#and the therapist also asked us to describe each other

[f1owermoon]

thinking abt the ways ive heard people describe me and going 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹💘💘💘💘💘🫶🫶🫶🫶

[gxlden-angels]

Hello! I apologize if this is a nosy question, but what is the silly feelings wheel app you were talking about in a previous post? My therapist and I have been working on identifying feelings but I still very much rely on a list of feeling words to have any idea what I’m feeling, so it could be a helpful resource. No worries if you don’t want to share, just thought I would ask :)

It's called How We Feel! I'm not sure if it's available on all devices yet, but it's on ios and the google play store for sure.

I've been using it for about a year. It's more of a chart than a wheel but people usually recognize the wheel better so that's what I call it. When you first start it has a 10-part tutorial about emotional acceptance and regulation, then it has suggestions for each category of emotion. You can access both at any time tho after those first 10 days.

It has a share option so you can have friends, which has been great for me cause it prompts me to check on friends and them to do the same for me. It allows you to just respond with a little emoji in like a "I'm here for you" little notification to your friend, or you can reach out to your friend on your own. Its really helped me cause I'm bad at reaching out when I need support so to me and I'm bad about taking on other's problems even when I can't handle it so being able to send a little emoji instead to make sure my friends know I'm there if they need me and them doing the same has been great

[yaseraphine]

pick a card 11 - the dynamic between you and your future lover

masterlist / ko-fi

my last reading : who is your future lover ? a full portrait.

/!\ My shop will open the 13th of April !! Beware though because the day and time of release could change at any moment. I will try as much as I can to update you guys. /!\

Pile 1

I am sensing a quiet but careful and watchful vibe between you two. Like two introverts who quietly like each other, and do acts of service to each other secretly. You guys will have a more bashful approach to the way you share your love to one another. But, this bashfulness will not mean you guys don’t deeply love and care for each other. I am hearing the sentence “A listener needs a listener too”. Maybe you guys were always the one that listened to other people’s problems, you were the “therapist” friend, always here to guide and have an open ear to your friends, and even strangers. I think a lot of times, strangers spilled their entire life story to you, and even their deepest traumas, unrequested. Despite being shocked by what you heard, you still remained composed and tried to reassure them.

This future lover will be really similar to you : a calm, sage, and empathetic soul. 

Queen of Pentacles, The Hermit and The Lovers

Two major arcanas for you guys’ dynamic as well as a queen ! Damn ! I wouldn’t be surprised if your future lover is some kind of soulmate, or if they were just sent as positive karma after you learned major lessons. You will finally find a peaceful and reasonable person to talk to when you're struggling. The exchange will finally be equal, and you will not give more than you receive. You will not be the emotional shield, the person that people come to when they have an issue. Finally, someone will want to hear what you have to say back. They will finish their turn to speak and ask you : “and you ?”. This might surprise you at first. “Someone finally is interested in what I have to say?...”

Genuinely, the dynamic between you and your future lover reminds me of the dynamic between Lexi and Fezco in Euphoria. They first get to know each other at a party, and Lexi didn’t think much of him at first (was even a bit judgemental at first). But then, as the conversation progresses, Fezco shows genuine interest towards her, which surprises her. They end up having a really interesting conversation about religion and beliefs. 

Anyways, all that to say is that your future lover will provide a balance that you terribly lacked in all of your exchanges and relationships so far (friendships included). This will heal you, but, initially, you might be a bit wary because you are simply not used to being treated that way. You will really quickly, however, accept the dynamic and get used to it. You will accept that you desire this kind of quiet, and peaceful love. Not a one that screams at you, or that gets you worried late at night because you got left on delivered for two days now. This love will grow slowly. You will probably not even expect it to go the route it will go. But this love will flow naturally. 

One other thing to add is that before I even started to shuffle for your tarot cards, a pin I saved a while ago on Pinterest came to mind. I think it is an image extracted from some kind of  K-drama/ korean movie. That is actually where the quote “ A listener needs a listener too” came to mind. I am sharing the picture because I think it encapsulates you guys’ dynamic quite well. 

Also another quote to describe you guys’ dynamic is : We can be alone..together.

You guys might do a lot of late night walks, deep talks, stargazing, admiring nature, writing poetry, debating (calmly) about the meaning of life, sharing your existential thoughts to one another. Really artsy but practical lovers. You guys might have earth venuses, especially Virgo or/ Capricorn venus. 

Love that for you pile 1 ! Again, as usual, lots of love to you. You deserve this and never lose hope, this love will find you <3

Pile 2

This is my power couple, judgy, “you can’t sit with us” pile. You and your future lover might be two fashionistas getting together. You guys will go thrift shopping, go to pop up stores of new upcoming independent clothing brands and all that jazz. You will plan each other’s outfits, and do special days where you guys have matching outfits together. You guys will be the talk of the town, the “it” couple. You both seem mysterious, unapproachable and almost feared. If you have a social media presence (I am especially seeing instagram but it could be anything), you dating this person will be a boost in their popularity. It could also be the other way round : either you will be the already popular one in the couple, or they will be some kind of influencer (fashion and lifestyle most likely) so you’ll be put in the limelight while dating them. You might start your own account and start posting content too. Even if it isn’t exactly social media, this person’s presence in your life will bring a boost in popularity for you, and It will be beneficial for your goals/career.

4 of Pentacles, (BOD - Back Of the Deck / 9 of Wands), 8 of Pentacles, 7 of Pentacles 

Heavy earth energies for your guys’ dynamic. There is a strong sense you guys will match each other on goals and more practical terms. However, the earth energy comes up here more..superficial ?? I don’t want to throw you off, but the dynamic feels really based on mutual physical attraction and how you guys look next to each other and to society. It feels like this :  “I vibe with this person. They look hot and I do too so we make sense together, we look good next to each other. We add necessary and valuable things to each other” (here, reputation and social status). You might like them, but I don’t think it's a fairytale kind of romance. It is really capricorn/taurus-like. It’s all about how you guys appear in society, and what you can bring to each other’s lives. I am hearing : “What do you bring to the table ?”. This is this kind of dynamic.

I am saying all of this because the core dynamic of your couple is the 4 of Pentacles, which is a card that indicates possession, control, scarcity and, to me, also hoarding, greediness, and stinginess. You don’t want to share your assets with others so you keep them close to your chest in fear of people taking from it. It’s all about control of material possessions and what you have. Each of you are represented by the 8 of Pentacles (you) and the 7 of Pentacles (them). These cards are, again, pentacle cards (earth energy) and they follow each other in the suit. So, yeah, your relationship might be more based on physical and more superficial stuff, but you guys are actual soulmates or have a really major purpose in each other’s life. I am saying this because you guys are complementary (the two cards follow each other) and because, at some point, The Lovers card wanted to fall for your future lover, which to me can be a card that indicates a soulmate. 

This is not a typical lovey dovey soulmate, but it will still have a long term (mostly) positive impact in your life. 

(It was so hard finding good (or more so the ones i wanted) lesbian couples pics man I swear to God I think pinterest is homophobic #justiceforlesbians #lesbiancouplesdeservetobeseeing)

This was all for you Pile 2, hope it resonated ! I am sending you lots of love and see you in the next reading !

Pile 3

This is my goofball x more serious partner pile. You guys will be opposites in a lot of ways, but at the same time really complementary. You might be the more serious one, while your future lover will be an absolute jockster. I am hearing “golden retriever energy”. This could describe your future lover’s energy well. It seems like a more “cliché” kind of dynamic because I am hearing a lot of archetypes in my head like “black cat gf/bf X golden retriever gf/bf”. It is like the Yin and Yang. An immovable object meets an unstoppable force kind of dynamic. An over the top optimist, meets a jaded pessimist,.. Honestly, the list could go on and on  and on but you get the drift lol 

For some of you, this person could be younger than you or they just have a more youthful energy. Strong Jupiter and mercurial energies - Sagittarius and Gemini. They might be an air and fire dominant, while you are a water and earth dominant. Both of you balance each other out in the areas/energies where you lack. 

The Chariot, 5 of Swords, Ace of Swords

You guys’ dynamic will be fast paced, energetic and full of banter. Your future lover will LOVE to pull pranks on you and surprise you everyday with new fun tricks they’ve just learned. While, in the dynamic, you will be “the voice of reason”, the one to stop your future lover (i keep on hearing “future spouse” instead of “future lover”. this person might be the person you will be marrying in the future !) from impulsively acting. You plan everything, while they are in charge of the socializing and moodmaking part. Now, I feel the dynamic could bring a lot of tension, especially if you are a woman and the person is a man. That’s the problem with the whole ‘opposites attract” type of dynamic because it could bring a lot of imbalance. It will require for the BOTH of you to communicate clearly your boundaries and what you expect from this relationship as often as it is needed. Be careful pile 3 to not take much of the emotional and “practical” labour. I am getting that you will love this person dearly, but you could get frustrated at times since they sometimes don’t take things you perceive as important seriously. Your pile is really contradictory to be honest because how is this the person you’re going to marry, when they don’t even seem mature enough for it ?? I need additional cards for clarifications because I find the pile a bit weird in that sense. 

Before pulling the additional cards, I will say this dynamic reminds me A LOT of the one between Naveen and Tiana from The Princess and the Frog (you, most likely being Tiana and them Naveen). The genders don’t matter so you can always reverse the roles/ flip the genders to match with you. It is just the core dynamic that I am getting. 

The Sun, 6 of Wands, 8 of Cups

Okay… now, the cards are getting weirder. What I am going to say is that this relationship might not last even if there is marriage. This might be a pretty major relationship that will make you learn a major lesson regarding setting serious boundaries and affirming your ego. You will learn to stand up for yourself and walk away when something is no longer serving you. This person, on the other hand, will experience a pretty major ego death after this relationship. They will be put in front of their own egoist and self centered tendencies, and be obliged to get off their high horse.

But, this marriage could totally last for a group of you ! It will just require you to distance yourself for some time from this person. You guys will probably have a pretty major couple “break” before getting back together after a long period of individual self reflection.

I am so sorry pile 3, this might not be the energy you were expecting while coming into this reading… It is okay, these lessons are part of life, and this relationship will still bring a lot of joy into your life no matter its karmic nature. And, remember, you can always reject it when it finds you. But, I am cautioning you, doing that will probably just delay the lesson and postpone it for another time. Again, if this reading triggered you by any means, don’t hesitate to pick another pile or just decide that it did not resonate with the future you see for yourself. 

Sending you love and light ! 

