#and basically their function is to keep reality safe in case something happens with the legendaries

[cryptids-lobelia-garden]

OKAY here we are, all caught up! For now. I don’t have any buffer or anything really specific planned for the next few days. Wish me luck. So! This one is set probably like.. three-ish months? Into Volo getting pulled into the agency/under Eclipse’s wing? So yeah, Eclipse hasn’t done anything super serious yet, just messed with his head.

Warnings: ngl I have No Idea what to tag this one.

Whumpee having Issues, that are only being exacerbated by whumper, who isn’t hurting him physically quite yet but he sure isn’t good for Whumpee’s mental or emotional state. Emotional hurt no comfort I guess is what this is. You know when you look back at something really shitty you did and go “…oooohh no.” Yeah it’s that, that’s what this is

Anyway uh. I’m not super happy with how it turned out, this scene is supposed to come in between some other stuff whenever I actually pull everything together, BUT!!!! At least the first draft is written! So I can edit it and string it together with other stuff later!

But yeah, the context this needs is by this point, he’s aware that what he was trying (subjugate Arceus and rewrite history) was never going to work out, and he’s been a little aimless since then, not sure he has a purpose. And this is him kinda finding one!

(Poor guy has a traumatization arc at the same time as his redemption arc 😔 wish him luck he’s gonna need it)

Day 3: Shame

“GIRATINA!! STRIKE THEM DOWN!!!”

Volo sighs as he watches it play out. Again, again.

Four teenagers, twenty four Pokémon, and two gods; one present, one absent.

One teenager blinded by a dream of a world without suffering, the other three fighting for the right to exist.

Six Pokémon against eighteen, and then the playing field is leveled by the help of a god, but still the three teenagers won.

Three siblings, one angry, one upset, one cynical, watching as their flute changes into one that can summon Arceus, and one teenager, alone in the world, angry at the god he’d worshipped for abandoning him in every single time of need. Angry at the god who had helped him for failing.

He had lashed out, and now he was completely and utterly alone.

Three siblings finding their way back to the home they had protected while one teenager grieves the life he never got to live. Three siblings chasing their dreams and meeting their goals while one teenager is lost, stuck with nowhere else to go but away. But he can’t go away, because Hisui is his home. His broken, pain-filled home, full of the memories of his people.

They have everything, and he is left alone.

Three siblings growing up and becoming champions of their region, one teenager finding a strange device and traveling to another time.

To another dimension.

Would things have been different, had I not done all this? Would I have more than just myself, my Pokémon, and Eclipse to rely on?

He scrolls back in time.

Three siblings and one teenager meeting for the first time. A Pokémon battle, and two of the siblings became fast friends with the teenager.

And a few months later, he betrays them for nothing but a chance at a plan that never would have worked in the first place.

“GIRATINA!! STRIKE THEM DOWN!!!”

..He turns his holocomputer off and lays in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

..maybe Eclipse is right. I deserve to hurt for what I put those three through.

We were all teenagers, but I was older. They were 15. I was an adult. I should’ve known better- I tried to KILL them.

And my actions indirectly killed so many more..

He lets his eyes slip closed.

..I’m lucky I have Eclipse. At least he won’t hurt me, despite the fact that I deserve it. Not like so many of the others in this place would.

..I wonder if things would be different, had I called it all off.

I wish I could go back and stop it. But that would only create a paradox involving the Agency itself. It would only make everything worse, might actually break reality as a whole..

He rolls over, curling up on his side and hiding in the plush blankets.

..Maybe, if I hadn’t been born, the world would be better off.

Thousands dead, tens of thousands hurt, and SO MANY displaced throughout time and space.. All because of a dream that could never have worked.

I need to help them. It’s my fault they’re lost, after all.

I can’t bring back the dead.

But I can at least help the living.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

The shifting narrative of God’s interventism and how it reflects on the narrative on John

This post will ignore the issue authorial intent entirely because I can, but it’s also about authorial intent in a way, but I also don’t like to talk about things as happening “accidentally” because a) a serialized story like Supernatural, especially one that got renewed for much longer than anyone could possibly expect or hope in their wildest ambitions, structurally relies on serendipity, because that’s how stories work when they’re work in progress, b) a television show is an extremely multi-authored text and the chance that something happens out of the intent of any of the multiple layers of creators is kind of... statistically negligible. So, yeah, that’s my stance on the topic. Anyway.

The shifting narrative about God is simultaneously something that hangs on fortunate storytelling clicks on an essentially programmed narrative. At first, we don’t know where the fuck God is. Cas starts looking for him with little success. Raphael says he’s dead, Cas doesn’t believe it. Dean relates to his struggle because he knows the feeling of not knowing where the fuck your father is and going looking for him with little success, not knowing if he’s even alive. Then the theory that gets assumed as the truth is that God has left. He fucked off who knows where, who knows why, leaving his creation to struggle alone. Also essentially how Dean had felt after John had died; in that case there was guilt for his demon deal and everything, but the most cruel weight on Dean’s shoulder was that John left him alone to struggle with his devastatingly horrific instructions he doesn’t understand. The angels are also left with horrific instructions they don’t understand. No wonder Cas does his own ‘demon deal’ in season 6, as he desperately tries to do what he assumes his father wants from him, but he doesn’t actually know what that is.

“God has left” is maddening, and everyone is angry about it, but it has its own dignity. God has left us without clear instructions, we are confused and in pain and evil runs amock but at least, we suppose, the evil of it is our own doing. We are alone and we do our best, our best is simply not enough. We wish he gave us guidance, but he won’t. He wants us to figure it out ourselves, possibly. We don’t actually know what he wants. But maybe that’s the point. It’s possible he doesn’t even know what’s happening, he just has left the building entirely.

But then Chuck reveals himself. We find out that he never actually left. He was there. “I like front row seats. You know, I figured I’d hide out in plain sight”. He simply chooses not to intervene. He chooses not to answer. He chooses to be hands-off. He presents himself as a laissez-faire parent, because, he says, it’s better for his children to have the responsibility they need to grow up. He’s absent, but in a different way than we thought! It’s not that he doesn’t know what’s happening or isn’t interested in knowing what’s happening. He’s here, he knows what’s happening, he just stays there and watches as you stumble and struggle and scream. It’s worse, and it pains Dean so much he isn’t even afraid to yell at God. You know we’re suffering and you just don’t give us any support, any comfort.

You’re frustrated. I get it. Believe me, I was hands-on, real hands-on, for, wow, ages. I was so sure if I kept stepping in, teaching, punishing, that these beautiful creatures that I created... would grow up. But it only stayed the same. And I saw that I needed to step away and let my baby find its way. Being overinvolved is no longer parenting. It’s enabling.

But it didn’t get better.

Well, I’ve been mulling it over. And from where I sit, I think it has.

Well, from where I sit, it feels like you left us and you’re trying to justify it.

I know you had a complicated upbringing, Dean, but don’t confuse me with your dad.

At that point of the show, the writing team almost certainly didn’t have the s14-15 twist in mind. So this was probably intended to be Chuck’s truth. Later it gets twisted (retconned?) into a lie, but about that later.

Here, Chuck is really good at manipulating the conversation. Dean has a perfectly valid point, because there IS a middle ground between being overinvolved and not being involved at all. There is a middle ground between enabling your children and abandoning them completely. But Chuck hits Dean where it hurts, plays the emotional card, basically tells him that he’s too emotional to understand, too emotional to think rationally about it, because he mixes his feelings about his father to the issue and thus cannot see it clearly. He basically tells him he’s too close to it to get it. You don’t understand parenting, Dean, because you’re too blinded by your emotions about your own little life and cannot see the big picture.

It doesn’t really matter here if he’s telling the truth or lying, it already says a lot about Chuck that he’s emotionally manipulating Dean, silencing him by hitting the painful spot.

But the thing is, 11.20 immediately presents Chuck as a liar. He makes Metatron read his autobiography and the very first line is a lie (“In the beginning, there was me. Boom – detail. And what a grabber. I mean, I’m hooked, and I was there.” “I’m hooked too, and yet... details. You weren’t alone in the beginning. Your sister was with you.”) and the stuff he talks about his experience as Chuck is not exactly truthful about anything (“That, you know, makes you seem like a really grounded, likable person.” “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” “You are neither grounded nor a person!”). Metatron calls him out (“Okay. There are two types of memoir. One is honest... the other, not so much. Truth and fairy tale. Now, do you want to write Life by Keith Richards? Or do you want to write Wouldn’t It Be Nice by Brian Wilson?”). Chuck SAYS he chooses truth and gives Metatron a different manuscript, supposedly containing the truth, to which Metatron reacts positively. Metatron believes it, and we believe it with him.

Oh! Oh, this! This is what I was talking about. Chapter Ten “Why I Never Answer Prayers, and You Should Be Glad I Don’t”, and Chapter Eleven “The Truth About Divine Intervention and Why I Avoid It At All Costs”.

Nature? Divine. Human nature – toxic.

They do like blowing stuff up.

Yeah. And the worst part – they do it in my name. And then they come crying to me, asking me to forgive, to fix things. Never taking any responsibility.

What about your responsibility?

I took responsibility... by leaving. At a certain point, training wheels got to come off. No one likes a helicopter parent.

This is sort of what he later says to Dean, except that to Dean he talks about “beautiful creatures” “my baby”, talks about helping, none of the harsh tone he’s using here. When Metatron accuses him of hiding from Amara, he retorts “I am not hiding. I am just done watching my experiments’ failures”. What a different language, uh? Then Metatron asks him why he abandoned them, and Chuck answers “Because you disappointed me. You all disappointed me”. Then, he admits he lied about “learning” to play the guitar and so on, because he just gave himself the ability, and then appears to Dean and Sam, after Metatron’s passionate speech about humanity.

So, no matter the authorial intent at the time - the truthiness of Chuck’s words was already ambiguous. He kept lying and being called out, or silencing the conversation with some good ol’ gaslighting.

The season 14 finale introduces the big twist: it was, indeed, all a lie. The whole of it. Chuck didn’t abandon shit. It was all him, minutely controlling the narrative of the universe, putting the characters through all the pain and struggles for his own amusement.

The “absent father” narrative was a lie.

What does this tell us about John? Nothing, according to the authorial intent that shines through Dabb’s Lebanon. But we don’t give a crap about Dabb’s authorial intent about John! He’s just one dude and plenty of other authors have painted a different picture. So I’m going to read the narrative the way I want, because I can, and the narrative allows me to. It’s all there.

I’m suggesting that the fact that Chuck lied when he talked about being a hands-off/absentee father parallels how Dean and Sam prefer to think of their father as an “absent father” when that’s not exactly a reflection of the truth.

You left us. Alone. ‘Cause Dad was just a shell. [...] And I-I had to be more than just a brother. I had to be a father and I had to be a mother, to keep him safe.

Setting aside how “I had to be a father and I had to be a mother” sort of retcons and cleans up the Winchester family picture painted by ealier seasons, the fact that John didn’t really count as a functional father figure and Dean and Sam were essentually alone is not incorrect or anything. It is true that John would leave them to their own devices a lot, thus the long stays in motels, the hunger, the food-stealing, and all. But John wasn’t always absent, at all. He trained them as soldiers, he disciplined them, he was around enough for them to be intimately familiar with what happened when he drank. He drove them around.

It’s almost like it’s preferable to Dean and Sam to spin their own “absent father” narrative, putting the accent on the time they spent alone, painting their childhood as a time they had to grow up on their own, rather than acknowledge they grew up under the thumb of a controlling, looming figure they would regularly live in fear of, even when he was not physically present.

The “absent father” narrative is what Dean and Sam need to use to avoid confronting the reality of the father figure whose moods and whims they had to dance around. “I know things got dicey... you know, with Dad... the way he was. And I just... I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should have. I mean, I had my own stuff, you know. In order to keep the peace, probably looked like I took his side quite a bit.”

John shaped their lives. He shaped their identities. Even in the episodes where he abandons Dean or both children somewhere, he’s portrayed as the figure who drives the car. He symbolically drives the car, you know? John shaped Dean and Sam’s relationship with each other, both on a surface level (the conflicts) and on a deeper level (the parental dynamic).

Heck. The entire first season of the show plays on John’s disappearance as the “elephant in the room”. John is there by not being there, you know? And after he dies, his death - his absence - is again the elephant in the room for Dean, the weight on his psyche that he shatters under.

It is not wrong that Dean and Sam had to spend long periods of time without John. But John structured their lives in quite minute detail. Where they needed to be, what they needed to do, what they must not do, everything had to follow John’s instructions. A drill sergeant, the narrative called him, ordering how his sons needed to live their lives. That’s no absence, except on a level where Chuck not showing himself and pretending he’s not there can be considered absent. That’s a presence, not necessarily always physical, but semiotical and psychological.

John is an absent father as much as Chuck is a hands-off god. He even writes himself into the story around the time Cas has the “season 1” phase (let’s go look for dad/let’s go look for god), which is when John actually was alive and appeared. Then he was no longer physically there, but he was still shaping his characters’ lives, just like he’d always done.

The “absent father” narrative on John is that - a narrative. Spun by the characters themselves because it’s easier and actually kinder on John. Or, better, it allows them not to be crushed by the psychological implications of having to accept that their father was such a looming, minutely formative figure in their lives. They know, but they can wave the “absent father” idea around to avoid thinking about it.

“I had to be a father and I had to be a mother” is something easier to tell yourself. I was the one who did it all. But he wasn’t, and that’s the problem. The fact that John was their father - Dean’s and Sam’s - is the problem. But ironically, blaming himself for every failure is a better option for Dean than fully acknowledging John’s abuse. As long as he blames himself, he has control over it. The moment he acknowledges the extent of John’s influence, he loses control over the entire narrative of his own identity and the family identity, the family dynamics. That’s scarier, just like realizing that God manipulated everything is much scarier than the alternative. “God abandoned us” was indeed a better option, and “John left us alone” was a better option. But neither was true, and the characters faced the implications of the cosmic level, but never got to face the implication of the familial level, because the narrative always danced around it and then Dabb’s apologist version “won”.

But what’s been put in the show is still there. The narrative of John’s abuse is still there. Nothing can take it out of the story.

[spiritualgateway]

You are your own creation

written by Steven Black:

At least since „Seth“, we all know the famous sentence: „You are the creator of your own reality. “

Fine.

But we usually overlook the most important point, namely the center of where everything happens.

OUR SELF!

The very personal kind of evaluations we make about ourselves creates our human personality. The identity as which we know and experience ourselves. This is how it manifests itself. Our stream of evaluations leads to patterns of conviction and to a certain belief structure. And with this we then identify ourselves, which sets a certain dynamic in motion through which we will attract and experience certain things.

The core of the center lies in what we believe about ourselves, how we feel about ourselves and how we think about ourselves. This in turn is closely related to what kind of experiences we have already had. And how we have then judged these experiences. If we really want to understand the phrase – „You are the creator of your own reality“ – then it is valuable if we look at the stream of evaluation that we generate about ourselves throughout our lives. Second by minute, day by week for months for years and decades.

The person we are now is the product of many years of incessant evaluations and definitions about ourselves.

Sure, before we are born, we put together a kind of blueprint – with certain character traits, talents and inclinations, in order to be able to have certain experiences. And of course, when we come to Earth, we go through an imprinting process that will activate this Blueprint. We go through education by parents and the school system, learn cultural, social and societal collective beliefs and much more. In this way we learn to think in a certain way and to classify things, circumstances, people and situations – we adopt the definitions and evaluations that have been given to us.

In fact, it is only the basic training for being human at the moment, it is not the „wisdom last resort“.

Much more important for our human experience are our judgements about ourselves – which we make again and again (mostly very unconsciously) permanently. We constantly make comparisons and constantly generate our very personal interpretations about other people, life, our experiences and ourselves. And this, of course, first on the basis of what we have been taught.

All these interpretations, evaluations and definitions flow to what we call the subconscious and bundle there into beliefs (beliefs). This is called programming; this is how a program is written – and it is we ourselves who write it. Minute by minute for hour for day, months and years.

