#Opposite Action Skill

[borderlinereminders]

Opposite Action Coping Skill

This is when we do the opposite of what we feel our emotions are telling us to do. Recognize your emotional response to a situation and the action you instinctively wish to take as a reaction to it, and instead do whatever is the opposite of that action. This is a skill that can be used when the emotion doesn’t fit the facts. For example, if you’re feeling afraid because you’re feeling unsafe in a situation (like for example, people are yelling or you’re approaching a dark alley) and your reaction is to leave, then by all means - do what is best for your safety and leave.

Some examples:

Anger

May cause us to lash out, storm off, etc.

The opposite of this may be: being kind, showing concern, or walking away briefly to take a break and come back to this when we feel more calm.

Sadness

May cause us to withdraw and isolate ourselves.

The opposite of this may be going out of our way to engage with our friends and reaching out.

Frustration

May make us want to give up.

The opposite of this may be pushing through (though taking a break if needed).

What are some pros to using this skill?

Using this skill can be empowering and give us a sense of control. It can also help with managing the emotion.

What are the cons to using this skill?

It takes time, and some trial and error to see results. It also requires the ability to identify your emotions. Sometimes we just feel an urge and aren’t sure what emotion is causing this. This skill may require learning how to identify emotions first.

Overall, this can be a very useful skill to learn. It can be effective in helping us learn not to act on emotional urges.

[raccooninapartyhat]

Coming to the abrupt realisation that I do actually experience jealousy and quite a lot more intensely than I ever thought I would. Not sure if I genuinely didn't experience much jealousy before but have managed to unearth this emotion or if I have always experienced it but mistook it for something else

[parcai]

ok actually i love french idec

[sammygender]

a lot of my thoughts about dean winchester come down to the fact that he really is just eternally about fourteen years old. and not a well-adjusted 14 year old, either, but a traumatised and abused 14 year old with intense attachment and abandonment issues. he was that 14 year old! and hes never grown past it. hes probably more like it now and more controlled by it than he WAS when he was 14 years old. so i cant help but feel unbearably sad for him. but sadly, he is not 14 years old. he is an adult man in positions of power reenacting abusive behaviours. idk how to fix him. hed have to really and genuinely want to change idk what it would take. he should do dbt though

[thousandheadeddolphin]

An overly detailed analysis of the scp foundations adopted son, the backrooms

Due to the fact that I have no control over my interests, ive decided that im gonna post cringe and start writing a minimum 100 word (50 for subrooms) review of every single backrooms level (or at least as many as I can get through before the hyperfixation burns out). And before we can actually get to the meat and potatoes, we gonna discuss the universal quality cap contained within the very premise of the modern backrooms (more under the cut)

The history of backrooms is like, pretty simple, and actually kind of similar to how scp started. Some guy posted an imagine with the caption:

"If your not careful and noclip out if reality in wrong areas, you'll end up in the backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, and endless backround noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hindered million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.

God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you"

The concept very quickly caught on, because even retrospectively, the concept is really good, and then people started to write about. And at this point, it varies very, very heavily from scp. Because scp-173s whole premise doesnt crumble like a sandcastle upon any elaboration.

Ill blaze through this part simply because its by far the most common criticism of the backrooms and im not getting ad revenue from puffing up a video about it. You cant add entities or other humans because the vagueness of the final line and also ruins the isolation inherent to the original passage. You cant add more levels because that gives the person somewhere to go and makes the person less trapped, you cant make your levels death traps because thats just not scary, and you sure as hell cant make them safe because that removes the looming threat of death (this last point also applies to lucky o' milk and almond water). But personally, I dont think that talking about this helps the writers, or even gives us a better feel for what these writers are doing wrong, so instead im gonna focus on the main problem with the backrooms

The writing style is contradictory with the material presented

Since the backrooms popularity boom happened congruently with the one for liminal spaces (which ill just use interchangably with "eerily empty nostalgic space, even though the original definition just describes one thats transitional) even the most recent levels try to invoke this sort of setting. This within itself, is great. Theres a lot of room for very personal, intimate horror, especially when combined with isolation. Guess what they tried to do with it?

They jacked scps writing style, which for those not in the know, is intentionally written from a dry, neutral voice. To describe a setting meant to invoke one of the most personal emotions one can have.

Beyond this, articles, as evidenced by their often dubious writing quality, are written by teens who are far too young to have experienced that kind of nostalgia, so a lot of the articles end up not being able to fully capture the feeling, even if they werent written like a courtroom report.

To summarize, the premise is just kind of limiting within itself, even detached from any disloyalty to the original premise of the backrooms.

anyhow Im releasing the first review tomorrow

[passionfruitmango]

Today I kind of want to hole up and not be perceived but I am practicing opposite action by being present and heard

[joelletwo]

starts pacing circles around my room to imagine it animated

[blackeyed-daisy]

y'know what I'm gonna be pissy for a second because I'm too frustrated by this to be able to sleep tonight so sorry for me thinking my opinions are worth publishing in their own post but I really cannot fucking stand some of the conversations I've seen about what's apparently objectively "correct" communication

like especially I've seen/taken part in several conversations about how saying "I feel like you did xyz thing" or "I feel like xyz thing happened" is somehow accusatory or otherwise wrong with one post even saying "well you wouldn't say 'i feel like happy' so 'i feel like you did xyz' can't be a feeling you're expressing ☝️🤓"

and it's like even ignoring how that can absolutely be a grammatically valid sentence if you didn't deliberately go out of your way to write it poorly to prove your argument that's also not even the fucking point of the conversation that the other person is trying to have with you???

it literally doesn't fucking matter if someone is actually expressing their feelings or if they're akshually expressing their thoughts instead or even god forbid a secret third thing. because the entire fucking point of someone saying "I feel like you did xyz" or "I feel like it happened" is exclusively to talk about their subjective fucking perspective and that's it. its not accusatory by any means unless I guess you yourself believe your thoughts and feelings are objective fact and therefore you project that assumption onto everyone else around you?? even though they're not???

