#and concrete examples on how to better myself

[am1va]

: sukuna x reader ❤️‍🔥

After transferring to Jujutsu High after a horrible life in a traditional school that everyone else seemed to thrive in, a girl finds herself in the midst of battling, curses, cursed energy, heavy lore and chaos and the deaths of many awaiting in the future. Though, has no idea was Gojo has gotten her into. Will she regret coming here even after fighting for her life back in her previous school? Or will it be bittersweet on both the people of Tokyo and Shibuya?

details:

- enemies to lovers (because that’s part of the plot)

- this takes place around the same time in the beginning of JJK where Yuji is the vessel of Sukuna.

- there is a lot of plot

If someone asked me what kind of sorcerer I was..I wouldn’t necessarily have an answer. Looking back into the past—when I first joined Jujutsu High, standing outside Principal Yaga’s office, I remember overhearing Sensei Gojo (who was trying to be subtle about it by the way) talking about my so-called “out-of-this-world” cursed energy, and how it was nothing they’ve seen before. How I might need extra extra support around Campus, walking to my new dorm right next to the rest of the first years, having occasional emotional check-ins, different kinds of cursed energy training, and way more. Furthermore, even went as far as to assign me a person to supervise me all day long on weekdays, so on weekends I get to roam around and do what I want with anyone I know, for example, Yuji or Megumi or the squad of second years. Though it wasn’t that easy. I would still have my supervisor check in on me every few hours as if I were a fragile thing that were bound to break if not checked in every single day and that it was supposed to keep me emotionally stable.

On the other hand, it showed they cared about me. I mean, I might have traumatised them a lot with my struggles and my life back then before I fully transferred here. To Gojo, it was obvious the moment he visited me in my school (after telling me he does that for all his students who he believes are different and have potential) that I wasn’t like anyone else in my class. I obviously had been through it.

Sitting calmly on the concrete steps, while watching Maki and Panda have their daily brawl, I've come to the realisation that..things maybe do get better. As time passes of course. Having this small but extremely valuable moment of emotional stability is huge for someone like me. I think that's what keeps me going in life, the stillness of simple moments where nothing matters but the present. Not stressing about any systems or teachers or homework like it was at my previous school. I will forever be grateful for the peacefulness of moments like these, in places that aren’t heavily structured, like traditional schools. I’m simply grateful, but I know for sure that I still have a ton of healing and potentional to be covered, according to Gojo and Nanami.

That was all 1 month ago. And by that time, I’ve covered almost a quarter of my training that was set by both Principal Yaga and Nanami. From letting out any emotion I felt to anyone within a radius of 10 metres, to learning how to ground myself in moments of intensity’s.

The courtyard is clear today, not like yesterday’s heavy rain. As usual, it’s basically a necessity for me to sit on the edge of the stone steps as it keeps me grounded, watching Yuji chase Panda with something that looks awfully familiar to…. Gojo’s socks? Nobara is yelling at them—the usual. Yuji’s one of the most unique people I’ve got to know throughout my time here. He matches my inner weird girl just perfectly, like 2 peas in a pod. He’s someone that always makes my day drastically better and emotionally. I knew the moment I saw him on the first day, he was simply different from the other students and I couldn’t ask for a better friend. On another hand, we’re only really the more energetic ones at times, not like Maki who’s currently leaning against a post of the field, eyeing the duo, or like Megumi who quietly sits a few feet across from me on the steps. This time a month ago, I would’ve felt out of place—but I’ve heavily built a barrier about not letting those feelings consume me. A flash of energy lights inside me, but it doesn’t project. Counting that as progress, If I manage to regulate and remember, I’ll write that in my healing journal later. “Your zoning out again.” Megumi speaks up, getting up and dropping beside me lazily. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna do something reckless.” I snicker, looking at him with a small but my usual full-of-life smile. It’s clear to anyone that talks to me, knows I appreciate them with only a quick expression. This is the kind of thing that keeps me going in life. It’s obvious in the way my eyes scrunch up. I’ve been told at times I’m the “happiest and brightest” person they’ve met, but I know they’re probably only talking about small moments like us interacting, not my whole lifetime. Definitely not the past or what my future could be. I glance at Inumaki, who’s sitting cross legged a few steps down from me at the bottom, leaning his back against the concrete side.

“Salmon” He says. That makes me unexpectedly give him an itty bitty smile. These people never fail to make me feel…grateful for them. Grateful to be alive to experience times like this.

I cringe at the reminder. I don’t want to notice these things, but when Megumi pushes his hair back mid-training and the sun hits him just right— yeah, I can never ignore it. I think what’s scary is how good looking the boys here are. I’d never admit it but my brain involuntarily keeps track of it without my permission and it’s the most awkward thing it can do in a place of seriousness and strength. I tell people I don’t get crushes easily. But it gets to a point you know? Harder to believe when I have to sit across from Inumaki and Megumi. I think my cursed energy most definitely would embarrassingly spike, ending up with the entire lunch table knowing what I felt. It wouldn’t be a simple wave, no. But very intense and strong. And if that happened….I wouldn’t know what to do with myself anymore. Sometimes I curse myself for being like this. Feeling every emotion possible no matter how embarrassing it could be. But then I remember, according to Gojo: “You could probably beat the King Of Curses because of the way you are, you know.” Plot twist: I didn’t know what he was talking about. In a different perspective, the reminder would be helpful to talk about with my supervisor, who’s always consistent on timing and should be here any moment. These past few days have been painful. Holding back heavy emotions like that on the lunch table lately, take a toll on me and I really don’t think I could hold them in any longer when it comes to lunch today. Meaning only one thing— I’m going to have to tell him about my feelings. I don’t even have time to process before—

The unmistakable tap of Nanamis shoes to my far right. Waiting until he’s close, I turn my head in his direction, having to tilt it to his dominating height. Undeniably, everyone in Jujutsu High already knows my schedule like clockwork. The worst part is, he doesn’t even make it subtle in the slightest everytime he comes to collect me for my Daily Check In, which is basically a daily routine to check how I’m doing emotionally day to day. To keep me stable. It was weird at first, being “that” student, one with a specially tailored schedule and emotional support supervisor that walks me around as if I’m a child. Everyone used to stare the first few times Nanami came to get me mid-lunch or mid-training. Yet, now they don’t pay attention to it, making me less insecure about it overtime. I’ve learnt that weird is not bad, not here atleast. It was only requested by my Dad who deeply cared about his daughter and her wellbeing before I got to fully transfer here. With that said, it’s safe to say all the adults in Jujutsu High know about my depressing life when I first came here..like every single bit of it. I cringe at the thought at times. The weird part is that I don’t even have to ask if they know, it’s obvious by how much support I’m given. The first thing I notice is that he’s carrying my healing journal, tucked right in his hand. We take turns on who takes my journal, depending on what I tell him towards the end of each check in session. He uses it for daily logs and information I write in there about how I’m doing throughout the past few days. On another hand, I’m the one who writes every daily summary, what I did that day, what conversations I had with my friends, little funny things I noticed that day when everyone else didn’t, my achievements, failures, improvements. Overall, everything in my curious monologue. No matter how pointless it might be, Nanami had insisted I write down everything that comes to mind.

"Let's walk." He says, tilting his head down to me, voice firm but calm. Basically, it's like another way of saying "Let's do the usual."

I don't argue. I slowly rise to my feet and climb the first few steps until I'm at the top, looking behind me once more, everyone says goodbye. I wave back and give a small smile. "Yuji! She's going!" Nobara and Maki yell in sync to a flailing Yuji still chasing Panda. "Dang..I was hoping to decorate your journal!" Panda pauses as he turns his attention towards me. With that, I look from Nanami's hand holding it, then back to him. "I might get it back tomorrow." I shrug helplessly. But the tiny trickle of cursed energy of content bubbles within my stomach, I think that's his way of showing he cares. Just before turning my head back to start my walk with Nanami, I catch Inumaki watching me. Only a flicker of something in his eyes, concern? Interest? I don't have the chance to think much about it before I fully turn my gaze to my supervisor. Within a few seconds, we're already a few feet away from everyone in the courtyard before he says “What were you guys doing?” He asks, the usual.

“Panda and Yuji were training. I was only watching.” I say simply as we continue our walk across the stone path. “How were you feeling as off then? And today of course.” He questions, this time pulling out my healing journal and flicking through it slowly. “I’ve been feeling normal. Nothing crazy.” I tell him, I again cringe at the thought of having to tell him about my..feelings at the lunch table lately. I don’t want to say he’s noticed me looking to the side for a second. I couldn’t have been that obvious, right?

“So there’s nothing you wanna tell me besides that?”

I stay silent for what feels like forever—

“Take your time.” He says gently but professionally. Eventually, we make it to the other side of the school, pausing in front of a pack of trees swaying melodically.

I hesitate, now debating whether or not I should say it, knowing full well there would be consequences if I don’t anyway.

Everyone would think I have a crush on all the guys

It’ll be oh so embarrassing.

I’d never come out of my dorm again.

Unprovoked, my cursed energy crackles light a firework, letting out a few sparks within me at the thought of..him. King Of Curses. I learnt about the cursed thing in one of Gojo’s lectures about high-level threats. Fuck. Ever since that day, my cursed energy reacts to it. I hate myself for this. I’ve always had a type for…bad guys.

Another thing on the list to talk to with Nanami. 100%.

“I—“ Hesitating once more, I’ve noticed the more energy I put into something I’m already afraid to do beforehand, it just makes it worse. Looking straight ahead once more at the towering trees—the leaves as dark as night— “Would you prefer to talk inside instead?” I nod a bit too quickly, once again low-key cringing at myself for that. Hopefully he didn’t see.

……

The both of us make our way to our usual spot, the Schools private library wing. Although every day I use different areas like the Zen Garden: a quiet, tatami-matted room with wall length windows and floor cushions. The perfect room for what my brain craves, sunlight. Warm, comforting sunlight coming in through the sliding shoji doors. 3-4 indoor plants fitted into a glass case, too. The empty but private library wing: a corner of the school's library that’s pretty much out of use. I don’t need to worry about anyone being in there as Nanami always makes sure beforehand. Sitting comfortably on opposite sofas, he sets down my journal on a low table, legs slightly spread and his suit looking perfect as per usual. Way too quiet areas like these can make me feel two ways— nervous or confident. And right now, based on what I pretty much need to tell him, I'm nervous. As hell.

I’m staring down in my lap, trying. He’s probably noticed. Hell, how hasn’t he by this point? Trying to come up with the words. Words words words—

“How about you tell me what you did today?” He interrupts my trillion voices without even hearing them. How did..?

At this point, I feel like I’m wasting time. Precious time. I need to tell him this session because if I don’t, then I’ll have to go inside lunch and suffer once more and I can’t hold that many strong feelings in this time. Do I tell him what I did today? Or should I just tell him about my feelings first? Pffft. As I’ll just spit it out. Why am I so indecisive with the order things go— I’m gonna tell him one way or another so why am I worrying—

Is it more difficult for me to say it because he’s a man? Or would I be more confident if it were a women? Wait, why am I even thinking of that right—

“I need to say something.” I blurt out awkwardly. I think that gives him a heads up, especially after being silent for so long. He continues staring at me, before nodding. That makes me more confident, more welcome. Thank you, God.

“S-so, at lunch every day..” I pause, building it up makes me feel more at ease. Another nod. “I..felt like I needed to tell you..I don’t really wanna sit with everyone from now on.” Okay that’s progress.

“I— especially with the boys..” I tremble. “Like..Megumi, Yuji and..Inumaki.” I say, shyly. I can’t do this.

“Why is that?” He questions. Now here comes my least favourite part..

“I..I don’t know—“ I’m fidgeting now. “I…I..” I don’t know how to say it. I didn’t even plan on what kind of wording I would even use for a situation like this. “I feel…kind of..shy. Around them, I mean.” I confess, and would you look at that, I can already feel the heat rush up my chest. I don’t think I can look at Nanami anymore. I mean pretty much the whole time I haven’t. I look down at my lap once more. “That’s not unusual.” I blink. “You're only 15, at an age where you're still actively growing. Emotion and attraction-wise.” He opens up my journal. I exhale, relieved.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, especially in new environments.” He stares at a page of my journal for a moment before tilting his head back up and facing me. “Anything else you wanna talk about?” That was it. I couldn’t be more relaxed. My trust in this man is high, I didn’t have a reason to be scared if he was so grounded. Suddenly I feel the atmosphere change, I’m freer and calmer. Lesson learnt.

Suddenly as soon as he asks that though, my mind instantly flickers towards my second embarrassing thought I don’t wanna admit to him after that. Not now, not yet.

Ryomen Sukuna.

King of Curses. Residing in Yuji like an ancient fossil. The most powerful. The one to never be let out for any sort of reason, unless humanity wants to die. Spiteful, selfish, and a violent little thing. Only being contained because Yuji hasn’t eaten all 20 fingers, and the fact that he can maintain control over him. It’s eerie to think about, considering I hang out around him every single day. My thighs involuntarily clench at the pack of emotions and what I should actually be feeling instead.

Nope, not gonna tell him.

“I would prefer sitting with Nobara and Maki, is all.” I slowly tell him, looking forward for once. Once again, he gives me a reassuring nod.

..

I didn’t admit it earlier, but a small flicker of cursed energy drummed inside me at the thought of Sukuna. It faded as quickly as it came, though. If I’m not mistaken, something..just something, In the air changed. Everything else in the present moment is drowned out as I hyperfixate on solving this..mystery. Both interested, but a strange, intuitive need to figure it out. Not only that but I could feel something shift inside my chest as well as if It was life itself, turning mine into a completely different direction.

“Let’s talk about your progress this week.”

Whatever it was, it’s gone. I don’t have a trace anyway.

I force a nod— and just like that, the lesson continues.

-

Within the belly of Yuji’s vessel, something pulsed.

Sukuna’s eyes snapped open from their slumber at the sudden shift. Scanning, he realised it wasn’t a threat, necessarily. Not yet. A wave of emotion. Raw, and intense emotion. The silence was deafening, until a wicked snarl spread across the curse’s face. As if he was unsure what to make of this unfamiliar emotion he has just experienced for the first time.

“Well now…what the hell was that?”

[mythalism]

i feel like all of my pondering and analyzing and criticizing veilguard over the past few months has actually truly given me a better understanding of what dragon age meant to me, what about it specifically was so meaningful, and why, as a result, veilguard felt so wrong. it took a while for me to figure it out. about three full months of relentless essay writing, actually. but i think if you had asked me a few years ago what the core of my love for dragon age was, whatever answer i gave would not have truly gotten to the root of it, because i think i had to experience the disappointment of veilguard to fully understand why i love dragon age. and ive realized that core is that i loved how the previous dragon age entries demand so much of the player, and deliberately prompt introspection and critical, often political, thought.

dragon age games have historically forced the player to be self-reflective and introspective about their worldview and beliefs. solas is obviously a fantastic example, as he was deliberately written to be a reflection of the player in order to prompt them to reflect on how they treat people, how our expectations of people influence their behavior, and how people are pushed to extremes and turned into monsters or saved by love and kindness. how do people become monsters? what drives them to blow up buildings or start rebellions or destroy the world as you know it? are they right or wrong? does it even matter? how did you contribute to this? are you innocent? it puts these insane, politically and morally charged situations in your face and forces you to confront them. slavery, a refugee crisis, poverty, class disparities, racism, foreign occupation, the list goes on, and you are not given the option to look away or be a bystander. you have to ACT. you have to choose, you have to make judgements, you have to take responsibility and explore your role in this world as someone with the capacity to act upon it, to make your will a reality, to fail, to make mistakes. i honestly can't think of any other video game that does this to the same extent? nor any media at all because the act of being IN the world as one of it's people through the act of role-playing is essential to how it provokes this experience in the player. its ballsy. they deliberately try to make you uncomfortable. these games are full of liars, deceivers, betrayers. the games themselves lie to you. its character try to deceive you. did you catch it? or were you fooled? what else might you be fooled by? who else might be lying to you? in the game? in real life? and then you get to play it again knowing the end, and what the game prompts changes with your new knowledge. now it asks, do you forgive them? what makes someone worthy of forgiveness? where do you draw the line? what do you think?

i dont think i realized until recently how impactful this was for me considering how i first got into dragon age at 16 years old. i dont think i had experienced anything up to that point that would put a situation like judging a war criminal who ordered the deaths of children or another war criminal who just left me to die and orchestrated a near-coup or a traumatized terrorist who just blew up a church right in my face, and said MAKE A DECISION. and i didnt know it at the time, but looking back i can see how valuable it was for me at that age to have what was effectively an avenue of exploration and self-expression of all of these moral and political issues that i was grappling with as a young adult. i played inquisition for the first time just months before i voted in my first presidential primary. i already had a political consciousness at this point, but it was nonetheless new and vulnerable and still blossoming into something more concrete. inquisition, then, almost provided a sort of political, moral and personal sandbox for me from ages 16-20 to better help me understand myself in relation to the world. the RPG-ness allowed me to put myself into these situations - like the mage-templar war and its metaphor for mass incarceration and police brutality - while i was also simultaneously grappling with and trying to understand these issues in real life. having dragon age to help me further unpack my own beliefs and conception of these issues was undeniably impactful. it provided a space, through a narrative i enjoyed and cared about, to make choices and judgement calls and better understand who i was, and what felt right to me. it asked, "what do you think?"

veilguard lacks this. completely. and lets be clear that the previous games did not always do a perfect job. many of these depictions are messy and harmful and problematic, but they at least, by extension of their own existence in a narrative that forces you to THINK and JUDGE and DECIDE, give me the space and opportunity to judge them as messy, as problematic, as harmful. i can confidently say that i think da2 is too sympathetic to the templars as an organization because the fact that da2 presents me with so many narrative conflicts regarding the templar organization allows me to not just make in-game decisions and play as a staunch advocate for mage freedom and circle abolition, but to form opinions on the game itself by extension. i can confidently say that i believe the qunari's portrayal is islamophobic because the game has prompted me so many times; what do i think about the qunari? what do i think about the oppression of the elves? what do i think about dorian being a seemingly good person but defending the practice of slavery? who should rule orzammar; the progressive asshole or the conservative traditionalist? do i forgive loghain? do i forgive anders? do i forgive solas? this in-world critical thinking about issues in thedas leads to meta critical thinking. further questions naturally follow -> what message did the writers intend to send through anders? how can i notice the echoes of how this story came into fruition in the shadow of 9/11? what do solas's endings tell me about the writers view of retributive punishment? how is bioware's portrayal of the dalish, as inspired by indigenous north americans, reflective of deep-seated anti-indigenous canadian sentiment? why did the writers stop prompting these hard questions at all in veilguard? did they only like it when it was about characters, not when it led to critical thinking about them and the company as a whole? through these processes of in-world interrogation, i am inevitably invited to analyze the effectiveness of their narrative portrayals and the writing itself. perhaps this is why dragon age is so famous for its discourse lol.

ive said before that im not sure that veilguard could ever have been as impactful for me as the previous games, partly because when you are 16 everything is more impactful because your brain is an eager sponge, unless it did something that really resonated with me as an adult. but what it should have been, at the very least, is something that could have been as impactful and formative on a current 16 year old that sees a gif on tumblr and decides to check out the game, as inquisition was to me 10 years ago. and im sure there are teenagers and younger adults out there playing this game and loving it and loving the characters and the world and thinking its great, good fun. thats great. however it fundamentally cannot have the same profound, developmentally catalytic experience it had on me because it simply does not challenge the player. it does not prompt them to question their own beliefs and the power structures within their lives. it does not prompt them to reflect on the political narratives they may have been fed all their lives. it does not confront them with the sorts of topics that get books on banned lists in florida and force them to bear witness, to think deeper, to feel guilt or horror at the outcome of your own poorly-made decision, to make moral judgements, to make mistakes, and to live with the consequences.

i think i now understand why veilguard was so disappointing to me and ultimately would be a failure in my eyes no matter if i enjoyed the combat or the exploration or whatever other shiny coat of paint sits atop it. veilguard does not ask much of you. it does not prompt any sort of introspection or interrogation of your presently held beliefs. it does not demand anything from the player except to dodge at the right moment. this is a fundamental, core departure from what made me fall in love with dragon age in the first place. if you love dragon age because you want "fantasy escapism" and fun characters to smooch, then i am happy for you. but i would remind you that can find fantasy escapism all over the steam library - farming sims, cozy games, a witch looking for her cat in the alps, etc. what you cannot find are games that are willing and brave enough to challenge and provoke the player into a better, more thorough understanding of themselves in relation to our world and it's many, complex and daunting political and moral issues. to have lost such a thing, when media like this has become so few and far between, and during a time when we need it more than ever, is a devastating loss.