Beliefs become a program that works continuously without us having to consciously think about things. Belief systems are automatically formed after a certain amount or load of (good or bad) evaluations we have made about our experiences. Beliefs are nothing more than a condensation of evaluation streams that accumulate within us over time.

Each one of us is a creative soul, each one creates his own reality – without exception. And we create with the highest possible commitment: with ourselves.    

However we evaluate ourselves, whatever beliefs and ideas we may develop about ourselves – we ourselves bear the consequences. Because we will then have to live this idea we have about ourselves.      

We usually believe that it is only our experiences – the good and the less good – that influence our ways of thinking and acting. This is only partly true – I mean, of course experiences shape us. But much more important for the subsequent shaping is our personal evaluation of the perceptions and experiences we have made. For an impressive imprint a certain form of meaning is necessary. Meanings do not exist „just like that“, a meaning is created by weighting. By different evaluations within a certain context and by the feeling or an emotion that co-creates this evaluation. I have to evaluate things in order for them to have a meaning for me personally. This means that the meaning that any things, situations, people, and diverse experiences have for us is co-determined and shaped by ourselves.

Of course, when we are young and inexperienced, we will usually „blindly“ follow the definitions and evaluations that we have been taught. No matter how good, healthy, disabling, limiting or valuable they are. As we get older, we will probably realize at some point how many of these are not really ours. Then, at some point, we will probably make adjustments and think differently.

For example, if we often had the experience of being criticized as a child, we will develop an „inner critic“ over time. Considering the fact that there is a psychological study that says that a child up to the age of 5 is criticized about 40,000 times, we can safely assume that almost everyone develops an „inner critic“. The „Inner Critic“ emerges as a kind of protective function for the child.

He criticizes with the „good intention“ of sparing the child further criticism, which of course does not work. The Inner Critic is usually associated with a parent’s voice or that of another important caregiver. And what they say must be true, right? We quickly make the experience that we can rarely meet the requirements and so we develop additional feelings of guilt and shame. The heard criticism, together with the emotional reaction in us, leads to an often traumatic impact in our consciousness. The more often this happened, the more often we were criticized, the more often we felt shame about it, the more a conviction structure condenses and bundles itself in us, which approximately says: You are not valuable, you are not enough, you are … blah-blah-blah. We then believe that.

The vehemence and psychological scope of this „inner critic“ may vary individually, but the point is: You create a thought form that will accompany you and tell you unpleasant things about yourself until you start to stop and find a way to stop it. Because – you are hitting yourself …

In eastern spiritual traditions the „monkey mind“ has been blamed for centuries. The „stupid (monkey) mind“ that just does what it wants – as if it had its own life and its own decisions that have nothing to do with you. The solution to this problem was then – just don’t judge anymore. This is in my eyes a very immature idea, because the mind has no own ideas and no own consciousness – it is a function, like a kind of operating system, which does, repeats and executes what WE have given it to work. Our brain works with what it is offered.

And if we keep making devaluations about ourselves, what will keep coming up?

No matter how much other people may criticize you. No one can criticize you as badly, rob you of your own value and strength as you rob yourself. The consequence of this will be that we will be plagued by countless fears, physical tensions and insecurities – which will of course also be triggered by the outer world. The outer world always reflects our inner world in a special way. If you get criticism from the outside, it will most likely bring up the old shame inside you, which reflects the conviction that you are worth nothing. This in turn will throw up another chain of self-critical thoughts, which are usually suppressed as quickly as possible.      

As long as we are still unconscious, we will devalue the other and call him an asshole because he makes us feel that way. But it really hits us, because deep inside of us there is a conviction that correlates – even if only a little – with this criticism. That’s why it hurts, because something in us says – that’s right. No matter how wrong that may be. It is inside of us. The person in question may still be an asshole, but he is not responsible for how I feel about it. The statements trigger and activate the content, which we ourselves have already evaluated countless times in this or similar ways (for whatever reason) and also hide it from ourselves. If this is touched, it hurts. If we had no subject with it, it would not hurt so much.

But you only check it after you have worked your ass off on your topic. Not before – as long as we are only focused on the outer world and its dynamics, we are more likely to make classifications and evaluations that are based on a victim and perpetrator spiral. Me, the poor victim and the evil perpetrator.

Sure, from the outside it looks the same in its EFFECT. But there is always a complex dynamic behind it that has unfolded. We can either learn something important about ourselves from it or we simply repeat and repeat and repeat this dynamic. And we will repeat it if we are not aware of it.        

I know this has been a very strong example of how you create your own reality. An example that can show us that the esoteric idea that everyone creates their reality quasi-consciously is quite unrealistic. We create a lot of unconscious dynamics and weird behaviors because at some point we just didn’t know better. Because basically nobody taught us how to deal with ourselves. And so it is in most cases, life is based on trial and error dynamics when we know very little about how our own system operates.

As long as we do not deal with our own consciousness and inner world, we simply take for „God-given“ who we are and how we think about ourselves. So much mindfuck accumulates there and also the images and ideas we have about relationships, success, money, politics and thousands of other ideas are based on various evaluations and definitions that we have very rarely questioned. Most of the time they simply do not apply (anymore).

As you can see, we are actually deep inside the topic of „self-love“ (whatever that may mean).

Namely: How do I deal with myself?    

How we think about ourselves, how we evaluate ourselves and how we feel with ourselves has an enormous importance for our personal development. It also has a great influence on which connections our brain synapses develop, which ones we expand or whether some of them are broken at all. The state of our brain and all its connections correlate closely with our thoughts and emotions, as well as our actions.      

The axis of meaning

We cannot do without ratings!

I have to rate something as great, exciting, important, boring, euphoric, insignificant, desirable, aborting, likeable, good or bad (etc; etc.) in order for it to have this meaning for me at all. Through evaluations, like „yes, I like“ or „no you, don’t bother“. Evaluations, how difficult or easy the respective situation is or was for us to cope with. Ratings, how to deal with it in the future – acceptance, affirmation or avoidance. These evaluations are made on the basis of permanent comparisons between past and present. And they are extrapolated to future developments.  This feeds our expectations of how things will happen in the future …

As mentioned above, there are of course also meanings whose context has been shaped by other people or society. Because they are simply taken over and regarded as „given facts“. Every meaning has a kind of weight. How heavy it is depends on how important we consider those who taught and taught us various meanings. But a really strong weight they get from us, if it really concerns us and we make an experience about it. Until then, it has more of an abstract meaning, the weight of which has been shaped by others.

The weighting of a meaning is usually only given when we have experience with it and have repeatedly given the same or at least similar evaluations of it. OR relatively quickly, as soon as we are violently „hit“ by an emotional wave – positive or negative in nature.  

EMOTION IS A RESPONSE TO WHATEVER WE BELIEVE IS TRUE

Every emotion and feeling is a reflection of the energy of negative or positive judgement that we have defined and put into it. Emotions are reaction patterns that show us what we believe in. We condition the way we feel. And this means that a feeling or an emotion does not necessarily have to be true.  But it feels very, very true. Sometimes so true, so devastating, depressing and depressingly true that you get stuck in it for a long time. You can also forget about the highly praised „gut feeling“ – because that too is based on resonances that have a connection to any kind of meaning and judgement. Sometimes they are correct, sometimes they are just avoidance, rejection or fear. Also „gut feeling“ is something you can only rely on if you are emotionally relatively clear.

Emotions contain a certain definition, the core of which is a wide range of evaluations that have formed into a conviction. This is the origin, the root of all emotions and also the reason why emotions can sometimes be violent and so overwhelming. The content cascade of countless mental and emotional evaluations is so extensive that we can feel overwhelmed by the respective charge of emotion. Emotions are the first and fastest reaction of our system to flush content – i.e. information from the subconscious – upwards. Imagine if all the thoughts and evaluations we have ever made on a topic suddenly appeared in our waking consciousness – I think that would be much more confusing.

That is why I never tire of emphasizing the value of feeling work. When I am „buried“ by emotional things, I sit down and sit with the emotion – I follow it to the center of (my own) hell. At some point the tangle of meaning unravels and I understand the definition behind it. And then I have the opportunity to see – is this now REALLY true? If so, is it still true now? Very often there are unresolved issues that reach far back into childhood. An emotion that hits you now can be an original situation or experience from childhood, with all the definitions given to it, some of which have – even if only slight – similarities to the current situation. The similarity is enough to trigger the emotional field.

Knowing the definition allows me to make a new assessment – either to reinforce and respond to it or to add a new perspective. This allows me to update my emotional content and my evaluation stream. In order for this to work, I have to sit with the emotion in question until it is halfway discharged. Charge = all of the given evaluations and received feelings. Sometimes this happens quickly, sometimes it can take months or even years. If energy has been put into something for years, it does not dissolve overnight.

Our assessments are rarely made by purely cognitive, logical or clear, sober conclusions alone. We judge situations not only by factual and cognitive criteria, but also how we feel about them. How we feel with it in turn directly reflects our underlying thoughts and beliefs. And the respective emotional perception will in turn lead to certain thoughts and evaluations about them. In this way, our beliefs are condensed. All of this flows incessantly into our „subconscious“, this is how we write our story.

We not only evaluate, we also evaluate our evaluations and our emotions in addition. This reinforces the whole pattern even more. So most of our evaluations have become „self-runners“. We do not question them. They simply continue.

We evaluate almost every perception, every thought, every feeling, every emotion:

The sky is blue – feels good. It is raining – rather bad. It is hot – shit. It is cold – shit. I have to go to work – fuck. The neighbor – is friendly, sexy, annoying, exhausting, cheeky, creepy – whatever. I am in a relationship – super. I’m in a relationship – my god, what was I thinking? A look in the mirror shows – I’m too thin, too fat, too big, too small, have too big/small breasts, have too little/too many muscles, everyone else looks better/worse than me.

I like Rock ’n Roll music/all brass music lovers are morons. Classical music is for snobs. My boyfriend/girlfriend has left me – my god, it feels so shitty/ jeez, I’m so glad about that. I have no money in the bank – my life is boring. I have no money in the bank – at least I don’t have any debts.

There are thousands of different evaluations we make about ourselves and things. The beliefs we have accumulated over the course of our lives are so deeply rooted in us that we are not even aware of them. This happens so fast within us that we are very, very rarely consciously aware of it. We simply take them as a given reality and overlook the fact that we ourselves formed this reality. With our evaluations we condition our personal reality and the kind of person we are. How we evaluate ourselves forms the personality we perceive ourselves as. The personality that we are attracts certain experiences because of their belief patterns. So yes, we all create our own reality …

As we evaluate, so do things appear to us. No matter what kind of beliefs we have, they tend to confirm themselves. We always find confirmation of what we believe.

Of course, we always have the choice to say – „well, I don’t like my reality and I’m going to sit in my corner defiantly, it’s not my fault“. Mostly, however, life forces us to continue learning, to adapt and to change. Sometimes in an absolutely unpleasant way – through pain, trauma or we are confronted with difficult diseases. With everything that gives us the opportunity to pause and realize that we have to go INSIDE to face the many challenges of human existence. Mostly we will only emerge stronger if we redefine ourselves.

No matter why we get stuck in something – we ourselves are the root. Only from there change can happen. If we do not change ourselves, our life, our reality, cannot change.

Alright! Then I just start to think differently!

Good luck with it.

Will not work.

Forget it!

I mean, if you don’t have a big issue with it, if you don’t have a serious emotional charge attached to it – then, yes, it can work. At least it’s a small start. But if that’s not the case, you will just have many and long „discussions“ and arguments against one of your „inner voices“. You will not win this fight this way. This is war with yourself and will only aggravate your inner condition.

Our evaluations are a decision from which perspective we choose to see things. Of course, this means that we can make and give other, new decisions, i.e., new evaluations regarding EVERYTHING. But as long as we have not discharged „the old“, as long as we are not clear about the definitions we have made – about whatever – we will be maltreated by the „old stuff“ of our old creation. That is the incredible power we have, we make LIVING and experiencing what we believe. And what we believe in, comes about through our very personal stream of evaluation.      

The experience of our human personality is a flowing process that is never really complete, because there are so many possibilities and perspectives that we can experience ourselves again and again. We are not a rigid, fixed matter – it sometimes only appears that way. There is a lot of room to readjust or change that. It is possible to make new, better, clearer evaluations about ourselves. But sometimes this is one of the hardest transformation processes one can undergo.

Refine your inner world and you refine your reality

Basically we are never „finished“ unless we stop learning.

Until next time same station

DISCLAIMER:

Nothing you read here is THE truth. It is my truth, my perception and how I see things – now, in this moment.

THE INFORMATION SPACE

[forsakenbysinnoh]

Random Headcannons for the Demon Bros that no one asked for.

~Lucifer~

Lucifer never refers to God by name, only ever saying "He" or "My Father".

Despite how he may act, he's proud of his brothers, of their independence and strength. His pact mark reflects that, his own star surrounded by the six of his brothers.

With that, he can also be very worried about his brothers. Being an avatar of a sin is a title that can be won. He makes sure no other demons besides his brothers hold that title.

He has a dark sense of humor that can go unnoticed or be mistaken as threats.

Despite his reputation of being controlling, he's actually rather tired of it. He was forced into this position to protect his loved ones, and to try to figure out how to function after losing the war. Sometimes a part of him wants to be told what hes supposed to do, rather than deal with the mess of making it up as he goes along.

The most scarred of the brothers, especially along his chest and back. When he has to, he hides it with illusions, otherwise he doesn't show his skin.

Takes his debts and what he owes people very seriously. It's why he rarely asks for help even in small things.

Is the only one who can force a pact on an unwilling participant.

Isn't afraid of being controlled, but is scared of losing control to the wrong person or partner. It takes a lot of trust to let him drop the reins in a relationship.

Despite turning into a wolf in the 'Paws and Claws' event, I think the best animal to represent him would be a black unicorn.

~Mammon~

Mammon can be kind of a choosing beggar.

Forgets to be empathetic sometimes and can say some callus things. Sometimes it's good as he can be an outside observer in a situation and see things objectively.

His schemes are mainly to pay off debts. No one is quite sure where he keeps accumulating so many from.

Many people call him a coward, but in reality he's a pacifist. He'd rather run than fight.

Unless you get him hot headed, in which case the gloves are off.

Despite this, he's actually one of the most powerful brothers and can usually win a fight with anyone but Lucifer.

Very agile. Is a natural at parkor and free running.

He doesn't have a high opinion of himself, and his self esteem is in the garbage.

Def has a praise kink tho.

If he's really mad at you, he'll pretend you don't exist. He's not one to get into screaming fights, but he's passive aggressive.

I think a golden dragon with a hoarding tendency fits him well lol

~Leviathan~

He's a big nerd. King of nerds. Absolutely owns it.

Levi actually draws a lot of fanart but never shows it to anyone. He's very jealous of others talent and considers his own art bad.

Def has the Devildom equivalent of Tumblr.

Sometimes can be a fandom gatekeeper/hipster. Likely stems from a place of "I liked this before it was popular and got ridiculed for it. Now it's cool and you're taking over my interest."

Super long theories on current shows with in-depth analysis and pulling info from anywhere he can. Be prepared for his cork board on FNAF.

Sometimes Levi forgets other people have feelings too, especially when he's excited about something, and hurts them by accident. Usually goes back to apologize later when he realizes.

Loves to listen to someone nerd out, even if he's not interested in their interest, he likes them and how passionate about.

He's memorized the TSL books and movies. They are his biggest passion and he loves them so much.

He's a self shipper, ships himself with his favorite wifus and husbandos (he has both) and takes those "which character are you?" Quizzes all the time.

Knows how to code and hopes to make his own game one day.

Snake tends to be the go to for Levi, and I think a lizard or another reptile makes sense. They tend to scurry away from most creature, except for those like them.

~Satan~

(My boy so I might be a little biased/rambling here)

Satan was made after Lucifer lost the war, but he started growing in Lucifer's heart before then.

Satan is the only demon/angel that was not made by God directly, and he feels that effects his relationship with others.

He's not good at empathy, and it's a skill he's still working on.

Satan was the serpent in the garden who caused Eve to fall. He thought it was very unfair that God would refuse humanity knowledge, the one thing that he values above all else.