[nanamineedstherapy]

The Symphony of Spite

Ryomen Sukuna x GN!Therapist Reader x Nanami Kento

Gojo Satoru x ..... (he's after one of your manz)

Also Crybaby!Gojo getting backshots from his Yandere

Summary: No summary. Read at your own risk. Because I don't even know what a good summary for this would be. A/N: I wrote this for fan-service. The fan was me.

Warnings (May Contain Spoilers): Crack Fic, NSFW Content, Explicit Language, Manipulative Relationship (just one, & it’s not yours—so relax), Toxic Dynamics (again, not yours—seriously chill), Office Romance, Love Triangle, Yandere (not your husbands, so breathe easy!), Corporate Shenanigans (think “The Office” but with more messy), Jealousy (why would you think yours? Do you not want a healthy relationship?! Let someone else have fun for once, please!), Mild Dub-Con (but only if you squint really hard), Possessive Behavior, Power Dynamics (because we’re all about that corporate ladder climbing), Modern Corporate AU, Gojo is not all mighty here—just the office bimbo (yes, you read that right), you are a therapist married to Sukuna & Nanami (because... I honestly don't know), Satosugu genuinely hate each other (it’s not a enemies to lovers rom-com & has more punches), everyone wants to beat Gojo up (you'll see why), & yes, Haibara (the third wheel in your own marriage-one) is here for some reason winks. No use of y/n but you are referred to as wife once. Also, dycraphilia, fuckbuddies, & eventual smut—so if you’re underage or have a blog that’s ageless, please DNI. No, you can't skip it because they are talking during & it's essential to the plot. Enjoy the mess & remember: it’s all fun & games until someone gets a stapler thrown at them!

Nanami Kento and Ryomen Sukuna were two sides of the same corporate coin. Both had impeccable work ethics, immaculate wardrobes, and zero patience for corporate buffoonery. Their days were spent navigating a gauntlet of coworkers who couldn’t meet deadlines, bosses who made PowerPoint presentations last longer than historical eras, and HR seminars that reeked of faux positivity. And you? Their doting, mildly chaotic therapist wife, who absolutely did not have them as patients. That would be unethical, of course. But boy, did they unload their workplace woes at home as if you were billing them hourly.

It routinely started over dinner. Nanami was delicately slicing his steak while Sukuna gnawed on a chicken drumstick like he had a vendetta against poultry.

“Today,” Nanami began, his tone weary, “Kusakabe spent thirty minutes explaining why we don’t need to update our software, only to accidentally delete half the department’s spreadsheets because he clicked ‘yes’ on a pop-up without reading it.”

“Amateur,” Sukuna snorted, reaching for another drumstick. “I had to sit through three meetings about synergy today. Three! Do you know what synergy is? Nothing. It’s a fancy word for ‘waste Sukuna’s time.’”

You took a sip of your wine, your ears tuned in to the cacophony around you. It was as if a perfectly dysfunctional symphony of grievances had taken the stage, each voice blending into a chorus of disdain for corporate absurdities. Seriously, could someone just ask about your day? But of course, sharing anything meaningful was off the table, thanks to that pesky confidentiality clause.

---

A week later, you had a plan.

The idea struck during a particularly gruelling session with a patient who wouldn’t stop playing victim to her own bad decisions. You needed a release. No, they needed a release. Something cathartic but harmless. Something that could channel all their workplace frustrations into an outlet that wouldn’t get them arrested for arson.

You spent the weekend hunting for the perfect gift, eventually finding it in a quirky little music shop downtown. The shopkeeper had described it as “an instrument for anarchists.” Perfect.

That Monday evening, as Nanami and Sukuna returned home, you greeted them with an unsettlingly bright smile.

“What’s that face for?” Sukuna asked, suspicious.

“I have a gift for you both,” you announced, producing two brightly wrapped packages.

Nanami raised an eyebrow, his wariness palpable. True to form, Sukuna tore open his package without hesitation.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, holding up the obnoxious plastic horn.

“It’s called a vuvuzela,” you explained, barely containing your glee. “It’s an instrument. Well, sort of. It makes noise. Awful, horrible noise. Think of it as a stress reliever.” It was the infamous "instrument from hell,” notorious enough to be banned for its ear-splitting sound from hell.

Nanami opened his package with the resigned grace of a man who knew chaos was inevitable. His gift was a slightly different model, a kazoo. He held it up, inspecting it like it might bite him.

“You want us to... play these?” He asked, skeptical.

“No,” you said, grinning. “I want you to weaponize them.”

The next day, chaos reigned in their respective offices.

---

Nanami waited until Kusakabe began another ill-advised rant about company expenditures. He pulled the kazoo from his pocket, raised it to his lips, and unleashed a tuneless, nasally wail that drowned out Kusakabe’s voice.

The room fell silent. Kusakabe blinked. Nanami calmly put the kazoo back in his pocket and resumed taking notes as if nothing had happened.

Sukuna, predictably, took a more aggressive approach. During the fourth meeting of the day, as Fushiguro Toji, Chief Sales Officer (CSO) , droned on about “leveraging assets,” he stood, raised the vuvuzela like a battle horn, and blasted a deafening note that shook the windows.

“Consider that leveraged,” he growled before storming out.

When they returned home that evening, you were greeted by two men who looked far more relaxed than they had in months.

“You’re a menace,” Nanami said, setting his briefcase down.

“Best. Wife. Ever,” Sukuna declared, pulling you into a bear hug.

You smiled innocently. “So, how was your day?”

“Peaceful,” Nanami deadpanned. “Kusakabe hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“Same,” Sukuna added. “They’re terrified of me now. It’s glorious.”

You couldn’t have been prouder.

In the end, the vuvuzela and kazoo became permanent fixtures in their work lives, an ever-present reminder to their coworkers that some battles were better left unfought. And you? You had achieved the impossible: turning corporate hell into a symphony of spiteful joy.

---

Nanami had long accepted that Kaisen Publishing wasn’t a company—it was a living, breathing disaster. As the Chief Finance Officer (CFO)—a position he’d achieved through sheer competence, meticulous planning, and the soul-crushing acceptance that mediocrity often reigned supreme in corporate life—his role demanded precision and discipline, qualities he wielded with brutal efficiency. Yet, despite his best efforts, he often found himself surrounded by chaos personified by Ryomen Sukuna, the Chief Visionary Officer (CVO), a title as nonsensical as Sukuna’s presence in the corporate world.

Sukuna was a walking HR violation, somehow both loathed and revered. His title was a sham, a position created purely to keep him from actually burning the office down. He spent his days offering “visionary” ideas like turning the break room into a paintball arena or replacing desks with throne room-like chairs. How he landed the role remained a mystery, though most suspected it involved intimidation, bribery, or sheer dumb luck.

Their hierarchy wasn’t just about titles—it was about grudges. Higuruma Hiromi, the Chief Legal Officer (CLO), had made it his life’s mission to bury Sukuna under an avalanche of formal complaints. “Improper use of company funds,” “harassment of legal staff,” and “general misconduct” were regular entries on Hiromi’s weekly HR reports.

Shoko Ieiri, the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), was Hiromi’s closest ally. Where Hiromi wielded legal jargon like a sword, Shoko was the sniper, striking with pinpoint precision. She could cite obscure clauses from the employee handbook with terrifying speed, and her ability to weaponize HR policy was unmatched.

Sukuna, naturally, responded with equal malice. “You’re like cockroaches,” he told Hiromi and Shoko during one particularly tense meeting. “Impossible to kill and even more annoying to deal with.”

Hiromi adjusted his cuffs. “And you’re like a plague—persistent, destructive, and entirely preventable.”

Shoko simply smiled. “We’re just doing our jobs, Sukuna.”

“Your jobs are ruining my life,” Sukuna shot back.

“Correct,” Shoko said, her grin widening.

---

Nanami’s greatest regret was hiring Gojo Satoru. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—Gojo had potential, an impressive academic background, and a confidence that bordered on arrogance. Nanami thought he’d mold him into a competent executive assistant (EA). Instead, he got... this.

Gojo was, in many ways, the embodiment of corporate absurdity. His filing system was an enigma (folders labeled “stuff” and “more stuff”), and his scheduling skills were so bad they bordered on sabotage. Once, he accidentally double-booked Nanami for a budget meeting and a Zumba class. Nanami still hadn’t forgiven him for that because he'd never even taken a Zumba class to begin with.

“Satoru,” Nanami said one morning, staring at a calendar filled with overlapping meetings. “What is this?”

Gojo peeked over his shoulder, his blue eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Your schedule?”

“It looks like a Jackson Pollock painting,” Nanami deadpanned.

“I thought it’d be more efficient to, uh, multitask?” Gojo offered weakly.

Nanami pinched the bridge of his nose. “Satoru, if incompetence were an Olympic event, you’d not only take home the gold medal—you’d set a world record for sheer stupidity. Your talent for failure is truly unmatched.”

Later that day, Nanami would find Gojo crying quietly in the break room. But to his credit, Gojo showed up the next morning, ready to mess up all over again, still chasing the impossible dream of Nanami’s approval.

If Nanami’s life was an exercise in patience, Sukuna’s was an unrelenting storm of his own making. Geto Suguru, Sukuna’s EA, was the only reason Kaisen Publishing hadn’t imploded.

Geto Suguru was the miracle worker. If the company were a body, Sukuna was the ruptured artery, and Geto was the overworked surgeon keeping the patient alive with duct tape and sheer willpower.

Sukuna’s visionary ideas were like abstract art—vague, nonsensical, and utterly useless in their raw form. But Geto, with his near-superhuman patience, could transform them into actionable strategies. He charmed investors out of their skepticism after Sukuna’s profanity-laden tirades and even managed to prevent most board meetings from devolving into WWE matches.

But for all his professionalism, Geto had one vice: bullying Gojo Satoru.

When Gojo had first joined the team, Geto had felt immediately threatened, not just by his impressive academic pedigree but also by his striking looks. With that tousled hair and captivating features, Gojo was undeniably attractive. But his endless blunders quickly overshadowed any initial worry, making him seem more like a crybaby than a competent assistant. Geto had breathed a sigh of relief when Gojo’s probationary period ended, but the incompetence persisted, even after six months. It was as if Gojo had a talent for turning every simple task into a disaster, and Geto was all too happy to remind him of it at every opportunity. Geto knew Gojo was harmless—a pretty face with no bite—and he took full advantage of it.

“Hey,” Geto had said one day, leaning casually against Ijichi’s cubicle wall, sipping tea like it was a spectator sport. “Did you manage to file those reports yet, or are you too busy giving the CFO more wrinkles?” Yes, they were not friends by any stretch of the word. Not in this life.

