#Genuinely that's so much more than my other socials

[anomaliex]

Im very fond of soulmate AUs but I've never been a fan of the "you spend your whole life waiting for the ONE and you HAVE to date or you're weird" it feels iffy to me (I mean I'm arorace so maybe that's it). I enjoy "oh you're on the same wave length, if you meet you for sure will have a deep emotional connection with this person but who knows what it'll entail. And maybe you'll never meet but that doesn't mean your life will be any less fulfilled". It's more of a,,,you were born under the same star, lol? But yeah I wanna write a few fantasy high fics with that concept.

I'm partial to (temporarily) mirroring markings on each other's skin soulmate AUs but honestly I'm not super sure what to do with this one. But I'm throwing up ideas because I can't just stay silent, I'd explode.

Listen. Listen. Sandra Lynn and Gilear are soulmates. Being inherently compatible doesn't mean you can't fuck up. The two have a genuine connection and she loved Gilear but she was never 100% sure that she was in love with him, and monogamy maybe wasn't right for her either but she was ignoring all those doubts and complex feeling in favour of going for the safe and easy life that society expected and that would, short term, definitely make her happy. It'd make Gilear happy, too. (The possibility of living an immortal life without a partner by her side might have scared her more than the possibility of that partner not being the right one.) Both of them later find new happiness in their respective partners, and they're on okay terms but they never restore the closeness they once had. Which is okay, certain mistakes can't be undone even if they're forgiven, and certain relationships just won't be restored. But yeah complex feeling about this and how sometimes soulmates don't mean forever.

Branching off of this, Fig. The divorce causes all the problems with Fig it normally does, but it also makes her write off the idea of soulmates completely. True love doesn't exist type deal (which I agree with. Feelings can change and you have the potential to love anyone, and anyone has the potential to be loved. But for a teenage girl that might have previously romanticised the concept of it this realisation can be upsetting and lead into the other extreme, which is that love in general can never be sincere. Which hey, is a sad outlook.) She tries to replicate the feeling for validation with faces that aren't her own but eventually finds someone that loves her for her and becomes comfortable being the person she is. Ayda happens to be her soulmate but they'd love each other regardless of that.

(Ayda's past incarnations have had varying soulmates. The ones she has records of never met theirs and she really was in the "why would I have one in the first place" mindset. Who knows about the Aydas that came before her, It's so far in the past that I don't think it matters.)

(Idk if Jawbone has a soulmate and if he does idk if he has met them. But I don't think that matters much they're not on his mind.)

Less romance related take on soulmates are Fabian and Riz I think! Fabian is in denial at first because Riz is a loser (not that Fabian isn't a loser lmao. But Riz is like, a social loser.) but Riz immediately decides this is his GUY. This is his best friend. And Fabian does too honestly but it takes him a while to get over being a shitty teenager and be open about it. The whole sophomore year stuff. I do think Riz is aroace and I have my. aro-spec thoughts about Fabian so this can go either "just" best friends (I don't want to de-value purely platonic relationships they're SO good and important and shouldn't be placed below romantic ones all the time) or venture into more queerplatonic territory. Which I also really like with those two lol. But they're a package deal with a deep connected and care for each other greatly :)

Gorgug hasn't met his soulmate and he truly does not care. He has all the time in the world, and if he never meets them that's fine too? His parents are definitely soulmates but being raised by them I think it'd truly be so hard to become insecure about societal expectations like that. This is covered somewhere in the sex and relationship folder probably. Gorgug is such a guy. Zelda, Mary-Ann, Squeem, Unit, Ragh(??). Everyone wants him. He's mostly up for it. SUCH a guy.

Oh! Also. Lucy and Kipperlilly were soulmates. Just, cause, yeah. I think Lucy has so much shit to work through in therapy and this might be #1 on the list because, like, yeah.