As he was developing/learning from each of his brothers, they each gave him an item that was important to him that he still keeps. Even Lucifer.

Keeps control of his emotions which can lead to violent outbursts if pushed far enough. No one has seen him completely unhinged except Lucifer.

Loves adventure books/series, especially long ones with intricate plots. Murder mysteries are his absolute favorite. Dislikes the 'Love triangle' trope a LOT.

Likes to listen and create stories.

Very magically adept. He knows many advanced spells and always has a hunger to learn more. Probably has made quite a few spells himself.

Cat. He's a cat. There was no competition here. His spirit animal is a kitty and I love him for it.

~Asmodeus~

Asmo, despite being the avatar of lust, cares about consent a lot. He wants his partners to feel good when they're with him, not like they're afraid or helpless.

Well, unless that's your thing, in which case he'll make sure a safe word is in use ;)

Knows a lot about sex. If you have any question he will be happy to answer it without making it seem awkward or taboo. Though he will flirt and offer to show you himself.

He's very confident in his body and looks. Asmo knows he's a catch and good looking, and wants to keep it that way.

Doesn't mind showing off his scars from the war and wishes he could help Lucifer with his perception of his scars.

He will NOT have anyone body shamed in his presence.

Has ALL the gossip. He knows who's sleeping with who, what relationship drama is going down where, and keeps up with it daily.

Gender roles? Who is she? Being beautiful is for anyone.

He shows affection through touch. This makes him come off a bit needy and he tends to invade other's spaces.

There's more to lust than just sex though, it's pure, unrestrained desire. Desire to learn, to hurt, to take revenge, to love and be loved. He can sense someone's deepest desires and loves to bring that to the surface.

This is why Satan is one of his favorite brothers, there's a lot of pure emotion in him that he keeps covered up.

I think a Siren would fit him best, able to draw out what people desire the most.

~Beelzebub~

Beel has a soft heart. He cares a lot for his family, even when he's mad at them.

His kindness has gotten other demons trying to take advantage of him, which is why he tries to hide it behind a facade of being a big brute.

He's a cuddler. Beel is touch starved and wants nothing more than just to hold someone close and know they love him.

Nightmares are a constant struggle for him. He still blames himself for Lilith's death and not being strong enough.

Unless Belphie is around, Beel has a hard time sleeping.

Like Mammon, Beel a pacifist, though he's usually a little more willing to throw his weight around when needed.

When Lucifer isn't around, Beel is the one to try and get his brother's on the same page. If it's a lost cause he'll just leave for some comfort food.

Unless it's a serious matter, in which case it'll be one of the few occasions he yells.

Is self conscious about the food he eats and how everyone sees him as just the big grunt who loves to eat.

Beel is basically a pitbull. He seems scary and dangerous on the outside, but really he's just a teddy bear.

~Belphagor (spoilers)~

(I'm still a little salty that Belphie here killed me. Just as a warning lol)

Belphie's powers include sleeplessness and inducing a weekend nap. He either never sleeps or is sleeping for several hours.

I don't know why but I'm betting he'd be good at Uno.

Hates being confronted by his mistakes, would rather pretend they didn't happen in the first place

Asks for piggie back rides from Beel when he's too tired to walk.

He's the only one who can get Beel to sleep without nightmares. No one is quite sure if that's cause of his powers, or if he just is good at comforting his brother.

I see him as being good at poems. Soothing words that have a rhythm to them. You listen to him speak and before you know it you're asleep.

He brushes off most kindness as fake and doesn't trust anyone.

The most comfortable hoodie. Hugs are warm and soft.

Animal: a small fluffy cow. You know the ones I'm talking about. Fluff central.

[shyrose57]

Brothers anon back again. I had a sort of writers block for the last like 2 days which made it really hard to do some questions, but I got em done finally. Sorry about the wait. This one is split between the numbered questions, and next ask is the other questions you asked!

I think I accidentally skipped a question in the last one. I honestly don't completely remember but in case I did skip it by mistake, the groups first travel out of the city's limits and even further beyond in a carriage. When they reach the end of how far the driver is willing to go they then get out and start walking. With Jackie screaming about how their finally going on a adventure. 

1: It thankfully doesn't get to to bad before the others notice. And he immediately told them about Dream, wanting to be very clear with what happened and what they where getting themselves into. But they accepted him anyway and helped him. 

2: Isaac is the leader cause Cletus is too much of a wildcard and too impulsive to lead safely, Charles is too shy to lead, and while Benjamin is perfect for leading he doesnt really like leading and is more of a follower than a leader. But Isaac can joke around and gets along with everyone but also be able to take things seriously and know when something needs to be handled.

5: They do not, they last for a few minutes and unless its a healing or regeneration potion (in which it can take a few days for it to fully go away) they have no long lasting affects. They do know of eachothers past to an extent, they know enough to avoid triggers and enough to know what not to do when around eachother. They know through telling eachother, and they feel awful Grievous and Jackie had to deal with that, but leave it in the past and focus on making their current life better. 

6: Yes and no, while Jackie did mean to throw it at Ran, he ment for it to just hit nearby him, not directly hit him. It was ment to be more of a scare/intimidation tactic than anything else honestly. Grievous's luck is for basically everything, he has won the lottery twice before actually but only those 2 times, he's correctly guessed how many items are in a container more than a few times as well. 

7: I use the height charts and they help mostly for comparison, problem is I have trouble applying it to real world stuff and because of that I still have trouble knowing if something or someone is to tall or short. Jackie can get very mean, like he can make fun of someone who just lost a loved one or experienced a traumatic event at the worst. But he usually doesn't get nearly that mean, most he does normally is making fun of how someone looks or how they do certain things. The others comfort him the best they can when he gets sad, and when he gets mean they either encourage it (Grievous), or discourage it and stop him (Watson. Ran is between either encouraging or discouraging it).

8: He was! He spent most of his life adventuring actually! He misses it somedays now since he lives in Subbin, but he believes giving up his adventuring life for a family and friends who needed him is a more than far trade and would happily pick his family over adventuring again. For around 4 years after Ran left Mizu (including the day he left), Ran traveled everywhere, and learned how to survive himself and taught himself different things, like sewing. Ran has made new socks, fixed clothes, and made blankets for everyone at least once. Watson also designs bows and arrows for show, for top functionality, and for just simple (training) gifts to the others. Ran (and Watson) has visited the nether, though Ran tended to stay in it longer than Watson cause he could withstand the temperatures better. And while digging a new tunnel across the nether he ran into ancient debris, which he then messed with until he figured out to mix it with gold and coat his sword in it. He tried to find more ancient debris but sadly hasn't found any, leaving his sword permanently damaged and at risk of breaking. Jackie isn't good at all at painting, its more of a hobby he's trying out. They try to camp out there at least once a week, where Grievous will sometimes build a pillowfort and either force everyone inside or play a game of capture the fort with them. Sometimes Ran will also read during the pillowfort nights, but not to often. Jackie wants to vist a Snow, Savanna, Jungle,  Tagia, and if possible, a Ice Spike biome. He also wants to vist the nether but he'll have to fight Ran on that. Ran and Jackie's secondary titles are in Javanese!

9: Ran just kinda went "Hey Jackie, stand still for a second." "Ok?" And then he just picked him up and threw up. 

10: When he's first given dinner after already eaten lunch, he just kinda stares at the food. Then asks if they meant to give him food, and when the others say yes, he asks why because he thought people only ate once every few days. His answer shocked the others and they ask him to explain, and he explains futher that he was only allowed to eat and drink once every 3 days. Their horrified by this answer but explain to him how theres 3 meals a day and he can drink whenever, he doesn't believe them at first but eventually accepts it. 

11: When the fishermen first come to Ranbob about their worry, he expresses the same worry as them. But says that it's unlikely Ran will hurt the fishermen specifically, because Rans haunting are already friends with them, and Ran wouldnt risk breaking the friendship unless he deemed it necessary for their safety. 

12: Ranbob is sad that Ran goes to such lengths to avoid him and keep people away from him, but he has resigned himself to it. As he knew that if Ran was alive it was greatly unlikely that he would trust him and knew he would be avoided. Which is actually particularly why he believes Ran will never trust him again and why he views Ran as a kind of lost family member. One he'll never get back no matter what he does.

13: Their first stop is a nearby flower biome, and after that Watson has planned to lead them to a waterfall he found with a shattered Savanna somewhat close to it. They plan to travel for a minimum of 6 months, they can actually travel for as long as they want to, but Prokius made them agree that they must be back before the next General Pit Battles (which happens once every 5 years). 

14: He would 100% run himself into the ground until he's barely alive while searching for them. Benjamin compares Ranbob wanting to go back to Dream, to an abused person wanting to go back to their abusive lover. They believe they've changed and that they truly do love them and want the best for them, but in reality that's not it at all and others have to help them see thats not true and help them save themselves. So it doesn't surprise Benjamin or Isaac that much (it surprises Charles and Cletus though), and after its explained to them, their all more than willing to help Ranbob get over Dream and help him be himself again.

15: Oh definitely. Once they hear the Green-Eyed Enderman is back from hiding they all set out again, and after the group gets attacked and once word spreads that its in a group and there's another enderman with them, they all get targeted. With the Gladiators and Fishermen being targeted as bait or hostages to try to trick the enderman into following a trap. Ran wasnt affected like his brother was. Im talking about trauma and maybe even a bit of PTSD that came from Mizu, caused by Dream. Though both of the brothers have gained different amounts of trauma and PTSD from Dream. I may give the raven to either Watson or Ran, I think its fits both of them really well. I want to have them come across ruins of other Tales but im not sure which ones. Maybe they could find the remains of the Wild West Tale and the Haunted Mansion?

Glad to see you, Brothers Anon, and excited to read!

1: The perfect start to an Adventure. And a funny mental image. Imagining these two groups cramped into carriages is pretty amusing. How ready was everyone to get out by the time they could?

2: The fishermen are really great, and Ranbob is very lucky. I love them.

3: Isaac sounds like he’s a pretty good fit for it then. But nobody’s perfect! What are some flaws of his, leadership-wise?

5: Interesting. What makes Regeneration and Healing last longer? I suppose it’s not relative to the AU, but I am a bit curious. What’s the world’s potions mechanisms, if you don’t mind me asking? And that’s good! They may not know everything, but they know what to avoid, and that’s important. Everyone’s moved forward and are making the best of life, and honestly, that’s pretty cool of them.

6: Welp, Jackie, it seems intimidation tactic failed. However, you have managed to anger Ran, so..there’s that. He won the lottery? Dang. Well, if they ever need money, they can just send him to the nearest casino, I suppose.

7: Aight, so I may have a solution for you there. Whatever height you’re going for, find something in real life that’s just about the same height. Like a tree, or something. Or not, we can always just leave it at short enough to be tossed and tall enough to be the tosser. Jackie sounds like he knows where to hit to make it hurt, honestly. It’s good that they comfort him, though I am curious why they all react as they do to him being mean. Why does Grievous encourage it? And is it more of a depends on the day thing for Ran, or a depends on what was said to Jackie, and what Jackie’s saying thing?

8: Nice! What kind of places did he go? Does he have any particularly interesting knickknacks from that time period? And Ran personally sounds like he knows what he’s doing. Watson’s weapons sound really cool, where did he learn to make them? Is visiting the Nether not a common occurrence these days? Or is it simply that the others never got around to it before? Well, hobbies are always fun to try. Does Jackie keep at it and get better or get bored and try something else? How does Capture the Fort go with these guys, considering they’re gladiators? Why does Jackie want to visit those particular biomes? Is there a reason, or do they just sound cool to him? And why would Ran not want them going to the Nether? Because of the danger?

9: FDXGHJ- He just- tossed him?? No warning?? Oh my gods, I’m dying. How did Jackie react to that? Heck, how did Porkius react to that? I doubt anyone was expecting that display.

10: Oh, no. Now I really want to punch Dream in the face. What the heck, Dream?! He legit asks if they meant to give him food...If one of the fishermen or gladiators doesn’t eventually find a way to punch Dream, I will be forced to travel realities and do it myself. 

11: Kind of sad that Ranbob was equally concerned about it. But hey! He won’t have to be, one day!

12: Poor Ranbob. I hope he’s proven wrong, eventually. Do the fishermen know that he thinks this? If so, how do they feel about it? Or does he kind of just keep those thoughts to himself?

13: Flower biomes are really pretty. What did everyone think about it? Did they bring any flowers with them? So this roadtrip could possibly go on for a few years. Did they leave just after a General Pit Battle, or do they have like, less than five years? Speaking of General, is Jackie still the General in this AU? Does he have extra duties because of it? Or is that not something that happened in this AU?

14: Yikes. Reactions to this? Why does Ranbob believe Dream’s changed, as you put it? Is Dream still able to talk to him, or is it because he just misses being there? So Benjamin and Isaac aren’t all that surprised about it. Do they take the reins in helping out? And how do they all do so? It’s good that they’re helping him though.

15: Well, this sounds like it can’t end well. They try to use the hauntings as bait? Is anyone actually captured? Rescue missions? And alright, that makes a bit more sense. I can see how they’d both be effected differently, and honestly, they’d probably both have very different perspectives of the event, all things considered. Ravens for the win! And it’d be really cool for them to come across the ruins of old Tales buildings. Can you imagine the kind of things they’d find? Diaries, faded photographs, moth-eaten clothes, blood stained floors...Like a walk in the past, but they’ll never know what came to be for the people of that time.

[thickenmyblood]

i just spent 3 days straight reading WTSIOA and i have 0 regrets. it was so poignant and well written. genuinely on of the best works i've ever read, in any fandom. thanks so much for sharing it with us. i'm a bit dense so i just want to clarify a couple of things about the fic: why was laurent wearing tight clothes? i saw you mention it in a couple of comments and replies but i didn't understand the significance. also, why did damen say auguste would never scar again? (ctd)

Hello! I’m very happy you enjoyed that fic, and I’m even happier you decided to reach out to let me know how you felt. Thank you for the compliments and the kind words! 

Your questions were very interesting, so don’t feel dense for asking them. You apologized for the length of your asks, so now it’s time for me to apologize for the length of my reply. I get carried away sometimes.

So, here’s what I think.

Laurent has a complicated relationship with self-destruction. It was hard to write it explicitly, mainly because I couldn't use terms like 'trauma' or 'self-harm' or even 'depression'. As you can imagine, writing Canon Setting fics is very hard sometimes. There's so much of modern psychology that just couldn't be included for the sake of historical accuracy. Even the Patran physician sometimes felt like a stretch, and so I found myself avoiding scenes where I would have to show exactly what happened in those 'therapy sessions'. I'm very ignorant when it comes to phycology, and although I did some research when I was writing the fic, most of what I found was related to dreams. So that's what I stuck to.

As a child, Laurent has little control over his life. Abuse is, in essence, the loss of control over one's body and decisions. This manifests in Laurent wanting control in whatever shape or form he can get it, similarly to what happens in canon. When the abuse stops, Laurent doesn't magically gain all the control back because A) his uncle has managed to emotionally manipulate him to the point of making him believe that what they had was love, thus still controlling him from a distance and B) Auguste makes it his life's mission to ensure nothing like that ever happens to Laurent again by basically having him watched 24/7 and constantly reminding him that he's too young, that he's not to engage in certain acts, etc.

He's a very controlling child. He doesn't like Aimeric not only because Aimeric has been mean to him and tried to humiliate him multiple times, but because he can't quite control Aimeric the way he'd like to. Child-Aimeric is very fierce and doesn't care about propriety, something that is foreign to Laurent as a prince. Laurent also likes the fact that Jord and Lazar are, up to a certain point, obliged to obey him. He likes to refuse food. He likes control so much he lies to himself about his situation when he foolishly believes he's managed to manipulate Auguste into sending him away to Akielos. Auguste sends him to Akielos because he's been advised to, presumably by the Patran physician and Damianos. It has little to do with Laurent.

As an adult, Laurent still craves control. Here's where the tight clothes come into play. Self-inflicted pain has a lot to do with control issues and over discipline. As readers, we've missed a large portion of Laurent's life, four years where he goes through puberty, and so we can only guess that his need for control has escalated to a more physical level. Puberty revolves around the changes in one's body, changes that Laurent despises because he knows/has been told his uncle doesn't like them either. And Laurent wants to be liked by his uncle.