like I can assure you from personal experience if I was ACTUALLY accusing someone of doing something I would simply say "you did this thing." I would not deliberately go out of my way to emphasize that it is my subjective personal perspective by emphasizing very explicitly that I only feel like a certain thing happened or whatever if I was genuinely accusing people of doing something. because not everyone on earth thinks that their thoughts and feelings are objective reality, and just because you do does not mean you get to make that everyone elses problem!!! be fucking serious!!!! and when I'm putting effort into explicitly NOT accusing you of anything and yet you insist I am anyways because??? reasons??? because the words people actually say to you don't fucking matter and you'd rather make shit up than actually listen to what they're trying to fucking tell you???

like if you genuinely feel like someone saying "I feel like you did xyz thing" is accusatory then that's fine because everyone has their own communication styles but you do NOT get to act like your communication style of... I guess not talking about your fucking problems with people at all ever and expecting them to read your mind?? is somehow conveniently the only correct communication style and everyone else is committing wrongspeak for explicitly stating what their PERSONAL, SUBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW IS.

like at the end of the day I can tell you from personal fucking experience that your loved ones are not saying "I feel like you did xyz" to subtly accuse you of anything. they're saying that to you because they fucking love you and are trying to fix problems in your relationship so they can keep loving you. and for you to just sit here and play internet psychology chess and declare that uh oh!!! my Language Pedantry senses are tingling and you're a bad communicator now!!! is fucking ridiculous. because thats not the point of the conversation at hand and you know that it's not. the point of the conversation is that this person has a problem and they're making an earnest attempt to communicate their side of the issue to make things right. and for you to ignore that and focus on how they're expressing their feelings or whatever instead of what they're trying to express in the first place is???

do you even fucking care about the other person??? when you care more about whether it's akshually not a feeling you're expressing 🤓 akshually if you have any thoughts or feelings whatsoever that means you think they're true and you're accusing me 🤓 because I've decided you're accusing me so you are 🤓 instead of the fact that someone you care about is fucking hurt and is trying to communicate that with you???

you can feel like your loved ones are accusing you with that communication style all you want, but you don't get to declare your feelings a reality to the point where you insist that the only reason anyone would ever talk like that is ONLY because they're accusing you and NOTHING MORE. though I guess maybe your insistence that that must be accusatory language exclusively because you feel like it's accusatory to the point that you feel justified in insisitng that MUST be the other person's motive would certainly indicate why you get so antsy when other people try to express their feelings around you lol

[goinggoats]

Oh my distress tolerance is WAY down

[therapythoughtstogether]

I feel so many of us can benefit from reading this.

Sending love!

how do i deal with crippling jealousy? the type triggered by your fp having a fun time without you.

Jealousy can be a very difficult emotion to deal with even for most people, with or without BPD (though the intensity or duration of that intensity is much more extreme for people who have BPD). In DBT, we’re taught to deal with unwanted emotions in a variety of ways, but the “best way” in the eyes of many therapists (and many patients who have mastered the skill I’m about to talk about) is through an Emotion Regulation Skill called Opposite Action. 

1. What is Opposite Action?

Opposite Action, at its core, is pretty much just what it sounds like.  You use the Opposite Action Skill when your emotions do not fit the facts (see Check the Facts post, and well as Method 1 and Method 2 to help determine if your emotion–or its intensity or duration–fits the facts).  You also use Opposite Action when your emotion does fit the facts but it would be ineffective to act on it. 

By acting opposite of what your emotions are urging you to do, you are able to change your emotional reactions and possibly your emotional state in the process.

You usually use Opposite Action after first using Check the Facts, a skill that helps you determine whether your problem emotion is justified or not. If your jealousy isn’t warranted or is ineffective (which is what it sounds like in your ask) then you would use the Opposite Action Skill.  If your jealous is warranted, then you would use the Problem Solving Skill (link coming soon).

Opposite Action is a fairly straightforward skill but most DBT therapists consider it to be the most difficult skill to master because it requires you to do the exact opposite of what your feelings or thoughts are telling you to do, which often feels unnatural, not genuine/dishonest, or uncomfortable.  It’s not always easy, so sometimes it’s best to start small.

2. When does Jealousy “Fit the Facts”?

So, just to let everyone know, the Manual says that Jealousy “fits the facts” of a situation when:

Someone is threatening to take away a very important and desired relationship or object away from you.

An important and desired relationship is in danger of being damaged or lost

(Honestly there are a lot more legitimate feelings for jealousy, but these are the ones DBT focuses on.)

If feelings of jealousy are not justified by the facts or are not effective, you would then use Opposite Action.

3. Opposite Actions for Jealousy

Opposite Actions for Jealousy can include (but are not limited to) the following:

Do the opposite of your jealous action urges (usually specific to the situation causing your jealousy)

Let go of feeling the need to control others’ actions (such as wanting to control who your FP has fun with)

Share the things and people you have in your life.

Distract yourself from your jealousy by doing something you enjoy (even with other people) and allow yourself to have fun without your FP as well, hopefully teaching yourself that you both can have fun without needing to be together for that fun to be positive.  Remember, don’t do this to make your FP jealous in response. This involves letting go of pettiness or vengeful feelings.

4. Opposite Action “All the Way”

There’s another “level” of sorts when it comes to Opposite Action (you can look at it like “leveling up”).  The following kinds of Opposite Action are called “All The Way Opposite Action”:

Suppress your need to ask your FP (or whoever is the subject of your jealousy) where they were, who they were with, if they like those people better than they like you, etc.  That kind of behaviour can get controlling very quickly, so completely resist the urge to do so.  (Remember, this applies ONLY IF YOUR JEALOUSY DOES NOT FIT THE FACTS!  If you have a valid reason to be jealous, it makes sense to ask these sorts of questions because you’re accurately assessing a threat.)