Ijichi didn’t even look up from his screen, muttering, “Leave me out of this.”

Gojo, caught mid-fumble with a stack of papers, flushed from humiliation. “I—I filed them!” he stammered, clutching the documents like the last Horcrux.

“In the right Google form this time?” Geto’s smirk widened, his tone dripping with mock concern.

Gojo’s voice dropped to an inaudible mutter as he stared at his shoes.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Suguru,” Sukuna interrupted, striding past with the air of a man who owned the universe—or at least the vending machines in the break room. He cast a lazy, disdainful glance at Gojo. “The kid’s got a real talent for screwing up. It’s practically a superpower. Almost admirable, really.”

Geto snorted and followed Sukuna, leaving Gojo stewing in the ruins of his confidence.

His shoulders slumped under the weight of their mockery, but a flicker of defiance ignited within him. Maybe one day he’d prove them wrong.

Who was he kidding?

Gojo wasn’t just bad at his job—he was transcendently bad.

Every quarter, Geto tried to have him fired, but Nanami’s pesky kindness kept Gojo’s name off the termination list. One time after too many drinks at a company event, Nanami had described Gojo as “a lost puppy with a degree from Tokyo U,” and though the description fit, it didn’t make him any less insufferable.

All Gojo was now good for was being the office eye candy that no one took seriously.

What baffled everyone was Gojo’s persistence. After five years as Nanami’s executive assistant, he still couldn’t properly file an expense report. His "innovative" solutions caused more problems than they solved, like the time he scheduled a board meeting in the break room.

Sukuna had been there, loudly devouring a double cheeseburger while Toji, the CSO, and Kusakabe Atusya, the Director of Customer Experience (DCE) , lectured him on “professional decorum.” The lecture ended abruptly when Sukuna offered them half his burger.

Meanwhile, Hiromi Higuruma, the CLO, had stormed into Shoko Ieiri’s office to debate whether Sukuna’s habit of blowing a vuvuzela during lunch breaks qualified as workplace harassment. Shoko had suggested they would add it to the HR policy under “miscellaneous noise violations.”

And Nanami? He was in his office, typing a scathing email to the COO. He wasn’t defending Gojo because he believed in his potential anymore. That ship had sailed after Gojo accidentally attached a frog meme to a quarterly earnings report.

Now, Nanami’s argument was simple: “Firing him would violate our commitment to inclusivity. He’s… special needs.”

Despite the madness, Kaisen Publishing somehow continued to function. Hiromi and Shoko kept the legal and HR departments running like well-oiled machines, albeit fueled by spite. Geto ensured Sukuna’s chaotic energy didn’t destroy the company, while Gojo... well, Gojo tried his best.And Nanami? He soldiered on, kazoo in hand, ready to face another day in the madhouse.

---

The next day, Nanami arrived early, as always, to find Gojo already there. The younger man was standing in front of the coffee machine, staring at it like it had personally murdered his parents.

“Satoru,” Nanami said, exasperated, “what are you doing?”

“It’s… it’s broken,” Gojo sniffled, holding up a coffee pod. “I think I jammed it.”

Nanami sighed. “How do you jam a coffee machine?"

“I don’t know!” Gojo wailed, his silver hair catching the fluorescent light like some tragic anime protagonist.

Nanami sighed and pulled out the kazoo. He didn’t plan to use it, but just holding it gave him a sense of power. “Fix it, or you’re fetching coffee manually.”

Gojo’s lip quivered. “Y-Yes, sir.”

Despite his constant failures, Gojo clung to the job with a desperate determination that was almost admirable. At night, he cried over Nanami’s stern lectures, but every morning, he showed up, sky-blue eyes shining with a mix of hope and masochism.

His crush on Nanami didn’t help matters.

In Gojo’s mind, Nanami was the epitome of competence and discipline—everything he wasn’t. Every scolding felt like a dagger to his heart, but it also fueled his ridiculous fantasy that one day Nanami would notice him as more than just a walking disaster.

He did not know Nanami was married, let alone with Sukuna in the same boat.

Speaking of Sukuna, his morning was less composed.

“Mr. Sukuna, you can’t just ignore CLO’s emails,” Geto said as they walked into the office.

“I can, and I will,” Sukuna growled, swinging the vuvuzela over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

“You do realize he’s filing another complaint with HR?”

“Good,” Sukuna smirked. “Keeps them busy.”

As if summoned, Hiromi appeared, clutching a thick stack of papers. “Sukuna,” he said icily, “you can’t keep calling mandatory meetings and then not showing up.”

Sukuna raised the vuvuzela . “Mandatory this,” he said, blasting a note so loud it set off the fire alarm.

And you? You were at the club with your friends, chugging espresso martinis, unaware of the havoc your gifts were causing.

---

The next day, Nanami’s day started with a knock on his office door.

It was Gojo, holding a bouquet of flowers.

“What is this?” Nanami asked, already annoyed.

“I’m sorry for jamming the coffee machine,” Gojo said, eyes glistening. “And to schedule that meeting in the break room. And for... just everything.”

Nanami stared at him, torn between frustration and pity. “Gojo, you can’t fix incompetence with flowers.”

Gojo’s shoulders slumped. “I just… I just want you to not regret hiring me.”

Nanami sighed deeply. “Gojo, do your job, and maybe I will be.”

“Go easy on him, Kento-kun,” came a smooth voice from the corner of Nanami’s office.

Gojo was startled and whipped around his head. He hadn’t even noticed Haibara Yu, the Chief Editorial Officer (CEO), lounging there like a king holding court.

Nanami grumbled something under his breath, refusing to look up from his laptop.

Gojo blinked, his surprise melting into pure joy. “You’re back, sir?”

“Of course,” Haibara said, his lips curving into a slow, knowing smile. “How have you been, Satoru? Hope Kento hasn’t tortured you too much in my absence.”

Gojo beamed, practically glowing under Haibara’s attention. “Oh no, he’s a good boss,” he said, glancing nervously at Nanami.

“I’m hard on him because he’s incompetent,” Nanami muttered, still not sparing Gojo a glance.

Gojo’s smile faltered, the corners of his mouth trembling.

“Don’t say that, Kento. He’s trying his best, and he’s loyal to you,” Haibara said, his tone dripping with a faint undertone of righteousness.

Haibara was one of the few people in the office who was genuinely kind to Gojo. He never joined in the teasing, never snapped at him for his constant mistakes. Nanami was kind too, in his own brusque way, but Haibara? Haibara felt like safety for Gojo.

Nanami murmured something under his breath that Haibara didn’t pay attention to.

He turned fully to Gojo. “Give me those flowers if he won’t take them.”

Gojo walked over and handed him the flowers with a smile, trying his best to hide his broken heart.

“They are beautiful, Satoru.” Haibara eyed them with a smile. "Kento, please have Ino move them to my office. Also, I’m borrowing your assistant for coffee; I hope it’s ok.” He asked, already rising to his feet.

Nanami waved a hand dismissively, still typing. “Borrow him permanently if you can.”

Haibara smirked. “You know Ino would kill me.”

---

They were out the door before Gojo could process what was happening.

Haibara made small talk as they walked, his tone light. “How’ve you been holding up while I was gone?”

Gojo ranted a little as Haibara listened with a quiet intensity that made Gojo feel seen.

And then, without warning, Haibara shoved him into the private bathroom adjoining his luxury office and locked the door with a soft click.

“Sir?” Gojo started, his voice trembling, but he didn’t get to finish.

Haibara’s mouth descended on his with a ferocity that stole the air from his lungs.

Gojo hesitated for half a second, his brain scrambling to catch up. Then a soft mewl escaped his throat as Haibara’s hand cupped him through his pants. It was as if that sound broke the dam. Gojo’s hands flew up, tangling in Haibara’s hair, pulling him closer as they kissed with a desperation that bordered on violence.

It felt like drowning and breathing for the first time, all at once.

Haibara broke the kiss only to bite Gojo’s neck, his teeth sinking into the delicate skin. Gojo gasped, his breathing ragged as Haibara turned his jaw to the side, exposing more of his neck.

“I asked you a question, princess,” Haibara murmured, his voice low and commanding.

Gojo blinked, trying to form a coherent thought through the haze of sensation. "I... I messed up again,” he stammered. “They hate me. The reports had errors, and the budgets—Geto explained the formula to me many times, but I still... I’m sorry.”

Haibara hummed, his lips trailing down Gojo’s throat as he unbuttoned his shirt.

“I broke the printer,” Gojo confessed, his voice breaking. “Shoko, Ijichi, and Hiromi fined me. I don’t even make enough.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Haibara said, his voice a velvet promise as he undid Gojo’s belt. “I’ll take care of it.”

Gojo whimpered as Haibara’s hand wrapped around his dick, stroking with a deliberate, almost punishing rhythm.

“I’m sorry, I’m so stupid,” Gojo babbled. “Sukuna, Toji, and Atsuya threatened to report me to HR because—because—”

“Because what?” Haibara asked, his tone gentle.

“Because I accidentally flashed them my waist during off-day tennis,” Gojo admitted, his face burning with humiliation. “I thought polo shirts were fine, but they said HR mandates suits, even off-duty. Did I do something wrong?”

“They’re messing with you,” Haibara said, his voice reassuring now, though his hands gripped Gojo’s slender waist possessively, almost bruising him as he placed him on the sink counter. “You’re not stupid.”

Gojo barely registered the words, his mind a blur of shame and pleasure. “Takuma’s trying to take my position,” he gasped. "Please... please take him back. I—I can’t lose this job.”

Haibara’s eyes darkened, a flicker of something dangerous flashing across his face.

“Don’t worry about Ino,” Haibara said, his voice soft but carrying an unmistakable edge. “He was only reporting to Kento because I was on the business trip overseas.”

Gojo shivered, closing his eyes as Haibara’s fingers, slick with Gojo’s precum, traced circles around his rim.

For a moment, everything else faded—the humiliation, the fear, the endless cycle of mistakes. All that remained was Haibara, his touch, his voice, his overwhelming presence.

Sensing Gojo’s silence, Haibara reassured him again. “He’s not going to take anything from you. Keep talking.”

By now Gojo’s suit was rumpled, shirt open-untucked, and hair sticking up in all directions. By contrast, Haibara’s suit remained pristine, not a single strand of his neatly styled hair out of place.

Gojo grabbed Haibara by the collar, dragging him down into a kiss that was all teeth and tongue. He bit Haibara’s lower lip, desperate, breathless. “I can’t wait anymore. Please...”

