y/N amusingly clarified the doubt of dozens of new comments. "Please don't believe so many controversial news stories that appear out there. I was on twitter last week and saw several people theorizing about a possible pregnancy, most of the arguments based on a website that used photos from the set of How to Get Away with Murder in the season where I was actually playing a pregnant woman as Laurel." She laughed. "It's so funny! I know you guys love to guess these things, but we won't hide something so special when it actually happen, I promise."

"Especially because Y/N can hide absolutely nothing from anyone." Harry accused, leaving his drink on the corner table before settling into a comfortable position for the two of them. "Anyone who's a Marvel fan knows that. That's one of her most characteristic quirks."

"They gave me a fake script for the last two movies." Y/N agreed, shaking his head. "For me and Tom."

"We agreed to keep the engagement a secret for a while. The plan was to travel to Holmes Chapel to break the news to my family in person, but guess who got a call at ten o'clock at night from an angry Anne because she learned of her son's engagement from an interview Y/N gave the next day?"

Y/N gave a guilty smile, winking gracefully at the camera. "It was all James' fault! I'm sure he already suspected something, those questions were very suspicious."

"Of course the questions were suspicious, babe. You literally said you had a secret that involved both of us but that you couldn't tell because it was important that our families knew first."

"I thought he would think about a pregnancy or something!" The actress defended herself, feeling very convincing in her intonation bordering on obviousness. "That's a mania I can't get rid of, it's in my genes."

"Did you all hear that? Further proof that you guys don't have to worry about guessing when Y/N's pregnancy will be, I'm sure our baby will make sure to tell you everything while still in the womb, mom's genes will make sure of that."

"You are so funny, Harry Styles." Y/N sarcastically stated, holding back a giggle as countless messages with laughing emojis were frantically up. "Yeah, I know I talk a lot and all, but you have annoying quirks too."

It was obvious that live would be news the next day. Although they were completely open about matters concerning their relationship, nothing seemed better than receiving so much exclusive information from a Harry and S/N drunk on expensive wine.

"You wake up in a bad mood and you're dangerously sexy, that should be illegal."

Harry laughed, holding his fiancée's waist a little tighter as he felt her tumble a little further to the side, getting closer and closer to the edge of the bed. Y/N was dangerously weak for drinks, and the singer knew that the actress' body was already near its limit.

"You're the only sexy person here, love." He declared with a corner smile, evidently finding the whole situation funny. "Do you want to go to sleep now?"

"No." Y/N shook her head. "Can we watch some movie? Can we watch Sweet Home?"

"Of course, love." He murmured, giving the woman a quick kiss on the forehead.

Even though Harry knew that his fiancée was unlikely to make it past the five-minute mark of the episode, he made sure to restart the korean series at exactly the scene where she had stopped, the first chapter still halfway through after Y/N realized that it would be impossible to watch such a macabre work without a drop of alcohol in her blood.

She had been so excited by the taste of Argentinian wine and the idea of updating her fans after a few weeks away, that she had forgotten the main purpose of the live. Harry and Y/N had been apart for a few days due to the new movie the Brit was shooting in North America, all happening in an unrestrictedly careful manner due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic.

He was slowly migrating towards acting and the future Mrs. Styles couldn't be prouder. Y/N had felt on cloud nine when Harry had given her the news of his upcoming job, but her only pronouncement on the subject had been a succinct post on instagram. Just a photo of the couple on a trip to Germany with a simple heart emoji didn't seem enough for the actress' exhibitionist soul, and coming to that conclusion was the main reason she decided to invite him, already relatively changed, for a live appearance. Y/N wanted to go on and on about how much she loved that man and work on that whole honeyed speech that would bring her (once again) the title of "cutest bride of all time," but of course Harry had to come home from his trip with his favorite red wine and poison her with those sweet caresses that took her out of orbit, turning the degree of alcohol content into the least of her problems.

"You're going to kiss Florence." Y/N exclaimed suddenly, as if only now realizing that her fiancé would share the screen with Florence Pugh, one of her closest friends in that industry. "Kiss on the mouth."

The MacBook was still open and hundreds of new comments were going up every second, but Harry didn't bother one bit to warn her about the possibility of her becoming a meme the next day. He was having too much fun with the situation to worry.

"Are you jealous?"

"Yes." She stated with a pout. "I am jealous, I just don't know if I'm more jealous of her or of you."

"But you kiss me every day, babe." Harry laughed. "And you've been kissing other people's men for almost ten years." He joked.

"But I only think about you, I already told you that."

Harry shook his head negatively at the camera, knowing he was sharing with the fans the funniest side of his fiancée.

"I know that, honey." He assured, lightly stroking the actress' back. "I think we'd better turn off the TV and go to sleep now, I'm sure you'll have a terrible headache tomorrow."

The brit planned to bid his audience goodbye and put an end to that recording, but Y/N was drunk and her sense of right and wrong had already gone to space. Harry should have been quicker, however, because his fiancée's speech would be cause for new tags and the only subject for the interviewers for at least the next few months.

"I don't want to sleep, how about we make babies?"

That's what Watermelon Sugar was all about, after all.

#harry styles imagine #imagine1d #imagine harry styles #harry x reader #harry styles x reader #fluffy imagine #harry fluff #actress reader

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analyzen · 3 years

Text

Italian Fandom Meta | Most Popular Types of Pairings on EFP vs. AO3

EFP (2001–, Fanlore) is the most popular writing archive in Italy, and it hosts both fanfic and original fiction. Under the cut you’ll find a breakdown of the most popular types of pairings on EFP in comparison to the most popular types of pairings in the Italian section of AO3.

The Italian version of this analysis can be found here.

TL;DR:

53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted

49% of the registered users on EFP have deleted their accounts

M/F works amount to 60% of the whole website

EFP’s three most popular fandoms (Harry Potter, One Direction, Original Fiction – Romantic) all have a majority of M/F works

On AO3, most Italian works are M/M (56%)

F/F doesn’t have much content on either site (4-5%)

Methodology

I’ve followed @olderthannetfic’s methodology from this earlier Fanfiction.net analysis. Basically, I picked a sample size of 666 chapters and organized them in four categories (M/M, M/F, F/F, Not tagged; more on this later).

Why I chose chapters instead of stories

On EFP you don’t have specific links for every single story. Instead, every chapter you post gets a unique id, which can be seen in the link itself. For example, at the time of writing this the last updated chapter on EFP was this one:

viewstory.php?sid=3974099

Which means that this was the 3'974'009th chapter ever posted on EFP.

Ids follow the usual numerical order, so if a link reads id=3, then there have to be id=1 and id=2, and the next link will have id=4.

So I’ve used a randomizer to select ~1200 unique ids to analyse.

Weren’t 666 chapters enough?

I started out with 700 chapters, but half of them weren’t working. That’s because 53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted from the website.