No avoiding.  If you’re with the people who make you feel jealous, rather than withdrawing, you should engage while keeping your eyes open and be Mindfully Observing while Participating in the moment.  Observing will help you hopefully see the interaction Non-Judgmentally rather than viewing things with jealousy-tinted lenses. 

Change your posture.  Jealousy can make us feel very tense and sometimes nervous and sometimes aggressive so to the following things to change your posture: a) Unclench your hands and adopt a Willing Hands posture, b) Relax chest and stomach muscles through Progressive Muscle Relaxation, c) Unclench teeth, d) Relax facial muscles and adopt a Half-Smile

Change your body chemistry by using TIP, especially the Tempterature part to bring down emotional intensity and the Paced Breathing part, to control your breathing and feel calmer and less threatened.

5. Jealousy Vs. Envy

Now, Jealousy and Envy are often confused, so while it sounds to me like you’re experiencing jealousy, it might be beneficial for other followers to give a short breakdown of what Envy is:

Envy fits the facts when another person or group has what you want or need but don’t have.

The Opposite Actions for Envy is based around on “counting your blessings” and doing things to stop you from feeling resentful or bitter towards people who have what you want or need, as well as Checking the Facts to see if they really have so much more than you. (They might.  There are lots of cases where certain people might have much more than you and that’s part of living in an inherently unequal society.)

6. What to do When Opposite Action Takes Too Many Spoons or Doesn’t Work for You

Back, to Jealousy, if Opposite Action is takes up too many spoons, or you’re just not in the right psychological place to try working against your jealousy, or the examples of Opposite Action for jealousy don’t really help you (which is totally possible, I feel that way about most of the Opposite Action pages of the DBT Manual), then I have one more skill I can suggest:

Radical Acceptance/Reality Acknowledgement

Reality Acknowledgement, as I like to call it, is a Distress Tolerance Skill that you use when you cannot change your feeling/situation/consequences/etc yet fighting against that reality is ineffective and may just cause you more suffering.

This is especially useful when you’re dealing with overwhelming jealousy and the situation you’re jealous about is not one that you can change.  Ultimately, if Opposite Action doesn’t work, you’ll have to learn how to live with your jealousy–which is not an easy thing.  Learning to live with an emotion that you don’t like but you have no ability to make it go away is very tough, but Radical Acceptance/Reality Acknowledgement can help you come to terms with these emotions that might be inspiring feelings of self-depreciation or self-hatred inside you for feeling them at all.

Here are some links of posts I’ve previously written about Reality Acknowledgement:

What is Radical Acceptance/Reality Acknowledgement?

How to Practice Reality Acknowledgement

Turning the Mind

It also helps to be Mindful when practicing Reality Acknowledgement.  Use your Wise Mind: is it Effective to feel jealous over this? Is this jealousy helping you in any way? You can use Mindfulness Skills to help you to Observe and Describe the situation in a Non-Judgmental way, thereby hopefully removing a lot of the assumptions and/or judgements you might be making about the situation or people who are making you jealous.  Try to focus on the present moment that you’re in, rather than get sucked into “What if” thinking that focuses on the future or on events that you don’t have any first-hand knowledge of.

(Such as “What if my FP is having so much fun without me because my FP is venting about how terrible I am and they’re having fun laughing at me.”  That’s an example of catastrophic thinking–not saying this is something you personally are thinking–and the reason it’s catastrophic thinking is because you have no proof that anything like that is happening at all, but it’s a thought that would absolutely make you feel worse if you were thinking it.)

While being Mindful and accessing your Wise Mind, you can experience the emotion of jealousy like a wave, a wave that comes over you, peaks, and then recedes.  (This is called “Mindfulness of Current Emotions” and is a component of Emotion Regulation.)  Experience the jealousy you feel as an undeniable part of the present moment, but not a permanent one, and not an emotion you need to push away.  Just allow yourself to experience it and let the emotion run its course without clinging to it or pushing it away–because not allowing your emotions to run their natural course often makes them worse.

7. When all Else Fails:

a) Communicate.  Communicate with your FP that you feel jealous and why.  All healthy relationships are founded on solid and honest communication.  Just be honest, not with any intention of coercing them to change their behaviour or stop doing what’s making you jealous, but be honest with the hope of having a conversation where both of you can clarify how you feel and result in reassurance or even a compromise.  It’s always important to be open with special people in our lives about our emotional states–this helps mitigate splitting and withdrawal/isolation and fear of abandonment.

b) The other thing you can do after opening up about feeling jealous and after working to accept that your FP’s actions are their own choices that you can’t control, you can look into Distress Tolerance Skills.  Jealousy can be an awful emotion to feel.  It can also use up a lot of spoons, which you may not have had a lot of in the first place.  To replenish spoons as well as mitigate the effects the worst of your jealousy, Distress Tolerance Skills are the best skills for this.  Some DBT Distress Tolerance Skills that might be relevant are:

STOP: Stop, Take a step back, Observe, Proceed Mindfully

TIP: Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing/Paired Muscle Relaxation/Progressive Muscle Relaxation (used to change your level of distress quickly)

Distract using Wise Mind ACCEPTS: Distract yourself with Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions, Pushing away, Thoughts, Sensations

Self-Soothe: Use the senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch) to soothe your physical self in order to make your emotions less painful. (Big List of Self-Soothe Ideas here)

IMPROVE the Moment: Improve the moment with Imagery, Meaning, Prayer, Relaxation, One thing in the moment, Vacations, Encouragement

Radical Acceptance/Reality Acknowledgement: Acknowledge what is, let go of fighting or denying reality.  Use TURNING THE MIND to commit to acknowledgement over and over again.