Haibara chuckled, low and indulgent, his fingers trailing down Gojo’s chest. It seemed Gojo’s masochistic tendencies under Nanami’s berating also extended in the bedroom, where he’d take all of Haibara right now with barely any prep. “You’re so impatient, Cupcake. Are you sure? I don’t want you crying about it later.”

Gojo nodded furiously, his hands clutching at Haibara’s shirt like he was clinging to a lifeline. “Yes, Mr. Yu. Please, sir.”

Oh, how Haibara loved it.

And Haibara would give anything those big, watery doe eyes begged him for.

Freeing himself from his pants, Haibara gave himself a few slow pumps, his eyes never leaving Gojo’s flushed, needy face.

Gojo was trying his best not to drool because just looking at Haibara’s cock was making him dumb dicked.

Then, with excruciating deliberation, he pressed into him, inch by inch, watching as Gojo’s mouth fell open in a soundless cry.

“What else happened?” Haibara asked, his voice calm and almost conversational, as though they weren’t in this compromising position.

Gojo struggled to answer, but his thoughts scattered the moment Haibara moved, his hips pressing forward, slowly. Gojo’s hands flew to Haibara’s hair, tugging as if he were going to fall. His voice cracked when he finally spoke, “Nanami-san... still hates me—ahhh!” Then cut himself off when Haibara pushed into him to the hilt, making Gojo’s back arch and eyes water.

Haibara wiped away a stray tear from Gojo’s cheek and licked it off his thumb as he started a slow, punishing rhythm. “Poor thing. Can’t even handle a little dick without crying, huh?” He teased with a smirk. “Keep going, sweet Satoru.”

Gojo whined, his voice trembling. “I mixed up the Compliance and Risk Management files with the Financial Forecasting ones... and sent them to the client by mistake. It cost the company so much money. Nanami didn’t talk to me for a week. I—I hated myself so much.”

Haibara kissed down Gojo’s chest, nipping at the sensitive skin of his nipples. His lips curved into something resembling soft, soothing coos. “Don’t hate yourself. It’s okay. It was an innocent mistake.”

Gojo was struggling to focus on Haibara’s words while he rearranged his inside by bullying his G-spot.

“No,” Gojo whimpered, his head falling back against the mirror. “Geto warned me what not to mess up, and I still did. I knew better.”

Haibara was at a loss for words now; he really dug himself there, but his rhythm didn’t falter. “Still, Kento overreacted. He’s always been stuck up like that.”

Gojo’s cries grew louder, his fingers digging into Haibara’s shoulders. “I just want him to see me as competent. I want to make his life easier, but I only make it worse—for him, for Geto. He humiliates me every day, and I deserve it. I’m useless. I make him feel like he’s doing two people’s jobs.”

Haibara stilled for a moment, his hands tightening on Gojo’s hips. “Do you want me to fire him?”

Gojo’s eyes widened, panic flashing across his tear-streaked face. “No! No, Mr. Yu, please, sir. Sukuna won’t let it happen, and I don’t want you getting hurt. He’s... he’s violent.”

Oh, his office bimbo—his crybaby. He hadn’t realized Haibara could fire anyone, even Sukuna if necessary. But as he considered it, keeping Geto around might not be so bad if it meant having the little crying angel all to himself. “Fine. I won’t touch him. But don’t just listen to him. Stand up for yourself. Or tell me, and I’ll talk to HR.” His thrusts grew faster, rougher, each movement a reminder of his control.

Gojo clung to Haibara like his life depended on it, sweat-drenched hair plastered to his forehead. His wide, glassy eyes fixed on where Haibara disappeared and reappeared into him over and over again, his lips parted in broken gasps.

“Agreed?” Haibara asked, his brows furrowing as his voice dropped to a low, commanding tone. He yanked Gojo’s hair, compelling him to meet his gaze.

Gojo, still being impaled, couldn’t help but let out a soft moan. He hid his face in Haibara's shoulder, his voice breaking with a choked moan. “Yes, sir…. Thank you,” he sobbed, his voice trembling. “But I feel so bad for Nanami-san. He’ll never see my love for him. I’m just so useless to him.”

Haibara leaned in, his tongue tracing the tear-streaked paths on Gojo’s flushed cheeks. The way Gojo’s dick twitched against his stomach told him he was close, teetering on the edge. But Haibara wasn’t done. Not yet.

He pulled out abruptly, ignoring Gojo’s whimper of protest, and dragged him down from the sink counter.

Turning him to face the warm-lit, golden-bordered mirror, Haibara pushed into him again, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth motion. Gojo’s fingers tangled in Haibara’s hair, clutching desperately as Haibara licked, bit, and sucked on the delicate skin of his shoulders and back.

Haibara’s smirk darkened as he watched Gojo’s reflection—flushed, tear-streaked, and trembling under his touch.

His crybaby. His alone. The thought of Gojo’s unrelenting admiration for Nanami sent acid through his veins, but the jealousy only fueled him. He’d make sure Gojo stayed this vulnerable, this wrecked, for him and him alone.

Without warning, Haibara grabbed Gojo’s neck, holding him still as he reached for the small velvet box on the counter. He placed a custom Hermès necklace around Gojo’s neck, the gold gleaming against his sweat-slicked porcelain skin.

Gojo blinked, dazed, too overwhelmed to notice until Haibara whispered, “Look.”

"But... but what’s the need?” Gojo stammered, his voice cracking as his eyes flitted between the mirror and the necklace. “I already barely get to wear the Bulgari Serpenti Viper one you gave me...”

A smile tugged at his lips despite his protest.

Haibara chuckled, tightening his grip on Gojo’s neck just enough to make him gasp. He adjusted his angle, thrusting harder, deeper, drawing a strangled cry from Gojo. “It’s to remind you,” Haibara said, his voice a low growl, “that you’re not as much of a fuck-up as you think you are. I don’t spend a week hunting down the perfect necklace in Paris for just anyone.” He punctuated his words with sharp thrusts that made Gojo’s knees buckle.

“But Nanami-san…” Gojo’s voice was barely audible now, his legs trembling, threatening to give out. He was pent up after months of dry spell.

“Don’t worry about him when I’m making you feel this good.” Haibara pinched Gojo’s ass, grinning wolfishly as Gojo let out a high-pitched cry.

“Ahh, Mr. Yu!”

Haibara’s pace stayed unrelenting, his stamina endless and the dick to back it up with the way it bullied him in the right places.

“Now, I’ll ask again,” Haibara said, his voice dark and firm, “do you understand?” He gave a particularly hard thirst because he knew Gojo was close with the way his body was trembling.

“Y-yes, Mr. Yu,” Gojo sobbed, his voice cracking as he gripped Haibara’s arm and the counter for dear life. “Harder, please.”

Haibara’s lips curled into a satisfied smile as he watched Gojo unravel, each tear and whimper intensifying the dark, possessive hunger within him. His crybaby was so easy to break. He obliged, his movements rough and unforgiving.

The necklace brought him immense joy; unbeknownst to Gojo, it concealed the initials H.Y. and G.S., visible only under a microscope.

This was his. His crybaby. His angel. And no one—no, one—was going to take him away.

“Cum for me, Pumpkin,” he ordered, stroking Gojo’s cock, his tone leaving no room for disobedience.

Gojo’s lips trembled. “Are you calling me fat?” His voice wavered, and fresh tears welled in his eyes as he looked down at his chest and stomach.

Ah, this was also one of his annoying habits—to overthink everything.

“No, I just find you cute as a pumpkin with a pretty bow on top.” But Haibara was nothing if not his good yandere.

Gojo let out a choked laugh, his cheeks flushing deeper.

“Now cum for me, Sweetheart,” Haibara commanded, his voice dripping with authority.

Gojo’s legs would have given out if not for Haibara’s arms holding him, trembling violently as he fell apart, making a mess of himself. His cries echoed in the mirror, raw.

Haibara followed soon after, burying himself deep as his release tore through him. His grip on Gojo’s waist tightened, keeping him steady as both of them tried to catch their breath.

He pressed a soft kiss to Gojo’s shoulder. “Mine,” he thought to himself—against Gojo’s skin, the word more a promise than a statement.

Haibara gazed at the tear-streaked, thoroughly wrecked man in his arms, possessiveness tightening in his chest like a vice. No one—not even Kento—would take Gojo from him. Ever.

Gently, Haibara began fixing Gojo’s disheveled shirt and straightening his hair. If he left it up to Gojo, his clumsy ass would walk back into the office with something glaringly out of place, and the whole roaster would piece together what they’d been doing behind closed doors for over a year.

It had all started when he’d found Gojo crying alone in Nanami’s office after everyone had left, his resignation letter in his shaking hands.

That night, Haibara hadn’t just talked him out of it but also fucked him brainless until Gojo couldn’t move and forgot everything—Nanami, the resignation, his doubts—until all he could do was cling to Haibara, unable to think, or even breathe without him.

But what Haibara wouldn’t admit to anyone—not even Gojo—was that it wasn’t luck that led him there that night. He’d spent months trying to get close to him, memorizing every detail of Gojo’s life, from his coffee order to his laundry instructions. He’d followed him for months after hours, cataloguing every habit, every vulnerability, and beaten the shit out of those print factory workers harassing Gojo, catcalling him on his way into the building. Haibara made sure they never showed up to work again.

Now, they were office fuckbuddies, not that Haibara wanted it this way. Gojo still had that infuriating crush on Nanami, still sprinted off to fetch his lunch or his coffee like a lovesick puppy. But Haibara wasn’t worried. He was patient.

For now.

He caressed Gojo’s cheeks as the latter giggled, his fingers brushing over the gold custom Hermès necklace. His eyes sparkled, oblivious to the weight of Haibara’s stare.

“Wanna grab dinner tonight?” Haibara asked absentmindedly, smoothing the collar of Gojo’s shirt. He was ready for the usual rejection.

Then something shifted—just for a moment. Gojo looked at him differently, as though he was almost seeing him.

Haibara’s chest tightened, hope flickering dangerously.

But then Gojo’s phone buzzed, and he gasped. “Oh my god, I’m late to get Nanami-san’s lunch!” He spun, ready to bolt out the door.

Haibara’s hand shot out, catching Gojo’s wrist mid-step. His grip was firm but gentle, his thumb brushing over the delicate pulse point inside. Gojo froze, his breath hitching as Haibara leaned in, pressing a lingering kiss there.

Haibara’s dark eyes locked onto Gojo’s wide, cerulean ones.

Gojo’s cheeks flared red, the blush creeping up to his ears. He stammered something unintelligible before taking his hand back and sprinting out the door.