[anonymusbosch]

on wanting to do a million things

prompted by @bloodshack 's

i wanna learn SQL but i wanna learn haskell but i wanna learn statistics but i wanna start a degree in macroeconomics also sociology also library science but i wanna learn norwegian but i wanna learn mandarin but i wanna paint but i wanna do pottery but i wanna get better at woodworking but i wanna get better at cooking but i wanna bake one of those cakes that's just 11 crepes stacked on top of each other but i wanna watch more movies but i wanna listen to more podcast episodes but i need to rest but i need to exercise but i wanna play with my dog but i wanna go shopping but i need to go grocery shopping but i need to do the dishes but i need to do laundry but i need to buy a new x y and z but i need to save money but i wanna give all my money away to people who need it more but i wanna pivot my career to book editing but to do that i have to read more and i wanna read more nonfiction but i wanna read more novels but i wanna get better at meditating but i wanna volunteer but i wanna plan a party but i wanna go to law school. but what im gonna do is watch a dumbass youtube video and go to bed

I think I've been doing slightly better this year about Actually Doing Things. not great! but I do a lot and I've been "prototyping" ways to get closer to doing as much as is possible. and if I actually talk about it it's a bunch of very obvious statements but I'll try to make them a little more concrete

rule number one: experiment on yourself

there's no one approach that's right for everyone and there's not even one approach for me that works at all times. try things out. see what works. pay attention to what doesn't. try something else.

rule number two: ask what's stopping you and then take it seriously

example: I often want to do Everything in the evening at like 2 PM, but then get home and am tempted sorely by the couch, and then get stuck inertia'd and not doing much but being tired and kind of bored. why?

if I don't have plans, it's easy to leave work later than planned and hard to make myself do something by a specific time

i'm generally tiredish after work. 4 out of 5 times, that'll go away if I actually start Doing Something, but 1 out of 5 it's real and I will go hardcore sleepmode at 8 PM and just be Done

i use up a ton of my program management/executive function/Deciding Things brain at work and usually find it noticeably harder to string together "want to do Thing > make list of Things > decide on a Thing > do Thing" after I'm home. Even if I have a list of Things to Do, how does one decide! how does one start! and god forbid there's a Necessary thing. then it's all downhill

therefore, mitigations: have concrete time-specific plans in advance.

if I have an art class at 6:00 PM I need to leave work by 5:15 and NO LATER and I can't get sucked into "oh 10 more minutes to finish this" *one hour later*

that also means I have to have a fridge or freezer dinner ready and can't spend 45 minutes cooking "fuck it, what the hell did I put in the fridge, why don't we have soy sauce" evil meal that is not good

plans with friends: dinner! art night! music night! repair-your-clothes night! seeing a show! occasionally, Accountability Time where a friend comes over for We Are Doing Tasks with tea and snacks etc.

for some reason I'm way better about Actually Doing Things when the plan exists already. magically I overcome couch inertia even though I am the same amount of tired! and while I never learn the ability to decouch without plans I at least learn to make them

still working on:

a "prototype" for maybe next month is a weeklyish Study Session for a thing I want to learn about. I want to somehow make it employer-proof (I am accountable to some entity to being at place X at time Y) and haven't figured out a good way. Maybe I can leverage that the local library is open til 8 on wednesdays and somehow make it a Thing? maybe I'll try it!

oh god oh fuck the thing about plans is that if you want to have them you need to make them. christ. a lot of the time I can cover this with some combo of weekend planning + recurring events (things like weekly friend dinner/weekly class) + having cool friends who reach out proactively but it still requires active planning and it can fall thru the cracks

rule three: cool friends

they can take you to things

they can remind you that you can do whatever the fuck you please

i have a friend who is somehow Always doing cool classes and learning shit. and this reminds me that I can ... do that. and sometimes I do

you can take them to things!!

rule four: try to kill the anon hate in your head

obv this depends on your circumstance but sometimes it's worth it to me to look at constraints that "feel real" and check whether they're an active choice I made thoughtfully or, like, the specters of people I don't know judging my choices

time and money are obvious ones. recently was gently nudged towards looking at whether i could give myself more time to Do Things by cooking less. imaginary specters of judgmental twitterites: "it's illegal to spend money. if you get takeout you're the first up against the wall when the revoution comes. make all your lunches and dinners and hoard the money for Later. for Something. how dare you get lunch at the store. you bourgeois hoe. taking charity donations from the mouths of the poor cause you don't have your life together enough to cook artisanal bespoke dinners every night. fuck you." and obviously eating takeout 24/7 is not the answer, but realizing I was not making an active choice helped me try making the active choice instead. "how much do I actually want to balance cost, time, tastiness, and wastefulness of my food, given my amount of free time and my salary and the tradeoff against doing something else? can I approach it differently to do more quick cheap food + some takeout?" -> current prototype: substitute in 1 takeout dinner or restaurant-with-friends a week, 1 frozen type dinner, and then batch cook or sandwiches lunches w/ "permission" to get fast lunch at the store. we'll see how it goes!

i am really really bad at this and find it helpful to talk to other people who can help point out when I'm being haunted by ghosts about it.

rule five: what would it take? what's the next step?

this one i give a lot of credit to @adiantum-sporophyte in particular for, especially for prompting me with questions when I muse about the million-ideal-lives on car rides. what would it look like to do xyz? what's something I could do right now to move in that direction? what's the obstacle? like, actually ask the question and think through it. with a person talking to you! damn! maybe the obstacle to x is that I don't know if I'll like it or if I just like the idea of it. and I don't want to commit to x without knowing. Okay, so maybe an approach would be to find someone who does x and talk to them about how their life is, or maybe it's "spend 15 minutes looking up intro-to-x near me", or "actively schedule 1 instance of x", or something like that. Or maybe it's that I don't know what it takes to do x. Okay, how about on Tues after dinner Adiantum fixes a sweater at my apartment while I spend 20 min looking at prereqs for x. like, it's so basic to say "to do a thing, you could try figuring out how to do it" but I think the important thing here is the feedback/prompting to even recognize "hey, step back, if you don't know the next step then figuring out the next step is the next step"

rule six: habits

prototyping: exercise

I do a lot better when I exercise in the mornings. I do a lot better when I do PT exercises regularly. For a while I was doing PT with friend in the morning every morning before work (accountability! a friendly face to make it more pleasant!) but that didn't really solve - it's not the kind of exercise that makes me feel awake/active, it's like dumb little foot botherings. but: having the habit of morning exercise made it easier to swap out 2 of the 5 days for more intense exercise, and then to swap those 2 for a different more intense exercise when I needed a break. it's easier to build a low-effort version of the habit and then work in the higher-effort one than to just Decide to be the kind of person who gets up at ass o clock to do cardio or whatever

rule seven: set up the structure of your life to make it easy

this is also a "duh" thing but like. on so many levels it comes down to structure your life to make the choice more doable. this can be something like "i structure my life to make vegetarian cooking baseline and vegan cooking the majority by stocking the pantry with staples and spices from cuisines that work well that way" or "i chose an apartment that lets me commute by bike" or "i have my camping gear put away in a fashion that makes it easier to gather frequently and lowers the barrier to trips" or "i keep physical books around to prompt myself to read xyz" to "i don't use instagram or twitter or snapchat or facebook" to . idk.

and in terms of charitable giving: similar deal. I have an explicit budget at the beginning of the year (~10% of my before-tax income), I know in advance what charities I give to, and I know what timing I will use (basically, alerts for donation matching around specific fundraising times). Anything outside the Plan comes from my discretionary budget/fun money. That makes it less of a mental load (the choice is already made; I don't grapple with every donation request or every bleeding-heart trap because I have a very solid anchor on "I give to xyz, the money's set aside") and it's armor against impulsive-but-not-useful scrupulosity. I structure the rest of my spending/life to prioritize a set amount and it makes it easier to follow through

rule eight: if you can do it at work a tiny bit that counts for real life

(infrequently used)

"hi mr. manager I think it would be great if I could use enough SQL to make basic queries in the database so we don't have to go through the software team for common/basic questions. I'd like to take 1 hr on Friday to go through some basic tutorials and then 1 hr with Pat on Monday so he can walk me through an intro for our specific use case. I estimate this will help save the team a couple hours a week of waiting for answers from the other team." and then you have enough of a handle with baby's first SQL that you can add little bits and bobs as you exercise it. this is responsible for a medium amount of my knowledge of python and all 3 brain cells worth of SQL.

rule nine: life is an optimization problem

not in, like, "you need to optimize your skincare and career and exercise and social life and have everything all at once" that's not what optimization means. optimization is like, maximize something with respect to a set of constraints. i explicitly Do Not do skincare beyond "wash face" and "sunscreen" bc I want to optimize my life for like looking at weird plants in the mountains. explicitly choosing to put time and money elsewhere! can't have it all all at once. so fuck them pores. who give a shit. yeah i ate a lot of protein shakes instead of home cooked breakfasts this week bc i was prioritizing morning exercise. im looking at this beautiful bug and it doesn't know what fashion is or what my resume looks like. im holding a lizard. im not spending time on picking cool clothes or whatever bc i spent that time looking up lizard hotspots on purpose.

that's really long and probably mostly, like, not surprising? but i keep benefiting from ppl being like "hey have you considered Obvious Thing" framed very gently

[pinkkop]

Best BLs of 2024

To my surprise, it appears that we've entered 2025, so before I give myself over to the new year I wanted to share my 15 favourite BLs of 2024 in no particular order. Here we go!!!

🇹🇼 The On1y One

This show came complete out of left field and absolutely blew me away! The slow burn was just so delicious which I actually think is a pretty hard thing to do but with acting this good and a great production quality, it did not ever get too slow or too boring. I just wish they would get a second season because, as I've talked about before, I'm convinced the creators intended for this to be just the first season. I'm still holding out hope for a second season but I do worry that since we haven't heard anything concrete yet that we might not get one.

🇰🇷 The Time of Fever

I already knew this was going to be good since I loved these two in Unintentional Love Story. This is actually very similar to The On1e One and did it just as well but with a slightly different approach. The yearning was palpable in the best way possible!

It's such a pity that it seems like the Korean BL market is struggling right now but this show was no disappointment. Would love a sequel to Unintentional Love Story now because I need to see these two finally get their shit together.

🇹🇼 Unknown

Taiwan does gray area stories so well and this was a perfect example. It was so delicious to witness Yuan just love and yearn for Qian and just get stronger and stronger in the conviction that he was made for loving Qian. I'm also just weak for a character who doesn't think much of themselves and don't believe they deserve to be loved like their romantic interest wants to and then for them to finally cave to the persistence of their romantic partner. Could watch a trillion of those types of pairings and this show was a really good take on the trope.

🇰🇷 Love for Love's Sake

This was an odd one but I really liked the concept. The acting, plot and production was really good and I liked how this added something fresh. It's a similar type of pairing as Unknown so again this was right up my alley. One of these days I should look at all my favourite shows and see how often this dynamic pops up because I bet it's a lot. 

🇹🇭 Cherry Magic th

Is this the same type of pairing as both Unknown and Love For Love's Sake?!  You bet it is!!!

Tay and New were just so good in this. I loved that they're both actual dorks but Karan is just better at hiding it so Ashi believed Karan was better than him. In reality they were just the same and perfect for each other. Also I just absolutely love this version of Karan because, as I said before, he' was's such a dork and hearing his inner thoughts through Ashi's powers was such a highlight of this show. Favourite scene was in the bus when Ashi leaned on Karan's shoulder and you just heard Karan's internal screaming. Such a mood!! It just made Karan so much more down to earth and I think Ashi and Karan are one of the few BL pairings where I can imagine them being together for the rest of their lives because they'd be both best friends and lovers.

I did struggle with the Pai character because she was such a good female character and representation of the struggles a lot of woman have. I so badly wanted her to stay single and happy on her own and it felt unnecessary to pair her with Rock. Even more so because her Japanese counter part was actually asexual so I would have loved for Pai to have a similar story line.

🇯🇵 25 Ji, Akasaka de

Just so much pining!!! And another character feeling unworthy of their romantic interest but I feel like this was slightly different, more in an idolizing way and Japan does that really well. 

🇨🇳 Blue Canvas of Youthful Days

This was such a raw feeling show and s big surprise coming out of China. It felt real and raw without feeling like it was low quality. I loved both pairings so much and maybe I'm a masochist but I loved having my heart broken every week.

It didn't quite stick the landing but honestly, with it being China, I'm not surprised the ending got muddled and famously I don't mind when a show doesn't stick it's landing (See my love of HIStory3: Make Our Days Count). It's still worth watching so much and I will definitely watch it again myself. 

🇹🇭 Every You, Every Me

I already enjoyed Top and Mick in their segment of My Universe so I was very excited for this one. This was also a nice surprise because I was just expecting another anthology show but the way they connected the couples was really clever. The ending was a little weak but again here, I didn't think it really hurt the show too much, it just meant this is a good show that could have been even more amazing.

I feel like Top and Mick really proved themselves in this and I really hope that we get more of them. They're a rare pairing that don't visually have a clear top/bottom dynamic while also being good enough actors to be able to both pull of playing both roles.

🇹🇭 I Saw You in My Dream

This was a cute little show and I was happily surprised that they pulled off the more ambitious concept of the prophetic dreams. Both couples were really great and I had such a good time watching along. 

🇨🇳 Meet You at the Blossom

Finally a Wuxia BL from China, by the help of Thailand and Taiwan. This was all I wanted it to be and I can't wait to see how these actors do going forward with them being Chinese and all. I hope we get more Wuxia BLs because this was soooo much fun. I loved both main and secondary characters and pairings and the plot was just the right amount of unhinged.

🇹🇭 We Are

I was worried about this show having so many couples and episodes but I loved how they intertwined and balanced the pairings and gave us a show which was engaging and interesting all the way through.

I love me some found family and all the pairings were great in their own ways. I did particularly love Peem and Phum. It's the hurt character with walls so high all over again (adds another tally to the count). To be honest PhumPeem are still rotating in my mind to this day which I think is a testament to how well this show was executed.

🇹🇭 Spare Me Your Mercy

This was such an engaging watch and it was so cool to get another BL which was really a romance second and another genre first. The crime and mystery of this show was really great and the production quality fit really well. I talked in this post about it struggling with only having 8 episodes which I wholeheartedly think is most of the reason why this show is just good and not absolutely amazing. 

🇯🇵 Takara no Vidro

Another little gem of a show with characters who are perfect for each other but don't believe they're worthy of the other person. Japan does this really well so this was a success. 

🇹🇭 Pit Babe

This was a wild ride with a wild plot and concept but it committed to the bit and made me really invested in the characters and made it easy to get on board with the ABO dynamic of this show and what it meant for the plot.  

🇰🇷 Love in the Big City

This was a top tier QL! It's one of those BLs that are really more about the realities of being queer than the romance which is when a ton of people pop out of the woodwoork to debate whether this is a BL or Queer Media™ as if the latter is inherently better than the first, which is a ridiculous sentiment. Sure, if you don't want to call this a BL because the focus is much more on the realities of being Queer in South Korea then I'm not going to burn you at the stake but don't make this out to be better than BL as a whole. BL is Queer Media and not inherently worse or better than other queer media, especially the kind that don't focus on romance. Anyways, a small tangent.

This show is great and well worth a watch. I don't know if I'll ever watch it again personally because it just left me feeling so raw and too seen. 

[slater-baby]

Slater's Basic Writing Tips

A post on how I began writing, how I try to improve my writing, and how I describe my own writing!

This post was written per request by an anonymous ask. Refer to this post for the specific question.

A question from an anonymous writer:

"i was wondering if you could give us some insight on how you found your writing style? You have a way to make it still feel complex and full of emotion but also like the reader is right there with all the senses being touched upon. I don't know how to write about it without gushing, but my question is how did you learn to do this and what would you describe your writing style as? (as well as any hacks or tips)"

How did I begin to write?

It's hard to remember, but I really just jumped into the deep end. When I first began writing, I had no plans to do anything more than write short, 1k stories about frivolous things. I did no research, took no classes, read up on no advice.

I just started.

Of course, back then, I had no expectations for myself. I wasn't writing for a specific audience, nor was I looking to take myself seriously, and I think that helped in a lot of ways. Having fun with it, letting yourself make mistakes, and not being afraid to jump into the deep end definitely helped. In the end, all that mattered was that I was putting words down on the page.

I think that this works for a lot of hobbies. Like drawing for example. Say that you wanted to learn how to draw, but read no books on the subject, looked up no tutorials, and didn't take anyone's advice. Even without any instruction, if you drew a picture every day for 100 days straight, there would still be improvement in your ability to draw. In the end, it doesn't entirely matter whether you thought the drawings were good on a day to day basis, but rather the act of drawing that's important.

Writing is similar in many ways. And while I think that learning to write in a formal environment is great and should be encouraged for all people, practicing your writing without any rules or structure shouldn't be looked down upon either!! They're two sides of the same coin, and they contribute to your goal in their own individual ways.

Let yourself write shitty things. Let yourself write meaningless, stupid things. Trust me, it'll make your life better.

-

How do I try to improve my writing?

a. Read!

I've thought A LOT about what kind of advice I might give you, and while I don't have any concrete "hacks" to writing well, I think there are some things that every writer can do to expand upon their own abilities!

I know this is common advice, but it's true advice:

If you want to write well, you need to read well.

For a long time, I (like an idiot) assumed that I didn't really read that much, so when people were always saying that writers need to read, I was kind of like "huh well I guess I'm behind on the game lmao"

But, in actuality, I realized that that it was the complete opposite 💀 I guess it just didn't register in my mind because I don't consider reading reading....like, I just considered it me having fun alkdfjlkaf 💀

Like, reading is basically on the same level as playing video games and going to parties for me aldskjfaklj It's not a task so much as it is something I am actually viscerally addicted to lmao

I read at least 2 hours every day, usually more. I read for about an hour when I wake up and about an hour when I go to bed, mostly fiction novels. I read news articles every day at lunch for the large part of my break, which is about an hour. I read academic journals and nonfiction for class, and I also read other academic journals just in my free time 💀 that sounds dorky but it's not really serious reading as it is so much me looking up a question on google and then getting sucked into a journal about evolutionary biology LMAO

Basically, reading is like doing crack to me, and like a dumbass, I read so much that I actually thought I didn't read at all because everyone was talking about it like it was some big chore or something 💀

But honestly, it's great advice.

