#I was just like under the impression that some level of constant pain is just the human condition

[oglegoggle]

My body aches so fucking bad, my dudes.

[wandamaximoffsbadgirl]

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?

Is it a Wonder I broke? (1)

Wandanat x human pet!fem!reader

Summary: Wanda and Natasha have been looking for a pet for some time, but they've had no luck until they meet you, will you be a good fit for their lives?

Word Count: 2.2K

Warnings: 18+ due to themes, MDNI, heavy pet play, human pets, abuse, violence, hurt/comfort

Authors notes: Hello I was listening to TTPD while I was writing the drabbles and when 'Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?' came on I was like fuck this would make a good fic. So this can be stand alone for now, but if you want more lmk! I've never written human pets like this before! They're basically hybrids in a way.

Wanda and Natasha stepped into the black market pet shop, their presence commanding attention even in the dimly lit, grungy space. The smell of decay and neglect was overpowering, a stark contrast to the pristine pet stores they had previously visited. Wanda’s heart ached with each step, while Natasha’s expression remained stoic but vigilant.

A grumpy, terrible old man greeted them with a disdainful look. "What do you want?" he grumbled, clearly not impressed by their arrival.

"We're looking for a pet," Natasha replied curtly, her eyes scanning the room.

The man led them through the front section, showcasing various human pets—dogs, cats, bunnies, foxes—all of them displaying various levels of distress. Wanda's heart sank further with each cage they passed. None of these poor creatures seemed right. She shook her head at each option, her expression growing more resolute.

"These won't do," Natasha said firmly. "Show us the others."

The man hesitated, his eyes narrowing, but he ultimately complied, leading them to the back of the shop. This area was even more dismal, filled with the so-called rejects. The noise was nearly unbearable—constant barking, meowing, and occasional screams echoed off the grimy walls. The man banged on the cages, shouting for silence, but the noise continued unabated.

Wanda's eyes softened with empathy as they walked down the rows. These were the broken ones, the ones no one wanted. She had a special place in her heart for such creatures. Natasha stayed close, her posture protective, her eyes scanning every inch of the space.

Then they saw you. Curled up at the back of your cage, you were a small, fragile-looking thing, trying to stay warm under a feeble heat lamp. You didn’t make a sound, just lay there, as if trying to make yourself invisible.

“I want to see her,” Wanda said softly, her gaze fixed on your small form.

At the sound of her voice, your eyes snapped open. Fear and confusion filled your eyes as you looked at the two women and the man who had caused you so much pain. You cowered as they approached, your body trembling.

Wanda knelt down, her movements slow and deliberate, and held her hand out for you to sniff. You snapped at her, biting her hand out of fear. But she didn’t flinch, didn’t try to hit you. Instead, her eyes were filled with understanding and sadness. Your hard eyes softened slightly, confusion mixing with your fear.

The man reeled back, ready to strike you. Natasha's hand shot out, gripping his wrist tightly before he could lay a hand on you. Her voice was ice-cold and firm. "You want this one, Wands?"

“Yes,” Wanda replied without hesitation, her voice gentle yet determined.

"You do love broken things, dorogoya," Natasha said with a small, affectionate smile.

"We'll take this one," Wanda stated firmly, turning her gaze to the man. "And we'd appreciate you not hurting our property."

The man sneered, his face contorting with disdain. "You'll be bringing her back in a week. She bites. She's loud. She's a runner."

Natasha ignored his words, writing out a check with a flourish. "This should cover her," she said, shoving the check into his chest with a look of contempt.

Wanda carefully attached a leash to your collar, giving you a moment to adjust. You stretched out tentatively, muscles sore from confinement. The three of you headed to their car, a sleek vehicle that contrasted sharply with the grimy surroundings.

In the car, Wanda sat in the back seat with you, her presence a calming force. She let your head rest in her lap, her fingers gently stroking your hair. Her touch was soft, reassuring, and you felt a strange sense of safety begin to wash over you.

“You’re safe now,” she murmured, her voice a soothing melody. “We’re going to take good care of you. We’ll get you all the things you need.”

As you listened to her, a glimmer of hope sparked within you. Maybe, just maybe, these two women would be different. Maybe, this time, you had found a place where you could heal, where you could finally be safe and loved.

You weren't sure how long the drive to their house had been, but you noticed the air smelled fresher and cleaner than the pet shop you came from. Slowly, you sat up, surprising Wanda as you looked curiously out the window. Nothing looked familiar anymore. The scents, the sounds—all new and strange.

As the car approached a large house, you felt a twinge of familiarity. Most of your previous owners had been wealthy, with big houses and nice cars. This was no different. But something felt distinctly unique about this place, a sense of calm that you couldn't quite place.

Wanda gently held your leash as you stepped out of the car, your nose twitching as you sniffed around. The lawn smelled fresh, a welcome change from the dingy pet shop. Natasha had already gone inside, leaving you and Wanda outside. You found a spot to mark your territory, your instincts kicking in.

Once inside, you couldn't see Natasha. Her strong scent of flowers lingered, and Wanda’s scent of vanilla and strawberries comforted you. Wanda let you off the leash, allowing you to explore. She stayed close behind, her voice soft and soothing as she pointed out different rooms.

“This is the living room,” she said, gesturing to a cozy space with plush furniture. “And over here is the kitchen. You’ll like it there; it’s where we keep all the yummy treats.”

Your nose led you from room to room, each one filled with new and intriguing scents. Wanda’s gentle narration helped ease your nerves. You paused at a door that was closed, pawing at it and letting out a small whimper.

“Daddy’s in there working,” Wanda said, her tone understanding. “We need to leave her alone for now.”

You tilted your head, ears flopping slightly, and Wanda giggled at the sight. “Daddy’s working, but Mommy will keep playing with you, okay?”

Her words perked you up a bit. You continued your exploration, feeling more at ease with each step. The house was filled with warmth and comfort, a stark contrast to the cold, impersonal places you had been before.

You eventually found yourself back in the living room, where Wanda sat on the floor with you, offering you a soft, fluffy toy. “Here, sweetie, this is for you,” she said, her smile genuine and kind.

Tentatively, you took the toy, feeling a sense of security starting to build within you. Wanda’s presence was soothing, her gentle touches and kind words wrapping around you like a warm blanket. For the first time in a long while, you felt a flicker of hope. Maybe this place, with these two caring women, could truly become your home.

As you settled into the living room, Wanda continued to speak in soothing tones, guiding you through this new and strange environment. You felt a growing sense of curiosity and a cautious optimism as you explored each nook and cranny. The scent of fresh flowers from Natasha still lingered faintly, but it was Wanda’s comforting presence that kept you grounded.

Wanda reached behind the couch and pulled out a large, plush dog bed. It was soft, with a warm, inviting fabric that looked incredibly comfortable. She placed it in a cozy corner of the living room, patting it gently to get your attention.

“Look, sweetheart,” Wanda said, her voice filled with excitement. “This is your bed. We wanted you to have a nice, big space just for you.”

You approached the bed cautiously, sniffing it thoroughly. The fabric felt soft under your paws, and the scent of fresh linen was a stark contrast to the filthy cages you had known. You circled the bed a couple of times, your instincts guiding you, before finally settling down on it. The plush surface cradled your tired body, and for the first time in what felt like ages, you felt a sense of comfort and safety.

Wanda sat beside you, her hand gently stroking your back. “Do you like it?” she asked, her voice a gentle murmur. “We wanted to make sure you have a cozy spot where you can rest and feel safe.”

Your eyes met hers, and you gave a small, tentative wag of your tail. Her kindness was unlike anything you had experienced before, and though you were still wary, there was a growing trust between you.

Just then, Natasha entered the living room, a small smile playing on her lips as she observed the scene. “Looks like she’s settling in well,” she remarked, her tone softening.

Wanda looked up at her with a warm smile. “Yes, she’s doing wonderfully. I think she likes her new bed.”

Natasha walked over and knelt down beside you, her hand joining Wanda’s in gently petting you. “You’re safe now,” she said softly. “We’re going to take good care of you.”

The combined presence of both women, their gentle touches and soothing voices, wrapped around you like a protective cocoon. The warmth of the dog bed, the softness of their hands, and the sincerity in their voices began to melt away the layers of fear and mistrust that had built up over time.

You laid your head down on the bed, your eyes growing heavy as a wave of exhaustion washed over you. The journey had been long and filled with uncertainty, but now, in this warm, safe home, surrounded by care and kindness, you felt the first true sense of peace you had ever known.

Natasha sat on the couch, leaning back and observing with a soft smile as Wanda continued to sit on the floor beside you, rubbing your back. "So, dorogoya, have you decided on a name for her?" Natasha asked her wife.

Your ears twitched slightly at the sound of her voice. You opened your eyes and lifted your head from the toy you were using as a pillow, curious about what they were discussing.

"I was thinking Bumble," Wanda said, her eyes twinkling with affection.

You perked up at the name, your ears standing at attention and your tail giving an enthusiastic wag. This made Wanda giggle, her laughter light and musical. "You like that? Bumble?" she asked, her voice pitched up slightly with excitement. Your tail wagged even more vigorously, and a small, happy noise escaped you.

"Okay, Bumble it is!" she announced with a smile.

Natasha chuckled, a deep, warm sound. "Well, Wands, Bumble needs a bath. Which you really should have done before letting her on her bed, but there's nothing to be done about that now."

Wanda looked at you fondly, her hand still gently stroking your back. "I'll give her one in a few minutes, okay? I just wanted her to be relaxed first," she spoke softly, her voice filled with understanding and care.

You felt a rush of warmth at their gentle banter and concern for you. As you lay there, you began to understand that this place was different. These people were different. They cared, not just for what you could be or how you could behave, but for you as you were.

After a few moments, Wanda stood up and stretched. "Alright, Bumble," she said, looking down at you with a smile. "Let's get you all cleaned up."

Natasha rose from the couch, offering her hand to Wanda. "I'll help you. It’ll be quicker and easier for both of us."

You followed them to the bathroom, your tail wagging at the prospect of their continued attention. The bathroom was spacious and well-lit, with a large tub that looked far more inviting than any you had seen before.

Natasha started filling the tub with warm water, adding a splash of something that smelled sweet and soothing. Wanda knelt beside you, gently removing your collar. "You're going to feel so much better after this, Bumble," she said softly, her hands still gentle and reassuring.

Together, they lifted you into the tub. The warm water enveloped you, washing away the grime and fear of your past. Wanda and Natasha worked in tandem, their movements careful and synchronized. Wanda lathered you up with a sweet-smelling soap, her touch gentle and comforting. Natasha rinsed you off, her strong hands steady and soothing.

Throughout the bath, they spoke to you in calming tones, their voices a steady murmur of reassurance. "You’re doing great, Bumble," Wanda said, her smile bright and encouraging. "Almost done," Natasha added, her voice low and soothing.

Finally, you were lifted out of the tub and wrapped in a large, fluffy towel. Wanda and Natasha dried you off, their hands moving briskly but gently, ensuring you were warm and dry.

As they finished, Wanda gave you a gentle kiss on the top of your head. "There you go, Bumble. All clean and fresh."

Natasha nodded in approval. "Now you really do look like a part of the family."

With a final ruffle of your hair, they led you back to the living room. You settled once more into your new bed, feeling cleaner and more relaxed than you had in a long time. Wanda and Natasha sat close by, their presence a comforting reminder that you were safe, loved, and finally home.

[bleue-flora]

and if i said c!dream had some form of empathy in c!tommy in exile, i'd get shot but that trident scene... look it may have been manipulation on c!Dreams part but since deep down c!Dream doesn't want to be lonely. I can see apart of him enjoying c!tommys company. and I have the hot take that if c!Discduo in exile ever had a moment of having a deep conversation and it wasn't just constant jokes and surface level friendship then I think it could have turned into a genuine friendship, it would take apologies, building trust. I'm an idiot for thinking this I know. wholesome c!discduo always seems to live rent free in my head.

What may surprise you is that I actually agree. I haven’t rewatched all of Exile in a while, though it is on my list. But having said that, I have always been under the impression that there is an underlying genuine friendship there. The best lies have a cornel of truth if you will and the same applies for manipulation. The more you believe it the more they believe it. And we know Dream uses this method because within his evil monologues and such there is a thread of truth weaved in there. So I do think Dream is in some ways genuine. Even further, I think perhaps he has convinced himself that Tommy is his friend by pure choice not circumstance. And I think he does want to be Tommy’s friend or at least did, and while he tried to do it in the normal manner perhaps he determined this was the only way for Tommy to see him as more than a villain. I don’t know…

But the line in the disc finale of “We were friends!” as Dream begs for his life stands out to me. Because I think a part of him saw Exile as real. The same part I think that didn’t fully expect Tommy to kill him all the way…

Exile, much like Daedalus is complex and with Daedalus we have a little more context to what Dream actually wants, which for Exile is perhaps a slightly nuanced. Was he manipulating Tommy - yes. But I am of the opinion that intentional or not, there was a form of genuine bond with him. I mean the thing is, if Dream is manipulating Tommy in Exile - isolating him and making himself Tommy’s only friend, then doesn’t that say something? Do we ever ask *why* he might be doing that?