Further Reading: You might be interested in looking at our resources that address the “fear of abandonment” symptom that might be an underlying factor of your jealousy, which there are many links in the FAQ on that subject.  You can also read all our previous posts pertaining to jealousy here.  You might find that reassurance from your FP might help ease your jealousy (or perhaps your potentially underlying fear of abandonment) so here is a post about how to ask for reassurance.

TL;DR:  Jealousy, like all emotions, may or may not fit the facts of a situation.  If jealousy doesn’t fit the facts of a situation or it would be ineffective to act on the urges associated with the feelings of jealousy.  When jealousy does not fit the facts or is ineffective, use the DBT Skill Opposite Action.  Opposite Action is a skill you use for a situation like this, where you act in the opposite way than your emotion wants you to.  Doing this can change your body chemistry and thus your emotional state.

If Opposite Action doesn’t work, try Reality Acknowledgement, be Mindful, and use Distress Tolerance Skills to diminish the intensity of your jealousy.  And, fundamental to any relationship, have an open conversation about your feelings without any intent to control the outcome.

-Pandora

[dreamwritesimagines]

Declassified Masterlist

Summary: Politics is a game that requires secrets, just like love.

Pairing: Congressman!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Tropes: CampaignStaff!Reader, politics, boss x employee, opposites attract, romance, fluff, idiots in love, pining, age gap (he's over 100 years old), separate warnings in each chapter

Chapter 1 : Working overtime has its surprising moments.

Chapter 2 : Actions have consequences.

Chapter 3 :  It’s a skill to remain calm in stressful situations.

Chapter 4 : Everyone has their bad days at work.

Chapter 5 : Crushes can happen out of nowhere.

Chapter 6 : A hug can mean many things.

Chapter 7 : Alcohol leads to honest promises.

Chapter 8 : The first day of work can be stressful.

Chapter 9 : Some lines shouldn't be crossed.

Chapter 10 : Self-doubt can appear out of nowhere.

Chapter 11 : Some dances look more than just friendly.

Chapter 12 : Having a high pressure job has its consequences.

Chapter 13 : Anything can happen at a barbecue.

Chapter 14 - Coming in August 1 or 2

Headcanons

[yourname-exee]

Warnings: P in V ratio, finger fucking, slight cum play? squirting (as always 🤤)

(divider made by @adornedwithlight )

Nanami buys an arched pillow and not for the purpose of sleep, no quite the opposite.

He has you laid to where your hip bones are squished into the slightly stiffened fabric of the pillow, your behind perked up as Nanami's fingers dig into the doughy flesh of your ass cheeks, spreading them so his cock can reach deep within, his tip kissing your cervix in a manner that has drool dribbling past your kissed bitten lips and eyes rolling back, he's been going at it, for what seems like a few hours but has only been one.

He can feel you wiggle trying to get some distance but the pillow acts as a barrier preventing you from moving. A rumble of a low chuckle can be heard from behind you as Nanami rolls his hips into yours causing your ass to ripple when he picks up pace. The sound of plap plap plap and your soft moans are the only noise filling the silence, along with the occasional honey like groan and the most enduring pet names that leave Nanami.

As he feels himself building he slows down so he can manhandle you gently, his fingers wrapping around your upper arms hoisting you up slightly, your back pressing against his front, it feels sticky from all the sweat but you were too far gone to care, his hands grip the back of your thighs lifting, so the only support you had was him. Your fingers dug into his forearms, your hands so small compared to him so you're only gripping the skin facing you, in order to get some sort of grounding, as the squelching noise coming from between your meeting points got louder.

Nanami pushes himself deeper his tip pushing past the resistance that is your cervix causing a flash of white to shoot across your vision making your legs quiver, a soft groan enters your ear.

Nanami drags his lips across your cheek, his eyes tracing every detail of your face causing his pupils to dance from small to big, an action repeated as he continued to watch you. Your cheeks turned rosy red and your glassy eyes gaze over into his own, your noses bumping, breath mingling. His lips brush over yours when he feels you tighten around him, this has him repositioning you two, one of his hands running from under your thigh, finger tips tracing along your skin gently to your clit, skillful fingers quick to work, your foot that was left dangling had your toes curling into his thigh. A squeal of pleasure and strings of moan rush past your lips when you feel that familiar stream of squirt. A burning sensation running through your veins when the beginning of overstimulation kicks in, Nanami rolling his hips in a messy manner in an attempt to chase his finish, giving one last thrust he pushes deep, pumping you full causing some of it to flow out past your lips and run along his veiny shaft. A feeling that had him rolling his hips one more time, as his nose buries itself in your hair breathing in your sweet scent, a moan breaking up in soft pants making its way from your lips. His arms flex as he lifts you slightly allowing his softening cock to slide out with a quiet pop, cum bubbling out of you, the sight has Nanami positioning you on your back, placing you over the arched pillow, this has your pussy directly in line with the ceiling. Legs twitching when Nanami runs his fingers through your folds collecting the creamy substance before gliding his two fingers inward, finger fucking the cum deep within you.

'I want you swollen with our children, pretty girl.'

So that's why he bought the pillow.

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Pollen and Pheromones

Kinktober Day 13: Sex Pollen

Male Alpha Yandere x Gender Neutral Omega Reader CW: Noncon, sex pollen, aphrodisiac, pheromones, knotting, biting, claiming bite, stranded, spaceship crash, sci-fi, outer space, alien planet, a/b/o dynamics, bigotry/prejudice against omegas, rivalry, breeding, general yandere behavior, tsundere, betrayal Word Count: 1.6k (Enjoy this kinktober meal I have prepared <3)

"Star log: This is Pilot 2418 currently operating vessel Starlion: Orion. I am currently on route to pass the threshold of our galaxy in less than five minutes."