Read a lot. Enjoy reading a lot. Don't read just for the sake of reading, or because you have to do it. Read because you just fucking love reading! Read stupid novels that have bad reviews. Read short articles that don't mean anything. Read highly academic works for your studies, or read a journal about a topic you can barely understand purely because you're curious!

Don't let those haughty literature people tell you that you're only reading if you're reading something like Dostoevsky.

Reading is a skill and there are different levels to it. Maybe dense literature is too much for you. Doesn't mean you're worse than someone who can choke down the Iliad like it's nothing. Maybe it just means you want to spend time on things like Percy Jackson or Harry Potter instead!

b. Analyze the media you consume!

Now, this is definitely more difficult to do than just picking up a book and reading it. Admittedly this skill takes awhile to develop, and if you haven't done higher level reading in a formal setting before, you might find it kind of hard. However, if you're looking to take writing more seriously, then this is what I recommend. Here's a few things you should consider when analyzing a piece of media.

Just because you criticize something doesn't mean you can't love it, too. No piece of media is perfect. In fact, search for things you think a great piece of media could improve upon, and it'll help identify flaws in your own writing. For example, in the newest season of Severance (no spoilers), I thought that the time spent on establishing the scenery and atmosphere of some episodes was too long, and that that it lost the focus of the plot after a certain length of time.

There is no objective morality. There is no one set of beliefs that is entirely correct in the world. Claiming that one certain belief is entirely true is kind of like telling someone God exists: you really can't prove it. If a piece of media goes against your own views, consider what points the author makes that supports their thesis. Do you have to agree with them? No. Do you have to support them? No. But should you recognize that such a view point exists? Yes. It's important to always keep yourself aware of different points of view. Don't allow yourself to exist in an echo chamber.

If a piece of media leaves you confused, ask yourself why you're confused about the story. Is it because of the length of the piece? Is it because you don't recognize all of the words the author used? Is it because it's a view point you've never considered before? Or is it because the knowledge was presented in a bad way, making it hard to understand? If so, how could the author have presented it to make it more comprehensible?

Okay okay before this starts sounding like your high school English textbook, let's take a step back. You don't need to get out your college rule notebook and have your pencil at the ready to analyze a book you're reading. You can do it in small and meaningless ways!

If you're at the theater watching a movie, tell your friends what you thought about the movie! Listen to what they thought about the movie! Things like "I liked the story, but that one guy's acting kinda ruined the message" is a totally valid criticism, too. Same thing goes for books and movies! Like, "I really liked this book, but I didn't understand the words the author used in this scene, and it made the story hard to understand."

c. Take Grammar Into Consideration

Okay...this might be kind of an unpopular take when it comes to fan fiction, but grammar does matter. When it comes to short pieces, not using capital letters or commas might not seem like a big deal. However, at a certain point, trying to read something without proper grammar transforms from an innocent writing choice into an incomprehensible mess, especially when you're writing long form documents.

If you're considering writing longer pieces, please take the time to learn the rules of grammar. I promise it will help you get your point across so much smoother! Also, there are many readers who simply won't take a chance on your writing if they see that it's not properly formatted, and then they'll be missing out! Make sure to put your best foot forward for the sake of yourself and to give your readers the story experience they deserve!!

d. Find examples of writing styles you like!

This kind of goes hand in hand with my point about reading. While you're doing your reading, find examples of stories and media that you like the style of! Try to identify characteristics of that style that you're attracted to.

What kind of imagery is there? Is it metaphorical? Is it literal?

Do they use a lot of complex sentences? Maybe they like simple sentences, like getting straight to the point?

What's their tone? Are they blunt? Are they flowery?

When you're doing your own writing, you can try to incorporate these characteristics into your own pieces! Here's an example.

One of my favorite pieces of writing and media is the video game Disco Elysium. It's written so well. I really love the style of the author, specifically how he incorporates personification into his description of objects. I also like how he relies on fairly simple sentences to create visual description. In fact, if you pay close attention to Chapter 12: Glass Cut of Texas Red, you'll probably be able to see the influence from Disco Elysium peeking through my own writing style there!

e. Don't be afraid to sleep on it!

This.

This is my best writing advice.

You can read every book in the library, take every course at your local college on writing, and you'll still sit down one day and write something that you're just not sure about. Is it bad? Is it good? Is it some monstrous type of in-between that you can't even describe?

Fuck if you know.

And that's okay.

Not everything you write will be amazing. But instead of giving up on a piece that's halfway written when you get frustrated, close your computer and re-read what you wrote in the morning. Go do something else, clear your mind, sleep well in the evening, and give it some fresh eyes in the morning!

9 times out of 10 you'll be able to come to a conclusion on it in the morning.

The way I personally like to do it is this: Stare at my word document until I'm about to rip my hair out, slam my laptop closed, go play some mindless game for wayyyyy too long, and then sleep until my alarm physically cannot ring any more obnoxiously. Then, before I do anything else, I'll open my phone and squint through my exhaustion to reread what I wrote.

Idk how to describe it, but somehow, it works like a charm LMAO

-

How would I describe my own writing?

Oh god......this one I actually might not know 💀 anon you've got me

Okay, I guess here's how I would describe my style. It's highly...emotional for me. I think that's how I live my life, and I think my writing reflects that. For example, when you think about description in a novel, you often think of describing how objects and people look. But over the years in my personal life, I've discovered that I really just...don't care about the visuals of a person or place. For me, I rely heavily on how that person or objects makes me feel, not what my opinion on its appearance is.

If you read my story Indigo, you might have noticed that I never truly described what Simon looks like beyond small details of his person. Particular scars that were important to the story, what color his hair was, what clothes he was wearing--those were the only things I ever really described about his appearance, and even then, they were only written into the story when it was important to what was going on.

But, in actuality, Simon's appearance was incredibly important to Indigo. In fact, the entire premise relies on his fixation with his own appearance. But the way that I approached it wasn't from the visual standpoint, but rather his perception of himself, how his appearance made him and other people feel.

Is Simon ugly? Are his scars hideous? Are they so grotesque he should cover his face at all times? Or, even, abstain from love at all costs?

I don't know. I don't care what he looks like. But that's what Simon believes himself to be, that's how he feels, and that defines his perception of the entire world, regardless of what the true visuals of his story actually are.

That's partially why I like the emotional type of writing instead of just visual description, because it doesn't really rely on any objective truth to convey a message. That....and I honestly just don't think about how things look that much lmao

Like, once a friend of mine asked me what my ideal boyfriend looked like and I legit couldn't answer her. Because like??? I don't have an ideal man. I've dated men from all different backgrounds, different heights, different weights, different styles---I just don't really care about someone's body. I care about the feeling they evoke in me.

Texas Red is a bit of a different game though, and there's a story reason for that. Basically, the basis of Jinx and Simon's relationship is physical attraction. It's not emotional in the beginning. Jinx feels weird about Simon, not because he's nice to her, but because she thinks he's hot lmao

All in all, I think I prioritize the emotional experience of it above all else, and that's about the only defining characteristic I can commit to when it comes to my writing lmao

-

And there you have it! A few tips on how I approached my own writing, as well as how you can improve your own! I hope you guys enjoyed my (completely unwarranted) gushing on the subject lmao

Thank you so much to the anon who sent the original request! I hope that this little guide helps you out!

Until next time!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hello Miss Raven!!!

First of all, I wanna tell you I'm a great fan of your work, it helps me understand better a world that I love, so please don't stop doing it!

Secondly, I wanna know if you know of the existence of the 34 pages long essay of L*ona and your opinion on it due to the love-hate relationship you have with him.

Thank you once again for all that you do and I hope you have a really great year!!!!!

AAaaAAAAaAHHhhhHHHH, thank you for your kind words!! I've had my ups and downs with this fandom, but for the most part I've enjoyed my time here and very much intend to stick around~ Before I get to my thoughts, I'd like to give credit to @/arledrone, who I believe is the owner and author of said 34-page L*ona document! Thanks for penning this all the way back in... what, 2022?? For us to rediscover and read now in 2025 ^^

First thing's first, the document is actually quite old, so obviously there's a lot of materials missing (the Savanaclaw manga, light novel, the completed book 6, all the book 7 content, the new and relevant events/cards/voice lines/vignettes that have come out since then, etc. I'm of the belief that we don't necessarily need to look at this, as the point of the document seems to be pointing out Leona's very slow growth (and sometimes regression back to his worst traits) over the course of the content that was avaliable up until the point of the document's publication.

I won't bore you by regurgitating everything in the document; I'll just point at some things I found notable!

For the most part, I agree with the broad strokes and general interpretations of how Leona's character is presented. He's very complex and you often have to look beyond what he's initially claiming because he has ulterior motives or intentionally tries to act tough to conceal his own insecurities and vulnerabilities. (However, I did find the document a little difficult to follow in the beginning because it kind of felt like meandering with no clear topic or order of topics being established, just several paragraphs of listing Leona's traits without giving concrete examples to back them up? I guess the examples were provided eventually... still, I feel the document could have been edited and condensed a bit. The flow improved considerably when we got into summarization of the vignettes, book 2, and events.)

OP made very similar points as myself, such as saying that Leona isn't specifically after the crown, but what the crown represents (though this conclusion is common among L*ona fans). I was pleasantly surprised to even see them proposing that how others view Leona negatively may even be self-imposed--I had suggested the same thing a few years ago, but haven't seen this idea (or this particular phrasing) gain traction. I think my favorite parts of the document were comparing and contrasting Leona's reactions to criticism (in his School Uniform vignette vs in Fairy Gala). Vil appears as a major point of contention in both and serves as an excellent obstacle to challenge the arrogant and hard-headed Leona. I've compared the two before, and I think that helps to explain why Vil and Leona so often clash. Vil's the perfect person to go toe-to-toe with Leona, call him out for his BS, and push him to "be better". Fans frequently complain about how it feels like the OB boys didn't change significantly following their books--but they have, and they are, you just have to be willing to do the work to dig it up because the main story alone is not sufficient. It's a subtle thing, 'blink and you'll miss it' moments. All the main story can do is tell you "Leona is now consistently training with his team" and, "Leona is now getting off his ass to pitch in with physical labor". Book 6 certainly did a good job of showing us his development, but a lot of it I wager is personal reflection, and that's not going to always be easy to spot of manifest in a tangible, easy-to-see way, especially given how little we interact with the guy directly. We should be more cognizant that character change can happen off-screen (ie not in the main story) and outside of the presence of Yuu, and is not automatic or done in huge leaps. I think I would have liked it if Leona's minor roles were also touched on, but I understand why they were left out. It's a lot of information to look through, and there was less value in events like Beans Day, Ghost Marriage, etc. compared to instances where he was far more proactive. I'd argue that the times where he doesn't feature as a main character serve to characterize him a lot as well (and thus have their value) though; he uses his cunning to find an "easy way" to victory (even if it ended up failing in the end), he gets competitive with Vil over something he doesn't even care about due to his deeply rooted superiority complex, etc.

That about summarizes my thoughts! Apologizes if it was short, it was tough to really comment on stuff since at that point I’d only be repeating what’s written in the document.

[viceroywrites]

deja vu - part seven (stan route)

planning out your road trip through the pacific northwest, you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the town of gravity falls.

little did you know that this town held more memories than you could have possibly imagined.

too bad you didn't remember any of them.

stan x fem!reader / ford x fem!reader

choose your own adventure / contains fluff and angst (w/ happy ending)

part six | part eight

interested in the ford route? click here for masterlist.

tag list: @awitchersbard | @theilluminatidragonqueen | @jazzypop-op | @jonndoe | @chaimshelii | @starship606 | @swimmingrascalbatdragon | @stanfordsbaby | @gxstiess | @skrunkle11 | @valinbean | @funkyenby | @therealgoofygoober69 | @theblueraven | @adrian920155 | @im-kinda-bored | @miarabanana | @leo4242564 | @soupieoopieisloopie | @marvelous-maniac | @opossumclown | @m4x-3dw | @nothingbutcloud | @reivelmin | @grimometry | @walmartjim | @reiofsuns2001 | @bunni-teeth81 | @satorisgirl | @pen900 | @creat0r-cat | @lackingoriginalthoughts | @fries11 | @sunniskyies | @policedeer | @sadslasher13 | @kittenlover614 | @margibees | @lunnybunny12 | @the-hufflebird-girl | @sawendel l | @shamrockfish | @atseoks | @luckybatbones | @ryuyukawa | @mekkori | @bigbodycity | @kawaii1369 | @333brat333 | @styxxcrossing

The ambient sounds of the Mystery Shack on a weekend were quite serene.

The sound of Abuelita’s telenovelas playing in the background, the creaking of the worn wood floors each time the younger set of Pines twins walked across their room, the top popping off a can of Pitt Cola before Stan takes a loud sip. 

Thankfully, the layers of dirt and concrete muffled the sounds of bickering that echoed through the basement that would quickly unravel the calm atmosphere upstairs. The raised voices barely audible through the vending machine that sits in the gift shop.

You were on your fourth day of watching back your memories with Ford. To say it was a rollercoaster each day was an understatement. It was a 50/50 toss up on how the day would end. Half the days you and Ford would end up not talking to each other until the next day. The other half, you felt yourself getting closer to him, gracious for his presence and adding more clarity to the scenes that played before you. 

Today was an example of the former, your arms crossed over your chest after asking Ford to pause the tape after a particularly nasty fight the two of you had just played.

“Y/N, your interpretation of what I said was completely off-base.” Ford snaps, getting a bit defensive despite his promise that he would not try to defend his actions this time around. He couldn’t help himself, his mind defaulting to the logic that made the most sense to him. 

Old habits tend to die hard, it seems, when it comes to your dynamic with Ford.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know there were multiple ways to interpret you telling me that I was clueless. Please enlighten me.” You say with a sardonic tone, your expression sour. These past few days, it has started to dawn on you that Ford’s knowledge was somewhat limited in the emotional department. 

Ford pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out an exasperated sigh.

“Listen, if you just give me a chance to explain myself, what I meant to say was that you were clueless in the sense that you didn’t understand what I was up against at the time. I wasn’t commenting on your intelligence.” Ford attempts to assuage the impact of his words.

“Stanford, how is that any better?” You throw your hands up in frustration, “I knew you felt like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders, but that doesn’t excuse you taking it out on others, the very people trying to help you!”

“I didn’t ask for you to help me! It was your choice to give up your dream job back then! I didn’t need you!” A flurry of biting words leave Ford’s mouth before he can think about the consequences and if he truly even meant what he was saying. 

‘Fine, I don’t need your help!’

‘I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!’

Those phrases echoed over and over in your head the past few days, sending you right back to the foggy memory of what you had surmised to be your last interaction with Ford. 

“Then what’s the point of me being here, Ford? If you didn’t need me then, you clearly don’t need me now.” You ask, about to turn your heel to head back upstairs.

Your own ego would not allow you to just stand there taking Ford’s harsh words, and you had learned over the last few days that sometimes you had to choose your battles with the stubborn intellectual.  

Ford freezes at your response, the weight of your words hitting him like a bucket of cold water washing over him. 

The words you uttered were eerily similar to the exact words you had uttered when you left him thirty years ago.

‘Then what’s the point of me being here, Ford? Let me just get out of your way then.’ 

His hand reaches out, just like it did all those years ago, grasping your wrist firmly. You turn to look back at Ford, about to snatch your hand away, but the familiarity of this scene stops you.

You’ve been here before, haven’t you?

Old habits do die hard.

“I-I’m sorry.” Ford says, “I didn’t mean what I said..”

“Then why say it?” You ask, hurt evident in your tone. “Why ask me to come with you all those years ago to Oregon if you didn’t need me?”

“Because… I did need you. It’s just my pride got in the way, I wanted to do it on my own. The concept of asking for help was hard enough and I didn’t want to feel useless to you… in the past, I had to be pushed to a breaking point to ask. Even then… I had a hard time accepting help, believing that I had all the answers.” Ford rambled out in the best words he could find at the moment to explain himself.

You needed a moment to digest his explanation, still needing time to work through the pain his words had caused in the first place.

“Mind if we call it for today? I know we only got through four hours of memories but I just need some time to think it over, Ford.” You ask, hastily pulling your hand away from Ford’s grasp.

Despite being in such a rush to get your memories back a few days prior, you were at your limit already for today. 

Ford’s hand falls limp at his side, admitting defeat. Despite his stubbornness, he knew it was not optimal timing to be insisting you push onward especially when he was on thin ice in regards to how you felt about him at the moment, “Very well, let me know if you change your mind.”

After making your way up the staircase, you push against the vending machine door, closing it behind you. The gift shop is empty, Melody and Soos closing down the Shack for the day to visit her family up in Portland. 

There was also a part of you that was putting off the inevitable. You know you were getting dangerously close to your final fight based on the loose timeline Ford had explained to you and the amount of dreams you had checked off in your journal. You had to admit that you were terrified about how you would feel about Ford at the end of this all, especially after forming bonds with the people who were dearest to him. 

The thoughts were getting a bit too overwhelming, and you decided to head outside to get some fresh air. Descending down the front steps of the Mystery Shack, you decide to take a walk around the perimeter of the house, not having wandered around the surrounding forest much since you first arrived. The extent of your exploration of the Shack had been mostly contained indoors, wanting to familiarize yourself with all the settings of your dreams.

Your hand runs over the old wood as you walk along the side of the Shack, tracing over the patches of sheet metal and newer wood that covered up the holes that had been created during Weirdmageddon. It suddenly hits you that just a few days ago, this was just a silly little tourist attraction on your way up north. Little did you know that day, you actually were walking around the house that held so many lost memories, a ghost of your past just outside. 

The hum of the ice machine grows louder with each step you take towards the back of the Mystery Shack. Rounding the corner, you are greeted to the sight of Stan, lounging on an old beat up couch on the back porch of Shack, nursing a cold Pitt Cola in his left hand. The gold medallion that rests on his exposed gray chest hairs, courtesy of the top two buttons of his red Hawaiian shirt undone, twinkles in the sunlight. In his right hand, he holds a broom, causing you to raise an eyebrow in curiosity.

“Busy sweeping the back porch?” Your voice calls out, startling him as he suddenly raises the broom in defense though quickly dropping it at the sight of you.

 “Jesus, you can’t sneak up on me like that, toots! At my age, I might have a heart attack right here!” Stan groans, dropping the broom to the side before glancing out into the field, “Caught some gnomes trying to rummage through the garbage and had to chase ‘em off. One of them is still obsessed with Mabel and always tries to get something of hers out of the trash.”

You grimace at the thought of these small bearded man still pining after the fourteen year old, walking up the porch steps, “Man, they’re tenacious, aren’t they?” You mutter, standing in front of Stan, “Mind if I join you?”

Stan wordlessly pats the seat next to him in response, taking a sip from his Pitt Cola. You take the seat graciously, sinking into the worn out cushions. 

“So I take it that today's memory session was a bust, considering you’re out here.” Stan commented, his arm dangling against the back of the couch as he looked out into the forest. His eyes narrow, giving the gnome that pops its head out a warning glare before it disappears back into the bush. 

You wished these couch cushions would sink you further into its depths after hearing Stan’s comment, “A bit of an understatement.” You trail off, not wanting to go into too much on account of Stan potentially defending Ford. You wouldn’t even blame him if he did. After all, you were a stranger just a week ago.

Stan could sense your hesitation to elaborate and decides to break the ice himself, “You don’t have to tiptoe around me, ya know. I know my brother can be a pain in the ass sometimes, I’ve probably thought whatever you’re thinking at some point, especially last summer.”

Sometimes you forget that only just this year had the Pines twins repaired their fractured relationship after decades of being apart. Despite the occasional banter and arguments that are typical with any sibling dynamic, it was apparent to any onlooker that Stan and Ford had each others’ backs. 