Haibara watched him go, his lips curling into a slow, satisfied smile.

---

Meanwhile, Sukuna was dealing with HR.

“This is the fifth complaint this week,” Shoko said, leaning back in her chair. “You can’t keep terrorizing the office with that thing.”

Sukuna smirked, spinning the vuvuzela in his hands. “Prove it’s me.”

“We have video evidence,” Hiromi snapped.

“So?” Sukuna shrugged. “I’m a visionary. Visionaries disrupt.”

“You’re disrupting my sanity,” Hiromi muttered.

By the end of the next week, the vuvuzela and kazoo had become infamous. Employees fled at the sight of Sukuna, while Nanami’s kazoo had become a symbol of silent ‘fuck you’ to corporate overlords. Even Gojo seemed to improve, if only slightly, terrified of losing Nanami’s approval.

---

Next week, it all came to a head when Sukuna proposed a company-wide retreat at a remote hot spring. “We need to boost morale,” he said, grinning like a man with ulterior motives.

“What you need,” Hiromi snapped, “is to stop submitting reimbursement requests for your vuvuzelas."

Shoko added, “I think we should approve the retreat. The HR department could use a break from writing up Sukuna’s infractions.”

Nanami sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Somewhere in the background, Gojo tripped over his own foot, spilling coffee all over the floor. Geto muttered something about bringing bleach to the retreat—“for the stains,” he clarified when Hiromi raised an eyebrow. Toji and Kusakabe almost got written up by Shoko for laughing.

As the meeting dissolved into a podium fight, Nanami reached for his kazoo. Sometimes, it was the only thing that kept him sane.

And you couldn’t be more proud. After all, corporate life was all about making your mark—and thanks to you, your husbands were leaving theirs in the loudest, most obnoxious way possible.

---

Later that day, the boardroom was uncharacteristically quiet, the air thick with confusion and the faint hum of the overhead lights. No one had any idea why they’d been summoned.  

“Why are we even here?” Shoko leaned toward Hiromi, her voice low and tinged with boredom.  

“To meet the elusive COO,” Toji replied with a shrug, stretching his legs under the table.  

Ino, perched nervously next to Haibara, was painstakingly organizing a pile of notes into immaculate fonts on his tab. Geto had his arms crossed as he watched Ino’s note-sorting with mild disdain.  

Kusakabe adjusted his coat and looked around. “Seriously, though, how come we’ve never met this COO? It’s weird.”  

“Germophobia,” Ino offered matter-of-factly. “Someone in HR said he avoids public spaces entirely.”  

The sound of a door creaking open cut the conversation short.  

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”  

The voice was unfamiliar yet strangely resonant, coming from the far end of the room.

Everyone turned to see a figure stepping out of the shadows—a tall man with striking white hair, his suit sharp enough to cut titanium.  

For a moment, no one spoke. The employees exchanged puzzled glances, and Shoko tilted her head in confusion.  

“Gojo?” Geto broke the silence, his voice laced with disbelief. “Did you screw up another meeting schedule? We’re supposed to be meeting the COO, not—”  

“No, Suguru.” 

Geto bristled at Gojo's use of his first name; one time he nearly received a ticket from HR for threatening violence over it, while Gojo sniffled near the ferns.

But this time, the voice was steady and calm, a whiplash from the bumbling tone they had come to expect from the clumsy assistant as the white-haired man stepped fully into the light, exuding an air of confidence and ownership.  

Nanami’s expression shifted from tired annoyance to something closer to alarm. “What… is this?”  

Gojo—or whoever he was—smiled faintly, but there was no warmth in it. “Allow me to formally introduce myself. I’m Gojo Satoru. Chief of Operations (COO) of Kaisen Publishingbarely. ”  

The room froze.  

“Excuse me?” Hiromi’s tone was accusatory.  

“I understand this might be a bit of a shock,” Gojo continued, his voice perfectly even. “But the truth is, I’ve been observing all of you from a different perspective. And now, it’s time for me to take a more active role.”  

Geto’s jaw tightened, his composure cracking. “You’ve been... what? Playing the fool? For five years?"  

“Precisely.” Gojo’s smirk widened slightly, his icy blue eyes scanning the room. “I needed to see who I could trust, who would rise to the occasion, and who would crack under pressure.”  

“Trust?” Sukuna growled, his tone low and dangerous. “You mean to tell me you’ve been watching us like lab rats?”  

“I prefer the term ‘case study,’” Gojo said, his voice as smooth as olive.  

Shoko let out a low whistle, breaking the tension enough to speak. “This is some next-level corporate psychodrama. You’ve been playing dumb for years just to—what? Test us?”  

Gojo’s gaze landed on Nanami, who looked like he’d just been handed a live grenade. “And you,” Gojo said, his voice softening just slightly. “Thank you for your patience, Kento. You believed in me when no one else did.”  

Nanami’s face hardened. “I believed in someone who didn’t exist.”  

The room fell silent again, the weight of the revelation sinking in. Gojo adjusted his cufflinks, the faintest trace of a grin playing at his lips.  

“Well,” he said, stepping back toward the door. “I hope this clears up any confusion. From now on, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me. Let’s make sure Kaisen Publishing continues to thrive.”

Before leaving, he stopped and turned, “Also, Haibara, a word?”

Whatever was going on in Haibara’s head, he didn’t show, just followed.

And with that, Gojo walked out, leaving the boardroom in stunned silence.

A/N: I swear, this started as a cute little fic about the reader giving Nanami a kazoo, & somehow it spiraled into corporate angst, smut, & crybaby gojo for some reason. Like he's the office bimbo who no one takes seriously, truly a man in women-dominated fields. haha.. I’ve only written smut four times, & yet TWO of those have Nanami topping & Gojo being a bottom in two, while Haibara & Sukuna top somewhere in there. I'm baffled! Like… how did we get here? I’m confused because canon Gojo radiates I’m-the-top-but-I-cry-after energy, yet here I am, dragging him into bottom hell AGAIN. (Honestly? No regrets; all of us would lick his tears too, SHAMELESSLY!) Haibara, though… HAIBARA. Listen, I gave myself whiplash writing him. He’s my own OC from my fic 'Third Wheeling your own Marriage," & yet I’m feral for him. You guys hyping him up like he’s canon-validates every single unhinged decision I made there. We never saw adult Haibara, but I was like, "What if he was hot, obsessive, & dom-coded?” And here we are. This man fights for Gojo, literally & metaphorically, while Nanami sighs in the background with his kazoo. Quick sidebar: Tumblr, confuses me. For an app full of people who swear they don’t self-ship, why is every other post a “x reader” fic? No hate (I’m guilty too), just an observation. Shoutout to my AO3 gang, though—we ride for our ships. Nanago nation, rise up. I said what I said: Nanago makes more sense for adult Gojo. Don’t agree? Go argue with a wall. I love Satosugu; I do, but Nanami is just… superior. (Maybe because I, too, am a corporate baddie barely holding it together. We’re twinning.) Anyway, sorry for the rant. Toji & Kusakabe backtracking on Sukuna mid-lecture because they wanted his burger was comedy gold, btw. Did you check the links? Bonus points if you did!

Oh, & about the ending… what do you think Gojo called Haibara for? Did they agree to date, or did Gojo threaten him with something? Let me know, because even I’m questioning their dynamic at this point. Okay, bye for real this time! 💕

Next Chapter 2 - The Symphony of Stress-Relief (Tumblr/Ao3)

All Works Masterlist

[erisweekofficial]

Tonight we're highlighting @chairofchaos!

🔥 Choas is a masterful Azris writer that has our hearts in her hands. If you're looking for something delightfully angsty or heartfelt (or both), look no further than her writing.

Although all of her work is amazing, we're currently crying over Letters of Love, which details Eris and Azriel falling in love and their relationship over time. Definitely get some tissues for this one. 😭😭And if you can't take our word for it take one of her fans:

The Letters of Love series has me spellbound in a way I can not describe. The love, the angst, the writing! I will forever cherish it. Chaos is truly a wonderful writer even if she is chaotic and I will devour this series until the end of time.

Be sure to check out their masterlist, including this Azris drabble!

Read on to learn some of Chaos's favorite Eris headcanons and which national/regional park Eris would get lost and die (or not die) in.

yes. we asked this.

Give us a name for one of Eris’ Brothers

James (so that he can use the “Um. James…” TikTok sound. A modern Eris would secretly have a TikTok. Super secret, but he would have one). Also, a relatively modern name simply because I’m tired of trying to get my word processor to recognize the validity of “Eris” and “Feyre” and even “Elain.” (No, do not add an “e”. I said, DO NOT ADD AN “E”!)

Give us a name for one of Eris’ hounds

Butter. Eris named him as a child because the hound liked to steal things off the kitchen counter, and the first thing he ever stole was a stick of butter. Eris got in a little trouble for it, so the official story is that his fur was lighter than is typical for a smokehound, and smooth like butter. The truth is that he fell in love with the little thief, and wanted to commemorate that first occurrence of thievery. It was a subtle act of rebellion on Eris’ part, and the chef was not pleased when he heard.

Give us some of your favorite Eris headcanons!

Eris is the family secret keeper. His mother tells him things. Lucien tells him things. His other brothers don’t mean to tell him things, but they drop hints and he’s smart enough to put things together. He goes unnoticed by adults as a young person, and is able to gather more information than anyone thought was possible. In doing so, he accidentally positions himself as knowledgeable on many family and court matters he probably shouldn’t even have known about in the first place. People also have a habit of just sharing things with him at random times, so he knows a considerable amount about each of the family guards, the Autumn Council, and their families. He’s a favorite with the court gossips because he will listen. He will rarely contribute, but he will always listen. As a result, everyone in court believes he is on their side. How this will play out when he is High Lord, Eris has no idea. For now, he’s happy hearing their tales of woe. Lord Cherry’s son eloped with the royal groundskeeper who taught Eris how to garden? Eris is absolutely shocked! Of course, he was the one who gave them a carriage to go to Spring, but Lord Cherry doesn’t need to know that.

Who scares Eris the most?

Eris is most scared of himself. I saw a post just the other day where a person told their therapist they were worried they would destroy everything, and their therapist told them they didn’t have that kind of power. They found it helpful because knowing you don’t have the power to change huge things in rage helped them. The difference here is that Eris has that kind of power by his proximity to societal power and his literal powers. He can destroy everything that matters to him if he is careless enough, and that terrifies him. He fears he would be powerful enough to change the world, and wishes he did not have that amount of power, because he has seen first hand how power corrupts. Outside of himself, he is most scared of Lucien. Lucien has more power than he could even imagine, and Eris isn’t sure his brother knows. At the same time, he fears the day Lucien discovers Eris knew, and that Lucien will never forgive him for keeping the knowledge to himself.