Thanks to the link of the last updated chapter, we know that almost 4 millions chapters have been posted on the EFP. But EFP's homepage shows different stats:

Registered users: 602395, 205974 of which are authors Last registered user: [blacked out] Total of stories: 517083 Total of chapters: 1869573 chapters Total of reviews: 6222695 Online users: 17 logged in and 53 visitors

While we should have almost 4 million chapters, the stats show ~2 million chapters. Why? Because the stats only show the stories, chapters and users that are still on the website, and they don’t show the stories, chapters and users that have been deleted.

(Sorry, I forgot to translate this one. It reads: Total of chapters posted on EFP between 2001 and today. Orange: deleted chapters. Blue: chapters that are still online.)

Thanks to the stats on the homepage we also have a link to the last registered user. User ids follow the same numerical order as chapter ids, so once again we know that 49% of the users ever registered on EFP have deleted their accounts. That's a lot of deleted accounts.

Categorization

After selecting 666 (accessible) chapters, I organized them into 4 categories:

M/M: contains all stories tagged as “yaoi”, shounen ai” and “slash”

M/F: contains all stories tagged as “het”

F/F: contains all stories tagged as “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash”

Not tagged: which contains a) poetry, b) stories tagged as “no pairing”, and c) untagged het stories.

As for the untagged het stories, there are two issues:

Many M/F fics simply aren’t tagged

Many gen fics include untagged M/F ships

If the description made it clear that the story included a heterosexual relationship, I added the story under the M/F tag. Otherwise I left it under not tagged.

Also, on EFP “yaoi”, “shounen ai” and “slash”, and “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash” actually mean different things.

This screenshot here is from the posting page on EFP. It reads:

Pairings * You must select at least one tag from the list, and you can choose up to three tags. Het: for heterosexual relationships Shonen-ai: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Shojo-ai: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Yaoi: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Yuri: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Slash: for male/male relationships from TV shows/movies/books FemSlash: for female/female relationships from TV shows/movies/books

The thing is. People either respect the rules and use different tags for different kinds of stories, or they use these tags interchangeably to maximise the chance to appear in other users' searches. Which means that you’ll find RPF tagged with “shoujo ai”, and Attack on Titan fics tagged as “slash”. (More info on this later.)

Findings

On EFP, the majority of the stories are M/F.

To confirm this, I checked some specific fandoms:

Some notes:

Because EFP doesn't have metatags like AO3, what I did was: 1) go to a specific fandom, 2) filter through every single tag, and 3) jot down the number of pages per search. Every page contains up to 15 stories, so for example searching for het in Original Fiction – Romantic gives you 846 pages, which amounts to around ~12690 stories.

The tag in red, “Nessuna”, means “no pairing”. It is used for gen fics but also for untagged M/F fics. This is especially true in some fandoms, ie. Original Fiction – Romantic, and Harry Potter.

EFP’s filtering system sucks. You can only filter through stories with specific relationship tags, but you can’t filter out relationships tag. So what you see in the graph is how often a tag is used... which brings us to some issues. For example, Harry Potter is the biggest fandom on EFP, so much that Harry Potter stories amount to 11% (!) of the whole website. But in the graph it looks like the One Direction fandom has more stories—wrong. Actually, One Direction has many stories tagged as both slash and het, while Harry Potter stories tend to be either one or the other.

EFP’s filtering system sucks, part 2. Because “shounen ai”, “yaoi” and “slash” are often used at the same time, you can't really smash together all three of the tags to get a total amount of stories. I'd say that around 50% of the stories tagged as shounen ai and yaoi probably overlap, but there is no easy way to find out because, again, EFP’s filtering system sucks. The same goes for “shoujo ai”, “yuri” and “femslash”.

Fandoms with a majority of M/M stories

While there are some fandoms with more M/M stories (ie. Death Note, Hetalia, Glee, Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf), these fandoms are simply extremely small in comparison to other bigger fandoms full of M/F fics. Which obviously skews the numbers in favor of M/F fics.

What about femslash?

EFP suffers from the same lack of femslash as AO3 as a whole. In the fandoms I've analysed, only two have a big enough number of F/F. The fandoms are Glee (which has more F/F stories than M/F stories) and Grey's Anatomy (which has as much F/F as M/F stories, with little M/M).

Original Fiction

I thought it might be interesting to explore the original sections too, especially because Original Fiction – Romantic is the third biggest fandom on EFP after Harry Potter and One Direction. These Big 3 all have a disproportionate amount of M/F stories.

By logic, this would mean the the majority of the userbase on EFP prefers M/F stories. But then, aren't fans always complaining about “too much slash”? If “Any Two Guys” were enough to find slash appealing, wouldn't it be easier to simply write original M/M?

I think that looking at original stories might help us understand why people might prefer slash over het in some fandoms. For example, the amount of M/F stories in Original Fiction – Romantic implies that, when authors have to chance to choose what types of stories to create from scratch, they might prefer M/F stories.

This would support the theory that many people might prefer slash because of the lack of (well written/primary) canonical female characters + how well M/M relationships, both platonic and romantic, are written in canon texts in comparison to M/F or F/F relationships.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not all fanfic writers write original fiction and viceversa, so I'm not trying to find a universal explanation here. Also because not every website has a majority of M/F stories.

Which brings us to...

AO3 vs. EFP

As per today 20/04/21, the Italian section of AO3 contains “only” 24777 stories, divided between many different fandoms. To make a comparison, the Italian stories on AO3 amount to 5% of all the stories available on EFP. To make another comparison, the whole Naruto fandom on EFP has 20129 stories in total.

EFP has also been active for 20 years, while the boom of Italian fics on AO3 only started around 2018. We can't really make a 1:1 comparison between the two archives, but we can still try to understand the preferences of their users.

M/M and M/F stories on EFP vs. AO3

EFP: 60% M/F, 25% M/M

AO3: 56% M/M, 23% M/F

The percentages are almost swapped.

This might be because of the archives themselves. EFP has always been the general website for any Italian fandom (and actually at first it mostly hosted M/F content), while AO3 has always had a big M/M userbase. I'm basing this statement on this AO3 analysis from 2013, in comparison to this FFN analysis from 2018 which showed a majority of M/F fanworks, and finally this AO3 vs. FFN vs. Wattpad analysis from 2019, which showed that AO3 has always been the outlier for its majority of M/M content.

Then again, M/M stories on EFP have always been subject to the “usual” type of borderline-to-direct harassment that M/M fans are used to, which is something that still happens to this day especially in certain writing groups on Facebook, where the Italian writing community is pretty active. It wouldn't be weird for slashers to move to AO3, where they know they'll find more like-minded people and less headaches. (Also, the Italian section of AO3 has a lot of M/M RPF that's banned on EFP.)

The “Multi” tag on EFP

The only thing that barely resembles a multi tag on EFP is threesome, which for some reason is often used as a synonym for love triangle. So from the tags it isn't easy to understand if a fic includes an actual threesome (as in, a sex scene), a polyamorous relationship, or a simple love triangle.

This doesn't mean that there aren't poly stories on EFP—it simply means that they're impossible to find using the search system.