He wears tight clothes and tight shoes because they hurt him, because he's uncomfortable in them. I think he's been uncomfortable his whole life, for one reason or another, and through these small practices, he's able to control that discomfort. He can regulate it perfectly. 

His self-harming tendencies go beyond the clothes he wears. He does things without caring much about how they will directly affect him. He has a lot of negative feelings towards himself, some he voices out loud, some he does not. For example, he's willing to give himself to Torveld in exchange for soldiers despite having no sexual attraction towards him (it could be argued that he's internalized that to serve his kingdom through marriage is his duty, but he says very clearly to Damianos that he does not want to be married. To let Torverld fuck him would be a self-rape kind of situation). In the epilogue, he calls his past self a whore. As I said, negative self-talk.

He dresses very stiffly in the books as well, hiding a lot of skin. I always thought the laces, despite being just part of his culture, were very functional to his self-imposed "modesty". They're great tools to show restraint.

Moving on to the next question, Damen says Auguste would never scar again because he believes Auguste will be executed that day. Between the scene where Auguste is wounded and his supposed execution, there are only a few hours. It's not enough time for a scar to appear. 

Now we've reached the juicy bit of this ask. So, Laurent and Auguste.

I agree with your interpretation. Auguste's guilt is immense and unimaginable, and he never deals with it 'correctly'. He blames himself for the abuse, for being naive and too trusting. That guilt makes him feel ashamed.

Laurent can sense some of that shame in Auguste, but he interprets it to be shame towards him. Laurent thinks Auguste is repulsed by him, by what Laurent thinks he wanted, and that Auguste is essentially ashamed of him. That is not the case.

In reality, as I said above, Auguste is ashamed of himself. He was left in the role of Laurent's main caretaker (something that is only heightened by the fact that he is the King—the caretaker of the whole kingdom, in a way) and he failed his brother. He failed Laurent so terribly their lives are forever changed and shaped by that failure. 

Auguste's obsession with Laurent being a child has nothing to do with fetish. It's about how Auguste knew Laurent as a boy before the abuse took place, and how he remembers Laurent being back then. He calls him sweet, in contrast to adult-Laurent who is cunning, and mean, and very much like child-Aimeric. Auguste treats Laurent like a child because he wants that version of Laurent back. In fact, Auguste is convinced Laurent's 'true' personality is sweet, but that the abuse took that away from him. If their uncle had not existed, Laurent would have grown up to be very, very different, and that is something Auguste is continuingly mourning.

I think they're both very codependent and bad at communicating. They don't have the tools to address what happened to Laurent, and so the shame and the guilt fester in both of them, making their relationship very twisted at times. You mentioned Auguste's jealousy, but I wouldn't necessarily call him jealous. I'd say he's extremely overprotective, to the point where he ruins things for Laurent. He kept Laurent inside the palace for four years, not even letting him attend Damianos' coronation. (However, Laurent proves time and time again that he's not to be trusted too easily. He did try to run away and get back to their uncle at fourteen/fifteen). Auguste is overprotective because of the guilt he feels. He's overcompensating, basically.

He kills Benoit because of the disrespect he shows Laurent, but also because he can't stand Laurent's objectification/sexualization. Children are not sexual beings, and to him, Laurent is a child, no matter how old he is. 

He's mad at Torveld because he was overstepping. Courtship is important, and to skip the step of asking Auguste first whether or not he can pursue Laurent's affections is a big deal. Auguste views that behavior as predatory because it happens behind his back. This is why he's so angry at Damianos towards the end. Auguste has trusted him to keep Laurent safe, something he's only ever done with one other person (their uncle, duh, we all can see why he's projecting so hard and why he's so angry at Damianos in that tent. It feels like he's failed all over again, thus he feels renewed shame and guilt).

Lastly, Auguste's reluctance to take a pet has to do with control. Laurent is not the only controlling bastard in Vere, apparently.

Because of his uncle, Auguste has not had a moment of true peace in years. Half his country hates him and accuses him of the worst acts he can think of, and the other half follows him out of fear rather than true and free commitment. To have every action scrutinized… to be always in the wrong no matter what and have everyone dissect your choices…. He's just not willing to bend in some areas. I really think he'd rather snap.

Pets are one of those areas. Auguste tells Damianos he's had pets over the years, but he doesn't go into too much detail. When the lords keep suggesting he beds one (but not ANY of them, it has to be a man who looks nothing like Laurent) Auguste views this as other people trying to control him. He can't do any of the things he wants (hug his brother in public without being accused of being incestuous, rule his whole country, execute his uncle, etc) and so he thinks 'why must I give them this too?'

His reluctance to take a wife comes from the fact that the last woman he liked enough to court was one of his uncle's spies. He had her killed in a horrible way and her betrayal has stayed with him. It makes sense that he's a bit cautious of dating again.

Laurent is jealous of his brother's pets, but not because he wishes he was one of them. Laurent is jealous of them because they hold his brother's attention. He's jealous of anyone who takes or threatens to take Auguste away from him. It's because of this reason that he's so irrationally angry at Aimeric in the second half of the story. He hates the idea of Aimeric, who's always been his 'rival', getting to be in a position of controlling Auguste or holding his affection. 

Despite how much Laurent criticizes Auguste, he can't conceive a life without him. He doesn't want Auguste to die, and he also doesn't want to go away forever and never see his brother again. This is mentioned a couple of times, both when he's a kid and when he's an adult. "I don't like sharing" is one of the quotes that come to mind. Again, codependency.

Lastly, Laurent's dislike for pets has to do with his self-hatred and, controversially, with his slut-shaming. He's been on his knees for his uncle, not just sexually. Again and again, he keeps mentioning kneeling/sitting by his uncle's feet on the floor, being fed by him, etc. I think… Although there's a big part of Laurent that still fervently believes his uncle loves him, there's also a small, tiny part that knows or suspects his uncle's interest in him was purely sexual. Which means he was just a boy being used as a pet. Which in turn makes him dislike pets for reasons he can't quite explain. There's always disdain and disgust when he speaks of them, but it's pretty obvious it's not because he cares about the morality of sex work. That knowledge that his uncle used him is subconscious, but it manifests itself in his dislike for pets. 

How can pets enjoy being used sexually? The only way Laurent can justify what happened to him is through the lens of love. His uncle loved him, and that's why they had sex. Otherwise, to 'enjoy' being used without the romantic component lowers him to a pet status. It's degrading.

The ending is very open. Auguste and Laurent have both done pretty horrible things to each other, but they've done so out of love most of the time. Ultimately, the fic is about abuse aftermath and how different people deal with it. As mistaken as Auguste was, I think it's fair to say he loved Laurent very much. And Laurent loved him too. They both lived their lives with only each other in consideration, but Damianos' presence in their lives shifted that dynamic slightly. It wasn't just the two of them against the world (and each other lol) anymore.

I apologize for this deliriously long reply to your questions. It's been a while since I've had the chance to talk about this fic, and I would hate to think you were left wondering things. If anything I've said was unclear, feel free to message me again.

Also, please keep in mind these are my personal interpretations and headcanons. They don't have to be yours. These were my thoughts as I wrote the story, but they aren't more important than any reader's opinions. 

Thank you for giving me the chance to talk more about this fic, and for being awesome and reaching out!

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

I reblogged something earlier this morning about how even when queer men are present on film, movies tend to find a way to soft-shoe their queerness, to give audiences a kind of escape hatch, something to focus on that isn’t their relationships with men.

And it’s something I think about a lot, because when you focus on “identity,” then -- it’s not that hard, anymore, to find Representation in popular culture.  Because identity is fairly comfortable for straight people; most straight people now know an out person or five; most straight people have internalized the message that some people Just Are That Way and it’s okay to let them exist -- even that it’s pretty awful to shame and torment them for Being Who They Are. Like, even fucking Disney keeps trolling us with “First Gay Character In the Blah-De-Blah!” which is inevitably bullshit, but they do it because they know it’s a nice thing to say, that (straight) people will nod and smile and think, yes, there should be some gay people somewhere, for Representation!  The numbers could stand improvement, but they are actually pretty good for things like “do you think gay people should exist and be in movies?”

Something else happens when you try to foreground not a character’s identity, but their relationships.  Because an identity-based representation mindset is inherently distancing, you know? If you are a straight viewer -- and remember that straight viewers are The Audience for all mainstream media; the basic function of numbers and economics demands it! -- a character that’s presented to you as a gay character is easy to kind of process and digest.  You know gay people; this person is, in at least some way, like your cousin or your friend or whatever.  There’s a box in your head that makes this character comprehensible and acceptable, which didn’t use to be the case!  So that’s great!

But what we’re interested in and attracted to in fiction isn’t the identity of the characters, it’s the stories.  Anyone will be relatable to us -- the weirdest or worst or most alien people in the universe will be relatable to us! -- if we’re taken through a story that requires us to identify what their emotions are, what they want, and what it’s going to cost them to get it.  That’s how people process a story.  There’s a joke I’ve heard a lot about how bulletproof a Romeo & Juliet story is -- that you can write about a young dinosaur who loves a robot, and as long as Society objects to their union, you’ll have the audience in tears by the midpoint, going I just think that dinosaur and robot should have a chance!  In fiction, people don’t identify with the identity of the characters, they identify with story beats.  They identify with emotions.

And that’s what we’re really still afraid of, right?  The Straight Audience is comfortable with the existence of people who live in the gay box, comfortable with being friendly toward them and supportive of them -- but once the story hinges on identifying with emotions of attraction and desire, well, The Straight Audience is now being put in the position of either following along with the story and allowing themselves to identify with those emotions, or noping out of the story altogether, of distancing from it or outright rejecting it.  And for a lot of straight people, it’s a very, very different experience to watch a character you know is gay, versus to experience the story from the perspective of a character who wants to fuck that dude.  And that’s how you get stories like The Imitation Game and Bohemian Rhapsody and DaVinci’s Demons (apparently; I haven’t seen that last one) -- where it’s allowable to say that the character has a queer identity, but not allowable to make the story about what it feels like to desire men.

And I get the bind that creators are in.  The Straight Audience is your audience; it just is, at least when it comes time to find someone to pony up and pay for your film.  if you try to sell a story where the emotional beats of the story demand that The Straight Audience surrenders those distancing boxes and invests in genuinely wanting your mlm character to achieve getting a man as the story goal -- you’re running the extremely real risk that your audience is just not going to stay with you through that.  At best, it’s going to feel like a story that’s not for them so they never see it at all.  At worst, they’re going to feel manipulated and pressured to vicariously experience an emotional reality that they have something invested in not experiencing.  At worst, their ability to relate to a story of love or desire between two men is going to challenge their notion of what is and isn’t part of them, and people do not take kindly to that.

So everything kind of gets split off into Queer Films that just assume from the jump that the straights are not going to watch it so who cares, and Mainstream Films that require the drive-shaft of the story to be something else, something it’s safe for the audience to relate to.  Which isn’t always bad!  Like, I think The Old Guard is a great example of that being done well: Joe and Nicky exist, are mlm, are solid and likeable characters, and don’t really demand a lot from the viewer, other than not to be a total douchebag and object to their existence.  People can clear that bar.  And I do not have any issue with that!  It’s fine, I have no notes.

But Joe and Nicky are not, from a story perspective, the protagonists of the film.  You can make a solid argument for either Nile or Andy as the primary protagonist, since they both have story arcs that drive the action, and Booker is a really great antagonist.  Joe and Nicky are around for the story, but it’s not their story.  What works for them doesn’t work when constructing a mlm protagonist.

It seems to me like the cutting edge of moving the conversation from “is there a queer man in it?” to “are we telling a story where the audience can’t avoid this man’s queerness?” is in television, because of the nature of ensemble shows.  If you’re making a Roswell New Mexico or a Shadowhunters or a The Magicians, you have this space to operate in, because if The Straight Audience is unable or unwilling to participate in this story, they can kind of mentally check out and still have other storylines, other characters, that they are willing to invest themselves in emotionally.  And once the unwilling portion of your audience has safely checked themselves out -- while still being viewers of the show -- then you get to have these stories included, you get to have an Alex Manes or an Eliot Waugh whose story-driving wants and needs include men.  A movie can’t do that.  There aren’t enough plotlines or enough lead characters to allow a portion of your audience to opt out of some of them without them just, like, not going to see your movie at all.

But eventually we’re going to have to stop trying to play both sides against the middle by making movies about mlm that are aggressively not about their attraction to men. We’re kind of easing into discovering how The Straight Audience reacts to queer romcoms; that’s kind of the kiddie-pool level, since we’re already aware that straight folks tend to respond pretty well to “love is love” -- that dinosaur and that robot shouldn’t be kept apart by society, man! 

Eventually, though, we’re going to have to deal with the fact that American masculinity is still, despite all the progress, constructed almost entirely around the two load-bearing pillars of Not a Woman and Not Gay, and it can be existentially challenging for straight men to allow themselves to invest in a story that’s about experiencing the world as a woman or as a queer man.  Becoming absorbed in stories like that suggests that there’s no significant qualitative difference between themselves and a woman or a mlm, and -- that’s a real tough sell, especially in the midst of a massive cultural backlash against deteriorating gender distinctions, when anxiety about how to do masculinity is running high.

I don’t have a solution to this, except I guess the same way we pretty much solved the representation problem -- just chipping away at it over time.  I just think it’s interesting to have lived through the decades when mlm representation became pretty normalized, and then to see what its limitations are, how you come to the end of that quest and you realize that there’s a whole new dimension of what it means to be inclusive of queer people in our cultural narratives.

[welcome-to-the-petting-zoo]

Hey Petting Zoo, I was wondering if any of you guys could offer some advice or support with something. I've developed a panic disorder which has led to a really big issue with derealization. I know, logically, that the world around me is real (all the evidence is there!), but for some reason my brain can't seem to grasp it. I'm coping okay thus far but it's still stressful and upsetting and scary. Have any of you guys ever had to deal with something like this and do you have any suggestions? 💜

Hey Vix,

First of all, I am so so sorry you have to go through all that. I can absolutely relate though because my dissociative symptoms also mostly fall in the derealization category. It really is a horrible feeling, but there are things you can try that might help, and as shit as it sounds, it's also something you kinda get used to after a while, but let's hope it won't have to come to that.

Okay, so I guess I'm going to start by describing my own experience a bit so you can compare and maybe find some similarities you can relate to.

Basically, I usually describe the thing as having a major disconnect between my visual input and visual processing. Meaning my eyes are perfectly fine, and I know I'm seeing things, but my brain doesn't parse the incoming data as "reality", which kinda makes me feel like I'm somehow not seeing right, which, in extreme cases goes all the way to temporary functional blindness, where I mainly operate on memory and if I'm in an unknown environment I'm just completely fucked. But usually it's "just" the feeling of things being super distant, kinda unreal or as if I'm somehow out of sync with the rest of the world. Also as I listen to podcasts pretty much non-stop, sometimes it also feels like I'm way closer to the world of the podcast than the one my body is in. It's hard to focus on looking at things or read/write, my thoughts feel sluggish and I'm kind of in a daze, like being half asleep or really high, and just kinda floating through reality without being able to touch it.

Okay, so I assume you experience something similar to this, so I'm going to try and collect some general tips and tricks that help me and maybe you'll find something that can help you too.

1, Grounding techniques: One of the things that does wonders is grounding. Even though sometimes it's really tempting to just give in to the call of the fog (I forgot to mention, dissociation doesn't feel bad at all for me, it's actually very pleasant, albeit if I have to focus and do stuff and I can't just entertain it, it can get very frustrating), if being dissociated distresses you or you just don't have time for that shit, finding ways to pull yourself back into reality is a really handy tool. Here's some of the things I do:

Close your eyes and take away all visual input for a while. This forces your other senses to engage more actively, and if the dissociation isn't too bad, sometimes this in and of itself is enough to snap me out of it.