What kind of father does Eris imagine he would be, and does that differ from his actual father?

Eris imagines himself to be a brutal, unyielding, possibly even abusive father, as Beron was. He has never known a loving father, and while he believes it is theoretically possible, he looks in the mirror and sees Beron staring back at him. In every way possible, Beron has shaped Eris to be unforgiving, unyielding, brutal, and cruel. Eris worries that he will become Beron if he has children. It takes someone telling him that his worries and fear of becoming his father are what can keep him from becoming Beron. He needs a lot of support to feel confident enough that it is possible in order to become a father at all. Once he has that support, I think he does everything he can to be a better father than the one he had.

What national/regional park would Eris get lost and die (or not die) in?

Eris is dying in Petrified Forest National Park as we speak. He’s dying of heat related injuries and sun exposure. That male was not made for the desert. Fire powers cannot save you from the Arizona sun.

[katetorias]

Hi :D

Sorry for the anon ask, I'm too shy to ask on your Instagram story whenever you do a qna. I've been wondering what it feels like to be (part of) a system. I can't quite imagine what that must be like and I'm just super curious about it

One of my most burning questions has been: how does it feel to just come into existence as a new alter? You said that Prom is still a fairly new addition and I honestly can't imagine what that must feel like and how someone wouldn't know they were a system after that.

Also how does it feel to be an alter that isn't the host? Does it feel shitty to not be out as much and to be considered "somebody's alter" instead of their own person?

Feel free to ignore this if you're uncomfortable with it. Also love your art of you and your fiancé, so cute!!

since systems are formed due to the unique trauma the specific system went through, we can only really talk on our experiences. since people react to trauma differently, systems (an extreme trauma response), all form differently and have different ways they fit into the diagnostic criteria for these disorders.

im going to answer your question in a long format below^^

• for context: we are bodily 22, and we've been receiving psych care since we were around 11/12. our therapeutic progress has always been stagnant because after we left the situation we were in, we had almost completely blocked out everything that happened. so we had nothing to tell our therapists and we didn't feel comfortable talking with them. we were often dissociated and would just answer questions shortly while staring at the ground instead of engaging.

because of our lack of progress/seeming lack of effort, our mom stopped taking us to therapy and psychiatrist appointments. she thought it was a waste of time and probably saw our mental illness as misbehaving/not caring enough to try to be happy. this kept us from having proper psych care for years. we would occasionally get called to the counselor's office in school and at some point we had to start missing school for therapy again. college had us losing that support and flunking out because of the dissociation/suicidality. we only finally got access to meds after i had to go outpatient, and we've been with our therapist since.

• how we didn’t notice: due to this we had no knowledge that our experiences weren't normal. our mental health has been neglected for years and we had no way of knowing what was happening with us because we had no basis as to understand. we have a gap in our memory from a little after we left our situation to early high school. our friend always says we knew each other in middle school and talked, but we don't remember enough of those years. amnesia can show up in a lot of different ways. we've only experienced two noticeable black outs, the rest is gradual. not remembering things soon after they happened, being told we said things we didn't remember saying, being unable to describe important events in our lives, vaguely knowing what happened but not remembering the experience.

• on forming: When I (Prompto) formed, we had just flunked out of college and were forced to start working. Me and my fiancé were just starting our relationship and were playing my source. My source was a fat child who experienced bullying and parental neglect, being left alone and friendless for years, feeling like he has to change his weight to be liked. We really couldn't handle having a job. we were clinging and desperately coping by consuming my source. Eventually I started feeling like I was confusing things that happened in game with things that happened to me, and my real life memories from years, or even just months before didn't feel familiar. This was frightening, I would cry to Noctis about how I was feeling, how I couldn't remember anything before our road trip (event in source). But we didn't have any resources to explain, I thought I was being weird and childish.

Because of the stress of this job we had, I would spend most of our time in a heightened state, anxious or dreading the next days. Jack (who formed in our childhood to take care of us and our little brother when we’d be left alone) started resurfacing again after being gone for years. Our brain was trying to protect us, but I didn’t understand why I suddenly felt different. Sometimes it felt like I would just leave. I started being told that I was saying things I didn’t agree with again. Jack felt miserable trying to force himself to be me. This conflict and pain was the reason we ended up outpatient, and a few months after came to terms with the fact that we were a system.

• on what it’s like to not be the host: for us we don’t really refer to ourselves as “someone’s” alters since we don’t really have a collective identity (discounting the body we act like). I’ve been making an effort to accommodate everyone, and make sure we get the time we want in the body or just have things that are our own. (Making space for their things/interests. Setting times for specific people to have a chance to front)

This is Nathan’s perspective since he’s been fronting more often lately:

- I actually used to hate being an alter. i felt frustrated that I got torn away from my shitty life to just be part of someone else’s. I didn’t want to exist in the system at all. our body isn’t mine. im skinny and im covered in healing SH scars, and im not hairy and i have short hair, im cis. i used to hate fronting. I would actively wish i could just disappear. it didn’t seem like me being around was helping anyone. dissociation sucked and I would pick fights with our fiancé. im pretty much the only one of us who gets full flashbacks, and i fucking hate looking at stuff for my source online because everyone hates me. or ignores the story to justify hating me instead of just. hating me for what’s actually in source.

we talked with our therapist and eventually i started coming to therapy and she treated me like my own person. she made sure to create a distinction between my feelings about something and Prompto’s. she told me to create a thing i could do instead of be angry which is why i would usually front. Prompto put a lot of effort into making me feel comfortable. it’s like pri could tell how sensitive I actually am. pri designated a corner of our apartment to me and got me decorations pri thought i would like. i got to make my own instagram. It felt good to be myself. when i wasnt forcing myself to be prompto i felt more content. the more i could express myself as a person the easier it was to communicate with the system, i struggled less with memory and i think were less dissociated now than ever because prompto made such an effort to acknoledge us as our own selves.

sorry for the long answer but you asked so not sorry I guess lol. prompto probably had a better closing statement but I don’t really give a fuck. thx for the question

[itskattkm]

New York New Rules Pt. 3

Warnings: Violence, Trauma, Fluff, maybe Smut, mental health, blood

Summary: Y/N meets the survivors of the last events in Woodsborrow and gets on Ghostface's list. But there is also a darkness in Y/N wich path is she going to choose

Female Y/N x Tara Carpenter

Sorry for bad writing. I'm using a translator and hope you guys can enjoy it. Also, this is going to be a long story

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

My body began to vibrate, or rather my head when I leaned it against the window of the taxi. So let's start reflecting on the day as it went so far.

Missed therapy hour because my therapist was brutally murdered. Check.

Shit... it would take me months until I find a new one.

What happened next? I closed my eyes and played the pictures in my head through like a movie.

Been accused for murder? Check.

Have been exposed and embarrassed In front of your girl crush and her sister? Check.

Surprising meeting with Kirby? Check.

Pursued by paparazzis and "interviewed" by Gale weathers? Check.

Witness to Tara punching Gale Weathers? Check.

Was I slightly turned on by it? Double Check.

"Y/N you're good?" A soft voice brought me back. I opened my eyes and had to blink slightly because of the unexpected brightness around me. I nodded silently and looked for the eyes of the taxi driver in the rear-view mirror. I put my hand on the passenger seat and pulled slightly forward, which is why Tara who sat between me and Sam pushed herself closer to Sam to give me the place I needed. "Hey you can let me out at Pompeii Pizza" he nodded to me but now Sam bent down in front "Y/N you can't go now you have to come with us" there was that shy me I knew so good. I probably would have done anything she said, but right now? Now I felt numb. Not present. And I didn't care.

No matter what happened yesterday. No matter what happened today. I just had to go home and hide in my room. It was one thing to become suspicious for several murders but to be exposed in front of almost complete strangers and to be claimed as a crazy woman with mental problems? And on top of that in front of your crush. That was too much for me.

Although Detective Bailey had exposed me to the two and they knew now more about me than I would have liked to let them know, I asked myself the question

Why do you want me to come with you?

"Why?" I asked confused

"Apart from the fact that you are a suspect, we have to talk to the others about it. Mindy wants us all to meet at the Blackmoore," she said and her eyes darkened. Although they didn't seem particularly inviting at the moment, I recognized something soothing in them.

"So you believe what Bailey said?" I asked and did not seem as strong as I had hoped. My voice was getting quieter and quieter. Maybe we didn't know each other so well, and I was just a friend of Mindy but did they really believe that I was behind it?

"Where were you during the bodega attack?" Said Tara cautions.

Confused, my gaze met hers. No, I wasn't confused. I was hurt. Her look was cold. Anger could be seen in her dark eyes, but the way she pulled her eyebrows together told me that there was something else, but what?

"Pompeii Pizza" said the driver and stopped.

Exhausted, I took a look and sighed. I shook my head when I opened the door of the taxi and got out.

"Y/N!"

I ignored it. Did Tara really think I was behind it? I didn't like the way she looked at me. As if I were a monster... the cars on the street were getting louder and louder for me. The measurements of people who were on the streets. Confused, I looked at the floor as I slowly went to the pizzeria.

And there they were at once. A few minutes before, I felt numb and now. Now there were too many feelings. I tried to arrange it in my head like a riddle. But I couldn't see anything. Too many letters. No words. I clenched my hands into fists to feel something I could describe. Then there was this sting. A continuous stitch. I had pressed my nails firmly into my palms so tightly that my knuckles turned white. Now I asked myself. What does that feel like?

After resensood.

Pressure a pressure that did not want to disappear.

And then the letters in my head came together and the word pain appeared before my eyes.

"Y/N wait!" I was grabbed by my shoulder and expected to be abruptly turned over. However, I was surprised and that of Sam. She sighed and slowly stood in front of me, so that I was forced to look at her. I was forced not to go any further.

"I was also a patient at Dr. Stone"

With widened eyes, I looked at her and a short smile escaped her lips when she agreed to my expression with a nodding head. "Believe me when I tell you that I can imagine how you feel. But you also have to understand-"

She looked over my shoulder to see Tara. However, I did not follow her gaze. As Tara had looked at me earlier... I never wanted to see these eyes again. That look in them. It made me feel so vulnerable and anxious. I already had it so hard to keep in touch with the people around me, but I tried to stand by. And with Tara, well it won't be difficult for me to ignore her in the near future.