There’s a sharp inhale through your nostrils, mustering up the courage to blurt out and get off your chest the first thought that comes to mind to summarize your feelings towards Ford at the moment, “You know your brother can be a stubborn asshole sometimes. I know he means well but he just always needs to defend his actions, there’s always some logical and seemingly justifiable reason as to why he did what he did.”

Stan balks out a deep laugh, glancing over at you, “You’re preaching to the choir, I think Poindexter got so used to being right growing up in the eyes of our old man that whenever we’d get into arguments, he’d just find a way to logic out how he wasn’t in the wrong. Though I can’t say I’m any better, I think it runs in the Pines genes to be a little bit stubborn.” He admits with a shrug.

You let out a soft laugh yourself, seeing first hand recently how their strong personalities clash at times. You shake your head, “If you’re both so stubborn then, how’d you two make up after not speaking for decades?” You pause, asking the question that you ask yourself often, “How do you forgive him when he’s hurt you so much?”

Stan takes a long sip from his can of Pitt. He’s not sure how to quite answer your question. There weren't some magical words or things that Ford said or did to get him to forgive him and vice-versa. He wished it was that simple, but giving forgiveness was similar to gambling. There was always the potential that the more you gave, the more it could bite you in the ass. Forgiving Ford meant accepting that he could get hurt again some day, but it felt worth the gamble for the opportunity to have his brother as a part of his life again.

Was it wrong of him to give his perspective even though you were asking him?

Was he meddling with his brother building a relationship with you again, romantic or not?

Would he ruin it just like he had ruined Ford’s chances of getting into his dream school?

Stan takes a look into your eyes that are confused and desperate for answers. It’s scary how he can see bits of himself just this past summer in you, and it dawns on him that only he of all people could truly understand the pain you were experiencing. He lets out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck out of vexation, trying to find the right words to say. 

“Look, I wish there were some groundbreaking explanation that I could give you that would lay out how I was able to forgive Ford after all those years step by step…” Stan mutters, toying with the pop top of the soda. “During Weirdmageddon, Bill put the kids in danger, and Ford and I had to put aside our grudge to rescue them. After that, I lost my memory, and I spent this past year getting my memories back. Ford helped me along the way and in a way, that started to make up for everything that happened in the past.” 

The mention of Bill makes your blood run cold. You knew that Dipper and Mabel were in the know about the strange happenings of Gravity Falls and actively helped Fiddleford regain his memories, but it was terrifying to think that they were involved to the point of Bill seeing them as a threat and putting their lives in danger. However, it made perfect sense that it brought the two brothers to set aside their past grudges and come together - you’ve seen first hand how much they adore the younger twins.

Stan continues, “Besides, you gotta remember Ford’s my twin brother. We’ve been together since birth. Sure, he can be a stubborn know-it-all, but at the end of the day, I’d do anything for the guy. Also it’d be a hell of a waste of all those years I invested into trying to get him back if I didn’t forgive him.” 

“So you ever get a return on that investment?” You ask with a grin, causing Stan to let out a hearty chuckle. “I’d say spending the last year helping me get my memories back while also being stuck with me on a boat exploring the world was a good return. Though I’m still waiting for him to admit I’m the better looking twin.”

“Anyways, back to my point. I know my brother’s a stubborn one, the guy will debate with you for hours on a topic he thinks he knows everything about. He gets tunnel visioned so when he gets like that, focus less on the why of what happened and more on how he’ll make up for it.” Stan explains, “Trust me, he does want to make things right by you. I know he has a lot of regrets about how his actions affected you and Fiddleford.”

Stan’s perspective helped a lot as it made you realize that you spent a lot of time with Ford arguing about your memories. In wanting Ford’s perspective, it had created a scenario where Ford felt he was the expert in this situation and needed to defend his logic. 

“Maybe I should try watching the memories without Ford, and talking to him about it once I’ve processed everything.” You say, “I think it’s better to ask for an apology rather than an explanation. No matter what he says, the logic behind it doesn’t take away the sting.” 

“Honestly, that’s probably a good idea, doll.” Stan hums, “I know I had to take a sec to cool off before Ford and I could talk things out. Hell, there were some times that it took a day or two for me to come around.” Stan stands up suddenly, crushing the empty Pitt can in his hand and tossing it into the trash can. He glances back at you, “Since you’re free for the rest of the day, you wanna join me in taking Mabel and her friends to go mini-golfing? You’ve been down in that basement pretty much every single day, maybe getting out of the Shack will help.”

The offer is tempting, those countless hours in the cold, dark basement of the Mystery Shack may have been tolerable for Ford, but it was starting to drive you a little stir crazy. 

“Sure, why not?”

90% Compatibility - For real soulmates. Start planning the wedding, now.

Mabel stares at the text before her, her purple glitter pen dropping to the floor dramatically almost in slow motion. She’s grateful that Dipper was out for the day, deciding to keep Pacifica company during her shift at Greasy’s and work on his journal as she squeezes her cheeks together in disbelief, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

Hearing a loud knock on the wooden door startles Mabel out of her dazed state, and she quickly stuffs the magazine underneath her pillow when Stan sticks his head through the gap. “You good, pumpkin?” Stan asks, hearing her through the door. “I’m totally fine, Grunkle Stan! In fact I’m spectacular!” Mabel says, her voice slightly shaky. Stan raises a skeptical eyebrow but decides it’s best not to ask, “Well, we’re ready for ya downstairs to head to the mini-golf course.”

“We? Is Great Uncle Ford joining us?” Mabel asks, slipping off the bed to slide on her shoes. Stan rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, “Actually, Y/N’s gonna be joining us. She wanted to take a break today, and I figured I’d invite her to join.” 

The bubbly brunette sees this as the perfect opportunity to see you and Stan’s dynamic in action, wanting to see the chemistry between the two of you first hand. “Fine by me, anything to get you out of our hair, Grunkle Stan.” Mabel says with a grin. Stan rolls his eyes, ruffling Mabel’s hair when she walks up to him despite her playful protest, “Yeah, yeah, I know you pre-teens need your space.”

“I’ll be down in a sec, Grunkle Stan. I need to grab the sweater I borrowed from Grenda.” Mabel says. The moment Stan disappears behind the door and she hears his footsteps creaking down the old staircase, she rushes to take a photo of her magazine, texting her friends.

‘Ladies, I might have a match making opportunity and I need your help!’

-

You can feel three pairs of eyes staring at the back of your head with intensity during the entire car ride to the Putt Hutt. Part of you wonders if there’s something off about your appearance, the other part wonders if you somehow did something that personally offended the three pre-teens that sit in the back of the El Diablo despite your introductions to Candy and Grenda being pleasant.

You lean over the console, eyebrow raising as you hear three sets of breaths hitch at your sudden movement, before whispering in Stan’s ear, “Do I have something on my face?”

Stan glances over as he’s sat at a red light, assessing your features carefully before shaking his head, “Nah, you look good like you always do.” He says nonchalantly though pauses after realizing he just complimented you, “I mean… you’re decent, ya know?” He attempts to brush it off, chuckling awkwardly.

You can’t help but laugh at his awkwardness, “Glad to know I’m decent by Stan Pines’ standard.” You tease, causing Stan to relax before he begins to press his foot on the gas the moment the light turns green.

You hear murmurs soon after but choose to brush it off, more focused on how your cheeks heated up after Stan’s casual compliment. 

After parking the car, the girls rush out of the car, making a bee-line for the rental booth with you and Stan trailing behind. “Are they usually like that?” You ask Stan who shrugs, “Usually they’re yapping with each other the whole ride but I wouldn’t pay it any mind. You’re better off trying to understand quantum mechanics than the minds of pre-teens.”

Once you and Stan catch up, the two of you find yourselves whipping out your wallets at the same time. “I got this one, Stan. You’ve already been so generous with letting me stay at the Shack.” You insist, shoving the bills through the clear window which Stan promptly tries to snatch away, holding over your head, “Nuh-uh, it’s my grand-niece and her friends.” The bored, underpaid teenager worker behind the booth blows a bubble with her gum, chin propped up on her hand, as the two of you squabble. 

“Grunkle Stan never insists on paying for anything. He usually tries to get out of paying.” Mabel whispers over to Candy and Grenda who watch on, their eyes flitting back and forth as if they were watching a rally during a tennis match. She watches, hearing her Grunkle’s deep chuckle resonate through the air as you try in vain to pull his arm down before faking him out, slamming your card down and pushing it towards the worker who promptly swipes it.

“Alright, you win this round, toots.” Stan huffs, taking the clubs from the worker and passing them to the girls before you all make your way onto the course. The moment you step onto the course, you quickly realize how skilled Mabel is at the sport, easily sinking hole in ones when it takes her friends a few tries. 

As for you and Stan, you watch in amusement as Stan stomps around each course with a grimace, using way too much power and usually knocking the ball way out of bounds. Glancing over your shoulder, you see the girls waiting, glancing over at the next course. “Why don’t you girls go on ahead? We’ll meet up with you at the end, I think your Grunkle is going to be a while.” You say, hearing Stan yell ‘Oh come on’ in the distance.

The girls nod eagerly, running off in excitement though you were unaware it was not about mini-golf in the slightest but the opportunity to observe you and Stan from a distance and perhaps nudge the two of you together. “Let’s go straight to hole 20, I have a plan.” Mabel says with a grin, rubbing her hands together.

Once the girls disappear from your sight, you walk back over to Stan who putts the ball to the other end of the course once again narrowly missing the hole after hitting it in frustration a bit too hard. “Son of a gun!” Stan curses which has you shaking your head with a chuckle, “You know the kids are gone. You can curse for real now.” Stan looks around, seeing Mabel and her friends are gone before grinning with glee as he lets out, “Son of a bitch!”

You laugh at his antics, coming up behind him. “You know if you use a little less power, you might make it in the hole. You’ve got a good aim, you just keep narrowly missing it.” You point out. Stan folds his arms, and you almost expect a sense of defensiveness, but Stan takes it as a challenge of sorts. “Oh? Didn’t realize you were a mini-golf pro, care to make a wager then?” He says with a grin, twirling his club in his hand.

“What kind of wager are we thinking, Pines?” You ask, amused at the prospect. “Person who gets the ball in with the least amount of tries wins. Loser has to cook breakfast for the rest of the family tomorrow.” Stan offers, mostly to get out of having to make breakfast for once. Ford has tried to offer but it resulted in the Pines family scrubbing the walls to clean up the pancake batter that was flung all across the kitchen. He sticks out his hand, hoping to seal the deal.

You glance between him and his hand before wrapping your hand around his, shaking it firmly. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” 

The two of you move from course to course, using the scorecard provided for once to tally up how many tries it takes each of you to sink the ball into the hole. You are quite surprised to see Stan actually take your feedback to heart, adjusting his force and getting a few hole in ones in there. 

It’s pretty much neck and neck, the two of you bantering and trying to distract one another during each other’s putts. Amidst her scheming, Mabel peaks her head through the bushes every now and then, watching on in curiosity. The chemistry between you and Stan seems so effortless, his presence pulling a beaming smile and laughter that she had yet to see around her Grunkle Ford. “I can’t believe it… they actually fit really well together.” Mabel says in awe. 

“They’re coming this way!” Grenda calls out in a hushed tone, causing Mabel to stick her head back into the bush. She watches carefully as the two of you approach, waiting for the right moment. The golf ball rolls right past the bush, and you make your way to go hit it once more, Stan trailing right behind you. Mabel takes this opportunity to simply stick out her leg, your ankle snagging on it. You begin to fall forward, your hands extending outward to brace yourself for the fall but it never comes. 

Instead, you feel Stan’s upper arm wrapped tightly around your waist, his fingertips sinking into the fabric of your shirt to make sure he has a grip on you. “Whoa there, watch where you’re stepping. Could’ve landed flat on your face there!” Stan chuckles, gazing down with an amused grin at what he perceived was your clumsiness. He quickly tugs you up, but the force that he uses causes you two to end up chest to chest. 

Time seems to stand still, the two of you staring into each other’s eyes. Being this up close to you, Stan notices features that he hadn’t before. The subtle wrinkles that frame your eyes, most likely from how your eyes crinkle when you smile, how your eyes seem to shine in the sunlight. How soft your lips look… have they always looked that kissable?

Oh.

Oh.

Oh no.

“Um, Stan…” Your voice cuts through his thoughts as you wonder why he has yet to let go of you.

Stan quickly pulls away, clearing his throat. He turns away from you, trying to hide the flush across his cheeks. “L-Let’s wrap up this hole, I’m sure the kids are waiting for us.” He quickly tries to change the subject, hoping you don’t question why he was holding onto you for so long.

“Sure…” You say with a nod, walking back over to putt the ball in the hole but you end up missing again, cursing under your breath as your mind is stuck on the events that just unraveled.

Stan ends up winning your bet at the end, narrowly by one point, the one point you could have made had it not been for your brain turning to mush at reminder of the feeling of Stan’s strong arm wrapped around your middle, the scent of his woodsy, most likely cheap cologne, and his brown eyes staring back at you.

-

After finishing up at the golf course, Stan drove you and the girls to a nearby taco joint to grab dinner. The tension from earlier still lingered in the air, but the two of you tried to brush it off as best as you could since the kids were around.

Once you order the food, the girls spy a claw machine in the corner, and after laying the puppy dog eyes on thick, Mabel was able to get some change that Stan was able to scrounge up and made a beeline over to hopefully win a pig plush that looked like Waddles. That left you and Stan alone for the first time since the golf course, the two of you staring anywhere but each other.

“So do you and Ford have any plans of where you’ll go next once Mabel and Dipper leave for the summer?” You decide to break the ice, asking the first question that comes to mind as you toy with the gemstone on your necklace. Stan finally glanced up at you, watching you fiddle with the gemstone. He had picked up on your anxious habit of messing with it after a few of your fights with Ford, pacing around the hallways of the Mystery Shack with it in your fingers.

“Not a clue. Usually we just go wherever the sails take us though Ford is pulled to places where all sorts of weird stuff happens like a magnet.” Stan comments with a shrug. You tilt your head, “Is there anywhere you’d like to visit specifically?” Stan blinks, not really having thought about it. Truthfully, this past year, anywhere was fine with Stan as long as it was with Ford.

“I dunno, I think a lot of places in Europe are too hoity-toity for me. Especially France, ugh.” Stan shudders at the thought, “I’m more of a tropical kinda guy. Beaches and babes, ya know?” Stan lets out a hearty chuckle.

You smile in amusement, “Babes, huh? Any luck finding a lady during your travels?” Stan’s chest deflates almost comically, fiddling with his thumbs, “Well, you see…” The elaborate tale he was about to tell gets stuck in his throat as the food arrives, being dumped in front of the two of you. 

“You were saying?” You say, eyebrow quirking as you grab a taco.

Stan puts his hands up in defeat, “Alright, the closest I got was a siren that Ford had to drag me away from before she took my soul.” You let out a laugh of disbelief, taking a bite from your food, “So Stan Pines is not the suave playboy I thought he was?” Stan shakes his head, “Afraid not, sweetheart. Sorry to disappoint.”

The pet name rolls off his tongue and he doesn’t even realize it, but you do. Your cheeks feel warm, and you can’t believe the butterflies that seem to erupt in your stomach. You almost choke on your taco, but swallow it down. 

Oh.

Oh.

Oh no.

“Y/N, look at the plushies we got!” Mabel runs up to the table, her arms full of plushies as Grenda and Candy follow behind her. Just when you hope that Mabel’s presence will save you from the weird, fuzzy feelings you should not be feeling towards your ex’s twin brother, it ends up making it worse. 

“Grunkle Stan, could you move over to the other side of the booth so Grenda, Candy and I can sit next to each other? It’ll be easier to share the nachos that way.” Mabel asks. An innocent request, Stan obliges, slipping out of the booth and sliding next to you. The three girls pile into the opposite side of the booth, and Mabel proceeds to show off each stuffed animal along with their name and a brief backstory.

Stan and you are too enthralled by Mabel’s show and tell to notice her high fiving her friends briefly underneath the table for a mission accomplished today.

-

The sun had finally set by the time you arrived back at the Mystery Shack, a bag of food in your hand to bring to Ford as an olive branch. You descend down the stairs of the basement, but Ford is nowhere to be found. Instead, you find a note next to a plate of cookies.

‘My apologies again for today - I will uphold my promise next time to not justify my actions and only provide additional detail when asked.

I will be spending some time with Fiddleford for the rest of the day. 

P.S - The baked goods were not made by me so they are safe to consume.’

You chuckle, shaking your head. 

Looks like Ford had the same idea to offer an olive branch.

You write a note, letting Ford know about the food before taking the plate of cookies up the stairs with you, heading straight to the kitchen to put away the food. Stan catches you on the way there, glancing at the bag of food still in your hand, “Where’s Poindexter?”

“He’s visiting Fiddleford, he left an apology note and gave me these cookies.” You explain, placing the food inside the fridge. Stan sucks in air through his teeth, eyeing the cookies, “I wouldn’t eat those sweetheart if you care about your safety.”

There’s that damn pet name again.

“It’s fine, Ford didn’t make them. He made that very clear.” You chuckle, putting down the plate before grabbing a cookie yourself.

“Hey, uh, since the kids are busy, I was wondering if you’d wanna watch a movie with me in the living room. If you don’t have plans to watch more of your memories or nothing for the evening.” Stan asks, scratching his chin.

It was a clear choice between trying to watch another heart-wrenching memory to watching a movie. 

Stan decided to show you the Duchess Approves after you had mentioned you had never heard of it. There wasn’t enough room on the arm chair so you sat on the floor next to Stan, and spent the rest of the evening listening to his animated reactions and grinning as he passionately presented his ideas for a sequel.

The two of you turn in for the evening once the movie finishes, but not before you give Stan a sudden hug, thanking him again for helping you take your mind off things for a day. Stan awkwardly pats your back, stiff against your arms while his heart is beating through his chest so hard he’s worried he may have a heart attack right there.

As you lay on the air mattress, staring at the ceiling, you can’t help but hope that things work out for the best. 

That Ford will make amends for the pain he caused and show he has changed. 

That you can find a way to forgive Ford. 

That you both can heal from the past, having at least an amicable relationship. 

That you get to keep the people you have met through him in your life.

Your eyes slowly become heavy, finally closing as you slip into a deep sleep.

-

A sudden knock at the door startles you from your sleep, eyeing the door cautiously.

Not knowing who may be outside the door, you grab a baseball bat that you had kept by your bedside and approach the door.

“Who’s there?” You call out but there is no answer.

Instead, a letter is pushed through the door crack and you can barely make out the sound of footsteps retreating.

Putting down the bat, you grab the envelope, quickly opening it to read its contents. 

‘Hey Stan,

I hope you’re hanging in there, I know from your last letter you were on the move again, but hopefully things work out in New Mexico!

Sorry that it took so long to write you back, it’s truthfully been a really tough month. Ford’s pretty much buried in his work, our friend who’s been helping Ford with his research has been pretty anxious nowadays. Hopefully the sooner Ford wraps up his project, everyone will be less on edge.

But I saw your latest commercial on TV the other night, I really hope this new product takes off!

I really hope one day you can make it out to Oregon, and you and Ford can catch up and mend things. I know you aren’t ready to talk to him yet, but I honestly think he could use you. He’s pretty wound up, and nothing I really say or do is helping…

Anyways, I know you really don’t like it, but I sent some money and a few of those scratch cards I know you like. Just a little something to keep you steady until you get back on your feet.

Wishing you the best with your latest business venture!

Sincerely,

Y/N.’