He says to Tommy later in the disc confrontation, “everything I do is deliberate,” and although that’s true in general, I do think that Dream is also susceptible to emotions like the rest of us, but he uses those for a strategy and tells himself it was intentional the whole time. So, like Daedalus, I’m of the opinion that part of exile was Dream losing his temper and letting his emotions get the better of him, which he uses for his plan but may not have been really intended. When talking to Punz he says that after he blew up the chest that Tommy hid and was going to use to kill him, he ended up coming back to see if Tommy was ok [clip].

He lost everything because of Tommy, would that not make you angry enough to take it out on the source of your pain? Wouldn’t you want that person to feel lonely and abandoned just like you, wouldn’t you want that person to lose their items over and over just like he has done to you? Cuz I think overall he had a plan, but I’m not sure he meant to go as far as he did in some cases, I think emotion got the better of him, honestly understandably so. Isn’t that why Tommy murdered Dream in the disc confrontation? Revenge…

Unfortunately, I do think that reconciliation was probably never going to happen for them, I’m not sure at the moment, when they lost that chance, perhaps when he gave the tnt to Wilbur?… but I think their hate had grown a lot before Exile and they were both in very bad places emotionally speaking, which I find to be unhelpful when trying to make amends. A lot of times, it take a cleared head and not being raw from being hurt to be able to hear someone out, apologize, forgive, makeup or reach understanding. I mean maybe if Dream didn’t sabotage his beach party and take Ranboo’s letters and stuff then it’s possible… but then again the other people would likely relight the flame of hatred toward Dream. Quackity being an excellent example of someone who’s going for Dream’s head, ‘he’s a bad guy, he exiled you. He blew up L’manberg…’ etc probably undoing all the work. If he had let Tommy get items, Tommy would have probably tried to kill him, so sadly I’m not sure there was a world where Exile could have fixed their relationship. But it would have been nice, wouldn’t it? They make such a fun team…

[rudo-lfium]

The Fall of the House of Usher - my 2c

So I'm only 3 episodes in, and I admit it's a beautifully made show, very artistic, extremely creative, visually stunning and all that.

However its artistic value is deteriorating rapidly in my eyes because, once you dissect its story, it becomes obvious that it's another lecture on Divine Retribution by religious zealots.

At first I was trying to willfully ignore the obvious signs and kept trying to treat the characters as real (sic) human beings interacting with each other in a material world and being driven in their actions by practical motives such as revenge, advantage, love, devotion, hatred and competition. You know, just like we do in our everyday lives.

However the further the show takes us along its dark narration, the more impossible does it become to brush away such glaring symbolisms as the number of children being 6, which added to the 2 main protagonists (or rather, anti-heroes), makes 8, and that is exactly the number of cardinal sins listed in the earliest religious texts on the matter.

Thusly the story is reduced to the level of another "deadly sins" fabula of which there is already an unnecessary abundance. And my gripe with such plots is founded in my deep resentment of organized religion and its extreme, inhumane, monstrous values which the Churchers like to call "virtues".

All these postulates were developed by The Church (let's use it as a collective term for the purposes of this discussion) in order to suppress free thinking and to punish the "too damn smart" ones. In practice this just means legalized murder. Justification of killing off of all those who refuse to comply. The moral aspect here is indistinguishable from "jihad" which by definition means physical annihilation of all unbelievers. Since Islam is based intimately on Judaism such kinship of policies is to be expected, really.

Literary works, or in this case, a television series, in which some supernatural Avenging Angel murders those guilty of "cardinal sins" without a trial-and-investigation serve as tools to promote the policy of intimidation and oppression. They convince the easily impressed in the legality of such methods and place their sympathies firmly on the side of the murderers.

And when someone is convinced that it's not murder but a completely justified Divine Retribution, they will readily push their own kin under the guillotine or on the pyre and will remain in complete psychological obedience to The Church -- or any higher authority. We've seen it happen a million times.

Back to the plot, let's take the court trial. It is shown to be helpless in trying to convict Usher Sr and Ms Usher, his sister. What is it if not a demonstration of the fact that "human courts" are powerless against "such monsters" and the only way to bring them to justice is to send Gabriel The Smiting down from Heaven to exact punishment on their heads? And since he acts on a warrant signed by God himself, it's all tip-top with everybody.

Thus anything done to the Ushers is completely justified and requires no investigation. He is deserving of punishment, think the believers, and as such must be subjected to all sorts of inhumane sufferings to make him pay for the sufferings that he had allegedly inflicted on others. So let's start by killing his children. Let's whack them one by one in most horrendous and gory ways possible to scare him into fits of hallucinations where he's surrounded by come-from-the-dead corpses of his offspring day and night and hasn't a minute's rest from the constant pain. And then we'll murder him and his bitch of a sister too, because, well, you know, there must be 8 sacrifices, IT IS WRITTEN. Oh yeah, and let's make sure that each and every one of these 8 have no redeeming qualities at all, let's paint them as utterly terrible people in every aspect, so as to ensure the public's total repulsion of their personas. It is imperative that no one is allowed even a faintest chance at feeling any sympathy towards either one of the marked targets.

What is Usher's sudden "confession session" with the prosecutor if not a symbolism for penance? That's what believers do to have their sins excused -- they confess to the priest in an attempt to buy their way into Heaven. Usher, too, is trying to reserve himself a seat on a cushy cloud after he dies, so he's "confessing to his crimes" as a last ditch effort to escape the fires of Hell. By the way, the highest percentage of devout believers is found amongst repeat offenders in prisons.

I wouldn't be surprised if The Lawyer (by Mark Hamill) of whom we get very scarce snippets on screen (he is mostly seen dropping a sparse remark or giving quick advise to the Ushers) is meant to be the Devil who always stays in the shadows and operates under the cover of darkness, manipulating his subjects into doing VERY TERRIBLE THINGS that ensure their souls wind up in Hell and thus contribute to the contents of the Devil's personal coffers. It's my guess but I could very well be wrong, so we'll see, if the show's finale isn't a picturesque PvP battle between The Archangel (Carla Gugino) and The Devil (Mark Hamill) who will shed their humble human camouflage and don their Biblical armor appearing before the audience in their True Form.

I'm almost angry at this show being so well made. It saddens me to think that more people will now submit to religion's monstrous ideals. It saddens me that human beings, while flawed in many aspects, are portrayed as complete shit. And it makes me angry that anyone can hide behind false virtues and annihilate anyone at all as long as they're convinced that they've got a license from God. Just like in the barbarous Medieval times, we still have Divine wool pulled over our eyes and must fight to have it removed at the risk of being destroyed and having our deaths celebrated by our murderers.

[stonebutchery]

Character opinions for Lawrence Gordon?? 👀

First impressions: He's a cunt, he's a doctor, he's fooling around with one of his residents, he's putting on a façade for his wife, but he's also a caring father. Under normal circumstances, I'm sure he's your average, run-of-the-mill asshole doctor who's a different man when he's around the light of his life (Diana) and also he's definitely struggling with heterosexuality. I can feel it like a pain in my teeth. We know this. We all know this. Common knowledge does not need to be cited.

Impression now: Post-Final Chapter, my impression changed to "someone got a little fucked up" very quickly. This is probably less of an "impression" and more of a rough retrospective, but it's clear just how much of him is a constant struggle. It's probably accurate to say that Lawrence's life is defined by control. Maybe that's too vague, but it's what I feel in my heart. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, this is my blog anyway.

Favorite moment: Do moments from the screenplay count? Lawrence telling Adam, "It's never too late." guts me wide open. I'm obsessed with the place that this has in the story, I'm obsessed with what this says about him. "It's never too late to get out of here and chase your dreams, Adam. It's never too late for me to be a better father. It's never too late," until it is too late, when their time is up. When everything happens. And it's too late to go back, it's too late to go back for Adam. It's too late to make amends with his wife. It's too late. I also just like the genesis of Lawrence's codependency, but anyone following me already knows how deep my brainrot goes with that one. Just any codependency moment. You know the ones.

Idea for a story: Apprentice Lawrence protecting Amanda, and keeping some of her mistakes secret from John and Hoffman because, whether conscious or unconscious, I think he views her as a daughter-figure; and I think he objects to how she has clearly been manipulated by John. I think that in order to work in proximity with Amanda, Lawrence has had to re-frame how he thinks of her, if he knows that she is the one who physically set the trap that got him into this mess. I think that he'd appeal to his own senses as a doctor... and I have commented on this before... but, with new information I decided to cherry-pick from the Saw wiki about Lawrence (in reference to one of the barely-tenuously-canon videogame adaptations or spinoffs or whatever you want to call it) having been institutionalized for 6 months when he was 19 (I disregard literally every other detail about this to supplant my own ideas for him and his relationship to this moment in his life)... I think Lawrence has genuinely been on the receiving end of bad, condescending doctors who mistreated him and other patients, including addicts (given the decade, I expect he actually encountered quite a few) and I don't think he has any tolerance or patience for John's treatment of Amanda as a recovering addict.

Full disclosure, I'm pitching this as someone who has literally endured addiction struggles with both opioid and heroin on top of other self-harm struggles and I empathize deeply on a personal level with Amanda. I've long wanted to write something about Amanda and addiction, and I care a lot about the idea of Lawrence experiencing this deep attachment to her as the father of a daughter, himself. An idea I have for a story would be Amanda experiencing another relapse of H usage, she makes the mistake of returning to the amount equivalent to the last dose she remembers taking before getting sober, and Lawrence makes a very deliberate decision to help her reverse this overdose, and then monitors her recovery afterward. He sneaks her medicine and fluids and keeps an eye on her. He does everything he can to make sure John never finds out, plotting in his head what he will say if there's any chance her relapse is discovered. He'll insist he did this because it's what was best for her, that he needed to think like a doctor, and that Amanda was a patient like any other. But it's clearly way more personal for him than he's letting on, or letting himself believe. He soothes her white coat anxiety, he doesn't condescend, he talks to her like a person, he stays awake to watch over her, and he does it because he cares. John may be her father figure, but Amanda is Lawrence's daughter figure. This is the realest unspoken truth of Saw canon, to me.

Unpopular opinion: I don't know if any opinions of Lawrence are necessarily popular vs. unpopular, but that could really just be my perspective as a newcomer. I don't disagree with many of the 'popular' opinions. The popular opinions I disagree with are more like popular chainshipping opinions and that's not what this ask is about, so I'd have to say my unpopular Lawrence opinion is that I don't think he's as cold or standoffish as some people make him out to be? He still makes some kind of effort with Alison, enough to call things off with Carla. Even when he talks to Carla, he expresses concern about it being bad for her career for them to continue seeing each other. He cares so much about Diana, he loves her so much, and I think he also genuinely cares about Adam despite him being a relative stranger, and despite what he eventually comes to learn about him (but that tends to happen when you're locked in a room with someone for 6 hours, talking back and forth about yourselves). Doing rounds with a gaggle of residents is hardly reflective of his actual bedside manner, but I can understand why "Lawrence is just kind of an asshole (to patients)" would be commonly extrapolated from what we know about him. I don't know if I would trust John as, like, the word-of-God perspective on Lawrence's character considering how piss poor a job he does judging the moral characters of basically anyone and everyone. That's all I have to say...

Favorite relationship: As is consensus, I'd consider it a cop-out to say Adam, so I'm going to talk more about my opinions on Lawrence and Amanda even though we can only really speculate about how they interacted as fellow apprentices. Because they just had to have interacted. They had to. Much of what I already wanted to express can be read above in the "idea for a story" section, but it's just important to me that Lawrence is literally a father while John isn't, he never became one, and I think Lawrence seethes to himself sometimes, thinking about that. John doesn't know what it's like to be a parent, he has no idea what it's like, and what it means to take care of someone in that way. I think it would probably be kind of a misplaced anger he has, since John has never once insinuated that Amanda is genuinely his daughter, nor anything more than an apprentice, but I think Lawrence knows how Amanda feels about him. He knows she looks up to him like a father. Even if he never replaces John as someone she looks up to, I'd like to think that he still cares for her in a way that contrasts John's authoritarian paternalism. I think that Lawrence has had to cope with the aftermath of his survival, and having to work with Amanda, by separating Amanda the person from Amanda the apprentice. He can't forgive her for the acts that she commits and has committed, for her part in the generation of Jigsaw victims, any more than he can forgive his own. But that's still a person, he thinks. She's still someone's daughter. He can care for her as a person while still not being able to forgive her as an apprentice... and I think that's exactly what he does.