Oh also non-romantic soulmates Adaine and Aelwyn,,,they're so important to me. They're so important to each other too. For a really long time Adaine thought something must be wrong with her for her soulmate to treat her like this, something must be wrong with the world for the stars to align only to promise her cruelty. They're okay now. Aelwyn of course felt deeply guilty for everything she was doing but also shoved said guilt so far down she barely felt it. Their relationship is already perfectly articulated in canon I don't have much to add to this, I just wanna write them softly rebuilding their relationship I love them so dearly.

[crowlines]

Thanks for all the support in 2024! I'll be back to emails + shipping orders starting tomorrow.

(LONG POST)

This year was kind of a doozy (probably for everyone, definitely for me). I did a huge cross-country move that was very stressful, very time and energy intensive, very expensive, and very messy, but thank GOODNESS I finished it! Somehow during the moving process I still vended at a few in-person events (so smart of me to try juggling that). I took much more time off of store operations this year than normal and am really looking forward to the stability of being settled in one place for both work and personal reasons.

There's some other major stressful stuff that happened earlier in the year that I haven't talked about publicly yet because it still isn't fully resolved, which affected me quite a lot (and still affects me right now, many months later). Because I'm a pretty private person these days, I haven't been eager to share details about why I was having a hard time the past few years, or even the fact that I was having a hard time at all. Sometimes that made the experience of going through all of it feel very isolating, because I was supposed to create happy art and market myself and play the social media game even though I was severely burned out and struggling for multiple years.

But I'm thankful that right now, I feel like I'm finally starting a new chapter in my life and have a genuine chance to move forward and grow in a way that was very difficult or even felt impossible for the past few years. I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish with my work in 2020-2024 despite having an incredibly difficult time fulfilling my personal needs during that time, and am excited at the prospect of building a very significantly healthier and more sustainable work-life balance and future for myself. And of course, I am and will always be thankful that support from my audience in all forms lets me continue creating fun things. I'm thankful for all the time I've gotten to do it so far, and I hope I get to do it forever. Cheers to a hopeful 2025!

-Crow

[uselessbard1031]

Every Rose Has Its Thorns (Ambessa X Black Rose Spy! Reader C1)

Trying a new thing where I cross post on Tumblr and Ao3. (Ao3 link at end)

C1:

Everyone is sleeping with someone and beds can bury many secrets under the covers. Secrets like the Demacian lover of a famed Noxian assassin. Secrets like the Trifarix takeover of Grand General Darkwill. Secrets like the Crimson Circle’s leader planning another coup. These secrets stick to the thorns of those special redolent rose colored lovers tangled up in the sheets with generals, captains, and house heads. Those lovers whose special magics put the guile in beguiling. 

Your job is a florist -- a host handing out roses and collecting the pricked off secrets those roses gathered. A job you do well. Not every flower at your shop is a rose. No. There are delusional daisies and desperate daffodils. There are illusions of irises and professional pansies. But those are all a cover for the sweet pollen of your roses. Rose roots, as most know, are everywhere once they're planted. They sap the nutrients from every other flower nearby -- they have the power to consume. To consume secrets of the rest of the garden. 

One day about a month ago a daisy had earned the affections of a general so much so that she had begun buzzing about her life like a little pollinator. The rumors stuck to the rose roots within your brothel and thus came to you. You saw to it that the general’s lover was upgraded to a rose still suiting of her tastes. The daisy, you had said, was bought by someone looking for a bouquet in their home. The general had not minded in the slightest which was no surprise. If she'd have genuinely cared about losing the flower, you would have simply spliced the daisy in with a rose, given it thorns, and kept it pricking. Instead, your mother has taken it and all of its intel too. 

So now, for a month, a rose has been sticking into those secret filled covers. A rose who is very good at his job. A rose who is…marching towards you with a bruise beneath his gold-lidded eye and a fuming gaze?

“What's happened?” You ask, quirking a brow.

“I'm done,” he snaps, his voice as pretty as his feminine face. 

“No you're not. Where's the client?”