And that's all, I think!

#italian fandom meta #efp analysis #ao3 analysis #fandom meta

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primergon · 3 years

Note

I'm not sure if you're still doing these and it's fine if you don't since you have your own life and can be busy but if it's alright, may I request a tfp match up?

I'm 5'3, asexual and chubby and go by she/her.

I'm calm and withdrawn at first, I'm usually very silent when I'm surrounded by people I am not comfortable with. I have suspicions that my selective mutism that I had when I was younger may still be around because there are some situations that require to speak, I get uncomfortable and find it hard to say anything. I don't know, it's just a thought, not sure if I still kind of have it. I just kinda hate being forced to talk when I don't want to. I don't go out much, I prefer indoors, I only go out if I have to.

But yeah, when I'm surrounded by people I'm comfortable with, I'm more talkative and more expressive of my emotions. I don't have many friends in real life but I do have a few online ones.

I usually prefer texting than verbally talking to be honest. Its just easier for me to express. Not like I could physically see my two best friends since I had to move last year but luckily we have discord 💀🤚 otherwise my dumbass can't even go out to try and make friends nor even want to.

I like games, though, I'm also a procrastinator and a lazy person. I tend to procrastinate on my school work and other things like watching a certain anime, tv show, movie and even with playing games. I have a game block 😔👊.

I don't know, but I can be insecure about myself but I try to be positive about some qualities I have. Anyone could compliment me, I mean, there's nothing to compliment anyways, I would just say that they blind or something or wrong. I get insecure when I show people my music taste only because they just seem uninterested when I play it 😔👊. My friends reckon I'm smart but I just don't apply myself to my assignments... Idk, I believe I'm just stupid. Somehow, I don't get stressed out easily, even when a due date is coming up and I haven't done much in my assignment. But that probably depends on the subject and how important it is for it to be done, otherwise I will start getting a little stressed. I don't believe that my problems should matter ever, because I've had a good childhood, a loving family, though occasionally, I have some problems with my dad otherwise we're usually fine. I mean, my friends and many other people have it worse than me so that's why I don't think my problems are relevant.

I can get childish and get distracted easily. Like, I could be doing an assignment or homework and after 30 seconds, I'm on my phone or doing something else 💀. Sometimes, I need things dumbed down for me because I'm just like, "what??"

I love comedy and laughing, it's just fun. I like memes and sending cursed memes to my friends or anyone else that happens to be on the same server I am. To be honest, I'm active 24/7 on discord and mostly active on one server because I socially suck to talk on any other. I'm not a fan of horror because obviously it's scary yet I like watching people play horror games 🤔.

I'm not a fan of physical affection, but it depends on who the person is and how comfortable I get with them like my family for example. My love language would be quality time I think but only a bit of physical affection if I'm comfortable enough ig 😕.

I've never been in a relationship before because I fear cheating, arguments, having a significant other bored of me and all the other problems. And because I'm not that interest in romance that much at the moment in my life

In regards to people having problems in their life and they vent to me, I find it hard to comfort them. I try to do my best but I suck at it. I usually don't know what to say and I wish I knew. It's not that I don't care, I do, I'm just more of a listener than a talker but I try to find some words to say in attempt to help. It's a little easier for me to comfort someone online than in person, I'd probably be silent.

I'm good at keeping secrets, I would take them to the grave, though sometimes I can forget depending on the secret. I can be a forgetful person, not only with some secrets but other stuff I'm suppose to remember 😭.

I love music, I can't tell what genre I like, I like many songs. I'm also an animal lover and currently doing animal studies, which mostly revolves around dogs at the moment but I'm looking forward for the cat part, I love cats, I have two of them.

I'm sorry for all this information, now that I look at it, that's alot. I'm sorry 😭🤚

A/N : Hi Anon! Thanks for sending this ask, I hope you're doing well (｡𓎆 𓎺 𓎆) Don't worry about the long descriptions, I don't mind! I think I'll pair you up with tfp Smokescreen !

TFP SMOKESCREEN

01 | Smokescreen has a way of making you feel at home. In the beginning, you were reluctant to open up, yet once you've gotten to know the playful mech, you find it easy to talk to Smokescreen. You enjoy listening to him ramble on and on and on and find no trouble comforting him when he needs to hear it. In return, Smokescreen is more than happy to speak on your behalf whenever you don't feel like talking. He may be enthusiastic by nature but he isn't pushy. He never forces you to do something you're not okay with and makes you feel safe. This is why eventually you opened up to him and both of you became fast friends.

02 | Texting with Smokescreen is never boring. He's always ready with a handful of reaction pictures and a dozen of emojis when chatting with you. The young mech is naturally expressive and curious, which is why he's always up to date with the latest memes and trends. ( The way Smokescreen text may frustrate Ultra Magnus at times but it never fails to make you laugh.)

03 | Two of you share a lot of common interests which is why you get along so well. Ever since Jack taught him how to play video games, he's been asking you to indulge him. Smokescreen can also sometimes feel worn out and choose to watch movies with you indoors instead, following the plot of your favorite anime and always quoting them on the battlefield. He's not picky and is almost up for anything as long as you get to spend some quality time.

04 | With his positive, upbeat attitude, Smokescreen rarely seems upset or dissatisfied on the outside. But his inner idealism can leave the mech with a nagging feeling that some major areas of their life just aren’t good enough – which would sometimes make him feel insecure. The two of you seem to understand and relate to each other's experiences, making you comfort buddies that lift each other's spirits whenever you both feel down. He reminds you constantly that your problems matter and he's more than happy to listen to you vent, while you assure him that he is good enough because he's trying his best.

05 | He knows you're afraid of starting a relationship, and while he can be a bit impatient and bold, Smokescreen is more than happy to take it slow with you. While he himself is disorganized, Smokescreen tries his best to remind you to catch up on schoolwork. ( Smokescreen tells himself he's turning into Ultra Magnus whenever he finds himself nagging you.) He doesn't take it against you when you don't get what others are saying and is more than willing to rephrase it for better understanding.

06 | Smokescreen thinks you're special. He loves how you're so good with animals and how you seem to have all the right songs to show him. Smokescreen can watch you play with your cats for hours and has a copy of your playlist for him to listen to whenever he feels down. He finds it adorable how you can be forgetful at times and admires how loyal you are in keeping secrets. ( Like that one time you covered for him and saved him from being yelled at by Ratchet.) He doesn't see any flaw in you and even if he does, he accepts that as a part of you : his favorite human.