Stan shoots up in bed, a cold sweat coating his body, running his hand through his gray hair. 

“Holy shit.”

[transmutationisms]

hi Caden! did you read anti oedipus, and if yes what did you think of it? you mentioned on your post about psychoanalysis being partial to this kind of approach, and i was curious if you had specific takes on deleuze, guattari, schizonalysis as a concept or its limitations?

blast from the past anti-oedipus was the first book i ever read that substantively criticised psych because i saw some people taking facile potshots at it on this very website in like 2017 and thought it sounded interesting lmao

alright so i have to be kind of broad here but essentially my opinion on psychoanalysis is that it's not, in itself, inherently liberatory or radical and certainly not inherently at odds with or even distinct from other modes of psychiatric practice. at the same time i think there are schools and elements of psychoanalytic methodology that can be those things, ie can be used to those ends by people who have those political commitments.

on here you do sometimes see this very ahistorical take à la byung-chul han that tries to understand psychoanalysis as inherently oppositional to psychopharmacology or other forms of therapy like cbt. this is really silly and fails to understand the ways in which psychiatry can and does practice pretty eclectically (because it's a very vibes based profession so it doesn't really matter). then there's the even further offshoot of this where people act like psychoanalysis has their preferred ('leftist') political character intrinsic to it, as though professional psychoanalytic organisations the world over aren't consistently on the front lines of things like medical transphobia (eg, check intellectual affilitions on the early ROGD papers; also, lacanians in france like generally). i would include schizoanalysis in this in the sense that there's nothing about it that prevents it being implemented in biased or hateful or repressive ways. its practitioners will have their own political commitments just like freudians or any other school; you can't just rely on an analysis being rhizomatic or whatever and think that solved what is a much more concrete problem of power relations and psychiatry as a tool of class suppression.

(i would extend that to scientific ideology generally but that's a longer post.)

what i do think is valuable in psychoanalysis (again now speaking very broadly of multiple sub-schools) is, and especially in comparison to other analytic models in psychology, it has a generally better capacity to deal with experiences like 'feeling at odds with yourself' or 'feeling tormented at your own thoughts'. the psychoanalytic unconscious or the process of repression of course aren't 'real' any more than the personality types or pathological entities of biopsychiatry, but the question is, are the concepts useful? i don't really align myself to a school of psychoanalysis or think it's a done endeavour but i do personally think elements of this family of approaches have real value for how we understand ourselves. this is again, though, something that in its barest scientific scaffolding will always admit of multiple & reactionary politics: for example, freud himself (and thus many many subsequent freudians) struggled with a tendency to be circumspect or sometimes openly ahistorical about the actual origins of the mental forms and archetypes he talked about (eg, the Daddy figure & its primacy in the psychological development he discussed). on the other hand, people like wilhelm reich have tried to develop this project to explicitly contextualise these elements socially and historically and materially: Daddy is in my head not because he's some universal form of human mental experience, but because of the primacy of the bourgeois marriage in capitalist social relations. etc.

so, wrt schizoanalysis and D&G particularly, my frustration frequently comes back to their failure to actually follow through on much of this. schizoanalysis is sort of an archetypal attempt to solve psychoanalysis by ideologising around the political character of psychiatry—what i mean is, the fantasy of schizoanalysis is that we can beat capitalist repression by playing what boil down to word games with it. psychoanalysis says the subject is a single 'i' and uses this conception of selfhood to achieve its economic and carceral ends (true), so schizoanalysis will evade the economics and carcerality by conceptualising selfhood as rhizomatic (unserious). i would tentatively level this more heavily at deleuze than guattari & keep meaning to do more historical reading about the latter & his actual clinical practice. but in general i do think both made (or acceded to, bc deleuze did basically all the writing as i understand it) basically silly idealist errors where anti-oedipus/a thousand plateaus shift from an analytic of capitalism to their attempt to actually formulate an alternative.

idk, it's frustrating talking psychoanalysis (on here or irl) because on the one hand you have to contend with people who think that, like, you could just reform the sex/gender discourses of lacanianism or jungianism to be more niceys to the transgenders by giving practitioners a DEI workshop. and then on the other hand you have to deal with hardcore neurobiopsych defenders who think that their fmri scans are somehow magically exempt from being theory-laden or narrativised, and that there's nothing to gain from an analytical mode that is capable of actually applying various dialectical motions rather than the crass positivism of basically all other psychiatry since like pinel. and meanwhile almost nobody in any of these camps is like, thinking clearly or honestly about the relationship between scientific ideology and political character, lmao.

tl;dr i don't think psychoanalysis will, can, or should save us & it may even be the case that no one has ever properly done it. but like yea i do think there are elements of the method that are useful for modelling our psychology, at any rate more useful than what else we've come up with thus far. and i would include schizoanalysis as under the same broad methodological umbrella, where its goal is more explicitly to grapple with politics qua psychology (libidinal investments) but it tries to do this primarily by discursive alternatives to the established form/s of the psyche—which alternatives may indeed be compatible with revolutionary politics but does not in themselves constitute such politics. As Eye Read D&G, anyway—im aware they are not the only people ever to have written about or practiced it, & aren't necessarily entitled to last word on it.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Richard R John’s “Network Nation”

THIS SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

The telegraph and the telephone have a special place in the history and future of competition and Big Tech. After all, they were the original tech monopolists. Every discussion of tech and monopoly takes place in their shadow.

Back in 2010, Tim Wu published The Master Switch, his bestselling, wildly influential history of "The Bell System" and the struggle to de-monopolize America from its first telecoms barons:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/11/01/the-master-switch-tim-net-neutrality-wu-explains-whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-for-net-freedom/

Wu is a brilliant writer and theoretician. Best known for coining the term "Net Neutrality," Wu went on to serve in both the Obama and Biden administrations as a tech trustbuster. He accomplished much in those years. Most notably, Wu wrote the 2021 executive order on competition, laying out a 72-point program for using existing powers vested in the administrative agencies to break up corporate power and get the monopolist's boot off Americans' necks:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

The Competition EO is basically a checklist, and Biden's agency heads have been racing down it, ticking off box after box on or ahead of schedule, making meaningful technical changes in how companies are allowed to operate, each one designed to make material improvements to the lives of Americans.

A decade and a half after its initial publication, Wu's Master Switch is still considered a canonical account of how the phone monopoly was built – and dismantled.

But somewhat lost in the shadow of The Master Switch is another book, written by the accomplished telecoms historian Richard R John: "Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications," published a year after The Master Switch:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674088139

Network Nation flew under my radar until earlier this year, when I found myself speaking at an antitrust conference where both John and Wu were also on the bill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VNivXjrU3A

During John's panel – "Case Studies: AT&T & IBM" – he took a good-natured dig at Wu's book, claiming that Wu, not being an historian, had been taken in by AT&T's own self-serving lies about its history. Wu – also on the panel – didn't dispute it, either. That was enough to prick my interest. I ordered a copy of Network Nation and put it on my suitcase during my vacation earlier this month.

Network Nation is an extremely important, brilliantly researched, deep history of America's love/hate affair with not just the telephone, but also the telegraph. It is unmistakably as history book, one that aims at a definitive takedown of various neat stories about the history of American telecommunications. As Wu writes in his New Republic review of John's book:

Generally he describes the failure of competition not so much as a failure of a theory, but rather as the more concrete failure of the men running the competitors, many of whom turned out to be incompetent or unlucky. His story is more like a blow-by-blow account of why Germany lost World War II than a grand theory of why democracy is better than fascism.

https://newrepublic.com/article/88640/review-network-nation-richard-john-tim-wu

In other words, John thinks that the monopolies that emerged in the telegraph and then the telephone weren't down to grand forces that made them inevitable, but rather, to the errors made by regulators and the successful gambits of the telecoms barons. At many junctures, things could have gone another way.

So this is a very complicated story, one that uses a series of contrasts to make the point that history is contingent and owes much to a mix of random chance and the actions of flawed human beings, and not merely great economic or historical laws. For example, John contrasts the telegraph with the telephone, posing them against one another as a kind of natural experiment in different business strategies and regulatory responses.

The telegraph's early promoters, including Samuel Morse (as in "Morse code") believed that the natural way to roll out telegraph was via selling the patents to the federal government and having an agency like the post office operate it. There was a widespread view that the post office as a paragon of excellent technical management and a necessity for knitting together the large American nation. Moreover, everyone could see that when the post office partnered with private sector tech companies (like the railroads that became essential to the postal system), the private sector inevitably figured out how to gouge the American public, leading regulators to ever-more extreme measures to rein in the ripoffs.

The telegraph skated close to federalization on several occasions, but kept getting snatched back from the brink, ending up instead as a privately operated system that primarily served deep-pocketed business customers. This meant that telegraph companies were forever jostling to get the right to string wires along railroad tracks and public roads, creating a "political economy" that tried to balance out highway regulators and rail barons (or play them off against each other).

But the leaders of the telegraph companies were largely uninterested in "popularizing" the telegraph – that is, figuring out how ordinary people could use telegraphs in place of the hand-written letters that were the dominant form of long-distance communications at the time. By turning their backs on "popularization," telegraph companies largely freed themselves from municipal oversight, because they didn't need to get permission to string wires into every home in every major city.

When the telephone emerged, its inventors and investors initially conceived of it as a tool for business as well. But while the telegraph had ushered in a boom in instantaneous, long-distance communications (for example, by joining ports and distant cities where financiers bought and sold the ports' cargo), the telephone proved far more popular as a way of linking businesses within a city limits. Brokers and financiers and businesses that were only a few blocks from one another found the telephone to be vastly superior to the system of dispatching young boys to race around urban downtowns with slips bearing messages.

So from the start, the phone was much more bound up in city politics, and that only deepened with popularization, as phones worked their ways into the homes of affluent families and local merchants like druggists, who offered free phone calls to customers as a way of bringing trade through the door. That created a great number of local phone carriers, who had to fend off Bell's federally enforced patents and aldermen and city councilors who solicited bribes and favors.

To make things even more complex, municipal phone companies had to fight with other sectors that wanted to fill the skies over urban streets with their own wires: streetcar lines and electrical lines. The unregulated, breakneck race to install overhead wires led to an epidemic of electrocutions and fires, and also degraded service, with rival wires interfering with phone calls.

City politicians eventually demanded that lines be buried, creating another source of woe for telephone operators, who had to contend with private or quasi-private operators who acquired a monopoly over the "subways" – tunnels where all these wires eventually ended up.

The telegraph system and the telephone system were very different, but both tended to monopoly, often from opposite directions. Regulations that created some competition in telegraphs extinguished competition when applied to telephones. For example, Canada federalized the regulation of telephones, with the perverse effect that everyday telephone users in cities like Toronto had much less chance of influencing telephone service than Chicagoans, whose phone carrier had to keep local politicians happy.

Nominally, the Canadian Members of Parliament who oversaw Toronto's phone network were big leaguers who understood prudent regulation and were insulated from the daily corruption of municipal politics. And Chicago's aldermen were pretty goddamned corrupt. But Bell starved Toronto of phone network upgrades for years, while Chicago's gladhanding political bosses forced Chicago's phone company to build and build, until Chicago had more phone lines than all of France. Canadian MPs might have been more remote from rough-and-tumble politics, but that made them much less responsive to a random Torontonian's bitter complaint about their inability to get a phone installed.

As the Toronto/Chicago story illustrates, the fact that there were so many different approaches to phone service tried in the US and Canada gives John more opportunities to contrast different business-strategies and regulations. Again, we see how there was never one rule that governments could have used if they wanted to ensure that telecoms were well-run, widely accessible, and reasonably priced. Instead, it was always "horses for courses" – different rules to counter different circumstances and gambits from telecoms operators.

As John traces through the decades during which the telegraph and telephone were established in America, he draws heavily on primary sources to trace the ebb and flow of public and elite sentiment towards public ownership, regulation, and trustbusting. In John's hands, we see some of the most spectacular failures as more than a mismatch of regulatory strategy to corporate gambit – but rather as a mismatch of political will and corporate gambit. If a company's power would be best reined in by public ownership, but the political vogue is for regulation, then lawmakers end up trying to make rules for a company they should simply be buying giving to the post office to buy.

This makes John's history into a history of the Gilded Age and trustbusters. Notorious vulture capitalists like Jay Gould shocked the American conscience by declaring that businesses had no allegiance to the public good, and were put on this Earth to make as much money as possible no matter what the consequences. Gould repeated "raided" Western Union, acquiring shares and forcing the company to buy him out at a premium to end his harassment of the board and the company's managers.

By the time the feds were ready to buy out Western Union, Gould was a massive shareholder, meaning that any buyout of the telegraph would make Gould infinitely wealthier, at public expense, in a move that would have been electoral poison for the lawmakers who presided over it. In this highly contingent way, Western Union lived on as a private company.

Americans – including prominent businesspeople who would be considered "conservatives" by today's standards, were deeply divided on the question of monopoly. The big, successful networks of national telegraph lines and urban telephone lines were marvels, and it was easy to see how they benefited from coordinated management. Monopolists and their apologists weaponized this public excitement about telecoms to defend their monopolies, insisting that their achievement owed its existence to the absence of "wasteful competition."

The economics of monopoly were still nascent. Ideas like "network effects" (where the value of a service increases as it adds users) were still controversial, and the bottlenecks posed by telephone switching and human operators meant that the cost of adding new subscribers sometimes went up as the networks grew, in a weird diseconomy of scale.

Patent rights were controversial, especially patents related to natural phenomena like magnetism and electricity, which were viewed as "natural forces" and not "inventions." Business leaders and rabble-rousers alike decried patents as a federal grant of privilege, leading to monopoly and its ills.

Telecoms monopolists – telephone and telegraph alike – had different ways to address this sentiment at different times (for example, the Bell System's much-vaunted commitment to "universal service" was part of a campaign to normalize the idea of federally protected, privately owned monopolies).

Most striking about this book were the parallels to contemporary fights over Big Tech trustbusting, in our new Gilded Age. Many of the apologies offered for Western Union or AT&T's monopoly could have been uttered by the Renfields who carry water for Facebook, Apple and Google. John's book is a powerful and engrossing reminder that variations on these fights have occurred in the not-so-distant past, and that there's much we can learn from them.

Wu isn't wrong to say that John is engaging with a lot of minutae, and that this makes Network Nation a far less breezy read than Master Switch. I get the impression that John is writing first for other historians, and writers of popular history like Wu, in a bid to create the definitive record of all the complexity that is elided when we create tidy narratives of telecoms monopolies, and tech monopolies in general. Bringing Network Nation on my vacation as a beach-read wasn't the best choice – it demands a lot of serious attention. But it amply rewards that attention, too, and makes an indelible mark on the reader.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

[epicleovilanon]

can u tell us anything else abt the roger rabbit au??? im SO hooked-- are there other twst characters that show up? or is it like solely jamikali?

Hi, sorry anon, i know i've been sitting on this one for a while lmao, work had me busy for a bit, but i promise i didn't forget you!

I honestly love any opportunity to talk about the who framed kalim al asim au, so answering this ask really was a special little treat for me that I was holding off on answering as a little reward for myself for finishing my work lol

so for the other NRC characters that show up, here’s a brief rundown!

Deuce Spade (and possibly an Epel mention or cameo)

I ran a poll that recently ended, about who the Eddie Valiant/PI character could be, and of the results, Deuce was in the clear lead. The follow-up was an OC who was a Scarabia student at the time KaliJami were students at NRC and thus a witness to Jamil’s second year Winter Break Overblot. This way, we get an outsider pov, but from someone who was still on the fringes of their dynamic back in school.

I like the idea of Deuce as the PI character but I did feel that something was missing. It was bouncing ideas around with the always amazing @mari-oaky that really helped me plot some things out.

Deuce is still the PI character but he’s not the ONLY PI character. Basically I’m splitting the role into two. As mari-oaky pointed out, a stranger who has no prior relation at all to Jamil and Kalim could actually offer a pretty intriguing perspective. Particularly as a non mage who has bought into the same biases that everyone else has regarding Jamil. So for the PI character, we have Deuce + OC partner.

The purpose of this OC partner is also to function in a way similar to Eddie and his prejudices. You know how Eddie dislikes toons? and in twst we already have an example of characters exhibiting anti-mage prejudices, with rollo (i.e. "magic is dangerous, therefore the world would be better off without mages") and also fellow (i.e. "the more magically gifted have an unfair advantage in society compared to a lot of people")

Of course, I need to double check what Deuce wants to be and what it means. I remember he says he wants to be a "magical enforcement officer of the elite anti-mage division" but I don’t recall exactly what that is, but its interesting. I'm going to have Deuce, for that position, have to work a few different internships and postings, some hard entry exams he has to study for, maybe additional academy years, to get to that level, and maybe, one of his internships was with this OC non-mage PI.

What I need to work on and tune-up is a timeline, because I think at the time of this fic, Deuce is a newbie in the elite anti mage division, so he has completed that internship and all, he's graduated the academy/academy equivalent, and he's working the case with the PI for reasons of "this is a high profile case that involves a lot of mages and he is acquainted with the PI character so they might actually work together"

Because PI’s I believe, tend to act independently and based on who hired the, yet in this case, he's working in tandem with Deuce, a mage, to clear a very high profile mage of murder, even when he doesn't want anything to do with them in general. I really think it could work! And I'm so excited because if Deuce is here I get to toss in an Epel cameo.

Timeline wise, Deuce (and Epel, who is Deuce's bf, and possibly doing Spelldrive? I don't know) is 23/24, whereas Kalim and Jamil are 24/25. I haven't really worked out a concrete timeline yet.

2. Azul Ashengrotto (and perhaps Jade and Floyd cameos as well)

The lounge Jamil is singing at is owned by Azul. Jamil is working there, perhaps as result as a deal with Azul.

I was toying with the idea of, Azul having, not that many yet, but a few, lounges and restaurants. Like, he is very much a businessman, a proprietor, whatever its called, and he's successful yes, but he's getting there, he's not got that many places yet.

He has maybe three? And he's in the process of expanding. Because at this point, they're like, in their mid 20s. So he IS successful of course, like three very busy very popular locations in different countries and kingdoms. But he wants MORE. He will probably always want more lol

So he doesn't live in the Scalding Sands permanently, but he does come by sometimes--I'm partial to the the idea of having Azul visit the scalding sands a bit more frequently during the whole frame up incident.

I initially had the patty cake scene happen between Azul and Jamil. But Acme ends up dead after, remember? And I'm not killing off Azul! Technically I can still make it work if I incorporate changes, but I don't know how yet, so for now, it's not Azul.

But it would have worked really well! Because its like, its this dude who had a crush on Jamil at NRC, and is successful and rich too.

So everyone already thinking Jamil is a gold digger + Kalim’s funds being limited and his position as heir being rocky, they’re trying to push the "jamil is moving on to shinier more opportunistic things” agenda. And Azul is that thing according to rumors, and he has a history of crushing on Jamil, as well as the fact that they are both schemers and have a past. (The past is that they get a sick thrill from teaming up to screw over another person.)

So I already had this scene in mind, with a bunch of shady, suggestive pictures taken of Azul and Jamil. But really what was happening is that Jamil is being blackmailed. (like Jessica.) To make Kalim end things with Jamil. But there’s a secondary purpose, and that purpose is to blackmail Azul as well, but Jamil is a schemer and Azul is a schemer and they caught on, and as the pictures were being taken they were discussing their own plans.

Of course, I scrapped it as soon as I remembered that the whole thing is that Roger is framed for the murder of Acme, Jessica’s “affair partner.” Which would suggest that Kalim is accused of murdering Azul, “the guy his husband is cheating on him with.”