“In my room. Wants someone else.” He looks down the hall of doors and rooms before leaning in to you. “I pressed about the son, like you said. She wants nothing to do with me now. I'm burned.”

“And bruised. Go get some ice.”

He storms off to nurse his wound and you bite your lip, scanning through your mental inventory. All of your research says he's her perfect type. Skinny. Benign. Docile. Pretty. Your other effeminate male rose is currently assigned elsewhere. Though if she comes another day, he may do. You know she likes women as well. Ones with strength. No. Power. Weapons of women and flowers of men. But muscles alone won't do. You have many talented mages, sure. Perhaps one of them could peak her interest. But none of them have what she truly craves in a female lover -- someone with superiority -- someone chosen -- someone capable, with control and, well, power. Someone like…

You glance back at her room. It's an idea, but is it one you're willing to dedicate to? You grin, imagining how your mother will react to the news. She'll be amused more than anything. Impressed, you think. Proud. Guile means more to her than pride so to sell yourself as a flower, as a rose, someone so unobtainable that the general will feel oh so special to have you. Yes. You'll earn your mother's pride for this clever little play. 

You switch the sign on the front door to closed and head back to the retired rose’s room. With a breath of confidence, you knock, a smile glazing over your lips already. 

“Enter,” a voice like broken glass on a gravel path orders from the other side.

You open the door, heading inside but paying her no mind. Not yet. Something small first, a show of your magical power to aid your social power. You twist your hand absentmindedly around a healthy pothos hanging from a ceiling hook. A shadow creeps down its long vines, blazing a trail of withered brown and fallen crinkled leaves behind it until it slithers all the way to the new growth at the tip. 

“You've given one of my top earners a black eye,” you say, still not facing her.

“Your whore ,” she growls the word, “was testing my patience and good nature. I pay for pleasure, not for interrogation.”

“He's chatty.”

“I don't care for chatty.”

“Your last lover was chatty.” You toss her a look over your shoulder. Then sigh and go back to the pothos, killing another vine with darkness so deep it drains all the stored sunlight away with ease. “You liked him. I assumed this would be a good match for you.”

“I have been employing your brothel’s services for near a decade now. Yet, I don't believe we've ever spoken.”

You turn to her now. Your eyes trace the hem of red cotton that drapes over her muscled thighs. They slip up to her red painted lips on her glass of posca. They twist through curls of grey hair leaning against a headboard, twirling a strand by her scarred umber face. She really is attractive, now isn't she?

You glide up to the bed, taking your time. “We may have never spoken, but that doesn't mean I haven't kept tabs on you.” 

As you reach her, you sit on the mattress, just out of reach, teasing the edges of her aura with your own. You bring shadows from the corners of the room closer. Snakes of black curtain around the bedframe and lurk on the floorboards. One tickles across her leg and she shudders, though she hides it. Her gaze falls on you, curious, interest piqued, but wary and ready for battle. 

“You are strong,” you say. “Stronger than most. In will. In might. Ah, but you already know this. It makes you difficult to please. You've been unhappy with my business twice now. I do not wish to leave you dissatisfied a third time.” You lean just a bit closer, fingers tracing lightly around a scar by her knee. “So perhaps something off menu would better suit your unique tastes?”

Her gold flecked eyes darken a shade and she smirks. Humming amusedly, she asks,”Mm and what may you be offering, off menu, exactly?

A shadow follows your hand, reaching forward with you to brush hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear. “I've always preferred female lovers, and I've heard rumors that you enjoy both sexes.”

“The rumors are true”

“Please then, allow me to apologize for the chatty whore. Have a night on the house. With me.” You lean closer still, your lips ghosting her own. You think for a moment to leave the choice to her, to allow her to seize you, claim you. But then you think about how attracted she is to women in control so you seize her instead -- kissing her before she kisses you. 

And boy does she kiss you.