I hope you enjoy this Anon ! xx

#smokescreen #tfp smokescreen #smokescreen tfp #matchups #transformers matchup #transformers matchups #reader inserts #reader insert #transformers reader insert #tfp reader inserts #tfp reader insert #tfp #transformers prime #maccadam #maccadams

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dumbass-mha-simp · 3 years

Text

Hawks x Reader: Bad Idea

Another self indulgent Hawks fic that I've literally had in my notes for months. He lives in my head rent free along with my other 22 fake boyfriend's because I'm ✨mentally unstable.✨ It is a song fic tho, Bad Idea ft. Shiloh Dynasty https://youtu.be/kH9hJnT7KkE

youtube

Tw: food, depression, Hawks is honestly just feeling it bro- same dude,

Word count: almost 2k? I think

Requests are open! Honestly I'm probably terrible but the only things I can think to write are those imaginary situations I put myself in

(Y/L/N)- your last name

(Y/N)- your name

Thoughts or emphasized talk are in italics

Also idk why but I imagine he removes his feathers to shower since they probably need different cleaning conditions and also they just seem like a hassle in showers.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Here he was, the number two prohero. Everyone assumed his life was perfect, anything he wanted served on a gold platter. He felt the guilt creep up into him.

I should be thankful. The thoughts ate away at his mind in the rare seconds he got alone. You shouldn't be so selfish. So annoying. So insufferable.

Takami pushed these thoughts back. "No one needs to know how you think, Keigo." He whispers out to himself in his office.

He scrawled at paper work, trying to not let the self depreciating thoughts feast away on his mind. Unfortunately for him, different thoughts came up.

His best friend, Rumi had this friend. (Y/L/N). Smart, attractive, sometimes a little rough around the edges, but amazing. He found his mind wandering to them all too often.

They were mostly unknown, despite their insanely strong quirk. They preferred to stay out of the lime-light, through that irritable exterior sat overwhelming anxiety and shyness. But they always denied it.

He stopped himself as he realized he's spent 10 minutes only thinking of them, a friend. Yeah right.

He lazily walked out of the office waving to all his employees as he made his way outside. His eyes slowly dragged to the darkly faded blue sky, dusted in clouds. Cold, tired, aching. Just how he felt.

He took a slow brisk flight to his house, feeling the wind bash his face and the air flow through his feathers. He gently placed a foot on the metal railing of his balcony, taking a deep step to the ground and opening the door.

The emptiness rung through his apartment like a blaring siren. You have everything. How can you still want more?

The voices in his head screamed and clawed their way out. You're nobody. No one ever loved you. You're so alone. You're nothing but a tool to the commission. You're actual character is useless.

He shed his coat, boots, and pants. Looking to himself in the mirror as he removed most of his feathers. He looked exhausted as he stumbled into the shower, numbly.

The next ten minutes seemed to elude him when he wondered how much time has gone by of him staring at the shower wall blankly.

He dried off a bit then looked around his kitchen for something to eat. Have I eaten today? The buzz and light of his phone on the counter startled him.

"Hey, Hawks." A single, simple message from (Y/L/N). Okay don't panic.

"What's up?" He replied swiftly.

"I had this feeling something was wrong and wanted to check up on you."

"Why would you think that?" He tried to play it off like it wasn't true without actually lying.

"I'm not sure. Do you maybe wanna join me?" You asked.

"Where?"

"Well, every once in awhile when I need a break I go and stargaze with a night picnic. It helps me relax, and if you think it might help I'd want to. I can tell something's off." You were always so convincing. It felt like you weren't too nosy or snoopy but you understood.

"Text me where to be and when?" He let out a gentle smile at his phone.

"The dollar store on 4th in 10 minutes? So we can choose some snacks together?"

"I'll be there."

Did Takami think any problems where going to be solved with some food in the dark? No. But would he skip the opportunity to be with you, to find out how he really felt when it was just you two? Absolutely not.

He landed down on the broken pavement outside of the old dollar store, scanning around to see you.

"Boo!" A bump from behind had him flinching to see the sound as you stood behind him giggling. "Got ya."

"Very funny (Y/L/N) the most amazing trick yet." He rolled his eyes with a slight smile.

"C'mon let's go grab a bunch of terrible snacks and call it a picnic, bird brain."

You two walked into the store and walked a large circle around it, choosing chips and candy and drinks at your leisure. Once you got to the counter, he fights you to his wallet.

"It's my picnic."

"And I'm the very special guest who was so generously invited. I'm paying." He grins as you pout at him.

Grabbing the bags you placed them in the back seat as you offered passenger side to him.

"I don't like cars."

"Why not?"

"Cramps my wings."

You look at him with the biggest puppy eyes you can manage. "You already agreed to keep me company and pay for the snacks, let me do something for you?"

"Fine, but only cause you're pouting kid."

He gently sits in your passenger seat as you strap yourself in and turn the car on. The car hums and the music playing softly on the radio are the only things heard. The peace feeling too good to break.

Once you pull your car up into the parking lot of a small park and grab your bags, you begin leading him to your usual place.

"Hold these." You hand him the bags as you jump and climb up on top of a big metal container. You peer over the side with big eyes and a smile as you say to him, "now hand me the bags and do what I did!"

He looks at you with a wide smirk before simply flying up to join you. "Or you can do it the cheater's way." You pouted and bumped his shoulder.

"It's not cheating, it's using my resources." He says with a triumphant smirk.

"Your cheating resources." You pull out your gummy candies and started eating as you leaned back till you were laying down.

"Do you like the stars, Hawks?" You say like your sleep talking, staring into the night sky.

"Keigo." He shifts to lay down about a foot away from you. "You can call me, Keigo. And... I don't think I've ever taken time to look at the stars."

"No sneaking out away from parents to sit on vans and stargaze? Or watching the sunrise with a partner while eating fast food?"

"What kinda date is sitting in a car for hours staring at the sky and eating?" He laughs.

"Ah one that never really happened, he just said he would. But never mind that repressed shit." A sad laugh forces itself out as you stare between the stars.

"Was he cute?" He tried to sound funny but it came out more sympathetic.

"Sometimes," you laugh with him. "But he had really nice hands."

"Hands? That's an odd thing to find attractive." He turned his head over to look at you as your eyes seemed to burn holes in the dark milky blue sky.

He continued laughing with you about this guy but couldn't help an overwhelming feeling of jealousy. Who was he? Did he look anything like him? Was this recent?

"Keigo?" A voice snapped at his train or thought, "Yes, (Y/L/N)?" He replied rushed.

"Do you want your mini cookies?" You ask looking to him with the bag.

"Oh, yeah. Thanks." He mentions grabbing the bag from your finger tips.

He ate his cookies and thought as you seemed either lost in your head, or lost in the stars.

Loving you would be selfish. As such a high ranking hero, he's made a target for himself and anyone around him. He's broken down, can't feel. You obviously have other people on your mind. Someone like you wouldn't be single long.

"When did he leave?" He blurts out without thinking. Maybe it's a sore subject-

"Long ago." You look lost, your eyes searching and wandering but never grabbing hold of exactly where you should be. "Why?" Well I guess if I'm gonna start prying might as well go all the way.

"He thought that maybe he could love me. But now that's just ridiculous," you laugh coldly. "Who would love me?"

"Falling in love with you seems like a really bad idea. But not on your part." He whispers into the wind, hoping it'll carry his words away from you.

"What do you mean?" You look completely confused, almost scattered.