Favorite headcanon: Yeah, I'm going to answer this prompt incorrectly on purpose because I don't really have a favorite headcanon from fanon. I'm going to talk about my favorite headcanon of my own, which is that I don't think Lawrence has a relationship with his parents. Related to the other headcanon I cherry-picked from the tenuous not-quite-canon videogame lore, I think that he struggled at the beginning of medical school under extreme pressure and I think his parents had him committed. And I think it completely destroyed their relationship.

(I'm about to make this about myself again because this is my circus and I'm the fucking ringleader)

To get oneself out of involuntary treatment in a psychiatric ward or residential treatment facility, there are many things that you can do. But, through it all, you have to be disgustingly compliant and you have to practically fucking grovel and prostrate yourself to the people who will decide whether you deserve to continue being subjected to 'treatment' there. If I ever have the mental energy to actually turn this into a fic, I would spend so much page space mentioning how ironic it is that he was sent here to supposedly be freed from the pressures that medical school was putting on him, and ended up immediately engrossing himself in as much literature as he was allowed to have access to on how to get himself out, using medical and legal resources that sure as fuck aren't being freely provided to him. I think Lawrence learns how to write a petition for discharge from involuntary hospitalization, and he tries and tries and tries, getting rejected over and over until finally his petition for discharge is granted and he's free. ...And, as someone who had my petition for release pretty much immediately rejected, no matter how fucking eloquent I was, I think the man has the stubborn tenacity to just keep trying until something works.

After release, I think that the rest of this year of his life is something he dedicates to recovery while slowly re-entering medical school, a period that he refers to as his 'gap year' so that he doesn't have to unpack the immense trauma involved in the whole ordeal. In case you didn't know, simply being involuntarily committed is traumatizing, even if you're 'treated well' during your time as a resident patient. I think it's an ordeal that would've shaped him as a doctor, even if his specialty as an attending ended up not having anything to do with something more person-to-person like family medicine or even being a general surgeon. And I don't think he ever forgave his parents for committing him. I think he dropped his surname and started using his middle name, Gordon, as his last name. I think he walked away from this experience wanting nothing more to do with them.

I also think it would be funny if Alison spent like a couple years, not knowing anything about his parents because he never mentions them, while also knowing that he doesn't visit them, nor does he mention wanting her to meet them, and, for lack of a better explanation, just assumes they're dead... But then, at some point, maybe as they're planning their wedding, he drops this truth bomb on her about completely severing them from his life because they did something unforgivable, and she'd learn about his psychiatric trauma sometime soon after. Like, "Oh, my parents are alive. I just want nothing to do with them and never want to see them again as long as I live," because same. I think he makes a conscious effort to go against the ways he was raised in raising Diana, and I think it's a decision he doesn't often regret, if at all.

send me a character

[exaltatuss]

"Do not worry. I'm not going to kill you. I have... Other uses for you." -Mara

General Info: Name; Mara Occupation: Nidhogg, Imugi, God-Devouring Serpent, Ahesvar Age; ███’███’███’███ Race; Abyssal Serpent Height; 195 cm Morality Alignment; True Evil Eye Color; Purple Hair color; Black with purple streaks Other Characteristics: Tail, Shedding Skin, Fangs Misc; Irredeemable

Personality; A trait rarely seen from other antagonists, Mara's demeanor is relaxed, talking eloquently, yet powerfully. Her speech patterns show that she need not to utter out swears or curses to instill an imposing impression towards those she talks to. Despite such charismatic eloquence, she doesn't hide the fact that she looks down on everyone else, be it those she had faced in the past, or those who are of equal in her weight class in terms of power. Additionally, she is unfazed when relaying out grim descriptions of things, especially talking down on her adversaries. She rarely ever goes for the kill not because she can't, but because she prefers prolonging their suffering until she gets bored of them, even going as far as to either coercing, manipulating or forcing them into do things they are morally against doing normally.

Her brutality in words and actions most often leave a lasting impression, as even the likes of Chione and Roone had learn to be quite wary of her.

She is also shown to be extremely intelligent, possessing genius level intellect far surpassing most individuals, and as such, makes sure that she exercises as much tact as possible, knowing all she could about individuals of interest, preparing contingencies against them, and even going as far as to prepare her physical condition against them should she end up facing them in combat. However, even if said preparations were to fail, she has displayed time and time again that she could improvise plans on the fly to the point of unpredictability.

She's extremely manipulative, either via careful, systematic manipulation, or bruteforcing it via various mind controlling abilities, though she favors the former than the latter, seeing the former as a more enjoyable way of dismantling someone apart. That being said, those who work under her are only there purely as a byproduct of the former.

Having no real affiliations with other factions as she originates from the bottommost recesses of the Abyss, she has no qualms betraying others, be it temporary ally, foe, hero, or fellow villain. To her, all are just the same: toys who will bend and break, some earlier or later than most.

At her core, Mara is absolute chaos personified, relishing on systematically picking things apart, simulating a domino effect of events she had envisioned, and watching as everything starts crumbling down. She is, metaphorically and literally, the slow poison that brings upon agonizing suffering and death to others.

Despite seeing herself in an overconfident light bordering onto hubris, Mara is one who is deceptively crazy prepared, her ego balanced out by her sence of self-competence, constantly reaching her limits again and again, and surpassing them all the same. Just like what she had said once, "Absolute chaos never settle with 'enough'."

As such, she would find genuine excitement against adversaries who can stand their ground against her, mainly due to the fact that she would have more time enjoying picking them apart, or try to. She takes even more exceptional fondness to those who just won't simply break from her machinations, as they would be a constant reminder for her to always raise the stakes.

Backstory; WIP

Powers & Abilities

Superhuman Physical Characteristics Master Martial Artist Ki Manipulation Enhanced Senses Accelerated Development Reactive Power Level Rage Power Energy/Ki Absorption  Regeneration/Healing Factor High Pain Tolerance Non-Physical Interaction  Mind Control Poison Manipulation Ultimate Poison Poison Immunity Chaos Manipulation Calamity Manipulation Talent Theft Power Absorption Void Manipulation & Existance Erasure Resistance to Space-Time & Time-Stop technques Genius Intellect Master Manipulator

Trivia:

-Due to her point of origin being the deepest parts of the Abyss, Mara is to be considered one of the most powerful individuals on any universe. Despite having the power to completely annihilate worlds or civilizations, she prefers rotting them out to the core slowly and painfully. One such example was the once bountiful Planet Klymeda, which has now regressed into the most unpleasant, anarchic, and self-destructive outback planets to ever exist across the multiverse, all due to Mara's doing.

-Due to her direct, intimate connection to the Abyss, Mara can appear on any given location, on any given time, even going as far as being able to naturally slip into even the Zeroth Universe without any outside help.

-Those who actively try seeking her would be faced with a chain of events that instills the worst possible calamities thrown at them. This has been the exact reason why Roone and Chione can't actively try seeking her out, despite how much they want to. In other words, one does not really seek Mara. Its Mara who seeks an individual out, and if she does, only they can start seeking her without already getting harmed from doing so, thus completely deconstructing the need for protagonists to eventually pursue the antagonists. Certain abilities and/or forms do counter such power of calamity, however.

-Being an Abyssal Serpent, and the only recorded being of her kind, Mara possesses every potent toxins ever known, used to be known, and yet to be known. Bodily fluids such as blood or saliva is enough totransmit them onto others. Though despite such, a good majority of her body is also envenomed, and not just her fluids. Furthermore, her blood is not only toxic, but is also extremely corrosive. Anything that isn't made of Solium would quickly dissolve with relative ease. Naturally, Mara has immunity to such, herself.

-Due to her Talent Theft and Power Absorption Abilities, she had acquired Vacosian Traits and abilities from Chione, as well as Dracontine Traits and abilities from Roone, allowing her to have a mixed conglomerate of Vacosian and Dracontine biology, as well as access to Zenkai and Dracontine Adaptation. That being said, she had acquired her own spin of powers from many others due to said abilities.

[jozzysabbath]

HOW BLACK SABBATH ENDURED BOTH HEAVEN AND HELL WITH 'SABOTAGE'

As Black Sabbath prepared to unveil their sixth studio album on July 28, 1975, their career appeared to be at its absolute zenith. And yet, the foundation of their heavy metal empire was rotting under their platform boots due to the dishonest dealings of their longtime management World Wide Artists.

No one seemed more surprised about this sickening turn of events than the four members of Sabbath themselves: Singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward.

For the band, the first half of the ‘70s had been a breathless marathon, packed with album after album and touring jaunts in-between. By 1975, this grueling workload (and its resulting physical and emotional toll) had helped them achieve a level of worldwide stardom beyond their wildest dreams, but hardly the same financial security. It was at this point that their worst suspicions finally came home to roost.

With the help of their notorious new manager Don Arden, Black Sabbath began the painful process of putting their business affairs in order in the summer of 1974. But they still had to put food on the table while the lawsuits were flying. It was under this kind of pressure that sessions for Sabotage were initiated – its title chosen to reflect the dire state of the group's finances.

Musically, the band was looking to dispense with the more sophisticated trappings of 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by recording an in-your-face, pulverizing rock album – more in line with predecessors Vol. 4 and Master of Reality – without necessarily sacrificing the variety common to all of their albums. It goes without saying, though, that the urgent need to produce new music and get right back to earning much-needed dollars out on the road undoubtedly fueled the recording process, to some extent.

As such, the band’s signature doom plod was expeditiously unearthed for the opening “Hole in the Sky” and – following a brief acoustic interlude from Iommi named “Don’t Start (Too Late)” – pushed to glorious heights via the galloping staccato strums and mystical lyrics of “Symptom of the Universe.” Black Sabbath would arguably never again conjure their alchemical original formula quite like they did on this classic song, but they sure came close with the driving attack of “Thrill of it All” and the radical dynamic shifts undertaken by twin epics “Megalomania” and “The Writ” — the last obviously inspired by their ongoing litigation.

Somewhat less impressive were the perplexing choirs laden atop the otherwise instrumental “Supertzar” and the album’s synthetic-sore-thumb of a single, “Am I Going Insane? (Radio),” whose title essentially confirmed its purpose – though not competently enough to even get it into the charts. On the other hand, Sabotage in its entirety did rise as high as the American Top 20, but tellingly dropped back down just as quickly, becoming the first Black Sabbath album to not achieve platinum sales.

Then, adding injury to insult, Ozzy injured his back in a motorcycle accident in the fall of '75, forcing Sabbath to cut short their tour with openers Kiss, even as their label, Warner Bros., prepared the release of the group's first greatest hits set, We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll. The latter would in years to come unfairly promote the perception that Black Sabbath’s best days were behind them, and said notion would sadly be exacerbated by the commercial and artistic deficiencies of the following year’s Technical Ecstasy and 1978’s Never Say Die.

By the close of the '70s, Black Sabbath's original incarnation would be no more, as Osbourne quit, rejoined, then quit again. After barnstorming across that decade's first half, Sabbath limped over the second, with their ongoing struggles with substance abuse and never-ending lawsuits against the managers who'd done them wrong being the only constants in a period of inconstancy.

Sabotage was, in many ways, cast into a state of purgatory, neither here nor there, where Sabbath fans were concerned, its worth relative to the band's surrounding discography cast into doubt.

But, as we look back with the benefit of hindsight, this album feels ever more like the final chapter in Black Sabbath’s amazing run of heavy metal cornerstones instead of the first chapter in their hit-and-miss second act. If anything is beyond question, it's that from a musical and even visual standpoint (thanks to its creepy black-hued cover art), Sabotage certainly lived up to the band’s original sonic aesthetic, with all its perfect imperfections, for the last time in their storied career

[guaranteedshopping]

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[compiledautumn]

Learning to trust the lack of transparency from ad platforms

As I write this article, I see the irony in the headline…

Learning to trust three major platforms – Google, Bing (I refuse to call it Microsoft Advertising), and Facebook (I still hate calling it Meta) – which just in the past month have laid off tens of thousands of employees. 

And then on the first working day back in the office since Google’s mass layoff, the Google Ads UI goes down for 3 hours – the longest I can recall in my 18 years of doing this.

Let’s just pretend to ignore that elephant in the room and discuss how we can learn to trust what we cannot see (anymore) on the platforms.

With a series of changes on the platform side (Performance Max, Facebook Advantage+ or Bing’s change to networks to include “select traffic” in it), the current state of transparency of where, when and how our ads will show is fuzzier than ever. 

And don’t even bother asking Yelp for detailed reporting (in their defense, they have always remained constant though). 