A calloused hand finds its way to the back of your head, fingers knotting in your hair. She chuckles, hungry mouth against your own, her tongue rolling along your bottom lip. It's not a fight for dominance. No. It's a test to see if you will yield it. You don't. Which spurs her to smile more. She pulls away from you, eyes finding yours with a bit of a glimmer. 

“You are curious, little flower,” she says. 

“As are you, general. Tell me, how does a wolf stalk its prey?”

She chuckles again, a low rumbling noise. “Deliberately.”

“And how does it attack?”

“Without mercy.”

Her claims prove valid when she attacks, mercilessly, your lips again. Your neck. Your shoulder. You allow her to guide you to your back, pulling the darkness around you entirely so that the only light in the room is the halos you allow around her and around you. You keep the spell the entire night you spend together. With every talented curl of your finger or quivering shake of your orgasm she grows more and more intrigued by you. By your focus and your abilities. Good. Your roots are being planted. In time, your thorns will prick those secrets from her.

In time, turns out to be a patient six months. You've uncovered much of her story but only the outer shell. Her loyalty to family. Her desire for legacy. And just now, a few days after the six month mark, she finally gifts you the information your mother has so wanted.

“Daughter,” the voice greets you in the pale red darkness of her illusion. How can it be pale and dark? Well, how can anything be mutually exclusive when it comes to her? A woman with a million faces yet not known for a single one. The Faceless.

You take a knee before her, her silhouette shifting between heavy and light, brawny and slender, masculine and feminine. “Mother,” you greet, “I come with the information you sought from Ambessa Medarda.”

“The one whose love child is of our own kind? Now that is interesting.”

You stand. “The son, Kino, he is in Nava on a diplomatic mission for their house.”

“Are you certain?”

“Would I lie?” You smirk.

She steps forth from her illusion, a pale face with a bob of blue hair and dark purple lips that smirk right back at you. 

“You've done well, daughter,” she says, thin white fingers tilting up your chin. “I knew there was a reason I took you in that century ago. Just a bawling little infant then. Look at you now. All grown up and covered in thorns. Our agents in Nava will capture the wolf pup. He will be tested and, if potent, used. The Black Rose will bloom again.”

“What about the alpha wolf? Have we any further use for her?”

“Perhaps. The future is all smoke and mirrors. So play your part. Keep her leashed. Remember that there is still a second child we may require if this one proves to be the wrong one.”

“Understood.”

She sighs, releasing you and turning to the warping edges of the nothingness around you. Turning to some door in some far off room. With a wave of her hand a magician’s staff appears between jeweled rings on her thumb and index finger. Without looking back at you she says, “I’ve got to go. The assassin’s are due at Swain’s doorstep any minute now.” She glances over her shoulder, a purr and a grin, “it's how he knows I care.”

With that, the void disappears and so does she. You're left alone in your bedroom with its stone walls and silk sheets. 

You gaze out over the city through your window. Noxus Prime. All these years and it hasn't changed much at all. Then again, neither have you. Your looks are still that of your youth. Easier, then, with bright eyes and a light face, to manipulate the shadows behind Noxus’s big red curtains. All these banners and blood and war. How trivial. Those two men your mother works alongside on the Trifarix are nothing more than puppets in a big show. One day, they'll be gone -- bone and ashes -- just like the man before them and there will be another puppet and another. All marionettes, dancing by the pull of their strings. Dancing, by your mother's hand. Dancing, for the Black Rose.