You were a shuttle pilot, one of the Exploration Guild's best. Ever since humanity had achieved interplanetary travel, they had sought to extend themselves ever further. With the new drift-space drives, that dream was now a reality.

They were only currently suited for small 1 to 2 man shuttlecraft, and only a couple such craft had been made. Two different ones had been commissioned through the guild, with both pilots competing to see who could exit the Milky Way first. The new drive could only be used in bursts to prevent overloading, so the journey had still taken a few months. But it seemed like you were about to succeed. Then you could make a U-turn and start drift-jumping back towards the nearest station.

Since you were an omega, this was a great achievement, a notice to the universe that your kind could do whatever betas and alphas could. You would be able to help stamp out the lingering bigotry and inspire others all with one action.

You were just about to cross the finish line!

Suddenly, your opponent, Tetsunori, came out of drift-space behind you. He had been your long-time rival, with both of you being about equally skilled.

But this was unacceptable to him as he was an alpha and held to the knothead mindset that an omega's place was bouncing on an alpha's prick or maybe in a teaching or nursing job.

You weren't worried, though. You had a solid lead. There was no way he could close the gap.

You rolled your eyes at the incoming transmission.

"Why don't you just give up now? If you surrender nicely, I'll let you celebrate my victory by letting you keep my knot warm!"

The temptation to reply was too great.

"Ha! You may be good at navigating the stars, but I doubt you have ever found your way into an omega."

Conversing with him hadn't distracted you or made you pause, so he growled as he switched to another plan. He fired on his tractor beam.

What the fuck, was he insane? Stooping so low to make sure you couldn't have a historic moment? You fired an equal and opposite tractor beam through his, which forced him to disengage. Something only possible because both ships were similar in size and energy output. Did he think you were some amateur?

In a desperate bid to prevent you from winning, Tetsunori rammed his shuttle into yours.

This type of bumping wasn't unheard of. It wasn't lethal if both ships were similar and had their shields up. But the bouncing was pretty strong for both parties, which is why it was a last-ditch effort. It could push you past the line, or it could bump him further. Neither of those things happened, though.

Instead, you careened right into the gravitational pull off a planet. You did everything you could to slow down and stabilize, but nothing seemed to be working.

Tetsunori sped after you in his spacecraft as he spoke into the comm link.

"I'm sorry, oh my god, I'm so sorry! I just had to be first! What omega would want to be mates with someone who they bested??"

You didn't have time for his weird ass confession and barely registered it. Your shields were still online and he had started pulsing his tractor beam to slow you down, full usage of it at such speeds could rip your ship apart, thankfully he wasn't an amateur either and knew that.

You put all available power and quickly put it into overloading the shields. You hit the emergency crash button, and two nozzles came out from the sides of the cockpit and sprayed you with a rapidly drying foam that would reduce damage to you if you got flung about the ship. Tetsunori's reckless and speedy entry into the atmosphere may have been enough to save you, but he had lost control of his vessel as well.

As you crashed, he careened away and crash-landed as well.

It was a good thing the high-tech impact reduction foam was so effective. Despite having shields, the ship was still shaken pretty badly, and the inertial dampeners weren't powerful enough to thwart damage from such a landing.

You took stock of the condition of your systems.

Almost everything was fried. You could at least scan the planet. It seemed like you had actually lucked out. In the entire galaxy planets that supported life were incredibly rare. But you had landed on one.

It seemed there were no known biological hazards present. No recognized toxins, dangerous bacteria, or viral agents. You were cleared to remove your suit. The temporary foam had started to dissolve, so it wasn't hard to remove.

The scanner also indicated there was a strong human life sign. It appeared that Tetsunori was okay.

You took the survival kit from underneath your seat as well as some beverages and rations you had procured at the last station and headed in the direction of dust and smoke in the distance.

You didn't even need the ship's scanner to tell you that the great imbecile, Tetsunori had landed there.

As you got closer, you stepped into a field of flowers that surrounded the entire crash site. You were probably still a mile away, but all around you were odd glittery silver and gold flowers.

The smell of them made you just slightly lightheaded and tingly. You realized the tiniest bit of slick was dribbling down your leg. They must be an aphrodisiac. The scanner hadn't warned you of anything in the air that was truly dangerous, so it probably wouldn't matter very much. And it really didn't. For you. As you trudged through the flowers and pollen, the effects did not get worse.

But for Tetsunori, the pollen was much stronger. When it hit his nostrils, it immediately put him into rut. Not a typical rut either, one of the ruts you see in pornos where the alpha is almost feral and unable to control their mating drive. When you came upon him, he was sitting on a piece of debris from his shit and rocking back and forth in clear distress. Through his outfit, his bulge was immediately visible.

"T-tetsunori? Uh... are you okay? D-did you get hurt in the crash?"

You took a step back when he looked up at you. His eyes were red, giving him a demonic appearance.

"The flowers, I think... they... UGH! My thoughts are all jumbled..."

He started to rub and massage his crotch desperately. He finally caught a whiff of your scent, ripe from the recent hike over to him and from being without a proper shower since your last space station stop. Not to mention the smell of the slick the aphrodisiac had coaxed out of you.

He started wildly sniffing at the air.

"Y-you smell so nice. You can help!"

You started backing away slowly.

"Uh... help with what?"

He got up and closed the difference between the two of you. Sweat had his dark hair clinging to his head. He was significantly taller and looked down at you intensely before sniffing and licking your neck with lazy broad strokes.

"S-smell so gooood. Always wanted to knot youuuu~"

You tried to push him off.

"Tetsunori! St-stop!"

You slapped, smacked, kicked, punched, and flailed, but nothing you did deterred him in the slightest.

"I'm sorry, but I fucking n-need this!"

He pinned you to the ground, clawing and biting off all your clothing until only your underwear was left, he removed it more delicately before inhaling its scent deeply and putting it in his pocket for later.