Touch things. I usually keep my eyes closed at first and just touch/squeeze the objects around me, because that still feels real, and after I made sure I'm familiar with the texture of the thing, I open my eye and I try to connect the two inputs and bring my brain back into sync. This second part takes a bit of practice, but once you get the hang of it, it can be really useful.

Sleep. Yeah, if you have the option, a good old nap is the most reliable way to "reset" your brain.

Just let it happen instead of fighting it. Sometimes, especially if the dissociation is bad and/or you are at a safe space and you don't have to engage with complex tasks for a while, it's easier to just roll with it than trying to fight it, because sometimes the energy you'd spend on trying to snap out of it, especially if you're not ready to snap out of it yet, can actually make you more exhausted and make the episode be more intense or last longer.

2, Try to figure out why it's happening. Dissociation is a defensive measure the brain uses when it is faced with something traumatic or that it deems too damaging for you to handle "sober". This can involve things that aren't directly traumatic but that your brain has a hard time dealing with, like monotonous, repetitive tasks or driving, where you have to low-key focus for a long time without much happening. Our brains are way better at paying intense attention for shorter bursts, and having to do it for extended periods can be very difficult.

In your case it probably has to do with your panic disorder, which of course has its own causes, which may or may not be part of why you're dissociating. I mean, I don't know enough of your situation to say anything further, but chances are that your brain is trying to protect you from A, whatever causes you to panic and/or B, the feeling of panic itself.

If you can somehow eliminate the situation/circumstance/source that makes you panic, that of course will also help with the dissociation.

3, Look out for patterns. This might be obvious, but if you can find any kind of pattern in what makes you dissociate, that can also help you find ways to avoid these situations, or at least be better prepared for them if they are unavoidable.

4, SLEEP! Seriously, this is so fucking crucial, I'm going to leave it all bold. Sleep is the single biggest game changer you can do for yourself. If you have access to plentiful and qualitative sleep, that can help so fucking much with all this, it really makes a world of difference.

5, NEVER randomly stare at your own hands. Seriously. Just don't. In fact, that goes for every mentally ill person, I mean, it's not a stoner trope by accident... It's just some seriously crazy making shit that'll just make you spiral. Nobody needs that shit.

Okay, this is all I can think of on the spot, I'll write more if I suddenly remember something. Also, other dissociated parties, feel free to add your own advice!

Love,

TP

[signaturedish]

I found out that there is a name for struggling with emotions and hilariously it's making me feel an emotion that I can't identify. But I finally, FINALLY have a word and explanation and it is so GOOD. Alexythymia. Anyways, I bring it up because I'm especially curious if you think any cybertronians may have this? My first thought was honestly Megatron. XD - Optical Admirer (P.S. I'll send a second with what it is in case you don't have time/energy to look it up.)

So to explain alexythymia, I gotta explain how emotions happen. The body has a physical reaction to something and the brain translates that + the situation to an emotion. Alexythymia means either the body doesn't produce those signs in the body, or the brain can't interpret the signs. A fast beating heart could mean many things, arousal, fear, anger. Most people would know while staring at something scary that it's not because they're horny. People with alexythymia aren't sure... - OA 1/5

... what they're feeling. They may not even recognize there IS something to feel. This isn't psychopathy btw, people with alexythymia could have an angry face, gesture wildly, and be yelling... and not know they're angry. They can feel emotions, but the body may not show them well or their brain seriously can't identify even the clearest of signs in themself what the emotion is. They can also label emotions incorrectly. For me, I have two that emotions often get shunted to. - OA 2/5

Amusement and Frustration. If I feel a lighter emotion, a 'happier' one I guess, I usually just call it 'amused'. If it's heavier and 'sharp', I call it 'frustrated'. Those are the two I often use because they're what I often translate from my body. Most of the time, there is nothing for me. I do have other emotions, but I'm trying to keep it a tad simple. This may or may not be the norm (shifting emotions), but I read of at least another person doing it, but with anger and fear. - OA 3/5

This means people with alexythymia do also struggle with empathy too. If we can't really identify our own emotions, it's hard to identify emotions in others. Not impossible, for absolutely sure. It's often a struggle though, especially in similar looking emotions. It does lead to interpersonal problems, but can be overcome with time. We just have to manually learn how each emotion looks on a person in particular, and how to react to that emotion. Which leads me to the last part! - OA 4/5

We often end up memorizing 'procedures' for how to react to situations. Our emotions can't comprehendingly or quickly lead us through situations that require such. So we memorize what other people do and how they react. Honestly, this does lead to problems where everything feels fake, because a good chunk.... kind of is? We do care about people though, we just may not have the words. With training and therapy, recognizing emotions can get better, but will always be a struggle. - OA 5/5

Thanks so much for this information, Optical Admirer! I’ve never heard of anything like this but it sounds so interesting! One of my favorite gen ed courses in college was physiological psychology because the way people function and percieve is so complex. It’s fascinating! 

This sort of disorder sounds very nuanced and interconnected with other atypical psychologies but I can’t help = but wonder what sort of physical component might contribute to this. A deficiency somewhere? A difficulty transferring information between hemispheres? I did look this up lol, but it’s new and largely related to cognition so there doesn’t seem to be much certainty, unfortunately.

I don’t need to tell you any of this of course, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. Thank you for sharing your experience and I hope your alexythymia doesn’t cause you too much trouble in your day-to-day life. 

If you don’t mind my saying so, you sound very well put together and from my perspective, empathetic and compassionate. I’m so glad you have access to resources such as therapy and that they appear to be effective. I have a relative with very mild autism that mostly affects his emotional maturity and empathy so while I can’t speak to this sort of challenge myself, I can say that I have seen and appreciate the conscious effort that goes into being social and connecting with others. 

If you would like to share any other experiences (in anon or privately) I’m always here!

As for how this psychology might be applied to the transformers...

You have more authority on the subject so let me know if you disagree with any of this!

Honestly, a lot of Decepticons could be safely considered alexythymiac. In my au, a majority have tweaked with their own programming for streamlining specialties and gaining an edge in combat against the Autobots and their social protocols were the first to go. Lack of empathy and social awareness run rampant in their ranks.

Frenzy doesn’t bother addressing any of his issues, he’s not sure how he feels and he interacts haphazardly with basically everyone to the point of gaining a reputation for being spastic and temperamental. He’s not, but he doesn’t bother correcting that perception, he doesn’t care for anyone outside his handler. So long as he can infiltrate and communicate the information he recovers, he can validate himself. 

Seekers largely dodged this trend because their social intricacies are their edge and quick, long-lasting bonds are what make them terrors in flight formations. But bots like Megatron now have difficulty handling nuanced emotion or reading it in others. They aren’t emotionless by any stretch and are fully capable of social bonds, it’s just more difficult to take on and maintain. 

Megatron especially filters most of his emotions through rage and pleasure. This may have once been habit in his grandstanding to appear without weakness, but now it’s a reality. It’s not that he doesn’t feel anything else, but it’s easier to attribute whatever that emotion is to either camp and actualize from there.

Optimus could be considered the poster child for alexythymia as Wikipedia has led me to understand it. Just like those with the condition, he is caring and aware of his perceptions. And while he is very good at managing himself and his own emotions, he has a great deal of difficulty with direct, physical empathy in real-time. It’s hard for him to anticipate how someone dissimilar from him might feel, like he’s honed his self-perception so finely that now he’s only an expert on the exclusive psychology of Optimus Prime.

Bumblebee is bad at interacting with Harry, for example, because he’s never been around a child and has a poor understanding of them. Optimus has been around countless children, but because they’re so removed from how he thinks and behaves he can’t easily identify their emotions or extrapolate on why they feel the way they do. Just like those with alexythymia, he needs to consciously establish every emotion on an individual and study their inner workings to connect with that individual. 

All of them can, have, and will, establish strong connections, it’s only their rate of success and necessary deliberation that is different from other, more social bots. 

What do you think? Did I miss one? Did you disagree with any of these? Let me know why! 

[siodium]

REVIEW: BURIED STARS ☆

came across this korean mystery vn and i knew i had to get it bc someone commented that it had a similar feel to danganronpa/zero escape O: seems like i have a type

i usually don’t prefer to get digital copies of games but there was really no choice... i heard the physical copy is sold out in korea and resales are going for 200 USD ain’t nobody got money for that

i don’t think anyone i know is gonna purchase this game and play for themselves and i can’t share the game either bc it’s a digital copy sooo i’m gonna write a review~ please enjoy!!

basically the plot goes as such: the survival reality tv show Buried Stars was about to commence the finals of its current season with the remaining five contestants when the building suddenly collapses. most of the audience and staff members were safely evacuated except for seven ppl (the five contestants and two staff members) who are trapped in the wreckage with just their smartwatches that connects them to the outside world via calls (problematic bc they can only call a restricted number of ppl and the signal inside is shit) and phater (bootleg twitter). after trying to make some calls, everyone was then told that the rescue team would take around six hours to break into the collapsed building to get them out.

ok so they just have to wait it out... in an unstable building that can come down at any moment. cool.

then!!! they find the producer’s dead body, seemingly a victim to the falling debris!! they’re down to six survivors now.

despite the circumstances, voting is still ongoing and some rando on phater claims that the contestant in the last place will die as if the atmosphere wasn’t bad enough.

this is your smartwatch interface!! most of the functions are pretty useless with regards to the actual gameplay but it’s just fun to play around with them i guess

for e.g. you can change the background and ringtone but they don’t affect anything

there’s this feature that keeps track of changes that occur when you pick certain conversation topics during communication rounds and it’s really useful for replays!! too bad it doesn’t keep track of sanity changes in mc

this is the mc!! even though he looks like he would be a tsundere punk he’s actually very soft?? kinda like saihara but with a bit more spine

AND THIS IS MY BEST BOI GYU-HYUK

i lowkey ship them bc of their interactions alsjdkasjs jUST LOOK AT THIS

i was expecting there to be a lot of mysteries but given the circumstances i guess it makes sense to not have that many... there’s no murder mystery if it happened in an accident site and looked like an accident you see

a lot of conversation topics focus on the character’s backstory and stuff so you get to learn more about the characters while waiting for rescue (one of the goals of this game is actually to collect characters’ profiles!)

bonding through a shared traumatic experience sounds reasonable

did i mention that the cutscenes are fully voiced (either in korean or japanese depending on your preference)?? i played it in korean for my first gameplay for ~Optimal Experience~ but i switched to japanese in subsequent plays bc i wanted to be able to understand what the characters were saying without reading the text

the only thing that throws me off is that characters are given japanese names in the japanese dub but the in-game text still uses their korean names??? why

my boi gyu-hyuk is voiced by takuya eguchi and hyesung is voiced by shimono hiro (i actually doubted my ears at first bc hyesung sounds angry 24/7 and i only know shimono’s derpy zenitsu and troll ouma voices sweats;;) wOW 👍👍👍

the first ending is the same for everyone even if you picked the best options

they call it a “normal end” but tbh it’s a bad end bc everyone dies and nothing is resolved

after you clear the game for the first time you will get to replay from the start but your options will change so you can proceed towards other routes!! yay

oh yeah in case anyone is wondering this game is rated T and bodies are shown in the form of a silhouette with non-explicit close-ups during investigation so if you can’t handle graphic stuff it’s not too bad

warning: from here on there will be spoilers for the true ending and other endings!! stop scrolling if you have even the slightest intention to play the game

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collected all the endings after 30ish hours of gameplay!! i wanted to strive for 100% completion in achievements but i’m not sure how to get some stuff... might go back and try other options in the future

in the true route you receive help from this random phater user plughole aND I JUST LOVE THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HIM AND DO-YOON LMAO

idk if anyone tried to guess who the real culprit is but it turned out to be

my boi gyu-hyuk......

he had his reasons (not trying to say he did no wrong) and it’s just unfortunate that things turned out this way

while playing, i thought to myself... if there was one person i would glue do-yoon to throughout the entire game it would be gyu-hyuk... bc i was certain he wouldn’t hurt do-yoon

i was right tho... even in some routes where do-yoon catches him in the act, gyu-hyuk didn’t try to silence him

CRYING

i don’t know much about korean law but he has THREE murder charges on him whicH SOUNDS LIKE DEATH SENTENCE

i’m sad bc there’s no way to save my boi even in his best ending

plughole visits you in the hospital in the true ending!! he is also a troll irl it seems

he was kinda sus in the beginning but i really hoped that he was a Good Guy to keep do-yoon sane in the wreckage

and i’m glad he was

do-yoon looks super baby in his hospital clothes

he was not kidding when he said that his actions were bc of his sister (who is a hardcore fan of do-yoon) lmao

aaa the girls are doing great after their treatment!! they visit do-yoon too!!

yeah i also want to know why do-yoon is the only one still hospitalised with all those bandages when everyone else is fine but i guess maybe he got injured when he protected gyu-hyuk from falling debris at the start of the game

...

if you don’t find out the true culprit of the murders gyu-hyuk goes free and he visits you every day in the hospital aND SAYS STUFF LIKE THIS

ugh it hurts me

...

there’s also a joke ending (when you pick the “i’m the attacker” option lmao) which i appreciate a lot!! something to lighten the tense mood is what i crave for in games like this

somehow i feel like it’s even scarier than the usual atmosphere bc of how ooc everyone acts

BUT YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S REALLY SCARY?

there’s a horror route that you can enter by using the “laboratory” conversation topic on everyone and expressing how much it creeps you out

and the entire game shifts in genre to actual horror (like with paranormal activities)

IT WAS REALLY SCARY AND THERE WERE HANDS EVERYWHERE AND EVERYONE WAS ACTING WEIRD ASLJELKASJ i had my eyes closed half the time and i regret playing on my monitor

i didn’t take many screenshots bc as i mentioned my eyes were not looking at the screen for most part but i hope that you can kinda understand where i’m coming from with these two screenshots

...

the game is actually split into two major routes (A and B) which differ in who gets saved and who dies

you can only start on the B route after you get the true ending which is in the A route

unfortunately there is no route where everyone (even if you exclude the producer bc she dies before do-yoon regains consciousness at the start of the game) survives TT

if hyesung and seil survive then gyu-hyuk kills himself and leaves a note but do-yoon tears it up so we don’t know what he wrote

overall a solid mystery vn with beautiful graphics and enough routes to keep you occupied for many hours!! i highly recommend following a walkthrough bc it’s not an easy game if you want to collect all the possible endings and achievements

cuz there are minor changes to the epilogue depending on how close you are with the characters

i actually don’t play a lot of VNs but i feel like all VNs need the route map thingy in AI: the somnium files

my only gripe about this game is prob the derpy translations which usually isn’t a big issue (imo at least) but for a game priced this high?? i expected better

anyway that’s all from me!! thanks for reading til the end hahah i wanted to write a srs review but i just ended up simping for gyu-hyuk

[alchemist-shizun]

So we had an awesome idea and the thing kinda degenerated

-a poem by me and @softanxiouspatton (honestly they did a big part in this they’re so freaking cool so a lot of credit goes to them)

‘Kay, hear us out. Sanders sides AU in which the sides are stuck in the Sims world.

Logan is canonically fluent in simlish, so they'd be able to make it out alive thanks to him. Imagine the following:

*sim blabbering*

"It appears they are asking for your hand, Roman"

"I'VE BEEN ONLY SAYING GIBBERISH FOR THE PAST FIVE MINUTES H O W-"

Virgil exploring the vampire pack: "This is where I live now"

He totally becomes a vampire, but when they exit the game and are back to reality, he goes back to human and he's like "aw c'mon are you kidding"

"Vampires aren't real, you couldn't possibly stay one in our worl-" "I CAN DREAM LOGAN, OKAY"

It becomes a horror game when they realize Virgil can burn and die under the sun in a matter of minutes and they have no idea where he would end up if he did.

Or like, imagine the game actually already considering Virgil as a vampire as they enter and it's pure chaos and panic already

Also Patton finds out he's not allergic to cats in the game since they're basically just ... pixels and bytes

Patton makes friends with the aliens and persuades Logan to accept the scientist carrier so they can make a portal to travel to the alien world

And then, one day, Remus gets abducted by the aliens

"abduct me? that's sexy of you but you could've just asked" "are you sure you want this one?"