[lakesbian]

ok thank you everyone much appreciated. here's my reviews for fun

scp 1730: didn't care for this one very much, it's in the genre of scps that are trying to be action movies referentially synthesized from other scps. which is not something i think holds very much narrative appeal. additional subtracted points for "the Marxist extremist terrorist attack on the sears tower in 1994"

scp 4991: nothing to complain about here, perfectly fine 2 minute read. imitations of social media posts within scps are always fun when they're done well

scp 6595: the best thing this one has going for it is the part where the scp foundation interviewing muppets that are real and alive as a normal part of the universe is introduced and played completely straight without acknowledgement. apparently this bit was inspired by a predecessor article that also offhandedly includes the muppets being alive for real, but i overall liked this one more than the predecessor for having a more natural (and thus funnier/more interesting) take on it. however i think the most recent comment on it has agreeable criticism re a few factual and plot nitpicks. it doesn't feel like quite the attentive love letter to the source material that it could have, which is a shame, bc that's what elevates these scps referencing a pop culture thing from "not a bad read" to "genuinely quite good." and this just stayed at not a bad read level for me

scp 5999: im bad at mystery scps and scps that reference a bunch of other lore so i can't fairly review this but i thought it seemed well written...the exploration log had personality to it. also i notice a lot of scps just shamelessly casually don't include any female characters/don't include any women in non-stereotyped roles so i was glad that this one at least had women casually on the mobile task force and all that

scp 5031: ive read this one it's cute. i do always think it's funny how a story intended to subvert the idea of murder monster scps for wholesome effect does still textually take place in a setting where the scp foundation is feeding random prisoners to murder monsters lmao. it's a fun one though i like it

scp 2747: ive read this one before as well but i reread it bc it's so good. great concept and execution, by far the best one listed in this post so far. the linked tale is admittedly dense enough i don't have a thoughtful opinion on it but it's really well written too. this type of scp is scp at its best i think, higher concept horror couched in academic language. the fake media snippets are great, reminds me of the library of babel one that i also like

scp 2293: yeah this one's fun, not much to say about an scp that was created by someone online as a meme, but it does what it sets out to do well

scp 2790: i liked this one :) one of those short fun little "SCP affects the documentation" ones. like it's not unique no but it made me smile, it's fun (said in a different tone of voice than prior usages of the word 'fun' indicating that i liked this one more than those other ones but called them fun regardless because i didn't want my picky tendency towards calling things 'Fine.' as a review to sound mean)

scp 7179: agree w what the recommender said, concept is good, execution isn't much of anything. it's a short story about the horror of eternity that doesn't have a grasp on the scale of time or a natural progression of dread. amateur writing

the whole antimemetics division: already read it, my rating of different parts of it varies but overall it's my good friend because there's Urs in there. like from pact. soooo many fantastically fucked moments it's great. like the original antimeme scp is Fantastic in its own right and it's so impressive how the tale revealing what the indescribable object actually is succeeds at making the answer more horrible than whatever you were imagining. like in horror i think oftentimes people shoot themselves in the foot by removing a sense of mystery but here the answer to the question of what it is is terrifying and gripping

scary gatorade: recommender lied to me, it's not bad, it's good

scp 3001: ILL BE REAL. i get why people like this one. but i did not care about it that much i did not find the logs of the dude slowly progressing into madness™️ scary. LIKE I GET IT. but it's not up there for me at all

does anyone have any scp recommendations im in the mood to read scps. not ones that are bad please

[arcunlikely]

woah

People are liking my post tysm???? Have more too I insist

[egophiliac]

Hello ! I positively adore the running joke of Idia unknowingly finding Lilia to be the coolest guy ever whenever he doesn't know it's him, like when Silver described his father, or obviously with muscle red. I can't say what'd be funnier, Idia finding out his online best friend is actually Lilia, resident spooky hyper fairy; or them both never finding out, and it'd become even more ridiculous as time goes on. How do you think it'll play out ? You're always so on point

(Also, though it makes sense, I'm still devastated bat boy didn't get a ticket for the Halloween skeleton train : ( does anyone mentions him at some point ? Like how he'd have fit right in with all those Halloween town little freaks, and how he'd have impressed them with his spooks and scared techniques; after all he's been every Briar Valley's children worst fear on Halloween for centuries. I'm on the eng server and I didn't wanna spoil myself by watching the whole thing on youtube)

Have a nice day !

you and me both, Idia and Lilia being oblivious online BFFs (+ Idia being incredibly intimidated any time Silver brings up his jock gamer dad) is my favorite running joke/subplot. 🤝 it's SO good, to the point where I also am unsure if I actually want it to ever be resolved or not...maybe, like, as a post-canon stinger or something? everyone's standing around covered in overblot ink, and Idia and Lilia's phones go off at the same time...