"Please don't do this, Tetsunori, PLEASE!"

He looked down at you, and it seemed like he was genuinely trying to resist before the pollen-charged rut won out.

Tetsunori unzipped his pants and let his drooling cock and full heavy balls out.

"G-gonna put all my babies in you! Have to! Have to!"

The lust-drunk alpha wasted no more time in ramming into you, an insertion that would have been more difficult had the pollen not slicked you up. Though it was still sudden and slightly painful.

"A-aaah!"

You tried to kick at him, but he growled viciously before pushing you into a mating press and slobbering all over your neck with his eager tongue.

The pollen must have increased the potency of his pheromones, or at least your susceptibility to them, because his musk was starting to cloud your thoughts.

Your grunts of pain became gasps of pleasure as your body quickly accommodated to his large size. You winced as he bit down hard on your neck to claim you. He kept right on fucking into you without skipping a beat.

He licked and kissed the lightly bleeding bite mark, some part of him remembering to comfort you despite his dominating need to fill you with cock. And by that point, the last of your resistance finally melted away.

"T-tetsunoriiiiii~" You moaned as your toes curled and body twitched in orgasm.

He growled your name in response and gave a few hard, deep thrusts before cumming as deeply as possible.

A comforting fullness filled your hole as his knot locked the two of you together. He pulled you close as he sat down so that you were in his lap facing him. The two of you caught your breath, then remained in an awkward silence until his knot deflated.

"G-got it out of your system?"

"Yeah... for the most part... sorry about that..."

You lifted yourself off of his lap, his half hard cock springing free with a lewd plopping sound.

"Well... it wasn't your fault. It was just the pollen..."

He grabbed your wrist and pulled you back into his lap, his cock ramming directly into you, then began humping.

"Well... it wasn't just the pollen..."

[derinwrites]

Plotting a story -- inductive and deductive plotting

When it comes to plotting habits in writing fiction, there’s a scale. Most people label the ends of this scale ‘gardener’ and ‘architect’, although the terms ‘plotter’ and ‘pantser’ are also in use. If you’re a writer, you probably know this scale, but I’ll briefly explain for those who haven’t and then get into my model.

An architect, or plotter, is a writer who thrives with a lot of planning. Like an architect planning a house, they assess what story they’re telling in advance and what needs to happen to tell it. They assess the materials, plan and measure the acts (if they’re using an act structure), decide on the climax and how the characters will develop and map those onto the plan. Then, with a plan, they write.

A gardener, or pantser, by contrast, writes ‘by the seat of their pants’. Pantsers may or may not know where their story is going in broad terms, but they certainly don’t know in any detail beyond ‘this’ll be a cool scene if I can get it there’. To these people, writing is less like architecture and more like gardening – you can build your beds and plant your seeds, but a whole lot of what’s going to happen next depends on how the plants grow, and all you can do is keep an eye on them and prune or train them as necessary. You can dream about what your garden will look like in the spring, but you won’t know until you get there.

Plotters and pantsers are not two distinct categories of writers, but ends on a scale. The writer who ad libs sentence by sentence with no goal at all is extremely rare, as is the writer who starts from an overall view of the plot and cuts it down and down until they’re planning on the sentence level. Most writers tend towards one end of the scale to a greater or lesser degree, but very few write completely using one method and none of the other.

The plotter/pantser scale is one that many writers find incredibly useful to help them understand their own process. By knowing where you are on this scale, you can better understand how you write and better understand how the habits and advice of other writers may or may not be useful to you. (A pantser trying to meticulously plot their story in advance following some formula they found in a writing advice book is wasting their time.) However, this model has little utility beyond that, which is why I find it more useful to address the phenomenon not as a scale, but as the manifestation of two separate skills, that I like to call deductive and inductive plotting.

In logic, deductive reasoning is when you take broad rules or generalities and apply them to specific circumstances to predict things – you start big and go little. “Things fall when you drop them, therefore if I drop this rock it will fall” is deduction. Inductive reasoning is the opposite – you start with small observations and build them into a pattern to predict something bigger. “I dropped seventeen objects and they all fell; therefore, perhaps when you drop things, they fall” is induction. (There’s also abductive reasoning, but that doesn’t fit into our plotting skill metaphor.)

In my experience, these skills match to the habits of plotters and pantsers. Plotters, or architects, assemble a big picture of the story they want and then deduce their individual scenes and fill in the lines to map to their overall general picture. They are deductive plotters. If you ask a deductive plotter to start writing without an outline, they become lost and their output seems directionless and erratic – how can they know what to write if they don’t have an outline to break things down from? Deductive plotters tend to think of stories in terms of overall structures and themes that can be broken down into characters and events and put on the page.

Pantsers, or gardeners, are the opposite. They’re if-then writers, and build the plot upwards from the individual actions of their characters and create the story from the sum total of those interactions. They are inductive plotters. Brandon Sanderson often describes a pantser’s first draft as just a really thorough outline, and he’s not wrong; a pantser needs the scene-by-scene minutae to know what happens next. How are they supposed to build an outline if they don’t know what happens next? If you ask an inductive plotter to build and follow a thorough outline, their writing often comes out as wooden and arbitrary as they have to force the actions of the characters between the restrictive rails of predetermined plot. Inductive potters tend to think of stories in terms of characters and discrete events that build up into something bigger with a consistent mood or theme. Inductive plotters sometimes complain of their characters having a life of their own and defying the plot – this is the effect of their moment-by-moment if-then reasoning of the character’s next action not matching their initial predictions, and surprising them.