"You're quiet, and I'm someone who puts a spotlight on practically anyone around me. You'd constantly be put in danger. Plus I'm arrogant and cocky, nothing at all like you." He acted like he could see the stars as you could. He stared into them finding any way he could to avoid your eyes.

"You could get hurt or I could annoy you." He whispers.

"I had no idea you felt that way, Keigo." You whisper back, shock keeping your voice quiet.

His eyes burned holes into the night sky, he felt he shouldn't look at you. The mental image of you already wouldn't go away.

"You wanna know something, Keigo? I can read people like books, I can read stars like stories, and I can read in-between lines like they were in bold font. But, you always catch me off guard. Reading you is like a mystery novel. Sometimes intense, sometimes peaceful, but always keeping me wondering." You smile into the stars, you can tell he desperately doesn't want to see your eyes. "You're always leaving everyone on the edge of their seat, and when you leave you can't stop thinking of the next time you'll come. What you'll bring."

"I....I don't think I understand (Y/L/N)-" Keigo's soon cut off.

"(Y/N)"

"Well, (Y/N)- I don't think I understand." He tries to sit up and look at you.

"You catch me off guard, something about you speaks to me in ways I know you never actually would. I can see it, the way you stumble or hesitate. I can tell somethings scared you into silence." You've never had much chance to talk about the ways you analyze people, you wanted to tell him how you could tell the way he acted wasn't always good.

"I think you might be reading too much into this, kid." He tries to intervene.

"I get if you don't want to tell me." You stared up at the stars, waiting for him to do the same. "You see there?" You pointed to a star. "That's a constellation."

"They just look like stars." He seemed a bit disappointed that he couldn't see stars the way you did, with such knowledge and wonder in your eyes.

"That's cause they are," you giggled to him, "it's not like I can actually see the pictures either."

"You.. you can't?" He looked to you confused but slightly hopeful, how could they look at them but not see too?

"That's the whole point, Keigo. It's being able to see what's not really there. Sometimes I stare into the sky hoping to see any semblance of hope, but that's not how it is. You have to teach yourself to look at what could be there." He stared to you, a small content smile graced your face. You were beautiful.

"(Y/N)?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe, loving you isn't such a bad idea.." he looked remorseful, staring into the stars. Maybe he could see it too one day.

"What do you mean?" You glace to him.

"You see so much, you can read and see the things I want to see. I want to learn, (Y/N). I want to see how you do."

The smile on your face spread.

"I'd love to show you."

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wolf-stark · 3 years

Note

You ask I deliver — both tfatws asks in one!

tfatws weekly ask 1

i finally saw ep1!! i wont be able to see ep2 until thursday at the earliest but i already have some Thots on this ep. here are the ones I remember

first is, and i'm so sorry for this, a grammar lesson. an appositive is when you stick an additional phrase in between commas, dashes, or the like. i actually just used one! the "and i'm so sorry for this" in the first sentence of this paragraph is an appositive. thing is, most english speakers don't normally use them when they speak, only in writing. so i'm always on high alert whenever i hear somebody in tv or movies use one. (it's generally a marker of bad screenwriting). anyway there was one right in the beginning of the episode. the white army guy yelling at sam wilson said "first lieutenant Torres, our intel officer, will be helping on the ground." yeah so. the writing of this series started out on the wrong foot for me. but the rest of the episode was obviously tons and tons better (every interview i see with malcolm spellman makes me love him more and more)

the contrast between the opening minutes (falcon action sequence) and the rest of the ep.... i would 100000/10 rather watch a series with just sam and bucky dealing with life. i dont give a single crap about the flag-smashers or any of that. i just want sam, sarah & fam getting their boating business back on the ground & yeeting racist dickwads, bucky going through therapy and making amends, sam and joaquin being bros, sambucky homoerotic tension, etc.

the cinnamontography! wandavision mostly used cinematography to signify era n stuff. tfatws doesn't have wv's premise to go off of, so here's some tricks i noticed:

with sam there's obviously all sorts of shots with the captain america iconography next to his face, but he hasn't totally claimed it. there's the mural of steve rogers in the background; there's sam staring into the shield like it's a spectre of steve's face; there's sam looking into the exhibit, the shield and sam separated by glass and a layer of camera focus. steve is a constant spectre, always there, an idea, a symbol himself. sam's relationship with this iconography is distanced. he is separated by glass exhibit walls. by painting canvases. he doesn't yet feel worthy to take on that iconography. this whole thing was pulled off quite well but also a bit on-the-nose if only in quantity. there's just sooooo much fancy iconography stuff

speaking of the exhibit, there's something that i get real pissy about. it's when like, there's an action going on you're supposed to be paying attention to but the cinematographer is like,,,, hey! check out this location! or this headline! or something! there was a lot of that in the exhibit. the camera was like, you could focus on sam and rhodey's convo (which was fine but could have been so much better with an extra like 10 minutes of deep character study talk) but noooo you want me to look at the symbol for the united nations and read all the text about bucky who hasn't even showed up yet. shut up i know the lore and ill watch the shot-by-shot breakdown yt vids you don't have to make the shot this long jkdsalcjklasejf

my fav trick was with bucky and the therapist. i had seen a clip of the scene with bucky and the therapist beforehand and i thought the cinnamontography was super obnoxious, but then i was like, oh duh. the shots frequently change the distance between the camera and its subject. sometimes it's uncomfortably close and sometimes it's really far. a clear allegory for the duality of therapy, esp for bucky! therapy is an invasive process wherein he is ruthlessly examined, picked apart, and berated for his trauma (this therapist is crap in every way btw, "mean therapist" works for greg house and greg house only). so the camera goes close. it makes the viewer claustrophobic like bucky. but when he's like "no i haven't had any nightmares" the camera suddenly goes really far. we see bucky as this tiny head in the center of the bottom of the frame. we are distanced from him. he has pushed us away. we cannot see him. he lies because he is vulnerable. so yeah, amazing work there. the therapy scene was hard to watch on purpose!

did bucky slip a note to yori inside the dollar bill? bucky stop making me emooooo. the suuper awkward fake smile has me 😭 (veteran trying to adjust!)

mark my worrrrds when sam asks someone y the govt picked john “white bread” walker they’re gonna say “we needed somebody everyone can get behind....someone uncontroversial, someone everyone can see themselves in” like that exact racist dog whistle

tfatws weekly ask 2

just saw ep2 so im taking advantage of the 2 seconds i can be on tumblr without worrying about tfatws spoilers before new episode drops

when isaiah said "your people put me in prison for being a hero" and bucky thought "your people" means hydra. 🤦‍♂️

speaking of racism, the interplay between sam being Black (anti-Black racism) and sam being the Falcon (negrophilia, "can i take a selfie w you as i deny you a loan?") and the intersection between the two (j*hn lichrally called sam "steve's wingman"! he takes the crypto out of crypto-racist in like 2 seconds!) !!!!!!!! a Black celebrity's Black experience, the separation of man and identity!!!! (thinking about vanessa bayer in snl in that skit "beyonce is black" telling her black friend "you're not black, you're...my girl!")