Meanwhile, the ability to quantify some of this data smoothly on the analytics side (hello, GA4), has become as successful and viable as being a starting New York Jets quarterback for more than two seasons.

You can say, “Watch me, Jon! I will pull out of Google or Facebook and be just fine.” 

Once I am eventually done laughing and after you’ve explained to your CMO that you stopped one of your website’s largest traffic sources because the big bad conglomerates won’t give you more details, then we can have a serious chat about reality.

Here’s the thing:

As much as I complain about the platforms’ lack of transparency, the reality is that we, as advertisers, do not have a choice in the matter. In a privacy-obsessed era, ad platforms bend to such demands – and certain foreign and domestic government bodies.

So upon facing the reality that the level of transparency and insight we loved is coming back a week after never, it is time to learn to trust the new normal.

Platforms are not wanting your money just today

Despite what we think of them, not being able to identify how many Performance Max impressions are coming from GDN placements is a pain in the butt, but not evil. They don’t plan on leaving us broke with garbage performance in a month and running away.

Every ad platform under the sun knows, its number one goal is to make money for themselves. 

But if they sell in an ad capability with no transparency and poor performance, then the advertisers pull out and they won’t make the revenue (a fun reminder of Yahoo Gemini). 

So this has to instill the belief in an advertiser that just because the platform wants your money, doesn’t mean they don’t want to grow you profitably. Remember folks, ad platforms look at the lifetime value of an advertiser rather than just the quarter.

With that in mind, just because you can’t see everything pre or post of a launch, doesn’t mean it is wrong. It does mean they operate with a bit of a black box though.

A platform, with all its sophisticated algorithms, in an absolute best-case scenario (i.e., ideal volume, conversions, seasonality, budget, tagging, linking, etc.) and under non-“unique to me” scenarios, will likely produce inherently better performance within their black box, than anyone on manual. 

They do this not because they are taking your cash and running, but because they believe in growing your business.

Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.

Despite what you believe, you are still in control – sorta

We as advertisers have the ability to turn off an ad unit. But one should only do it if they have first evaluated the following:

Do I understand what the ad unit is doing?

Do I understand how the ad unit is delivering its results?

Are the results it produces heading in the appropriate direction for my goals?

So, this is where things get sticky. You may evaluate all three of these, but if you can't answer the first two questions and the last one is a "yes," it may just outweigh everything. Or as I often call this concept, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

We've all taken this approach at one point or another. 

That moment, when you can't explain to the CMO where your ads are, what they show for, and not entirely who they show to, but that 1,000% is looking mighty fine. 

Unless you've hit a brand safety issue (we'll get into that in a moment) but you can produce quality and quantity at the same time, sometimes you may have to accept that your target (e.g., women 25-44, living in 06117, who graduated from *my alma mater* Hofstra University, who are fans of the New York Jets and enjoy reading content about vacations to Mexico) might actually be someone different than who you were going for (e.g., women 25-44, living in 06117, whose kids attend Hofstra, but are actually hecklers of NY Jet fans and prefer day trips to go leaf peeping in the Poconos). 

But Google felt your ads should show for them as well because when they look at all behavioral points (many we can't see or even comprehend), they realize there is another group close to your ideal audience that, if shown that one random Gmail ad spot, is more likely to convert than your ideal target.

Every creative director or graphic design major wants the final say on the creative layout, collaboration, and placement of their ad. 

But guess what, the number of mental synapses to comprehend every scenario, for every consumer, would:

Make one's brain explode.

Unless you have a team of 1,000 robots working around the clock, will consume too much time to execute.

Once again, you the advertiser have the directional control, and more importantly, the kill switch. But you need to trust the platform to fine-tune it.

You can still get the details, but you will have to work harder to get it

You are not destitute to have no concept of where your ad triggers. (Disclaimer: I know what you're thinking – and I agree. GA4 really does make everything a living nightmare for data collection, courtesy of sampling thresholds.) 

But simple scripts and parameters, if you're willing to give up something, can allow you to track additional data and placements within the URLs that can be passed back into your analytics or CRM system. 

Will it be a pain in the butt to pull? Absolutely. 

Is it necessary to deal with the necessary evil? Also yes.

Courtesy of the feds, the big 3 platforms aren't being secretive for fun (I hope), but because a lot of data has to be blinded. You just need to be willing to take the time to hunt for it all.

The takeaway

Yes, you have lost a lot of transparency on the minutia. You are more now than ever, at the mercy of the black box method. 

But this has now put a renewed emphasis on A/B testing. Accept what you cannot control (placement, audiences, the loyalty you have to a specific Real Housewives franchise), and focus on what you can still control: 

Creative.

Landing pages.

Audience segments.

Targeting.

And more. 

Once you focus on those, do every possible test there is where you can have a true control element:

Audiences/segments.

Geo-targeting.

Ad copy/images.

Landing pages.

Etc.

But the most important thing is to watch the performance. If it is not panning out, then just stop it. Pause it, regroup, replan, and go down your checklist for your next paid search game plan.

This will help to reduce the lack of transparency while still accepting the lack of transparency, helping you move on to the future of the next hidden gem to ruin your month as an advertiser.

Despite what you think, not knowing what % of your Bing search traffic is coming from Yahoo.com, just will not be worth the time to figure out.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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About the author

Jonathan Kagan entered the online marketing industry in 2005 – starting out in the SEM world. From there, he progressed and expanded into other sectors of the digital marketing world. Currently, he is the VP of search and biddable media for 9Rooftops|Cogniscient Media. Prior, Jonathan had run search marketing teams for Mediacom, Forbes, and Digitas. Overseeing enterprise search operations for clients that included American Express, Revlon, GlaxoSmithKline, Equifax, Mead Johnson, and Abbvie. In addition, he also created and oversaw Digitas Central America's search marketing operation. You may of seen some of his presentations on mobile, programmatic and multi-screen marketing at conferences like Search Insider Summit, Digital Summit, ClickZ Live, Connect and SMX.

Read more here https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064162983889

[nraqi]

coughs

sleep deprived, incoherent ramblings shall commence

!!! WARNING I HAVE NOT FINISHED FAILURE MODE. if i get anything wrong / inaccurate,,,, shhh, anything’s possible with enough desperate staring at blank word docs <3 regardless, spoilers for some of failure mode and anything before that abound ^_^

i like to think it all started with smythe’s death. bishop starts questioning his own command (well, more?) regardless of the urgent circumstances that had led to that moment. he can’t even use a half thought out excuse that he was new, he was still learning, like he tried to tell himself when desai happened. because all those years under his belt had to account for something now, right? he’s not a kid anymore. it’s his fault, more now than ever.

then, skippy falls. him. he wasn’t supposed to. he wasn’t supposed to die, protecting the universe they had spent so much time with each other in. they were supposed to stay, or fall, together. yes, the ai had told him how it would all end up, multiple times and with a strange, sad note in his voice that bishop had tried so hard to dismiss. no, the general hadn’t listened. not really. he couldn’t, wouldn’t. skippy had always griped in the past about the merry band of pirates inevitably failing, why would this time be any different? they would all make it out, right?

the aftermath is just as hard, if not worse.

there’s not much the merry band of pirates can — or want to, really — do that unef can’t do better, especially now there isn’t any beercan to help. negotiations drag on endlessly with bishop sometimes in the mix, arguments between species occur and clashes happen, but it’s rather peaceful. a tense, odd sort of peace, but peace regardless. the merry band of pirates slowly move on. some find it easier, some find it much, much harder.

bishop stays on valkyrie. he’s been on a ship so long it’s just… home. a cold, distant home that he’s known for what feels like eternity by this point. he’s so tired, but it feels wrong to just retire. to return to the life of a “normal” civilian, as if he’s ever been able to experience what the majority of humanity like to call normal. the brief stint on earth he tries leaves him more of a wreck than ever, and he quickly returns. nagatha does her best to keep the human company, though neither of them can help the tentative, painful treading around one who was held so dear despite everything. one who had essentially lived his entire true life with them, a life that was not nearly long enough.

years pass. bishop’s constant exposure to vile individuals — some human, some not — and their just as vile political tactics does affect him. slowly, carefully, but it does. on a dose of emotion suppressing nanobots ever since a psychotic break started becoming the norm, earth’s government preferring to keep the intimidation factor tucked away in their pocket lacking easily discarded emotion, not precious sanity. bishop’s been promoted multiple times by this point, though it feels shallow. it’s always felt shallow, always meant to impress or scare some foreign entity considering belligerence. he’s learned it all by this point; casually said threats tipped with venomous barbs, wearing down his victim subject’s confidence with every word that easily slips, covertly offering resources for public acts… all common practice. too common, really.

it fades into a dull drone after a while, something sick in him reveling in the power that’s been awarded after it all. bishop having long since forgotten the day when he made skippy promise to snap him out of it if he goes too far, acts too much like them. he’s not there to remind him anymore.

he will never be again.

—

MEANWHILE, in a canon-adjacent (?) reality, a living beercan manages to accidentally transport himself and one pissed off star team leader to a reality where their secret infatuation slash commanding officer has his hands in just about everything and has fallen to the low level he’d once sworn to never touch . oops :)

corrupt bishop au ^_^

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

So I (finally!) bought a pair of really good noise cancelling headphones, and it has changed my life! It's the fanciest thing I've bought in years, so to recoup some of the cost, I’ve researched & written a little essay based on my experiences with extreme noise sensitivity.

Hypersensitivity to sound is something I’ve dealt with all of my life, but I only recently found out it's medically known a Hyperacusis. (Please note this is a separate condition from Misophonia.) If you consistently struggle to cope with noise, the info below could be helpful! I’m including a link to my ko-fi, and I will be answering questions in the notes.

(skip to the bottom to read fun facts about my tax return and/or street organs vendettas!)

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional, this is based solely on my experiences as a patient, and on what I have read and been told by professionals. Please notify me if you have corrections or concerns about accuracy!

BACKGROUND: Sensitivity to sound is a common type of sensory issue. While anyone can experience such issues (most people, for example, might be bothered by loud music in a crowded restaurant), some people are more sensitive than others, to the point it becomes a quality-of-life aka a medical issue.

If you consistently struggle with environmental stimuli that other people aren’t bothered by (background noises, bright lights, certain textures and tastes, etc), to the point it causes daily discomfort or limits the environments you can be in, I recommend reading about Sensory Processing Disorder.

SPD and sound sensitivity are both super common in autistic folks (like me!), but allistic (non-autistic) people can experience them too. Weep, ye prisoners of mortal coil, for none are safe, nothing sacred, not in this thy most accursed tomb of human flesh!

Anyway.

SOUND SENSITIVITY or HYPERACUSIS: Noise issues are particularly difficult to navigate in a world that is increasingly...noisy. The relatively new phenomenon of constant overhead music in restaurants, grocery stores, shopping malls etc—all of this means that public spaces are increasingly inaccessible to people with auditory issues.*

As a kid, nothing quite triggered sensory overload/meltdowns for me like the constant exposure to noise I couldn’t control—the background chatter of other kids in the lunchroom, the constant noise in public spaces, being trapped in the car with the radio on.... I had so many fights with my siblings about the car radio, and who got to choose the music.**

But it’s not just loud sounds that are the problem. As an adult who lives alone and works from home***, I’m lucky enough to be able to avoid loud environments most of the time. This does wonders for my general levels of anxiety and discomfort. But even in a mostly controlled environment, I still experience problems. Because part of sound sensitivity is that even normal or quiet sounds can feel loud and intrusive. Here are some “normal” sounds that can cause me discomfort (ranging from annoyance to outright pain, depending on the day):

refrigerator/AC/ceiling lights humming

dishwasher/washing machine noises

ceiling fan making that damn ceiling fan noise

faint sounds of traffic

riding in a car

other people having a normal conversation in the background

someone talking to me in a perfectly normal inside voice

Unfortunately, even in a “controlled” environment, many triggering noises can’t be controlled. And many parts of life can’t be lived in a controlled environment. This presents...some incredibly freaking annoying problems. Luckily there are solutions!

Sorta.

There are sorta some solutions.

They are imperfect, but they help.

TREATMENT: And now I have something rather shame-faced to admit. In all the years of managing my symptoms, it never once occurred to me to see a hearing specialist for my issues with sound. I wasn’t even aware that treatment options exist, because none of my other doctors mentioned it. Instead, I’ve spent years finding my own coping mechanisms and tools, with help from therapists and psychiatrists, but without ever consulting an audiologist/ENT. It was only while researching this post that I found out that was even an option, holy shit.

So it turns out I am going to be making an appointment with my local ENT practice. shit.

Apparently treatment options include sound/acoustic therapy, systematic desensitization/exposure therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, sound machines, and other options that I had no idea even existed, goddammit.