(legit I do think this is part of why Idia couldn't be present for Lilia's dream, because for some reason Lilia decided he was going to just. embody his past self online. he probably quotes his own battle strategies or whatever in the middle of boss fights. Idia didn't pick up on the whole "oh how weird that we both live on a super remote island" thing, but he would spend thirty seconds listening to General Lilia describing siege warfare and be like "w-wait")

all that aside, however it does end up happening, I do see Lilia being very blasé and all "oh! cool!" about it. y'know, taking it very much in stride! and Idia...very much not.

(can't tell if tumblr is going to chew this into illegibility or not, this will be a fun surprise ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ)

as for Lilia sadly missing out on Halloweentown shenanigans...he does get one little mention as part of an offhand reference to the light music club, but so far no one has brought up how this basically is just Lost In the Book of Liliatown (Sebek's been too busy yelling about not getting to be in the same group as Malleus). 😔 honestly though, it's probably for the best that he got left out, because he would just settle right in and refuse to ever leave. canon would shatter. we would miss out on all the delightful angst of episode 7 because Lilia is too busy eating poisonous shrubbery inbetween practicing his very best screams, and no one can pull him away from it.

(I can hope for a sequel next year though...)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[brittlebutch]

the thing is, you’re absolutely right! because what neurotypical people sometimes don’t understand is the massive difference between the average level of social interaction that they themselves vs other people get outside of organized or scheduled events like work or school, and also don’t understand the massive difference between what failure looks like, and how those two things overlap. i’m told that among the average neurotypical person, they’ll make a point to talk to people in their lives or hang out with friends or go on dates or chat with other people in public spaces, al to have casual interactions, multiple times a day, multiple days a week. meaning, if they have a failed social interaction, it’s buffered by the many successful interactions they’ll go on to have. failure most likely won’t mean complete isolation, because they have multiple avenues of interaction to fall back on. and, moreover, a failure in a social interaction when you have (on average) fewer than most means that now rather than that person going “oh that was a weird interaction, i talk to them a lot and it’s not usually like that, maybe it was an off day” they go ��huh i don’t know that person very well maybe they’re just like that?”, which means that the odds are way different on whether relationships stay good after mistakes.

social skills are not actually as inherent as neurotypical people like to think. it’s just that when you’re always in practice, always getting back on the proverbial horse, the advice “just get back out there!” does actually work very well. but if you’re not able to do that for any variety of reasons, you can’t play the game the same way. my advice is not “try harder”, it’s “lower your expectations for yourself on what a good interaction and a moment of connection might be”. just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions. remind yourself that you’re working with fewer resources and a much more limited data pool. a lot of the advice being given is coming from someone who assumes they understand what the math looks like for you, because it’s very difficult to imagine that other side. so instead of trying to overlay a system made for someone who has resources that you just don’t have, you need to figure out what a functional system of interaction looks like for you, and adapt the advice given to fit your situation. my advice, bearing that in mind, is that finding communities and groups can look like a lot of different things, and getting your social needs met can come from a lot of sources, and ideally should! you would understand best what your situation is, and there’s no shame in changing tact to accommodate for your own needs and boundaries.

forgot to answer this for a bit lol BUT yeah, the post was a little bit more about the Conceptual argument than it was about me specifically, so I'm definitely already with you re: 'finding out what your Individual social goals are and working based off of those instead having high expectations based off of other people's metric' stuff. You definitely have a huge point with the "social buffer disparity" between NT people and ND people, where failures are both less demoralizing internally and less impactful externally when you're able to have a greater average of interactions generally also

but I really appreciated the "just as it’s possible you’re somehow unintentionally upsetting people, it’s possible you’re unintentionally making them feel happy, or valued, or heard, even in small, passing interactions" aspect of this message. I do definitely have a recurring problem of like, labeling Myself as an Uncanny Valley Person and automatically assuming that every interaction I'm involved in must be some level of uncomfortable for the other person -- it actually was kind of a revolution moment reading this and realizing that OH it does make sense that if I can unintentionally make people uncomfortable, it's statistically just as likely that I can unintentionally lift people's spirits in one way or another! So thank you very much for that!!