after sam gets racially profiled by cops we see j*hn standing in front of cop cars cinematic parallels turns out j*hn is racist who knew

this therapist sucks major ass but she got bucky and sam together in the same room and ready to collaborate...that's something ig. it was lichrally couple's therapy she said she used her miracle exercise with couples sambucky antis get blended

bucky says "he was wrong about you so maybe he was wrong about me"...that's not how people talk. when therapist asks bucky, the guy who doesn't talk at all about himself, "y do you hate sam", the last thing bucky's gonna do is actually connect his hatred of sam to his own self-worth issues. bucky generally refuses to talk about himself, so why would he talk about himself in the one context that nobody ever links back to their own neuroses: hatred of other people? one thing human beings hate most is admitting we're wrong. admitting you hate someone because of your own issues? that's a major therapeutic step. bucky would absolutely have to be prompted to do that. even like one or two lines of dialogue more would have set up that line better. but in terms of the actual thought? an amazing way to take the sam/bucky relationship. bucky bases his self-worth on steve believing in him, and if steve is wrong bucky has no self-worth, so 1) he has to develop self-worth disassociated from steve's assessment of him and 2) he has to love himself before he can love sam, and 3) he has to realize that sam giving up the shield is a sign of sam's humility not his unworthiness.

conversely, we don't get into why sam hates bucky? yeah sam has the right to hate a guy that has tried to kill him (albeit while brainwashed) multiple times, and now shows up in his life just to bash him but. everything happens so fast i cant follow their relationship

in fact i dont feel like i understood much of anything. like y did bucky and sam go on that mission together? how connected are sam/bucky/joaquin with the government? doesn't bucky just want to retire now? literally what is everyone doing/feeling and why???

if battlestar becomes a knowing commentary on the black best friend stereotype i'm gonna party, but i dont expect much of that

the interplay between man and symbol. captain america is obviously a symbol. the shield is obviously a symbol. but steve rogers? the. man behind the cowl? he too seems to become a symbol. a paragon of a good guy, so good he's unreachable. steve was just a guy stop idolizing him the last thing steve would want is to be idolized

as the resident musician/music nerd on mcublr, 1) that captain america rally music slaps, but 2) re: the song at the end of the ep, if you're just gonna rip off mozart's lacrymosa then at least play mozart's lacrymosa. we wont blame you the lacrymosa slaps (if you dont know what im talking about go on yt and search it up youll recognize it fo sho

look i love enfys nest as much as the next guy but if tfatws is gonna get erin kellyman to play another innocent little gurl blackmailed into the fakeout-villain position (her text seemed to suggest as such) then 😡 like why can't women just....be evil? young, freckly, innocent-looking women? girls are not untouchable pure objects but full of rage and resentment just as much as anyone can be

bonus ep1 comment: bucky says about that senator whose car he hijacked, "she continued to abuse the power i gave her." fictionaldarling on yt say that he says "i" because he can't disassociate himself from his winter soldier persona which begets endless and senseless guilt. like dude. can i not be emo for like 1 second.

OKay. First off, as much I enjoy your sending it to me, what made you decide to send me these??

TFATWS WA #1

Don't worry about getting this to me as early as possible. I usually don't watch the episode right away.

1. Cool writing lesson.

2. Everyone wants a comedy show [like Friends] about the MCU superheroes.

3. Cinematography is always a beautiful thing.

4. Sam definitely has to carve his own Captain America status for himself, outside of Steve's ya know everything.

5. They have to do that for people who was just now tuning in because they're in love with Sam Wilson or Sharon Carter.

6. I think the therapist was taking a 'tough love' approach for Bucky, because she likely has some very strong opinions about the literal assassin she's been assigned to give therapy too. She did not choose to talk to him, she was assigned that make that clear in the second episode.

And, Bucky isn't lying when he said it wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a nightmare, it was a resurfaced memory. So, technically he wasn't lying - and yes, the camera does move away because while he's saying he didn't have a nightmare, he's not expanding on what actually happened - so, he's still pushing the therapist/us away.

7. Bucky, and Steve, have/had a TON to adjust to.

8. Yeah, I agree that will be the bullshit line they give. If they ever actually talk about it.

TFATW WA #2

Yeah, always got to take advantage of avoiding those spoilers lmfaoo.

1. Honestly, that line was double meaning. Both about White people and Hydra [which is made up of mostly white supremacists/nazis] So, the line is gesturing to both White People in general and Hydra assholes together. I think the terminology is “double edge sword”??

2. This whole paragraph structure confused me, ngl - so I'm going to answer it the best I can. I do like that they're not ignoring the fact that Sam being Black is 1000% the reason he's not the Official Captain America - because the gov't is racist as hell.

I also like the little lines about how they point out little things about Sam's Falcon persona, like that kid calling him 'Black Falcon' specifically and Sam's response show the split between Sam and Falcon itself.

John is a dick for calling Sam the wingman of Steve Rogers. Sam was a hero all on his own before Steve asked him to join up again. [Side note, it's lichrally??]

3. Exactly, the parallel of Sam being profiled and surrounded while just on the street and John being surrounded by fans and being able to spring Bucky with apparently only a few sentences shows a Loooooot

4. Honestly, at this point I wonder if she's not actually a therapist and is just an agent assigned to assess Bucky outside of an Official Building. I do know, however, that her 'look at each other and speak' exercise is actually a real therapy practice. It's just a little slower.

5. Actually, I think he would've blurted that out. That whole line. I don't think Bucky hates Sam. I think they could've done the scene better, but I think that had Sam prodded him/the therapist been more annoying Bucky would've lost control of his emotions and blurted out the whole "If he was wrong about you, he was wrong about me" but I feel like the writing for this show is just... not there. Sometimes you blurt shit when you get overemotional and I think that was what Bucky was supposed to be like.

6. I don't think Sam hates Bucky, I think he doesn't trust him though. I do wish they'd talked about that though. The whole 'talk to each other' scene should've been a LOT longer and a LOT slower.

7. Sam and Bucky's relationship is being fast tracked because they don't really know how to work the relationship out, writers-room-wise. Bucky is technically retired, but I feel like he's trying to live up to Steve's expectations and doing what Steve would've done and we all know that if Steve was there, Steve would've jumped on that plane with Sam. It looks like Sam/Bucky/Joaquin are a side-team based from Military services but as Sam says they're all free agents so...?

8. Sadly, They seem to just be propping up to be another stereotype.

9. Captain America is a symbol. Steve Rogers is a man. But now Steve Rogers is an idol because of all the shit he's been through and honestly, it's not a bad thing he's become an idol for people - it's using Steve as a reason to make White Bread Walker the next Captain that makes Steve's idolization so fucked.

10. I don't know anything about music so I have no opinion here, sorry.

11. Enfys?? Also, I think they did the whole Innocent Girl Thing as side commentary for Bucky lowering his guard about seeing a young girl rather than a guy.