MANAGEMENT: In the meantime, here are my current coping mechanisms. I’ve relied rather heavily on hearing protection, which is very useful when used in moderation. Unfortunately, it can cause its own problems: it’s important not to overuse hearing protection, because in the long-term this can increase your sensitivity. So again: a useful tool, but be careful not to overdo it.

With that in mind, here are some of the coping strategies I’ve used over the last decade to manage my symptoms. This is not a perfect system and you should contact your local ENT clinic for better, long-term solutions, but in the meantime here are some tips I use to just get myself through the damn day:

Regularly spending time in a quiet controlled environment, to allow my nervous system to decompress.

Wearing earplugs, (I use two different grade, depending on the level of noise prevention I need), and always carrying an extra pair in case I need them unexpectedly. I bought a 50 pack for $7 and put spares in all my bags and jacket pockets.

(I mostly use Mack’s Ultra Soft, but there are so many types and materials and brands, including foam, silicone, wax, custom moldable etc. Even if you have trouble wearing things in your ears, you might be able to find something comfortable.)

Similarly: hearing protection earmuffs, the kind used in gun ranges and on construction sites. I bought mine online for $10. they look like normal wireless headphones, so I've never gotten comments when wearing mine in public (other than “cool heaphones” bc i added skull glitter stickers).

Sometimes I wear the earmuffs on top of earplugs, when life is just too damn LOUD.

Listening to music w/ earbuds or headphones is a great way to balance out background noises, especially if you can find soothing playlists that help you concentrate. Also useful to put in just one earbud when you need to pay attention in class/at work.

Pro tip: if your hair is long enough you can wear wireless earbuds without anyone knowing.

White noise, rain noises, ocean noises etc can be helpful! Some people like whale songs although personally this activates my primal fear response

Active noise cancelling headphones: the reason I wrote this post to begin with—I finally bought a pair! As in, a really good pair! As in, a depressingly expensive pair with noise cancelling technology that actually WORKS, holy shit. I probably need to wear them a little less at home (bc overprotection causes problems in the longterm) but they have absolutely transformed my ability to go out in public and i never ever want to take these suckers off again please take a power screwdriver and nail these to my head, bury me in the sweet sweet shroud of silence. holy canoli and cream puffs I want to marry form a civil partnership with these headphones. Plus they have a bunch of features, like being able to control the level of noise cancellation, so I can hold a conversation or be aware of some ambient noise for safety reasons.

Oh, and also they play music I guess?

Sorry sorry I promise this post wasn’t supposed to be me shilling for Big Electronics. I’m just excited, I’m an excited flabby little ball of expired flubber. ANC headphones aren’t a perfect solution, and I still sometimes wear earplugs underneath, and I will always be uncomfortable some of the time, but for me it’s been a big step.

Unfortunately the cost of good quality ANC technology means this isn’t an option for everyone, and the (much cheaper) gunshot protection earmuffs I mentioned earlier still provide an impressive amount of protection and bang-for-your buck (maybe even an equal amount of protection, if you can find ones that fit well). But if noise consistently prevents you from enjoying public space and life in general, and you’ve already tried earmuffs & earplugs and find they don’t offer enough comfort/convenience/protection, and if you’re in a position to save up for a one time non-necessity purchase of $150+, noise cancelling headphones are an option to be aware of. (Please always check the return policy so you can try before you buy. I ended up buying and returning 2 pairs before finding what worked best for me. And please look for a retailer that offers an extended warranty. You want those motherforkers to last).

There are cheaper options available, including some under $50. The ones I tried didn't work as well as my hearing protection earmuffs, but some people report good experiences, so that is something to consider. it's always good to know your options! Passive noise canceling is another affordable alternative.

Medication: A final tool in my toolbox, which for me personally has helped as much as every other method combined. Like, a lot, it’s helped a lot. It turns out some anti-anxiety medications can also help sensory issues. There’s not much research on this, and I only discovered it firsthand when a medication my doctor prescribed for anxiety ended up significantly helping my sensory issues. I no longer need medication for anxiety, but my psychiatrist still prescribes that same medication off-label for my sensory stuff. Ask your psychiatrist to research your options (they will probably have to do some digging to find relevant research, but you deserve to know all your options, even the obscure ones). Fyi, the medication I use is in the benzodiazepines class, but there are other options for those concerned about dependency or side effects.

(I'm also told anti-anxiety supplements may be helpful, though I haven't tried this yet. If you're on prescription meds, always talk to your doctor about contraindications before taking anything over-the-counter.)

So there you have it, my main coping strategies for sound sensitivity! They are not a replacement for medical treatment (except that last one which is in fact...medical treatment), but I find them helpful and I hope some of you will too! I’ve struggled for a long time, and I’m very pleased to have reached the point where I can just do things in public. Eating out in loud restaurants? I can do that now, and even enjoy it, holy shit! I can comfortably travel in cars for hours at a time, and walk around shopping malls and grocery stores with overhead music, and, and —and just exist. It is so so freeing, to feel like maybe, after everything, you are actually allowed to just exist in a world that wasn’t really designed for you.

Again, be careful not to overuse hearing protection—the goal is to allow you to be less uncomfortable and to function better, but if you find you are becoming more sensitive to noise, it is time to dial it back a notch. Or maybe consider listening to music (at a reasonable volume) to block out background noise instead.

*(This also includes people with hearing loss and related issues, btw. While that’s not my area of knowledge, I would welcome it if any of my HoH followers want to share their experiences.)

**A sign of sensory issues that parents often miss is when a child complains about music being too loud—but has no problem listening to their own music at high volume. This is because music that is already familiar to the listener (and that the listener enjoys) is much easier for the brain to process, since it knows what pattern of sounds to expect. Loud music that they get to control can be soothing for people with sound issues, especially when it blocks out background noise and sensations. This is why repetitively playing the same songs can be a helpful form of stimming.

***(working on this blog, actually. since it’s my only source of income, my 2020 income tax return literally lists my occupation as ‘Tumblr Blogger.’ Oddly, my parent didn’t feel this achievement was worth including in the holiday family newsletter.)

bonus fun fact: Charles Babbage aka “father of the computer” may have been autistic and hypersensitive to sound. He definitely had a huge problem with public noise pollution, and spent his later year waging a war on street musicians (and organ grinders in particular).

(bc like, yeah. screw organ grinders.)

Sometimes when I’m out in public and the overhead music is particularly unbearable, I’ll take a moment to look up to the sky and scream out: “HE TRIED TO WARN US! THE FATHER OF COMPUTERS TRIED TO WARN US!!! we should have listened, sweet heaven we should have listened!”

except i don’t scream it, i say it very quietly under my breath

(i have issues with noise)

so yeah that is my short essay. and here is the ko-fi goal

k ciao i gotta go pick out glitter stickers for my headphones

[phantasmiafxndom]

Just an Idea but like, Requesting for Muzan Headcanons of him with his Looks that he oh so prides himself in getting thrown in the Demon sexual trafficking ring! I mean, Who would reject such an elegant and haughty thing that holds himself with his chin up and back upright? I'm sure that some people, particularly higher ups because even though its sketchy, we all know he would be one expensive bitch to use, continuing on, They would absolutely Love to break him down to nothing but an obedient pet.

Basically, May i request of headcanons about Sexually Trafficked!Muzan? Like, what is he like? What is his life in the ring like? How Expensive he would be to be rented? How do staffs take care of him? Is he more of a Sexual pleasure or a Trophy pet type of demon? I would just love to rent him out and dress him like a doll and have him look pretty <3

Thank you for reading, Your Sadistic stories will forever live in my Dreams, Thank you for writing them, You're a Devil sent and we love you for it <33

Delightful~ XD That'd be quite the fate for such a prideful demon to wind up in... I'm sure he'd thoroughly despise it~

. . .

• In terms of who's allowed to use him, Muzan is expensive. As the most high-value demon of them all, his price isn't cheap. That's likely why he was put to this use, in the first place— his owners knew they could make so much off selling him out, the profit was simply irresistible. And as much as he resents the entire situation, Muzan does have some small measure of pride in the fact that he's still the most valuable. That kind of thing is all he really has left, so he clings to even such a tiny scrap of his old dignity.

• However, because of his beyond-impressive regeneration abilities, the people who pay in full are allowed to do some downright horrible things. Sex and violence go hand in hand for people who want to experience such a powerful demon under their control, and as such, Muzan is used to his clients torturing him more often than not. Since he'll heal, it doesn't matter, does it? His owners see no problem in putting him through nightmarish levels of pain and suffering because of how well he'll heal from them, and how quickly. That part is far from pleasant.

• And yet, they do maintain him perfectly. Muzan's delicate, refined looks are an essential part of his value, so he's quite well cared for. Physically, he doesn't want for much of anything. He's fed well enough to look good, always kept clean, and his appearance is carefully minded without fail. It's almost worse that way. Despite such a cushy life, for the most part, he's still brutalized every time a client comes for him— and that constant shift in treatment is a shock to his system every time it happens.

• His shapeshifting abilities are absolutely something people take advantage of. Whether a client wants a man, a woman, or any set of parts, Muzan can be forced to accommodate. He's made to change his body to suit the whims of whoever rents him out, which really doesn't do his mental state any good. Beyond the fact that he starts to see himself as more of an object than a person, it takes away some form of his sense of self. He's no longer the feared lord of demons; he's just a toy for humans to use as they please, and he's suffering more than he ever has.

[thewayshedreamed]

Nessian prompt:

We’re playing truth or dare and I just got dared to sit on your lap for the next two rounds but now I’m sitting on your hard-on and I’m kinda getting turned on cuz the ✨positioning✨. We’re both tryna fix the situation without drawing attention to us but the fidgeting definitely isn’t helping 👀

Thanks for the prompt, Bby! I know you sent it as part of my follower celebration, but it worked so well for @nessianweek Day 4: Rivalry that I couldn't pass it up.

Enjoy!

Warnings for strong language and mature themes. Slightly nsfw.

--

Nesta didn't know the last time she played Truth or Dare. She thought those days had left her at some point during undergrad, but apparently not. There she was, her last semester of graduate school, somewhat invested in a round of the game. The group had been playing for almost an hour, the drinks they poured becoming more and more stout as the night went on.

Gwyn and Emerie had convinced her to join them for a night out with the others, and to be fair, it had been quite some time since she'd allowed herself a carefree night out. Her sisters and Mor were there, as well as Rhys, Azriel, Cassian, and Lucien. Amren mentioned she would "see how things went", which meant she and Varian were staying in to fulfill their own agenda. There was no doubt that was for the best since their activities would likely scar them all.

It was Mor's turn, and her mischievous smile turned on her girlfriend. "Truth or Dare, Em?"

Emerie considered it for a moment, making a show of staring at the ceiling. One of the guys made a sound similar to a ticking clock, but she paid them no mind.

"Truth."

"Okay," Mor drawled, taking a long sip of wine. "Fuck, Marry, Kill; for Rhys, Azriel, Cassian."

Emerie's eyes grew wide, snapping to Feyre and back to Mor. Nesta dared to chuckle at her friend's tight position, earning a pointed glare reserved for the worst of traitors.

"Don't hesitate on my account," Feyre giggled, resting her head on Rhys' shoulder. "I'm curious."

"That's not a fair one!" Emerie argued, gesturing with her hands. "The answer is none of the above, on all counts. For more than one reason."

The three men had the audacity to look miffed at her rejection, even though none of them had any interest in Emerie. They'd all known each other too long for any blurred lines. Mor leaned heavily against her, a look of apology in her rounded, brown eyes.

"Fair enough," she conceded, pressing a kiss to Emerie's cheek.

"That's not how it works!" Cassian challenged. It was unclear whether his ego or strict principles motivated his outburst.

Nesta fought the urge to roll her eyes, to rise to the challenge in his voice like she usually did. But Emerie was her friend, and she wasn't going to take him pushing her lying down. The words left her with more snark than usual.

"Oh, would you come off it?"

His eyes snapped in her direction, locking in on her face like a predator circling prey. "Let me guess. You have an opinion."

Nesta's blood boiled, despite the fact that she told herself Cassian wouldn't get under her skin the next time they were around each other. She was 0 for... hundreds at that point.

"She answered it truthfully, so I don't see the problem."

"It's the way the question was framed, though. It's a game within the question. There were three options. 'None of the above' wasn't one of them."

Nesta loosened the reins on her eye rolling. Cassian was good for that. "No one made that rule."

"Sweetheart, the rules are pretty clear. But if you want to make sure they stay nice and loose so you can back out later, I get that."

Emerie cleared her throat, eager to redirect his challenge before the two of them escalated. "Show us how it's done, then. Truth or Dare, Cassian?"