Deceit decides to go hiding in the jungle pack because dealing with an alien pregnant Remus would be total hell

So he's like idk,,, an archaeologist

Patton becomes a fairy!!

And Logan is a witch!!

And finally, Roman becomes a mermaid and sings the Ariel soundtrack all day long

What if Remus ended up as a ghost. Like someone had enough of him and just,, stabbed him

(It was deceit)

(he had a chisel in his hand and Remus was very close it wasn't his fault okay)

Now because of that Deceit has to take care of the alien baby

And! GASP!! The baby comes back with them to the real world!

"Okay so I can't stay a vampire but an alien child is totally fine"

"Well if things come back to our world only if they're real, then-" "HOLY SHIT ALIENS ARE REAL"

Logan and Roman respectively

They start bringing aliens into their world, one day Thomas finds one in the kitchen eating pizza

He summons the sides "guys what did you do"

"I think we might need to talk" "Perhaps"

So when they tell him everything Thomas is like "guys they have friends and families too!"

When the aliens leave Remus wonders if he's ever going to see his alien again

And one day he will come back to retrieve the child

"You came back!" "Yeah I'm taking custody of my child and raising them right, you're unstable"

He whines about this for weeks.

After that he goes "ALRIGHT TIME TO FUCK ANOTHER ALIEN"

Everybody just stops him and Thomas bans them from playing the game again

Although one day Thomas logs in just to chill a bit and he finds them all there, standing in a circle

"... what are you doing?"

".... taking vengeance on Remus's child"

And now, the angst

One day Patton becomes super lonely, he goes in the sims world and decides to stay there

The others are worried, but Thomas is seemingly fine (this is because Patton's influence works even through the game)

And so they wonder: if Patton has ducked out, but Thomas is fine, does this mean ...

Does this mean he can function properly without him?

They're shocked by the news, but want to know who else is?

Patton, who had decided to get out of the game for a bit and just so happened to hear the conversation. So he ducks out for real (quack)

And Thomas is v e r y affected

He's just so,,, cold and apathetic

And also overly anxious, since Virgil is the one remaining in control of his emotions

Even Deceit tries to help

They're all affected

Remus is let loose, he just runs around the house screaming

Roman becomes weak, he needs emotions to create

Logan doesn't feel any motivation

Virgil is working overtime

Deceit is overworking too as Thomas keeps lying saying he's fine, plus he's trying to keep that self-preservation safe

They try to confront Thomas about it, it's useless and they can't figure out where Patton is because none can function well enough

Patton comes back to see how "good" life has been and he's shocked to find the result

Virgil just breaks down to tears in relief (are those tears of exasperation, happiness, something else or maybe all of them together nobody will ever know)

Deceit just hugs Patton and doesn't bother lying at all saying he's very glad to see him

Logan is shocked and can't react at all

Roman is actually super weak and Patton starts crying cause he looks like he's about to collapse. Roman doesn't even believe Patton is real at first and says it's a trick of Remus

Remus is low-key glad he's back cause he kinda got bored of how his ideas got easily shot down and he wanted his shock factor back (also he just wanted his brother to be okay again but sh we didn't tell you this)

Once Logan has the motivation and energy to actually react, he just pulls Patton into the longest hug ever

he can't even speak

Patton breaks down and admits everything

The others ask him to simply tell him next time, they also contemplate to delete the game for real

But they can't

because REMUS'S C H I L D

And next thing you know they only go into the game to just relax and do fun little quests together to take their minds off of heavy stuff

THEY GO TO THE JUNGLE AND THE SEA

Roman starts putting red seashell cufflinks to his outfits

Logan makes a habit of reaching for his wand from behind his ear in the real world and Patton gets him a pen that's shaped as a wand

We'd say "Virgil forgets he can go out in the sun" but he's already doing that

So he simply becomes a night owl, his sleeping schedule is messed up, so the others leave some snacks for him here and there in case he needs them

Remus forgets he can't walk through walls anymore and he keeps smacking into them

Roman goes swimming more and stays in the bath longer than ever

And you can find Deceit making a mini excavation site in the backyard

Patton gives good-luck forehead kisses forgetting he has no magic

He keeps jumping up believing his wings would come out any second but never starts flying

One day Remus finds him jumping and he joins in to assert dominance

Virgil having odd cravings for "blood" so he starts eating more read meat

He's EXCITED when Halloween comes around, so he can keep his vampire outfit longer

Remus plans to break into Area 51

Logan joins cause s c i e n c e

Deceit tries to stop them. "If they can't stop us all then why could Dee stop us KEEP WORKING LOGAN"

Roman prays Remus doesn't bring back an alien boyfriend cause that'd be actual hell

He does

Thomas is like "... can I duck out myself? why is there an alien?"

"uuuh bitch first of all he's my bf"

his name is L O T O R

Everybody is like are you kidding me

"I like the bad guys okay"

And Roman "He's got a point, bad guys are hot"

they all stare at him while he just wants the ground to bury him alive

(I mean he's said everyone loves the villain so)

Deceit like O h

Virgil like O H

They're dying, everybody

Patton is like ??? (But he actually knows, being Thomas's feelings he k n o w s)

Lo is just "eh okay let's get this over with"

cut to Lotor eating pizza in the bg and Thomas being like "nOT AGAIN"

I have no idea what we will ever do with this but feel free to take inspiration~

[printvirgo6]

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[marril96]

The Distance Between Us

Chapter 29: Close Encounters

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: Rowena encounters a blast from her past.

WARNING: slurs.

Editor: @miss-moon-guardian

*****

The atmosphere with Dean Winchester's absence was strange, or so Rowena thought. After all, she'd only been acquainted with the group for a short while. Though, she could tell, despite everyone's efforts to act as if nothing was wrong, something clearly was.

They missed him.

You missed him.

You acted as if you didn't, but Rowena saw right through you. You were angry at him for being mean to her. You resented him for it. Maybe you even thought you hated him. But, underneath it all, you missed him.

The day after he'd walked away Rowena had taken you aside, swallowed up her her pride, and apologized.

As much as she wanted to deny it, she felt guilty. Your friend group had functioned for years without an issue. Then she came along, and one of you had walked away.

He was a petty bastard, but Rowena didn't — couldn't — blame him for disliking her.

With her history, she wouldn't trust herself, either.

She'd made her bed, she supposed. Now she had to lie in it.

She'd spent years hanging around bad people, working alongside them, acting as one of them. She'd joined in on bullying, despicable as she'd found it. She'd gossiped and lied and destroyed without a care in the world.

Consequences were a bitch.

"It's not your fault," you'd told her, and she could tell you were honest. "You didn't do anything wrong. Dean's an asshole."

He was.

Then again, she had basically invaded his territory, his safe place.

It was only natural he felt threatened.

Days went on, and your assurance remained.

Rowena hadn't done anything wrong.

You really loved her. She didn't know how it happened or why, but somehow she'd managed to get you to fall in love with her, and you were in deep.

In public, you always clung to her. Either your hand held hers, fingers in a tight knot, or your arm was thrown around her. A sign, loud and clear, that she was yours and yours only.

When you were alone, you couldn't stop kissing her. Her lips, cheeks, or knuckles; whichever part of her was nearest, you pressed your lips to it. A silent, wordless confession of love.

Rowena basked in it all. She drank in the attention, chased it like a high.

Gilroy had never loved her like this.

Lucifer hadn't even tried.

She was an impossibly lucky girl.

"See you after school?" you asked as the bell rang to sign the end of lunch.

"Shall we go to Wonderland?" Rowena suggested. As fun as hanging out with your friends — her friends, something she still couldn't wrap her head around — at Biggerson's for the past week was, she wanted some quiet. A wee bit of alone time. Just the two of you; no people to stare, no siblings to interrupt.

"Sure!"

You flashed her a smile, and, before she could reciprocate, your lips were on hers in a swift, soft kiss.

Another thing she liked about you — you were always gentle with her. You never grabbed her, never pulled her in for a kiss forcefully. When you held her, you were loving, careful. Your kisses were tender, and you showered her with them whenever you could.

Rowena had never had that before.

She'd never been… loved.

"Sucks that we don't have any classes together today," you said with a pout.

It was ridiculously cute, not that Rowena would ever say it out loud.

Instead, she said, "I know. However will you survive?"

You lightly slapped her hand, prompting her to put on a pout of her own that she could tell made you melt. You weren't one to say it out loud, either, but your face was clear enough. There wasn't much, in terms of emotion, that you could hide from her.

"You tease, but I'm really having a hard time being away from you," you said. "You're sorta addictive."

"Maybe it's a good thing we're apart, then. You don't want to overdose."

"Says who?"

You kissed her again, longer this time. You tasted like heaven, like love and warmth and everything she ever wanted but never had until now. Rowena melted into the sensation. She wanted to stay like this forever; with you, your hands gently holding on to her shoulders, your warmth spilling into her, consuming her, embracing her.

"In that case," she said as you parted, mouth tingling where yours touched it, nerves on fire, "I shall look for you during the next break. Mustn't let you to suffer withdrawals."

"That's more like it! See ya!"

You squeezed her hand in emphasis, then ran into the retreating crowd. Rowena remained in her place, still as a statue. She looked after you, at your back that disappeared in the sea of students rushing to get back to class. Her hand was on fire; it pulsated as if a heart were beating underneath it, your touch still lingering, a ghost on her skin.

You were hers.

Her friend.

Her lover.

Her girl.

It still felt like a dream, as if she would wake up anytime now and find herself laying beside Lucifer, body blooming with bruises, tear-smeared mascara staining her face.

No!

This was real.

You were real.

She swore on her life, on her damned, rotten soul, to never do anything to lose you.

*****

Everything went as planned. The two of you met up for every break, talking a bit, complaining about the boring classes and unfair teachers.

It felt nice.

It felt normal.

Normal was something Rowena hadn't had in a while. Olivette usually badmouthed one person or another. Lucifer joined in, made jokes that weren't funny and laughed at them, all the while keeping a firm arm around Rowena, as if someone would steal her if he were to remove it.

Rowena used to think it was sweet. He was just being protective. A tad too much, perhaps, but it was all for her good. He was just showing her off, showing the world that he had her and they didn't. A lover straight out of a historical romance novel; possessive, but in a way that was romantic rather than disgusting.

Right.

Rowena wanted to laugh at her stupidity.

Lucifer never loved her; she doubted he was even capable of the emotion.

He most likely never even liked her.

She was excellent in bed. She let him use and abuse her, and gave him whatever he wanted without a single word of protest. He didn't even have to ask.

He saw a chance, and he took it.

He took advantage.

And she let him.

She stupidly let him.

All because she wanted what he had.

Well, fuck popularity, she thought. It had brought her nothing but trouble.

She'd been surrounded by people, yet she was alone.

She'd had a boyfriend, yet she wasn't loved, wasn't cherished and cared for.

She'd had nothing.

All the power she'd thought she had was borrowed.

It was never hers.

Nothing was.

Until you.

Rowena replayed that thought as she trudged through the crowd of students. It was the recess before the last period; five minutes before another — thankfully final — boring hour. History. She loved the subject, but she loved you more.

She couldn't wait for the final bell to ring so the two of you could make yourselves at home at Wonderland and put the school day behind you.

The relationship was still fresh. Still new and bright and shiny, and Rowena didn't want to waste a minute of it.

After so many hardships, she was finally happy.

She wanted nothing but to make the best of it.

"Where you going, Red?"

The voice stood out amongst the noise of the crowd like a nail running over the chalkboard, squeaky and loud and nauseating.

Rowena froze, limbs falling still as a statue. As if her flesh had suddenly turned to marble. A knot formed in her stomach; it twisted tightly, almost made her double over in pain.

No.

She kept her head up. Kept it high up and proud. The picture of strength.

He didn't get to make her submit.

He didn't get to have that much power — any power — over her.

She wasn't his plaything anymore.

Lucifer stood before her like he used to so many times before. The smile she used to find so lovely, that now made her want to vomit, was wide and bright on his mouth. He was still handsome, still good-looking, but, looking at him now, he didn't stand out much.

He was a boy, just like any other in this school.

Nothing special, really.

Just a boy who thought too much of himself and too little of others.

Rowena swallowed a lump that had formed at the back of her throat. A blink, and she was back in his room; his hands were on her neck, his fists rained down on her face, his heavy-soled feet rammed into her ribs. His face was in hers, and his words were daggers ripping into her, tearing her apart from the inside out.

Punch.

Kick.

Scream.

Rinse and repeat.

"Move," she spat, willing herself back to reality. Squeezing her fists tight to anchor herself.

It was in the past.

What he'd done to her, how he'd hurt her — it was all in the past.

Her wounds had healed. She had new friends. She had a girlfriend that gave a damn about her, who loved her for who she was. Who wasn't going to take advantage of her when she was at her weakest.

The memories still hurt, but they were just that — memories.

They weren't real.

Not anymore.

Lucifer ignored her. "I hear you've got a girlfriend," he said smugly.

Rowena wished she could wipe that bloody smile with her fist — or the thin, sharp heel of her shoe. Who hasn't? she thought. The entire damn school knew about the two of you.

Word traveled fast here.

Especially if you happened to be a redeemed mean girl.

Gossipers loved a good redemption story!

"It's none of your bloody business!" she snapped. He may have been playing nice, but she was way past that point. The devilish smile couldn't charm her anymore.

Lucifer put his hands up. "Relax. I come in peace."

Rowena snorted. He wouldn't know peace if it slapped him in the face.

"I'm just curious about your new… relationship."

Curious, my arse!

He'd come to harass, to bully, to hurt.

Rowena wasn't born yesterday. She knew him; she knew his kind, knew how they operated, how they ticked. There was never a just with them.

They always had an ulterior motive.

"Y/N good to you?"

The question was as smug as his smile. Rhetorical, but she couldn't resist replying, "Much better than you."

If it bothered him, he didn't show it. Instead, he pressed a hand to his heart dramatically. "Ouch. You wound me, babe."

"I am not your babe."

Not anymore.

Never again.

"Moved on quite quickly, haven't you?"

It wasn't quite as easy, but he didn't need to know that. "What can I say? Some people are more forgettable than others."

If only she could forget him.

If only she could erase all he'd put her through — the abuse, the manipulation — from her brain.

"Right. Is that why you look so scared?" She gulped as he said it, swallowed a breath. Lucifer chuckled. "I bet you still dream about me."

She'd had a nightmare or two; nothing she couldn't handle. They were long behind her. "Don't flatter yourself."

"Oh, but I know you, Rowena," Lucifer said, so damn sure of himself. "I know you still think about me."

"You know nothing!" she snapped.

"Still a firecracker, I see. That's my girl!"

"I am not your girl!" She was offended by the mere suggestion.

"You'll always be my girl," he said. "What we had doesn't just go away."

Och, it did.

It went away the second she turned her back on him and ran into your arms.

There was no more Rowena and Lucifer. No more power-couple. All that remained of them were memories; awful, painful, regretful.

"I bet she doesn't do it as well as I do," Lucifer said. "She doesn't have the means."

Rowena wanted to laugh. That was where he was going? Seriously? "Goodness, you really are pathetic!"

"Am I? Or are you just projecting? We both know the V has nothing on the D."

Laughter exploded from her mouth. "Darling, your D has nothing on a cheap dildo."

Not quite true, but the remark did its job. Lucifer narrowed his eyes, mouth tight, forehead vein popping. "You're a whore."

Was that the best he could come up with?

"All that talk about friendship, when in reality, you were fucking her behind my back." He stepped forward. Got in her face. His warm breath on her skin made bile rise up to her throat.

The last time he was this close, he had hit her. He had hit her and beat her and marked her for days — weeks — to come.

That was then, Rowena reminder herself. This was now. He wouldn't dare pull anything like that in front of so many people. He was quite a traditional boy, in that regard. All closed doors and a nice boy facade. Mustn't let the neighbors see.

Didn't make her feel any better. Didn't make the fear in her bones, cold as the snow-coated streets outside, fade away.

He may not have been able to do anything physically, but he still had his second best weapon — his tongue, sharp enough to hurt, to main, to rip apart.