[chrisbangs]

hello... (and bye ig 👋)

[giantkillerjack]

Ya know. I spent most of my life with horrible painful soul-crushing social anxiety.

And after about 25 years of continuous hard work, suddenly, people started pointing out - to my utter bafflement - that I had, in fact, achieved my lifelong dream of being charismatic. I'm 29 now; I feel comfortable in most social situations, and it is a very rare person whom I cannot make laugh.

I am, undoubtedly, finally, charismatic.

But do you know what I found?

I found that now that I have an understanding of which social rules serve which functions -- Now that I have an understanding of just how much damage my awkwardness was doing to people, well,

I found that, actually, my awkwardness never really hurt anyone at all. People were just judgmental dicks to me about it.

Now that I have the skill-level to (most of the time) creatively vocalize what is in my head as soon as I think it and without fear, I can confirm once and for all what I had always suspected:

I was worth talking to when I was quiet.

I was worth talking to when I was awkward, and when the words in my head took time and patience to hear, and when most of my jokes didn't land. I was worth talking to the whole time.

So I just... I hope that if you've ever wondered whether you are worth communicating with, the answer is yes. Absolutely yes. Each of us has a soul worth sharing - and if you and I were talking, I would happily wait for you to speak (or communicate in other ways) without condescending, and I would never shame you for that harmless awkwardness that so many people feel the need to violently stomp out.

You are worth talking to. You just are. And you deserve people who will speak to you with kindness, with patience, and with the basic immutable respect owed to all people.

(I talk about this with some frequency, both on tumblr and in real life. At some point, maybe I'll gather all my thoughts on the matter into one post. At some point, I wrote about my personal experience trying to build my social skill. But I felt the need to say at least a little bit tonight after seeing this other lovely post, and I'm glad I did. It will happen again.)

[kaurwreck]

for the ask game: LILAC CHARCOAL AND RASPBERRY

anon this is so sweet 😭

[ask game provided below for reference; if you'd like to play, please reblog from OP here:]

[prismatica-the-strange]

Nope, I'm still crying

[phagodyke]

my flatmate asking me the day before "do u want to hang out w me and [old friend] everyone else cancelled so I can invite u now" is not the heartfelt offer she thinks it is :^/

[time-is-restored]

i have literally nowhere else to put this i apologise for the spam. the absolute best thing to come out of s3 trent is without a doubt the fucking earnestness... like in s1-2 he always came across as a very self-assured kind of guy, who knew how he came off (ie: intimidating) and enjoyed it. but seeing that paired with him being silly + completely relaxing in certain company??? pulling ridiculous faces at vodka + scrunching up his nose when he smiles @ colin + making the most ABSURD 'i really wanna say something right now but i feel like im interrupting' noises ive ever heard in my fucking LIFE??? its like. he is cool as shit and he is self assured AND he can make dumb fucking sherlock holmes jokes and dance ridiculously. its like!!!! he's lame but he's also not bc he's exactly as confident in being lame as he is being cool. do u see the vision. he has killed the part of him that cringes!!!! its just.. that unshakeable self confidence that u see in his fucking swaggers into frame includes all of himself + his different moods and eccentricities and that's just so based to me idk. unironically live ur best life wear the loudest combination of prints and patterns and primary colours uve ever seen in ur life while espousing the virtues of extended museum hours!!! contain multitudes! get silly with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vampiremourning]

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