12. Bucky is the Winter Solider. The Winter Solider is Bucky. That is how Bucky will always see it because although he was brainwashed, it was still him and he remembers all of it. When you have constant memories of something 'someone else' did, you tend to not be able to pull the two personas out of each other. I want Bucky to take up the title, White Wolf instead of Winter Soldier. Honest.

This is all my opinion, I’m honestly a little disappointed with the writing of TFATWS so far so... I’m not really optimistic about this.

#Asks

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sevenbroschillinginthebathtub · 3 years

Text

This is mainly for Until Dawn Fans, it's a small analysis of characters, their tropes and everything around them, together with typing their MBTI (Myers Briggs)

I think we should we should start with the so-called protagonist, final girl

1. Samantha Giddings (ISFP)

When I ask people, who is their favorite character from Until Dawn, this lovely lady is the most popular answer. The question is why? Sam is very likable character, her personality is very suitable to the setting as she's the calm, kind girl, who supports everyone around her, calms down all arguments and doesn't start any. She's able to truly empathize with everyone and by the status bars in main menu, she's the only character who has good relationship with all other characters.

Obviously as a person, I think she's a very lovable girl, but as a character she's my least favorite. Why? Because she seems very bland in comparison with other characters. There is something I adore about Until Dawn- all the characters are made from popular horror tropes, but they have this special, realistic depth to them. And Sam doesn't. She's just the perfect final girl, the strong virgin protagonist, but that's it. I was analyzing her, all the dialogues, scenes with her, but I just don't see it.

It would probably be fair to say that she's a Mary Sue- everyone likes her(no one loves her), she's good at almost everything, smart, calm, kind, agreeable, but where are the flaws? We need flaws to make character 3-dimensional and relatable.

2. Joshua Washington (ENFJ)

Josh is the tragic antihero of this interactive story-game. He lost two of the closest people in his life at the same time. In the beginning we are introduced to him as to "complex, thoughtful and loving". These three traits are a great summary of his whole persona. We can play with these traits to fully describe and analyze him. Josh sure is very loving individual and before the death of his sisters, he was probably a great person to hang out with.

After the tragedy, all of these seemingly positive traits(complex is neutral) are turned to negative ones. The loss of his sisters, which causes his mental issues, makes him do very questionable things, just in the name of revenge. The therapies and medicine seem to help just for a very short time, while he carefully plans the whole "trip", together with all the traps and everything. It's very interesting that he is able to work under this mental state and turn his anger and misery to productive work.

3. Jessica Riley (ESFP)

Jessica is supposed to portrait the "dumb blonde" trope. I have to say that this is in my opinion one of the best written characters in the game. She perfectly suits the trope, but she's much more than that. Yes, I'm also talking about the dialogue when she reveals that she's actually deeply insecure person and tries to hide it with huge confidence, but that's not all of it.

The year, when Hannah and Beth Washington go missing, we can see her as the first character. She's the one who came up with the whole idea of pranking the two because she wanted to protect her best friend's(Emily) relationship with her boyfriend(Mike). But the next year we can see that she's dating Mike. What happened during that time? Why did Mike break up with Emily and all from sudden started dating Jessica? Don't take me wrong, I don't really care about morality of the situation, but why would she sacrifice her friendship with Emily to start dating her boyfriend? And she did not only sacrifice their friendship, they became something like enemies, as we could see and hear their argument.

4. Michael Monroe (ESTP)

There we have another trope, the "Casanova". The charming, handsome, confident and humorous guy. I'd call him "The heart of the prank" while Jessica was probably "The brain of whole operation". We can't forget, that the whole prank happened because of Hannah's interest in Mike. It's quite ironic, that the whole point of the prank was to save his relationship with Emily, but he left her anyway for someone different. Later on (if Matt insists on Emily, while she's hanging of the tower) we find out, that he cheated on Jessica with Emily.

Pardon me, but I'll use the quote "With great power comes great responsibility". Mike has the great power of charming anyone he wants, but he seems to be unable to keep this under control. And the worst part of it, is that he doesn't suffer from any consequences. Emily and Jessica end their friendship, become enemies, blame each other, but nothing goes on Mike. Emily seems to be very friendly with him, maybe too friendly, Jessica is dating him. And his "invincibleness" is making his ego grow bigger and bigger.

Another thing- Mike's development throughout the game was literally going from a popular teenager to Nathan Drake.

5. Emily Davis (ESTJ)

Emily is another character, who perfectly fits her trope- "The bitch". Again, when I ask people what do they think of her, the answer is always an extreme- they adore or despise her. I belong to the first category, as she is my favorite character, but I won't be biased.

Her personality traits are "resourceful, intelligent and persuasive" from which she has two in common with Mike(intelligent and persuasive). These three traits combined with low self-esteem don't go very well together. As we all know, most over-confident people are actually insecure and from sittings with Dr. Hill we know that she has a fear of failure, which just proves it.

She's very manipulative as we can see in her scenes with Matt, therefore she probably wants to have control over everything and everyone. We didn't get to see much of her and Mike, but these two must've had way better dynamic than her and Matt. Both are rather dominant, but Emily is less flexible and it's probably harder for to admit her faults. Another thing we know about her is that she's academic, since her GPA score is 4.0.

6. Matthew Taylor (ISFJ)

Matt is not the typical jock he was written as. He's portraited as submissive, kind-hearted, caring and sometimes even witty. I have to say, that he was very likable character, but he wasn't as complex and deep as other characters. He didn't get much of screentime, as well as Jessica didn't, but he was way more bland than her. It could be because of his sweet personality and everyone mostly remember someone who is sassy and loud than someone who doesn't really stand out in any way.

Another thing is, that it's very hard to keep him alive. Yes, there are people who didn't give a damn about Emily, so they saved Matt. But also the whole passage with him and Jessica (determinant) escaping from Wendigo can be tricky.

7. Christopher Hartley (INTP)

Chris is a nice bliss in all the darkness of Until Dawn. He's character is enlightening, humorous, smart and tries to keep his head cool. He's supposed to portrait "The Nerd". I appreciate that the writers for not showing him as some robot spitting out facts and dates, because no person talks like that, just nerds in badly written movies and series.

Big part of his character arc is his friendship with Josh and Ashley. He has nice and natural chemistry with both of them and it makes him show his caring side. I'm not really sure who he'd choose to save during the first decision making, but it probably would be Ashley, since he's very protective about her and during the second decision making, he would 80% save Ash (my subjective calculations) and sacrifice himself.

8. Ashley Brown (ISTJ)

I wanted to leave her for the end, because she's, at least for me, the most complex character in Until Dawn. Lot of people hate her because of her hysterical reaction, but she probably had the most realistic reactions and emotions from all eight characters.

Another reason why she's hated, is her choice of letting Chris die if he chooses to "shoot" her. Honestly, I think that this reaction and action of not opening the door for one of her best friends and letting Wendigo to tear his head from the rest if his body was spontaneous. She didn't want him to die, but felt a great resentment towards him and this held her from opening the door. But right the moment when the Wendigo got him, her expression clearly showed regret, because she didn't mean to hurt him.