His attention lingered on Nesta a moment longer, a familiar glint in his eyes. Her blood heated for an entirely different reason, and she was sure to berate it for doing so.

"Dare."

"I dare you to kiss Azriel," she said, grinning around the rim of her glass. "On the mouth."

Azriel pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, resigned to his fate. He knew Cassian better than anyone, and it was only a matter of time.

Without hesitation, Cassian said, "Oh, done. Tongue?"

A chorus of laughter drowned out Azriel incredulous curse in Cassian's direction. When she finally recovered, Emerie took mercy on Azriel and excused any tongue. Cassian didn't hesitate to lean toward Azriel, cupping him roughly by the back of the neck and planting a full kiss to his mouth. There were catcalls all around; not at all needed in the encouragement department.

Azriel turned his attention to Feyre, fully succumbing to his soft spot for her and letting her off on the easiest Truth ever. It was something to do with who she would most like to draw or paint of the lot of them, excluding Rhys. No surprises on her choice of Azriel himself, but to his credit, he didn’t preen at the compliment. He humbly nodded as if anyone alive wouldn’t want to catch those angles on canvas.

“Nesta,” Feyre called, interrupting another quip she had been prepared to launch Cassian’s way. She couldn’t remember why. “Truth or Dare?”

She took a long pull of her drink and licked her bottom lip. “Dare.”

“Hmm,” Feyre considered, and Nesta had to admit to being slightly terrified of how diabolical sibling could be in a game such as the one she played. It didn’t take long for her to realize she’d been right to feel that way. “I think you two need to learn to get along. I dare you to sit on Cass' lap. Minimum of two full turns.”

Nesta’s nostrils flared. Cassian’s red hot challenge bore a hole into the side of her head, and all she could hear was his taunt from before.

Sweetheart, the rules are pretty clear. But if you want to make sure they stay nice and loose so you can back out later, I get that.

She snapped her attention to his face, suppressing the urge to throttle him for the narrow-eyed smirk he offered. Angling his large body backward, he draped a muscled arm across the back of the couch and eased his thighs open. Cassian wouldn't be the one to back down, she realized.

"Fine." Nesta threw back the rest of her drink and set it roughly on the nearby table.

Cassian's eyes were sparkling, his smile feline. He tapped his thigh with his free hand to goad her, and she wondered if he— if they— would ever tire of the constant challenges. Nesta sauntered over and dropped heavily into the center of his lap, earning a loud oof.

"Fuck, Sweetheart," he fussed, gripped her waist in his large hands to rearrange their position.

The heat of his hands, the scrape of his calluses; they came together to monopolize her focus. She was almost sure that others were amused by their display, but her world was singularly focused.

Cassian cleared his throat while he eased her into a position that better balanced her weight. The tension eased from her thighs as she settled, only for him to shift her again. Nesta let out an exaggerated sigh at his constant fidgeting. The only silver lining to the near motion sickness she'd no doubt endure as a result was the steadiness of his grip against her.

The reason for all his maneuvering revealed itself seconds later. Nesta had been initially impressed with the muscle tone in his thighs, how firm the muscles felt beneath her. They were nothing in comparison to the very obvious hardness pressing against the swell of her ass.

Animated conversation continued around them, and Nesta took the opportunity to turn and offer an accusatory glare. He hissed against the pressure of her movement, sending her eyebrows into her hairline.

"Are you really h—"

"Shh!" Cassian ordered, clamping a hand over her mouth. "Can you not announce that shit to the entire room?"

Nesta blinked incredulously and dragged her tongue against his palm. He grimaced, rubbing his palm against his jeans as if she'd poured acid onto his skin.

"It's not my fault you can't... control that," she hissed.

"Well, shit, Nesta. When's the last time you had a beautiful woman on your lap and had to keep your boner in check?" His whisper was low, frantic. There were words that latched onto her nerves and left goosebumps in their wake, even when she barely heard them.

"It's only two turns," she managed, swallowing against the dryness in her throat. "Then, it'll be a non-issue."

Cassian's hands clung to her hips once more, the delicious grip of them even firmer than before. "You can't get up now; not in front of them." He gestured with a jerk of his chin to the rest of the room. "They're savages."

A laugh bubbled out of Nesta's chest, and surprisingly, it was more due to the unlikely alliance forged by biology than her pleasure in his panic. The irony wasn't lost on her, but she didn't get to dwell on it for long before Cassian started strategizing.

"We're supposed to get along, right?" He paused, waiting for the excessive noise level to settle around them. Someone must have performed a solid dare, and Nesta was mildly concerned that it hadn't managed to be a blip on their radar. "You're gonna have to keep fighting with me."

A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "To be clear, you want me to argue with you so that we can hide this?" She rocked back into him for emphasis, and a pained sound left him. Nesta was grateful for the small silver lining that was her private arousal, otherwise she and Cassian would be in the same boat. The way his eyelids fluttered didn't help.

"I'm asking your for a small favor. When I get my shit together, you're free to go. I'm not exactly happy about it either."

Another smile teased her lips. "Small?"

"Mother's tits. Just turned around."

Nesta complied, if for no other reason than to hide the chuckle she'd been trying to choke down throughout the conversation. They engaged with the others as nonchalantly as possible, ignoring each other completely until opportunities arose to take opposing stances on anything at all. The rules of the game. Who brought the best drinks. If someone had successfully completed their dare or answered their question. Cassian had been correct in assuming the group would advocate for their continued canoodling since they weren't yet cooperating with one another.

"Nesta," he almost growled, sometime after a dozen turns of their faux discord. "This isn't helping."

She whipped around, noting the pained expression on his face. "Wait, is this working for you?"

Cassian squeezed his temples between his thumb and middle finger, looking as if he was in as much disbelief as her. The tragic part was that the arguing hadn't curbed her own body's reactions to him, either.

"That's what it looks like."

Nesta didn't cage it then, the full and melodic laughter that shook her shoulders and made her eyes water. He continued bracing his head in his hand while she delighted in his torture.

"That's awfully kinky of you."

"Alright, enough out of you," he grumbled, situating her for the hundredth time. "You have any better ideas?"

Tears pooled in her eyes, and she flicked them away. "I guess your only choice is to wait until the game ends, or someone causes enough commotion for you to adjust and take a break for a few minutes."

Cassian huffed, clearly unimpressed with her tactics.

"You'll just have to trust me, of all people, to keep your secret in the meantime," she stated, turning her attention back to the room.

His only response was a muttered curse before she felt his forehead drop between her shoulder blades.

[isolatedbubble]

Romance in MXTX, Priest, and SHL

MXTX: Flower, Wine and Dreamworld

The romance in MXTX's works is like flower that grows in ice and snow; colorful, bright and hopelessly romantic, blossoms in misery and hardships.

It features a distinct "us against the world" mindset, depicting love as the only constant in the world. It's an eternal "dreamworld" detached from worldly matters, the perfect escapism as well as a source of strengths in the face of cruel reality.

Both MDZS and TGCF are a critique of mob mentality.

The contrast between CQL and MDZS is very interesting. While the former ends with LWJ taking charge, and therefore changing the world for the better, the novel ends with wangxian isolating themselves from grand politics and focusing more on helping individuals as recluse. It has an essentially pessimistic attitude towards the morality & intelligence of the collective. 

TGCF takes a slightly more optimistic approach, featuring the crowd being courageous under the right circumstances. However, both works share a similar undertone: putting one’s absolute faith in the collective is dangerous, whereas unconditional trust and devotion can be only found in one-to-one connection

MXTX herself compares MDZS and TGCF to 花间一壶酒 (A cup of wine among flowers), MDZS being the wine and TGCF being flower. She also compares MDZS to 风雪夜归人, the person returning home from snow and wind, and TGCF to 红泥小火炉, a small red furnace.

Priest: Breezing Wind and Burning Iron

The romance in priest's works is more complicated. It's the most gentle in its normal state, when it is rational and collected, in which case it's like the breezing wind, soothing, sweet and light-hearted. It gives the individuals more incentive to achieve their individual and/or societal vision, as well as more reason to value their own lives & well-being.

In Faraway Wanderers, the most distinct feature of WenZhou relationship is how in naturally sync they are, and how comfortable & smooth their dynamic is. They both have past burden, but it doesn’t matter, because they bring simple joy, understanding and happiness in each other’s lives.

In Sha Po Lang and The Guardian, the ML’s lingering love for the MC motivates them to become better version of themselves, to care about others, and to form a holistic vision about bettering society. 

In The Defective, Lin Jingheng(MC) explicitly said that Lu Bixing(ML) is the only meaning in his life. He had little incentive to care about his own life after his revenge plan fell apart. LBX helped him reconnect with his inner idealism, and gave him a reason value his life.

When the passion and fiery energy manifests itself, however, the romance is like burning iron, blood and fire. It isn’t actually toxic or unhealthy, but it's not pure and innocent either; in this case, it strives for something deeper and more intense, never content with the past or the present. The sheer intensity of relationship is like a double-edged sword, walking the fine line between unconditional devotion and dangerous obsession. 

SHL: Spring Water and Healing Open Wounds

The romance in SHL is like "spring water"; it's warm, gentle, nurturing. It breaks through the boundary between individuals to bring the couple closer to each other, taking them back to a utopia of their childhood dream, away from social pressure and responsibility. The theme central to their relationship is “salvation”: how love is able to bring people back to integrity.

Both drama wkx and drama zzs have lots of regret about their past sins and wrongdoings. Four Seasons Manor is essentially a metaphor for purity, acceptance and the safety of childhood home. How to make drama wkx open up and accept this safe harbor as his home is one of the most significant plot-lines of the show.

SHL couple is way more emotionally vulnerable and expressive. A significant part of SHL arc is healing the wounds in an open and honest way. They cuddle and confide in each other way more often, talk about their shameful past and even cry about their regrets in front of one another, which is very rare among MXTX/Priest works.

The heat of the relationship sometimes gets too hot and even burns; in other words, there are constant miscommunications, conflicts and misunderstandings in the relationship. However, they can never let each other go, because it's the only source of warmth left for them in their hopeless lives filled with regrets and guilt.

Similarities and Differences

*Note that this is not a SHL/TYK comparison. TYK is kind of an “unorthodox” priest novel; you will know what I mean if you have read 3+ of her works. 

Relationship Dynamic & Narrative:  

In MXTX’s works, the concept of “romance” itself is divined; and the characters are illustration of the ideal of “undying love”. People are made for one another, to complete one another. Her works use colorful symbolism (silver butterflies, the emperor’s smile, the 3 thousand lanterns, etc.) to depict this romanticized ideal of love. 

For MXTX, the romanticization of “destined love” is one of the most recurring themes of her novels. Therefore, the readers look at their relationship through rose-color glasses. Obsession is usually framed in a jolly & romantic light, and doesn’t feature much tension or stress, and has less negative or unhealthy undertone. 

In most of priest’s works and SHL, soulmates are not born but made, so they have to figure out how their relationship works step by step. Therefore the narrative is less of a “rosy picture”. 

Priest has a habit of using derogatory terms to describe relationships that are mostly healthy, but somewhat “bloody” and edgy, full of excessive passion and obsession. The most common phrase is “爱生忧怖”, a Buddhist term meaning “love results in worry and fear”. 

SHL obviously has to be more subtle in expressing love. That said, drama WenZhou are way more emotionally vulnerable and expressive than their novel counterparts, as well as most Priest & MXTX characters. They have a dramatic falling out once in a while, even towards the end. They barely fit the Chinese definition of Zhiji (to know me/to understand one another), but are “lovers” who are buried deep in their passion instead. 

Past, Future and Evolvement: 

In SHL, characters are encouraged to treasure past impressions that are thrown in figurative “wrappings”, whose luster is derived from age-old experiences (Psychological Types, Carl Jung). In other words, they are encouraged to root their love in a shared past, a Utopia of innocence. 

The contrast between The Defective and Word of Honor is very interesting to observe. Both involve long separation, and the suffering and personality changes hat comes from it.   SHL narrative frames their innocent childhood as something to cling to and return to. Drama WKX is encouraged to accept his identity as Four Seasons Manor disciple because it was part of his childhood past. This is a significant part of drama WenZhou relationship.

In The Defective, the narrative doesn't encourage the couple to dwell on the past that much. On the contrary, the all-knowing AI explicitly discouraged the MC from “comparing past to present”. They are advised to accept changes, however painful it might be, and build a better, more equal dynamic out of it, evolving from one-sided pandering to fighting side-by-side.  

In Priest’s novels, the characters rarely return to something in the past, but look into the future. Change is usually framed as inherently beneficial, albeit usually painful and rocky, the implication being that you need to constantly strive for something better.  