At least that's what I thought

"After what we've been through, it's difficult for us with new people... and how fucked that sounds, but that's what Bailey said are very violent coincidences Y/N and if we should trust you... then you have to prove it to us"

Now I felt a different feeling.

Incomprehension

"Why should I do that?"

Surprised, Sam looked at me and straightened up. She probably didn't expect this answer.

"Sam, I am not part of your group. I'm just a friend of Mindy's"

I looked at the pizzeria and looked into the eyes of my own reflection Why do I looked so sad?

"As much as I wish it would be different, but even for Mindy I am just an acquaintance from the courses we have in common. And we both know Mindy, she is also very careful when it comes to new people. After she told me about Ghostface because it was a short topic in our course and not because she told me as a friend, I knew, okay. This friendship is nothing more than an an acquaintance, so why should I care Sam?" My legs were moving. I lightly bumped Sam on her shoulder to go past her but she grabbed me tightly by my arm and moved us so that I had to meet her eyes and my back faced the pizzeria.

"Because you care," she said bright. Confused, I looked at her. Her look was gentler than before and there was this glow.

"You may feel alone. And maybe you are... but you care. No matter how bad you are feeling. How the people around you are doing... you are someone who can feel how others are doing. And as much as you sometimes have to struggle with the darkness... you still care. Even if it hurts"

Why did it feel like a description of herself?

Were we both more similar than knew? I mean, we both went to the same therapist, maybe there was something to it. But what was Sam's problem? Also aggression? Mindy had never told me in detail what happened to all of them back then. She just said that the stab movies are based on true events and the murders of last year? Well she and her friends were involved.

Of course, I had watched all the stab films afterwards, but I couldn't imagine what must have happened to them.

"Go home. Take your time. But I hope that you come to the Blackmoore and try to find an answer for all this, together with us. You don't want to be a suspect, do you? So why not find out who is really behind it?"

She gave me a slight smile and left. Even after the taxi drove away, I was still starring on the same spot. Where did I get in there?

Damn Samantha Carpenter...

These feelings which you and your sister leave me behind are too much for me.

[uwukillmenowowo]

Oh what if you make the Yandere Enki X Therapist reader into a multi part series and it includes reader seeing him murking that inmate and her still working for Nanbaka afterwards and then leading up to Enki getting freed

Y'know what..?

SURE!

WHY NOT MAKE A SERIES?!?

Keeping Me Sane Pt.2

(Yandere Enki Gokuu X Therapist! Female! Reader!)

Chapter 1

Notes:

You were a recently appointed therapist.

Since you had to look over some inmates and guards one on one you got to learn how to use Qigong from the best of the best. Building 5.

You got along with one guard in particular, Samon

He taught you more about close combat and how to block out Qi channeling.

That way if an inmate gets to aggressive, you can paralyze them.

Basically you're like Ty Lee from ATLA.

Somethings wrong... You can feel it. It's coming from building 5. However, you ignore it, thinking that it was just some inmates. That is... until you get too close to a certain guard