"I wish I was," Rowena said, holding her ground. Her hands balled into fists, knuckles taut, sheet-white. Her conscience was clear; she was a lot of things, but a cheater was not one of them. "Maybe I would have realized what rubbish you are sooner."

"Takes one to know one, babe," Lucifer said with a shrug because of course he did. What else would he say?

Rowena wasn't one to back away from a challenge. "Is that why you still believe I cheated? Projection is a hell of a drug."

"That was different." Of course it was. "I loved you."

She snorted. "I doubt you even know what the word means."

"Okay, you got me there," he said, the corners of his mouth curling into a smirk. "So I didn't love you. Can you blame me? I mean, look at you. Who in their right mind could love… that?"

Rowena swallowed. Once. Twice. Three times. He was a colossal bastard, but she couldn't deny the truth in his words. Who could love someone like her? Someone so cold, so dead inside, walking through the world with an iron mask on her face?

Who would dare love someone like that?

You.

You did.

You dared to try, and you grew fond of her.

You fell in love with her.

The first person in… how long was it?

The first person ever.

Maybe that was her fault. She hadn't exactly made it easy for people to get close to her. She pretended and lied and pushed away anyone who dared step too close.

She wasn't the easiest person to love.

Impossible, almost.

But, she knew with her entire being, from the depths of her soul, she didn't deserve what Lucifer had done to her. She didn't deserve to be cheated on and abused. She didn't deserve to be betrayed.

The relationship they'd had was toxic from the start, but the blame wasn't solely on her.

"Still, what we had was special," Lucifer added. "You can't deny that."

Rowena certainly thought it was special.

At the time.

She knew better now.

That relationship had potential for greatness, but it never got to blossom.

"It was a waste of a year of my life," she said, urging — pleading — her voice to remain steady, not to break under the pressure.

"You say that like you could've done better. We both know that's not true. I made you, Rowena."

As if she hadn't heard that one before. It still hurt as much as the first time. She grit her teeth. "Is this the part where you say you can ruin me? At least do me a courtesy of being original, will you? Because this is getting tedious."

"Oh, I can do more than that." His voice was slick as poison. Deadly to the core. Shivers spilled down her spine. "You don't get to ruin my life and get away with it."

Another fit of laughter escaped her mouth. "I ruined your life?"

He had some nerve to even suggest that.

He'd hurt her so much, and somehow — by some insane troll logic — she was the one at fault?

"You almost killed me!" she snapped.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic!"

"Dramatic? I could barely walk! It took me weeks to heal!"

"And whose fault was that?" he retorted. "If you weren't running around with that dyke behind my back, ruining my reputation, none of that would've been necessary!"

Necessary?

That was his excuse — he'd beaten her within an inch of her life because it was necessary?

He stepped forwards. She backed away. He kept going, kept advancing on her until her back slammed into the wall. Hig big, massive body towered over her. He pressed his hands to the wall on either side of her, trapping her, caging her like an animal.

Rowena's heart raced. Panic shot through her, flooded her veins, sent her nerves into overdrive. He wouldn't hit her. Right? Not here. Not now. He wouldn't dare.

Only, he totally would.

He was Lucifer Shurley. Charming. Charismatic. Popular. The principal's son.

Rules didn't apply to boys like him.

"Get away from me!" Rowena found it in her to bark.

He ignored her. "I see you're still at it. I won't let you get away with it. You don't get to throw me away for a nobody."

Yet, that was exactly what she did.

Happily so. Proudly.

And she would do it again in a heartbeat.

"Fuck you!" she told him, looking him straight in the eyes. She tried to push him away, only for him to smack her hands away. A small girl like her was no match for a giant like him.

"You're adorable," he said condescendingly.

She wanted to spit in his face.

She was about to, when a familiar, unexpected voice said, "What's going on here?"

Dean Winchester, in the flesh. Looking like he wanted to punch something (or someone). His usual mode.

Rowena met his eyes in a silent, wordless plea. Get him away, her glance said. Please. Pathetic, but what else did she have left? She couldn't get rid of Lucifer on her own. Couldn't free herself. Couldn't do anything other than feign strength that had left her the moment he blocked her way.

She hoped with everything she had that Dean understood.

If he was here to gloat, to throw more accusations…

"Just old lovers having a nice, little chit-chat," Lucifer said, the charming, thousand-watt smile back on his mouth.

Dean wasn't fooled. "Really? And she's okay with that?"

"Why wouldn't she be?"

Lucifer hand brushed against the top of her head in a caress.

Rowena flinched.

"You okay with that, Rowena?"

She shook her head.

That was enough for Dean. He took a step forward, menacing, face serious as death. "Right. How about you step away?"

Lucifer immediately put his hands up in surrender. "Wow, wow, okay! Chill, dude. No need to be so serious. We were just talking. Honest."

Rowena scurried away, putting as much distance between them as possible. Dean stepped in front of her. He was tall, looming, a protective statue she felt strangely safe with. She didn't trust him — she didn't like him, and the feeling was very mutual — but she knew he wouldn't hurt her. That wasn't his way.

She'd heard stories about him. He went through girls like laundry. Bedded everything female with a pulse that gave him the time of the day. Stole hearts and broke them all the same.

They all had one thing in common — he respected the girls he'd been with. Not a single one had a complaint about his behavior. Those he didn't sleep with held him in high regard, thought him one of the good jocks.

Dean Winchester was a lot of things, but he respected girls.

He wouldn't let something happen to Rowena, no matter how much he hated her.

Or so she liked to think.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Aye," she replied. Shaken up, but she'd had worse.

"She doesn't wanna talk to you," he said.

"It was kinda a one sided conversation," Lucifer conceded. "A monologue, really. For the most part. But it was fun! I swear."

"I told you to leave me alone," Rowena said. "You're not supposed to be talking to me."

He wasn't supposed to be anywhere near her.

That was the arrangement her mother had made with the principal.

Rowena had declined to press charges for the abuse, and her mother had made it clear that, if Lucifer were to come anywhere near her daughter, those charges would be filed. Rowena had readily agreed to that arrangement. She didn't want to deal with the police and the court; all she'd wanted was to forget, to move on, to heal and start anew. To get away from it all for she was still reeling from the revelations she'd been given and it was too much — way too much — and too soon.

"You gonna tell your mommy on me?" Lucifer said in a childish voice.

"I will send you to bloody prison!" Rowena snarled.

A few heads turned amidst the rush to classes, the bell seconds from ringing. She glared at each and every one of them, urging them to run away. She wasn't in the mood for another public drama.

"Ooh, I'm terrified," Lucifer taunted.

"Why don't you take a hike?" Dean said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"Come on, man! That's harsh!" Lucifer whined at the same time as the bell sounded. "On second thought, you're right. I should get going." He grinned, then winked at Rowena. "See ya later, Red. This isn't over."

She let out a long, hard breath she'd been holding as he walked away.

As far as she was concerned, it was over. She had no intentions of talking to him again. If he were to pull the same stunt, she was ready to make good on her mother's threat.

Lucifer Shurley had no business being anywhere near her personal space.

She didn't want him there.

She wasn't interested in his stories or his little threats.

He was her past, a history as tragic and awful as any other.

It wouldn't be repeated.

Never again.

"You sure you're okay?" Dean asked, shaking her to reality. She looked up to find his eyes on her; looking her over, scanning every inch of her. Concern was etched into his stern face, imprinted in his skin like a permanent tattoo.

Was he genuinely worried?

Or was this part of his good boy reputation?

"Aye," Rowena said again. "He didn't do anything."

He nodded, relieved.

"Rowena! Hey — what's going on?"

You were suddenly there, emerging from a crowd with a book in your arms. You stared at her, then at Dean, suspicion crawling over your face like a shadow.

A rush of relief swept over Rowena at your presence.

Things were okay.

She was okay.

Everything was okay now that you were here.

Her lips widened into a smile. Yours returned it, albeit nervously, confused.

"Yes, I was just—" Rowena started to explain, only to be cut off by Dean.

"Lucifer was here."

You blinked. "Lucifer?" The implication dawned on you. "Oh, my god! Are you okay?"

"I am," Rowena assured you, taking your hands — warm, loving — into hers. Your fingers squeezed as if your life depended on it. "He was just being Lucifer. Talking nonsense."

"Did he hurt you?" Your tone made it clear he would regret it if he did.

Rowena didn't doubt it. She shook her head. "No. He just talked. Made threats. The usual."

"What kind of threats?"

She sighed. "He said this isn't over."

"The hell it isn't! We should go to the principal right now."

"And tell him what? That his son was mean to me?" She scoffed. "Let it go. It's not worth it."

Your expression softened. "He doesn't get to do that to you."

Goodness, you loved her! You loved her so much. She could see it in your face, could hear it in the softness of your words.

What did she do to deserve that?

What did she do to deserve you?

"If he does it again, I will report, okay?" Rowena suggested.

"Fine," you conceded. "So long as you're okay."

"I am. I promise." She pecked you on the mouth to prove it, earning her a big, happy grin. "I'm not made of glass, Y/N."

"I know," you told her. "But, as your girlfriend, it's my duty to look after you."

"Shall I start paying you to guard me?" she teased.

You chuckled. "Totally. I should start charging my bodyguard services."

"Hey," Dean said, breaking the banter. "I wanna say I'm sorry."

You scowled, not quite buying it. "Are you?"

"Yeah." It was just one word, but there was so much sincerity in it. So much genuine regret. "I shouldn't have said the things I said."

"You were a dick."

"I know."

"Out of line."

"I know." He swallowed. "Rowena, I was wrong about you. I'm sorry."

Rowena nodded, offering a smile. He'd been a colossal numbnut, but she understood his suspicions. If someone had told her she would join your group of friends and abandon hers a couple of months ago, she would have laughed in their face.

Her redemption, so to speak, was fast. The others had adjusted quickly, but it was only natural Dean needed some time.

Granted, he could have handled it better. However, his apology seemed sincere, genuine.

If everyone could give her a chance, she didn't see why she couldn't give him one.

"I don't wanna hear anymore bullshit," you said firmly.

Dean nodded. "No more bullshit."

"Okay." You flashed him a smile, a big, bright one.

He reciprocated. A moment passed in silence, then he said, "I think we're all late to class."

Honestly, class was the last thing on Rowena's mind at the moment.

You seemed to share the sentiment. "Wanna cut?" you asked her.

"Naughty girl," she said with a wink. "I don't see why not."

It was the last class of the day, anyway.

The sooner the two of you got to Wonderland, the better.

"You guys have fun," Dean said.

"You're staying?" you asked, quirking up an eyebrow, disbelieving.

"I cut yesterday. And the day before." He grinned proudly. "Gotta stay a few times, right?"

You chuckled. "Enjoy."

"You know me. I love school."

Right.

Same way as Rowena loved her former friends. And knock-off shoes. And pork rinds.

The three of you said your goodbyes, and then you and her were out the door.

Hand in hand, headed for Wonderland.

*****

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @shadowgirl-vsb @rowenaswife @wonderifshelikesroses @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @lae-lae @darkhumorsblog @gaysnakess @angel7376 @cherrypierowena @ruthieconnells @evil-regal-vampiress @collectorofsecretsandsouls @angel-e-v-a @tasyahilker @a-queen-and-her-throne @carryon-doctor-lock

[bentonluna]

Anxiety - what is anxiety and How to overcome anxiety?

Many people suffer from anxiety that is an obstacle in daily life. If you regularly experience anxiety disorders in a certain area, it is important that you understand where this comes from and that you should do something about it.

 anxiety does not resolve itself that way. What exactly is anxiety and why do I suffer from this and another not? Where does my anxiety come from? What are the symptoms? How do I deal with a panic attack? How do I overcome my anxiety? In this article, we answer all your questions about anxiety.

Our psyche has 4 core emotions:

●     Joy

●     Anger

●     Grief

●     anxiety

 These emotions are the basis of everything we feel. anxiety is a feeling that points to danger, which puts us into action immediately. Think, for example, of a cyclist crossing unexpectedly. Your first reaction will be to hit the brakes hard. anxiety also ensures that we are alert, for example when we drive along an abyss. So, anxiety disorders belong to us just like joy and have an essential function.

what is anxiety? The definition of anxiety according to Wikipedia :

What is anxiety? Anxiety is an emotion caused by a perceived or experienced threat and which usually leads to avoidance or avoidance. Anxiety is considered a basic survival mechanism, in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or threat of danger. The latter can lead to a fight-or-flight reaction in the event of a confrontation with that stimulus or its avoidance. In extreme forms of anxiety, rigidity can occur people are then, as it were, 'paralyzed by anxiety'.

How to overcome anxiety?

Stress is often a result of anxiety. How can you confront and eventually overcome these kinds of anxiety? The following 20 ways can go a long way. Here we go:

1.  Attention

Pay conscious attention to your anxiety and remember thereby especially well that you do not anxiety you. It is a feeling that you have and can observe. Sometimes feelings of anxiety disorders are so intense that it seems as if you are completely stuck in them and cannot get loose. But know that you can distance yourself from it and put it in a perspective.

2.  Be specific

Find out specifically for yourself where exactly your anxiety comes from. What images do you see in your head? What thoughts come up? Where can you feel it in your body? The point is that you carefully turn your gaze inside and discover what is inside you during an anxiety attack.

3.  Be curious

Think of yourself as your own test subject in a study of anxiety. Be curious about what drives you, what happens when you are anxious, but above all do it at a safe distance. You actually put yourself under the microscope.

4.  Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

This is a method of calming yourself. You tap certain meridians with your fingertips and say a few affirmations out loud. This way your body can release the tension and stress you feel during an anxiety disorders attack.

5.  Hypnotherapy

Through hypnosis, you can give negative thoughts to another place. It is not so much that the anxiety has to disappear completely, but it is a nice way to relieve the pressure of the kettle by putting all the thoughts that often float around it in a different context.

6.  Haptonema

anxiety is stored in your body. You can feel it in your body, the stress, or the tension. A haptonome takes the time for you, and through touch, you can go step by step towards anxiety. And instead of pushing away, stay with the tension.

7.  Talk about it

With anxiety, it's very easy (and tempting) to keep walking around on your own and pretending to yourself and the outside world as if nothing is wrong. But it really helps to talk about it regularly with friends, family, your partner, or a professional coach or therapist.

8.  Write about it

If you find talking a little too difficult, make sure you write about it. You can do this whenever and wherever you want. It can be a whole page or a single word. By the way, writing is always good, even if you can talk about it well. Try to express your feelings in as many ways as possible, both verbally and in writing.

9.  NLP

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. This is about the way (s) in which you can influence your mind in such a way that feelings of anxiety can be controlled and reduced.

10.              Read about it

Reading a book or article about anxiety can provide you with new insights about your own experiences. Your own anxiety may not be resolved immediately, but it takes you at least a step further. And reading other people's words makes you realize that you are not alone in struggling with anxiety or pain.

11.              Watch documentaries

Watching a good documentary can have the same effect as reading a book about anxiety. It can take you a step further and make you reflect on yourself.

12.              Watch your diet

It may sound a bit strange, but nutrition not only has a huge impact on your body. It also influences your mood. An excess of sugar and bad fats can seriously get you out of balance. Eat healthily, this keeps your body healthy and helps you deal mentally with difficult situations.

13.              Be positive

Force yourself out of the negative stream of thoughts and fill your head with positive visions of the future that will become reality when you have overcome your anxiety. It is sometimes easy to get stuck in negativity because you know that world so well. Try to escape from that and create a sunny world in your head.

14.              Practice yoga

Yoga is a good way to let positive energy flow through your body. An effective routine not only makes your body supple but also your mind. Calming yoga helps in the short term to let go of all negativity in the activity itself, in the long term you will notice that it has a lasting stabilizing effect.

15.              Ask questions

On your mind, your heart, your soul, your loved ones, perhaps a higher power; it doesn't matter who or what you ask your questions to but ask them. Only by asking questions can you find answers and find out the causes of your anxiety.

16.              Breath

Your breathing is a powerful means of releasing you from anxiety. When we are anxious it often becomes very irregular and superficial; the breath almost literally catches in your throat. Just let it go completely. Breathe in and out deeply and focus purely on the physical act of breathing. This ensures that you stay in the here and now and can observe yourself better.