Sha Po Lang is a good example of this, with Gu Yun’s changing attitude towards Chang Geng after he as he matures, gradually showing his intelligence in politics. CG starts referring to GY as Zixi instead of YiFu is also a sign of this change---to see him as equal rather than a parental figure & protector.

The Defective is even more obvious in this regard, with both parties uncomfortable with the change initially, but gradually adjusting to the changes during their 16-year separation. The ML also stops calling MC by his surname “Lin”, as a sign of viewing him as equal. 

In MXTX’s works, change in personality or relationship dynamic is neither framed as painful or good. It just happens. It’s a natural flow that take place when it does. Their relationships are rarely challenged by change. They are objectively at a better place compared to their past, but it’s merely the result of a series of events rather than a deliberate choice or struggle.  

WangXian’s relationship naturally changes over time after WWX’s rebirth, but neither of them really struggles with the change. 

Xie Lian doesn’t even recognize Hua Cheng as the someone from his past, so they start out as friends getting to know each other. 

Salvation and Changing one another: 

Priest herself stated in an interview that she doesn’t believe in the concept of salvation, since people have the inner capacity to be their own savior. Therefore, priest characters usually don’t actively try to change their partner’s morals or personality. Some might be willingly influenced by their partner, but there’s rarely an element of moral condemnation. Even when there is a conflict between different values, the options are 1) to reconcile them by choosing the middle ground 2) to maintain their independence and tackle it with nuance 3) to break up.

On surface level, Mo Du/Silent Reading is about Luo Wenzhou being Fei Du’s salvation. However, as LWZ pointed out himself, Fei Du would’ve been a good person at heart with or without his influence. 

In The Defective, when Lu Bixing mistakenly thought Lin Jingheng stayed in the Eighth Galaxy against his own wishes because of their relationship, and that their priorities are irreconcilable, he even thought about breaking up. Of course he was not serious about it, but this showcased that he would never try to change LJH’s convictions. 

In SHL, however, the concept of salvation is central to the theme. Some find it strange that SHL make drama zzs the more “moral” one of the two, despite his action being more objectively questionable. In fact, the only reason he get framed as more “moral” is that he admitted his fault sooner, and therefore could guide drama wkx’s path back to salvation: to recognize the goodness in people, make peace with external world, to clear his name in Jianghu, and to follow due process with his revenge plan to avoid collateral damages. 

“I tried to change you, but you end up changing me”, said drama ZZS. This relationship dynamic is never present in any of priest’s works I’ve read. Priest characters don’t *try* to change one another. 

Does MXTX believe in salvation? Hard to tell. One could argue that Hua Cheng would have be way more amoral and even immoral if it hadn’t been for XL. This is complicated and is a topic for another time.

However, it is certain that MXTX MCs don’t condemn each other morally. “The orthodox one defending their unorthodox partner in front of the world” is a common wuxia trope, but the way MXTX novels approach it is very different from SHL. 

HuaLian never had a serious falling out about being on different sides. Even when they disagree, they respect each other and love each other exactly the way they are. Hua Cheng didn’t approve of Xie Lian saving Mu Qing, but he didn’t interfere with Xie Lian’s decision. Xie Lian feels responsible for helping Shi Qingxuan in Blackwater arc, but he is perfectly fine with HC helping He Xuan keep secrets. In several cases where they have different values, they are able to make it work with ease.

LWJ never *morally* condemned WWX for his action, and never once objected to WWX practicing demonic cultivation after his rebirth. In fact, LWJ never objected to WWX’s morals; in their previous life he was worried about his safety, and struggled with what to do about certain situations due to his family background, but difference in morality is not an issue for them. 

The “righteous” one does not feel the need to guide their unorthodox partner or to be their salvation with regards to integrity. 

*The similarity & differences part is a bit messy and some points are not fleshed-out. Sorry about that. 

**I don’t claim to have the right interpretation. The lens by which we see different styles of romance is ultimately subjective. 

[mrpenguinpants]

Genshin: Roommate HCs [V1]

To be honest, I just wanted to ramble some more and let my brainworms take over. This is sorta late but Happy Valentine’s everyone! I was gonna post this earlier but this honestly took me a long time to write so I moved it to today. 

Once again, this is 90% crack 10% content. Seriously, as much as I love writing this non-serious fics. Why do you people like this?

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Based off my ramblings with Keqing anon: Link

Genshin: Holding Hands [V1]

Genshin: When you’re cold [V1]

Genshin: University AU [V1]

Genshin: Royalty AU [V1]

[Masterlist]

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[taglist]  <- if you want to be added, please read this first.

@youaskedfurret @diaxfeliz @wintergreen-aix @kaechu @thegayrubberducky @lovelykittycatmeow @yuunoagivesmelife​  @dokidokisama @rokipersonal​@minakohasmanyhusbandos​ @strwbrry-lia @tigerpriestess​ @yuu-yuukurotsuki​ @hanniejji​  @mikeysbike @unionwitch @musekala @sunnshiii​ @stanzastic @akaasea​ @xoneaboveallx​ @adoring-ghost​ @asheseiler​ @childelover​ @dilucsz​ @dai-tsukki-desu​ @thicmitten​ @nonniechan​ @htnicayh​ @genshins1mpact​ 

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Diluc

What? Diluc has a roommate? Did you blackmail him in living with you? Is that even possible? Did you throw yourself in front of his car because you needed someone to pay for your student loans and the easiest way was to file a lawsuit? In this economy no one would blame you. Diluc seems like such the self-isolated character that would murder his roommate in cold blood but in reality, he act’s detached from the world because he forgot how to socialize and he’s desperately trying to cover it up without choking. That or he’s trying to learn how to astral project. If he could drink away the pain he would but instead he buys 20 packs of grape Kool-Aid and injects it into his veins. 

Does not and will not ever have a normal sleeping schedule. You’ll wake up to him working, come back home to him working, and will sleep to him still working. His daily dose of Vitamin D is from the brightness of his screen rather than the sun and he’s filter feeding at this point. It’s concerning. He’s going to crumble and he’s bringing the world down with him. Through the power of tax evasion. But as soon as he needs to walk out into society, he pulls movie magic and looks like perfection. It’s both physically and mentally disgusting. 

He’s actually is a really nice roommate to have just so long as you give him space. Great cook and knows to clean up after himself. Though he does have crash and burn days where’s he’s completely out of commission. You could set the entire apartment on fire and he would sleep through it. The entire two weeks are dedicated to zombie eye marathons and then he’ll suddenly collapse and sleep for 46 hours straight. When he wakes up from his hibernation he’s the most groggy and nonsensical person. His life blood is coffee because you keep hiding the 5 hour energy away from him because, you know, life is enjoyable and those cancer bottles will actually kill him.  

“University sucks our money out of our bodies faster than our will to live.” 

Beidou [Happy Birthday Queen 💕]

Despite her appearance, she’s actually really strong and it scares the piss out of you when you’re doing something or scrolling through your phone mindlessly and you suddenly get your spine re-arranged when she slaps you on the back to ask what you’re doing. Likewise, when she hoists you up and throws you over her shoulder so you come with her on her 3am convivence store raids for alcohol. It’s either you change now or else we’re walking out of the apartment in your t-shirt and no pants self. She can and will carry you under her arm that way. It’s both incredibly attractive and horrifying at the same time. 

She’s really friendly and a great talker if you’re alright with her “I must hold you in my arms, fresh prince of bel air style”. It doesn’t matter if you’re taller than her, she’s doing it. She does however, get in a bit of trouble from her rowdiness and you often get noise complaints but Beidou just passes them off to Ningguang and everything is fixed. She has ovaries of steel when neighbors rather confront her personally and she’s ready to 1v1 in the parking lot. You’re trying to desperately hold onto her shirt to stop her from pile driving your neighbors for the third time this week but she’s too strong.  

She’s constant party until we die attitude and suffers the hangover in the morning. It’s actually really funny to catch her in her hangover moods because whatever filter Beidou had, which is none, is gone. She really takes “cursing like a sailor” or the next level and the amount of creativity she comes up with is actually impressive. She can be a bit messy but she’s really likeable and always down to go anywhere with you as long as you’ll do the same. It’s a very ride together, we die together situation. You’re my best friend, you’re dying with me. I’ll see you in hell. 

“Imma T pose over my dad and then crash the car into the parking garage.” 

Kaeya

Kaeya on the surface seems like such a chill roommate. And he is for the most part. But he’s such an ass. Your things are his things, no questions asked. If you just bought a really nice sweater or you had leftover food, that’s his now. He’s innocent until proven guilty even if he’s literally holding your lunch. The pure amount of bullshit he can spit out to convince you that no, he did not pull the fire alarm because he wanted an excuse for not going to work, puts him on Shakespeare level. He’s also very pretty, way too pretty, sir can you share some of your genes? 

But aside from that, he’s actually super dependable. You forgot something at home? Sure, he has nothing better to do so he can bring them for you. We’re missing eggs? No problem, he’s just by the store. You’re 95% sure that he just wants to be cheeky and make you thank him for 20 minutes before he actually hands you what you asked for. It’s better for you if you never tell him anything you’re afraid of because Kaeya has no social cues, or more like he throws them out the window, and he’s probably a psychopath. 

He’s incredibly private of his room and things despite his attitude towards yours. You’re convinced he either has a secret lab or that’s where he’s storing the bodies. I was the good guy but due to unfortunate circumstances, I need to stab a bitch. But he’s a really good serious talker for those 3am, because everything happens at 3am, talks about life and the meaning of the universe. It absolutely wrecks your sleep schedule but some of the things you talk about are the most crackhead things like what’s the lowest amount of money someone would have to pay you to walk outside without clothes? It’s a legitimate question. 

“Never before have I been so offended with something I 100% agree with.”

Jean

Okay, what world did you save in a past life to live with his absolutely wonderful woman? Mother Teresa take a load off, take a seat. You have nothing to worry about. She’ll bring home little treats back home and it’s the most wholesome thing ever?? Is this what love and affection feels like? We’ve been starved for so long. She says it’s not a big deal and anyone would do it BUT THE MOMENT SOMEONE BUYS FOOD FOR YOU. IT’S A MAGICAL MOMENT. They are forever stuck in your will until proven otherwise. An absolute ray of sunshine that must be protected. 

She does get super busy so you don’t often see each other or get to hang out as much. She’s a bit of a workaholic but a lot more easier to talk her into taking a break. She’s also a pretty decent cook but she prefers baking and jesus christ, girl can you calm down? Be still my beating heart, I’ve been smitten. Has mother hen vibes that you’re not sure if she’s your roommate or if she adopted you into her family. It’s time to start a petition for the Jean protection squad. Given the opportunity, I would aggressively hold your hand. 

She’s always open to whatever you want to do. Any recommendations or things that you like she will try out at least once despite her busy schedule. She’s lowkey lonely because work consumes her so any time you want to hang out or do something together, she jumps on it like she’s feral. She get’s a bit shy to ask if she can join in on your plans because she doesn’t want to bother you or intrude no matter how many times you tell her that’s okay, she still get’s a bit iffy about it. Please save this girl before she trips. In your arms. Platonically. Just kidding haha. Unless?

“I can’t wait to see you happy and not hating everyone again haha.”

Childe

First impressions of Childe were great, until he opened his mouth and you realized how much of a two brain cell child(e) he was. He has two braincells because they constantly have to 1v1 in his brain. He’s lived with a lot of siblings so he has no social awareness or concept of privacy that you’re lucky if you come home and he’s half-dressed. It doesn’t matter if you’re 2 weeks older than him, he’s going to call you 82 years old and why your bones aren’t being fossilized at this point. He’s such a little shit, this fucker licks the yogurt lid peel.  

He get’s really restless when he’s stuck under house arrest, because apparently 1v1ing in the parking lot of a Wendy’s is illegal for some reason, so he makes dying whale noises until he get’s to go outside again. But he’s actually a really wholesome guy, probably because of his younger siblings, that he’ll sometimes get you something because you seemed down and it’s such whiplash? Who is this man and where did he come from? You’re starting to have a change of heart before he tells you that he got banned from the library for accidently punching the school’s computer. How you “accidently” punch something you have no idea but Childe always comes home with some sort of injury. Maybe he’s just incredibly clumsy. For your sanity, you’re going to go with that. 

He’s actually so uncultured that it’s crippling. You can’t blame him too much considering his upbringing and it’s great that he’s so interested in learning new things but...child no...It makes you want to take your spine out of your ass and rip it like a Beyblade. Watching him take chopsticks and stab his food like it’s marshmallows makes you want to fall into a blackhole and let the chair consume you. 

“I, too, fantasize about beating the living shit out of people.”

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Is this another tag yourself game cause I resonate with Diluc. I’m crying in insomnia. As much as I enjoy writing these fics I absolutely hate tagging them. I remember I used to have a tag anon but that was back when I wrote for bnha. 