But the Azul-Jamil dynamic is so much fun to me, so I’m going to have it involved on a lesser scale. Prior to the frame-up, there’s already rumors floating about Jamil and Azul, stemming from what people’s perceptions of Jamil are, Azul’s old crush, and the fact that when Jamil was traveling solo he did keep in contact with and visit Azul sometimes.

Of course, Kalim knows the rumors are just that—rumors, and is unconcerned about them, and his only frustration is of the way they affect Jamil, and the constant speculation people have regarding his marriage—it’s invasive and slanderous and he’s real tired of it.

He’s just so done with the constant, “damn that Jamil Viper really is nothing but an ungrateful cheater... having a rich husband that does everything for him wasn't enough, he apparently had to go and sleep with his own boss too. Once a snake, always a snake I guess.”

But to put it simply anon, you can expect Azul to show up, and if he’s on scene then you can imagine Floyd and Jade are not far behind. However they could be managing one of Azul’s other restaurants at the time so maybe they won’t be present! I’m not sure and cannot guarantee whether or not they’ll be there—but you know who I can guarantee?

3. Riddle Rosehearts

I can guarantee Riddle's presence, because while Jamil is dealing with a noir murder mystery frame up centered on his husband, Azul and Riddle are off on their own little rom com subplot. AzuRid and KaliJami are basically existing in different genres lmaooooo because yeah, all this is happening while Azul is swooning over divorce lawyer Riddle. (like mother like son lol)

So we're flashing from complex dark noir murder mysteries ft JamiKali to bright sappy comical AzuRid.

Like, picture those 2000s rom com cheesy movie ads, you know with those voice overs? and like, the trailers--where its like:

"a savvy businessman with a heart for contracts and an independent divorce lawyer whose very job is ending them--will they find love!"

Cut to riddle talking to Azul about how he, as a divorce lawyer, is disillusioned by love and marriage etc etc and Azul is internally making it his mission to change his mind

They're so corny and its so funny to me, they deserve nice things.

Like you have a scene like this--

Riddle, sipping his tea: "I've witnessed the inevitable downfall of every love story. I'm far too cynical to let my heart be swayed." Azul, desperate for a chance with Riddle: "Oh, come on! Not every romance ends in heartbreak. Just look at Jamil and Kalim—they're happily married and head over heels for each other!" Their phones simultaneously blowing up with notifications: "Al-Asim heir makes headlines: Husband’s affair partner found dead."

Now Azul has to make sure Jamil and Kalim's marriage doesn't fall apart just to prove a point to Riddle and hopefully get that first date.

4. What Some Other Characters Are Doing

I don't know if these will show up in any way, or be mentioned at all anon, but since you expressed interest, here's what the others are doing.

Ace is off-world, traveling with Yuu. They're supposed to come back in a two months.

The Diasomnia fam are in Briar Valley. Silver and Sebek are Malleus' Knights, and Lillia and Baul finally got their shit together.

Cater is a character I flip-flop around with a lot in terms of what he's doing post-NRC, but for now, he's a reporter or investigative journalist, and he's newly engaged to Vil, who having just wrapped up a live action drama series adaptation of a manga (think, Princess Jellyfish) and is now directing a new movie starring Ortho. (It's Ortho's first big role!)

Leona and Idia are dancing around each other still, after having broken up once already.

Ruggie plays Spelldrive professionally, but is currently helping Jade, who has been divorced from Trey for one year now, and Azul set up a new location in the Sunset Savannah. He's mostly interacting with Jade though as Azul is kind of occupied at the moment. Jade and Ruggie are tentatively setting up a first date.

Trey is a dentist, his siblings run the bakery, and he's caught in a love triangle between childhood best friend Che'nya and old school friend Rook Hunt. Rook and Trey are Vil and Cater's Best Man respectively, and Che'nya is hanging around as well for some reason, I don't actually know. Rook and Che'nya kinda dig each other's vibes. There's a solution here.

[lunarle-old]

Do you have an idea of what you're going to write next ?

Yes... And No.

The current plan is to write my dragon fic. I looove dragons, and I've always loved fics that make my favs dragons. Hoarding Humans is a good example of that ;P I really wanna do it myself! I feel a little weird directly using the concept of HH (just the idea of a dragon's hoard being humans! i've been obsessed with it ever since!!)... I know there's a whole Inspired tab thing on ao3 but remember I was brought up in the animation meme community trenches. I've seen some very vile things said to ""copycats"" (and it's usually just somebody who took inspiration off of someone elses art style or a certain part of another persons meme @_@ don't get me STARTED on the ragebait...) and I am not in the proper emotional state to handle that right now QwQ

However that doesn't mean I can't write about dragons. I have some ideas in mind-- I've properly conceptualized my go-to fantasy world for AUs like this. I know who the main cast would generally be (DICE! Kokichi rounds up some of his classmates from in game :P so people like Gonta, K1B0, Miu, Kaede, Rantaro. . . maybe Kirumi? I have lore trust me. I'm cooking.) I know the main premise of the story, and it goes into my own bullshit with dragons, because lord knows I ever follow any actual myths or tales (´ﾟωﾟ｀) (i read wings of fire that's good enough for me!!!)

I am still trying to learn how to draw dragons in a way I like though. Here's my concept for Maki and Shuichi ^^"

Overall the chances of this fic happening after HGH, as of right now, are fairly high. This is what I plan to write once I'm done with HGH.

But please, please please keep in mind that I . . . am absolutely horrible with making promises about my fics. I'm so forgetful I forget to even check my notes to see what I've forgotten. T_T my fics would be a tiny bit better than they are now if I actually kept track of wtf im doing. maybe i should make a checklist.

Point is, I don't know if this is what I'll write once HGH is done. I've done some estimating and while, for once, I do not have a concrete ending in mind, I can guess how long this'll be. I think... it might be around as long as M5? Somewhere around that 130k mark. Again!! I'm not sure!! I need to figure out what I'm gonna be doing for the non-Tsumugi half of the "recovery" arc, so who knows what the word count for this is gonna be T_T. MY POINT!! MY POINT IS THAT!!! It could change. By the time I'm done with HGH, I might write this dragon fic. I might write a differeny fic. Or I'll lose motivation to write anything for a bit. Lord I am yapping so I'll move on

Que transition, with all that being said, I do have Other ideas in mind!! Ones I've been sitting on for a while!

ONE. Saimatsu mansion :D I've mentioned it here and there, but the idea is that Shuichi and Kaede are plopped on an island and have to escape. It's one of those more out there ideas G_G and I haven't really descended into my full levels of insanity yet (wait until i start posting my crossover aus /j), but this would be bordering on it. I have some more minor ideas for this one, but I haven't rlly explored it yet :'3

TWO. remember unexpendable? yeah so i. i really really like crossover aus. almost as much as i like giving them superpowers. I was thinking of an Undertale x DR fic where I drop Shuichi into the underground. Undertale is super special to me,, it got me out of a really dark place. My favorite OC of mine (Montserrat<3) is an Undertale OC! So I think it'd be a lot of fun, especially since Danganronpa is basically the reason I'm like?? actually living now XD I got a job because posting my DR fics helped me overcome enough of my social anxiety to get employed. So!! It'd be nice. i also think shuichi and papyrus would get along do NOT @ me also undyne would scare the shit out of him. Anyways I dunno if this would be another oneshot, considering the, uh. length of the game. and how insane i could rlly go if i went into the neutral /genocide route stuff too. I dunno. It'd be fun :P i also have doodles wait

THREE. I don't know what could and couldn't be used for a plot twist so I'll keep it vague, but basically it's a fic that involves the ENTIRE CAST. A bit of a challenge for myself. Everyone's back! And all of the blackeneds revert to, like... HGH levels of despairs. So it's up to everyone whos still normal to find a way to make them also normal before, uh. things get worse. TV GIRL BLAST 💥 (oh yeah this would be a kaede-centric fic! her pov for the majority. i had a lot of fun writing her during Unexpendable and i miss her </3)

FOUR. i got really into in stars and time so now i'm even more not normal about time loops. so let's put shuichi in another one! but i wanted to shake it up a bit and really let my less canon-reliant, more creative side flow a bit. It'd also be kind of a message to myself about life... WHATEVER Thats not important. What is important is, hey! I've been watching WAY too many Minecraft ARG analysises than what could possibly be considered healthy for my anxiety, so now I want to sic a bunch of them on Shuichi. this things unfinished because i only have very vague ideas for a few of the loops... but the overarching idea is that even the smallest (but impactful!) change in a choice can lead to an entirely different loop, with an entirely different entity. and during all of the loops, shuichi gets little bits and pieces to the bigger picture, which will break him out of the loops. idk this seems like a big and tiring project so this is more of a "maybe" than the others but i still think it's cool :')

FIVE. ok this one isn't danganronpa... remember when I said I was super into In Stars and Time? I wanted to write an ISAT fic. Siffrin and Bonnie are so so special to me and i wanted to indulge in that. I haven't rlly been writing in my oneshots though so I don't really have a grip on writing anyone from ISAT,, so. :( i have to spiral into full insanity privately before i can determine what is safe to show the internet /hj

And that is all I can think of off the top of my head. :P These ideas have been brewing for quite a bit, and ones that have actual ideas to them. I dunno which one I'll write first... or even if I'll write them. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Who knows? Maybe I'll break my rules about writing two fics at a time. Just give me time ... and please be patient. I can only write so fast ＼(_ _)

[curiousnightly]

knight's shade - pt. one

a mandalorian x reader fanfiction

summary: you're sent on an assignment to retrieve an item for one of coruscant's note worthy crime lords. when making your return with the retrieved item, things take a turn when your boss finally meets the hunter looking to collect his bounty. 1.5k words

tags: slow burn; strangers to lovers; eventual smut (shameless i know)

warnings: swearing, violence, hints to abuse

reader characteristics: no use of 'y/n'; use of nickname for reader; she/her afab!reader

a/n: i've been writing this and other pieces for a while now but this is my first officially posted fic (thought it would be a good one to get started with). bare with me on spelling and formatting these post for a bit but for now I hope you enjoy this and part two that will be posted shortly after :)

masterlist

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The back alleys of Coruscant’s Underworld are both tranquil and thrilling. 

The shadows that dance around with the changing lights from people and vehicles frequently passing by give an eerie, yet soothing feeling when traveling through them. The shadows act as a blanket of protection while simultaneously becoming my blindside when moving through the unopened pathways laid down by the heavy foundation that makes this bustling planet.

I slowly begin to approach my initial destination when I round the corner (or something like that) of a large round building that overlooks a smaller rectangular building that faces out towards a road. The rectangular walls that face the lively pedestrians have boarded up windows that scale almost the entire building from concrete to roof except for on the rear side of the building that's not so visible from onlookers. I begin scaling that end of the wall to reach the building's rooftop to get a better view of what lays inside. 

I recall Crix mentioning several access points being located on the rooftop after one of his men surveyed the building a week ago. Crix Typho was always good about sending out surveyors prior to requesting completion of an assignment. If anyone wanted a job well done, it’d definitely be one of Coruscant's most wanted underground crime bosses. Not a surprise he sent me to complete this specific assignment, though an assignment is a nice way of putting it. 

Ever since I got caught up in one of the many affairs that occurs between Crix and anyone who dares cross him, I’ve been his wild card for retrieving specific artifacts, as one would put it. Since he learned I have a talent for retrieving things unnoticed, I’ve been put to good use for his own gain. Though I’m always surprised that he wasn’t baffled when he learned of that talent in the first place. It’s not usually common for someone to (almost) escape twenty plus of his guarded men unnoticed in practically broad daylight. Though I will admit, taking up a job to retrieve a stolen item, unaware of who the original thief was, or how threatening he was, was not one of my prouder moments. Although this talent has been with me for as long as I can remember, it surprises even myself when I finish jobs for Crix completely under the radar. I’m not sure how to explain it but sometimes it’s almost as if I’m able to manipulate things to go in my favor, most of the time that is. Sometimes Crix sends out shitty surveyors, leaving me in the dark about potential security or even threats to my life. When situations like that happen, Crix has a habit of setting an example of those who make mistakes. That reminder in itself sets me back into focus as I peer through one of the roof vents. I try my best to push the immediate anxious thoughts that arise when thinking of what Crix would do to me if I mess this job up, especially considering the many times he’s made use of brute force to set me in my place that rests far below his.

I scan the inside of the building, not seeing any sign of life moving within it. I double check the surroundings of the building before carefully prying open the loosened metal grate. I slip in quietly and land inside a small room of what used to look like a medic room. Crix mentioned how this used to be owned by a small medicine practitioner who provided aid to those in need prior to the Galactic Civil War. Apparently the owner had been smuggling Bacta from Old Republic reinforcements and was forced underground when the Empire took power. Because of the dealings, Crix believes that the old building holds something valuable within its basement. Clearly it’s top secret since he refuses to disclose any information about it.

I exit the small room and survey the hallway before locating the nearest set of stairs and begin descending a few floors towards the basement. Although I make sure to check my surroundings every millisecond, I seem to nearly trip over myself every other step as the place is scattered with miscellaneous items and tools. It appears the place was abandoned in a frenzy, with the chaos perfectly displayed and frozen in time for the past twenty years or so. At the bottom of the stairwell I reach a dark and dampened hallway with little to no light for visions-sake. I remove my glow rod strapped to my waist under my hooded cape to offer the space a golden yellow hue to increase my ability to see. I trail further down the hallway to what looks like two large wooden cellar doors. Luckily for me, the previous attendees left the doors unlocked, making one thing easier on my list of troublesome tasks. I enter what's seemingly a large storage room considering the amount of empty space it currently occupies. I begin to worry as the room is not home to a single object compared to the other spaces within this building. Almost completely lost for a second and starting to think Crix is playing a prank on me, I look over to my left and notice a wall completely decorated in empty bookshelves. I walk up to the wall and notice a rather glaring seem between two of the bookshelves. I practically laugh to myself.

What an absolute cliche, I internally deadpan to myself as I begin pressing a firm palm across every inch of the bookshelf to the left of the seam until one spot gives, releasing the hidden door with a loud huff as air from the other side moves into the current space I’m in. I cough slightly at the sudden increase of dust in the air, unsuccessful at trying to fan the particles away from my face. I enter the hidden room to find both myself and the light of the glow rod reflecting back at me. The room appears to have some metallic coating, creating a mirror-like effect. I try adjusting the angle of the glow rod by hooking it back to the belt around my waist, keeping it on to still provide light without blinding myself. At the center of the room lies a single short pillar covered in a dirtied canvas cloth.

Bingo.

I make my way over to the pillar and quickly remove the cover, ignoring the loose dust and dirt that flies off with it. Under the cloth reveals a large metal briefcase that looks completely untouched. If I didn’t know how long this thing probably had been sitting here for, I would’ve assumed it was recently made with many of the cases sold on the streets of markets. I check to make sure nothing on the pillar will set off some stupid alarm system before lifting it. I learned very quickly that the case I’m about to carry all the way back to Crix is much heavier than anticipated since I almost fell with the weight of it. Of course curiosity immediately pricks the back of my mind as to what the hell is living within this case, but I immediately push that thought away with Crix’s direct orders to not open the case playing loudly in my head. I curse a bit and try to push any intrusive thoughts that could literally get me killed and start making my way out of the building with the retrieved item.

I luckily made it back unscathed, probably due to the fact that probably nobody knew of this item living in an abandoned building in the middle of rundown Coruscant back allies. I’m still plagued with thoughts of opening the case considering how tired my arms are from carrying it. I definitely have built strength since working (out of my control) for Crix, but my still slim stature can’t carry something nearly as heavy as this. I approach Crix’s pride and joy with an all too apparent exhausted expression. The underground casino sits several kilometers below large scaling buildings on the surface of the planet. The only entry point is through a back door of one of the large buildings, of course owned by Crix’s himself, with a facial recognition system and several guards to further identify incoming guest. Of course, I’m not a guest coming to waist my earnings to heavily rigged games for Crix’s financial gain. I reach the entry and follow up on all security checks before making my way down to the lower levels where the casino is. As soon as the elevator reaches my desired floor, I’m immediately blinded with bright lights and heavy reflections of said lights as the place is covered in mirrors and flashy chandeliers. I quickly start to make my way towards the back of the room, passing many intoxicated people laughing and chatting amongst themselves as they play games and bet ridiculous amounts of money. I reach the door to a large hallway that leads to several rooms on either side. I make the trek several paces before swiveling right to a door marked with the statement ‘open only if you have something I want.’

I open the door quickly, only to find myself immediately regretting the action when I’m met with an image that was certainly the last thing I’d expect.

Across the room, Crix’s is held at gunpoint by a silver clad Mandolorian.

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pt. two>>>

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Sand, compulsive caregiver

Something struck me when I was watching episode 5 of Only Friends, and as the show goes on, I can see more and more clearly how significant it was. Like a lot of folks I’ve been discussing the show with and whose posts about it I’ve been reading on here, I had already noticed that Sand was remarkably willing to take care of Ray even though he didn’t offer him much in return. From the first time they met, when he gave him a ride and a safe place to crash so he wouldn’t drive drunk even though he was incredibly belligerent to him, through episode 5 and beyond, Sand has always been ready to rescue Ray at a moment’s notice and asks very little in return. He’s down bad for Ray, certainly, but that doesn’t entirely account for it. And then Sand introduced Ray to his mother and everything clicked.

When Ray first meets Sand’s mom, she sits down with them and takes a big swig of her drink. “Don’t overdo it,” Sand tells her. “The doctor is going to scold you at your health checkup next week.” “You keep nagging at me, you know that?” she responds. “Who between us is the mother, exactly?” My psychology antennae went right up for that. Then Sand’s mom tells Ray, “This guy never stops working. Did you know he sends himself to school? On top of paying the debts I made, that is.” Yep. The ol’ antennae were going off big time by this point.

Later, Ray and Sand are at Sand’s place and Ray remarks, “Your mother is so cool. She seems so understanding.” Sand agrees. “She is. She raised me all by herself. We’re like friends, so I can talk to her about anything.”

That was all the confirmation I needed to feel assured in saying that Sand is a parentified child.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, parentification is a phenomenon in which a child is placed in a parental role or given parental responsibilities that are not age-appropriate. When parentification occurs on a large scale, it’s a form of neglect. Experts divide parentification into two types, which can appear separately or together: emotional parentification and instrumental parentification. Emotional parentification involves meeting the emotional needs of parents (who are often not emotionally available to the child in return), being responsible for the emotional needs of siblings in a parent-like manner, or having inappropriate responsibilities like defusing conflicts and keeping the peace. Instrumental parentification involves being required to help meet more concrete needs. Kids who experience instrumental parentification may have to take care of basic family needs like grocery shopping and cooking or may be given more responsibility for caring for their siblings than is appropriate for their stage of development.

A number of things we know about Sand and his mom show that Sand was parentified. The fact that he has been paying off his mother’s loans while putting himself through school is an example of parentification still occurring in the present. Sometimes a parent isn’t in the position to pay for their child’s education. But having him pay off her debts? At his age? That’s a case of role reversal, and a form of instrumental parentification. It’s unlikely that this is something that only came up when Sand was a young adult. I’d bet he’s been doing important tasks for his mother since he was quite young.

The fact that Sand says his mother is like a friend sounds good on paper. And in some ways it is a good thing. He says he can “talk to her about anything,” which implies he confides in her as well as the other way around. It’s not uncommon for emotionally parentified children to be expected to act as confidantes for their parents while not being able to turn to their parents for the same kind of support in return. (This is a form of parentification I experienced myself.) So Sand is making out better than some parentified kids in that the support goes both ways. But the way he talks about his mother like an equal is still not a great sign, since it suggests that roles in this family-of-two are more permeable than they should be. Parent-child relationships aren’t supposed to be symmetrical, at least not until the child is a full-fledged adult. The child is supposed to be able to expect more emotional support from their parent than they provide in return, and they shouldn’t be asked to provide certain kinds of support at all. And again, this seems like a pattern that was set in place at a time when this expectation was even less age-appropriate than it is at the time of the story.