17.              Visualize the future

Visualize a future in which you are anxious less, in which you are no longer bothered by irrational negative emotions. The more you imagine the future, the more you will act to actually realize this future for yourself.

18.              Religious? Talk to God

Make regular contact with your God, present your anxiety, and trust that He will take care of it. Know that He will be with you in dark times and that He will give you the strength to continue.

19.              Be grateful

Gratitude is a powerful weapon to fight an emotion like anxiety. Be consciously grateful for everything that goes well in your life, the positive things, and dear people around you. Fill your heart with this gratitude and consciously stay close to this feeling.

20.              Take a break

If you feel an anxiety or panic attack coming on, take a break immediately. Have a cup of coffee, go outside, and go for a walk or contact a friend. It is necessary to distance yourself. Sometimes you need a relatively long break if the anxiety is deep and started at a young age. Then you may have to distance yourself from a job or a relationship for a longer period. In any case, do what is right for you. Only you can determine this.

Conclusion:

I hope you now understand what anxiety is. And How to overcome anxiety? That is the list that you can get started with today. You do not have to try everything at once. Choose one or two tips that you find interesting and put them into practice for a few days. Something not working. Then try something different. Do you notice a positive difference? Then go ahead with it. Good luck! Chick here to another article.

[projectfaust]

Satanic Lockpicking

Locks are fascinating contraptions. They date back further than ancient Assyria and have provided the means to keep untold amounts of secrets, delights, and horrors hidden throughout history. Despite how far our technology has evolved, by and large we still employ the same basic principles from thousands of years ago to protect some of our most valuable and guarded assets. For those who know the mechanics, the exploits of these systems are glaring and are the perfect illustration of the illusion of security. They provide a sense of protection when, in reality, they are so easily manipulated against the owner’s intent that their benefit is largely psychological. This benefit is protected by the ignorance of most who have never stopped to take an even rudimentary look at how a lock functions – if they did, their shortcomings would be too obvious for even Joe Average to miss.  Locks also take a prominent position in one of Anton LaVey’s most insightful treatises on magic, which happens to be one of his most overlooked.

The Combination Lock Principle appears on page 35 of The Devil’s Notebook and explores a comparison of the mechanics of magical process with the functions of a lock. Despite its humble length of 2 pages, LaVey does this in a way that provides us insight into a novel model of magical operation. He paints the magical process as being similar to the processes that cause a lock to open, namely the falling into place of pins that allows a lock to turn. The combination, he insists, changes depending on the magician and their intent. As LaVey points out, it is not possible to know precisely what the combination is – but the falling of each pin does reside within 3D space. Examples of pins falling into place are reading the right book at the right time, happening upon an old friend and remembering something you need, finding that particularly elusive trinket at an antiques shop, and the list could go on. These phenomena seem to be rooted magically in time and, as LaVey theorizes, this fourth dimension is the locale of all magical phenomena. If you have the three-dimensional actions performed correctly, this fourth pin falls into place. If you are an even somewhat competent magician, you will be familiar with the peculiar coincidences that fall into place to provide you with the opportunity for your working to succeed. They are opportunities because, as LaVey continues, one must be open to recognize these pins as they are made available to us – something far easier said than done. Why? When one looks for the combination they need, it is impossible to see in the midst of it. As is true with the rainbow, there can be no sight of it while standing inside of it. Beyond the rainbow is where we need to cast our eyes.

I have always been drawn to information that one is not supposed the have, information that has the potential to turn upstanding corporate citizens into pesky, independent ones. Lockpicking is one of the troves of PG-rated forbidden material available and it doesn’t take much time to learn to pick some of the most widely used locks on the market today. The ability to see past the surface of things and learn how to make them work to your advantage is an inherently Satanic concept and, similar to how we act as magicians, we are trying to open locks without knowing the combination and without having a key. It’s more apt to look at the magical process through the lens of picking a lock as opposed to merely opening it, and more accurate to consider the function of a pin tumbler lock than a combination lock. Before we can do this, it will help to briefly explore how locks function in a bit more detail.

While locks vary in their size and less so in their base mechanism, when we conjure an image of a lock in our minds what we are likely thinking of is the cylinder. This is the outer casing that houses the plug, the part of the lock that turns with the correct key when inserted into the keyway. Inside the plug there are 2 sets of pins – driver pins and lower pins. Driver pins have springs above them that push them down onto the set of bottom pins. When the correct key is inserted, the combination of grooves on the key raise each lower pin to the correct height that aligns the driver pins above them. When aligned, the driver pins are just above the plug and no longer prevent the plug from turning. This line formed just above the plug by the driver pins is called the sheer line. When picking a lock, you use tools to move the lower pins into place so is that the driver pins rest on the sheer line. Raise the lower pins any further however and they themselves prevent the plug from turning. While I’m sure you’re grateful for this short tutorial, you must be wondering how this can help us expand on LaVey’s theory.

Unlike with a key, the lockpicker cannot simultaneously raise each lower pin to the correct height. The first tool inserted to pick a lock is a tension wrench, this usually ‘L’ shaped tool applies torque to the plug to keep pins from being pushed back down after they are correctly set at the sheer line. Most magic materializes outside of the ritual chamber, at least most magic worth doing anyway. As the magician enters her ritual chamber to perform her work, if the appropriate ingredients for magic are present (see The Book of Belial), the working acts as a tension wrench of sorts. The working provides magical torque that allows the pins to be manipulated and is the first step towards having the world change in accordance with your will. This torque resonates with and allows the entry of fourth-dimensional elements, setting the stage for pins to begin to be picked. The importance of ensuring the magical ingredients are in place with the correct measurements cannot be understated, as without torque applied no pins will move and no lock will turn.

A combination lock metaphor suggests that the spinning of numbers into place by chance or process of elimination is equatable to magic. I disagree. Here again the pin-tumbler lock gives us better insight. With torque applied, our would-be lockpicker uses a myriad of tools at their disposal to push up on the lower pins. Consider these tools similar to the opportunities LaVey talks about, they come in different forms and you have to be able to recognize them when they appear to make the most use out of them – but not all lead to the pin being picked into place. We’ve already established the correct combinations cannot be seen when looking for them, so what do we do? Well, we don’t look for them – we look at them in retrospect after they’ve come into being. They say hindsight is 20/20 and as magicians this is one of our most useful tools. An important component of lockpicking is understanding The Binding Principle. In short, the binding principle states that one must manipulate the pins in a particular order. That order is specific to the combination of pins for that specific lock. As magicians, we are effectively trying to pick our own locks. The combination of pins is unique to each witch or warlock and is unique to the goal they are trying to accomplish. Part of being a successful magician is understanding your lock’s special nuances, the patterns in combinations you find as you go about your magical work. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, be it destruction, compassion, or lust, patterns will emerge that will be visible after the fact. Examine the order of magical coincidences that set into place and what factors they involve after your chamber work is complete. Is the first pin usually an encounter with a person when desiring compassion, or is it a piece of literature? Do unexpected travel opportunities appear when seeking lust, and what appears before and after? Once established, look into the deeper significance of each correct tool and investigate the undercurrent running through it. Deciphering the recurring order of magical phenomena after successfully accomplishing your goal will open your eyes for future magic, allowing you to see the rainbow from memory while inside of it. There will of course always be differences as no magical attempt is the same as the last, but there will be similarities. This will help you to notice the tools and discern which ones are needed depending on your goal.

It is not necessarily the events or phenomena themselves that make the magic, but when they occur that does. LaVey got it right when he said timing is everything. Understanding your own binding order will help you direct your attention to the right opportunities at the right time, leaving you to use them and push the pins as appropriate and find your combination with greater ease than groping around aimlessly. This is not an excuse to shut yourself off from opportunities that fall outside of your newly formed paradigm, instead it provides you with a workable rubric to guide your attention and efforts. Always remember that patience, a gentle touch, and a sensitive ear will help you crack even the most daunting of safes.

-          Hook

[justalittlelitnerd]

By A Thread by Lucy Score

We weren’t touching. But it felt like the space between us was charged with something. It was acting like a defibrillator on my heart.

This book had everything I want in a romance: a sassy, non-damsel heroine and a hero with soft boi vibes (I am a complete sucker for assholes covering up soft, warm centers). 

Don’t let the office romance aspect dissuade you (it’s obviously a common, but controversial trope in romance b/c power dynamics and whatnot), this is not ~in my experience~ a conventional office romance. 

First, Ally only ends up working at Dominic’s company after he gets her fired and his mom (who’s also his boss at the magazine she also owns) makes the job offer in reparation.  

Second, in addition to the two characters being completely at odds from the first meeting (he got her fired after all), Dominic is staunchly against an office romance not only because of his own values and awareness of power dynamics but because of his father’s history of sexual harrassment and assault. When they eventually fall into bed together (because duh this is a romance) he immediately offers to quit his job so the power dynamics of the office wouldn’t be an issue. 

That being said Dominic is an overbearing, and at times straight up controlling, son of a bitch (sorry as Ally would say his mother is lovely) and it made me want to throat punch him sometimes, but at the same time so did Ally’s stubbornness and pride. 

Score has a talent though for balance because any time Dominic started to get out of control, Ally wouldn’t hesitate to go head to head with him and speak her mind and the honesty and directness was refreshing. 

The ending felt a little bit rushed because clearly Dominic was trying (although in ways that were grossly overbearing and were exactly what Ally didn’t want him to do) and she made it clear that she couldn’t forgive him and I wanted more of a conversation or thought process to why she finally did aside from “that’s what love is.” 

This book was fun and funny and sarcastic and their banter made the story flow and is definitely the main reason I would consider rereading this romance.

Keep reading for some top notch quotes!

It wasn’t out of the kindness of my heart. I had neither kindness nor a heart. I considered it atonement for being an asshole.

Clearly, she wasn’t intimidated by an asshole in Hugo Boss with a haircut that cost more than her entire outfit. I basked in her disdain. It was miles more comfortable for me than the terrified glances and “Right away, Mr. Russo”s I got in the hallways at work.

It had been too long since I’d squashed a disrespectful underling. I itched to do it now. She looked not only like she could take it but that she might even enjoy it.

“Fine. But if she poisons me, I’ll sue her and her entire family. Her great-grandchildren will feel my wrath.” My mother sighed theatrically. “Who hurt you, darling?” It was a joke. But we both knew the answer wasn’t funny.

I knew he felt it, too. That unexpected jolt. Like taking a shot of whiskey or sticking a finger in a light socket. Maybe both at the same time. For one moment of pure insanity, I wondered if he intended to take me over his knee and if I’d let him.

I’d assumed they’d all get used to me. Apparently I’d assumed incorrectly. I was the beast to my mother’s beauty. The monster to the heroine. When they looked at me, they saw my father.

Her tone was steely and anger all but crackled off her. I hoped she got the guy’s balls in the divorce.

“You know, you’d be a lot prettier if you smiled once in a while,” she mused, fluttering her lashes. No wonder women hated it when men said that.

It was fucking cold. February was right around the corner, and if there was anything colder and damper than January in New York, it was fucking February. Of course, fashion didn’t heed below-freezing temperatures. No. Fashion made its own rules outside of time and space and temperature.

I, on the other hand, didn’t trust myself to survive even basic contact. Ally was only safe, my soul was only safe, as long as I didn’t touch her.

He was looming over me, but rather than threatening, it felt intimate, careful, almost safe. Like I wanted to be exactly here with exactly him.

Tell me the top five things you hate STAT. (This is the secret to finding out just how bad a person is in case you need it for interviewing future wives or human sacrifices.)

Somewhere along the line, she’d started talking to me like we were friends. As if that moment of honesty in the bar, those emails exchanged, had somehow made us friendly. And while I craved her next confession, I also couldn’t handle the intimacy. I was ripped down the middle. Torn between wanting to know everything there was to know about this woman and wanting to forget she existed.

I hated it when she walked away from me. It always felt like she took the light and heat with her. I added that to my Hate List.

Those blue eyes weren’t cold now. There was a victorious fire burning in them. And I was acutely aware that I was in immediate danger.

My heart was trying to blast its way out of my chest. I didn’t know where the organ had gotten actual sticks of dynamite, but that’s what was happening. My insides had turned to lava… or magma, whichever metaphor was most appropriate.

“Lots of people dance for money. Prima ballerinas, Jane Fonda, Laker Girls, back-up dancers, Rockettes. All women who make money by moving their bodies. There’s nothing remotely shameful about it,” Faith insisted. “You aren’t doing anything wrong. And anyone who tells you that you are is—” “Part of the patriarchy.”

I hoped to God security was up to the challenge tonight. Because if anyone laid a hand on her, one single finger on her, I was going to lose my shit.

I wondered if I was leaving a trail of body glitter behind me like I was a Questionable Life Choices Tinkerbell.

If mystery bothered him so much, this son of a bitch—wait, no. His mother was a lovely human being. This alphahole was going to suffer. I’d make sure of it.

I wanted to believe in my bones that he was doing this as some stupid mind game, that he got off on playing puppet master with my life. But deep down, I was worried that it was something much, much worse. Dominic Russo was trying to take care of me.

I was so pathetically happy that she was speaking to me in multisyllabic words I would have let her slap me across the face with the folder.

I walked back into the room feeling like Cinder-freaking-rella. If Cinderella’s fairy godmother had given her a sexy, skin-hugging gown the color of crimson or, as I liked to think of it, Dominic Russo’s crushed heart.

Everyone was hitting the open bar like it was last call, and those little appetizers were doing nothing to soak up the liquor. It was entertaining, but I had a feeling this is how bad things happened at office Christmas parties. Inhibitions lowered, tongues loosened, and shit went down.

Oh, boy. I’d heard rumors of Drunk Dominic. But they hadn’t prepared me for the reality of him. He was adorable… and in no way capable of functioning as creative director right now. I needed to get him home.

Damn it. My shattered broken heart was trying to knit itself back together just so it could fall for him all over again.

I hooked my pinky around his and tried not to fall in love with the idiot when he pressed his lips to our joined fingers.

Nights like these changed lives and were retold as stories for years to come. But I didn’t know what my story would be. Would it be the time the up-and-coming designer made me temporarily semi-famous? Or would it be the night I finally realized my heart belonged to a man I was never going to be with?

Tacos and home renovation supplies with an entrepreneur, a male exotic dancer, and a drag queen on her day off. Just another glamorous day in the life.

I spent the rest of the day on the couch, which delighted Brownie. We watched the entire first season of The Great British Baking Show and then three episodes of Queer Eye. I was inspired to order and to eat an entire sponge cake from the bakery three blocks over and pondered growing a beard. Then I pondered what Ally thought about beards. And the shame spiral began again.

“I’m not hiding this,” Dom said quietly. “I don’t think I could even if you asked me.” Okay, coming from Dominic Russo, maybe that was kind of a swoony thing to say. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was real. These feelings felt real.

“I don’t need to be saved.” Dalessandra and I blinked at each other as the words came out of both our mouths in unison.

I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to take her worries and concerns and problems and solve every last one of them so she could focus all of her attention on me. And Brownie of course. I wasn’t a completely selfish monster.

I didn’t want her drawing lines when I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to redraw them properly. She would live here. She would have anything and everything she needed. No one would ever take advantage of her or lay a hand on her ever again. End of fucking story. I was her Prince Fucking Charming.

“Dom, of course people are going to talk. Trying to avoid being a topic of conversation is a pretty lame way to live life. Sometimes, accepting the discomfort is how good things are earned.”

It was disconcerting to wake up one day and find myself… well. Here. Making plans for two instead of one. Looking forward to sharing things like beds and weekends and closet space. I’d dated before. But I’d never gotten this deep, this fast. I’d never made space in my home for a woman before. Change was happening, and I didn’t know how I felt about it.

Ally didn’t bitch-slap, but Faith did it like it was an Olympic sport and she was a gold medalist.

“Everyone has baggage, Russo. Most of us are just smart enough not to hurl full-sized suitcases at the people we love.”

But sometimes an inch might as well be a mile. And I didn’t know how to cross it. I didn’t know how to ask him for what I needed. Because I didn’t know what I needed.