Obviously, this is no excuse, only an explanation, which may lead us to forgiveness.

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chooserecovery · 7 years

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I can't find a reason to stop SH,or to want to stop.I mean,I know it's super fucked up,but if it's only hurting me and it helps then what's the point in stopping?

In the guide to reducing self-injury (which was written by Bree) there are a few reasons listed for why you should stop. They mostly focus on physical risks and the possible after-effects. For those who don’t want to click the link, here’s the list:

It’s dangerous: there is a risk of infection no matter how severe the wound is; you could hit a vein or artery which can make things more serious than you intended, or, in some cases, cause death; if you damage a muscle or tendon you could permanently damage your motor skills.

It’s addictive. Self harm releases endorphins in your brain, and you can get addicted to their release. The more you do it, the harder it is to stop.

It can make you feel worse. After self harm, many people feel guilt, shame, sadness and depression. It can end up making the problem worse instead of better.

It is a temporary solution that doesn’t help you deal with the problem. If you self harm instead of letting out your emotions in a healthy way, the emotions can bottle up and explode in an inconvenient way.

You could get caught.

All valid concerns, and worth considering. A common pattern when people SI as a way to cope, which I’m assuming is your main purpose since you said that it helps you, is that, over time people start to feel trapped by their SI.

It basically plays out like this: SI helps. Because it helps, and it helps faster and sometimes better than anything else we try, we use it to deal with more problems. We favor it over other ways to deal with things, because it seems to work so much better. We get used to doing it, and it doesn’t seem to help as much anymore. We’ve been favoring it over other strategies for long enough that it’s hard to find anything else that works because we haven’t spent that time figuring out how to tell what we need in each situation. Because we don’t have other techniques at our disposal, we SI more in the hopes that it’ll work better. We can’t stop, because it is the only thing we have that works–even if it doesn’t work as well as it used to, it’s better than nothing.

Maybe you haven’t gotten into this situation yet. Maybe you won’t. I can’t see inside your head. But I’ve seen things play out this way for so many people that it’s hard not to see it as inevitable. At the very least, it’s a risk that you, and anyone who SI’s should be aware of.

Also, specifically because you mentioned it not hurting anyone else, I’d like you to imagine for a moment that your best friend is hurting themself. Wouldn’t you be upset? Wouldn’t you want to tell them to stop? Most people would, and I’m willing to bet that the same is true of people who care about you. They may not know, it’s a pretty personal subject so a lot of people choose not to tell anyone, but chances are good that they would feel hurt by what you’re doing and by the fact that they can’t help.

Now, I’ve said all this in the off-chance that you don’t already know it. But, really, odds are good that you’ve heard all this before. Most people have heard all the downsides pretty quickly. They get talked about a lot. Sometimes that’s enough to convince people to stop. Other times, not so much, and that’s okay. So, I’m done talking about that. Instead, I’d like to tell you about some of the good things that I’ve found in recovery.

You don’t have to worry about hiding the marks anymore. When you have something to hide, there are things that you can’t do. If there is anything that might lead to you not being able to carefully control your clothing, there’s a good chance that you won’t do it while you SI. Once you stop, there are so many more things you can do without having to stop and consider whether you’ll need to hide parts of your body.

You don’t panic when you realize that you’ll be away from your tools for a few days. It’s okay to go on a trip without having to figure out a way for your tools to be plane-safe.

You start to learn ways to cope that you can take with you anywhere–no more having to hide in a bathroom with a tool because you’re freaking out about something that happened, just flip through your inventor of coping skills and find something that you can do in public, like breathing exercises.

You can get better at understanding what you’re feeling, and learn how to respond to what you need. Sometimes faster than you would otherwise, because you can recognize what’s coming.

You can feel more connected to people, because

You don’t have a secret to hide from them, so it doesn’t feel like there are as many walls between you and them

You have an incentive to talk openly with people and build a support network because you are looking for other ways to cope.

No more blood stains on random shit like honestly I don’t know if people realize how frustrating it is until it’s not an issue anymore.

So much more energy. Bodies get tired of having to constantly heal injuries. If you SI on a regular basis, then your body doesn’t get much of a chance to rest before starting to work on the next round or rebuilding and lost or damaged tissues. It’s exhausting, and stopping lets you get back to a normal level of energy not dampened by the constant unscheduled remodeling.

Those feelings that you’ve been trying to shove down with SI? They stop having as much power over you. Some of that comes from learning new ways to deal with them. Some of it comes from dealing with whatever it is that causes them, because you’re just sick of it coming back to bite you in the ass. And some of it is just because sometimes, because you’ve been dealing with things as they come, the problems seem a lot smaller. It’s like dealing with a handful of pebbles rather than a single giant boulder.

No more itching, praise whatever you believe in.

So, there’s some good things, a lot of which I didn’t really expect. As for motivation, if I’m honest, I didn’t really recover from SI until I accepted that I didn’t care about recovery anymore. Admittedly, a controversial stance to have for someone who co-runs a recovery blog. But I was miserable and tired of depriving myself of what seemed to be the only thing that helped, so I decided I was done telling myself not to. I was trapped either way, I may as well at least take the option that helped, right?

But it was a hassle to deal with it, and, frankly, I was a bit pissed at the concept of SI having more control over me than I did over it. So I decided I wasn’t going to stop, I was just going to commit to doing other things first. As I kept trying new stuff, I found other things that worked. And as I managed to move away from it and was forced to deal with more of my problems in other ways, I found that I was just generally a lot more confident moving through life and that things that happened didn’t seem like they were as big of a deal anymore. Eventually, it just seemed like it wasn’t worth the effort to SI anymore. I still don’t really have a hard ban on it, technically. But, mainly out of spite and laziness, I’ve just learned how to deal without it, and I don’t want to give up all of the things that I’ve gained from stopping. (Honestly, though, fucking ITCHING. Never again!)

Obviously, I support stopping SI. I think there are way more upsides to stopping, and I think that the harm of SI outweighs the benefits. But I included that last part to let you know that I get not wanting to stop. I get that it feels pointless sometimes. I get saying “Fuck it, this works for me.” But you can feel so much freer without it, and you deserve to be able to lead a life where you don’t constantly have problems resurfacing and the stress of wondering if people are going to find out, or of having to explain it to people when you do. And, really, you just don’t deserve to be hurt. You, and everyone else, deserve a life without needless pain and stress and worries. You can’t avoid all of those things, but if you’re willing to put in the effort then you can learn some tools to help you stop adding more of them to your life.

If this isn’t convincing to you, that’s okay. Maybe you’ll stumble across reasons of your own as you move through life. I hope you do. If it was convincing, though, check out that link at the top again. There are some solid tips for making it easier than just saying you’re done and trying to stop completely.

I wish you all the best, whatever you do,

–Luke

#Luke #jfc I'm so wordy I'm sorry #SI #asks

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