In addition to the categories of emotional and instrumental parentification, there’s another typology that is based on the kinds of roles that a child may be asked to fill: parent-focused, sibling-focused, and spouse-focused parentification. The parent-focused type involves acting like a surrogate parent for their parent. Sibling-focused refers to acting in a parental role for your siblings. And spouse-focused parentification, sometimes called spousification, involves acting like a spouse for your parent. In my search for information on parentification, I found some cases in which spousification had a seductive, sexualized component in which the child is treated like a spouse in the most inappropriate of ways. But in other cases, it only referred to expecting a child to perform spouse-like functions like emotional support, without involving that seductive aspect.

Sand didn’t have siblings, thankfully. If he had, he probably would have been relied upon to provide a lot of care for them. He may have experienced parent-focused parentification. The way he treats his mother as if he’s her parent, as she herself points out, is an indication of parent-focused parentification. Given the fact that his relationship with his mother seems to be pretty reciprocal, I think there was an aspect that we could call spousification as well, but not in the seductive sense of that term. Rather, his mother seems to have regarded him–indeed, to still regard him in many ways–as a sort of familial life partner.

So what does this mean for Sand as a young adult starting to form relationships? Mostly, it points toward exactly the type of dynamics we’ve already seen come up between him and Ray. John Bowlby, one of the most influential early theorists on attachment, wrote that parentified children often grow up to be “compulsive caregivers.” Sound like anyone we know? Sand starts taking care of Ray almost as soon as he sets eyes on him, then keeps showing up for him again and again. Even after Ray humiliates him at the bar and calls him a whore in the parking lot in episode 6, he still follows him to monitor his safety and, when he gets in a car accident just as Sand feared he would, rescues him and takes him to the hospital. He even takes him home from the hospital and helps him bathe. Compulsive caregiving sounds about right.

There’s a new meta-analysis by Dariotis and colleagues that came out this summer that integrates findings on parentification across 95 studies. It has some interesting things to say about its aftereffects. The strongest finding across studies is that parentification is linked with depressive symptoms and internalizing problems (i.e., problems associated with turning difficult feelings inward). The studies they analyzed also pointed toward a number of factors that could be involved in how and why parentification leads to these outcomes. They include attachment style (parentification is often associated with a lack of secure attachment) and rejection sensitivity. In relationships, they write, “issues of trust and fear” often come up. They note that in one study, adolescents who had been parentified avoided emotional intimacy and had a hard time accepting support from others.

How well does this map onto Sand? Pretty darned well. We don’t know if Sand has depressive tendencies. When it comes to internalizing, most people have a tendency to either internalize more or externalize more, and given the way Sand cultivates a cool, seemingly unaffected demeanor in public and how much punishment he takes from Ray without fighting back, I think Sand tends to internalize more.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Sand had an insecure attachment style. He shows signs of anxious attachment in his pursuit of Ray, but also seems avoidant in some ways, as when he acts like he isn’t getting hung up on Ray when he clearly is. And although, in a similar way, he denies it most of the time, he’s very sensitive to rejection from Ray. Even though Ray usually fails to notice (because he doesn’t attend to Sand’s feelings well in the slightest), viewers get lots of signals that Sand is suffering when Ray pushes him away or minimizes their relationship.

Finally, it would track if Sand avoided emotional intimacy and had a hard time accepting support from others. If so, it would make perfect sense that he’d feel so drawn to Ray, someone who will make achieving emotional intimacy difficult (because he’s unlikely to return his feelings and be demonstrative about it) and who is unlikely to offer support that Sand would have a difficult time receiving. (In this regard, Sand is a classic pursuer–he acts like he wants intimacy but chooses a prospective partner who distances himself, allowing him to continue seeking intimacy without having to face the fears that would come up if he actually received the degree of closeness he claims to want.)

There is some good news for parentified children in Dariotis et al.’s meta-analysis. Positive effects of parentification haven’t been studied much, but when researchers looked for them, they found that it could be linked with greater resilience and positive coping skills. Sand does seem to be good at coping with adversity in some ways. He’s definitely someone you would want to have around in a crisis. He was remarkably level-headed after Ray’s accident. When goaded by Boston, he didn’t respond in an ill-advised combative way, and when Ray impulsively went after Boston, he tried to hold him back.

Sand clearly faced a lot of difficulties to get to the point he has reached at the time of the story. The fact that he has had to put himself through college and pay off his mother’s debts is far from ideal, but the fact that he was able to do this is truly remarkable. One factor linked to positive outcomes for parentified children is praise and validation from parents for their efforts. Sand’s mother seems to recognize all that he has done for her. She praises him when talking to Ray and since this doesn’t seem remarkable to Sand, I’m guessing she does so regularly. This bodes well for Sand’s ability to bounce back from parentification in adulthood.

If Sand can just get past, or at least mitigate, his compulsive caregiving and learn to assert himself–and frankly, kick the habit of falling for guys like Ray–he could look forward to a pretty healthy future. Much more so, certainly, than most of the central Only Friends characters. It depends on whether he’s ready to learn from the events of the show. Time will tell if he manages to do this in the course of the series; if not, we’ll have to hope he does so later on.

A note about cultural context:

Parentification is a Western concept originated by Americans and Europeans and as Dariotis and colleagues point out, more research is needed to understand whether and how it applies to people in other cultural contexts. In the meantime, the construct has been used in studies around the world to (seemingly) good effect.

Cultural factors will definitely impact how this construct takes shape. For example, in cultures that are more collectivist and/or that place a lot of value on filial piety, responsibilities that would constitute parentification in the U.S. or Europe could be commonplace and, as a result, more benign. One risk factor for negative outcomes that Dariotis et al. mention is if the child has a strong sense of having been treated unfairly. This factor is necessarily culture-bound because children’s sense of the fairness of their roles and responsibilities will undoubtedly come largely from comparing themselves to their peers. If a certain role is commonplace in their culture, this sense of unfairness is unlikely to come up and there’ll be a lower risk of negative outcomes.

For the record, I do believe that parentification does cross cultural lines as a phenomenon, despite the different forms it’s bound to take. And I believe that if a definition of parentification was created that was tailored for a Thai cultural context, it would apply to Sand’s situation with his mother.

[sleepingdeath-light]

human au + sentient puppet reader hcs ; wally darling

requested by ; suninwalls (14/05/23)

fandom(s) ; welcome home

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; wally darling

outline ; “Hello! Unfortunately, I was also tapped in a underground concrete box by those puppets. I can't leave! Can I ask for Human!Wally and puppet!reader (a little switcheroo). How would he deal with a sentient or hunted puppet that he or someone else brought to his house. Have a great day!✴️🌟”

note ; i need to refresh myself on the lore after this, but since this is a complete role shift au it shouldn’t be too badly ooc

warning(s) ; human & puppeteer au, mostly fluff!

though your friendship had started off on a… rough note to say the least, once wally has gotten used to the whole ‘sentient living puppet’ thing, the two of you became as thick as thieves

(after all, puppeteer or not, most people would panic if the puppet they just bought from an auction suddenly sat up and started talking to them of their own accord — arguably, if anything, wally handled the whole thing quite well by pushing through his fear to introduce himself to you and ask you about yourself)

whenever any of your stitching becomes loose or one of your button eyes falls out, wally is always there with a needle and thread to do some last minute repairs — he’s not at poppy’s level of mastery over textiles, but he knows just enough of the basics to keep you healthy

he’s brought you on the ‘welcome home’ set a couple of times when you’ve complained about being bored when he’s left you home alone, and you’ve been incorporated into a couple of episode sketches here and there — typically to teach a lesson about empathy, self acceptance, or something else along those lines to their young audience

(it’s always a good laugh, even if it is a bit strange for you to watch your fellow puppets get human limbs, or whole humans in some cases, shoved inside of them in order to bring them to life — like you know they aren’t alive like you, but it’s still a deeply disturbing thing to witness)

(wally has also had to pretend to be your puppeteer to hide your sentience before, which earned him plenty of praise for his vocal range and a very stern talking to from you about warning you before grabbing you by the hemming — you forgave him, obviously, since he’s your dearest friend and the absolute most, but you’ve never let him live it down)

when he’s not working on set, he’s up in his workshop painting something or another (a trait he shares with his most well known character, which you never fail to joke about) — most of the time he just paints whatever comes to mind, other times he’ll start painting you because your puppet proportions are so unusual to him that he can’t help but try and capture whatever thing you’re doing at that moment

his close friends and fellow puppeteers are the only other people who know the extent of your sentience, and they’ve all readily accepted you into their friend group — for better or for worse

for example, julie and poppy are forever planning and crafting up new outfits for you to wear (including a recreation of the wally puppet’s outfit which everyone seemed to find rather amusing) and making sure all of your materials are well taken care of, whilst barnaby is someone who is quick to rope you in to whatever prank he’s about to pull on your dearest human companion — you never really know what you’re going to experience from one day to the next, but you wouldn’t have it any other way

[viceroywrites]

deja vu - part seven (ford)

planning out your road trip through the pacific northwest, you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the town of gravity falls.

little did you know that this town held more memories than you could have possibly imagined.

too bad you didn't remember any of them.

stan x fem!reader / ford x fem!reader

choose your own adventure / contains fluff and angst (w/ happy ending)

part six | part eight

interested in the stan route? click here for masterlist.

tag list: @awitchersbard | @theilluminatidragonqueen | @jazzypop-op | @jonndoe | @chaimshelii | @starship606 | @swimmingrascalbatdragon n | @stanfordsbaby | @gxstiess | @skrunkle11 | @valinbean | @funkyenby | @therealgoofygoober69 | @theblueraven | @adrian920155 | @im-kinda-bored | @miarabanana | @leo4242564 | @soupieoopieisloopie | @marvelous-maniac | @opossumclown | @m4x-3dw | @nothingbutcloud | @reivelmin | @grimometry | @walmartjim | @reiofsuns2001 | @bunni-teeth81 | @satorisgirl | @pen900 | @creat0r-cat | @lackingoriginalthoughts | @fries11 | @sunniskyies | @policedeer | @sadslasher13 | @kittenlover614 | @margibees | @lunnybunny12 | @the-hufflebird-girl | @sawendel l | @shamrockfish | @atseoks l | @luckybatbones | @ryuyukawa | @mekkori | @bigbodycity | @kawaii1369 | @333brat333 | @styxxcrossing

The ambient sounds of the Mystery Shack on a weekend were quite serene.

The sound of Abuelita’s telenovelas playing in the background, the creaking of the worn wood floors each time the younger set of Pines twins walked across their room, the top popping off a can of Pitt Cola before Stan takes a loud sip. 

Thankfully, the layers of dirt and concrete muffled the sounds of bickering that echoed through the basement that would quickly unravel the calm atmosphere upstairs. The  raised voices barely audible through the vending machine that sits in the gift shop.

You were on your fourth day of watching back your memories with Ford. To say it was a rollercoaster each day was an understatement. It was a 50/50 toss up on how the day would end. Half the days you and Ford would end up not talking to each other until the next day. The other half, you felt yourself getting closer to him, gracious for his presence and adding more clarity to the scenes that played before you. 

Today was an example of the former, your arms crossed over your chest after asking Ford to pause the tape after a particularly nasty fight the two of you had just played.

“Y/N, your interpretation of what I said was completely off-base.” Ford snaps, getting a bit defensive despite his promise that he would not try to defend his actions this time around. He couldn’t help himself, his mind defaulting to the logic that made the most sense to him. 

Old habits tend to die hard, it seems, when it comes to your dynamic with Ford.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know there were multiple ways to interpret you telling me that I was clueless. Please enlighten me.” You say with a sardonic tone, your expression sour. These past few days, it has started to dawn on you that Ford’s knowledge was somewhat limited in the emotional department. 

Ford pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out an exasperated sigh.

“Listen, if you just give me a chance to explain myself, what I meant to say was that you were clueless in the sense that you didn’t understand what I was up against at the time. I wasn’t commenting on your intelligence.” Ford attempts to assuage the impact of his words.

“Stanford, how is that any better?” You throw your hands up in frustration, “I knew you felt like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders, but that doesn’t excuse you taking it out on others, the very people trying to help you!”

“I didn’t ask for you to help me! It was your choice to give up your dream job back then! I didn’t need you!” A flurry of biting words leave Ford’s mouth before he can think about the consequences and if he truly even meant what he was saying. 

‘Fine, I don’t need your help!’

‘I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!’

Those phrases echoed over and over in your head the past few days, sending you right back to the foggy memory of what you had surmised to be your last interaction with Ford. 

“Then what’s the point of me being here, Ford? If you didn’t need me then, you clearly don’t need me now.” You ask, about to turn your heel to head upstairs.

Your own ego would not allow you to just stand there taking Ford’s harsh words, and you had learned over the last few days that sometimes you had to choose your battles with the stubborn intellectual.  

Ford freezes at your response, the weight of your words hitting him like a bucket of cold water washing over him. 

The words you uttered were eerily similar to the exact words you had uttered when you left him thirty years ago.

‘Then what’s the point of me being here, Ford? Let me just get out of your way then.’ 

His hand reaches out, just like it did all those years ago, grasping your wrist firmly. You turn to look back at Ford, about to snatch your hand away, but the familiarity of this scene stops you.

You’ve been here before, haven’t you?

Old habits do die hard.

“I-I’m sorry.” Ford says, “I didn’t mean what I said..”

“Then why say it?” You ask, hurt evident in your tone. “Why ask me to come with you all those years ago to Oregon if you didn’t need me?”

“Because… I did need you. It’s just my pride got in the way, I wanted to do it on my own. The concept of asking for help was hard enough and I didn’t want to feel useless to you… in the past, I had to be pushed to a breaking point to ask. Even then… I had a hard time accepting help, believing that I had all the answers.” Ford rambled out in the best words he could find at the moment to explain himself.

You needed a moment to digest his explanation, still needing time to work through the pain his words had caused in the first place.

“Mind if we call it for today? I know we only got through four hours of memories but I just need some time to think it over, Ford.” You ask, hastily pulling your hand away from Ford’s grasp.

Despite being in such a rush to get your memories back a few days prior, you were at your limit already for today. 

Ford’s hand falls limp at his side, admitting defeat. Despite his stubbornness, he knew it was not optimal timing to be insisting you push onward especially when he was on thin ice in regards to how you felt about him at the moment, “Very well, let me know if you change your mind.”

After making your way up the staircase, you push against the vending machine door, closing it behind you. The gift shop is empty, Melody and Soos closing down the Shack for the day to visit her family up in Portland. It was surreal that just a few days ago, this was just a silly tourist trap on the side of the road.

You know you were getting dangerously close to the end of your final fight based on the loose timeline Ford had explained to you and the amount of dreams you had checked off in your journal. You had to admit that you were terrified about how you would feel about Ford at the end of this all, especially after forming bonds with the people who were dearest to him. 

On your way back to your room, you run into Dipper who is on his way out to keep Pacifica company during her shift at Greasy’s. “Oh, are you and Grunkle Ford already done for the day, Y/N?” He asks in surprise. You pause, not knowing what to say. Dipper’s expression morphs into one of concern, “Is everything alright between you and Grunkle Ford, Y/N?”

You let out a sigh before looking down at Dipper, running a thumb over the crease in his brow, “We’re having a bit of a disagreement so to speak, but we’ll work our way through it. Don’t worry too much about it, Dipper, go enjoy your day.” 

Dipper nods in understanding, waiting for you to slip back into your room before texting his sister.

‘Grunkle Ford’s having trouble in the romance department. Think Y/N’s mad at him.’

The sound of hurried footsteps stomping down the stairs follows soon after Dipper hit send, Mabel clearly in the middle of changing before receiving the text as her upper half is a sweater and the bottom half is still in pajama pants.

“You know you could have waited until after you finished changing to come down.” Dipper chuckled but he was quickly silenced by Mabel grasping his cheeks and squeezing them together. “Matters of the heart will always take priority! What happened?

“I dunno, I just ran into Y/N and she said that they were having a bit of a disagreement.” Dipper explained, using air quotations to emphasize his point, “But I’m guessing Grunkle Ford and her got into a fight over a past memory, kinda like how Grunkle Stan wouldn’t talk to Great Uncle Ford for like a day whenever he would remember something from their past fights.”

“Oh jeez, Great Uncle Ford… he’s so smart but he really sucks in the emotional department.” Mabel sighs, shaking her head. “I’ll see if I can bug him into spilling the details. Mind getting…”

“‘I was wrong’ flowers? Way ahead of you.” Dipper mutters, writing down a reminder for himself before adjusting the lumberjack hat that sits atop his head, “How do I look, by the way?”

Mabel’s eyes assess her brother up and down before snagging the hat off his head, fingers extending out to comb through the messy hair. “Lose the hat.” She pauses for a second before a wide grin spreads across her features, “Wait, aren’t you seeing Pacifica today?”

Dipper’s eyes widen, a red hue forming at his cheeks before he quickly snatches his hat back, running out the door before Mabel can start her relentless teasing. Mabel makes a beeline to the vending machine in the gift shop, pressing the buttons on it to gain access to the basement below. 

Meanwhile, Ford is pacing back and forth, stroking his chin in contemplation. “What could I have said differently? Was it how I phrased it? Perhaps my tone?” Once you had left up the stairs, Ford had spent every second since trying to understand and break down the errors in his current approach to repairing your relationship. His success rate with this method has been only 60% so he needed to understand the flaws within it.

The issue was probability worked best with experiments, not human emotions.

“Great Uncle Ford?” Mabel’s voice shakes Ford out of his ruminations, causing him to pause. Ford answers, “Yes, dear. Is there something wrong? Do you need to use my grappling hook again?” Mabel shakes her head, hopping up on the counter and taking a seat.

“Great Uncle Ford, I’m here to offer some advice. It sounds like you’re having a bit of trouble in the romance department.” Mabel says, glancing over at the machine that played back the memories. Ford blinks in surprise, “What makes you say that? Did Y/N tell you about our quarrel earlier?”

“Well, she told Dipper you guys were having a disagreement when Dipper asked why she wasn’t in the basement.” Mabel admitted, “What did you say?”

“I’m not sure if I should be discussing these matters with you, Mabel.” Ford said with hesitancy, not wanting to unload his relationship history to his fourteen year old grand-niece. Mabel put her hands on her hips and looked at her great uncle with skepticism, “Come on, Great Uncle Ford, think about who realistically you can get relationship advice from.”

Ford ponders his options.

Dipper was a pre-pubescent teen who skipped showering most days and could barely form a sentence when he first met him. 

Fiddleford was divorced and spent most of his time nowadays tinkering with computers and strumming on his banjo.

Stan’s track record includes six ex-wives and called marriage ‘the biggest scam to exist.’

Even if Soos was here and despite him being in a healthy relationship, he would most likely make an analogy to some video game that would go right over Ford’s head.

“Alright, I may have tried to excuse why I called her clueless in a fight we had thirty years ago.” Ford admitted with a sigh of defeat. Mabel stares at Ford for a long time before yelling, “What could possibly excuse that, Great Uncle Ford?!”

Ford winces at the harsh tone, rubbing the back of his neck, “Well, not excuse, per say. I was merely trying to explain to her that when I said she was clueless, I was not implying she was unintelligent. She is far from that. What I meant was that she did not understand the pressure I was going through at the time.” Mabel slaps her forehead, this was going to be way harder than she anticipated.