Again, the vast majority of writers have some rudimentary skill in both inductive and deductive plotting. A strong deductive plotter (architect) can usually sit down and infer line-by-line a scene that their outline lists as “the three characters meet in the coffee shop and share evidence, Rosemary sees Harold’s notes and realises where the gun went.” Similarly, a strong inductive plotter (gardener) usually has some idea of where their story is headed next even if they don’t know how long it’ll take to get there or what complications will pop up in the meantime. But I’ve never met a writer who is equally strong in both inductive and deductive plotting; most writers specialise heavily in one, and tend towards one end of the scale. I think this is because there’s such a huge overlap in utility; when we start learning to write, we start plotting in whatever way is easiest for us, and train that specific method over decades. There’s little reason to invest even more decades into getting just as good with the other method when your favoured method already achieves everything you want.

I find that viewing this scale as the result of two skills, inductive and deductive plotting, can be very helpful in understanding specifically how we write. Thinking of myself as a heavily inductive plotter with rudimentary deductive plotting skills has really helped me understand why some methods of writing work for me and others don’t, as well as help nail down specific weaknesses in my writing. I also find it useful to think of writing styles and strategies not as some unchangeable characteristic we were born with (as the plotter/pantser scale is frequently envisioned), but as skills that can be built. You don’t write the way you write because you happen to be a plotter or pantser – you write the way you write because that’s what you learned to do! And it was hard! And you did it! Be proud of your skill!

[kkooongie]

SITUATIONSHIPS WITH BSD

[♡] dazai always wingmanned you. you weren’t sure where this sudden enthusiasm of finding you a boyfriend had come from. all you knew was, ever since you left the port mafia, dazai was hell bent on finding you a boyfriend. your meetings with each other had become quite rare with him being an executive and you being… well, an ex-executive who was on the ‘good’ side now and all you wanted to do was unwind about your lives to each other but no! he had to ask you if you found anyone ever single time you both secretly met up, followed by him listing a string of guys he thought would be a great match for you. and you entertained him for some time until hastily changing the subject because you had a secret that would probably go to the grave with you. you loved osamu dazai. as much as a bitter truth it was, you couldn’t help falling in love with your best friend. the port mafia had always been a dark world and the only light that ever bothered embracing you was in the form of the man now sitting opposite to you in the bar, once again trying to set you up with ‘a fine police officer with a rather promising promotion up his sleeve’. finally, unable to bear the man you love go on about how you should be with someone else, you blurted out, ‘why are you so insistent of getting me a boyfriend, osamu?’ at this dazai freezes, eyes widening at you like a deer caught in a headlight. ‘insistent?’ he sputtered, and you could see the gears turning in his brain as though trying to find an answer to your question. looking away from you, he replied. ‘i just- i just want you to have a better life. to get away from this darkness. to get away from… me’. your clutch around the drink in your hand tightened, but you didn’t say anything. oh how you wanted to tell him that if anything, you wanted to be with him.

[♡] whenever you struggled to put on your clip, chuuya helped you. it wasn’t like you both were close; on the contrary, you both barely saw eye to eye and yet for some reason, mori often paired the two of you up for missions. it was true that both of you worked really well, your skills covering up his weak points and vice versa but it was like cooperation between the two of you started and ended within the fight to destroy the enemy. the port mafia was a dark world you had been thrusted into suddenly, and the only grasps of your previous life you had were the clips your father used to buy you regularly as a little girl. so as though to remind yourself that not everything was lost, you always wore childish clips during the missions. so here you were now, checking yourself out at the side view mirror of the car parked beside you as you attempted to put a pink strawberry clip on to your hair (without making it look like you had a balding spot). “what are you doing?” you heard chuuya’s voice come from behind you, breaking your concentration. closing your eyes you sighed, before turning towards him to glare at him. “trying to put this clip?”. chuuya raised an eyebrow, an action that always caused butterflies to erupt in your stomach for some reason. truth be told, chuuya nakahara was a beautiful man. and by that you didn’t mean only on the outside, but even in his actions you could see the remnants of a kind and caring person who just happened to be loyal to the port mafia. “well i guess it won’t hurt the enemies to see a beautiful person before they die,” he said. for a second you thought he was talking about himself and nearly hurled out another insult but then you realised he meant you, and you froze, unsure how to respond at all. he sighed as he walked over you, gently reaching out to take the clip from your hand. “here, let me help.” he murmured, leaning in closer as he held the back of your head with one hand and slid the clip on your hair with another. you could almost feel his breath dust your cheeks as time halted around you, you staring at his scrunched up concentrated face to get it right in one go. satisfied with the position, he looked back at you and gave you a smile, causing time to flow again. “there, you look even more beautiful now.” he took a step back and turned away and you slowly raised your hand to touch your clip, where the ghost of his touch still lingered. the port mafia had trained you to lie well but if anyone were to look at you now it would be a bit too obvious how much you liked chuuya. 

[♡] somehow jouno was always the one who happened to be there when you were crying, offering you the comfort you needed at the moment. maybe it was his super hearing. or maybe it was his instinct. (or maybe, he was the person you desperately wanted to see whenever you had a breakdown and the universe decided to toy with you each time). but embarrassingly enough, jouno would always appear out of thin air whenever you were crying, whether you were in an empty room or a public place. no matter how embarrassed you were that someone, especially saigiku jouno, had caught you crying, you couldn’t stop yourself from being a blubbering mess to him. there was something about the way he would patiently listen to you, softly pat your back and whisper consoling words as you rambled on and on about what made you cry. then when you would have finally calmed down, he would tease you, much to your dismay because the last thing you wanted your crush to remember was your embarrassing moments. and yet, when you would start becoming hard on yourself or start apologising, he would become serious and scold you, telling you that it was natural to feel conflicted about whatever situation you were in. the first few times it was awkward to have the guy you liked see you like this but soon, he became the first thing that popped up on your mind whenever you felt down. and you could swear to god that he could also hear your thoughts because no matter how much he teased you, he was always there for you. ‘you have your ears out on purpose to listen if i’m crying and that’s why you pop up everytime, don’t you?’ you accused him one day when you were crying, but this time because you just had a realisation that he would probably never see you the way you saw him. jouno just sighed, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you into a hug. ‘i don’t need to listen to you cry to know that you are upset’. you froze in his arms at his words, trying to understand what he meant. but your mind was so muddled up with sadness, and him softly patting your back was not helping the situation either, so you just found yourself sinking into his touch. maybe you would break over his words later on.