Valentine’s Day was fun tho. I had a drinking game with friends as we played league then ended it off with a movie night. 

[saurexhas]

Love is Blind - Part 1

So I’ve been hanging out with @studionovella​ and the team for @nightmare-castle​, and the sheer talent in their discord server is so amazing. It led me to be inspired, and while I’m typically more of a Sanscest writer, I figured that it’d be fun to try something new considering the source of my inspiration! So have some Nightmare x MC (Nightmare x Reader).

Be warned, this story handles blindness and... probably some other sensitive topics considering it’s me. So just watch the tags for any relevant triggers!

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You didn’t think that it was possible, but somehow you had fallen for Nightmare. On the surface he was cold, cruel, and calculating, using everyone he could to advance his goals. But if you could tolerate the coldness, get past his clinical treatment of those he believed were beneath him, then there was so much more to him. Nightmare was a scholar, a brilliant mind with a vision for a world all his own. He appreciated the arts, often enjoying his downtime with a good book and a calming cup of tea. And believe it or not, there was a small part of him that genuinely cared for the skeletons under his charge. You’ve seen that side of him more than most, managing to open even his eye to what was hidden beneath the centuries of anger and hatred.

Even if negativity was still a large part of who he was, you found yourself able to accept that darkness, because it only made the small lights within him shine brighter. Just like the stars the two of you were gazing at. Though as your gaze shifted to the skeleton currently dominating your thoughts, you found that piercing cyan eye of his locked onto you instead of the sky. If there was ever any doubt in your mind that your feelings were reciprocated, one look at his gaze would sweep it all away. There was a tenderness to him, reserved only for you as he would say. It was only in these moments where the two of you were alone that he would let his imposing demeanor slide.

Getting moments to yourselves was easier said than done though. Despite the sheer size of the castle, the others always seemed to be around. They knew how Nightmare favoured you, how he treated you special and wasn’t as harsh. You were pretty sure that they’d managed to piece everything together on their own, even if none of them ever said anything for fear of angering their king. That said, some of them, namely Killer, seemed to delight in getting in the way of your fleeting moments alone. And there was always no shortage of work to be done, not when your partner was as ambitious as he was. Nightmare aimed to create an empire, and you were doing what you could to further his goals. Even if all that work and Killer’s interference left you and Nightmare fleeing to other worlds in order to have some semblance of a relationship.

Outertale was a favourite destination of yours, the beauty of the cosmos always taking your breath away. It always seemed so far removed from the chaos of the multiverse, or the chaos of the castle.The peace and quiet out here made it perfect for when both you and your partner just needed a break. You could stand out here for hours, watching the subtle shifts in the sky or mapping constellations.

But for now, you were seemingly locked in a staring contest with the lord of darkness, neither willing to look away or break the silence that had fallen. Unsure of what to do, you simply reached out with your finger and booped the tip of his nose. The look of utter surprise on his face left you giggling, only for his own rich laughter to mingle with yours.

“You dare to lay a hand on the God of Negativity, hmm?” He teased, pulling you close with his tentacles before wrapping his arms around your waist. “You are either very brave or very foolish… maybe a bit of both. How shall I deal with your crime, my little moon?”

You couldn’t help but swoon a bit at the pet name he called you, grinning up at him like a fool as you took advantage of the close proximity to snuggle close. “I could swear my love to you, would that appease the great Nightmare?”

“Perhaps,” he chuckled, the distance closing between the two of you even further as he ducked his head down to be level with your own. Nightmare opened his mouth, perhaps to say something else or to move in for the kiss you were anticipating. Before either option could happen though, the dark skeleton froze for a split second. There wasn’t even time to ask what was wrong before you found yourself hefted into his arms, the two of you dodging a volley of bright blue arrows that had speared where you’d been moments ago.

Your heart hammered in your throat, adrenaline pumping through your veins as you tried to get a grip on what was happening. Nightmare still had you cradled to his chest, dodging arrows and… was that paint? Following the paint’s trajectory, you could see your partner’s enemies had managed to crash your little date.

The Star Sanses stood on the other end of the floating chunk of rock you were on, the portal they’d used to arrive closing behind them. Blue was just coming through the portal, his gaster blaster hammer in his grip. Dream had another arrow ready to fire, though he hesitated upon seeing you staring back at him. Ink on the other hand wasted no time in splattering more of his paints everywhere, a tentacle raising to block you from the oncoming attack. The paint hissed and fizzled on contact, a growl leaving Nightmare as he jumped to another nearby rock to escape the barrage.

“Night, are you okay?!” You look up to see him trying to hide his pain, showing you that those paints are far more than something to be smeared on a piece of paper. While you’d heard stories from the others about the chaotic creator, you’d never met him in person or seen him fight. Seeing that paint flying towards you was way scarier than the guys’ stories had led you to believe.

“I’ll be fine,” Nightmare insisted as he set you down, even if you knew that attack hurt. “Look, you need to remain here where you’ll be safe. I don’t care what kind of training you’ve been partaking in with the others; I refuse to let you endanger yourself by fighting them. Ink especially is dangerous, keep away from him at all costs. If you cannot dodge his attacks, make sure to shield your face. His paint can burn like acid if he wishes, and while liquid negativity protects my body, you have no such defenses. Give me your word that you will remain safe while I deal with these pests.”

As much as you wanted to argue that you could help, even you couldn’t muster the confidence to speak against him with such a stern glare directed at you. It was clear that Nightmare wouldn’t take no for an answer on this one, so you had no choice but to nod your head meekly. “I-I’ll stay here,” you promised, glancing up to see him seemingly satisfied. Without another word, he rushed off, preventing Blue from getting any closer with his large hammer.

Watching Nightmare take on all three of the Star Sanses by himself was both awe-inspiring and terrifying, much like the first times you’d joined sparring sessions with the guys. But there wasn’t the assurance in the back of your mind that nobody would be out to kill you. While it might not be the goals of all of the Stars, there was very much mortal danger in this fight for both you and the one you loved. Staying on the sidelines like this was painful, leaving you feeling useless as Nightmare struggled to hold off the onslaught.

Were they not essentially your enemies, you’d be impressed by the coordination and teamwork the Stars possessed. All three of them were capable of both melee and ranged attacks, and wordlessly organized themselves so that one of their own was never in danger of being hit by their own attacks. Dream’s precision with his arrows allowed him to stay primarily a ranged fighter, while Blue’s blasters and Ink’s attacks were a bit too widespread to risk while one of them fought in close combat. Nightmare was the only one without a specific ranged attack, which probably explained why the others rarely got close to attack. Your lover’s tentacles gave him reach though, and the ability to hit multiple targets at once, so he was somehow able to hold his own against all three.

The battle looked to be a stalemate… until one of the Stars suddenly switched tactics. While Blue rushed in with a hammer and bones at his side, Ink actually turned his back on the fight. He seemed a little lost, like he was trying to remember something, only for his eyes to light up as he locked gazes with you. Instant panic seized you as the one skeleton that Nightmare warned you about came straight for you, manic glee plastered over his face as he quickly crossed the distance between the two of you. A glance back at the battle proved that Nightmare had seen what was going on, but Blue was keeping him from coming to your aid. So it was up to you to think fast and avoid the creator, hope bubbling in you that this might actually make things easier. If you could keep Ink busy by dodging his attacks, then Nightmare might be able to take on the remaining two with better success before coming after Ink.

With this admittedly crazy plan in your head, you began a game of cat and mouse with Ink, jumping from one place to the next. If you didn’t have a splash-happy maniac chasing you, it would’ve been cool to enjoy the low gravity of Outertale. For now though, it was all that was allowing you to escape most of the attacks directed at you. You were far from unscathed though, small splashes of paint eating away at your arms and legs. It burned, but was nothing you couldn’t deal with as you continued to dodge and weave the bulk of the attacks. So long as none of it touched your face, you would be fine.

Glancing back at the main battle going on, your hopes of Nightmare doing better against two targets instead of three were steadily being crushed. He seemed distracted, constantly looking up to watch you kite Ink around the area. Instead of focusing on the two he had to deal with, he was so worried about you and Ink that he was now losing. It wouldn’t be so bad if he was facing off against Ink and Blue, because there was little the two could do beyond superficial damage. Dream on the other hand was still very much a threat, his arrows of pure positivity being about the only thing that could seriously hurt. And you could see several piercing the ground, coated in the black negativity that Nightmare relied on for protection. It was a surefire way to see when he’d been hit, and the staggering amount of these soiled arrows made it clear that your partner wasn’t holding his own anymore. Guilt welled up in you, because you were the reason he was now losing this fight. While there wasn’t much you could honestly do to shake Ink from your trail, reason did little to quell the negativity rising inside you. All you could hope for was that your own despair could give Nightmare just a bit more power, enough to keep himself safe at least.

As time dragged on, both you and Nightmare were running out of stamina. Your legs cried for rest as you continued to run away from the creator, while your lover’s movements were growing noticeably sluggish. More arrows seemed to connect than not at this point, and he had barely any time to recover from one attack before dealing with another. The two of you were badly losing, and it was quite clear now why Nightmare rarely let anyone from the castle venture out on their own.

The Stars seemed to sense this sudden weakness in their target, Dream finally stopping his barrage to call out to the one going after you. “Ink! Stop playing around, I need your help!” Help? What help could Ink possibly be? Even his corrosive paints couldn’t breach the surface of Nightmare’s negativity, the only thing that could was Dream’s… oh… oh no.

As the realization hit you, Ink finally gave up his pursuit. “Woo! Looks like my plan actually worked… at least I think this was my plan. Whatever, let’s do this!” Laughing at some untold joke, Ink hopped away from you to return to the large rock that most of the battle had been on. At the same moment though, you felt your legs moving as the horrific reality of their plan hit you. Ink purposefully went after you to distract Nightmare, allowing the others to weaken him enough so that their special attack would hit. The creator might not be able to damage the surface, but if Dream’s arrow ripped through first, then there’d be a narrow window where Nightmare’s greatest defense would be gone. In a single spot he’d be vulnerable, which is why they needed to slow him down enough to ensure their hit would work.

You weren’t going to let that happen. Promise be damned, your soul was screaming at you to protect the one you loved, and you were going to heed its call. The ache in your legs went completely ignored, adrenaline pushing you forward with more speed than you thought you could muster. You needed to be faster though; Ink was already there, and Blue had set about corralling Nightmare to keep him still.

Only a few floating chunks of rock were between you and your beloved now, but you still weren’t fast enough. Panic rose once again as you watched Dream draw back his bowstring, the arrow glimmering faintly in the surrounding darkness. Ink stood ready beside him, the paint coating his brush a dangerous shade of red. That same paint had left such horrible burns along your limbs, and you could only imagine the damage it might do to the weakened god of negativity. With Blue running interference and drawing Nightmare’s attention, it was only a matter of time now.

As your feet touched down on the large space rock, several feet from everyone else, you knew that you were out of time. Nightmare was too absorbed in his fight to hear your warning calls, and it would only alert the two and likely cause them to reset before trying again. This attack would only work once though, because once Nightmare knew of their plan, he wouldn’t let it work a second time. That meant that you had one chance to stop them, especially when you saw that Dream was aiming towards his twin’s soul.

Courage and determination welled within your soul, driving you forward despite the risk you were running straight into. Any number of things could go seriously wrong, but… you couldn’t risk them killing him. Nightmare was the bane of the multiverse to many, but he was everything to you. Gritting your teeth, you timed your steps so that you’d only enter Dream’s field of vision after he fired, preventing them from stopping you and trying again. The second he saw you, the god of positivity’s expression changed from one of grim determination to one of shock and horror, his hand reaching out as if he could stop his attack or stop you. His hesitance once again wasn’t present in Ink, the creator wasting no time in flinging the red paint directly after the arrow.

With mere seconds to spare, your outstretched hands made contact with the cool goop that covered Nightmare’s body. All of your momentum and might went into a push, knocking the deity away from the incoming attack. Your lover turned back to look at you the second you made contact, his eye conveying the same shock and horror as Dream’s had when he saw you. All you could do was smile, knowing that you’d managed to save him no matter what danger you’d put yourself in. Nightmare reached out for you just as the arrow whizzed past, its trajectory leaving it slicing past your eyes. Pain bloomed as the minor cuts scratched the outsides of your eyes, but it was nothing compared to what came next. You’d been so concerned about the arrow that you temporarily forgot about Ink. His attack followed as per the Stars’ plan, splattering over the both of you with its acidic effect. The scratches to your eyes had left you temporarily blind, so you weren’t able to see that red paint as it splashed all over your face. The last thing you saw was instead Nightmare, reaching out to you as if to save you from this pain.

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