“Great Uncle Ford, while I’m glad you don’t think she’s an idiot, you pretty much tried to mansplain Y/N’s memories to her.” Mabel says to which Ford blinks owlishly, “What is mansplaining? Is that a new technique for explaining one’s perspective?”

“No, no! Mansplaining is when a man tries to explain something to a woman that she already understands.” Mabel tries to hurriedly explain. Ford nods his head in understanding, “I see, so by doing this mansplaining technique, it resulted in me invalidating her feelings, correct?”

“Exactly… lemme ask you something, Grunkle Ford, when you two would get into fights in the past what would you do to apologize?” Mabel asks. Ford thinks over the question before his shoulders drop, “In all honesty, that’s probably why she left me in the end… I would rarely apologize, sweeping our problems under the rug and forgetting about it the next day so I could focus on my research.”

“Well, that was towards the end, right? How about when you two were in college? Ya know those silly fights couples get into when there’s a miscommunication or someone did something that annoyed the other?” Mabel says, hoping that thinking back to the days before Bill had entered the picture would give her some ideas. 

Ford glanced over at the box of items that you had taken from Fiddleford when you had first arrived, reaching in to grab the polaroid of the two of you. His thumb runs over the worn-out photo, trying to recall how things were before he had gotten too consumed by his quest for knowledge. 

Ford’s knuckles rapped on the door of your dorm, his head hanging down in regret.

Being in a relationship was new found territory for Ford, and unfortunately, studying about the biological responses to attraction did not give him any more knowledge on how to navigate them.

What Ford thought was the two of you exchanging in a dialogue about a common interest was actually him taking over the conversation in excitement and you sitting there in silence before excusing yourself with the excuse of needing to work on an assignment Ford knew wasn’t due for another two weeks. 

Soon after, he went back to his dorm room and consulted with Fiddleford who immediately called out his friend for his error and insisted Ford go over to apologize and offer a peace offering of sorts.

“Like what?”

“I dunno, flowers or somethin’.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what type of flora she likes, F.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be flowers. Just somethin’ she likes, S.”

You hear a knock at the door, lounging on your bed on your stomach as you flip through a reading you have for class. Your eyebrow raises since you aren’t expecting company but figure it might be your roommate accidentally forgetting her key.

“Coming!” You call out, tossing the book on the table and opening the door, “Jeez, this is the third time this semester you’ve forgotten your key, we might have to just staple it on you.” You chuckle, unlocking the door and freezing as you are greeted to the sight of Ford blinking back at you.

You stare back for a moment, your hand starting to slowly shut the door, “Look Ford, I just-”

A muffin is suddenly thrust into your face.

The same muffin from the dining hall you get as a treat after a difficult exam.

You stare at the muffin, then back up at Ford.

“I apologize for taking over our conversation earlier. I may have gotten passionate about the topic and got swept up in the excitement but I would love to hear more about your thoughts.” The apology flows out of Ford’s lips before you can even react, “I offer your favorite muffin as a token of my apology.”

You can’t help but find his apology and earnest effort to trek over to the dining hall endearing, a laugh of disbelief escaping your lips. You slowly open the door, taking the muffin from Ford’s hand before pressing a kiss against Ford’s cheek.

“Alright, I accept your apology muffin. Now come sit on the bed and let me lecture you about what we were discussing prior.”

A warm smile spreads across Ford’s features, taking a step through the door, “Lecture away, my dear.”

“Hello, Earth to Grunkle Ford!” Mabel calls out, waving her hand over Ford’s gaze that breaks his wistful daze. He looks over at Mabel with a sudden grin, “I have an idea! Do you have any idea on how to make muffins?”

-

At this point, you had stared at the ceiling in contemplation enough times to memorize the patterns of the wood above you. You wanted to give Ford the benefit of the doubt, trust that he had changed for the better after all these years. However, your body goes into fight or flight over the stinging words, remembering the harsh bite and coldness behind them.

A knock on the door interrupts your thoughts, sitting up quickly. You had an inkling that Ford was on the other side of the door, but figured you could not keep hiding in these four walls forever. You make your way to the door, opening it barely to allow your head to peek through, “Listen, Ford, I-”

You are suddenly cut off by a freshly baked muffin and a bouquet of irises thrust in your face, six fingers gripping both of them tightly.

Your gaze trails upward, seeing Ford staring back at you with an earnest expression across his features. The sight of the muffin brings back the memory of Ford’s method of apologizing before the two of you ended up in Gravity Falls.

“I know I apologized earlier, but I felt this was a more sincere way of expressing it.” Ford said, watching you take the muffin from his hand. He rubs the back of his neck anxiously as he awaits your response, “I don’t expect these gifts to take away the pain my actions caused earlier, but I recognize that what you’re probably wanting from me isn’t an explanation for the past, but an apology.”

You glance down at the muffin, letting out a chuckle of disbelief as you shake your head, “Do you think you’ll be able to do that moving forward, Stanford? Because I want to believe you… I really do but we’ve been down this road before, haven’t we?” 

Ford feels a bit foolish to think that this gesture would fully assuage your concerns, lowering the irises. At this point, he was desperate to at least not have the door slammed in his face and so he ended up suggesting, “How about this? For today, let’s forget about the memories. Let’s go anomaly hunting, take your mind off things and have a little fun.”

You pause at the suggestion, the gears turning in your head. 

The small gap of the door opens to reveal yourself fully rather than peaking your head out, and in turn, you open a bit of yourself to Ford.

“I think that’s a great idea…” You say, “I would rather us make some new memories together as well instead of just spending all our time looking at the past.”

Ford smiles at your approval, “I have just the idea of where to take you.”

You chuckle at Ford’s excitement, taking a bite of the muffin and staring at it in surprise, “Did you buy these from a bakery?”

Ford looks almost offended at your comment, crossing his arms defensively, “I’ll have you know I spent the last hour and a half going through trial and error to make those.”

You let out a chuckle, reaching forward to take the bouquet of irises as well. Your fingertips curl around Ford’s briefly as you do so, “Well they’re delicious. Now stop pouting and let’s get going.” You brush past him gently to call out, “Mabel, is there a vase where I can put these?”

Ford’s cheeks burned red at your playful call-out and the brush of your body against his, his brain buzzing.

–

For being such a logical person, Ford threw caution into the wind when it came to anomaly hunting; it seemed as you stared down the depths of the cave that Ford had barely convinced you to follow him into.

Now he was asking you to jump down there with him at the promise of seeing something ‘truly extraordinary.’

“Stanford Pines, if I end up impaled on a stalagmite, I will haunt you for the rest of eternity.” You say in defiance, crossing your arms.

Ford lets out a deep chuckle, shaking his head as he extends his hand outward, “I assure you, there are no stalagmites below. I’ve been in this cave before, there are stalactites though.” He gestures to the formations of rock that jut out from the cave ceiling.

You let out a sigh, “What’s down there better blow my socks off,” before taking Ford’s hand. “I can assure you it will. If not, I owe you a view of Aurora Borealis out here.” Ford says. He clears his throat, pulling you closer to his frame, “You may have to hold onto me, I don’t want to risk you slipping from my fingertips.”

You decide to tease him a little bit, “Jeez, Ford, if I didn’t know any better, I would think you were finding an excuse to get closer to me.” Ford stammers, “That’s not my intention at all! I just happen to have very overactive sweat glands and-” You silence him by wrapping your arms around his frame, looking up at him expectantly. “R-Right, off we go.”

Ford grabs the grappling hook from his trenchcoat, pointing towards the tip of the stalactite. Once it’s securely hooked onto the ridges of the rock, Ford wraps his arm around your waist tightly, looking back at you for the green light, “On 3, we jump together, okay?” You nod in understanding, your heart rate picking up in anticipation.

And not because of Ford’s firm grip on your waist, all six digits sinking into your side.

“One,” Ford starts the countdown.

“Two,” You say with hesitancy, watching both of your feet get closer to the edge.

“Three!” Ford lets out a loud ‘hup!’ before jumping off with you, laughing boisterously as you scream at the sudden drop.

The two of you swing back and forth for a bit before landing on a rock that is wide enough to land on and low enough to the ground that you can step down easily. Ford waits for you to drop first, making sure you land safely before swinging one last time to unhook off the rock, landing on his feet next to you. 

After dusting himself off, he glances over at you with an excited grin, “That wasn’t terrible now, was it?” You shake your head in disbelief, your hand over your chest as you try to calm your racing heart, “I have to be honest, I would have never pegged you to be a risk taker like this. You used to be terrified of heights when we were dating, I couldn’t even convince you to get on a ferris wheel.”

Ford pauses at the mention of your past dating history, knowing you usually skirt around the topic before retracting the grappling hook, “Well, I guess being on the run in another dimension for twenty years made me throw more caution into the wind. Can’t afford to really be afraid of heights when jumping off a structure to evade the Interdimensional Police.” You blink, the realization finally settling in that despite some things remaining the same, Ford has likely changed as a person drastically. 

“It should be this way, watch your step.” Ford hops down, extending his hand to help you down. You take his hand, his fingers enveloping yours securely to give you something to balance your landing. You follow behind Ford closely, glancing around the dark cave that is only illuminated by his flashlight. Your hand grips tightly onto the back of his trenchcoat, worried that you may lose him in the darkness. Ford smiles at the sensation of you tugging on it, leading you further in. 

Suddenly, you see a glimmer of light through a narrow passage amidst all the darkness, and Ford glances back at you, “Keep holding onto my coat and close your eyes, it’ll be worth it.” You can’t help but feel flustered at Ford noticing how you were holding onto him. Your eyes quickly shut, gripping the fabric tighter and putting your trust in Ford.

“You can open your eyes now,” Ford says, stepping aside to let you take in the view for yourself, shining the flashlight to illuminate the room. You are greeted with hues of vibrant green reflecting back at you, large pillars of crystalized gems surround you and Ford. You take in the view in awe, walking up to a pillar and running your fingers over the hard ridges. You look back at Ford, “Is this-”

“Trust me, I was just as surprised as you to find it down here.” Ford smiled, knocking against the surface of the brittle glass. “I tested it just to be safe and it’s in fact moldavite.” Ford got the reaction he was hoping for, seeing you all starry-eyed and giddy as you walk from pillar to pillar to examine the gem, “This is astounding, Ford. You do know that it’s been only found in Europe… I can’t believe that it’s here, let alone this amount of it.”

“A true geological finding, isn’t it? I’m truthfully astounded that a meteor penetrated this deep.” Ford chuckles. “Oh, I wish I had my excavating tools… I guess I’ll have to savor this moment, engrave it into my memory.” You sigh, looking around before blinking as you see a stone rolling out of nowhere, seemingly on its own. “Uh Ford…” You say, tugging on the sleeve of his trenchcoat. “Hm?” Ford glances over to see it rolling and watches in astonishment as two more stones follow behind it out from a nearby moldavite pillar.

“Any clue what’s happening here?” You mutter, inching backwards towards the narrow gap you entered through. Ford shakes his head, keeping his eyes locked on them as they roll closer, “Not in the slightest, I’ve never encountered a creature like that in all my years here.” You quickly tug Ford back with you, both of you squeezing into the passage as you watch from a safe distance.

The stones roll to the center of the room before a set of stubby limbs pop out from them, the dirt falling to reveal a pair of eyes on each one. They walk around, looking at the bases of the moldavite pillars for something. “My god, this is incredible. Those must be golems… I knew they had to be real..” Ford mutters mostly to himself, rustling through his coat to pull out his journal. 

“Ford, is now the time to be really logging them in your journal? Couldn’t they be dangerous?” You say cautiously. 

Ford grabs a pencil, glancing back and forth between the golems and his journal as he sketches out an outline of their frames, “Highly unlikely. I mean they’re quite small.. Also, within folklore, they’re neutral beings.” Tiptoeing to see over Ford’s shoulder, you watch their movements before glancing down to see Ford’s sketch, “Wow… I forgot how amazing you are at realism drawings.”

Ford’s cheeks flush at the compliment, shaking his head, “It could use some improvement here and there, I’m better at sketching anomalies than people truth be told.” The both of you look up to check where the golems are and blink when they are nowhere to be found. “Where did they go?” Ford said, closing his journal suddenly and his hand reaching towards his magnet gun. Your breath hitches as you peer down at Ford’s feet, seeing the small figure staring back at you and Ford. 

“Um… Ford..” You whisper, tapping his shoulder and pointing downward. His brown eyes flick downward before he backs up, his arm in front of you as if to shield you. The golem blinks in alarm at the sudden movement before reaching behind it to hold up a shard of moldavite towards the two of you. You both look at each in surprise before you point at yourself, “Are you giving it to us?”

The golem points directly at you, offering it up higher. You push past Ford, and kneel down to take it from the golem’s bumpy palm and tilt your head in curiosity, “Did you overhear what I said earlier?” The golem nods in response before the two others peek their heads out from the pillars that frame the passageway.

You grin as you glance back at Ford who looks simply in awe before turning back to the golems, “Would you mind if my friend here got a closer look at you all?”

-

It’s night time once you and Ford make your way out of the cave, using the flashlight to illuminate the path back to the Mystery Shack.

“Just when I think I’ve uncovered all the oddities that this town has to offer, it proves me wrong.” Ford says with a grin, feeling accomplished with today’s anomaly hunt. 

“I’m sure you saw way more during your travels over the past year.” You say, toying with the moldavite in your fingers.

Ford shakes his head, “We encountered some along the way, a Kraken here, a siren there. Nowhere in the world is an anomaly hotspot like Gravity Falls is.”

“I think I’m starting to understand why you were so enamored with this place other than the research opportunity…” You say, peering up at the sky that is now lit up with stars and Ford chuckles, “You sure you’re not just saying that because of the huge moldavite stash you now have access to?”

“The moldavite stash is just the cherry on top. I don’t know what it is, but this town has a charm to it. It’s so warm and inviting, full of mysteries just waiting to be discovered. It feels… like home.” You sigh wistfully. It takes you a moment to realize Ford had stopped in his tracks, gazing at you with yearning. “It was home… for the both of us. Once Fiddleford abandoned the research… and you left, it honestly stopped feeling like a home, and more like a prison. A time capsule of my mistakes.” 

You pause, a lump stuck in your throat. You weren’t certain what to say in response to that. Ultimately, it was Ford’s actions - his dismissal of his friend’s concern and callousness towards your pain - that led the two of you to where you stood today. However, seeing the changes that Ford had made today was a reminder that the man before you could grow and learn from his mistakes.

You walk over to Ford, taking his hand and placing the moldavite in his palm. He looks at you in surprise as you take his fingers, enclosing it around the gem, “Ford, you beating yourself up over the past isn’t going to solve anything. If you can’t even forgive yourself, how am I supposed to forgive you?” You sigh, staring up at him. “Let this be a symbol of moving forward, leaving past assumptions and old habits behind us as much as we can. When you finally forgive yourself, you can give me back the moldavite.”

Ford stares at you, lost for words at your bold proclamation. The guilt over the weight of his actions and their impact on the people he loved had been heavy on his shoulders, and just your words alone began to lift that burden from him. 

He squeezes the moldavite in his palm before shaking his head with a chuckle, “I truly don’t know how you do it.” You tilt your head in confusion and Ford continues to elaborate, “You’ve always had this knack for seeing right through me, understanding me more than I understood myself. At first, I thought you had to be a mind-reader of some sort.” 

You let out a laugh, shaking your head in disbelief, “Only you would think I am a mind-reader by understanding basic human emotions, Ford.” Ford smiles fondly at you as you laugh, the most beautiful symphony he has ever had grace his ears, “I quickly dispelled that theory after running a test where I just thought about string theory for a good minute.”

The two of you continue your walk back to the Mystery Shack, Ford slipping the moldavite into the inner pocket of his coat for safe keeping. It’s quiet in the Shack when you both enter, snickering quietly when you see Stan passed out on the chair in the living room with the light of the TV being the only source of light. 

Ford stops in front of your door, “Thank you again for forgiving me today.” He pauses before suggesting an idea he had thought of while pacing back and forth downstairs earlier today,  “I know you mentioned wanting to put the past habits behind us… I think me being in the room creates a scenario in which I feel the need to defend myself. How about you watch the rest of the tape on your own… and then once you’ve processed everything, come to me… tell me what I did, how it made you feel… and I’ll listen to it all and see how I can make it up to you?”

You’re surprised by Ford’s suggestion but smile as it’s a clear sign of Ford trying to compromise and be more flexible which he very rarely did in the past. “I think that’s a great idea… keep my moldavite safe for me, alright?” You say with a soft smile. “I promise I will. Well, I’ll let you get some rest then, good night.” Ford is about to turn his heel to take his leave but stops at the sudden sensation of you giving him a quick hug.

“Good night, Ford.” You say quickly, a flush in your cheeks at your impulsive decision as you quickly retreat behind the door. Ford finds himself silent the whole way back to the basement, his face beet red once he finally makes it downstairs. He reaches to grab the moldavite out of his inner pocket but his fingers brush against something else.

Something that made all the heat from his cheeks drain.

Ford’s six fingers reach to grab the capsule he had forgotten about all those days ago, caught up in his desire to get all your memories back that he had forgotten about.

‘Y/N Memories 2.’ 

The words felt like they were taunting him, egging him on to see what lies ahead for you to uncover. 

Curiosity got the better of him as he placed the capsule into the slot, watching the static fizzle before the memories played out before his eyes.

His fists clench at what he witnesses, uncertain of what emotion he’s even feeling. 

Before he can take a moment to process his emotions, his hand reaches for the phone on impulse, ringing up his friend for answers.

“Stanford, it’s almost my bed-”

“Fiddleford, I know it’s late but it’s an urgent matter. Can you swing by tonight?”

[schizosupport]

Hi I noticed sometimes I can start slipping into something like paranoia or delusions, do you have any resources for getting oneself out of it? I’ve tried looking for advice but mostly it’s the good ol “how to help your loved one” and im like oh lol

Hi there!

I vaguely remember once writing out my personal method of trying to challenge potentially delusional thinking in myself - I want to see if I can find that and reblog it for you.

Overall, for me, I find that when I start to slip, it can help to change gears. If I was gonna go to sleep, I get up, turn on the lights, go to another room, make a little tea. I'm lucky enough that I live with partners who know and understand that I sometimes need support, and so I often seek out company. I try to do it before I get to the point where I'll feel convinced that I shouldn't bother. But I know not everyone has the opportunity to seek out company, I didn't always either.

Try not to argue directly with it, even if it seems silly atm - often arguing about a delusion with yourself or others only makes the delusion MORE concrete .. bc now your brain has to come up with arguments for how this could be real.

I think of my psychosis like a scared little animal that's backed into a corner. And I try to allow it to be there while also keeping track of shared reality, so I don't do something dangerous there.

Personally I think it's ok to do little things that make you feel more safe even if they "lean into a delusion", like holding a magical item of protection. It's very individual whether that's good for a person, so watch out if you start to get obsessive about it. Acting directly on paranoia can often make it worse however, so if you are able not to, it can be better to force yourself to do the thing that scares you. For example my paranoia tells me to hide every part of me under the duvet, and then I'll feel safe. But it's a trap, because once I'm stuck down there I'll become further convinced that if I hadn't done that, I would've become possessed by a spirit. By keeping my head over the duvet the spirit remains a potentiality that has yet to happen. I know similarly if I get anxious about a food once I already started eating it, it's better for me to finish eating it, and that way my paranoia will pass quicker.

This is obviously all very personal, but those were just some thoughts ^^