[♡] tecchou was always on the quieter side, except whenever he was with you. you had known suehiro tecchou since the two of you were kids. you had always noticed how he used to sit quietly in class even during break times so you took it upon yourself to talk to him, sure that this silent boy just needed someone to pay attention to him as long as that person did the talking but boy, you were wrong. he not only talked back to you enthusiastically but ended up becoming good friends with you. it was weird, really. because whenever you saw him hanging out with his other friends, he would barely talk. you even overheard some of the people talking about how silent and standoffish he was, and some of them even had the audacity to ask you how you managed to converse with him. you told them maybe they didn’t have anything interesting to say to him, to which some people would joke that ‘or maybe we aren’t as interesting to him as you are’. you would just shrug (and act like that statement didn’t just cause your stomach to somersault because tecchou treating you differently because he liked you? that was a bit of a leap in your one sided love even for you), thinking back on a previous conversation which tecchou would have brought up himself enthusiastically. one day you finally decided to ask him. “why don’t you talk to others? you’re always yapping whenever you're with me.” the two of you were watching a movie, one of his arms draped over your shoulders as he rubbed mindless circles on your arm (you had no clue what the movie was about by this point). at this, techhou looks gives you a quizzical look, before replying, ‘because they’re not you?’. ‘ah.’ is all you manage to say, feeling a little heat rise up your cheeks. but you also knew he didn’t imply anything in that statement so you just mustered back a smile and turned your attention back to the tv, letting the feeling of his fingers tracing your arms through your shirt satisfy your feelings for now.

[♡] the only person who won against fyodor in chess was you. it was a surprise to you too, to be honest. even though the reason fyodor took you in the decay of the angels was due to your brains, looking at his actions to infect both mori and fukuzawa, and get rid of dazai was enough for you to realise that this man was leagues above you in terms of intelligence. it was almost like he was another species. and yet, you were not sure what had come over you when you barged into his room one fine day, right when he was in the middle of a chess match between goncharov and him, demanding that he played chess with you instead so that it would be an actual workout for his brain. what you were thinking was beyond you too (maybe it was the fact that no one had ever outsmarted you in your entire life and then there was fyodor dostoyevsky, a man who thought a hundred steps ahead of you). at first, when you realised your grave mistake, you were sure fyodor would ask goncharov to use his ability to swallow you whole into the earth and you would never stand a chance because you were never a fighter. but to your surprise, fyodor just smiled, asking goncharov to get lost and indicated at the now empty seat opposite to you. sure that you had just sealed your coffin, you sat down with a gulp, determined to win (if that was even possible). and that was the most brain racking chess match you had ever played. dostoyevsky wasn’t just good, he was brutally amazing. but you didn’t give up. somewhere down the line you realised your life was probably on the line so you calmed yourself down and continued… until you won. and when you did you looked up at him in shock, only to find him smiling back at you, tenderly. and that must have broken something inside you because you jumped up and ploughed him into a hug. soon it became a routine, and not a single time did you let fyodor win. until one day, you overheard nikolai and sigma talking about how fyodor obviously let you win and that was weird because fyodor hated losing. at first you felt angry at this, but then you realised if fyodor wanted to kill you… he already would have done that. you didn’t even contribute anything to the team yet. and so, you let the happy thought consume you as you walked over to fyodor’s room for another chess match, determined to win and see him give you that smile once again.

[♡] nikolai always walked you home, no matter what. it had become almost like a routine now. after your work was over in the rats of the house of the dead (which was…almost never), nikolai, who would somehow know when your work was over, would be found waiting outside your office room to walk you home. at first you weren’t sure what he wanted from you. after all, everyone and their actions had an ulterior motive here. and considering that nikolai was one of the five decay angels (fyodor had introduced you to the group and you were secretly working for both), you were terrified of him. in fact the first few days of walking back to home was just him talking non stop, sometimes in that comical way he had, and sometimes in the philosophical, deep way all the while you silently begged to not be killed by him. but the more you heard him talk, the more you felt how… humanely he was. especially whenever he talked about the birds in the sky, you could see his eyes getting excited, but in a different way than it usually did whenever he was throwing his sudden quiz questions. those times his eyes held true awe and wonder, like he truly wished he could become a bird and fly away from this burden, before his eyes would dim away as usual into the fake smile he always had plastered on his face. and slowly, you began to understand him. you too started quietly giving your opinions in the talks now, laughing a little at times when he was being silly but also enjoyed baring your soul to each other. and then you started looking forward to the walks. looking forward to seeing his smile, looking forward to see his serious face and trying to console him. you loved the fact that he kept his promise to walk you back home daily, come rain or shine. but the day he walked you back home when he was running a temperature, not listening to your protests of you being fine for a five minutes walk all because he promised you was the day you realised you were heads over heels with nikolai gogol. but even you knew, no matter how sweet he was, no matter the reason he first offered to walk home with you, he would never love you back.

A/N || Hi everyone! This is my first time writing for bsd, let alone anime. Do let me know what you guys think! Also I went with whatever names they are referred to in the anime. Comments and reblogs are appreciated! If you want to be added to the taglist, dm me!

A/N || Also, lemme know which all bsd men you wanna read abt (preferably NOT atsushi cus i still see him as a child im 20 cus ive barely read fics in this fandom so im not sure?) and don't ask why only chuuya is on the banner.

A/N 2 || P.S loosely based on my situationship (SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF IT PLS)

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