{Second POV}

~~~~~

Ever since that moment back in building 5. You kept getting called over there by other inmates. They all talked about encountering a monster. You were confused, and per your job, you asked them about it. All the inmates described it as a big, ape like shadow, extremely strong and agile, threatening, and possessive. You asked what the inmates said by "threatening and possessive"

They didn't give you a response...

On the bright side. The guard that practically pounded you to the wall apologized. And even bought you your favorite snack and drink. Enki looked like he was having trouble apologizing so you assumed that he was apologizing and accepted it.

In reality he just wanted you to stop talking to the damn inmates. Ever since that, you Enki, and Samon would always talk about different stuff when you head over to building 5. Everything was really good between you three.

But for Enki... it was a different story. Every time you visited inmates, Enki would visit straight after and threaten the inmates. All the inmates were terrified. Soon after, the rumors about the 'Monster' circled through the prison.

What made it hard for Enki was that you and the warden knew about it. He was absolutely pissed and vowed to destroy the inmate who came up with that nickname. If you found out the monster was him then there would be no doubt that you would be terrified of him. So he started to do that one thing he could to keep you safe.

Total manipulation.

He started using your own profession against you. Making you overthink into the wrong stuff and eventually you started convincing the other inmates that the so called 'Monster' was most likely just a hallucination because of what a certain inmate had done in the past. The words of a 'Monster' died out and the warden was so proud that she gave you access to more areas. Which just so happened to include the underground layers and archives in each building.

Enki was also proud. He treated you to a dinner and to say you were shocked was an understatement. Hell you ever felt a spark of pride when Enki started praising you. But you didn't want to act on those emotions. Enki instantly realized it and grit his teeth as he realized that the plans that Ruka had instructed him to act on weren't working.

You and Enki got closer and closer. But with each passing moment, the inmates grew restless and more... lifeless. You were worried and would inform Enki and Samon about it. Same said he'd take a look and Enki would pat your head and tell you not to worry about it.

And you trusted Enki so surely things would be fine.

[youreavicioustrollop]

S4 E3: Future Tense

okay, hildy's creepy af. and extremely malfunctioning!!! 99 degrees for shower temp sounds too hot, actually, but I guess it's just over body temp so that matches.

okay, this is the one reason a smart home would be handy - opening the doors for the paramedics in an emergency. but this conversation between buck and eddie about the creepiness of a smart home is real!

robot vacuums are incredibly stupid, I agree.

Hen in med school!!!!!!!! She's got so much more experience than most of these people!!! love that leg up for her.

getting baby ready!!! Buck is helping!!! baby mooning them during the ultrasound... very common. love that for baby han. these names are not inventive, Buck. love that you're speaking up, though. "has she met fire marshall buckley" honestly this is a great idea, all of his partners should be exposed to the fire marshall side of him before making it serious.

maddie why are you asking why he's seeing a therapist for non work stuff like he's personally hurting you!! he's literally talked to you about his insecurities before!!! be more supportive! i mean she is, but she's SO defensive at first???? real "but there's nothing wrong with you!" energy some moms have.

oh this snobby med student looking down on paramedics!!! shame on you! also that is the SMALLEST port scar i've ever seen. if he died OF CANCER it would still be pretty fresh and big, I'd think.

omgggg maddie doubling down on thinking buck doesn't need therapy. "kinda thing that sticks with you" MOOD, BUCK. also he's SO PRETTY here. this scene is soooo goood. i love buck and feel for him and also want him to be fine-er and the thing about always thinking maddie was kind of sad too!!!!! :((( but it does explain why maddie came over immediately! because she wanted to fix it!

hmmmm, bank robbery, don't like this. don't like the "he was wearing a mask?" and yeah! it's a good policy to not have your employees chase after thieves! it's much cheaper to just give up the money itself or the merchandise! anyone who's worked retail can tell you this!

buck playing a fighting game with christopher!!!! he also looks VERY PRETTY HERE. and eddie being a dad here is just so... .he's SO dad. also very handsome. love the domesticity. beautiful scene.

noooooo maddie don't cry!!!! SHIRTLESS KENNY CHOI!!!!! aaaaaaaah. maddie's scared! :( about parenting!!! :((( worried she'll become like her parents! Chim calming her down!!!!! (if i didn't know where this was coming from/where it was leading I would probably feel differently about it, as it is i'm just saaaad and understanding where she's coming from re: her parents and buck and daniel and how she kinda sorta raised buck)

Nia! drawing on her brother's face, a rite of passage! oh okay, what is this med student's actor? I recognize her from somewhere, maybe disney channel? this character's a real bitch, though.

oh hey, even i can tell this is a clear tie-in for the austin 9-1-1 show.

okay, this is exactly what's useful about being a good friend with your brother-in-law, so you can ask those parent questions! also good to know that maddie isn't frequently talking to her parents, sounds like very rarely. the way buck describes his parents is heartbreaking though!!!! absent emotionally, if not physically. "run of the mill dysfunctional" and "they weren't good with kids" describing them as feeling a million miles away and like they liked each other more than they liked their kids... OOF. like i guess for a time period and a type of people that is run of the mill dysfunctional??? very sad to consider.

athena hen besties!!!!!!! they need these gossip sessions. can't say i agree with athena's advice

MADDIE USUALLY TEXTS OR EMAILS. okay, i love her. she's trying so hard! and her mom is clearly giving her nothing. lol "it's still gonna be a surprise, it's just gonna be a surprise now." okay, now why are you snitching about buck's therapy???? oh i see!!!! worried he somehow knows something? or he should? but she's advocating telling him?? lying to them their entire life!!!! le gasp!!!! DUN DUN DUUUUUN end of scene

honestly if i didn't know what the twist/secret was, I'd guess that it was a situation where maddie was actually Buck's mom, had him as a teen and then her parents raised their grandbaby as their own child. classic twist. i don't know if i've ever heard of the actual twist anywhere but on 911.

oh look, paramedic eddie! with paramedic hen!!! face flies!!!! "what kind of yoga?" SMART, EDDIE! goat yoga! "i can know weird stuff too" love that for eddie!!!! it's not just the weight/pressure of the goats that make goat yoga work, it's also because goats are cute and unpredictable and it makes people happy.

hen having to explain that she's part of a marginalized group several times over.... a common theme with her but it's literally never not relevant. ah, see, she does have some kind of trauma around cancer!!!! also such a huge surgery only six weeks before med school??? woof.

eddie keeps a knife in his back pocket!!! excellent. love this character detail. also chris knows buck's phone number off by heart, and buck just.... sent eddie a hildy coffee maker?? as a prank??? and looks very happy about it??? i wanna know if/how he told doctor copeland about that, and what her notes on it were. because i have Several Thoughts. (none well formed. all of them informed by shipping.)

aaaaah, madney is so cute!!!! and chim talking about being a family!!! and being there for each other! "nothing to do with you" doesn't apply here!!!!! maddie didn't look at the ultrasound because chim wasn't there with her, awwwww. it's a girl!

this bobby and athena conflict.... she's just steamrolling over him, huh.

aaaaah, maddie opening up to howie!!!

ah ha, the set-up for the crossover episode!!!! Buck being excited about being deployed! He's been on the deployment list ever since he joined and has never been called out before! I assume Eddie's like Hen in that he can use all the emergency overtime he can get. But maybe he's also like Buck in that he wants to go places and do exciting things!

i think right now I will skip the crossover, but I'll come back to it later!

[lostinlovingrevery]

🛼🧸🦷

HIIII LEXX!!!!

I hope you've been having a great day <3 I'm still working on your bday fic! I'm so ashamed it's not done yet lol

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

☠️👩‍⚕️🕰👨‍👩‍👧💞

🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual?

Existing.

No seriously if I see your name pop up more than once on my notifs just know that you are buried in my brain and I will forever love you. We don't even have to talk. I love you.

however if that's too freaky deaky, getting to know each other is fun for me too <3

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

hmmmmmmmm im not very wisdomness.

if you're someone like me who wanted peoples approval and love bc you're more of an outcast for multiple reasons (disabled, fat, in my case). one time i expressed this to my therapist, wishing people would see me as who i am and not for what i look like, leaving me out of things bc it's "too hard to speak clearly", etc etc.

she asked me "why would you want someone like that in your life anyway?"

and idk it rung something in me. i mean, i would say "i don't care what these people think" but subconsciously i did bc i was ALWAYS worried about stares, if they're talking about me, worried about being too weird, too quiet or too talkative, etc etc.

after that and reflecting on it for awhile i started not worrying about what others think. started wearing outfits i always wanted to wear but didn't bc i thought with my body i wasn't allowed to, worried about being judged etc.

i think intrinsically theres a human want to feel like you belong, to feel accepted. but i found that when i accepted parts of me i don't exactly love, that i felt like my place in the world was more solidified. doing so helped me focus on the people who are apart of my life and has also drawn more lovely people into my life as well! i started not caring about people i wished had seen me for who i am cause i realized that focusing on them took away my own energy for myself- and for those who do love me.

self love is so so so important! find it somehow. you, person reading this, deserve it. there's a lot more to say about this, but this is just an initial eye opening thing for me. i gotta say in a way i think it led me to finally writing again and obvs posting on here :)

also the spoons hack, if anyone doesn't know what it is

if you deal with depression or anxiety (like moi) (i believe this is used for a lot of different things tho! ) the spoons trick is basically like..you wake up in a day and you have a certain amount of spoons to use throughout the day, they represent your energy levels.

you may wake up and have 5 spoons, and they represent small things like brushing your teeth, making your bed. or they could be small and big things, brushing your hair and going to work. when you complete the task, you take away the spoon. when you have no spoons left it means you need to rest.

you could have 3 big spoons, meaning 3 big activities you feel you can do for the day. or 10 small spoons and one big spoon.whatever it is, and whatever you feel!

its a great way to sort of focus on your energy and become in tuned to what your body and mind feels! the "metaphor" helped me through a lot of bad days. for some people it may not be what they need to help them- i just know myself it really helped me pull out of some deep pits.

[alreadyal]

the way our system works seems somewhat unique. let me see if i can describe it well.

minor content warnings for in system fighting and vague mentions of trauma.

if im in front i can access the most of the memories of things other alters did while fronting. it does depend on where you were in headspace when things were happening, like i remember very little of our last work shift because i was only around briefly. i would have to ask others to find out what they did. we're usually co fronting. often like 4-5 at once. in headspace we conceptualize it like a car, whoever is in the driver's seat is the one piloting the body and able talk/move around/etc. the one in the passenger's seat is sort of a 2nd in command and can easily switch if needed, and will have the loudest voice in headspace. anyone else in the car can easily talk or switch but are a little more removed.

we can control switches, and that is how we usually do it. we usually switch multiple times per day since we get tired easily, and when that happens whoever is in the driver's seat will go 'hey who wants to front' and then they'll do it. the former driver might stay around in co front or just leave, depending on how they feel. on stressful days we might switch very often, occasionally multiple times per minute, which can be very disorienting. there are also rare times when an alter will force a switch and shut others out, it's the persecutors who do that.

we do still have amnesia. specific memories are locked for trauma reasons, and those ones can't be accessed unless the alters holding them disclose them. when i look at the last week i only remember things from when i was either in the driver's seat or nearby, otherwise it's all blurry. we can read each other's thoughts, so when co fronting i can see others' memories because they are thinking about them. but if they're not around i can only remember what they've told me.

this is how things have been since our syscovery as an adult, according to the original host we had frequent blackouts and unintentional switches as a child. as a teenager we were heavily masked and only the current host was around, they were not aware of any of us. although we have reached a good level of integration it is not perfect. rather than issues of not remembering the day or unwanted switching the issue for us is that it's too loud in headspace, there's pretty much a constant stream of inner monologuing from someone. alters are often talking over each other. since we can read each other's thoughts we get bombarded with signals coming from all over the place that make things disorienting. there are also frequent fights between alters.

oftentimes being able to hear each other's thoughts can hurt communication more than it helps. for example an alter might say "im not mad at you" but then give off vibes/images of anger and hurting you; the contradicting messages can get very confusing. communication going well for us relies on being able to differentiate between what an alter says and the vibes they give off from their thoughts. many are not used to talking to others so just think to themselves, unaware that others can hear.

we have a very high alter count, around 160. the inner world is incredibly vast, it's an entire multiverse with various realms and dimensions. so theoretically we have infinite parts. despite our low amnesia barriers and integration most of us consider themselves separate people and dislike parts language. i myself am neutral on that.

we are diagnosed with DID, but the therapist who did that was not very knowledgeable on the subject and seemed to be working more off her understanding of internal family systems therapy. from what i have said here is that accurate? or is this another type of plurality? i am not overly obsessed with categorizing it, but i am curious what others think.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #329

Despite what I said I was gonna do after I wrote yesterday's letter, I did not, in fact, play any Chrono Cross. Once everything was written and posted up, a wave of exhaustion hit me like a truck full of bricks, and I needed to go to bed pretty much immediately. So that is what I did.

...I woke up this morning feeling not much better than I did when I fell asleep. Lame...

We of my house are still trying to make preparations to exit this place. The guy who we had that immigration consultation with gave me permission to share the link to his website in this space. I'll leave it here; I know you can't use it because you don't live on Earth, but... still, why not:

...Hey, Sephiroth? What's your planet called, anyway? Mine is called Earth (yes, we basically named it “dirt”; suuuuuper original, I know... 🙄). For lack of anything better to use, we of my world have been calling your planet Gaia. But is that the right word to use? We don't actually know...

Anyway, the consultation fee is 150 Canadian Dollars (before taxes and whatnot), which translates to about 108 American dollars (also before taxes and whatnot). But I was given a concise roadmap for the first several steps we need to take. The man we spoke to – Pan Dong – is knowledgeable and kind. He listened to us without judgment, and took a little extra time to try to help us find the best path forward. I'd feel really good about it if other folks turned to him to help them get out of this place if that's what they wanna do.

...We gotta save money, though. The steps are all pretty expensive. Just the English test is some $285 apiece. And we need three of them. Some of the steps after that are even more expensive. So... at psychotherapy today, I went in, prepared to stop seeing him altogether (it's some $150 per session...), but we talked about seeing each other once a month instead of once a week.

We both lamented the fact that we're not allowed to be friends. That's just the way of things here; if a person was your therapist, you're not allowed to be friends after the fact, even if both parties would like that. Breach of ethics, I guess. It's just how it is.

...It occurs to me just how convenient it is that your planet has a single, unified currency system. Gil is gil, no matter where you go. In my world, all the different countries have different currencies, which have different values. I get that it came about as a result of Shinra's domination of your planet (my goodness, but they really do need to cut that shit out...), but still, there are some aspects of my world that seem kinda... needlessly complicated. The currency system is one of them.

Physical therapy was productive today. This time, K did work on my upper and lower ribs; apparently, some of them were hanging around at weird angles. I went into physical therapy with a lot of pain, and then he squished the right side of my rib cage in various ways while asking me to breathe in deeply. A few things popped, and at one point when he was holding something and I breathed in, he said, surprised, “Oh! It moved!” I didn't think to ask what it was that moved. He mashed some things around near my right armpit, right pectoral muscle, and right shoulder joint. It hurt A LOT – all of the muscles around there are VERY angry. But I'm no stranger to this sort of thing; I was my mother's test subject when she was learning massage therapy, so... ya know.

In the end, I was able to move around and breathe just a little easier. I'm not sure how long this is gonna last, though. I'll hope for good things, and I'll make sure to do the new exercise I was given.

...I'm really glad that some of the stuff I describe is not stuff you're ever gonna hafta deal with. Like... your body just works. It's not the case that your most abundant protein is genetically and fundamentally wrong. Collagen is pretty structurally important; it builds most things. The fact that my body doesn't build it correctly is more than a little bit of an issue – one that's gonna get worse and worse as I get older.

...It's a little scary to think about. But what is there to do except keep clunkin' along derpily until I can't anymore? I don't got fancy funky powers like you. I didn't pay for such powers in blood, sweat, tears, and misery like you did.

Still, I'll do what I can to make the best of this ordinary life. Things around me are really scary right now, but I can still try to find the good things in my immediate vicinity.

...Like the salad I ate and the tea I prepared today! I mean... yes, I did forget to eat anything until it became like 4pm, but!!! I threw together some mixed greens and black beans and some leftover lamb leg, and a bunch of other stuff! And it was good!

...A good salad shouldn't be some bland thing, I think. A good salad is supposed to be kinda like a crunchy punch in the face – crisp greens, bold flavors, and lots of nice stuff to fill it out with!!

I had the glazed lemon loaf tea with it. I still gotta use up all that leftover cream from the baking experiment, so I added that instead of milk:

...It's always nice when I get to capture a good tea swirl...!

I met with an admissions advisor to a Canadian game development school today. Studying is a good way to immigrate, and... if the worst happens and I end up needing to build a world in which you will be safe, I'm going to need these skills. And, if I get those skills, I'll be able to apply them to other things.

But... this school is some $29,950 in Canadian dollars. That's about $21,466 in US dollars, but... that's still nothing to sneeze at. Even with a two-year-long payment plan, that's still at least $900 per month, assuming there will be an interest rate. And they say it's a “fast-paced”, 8-month program. And also... the lady was hesitant to give me the price at all, or to list any of the available payment plan options. She kept insisting that I needed to apply before knowing the price, and the application fee is $250 Canadian dollars (about $179 US dollars), and... it seems predatory. Why was she so desperate for me to apply to the school if we don't even know whether I can pay for it...? And I wonder if “fast-paced” is code for “we cram far too much content in too little time”.

...The school boasts near one-on-one interaction with the professors, which is appealing to me, but... the whole interaction seemed full of subtle red flags. The lady seemed nice enough, but still... I didn't really like it. I might try to find some other spot that teaches the same thing, preferably at a lower cost and at a more sustainable pace. The notion that I could create a whole game of the quality I want within 8 months all by myself is... laughable. Absolutely ludicrous. Seems fake, like it's too good to be true.

...Ugh, Sephiroth, there's just... so much stuff swirling around in my head. I look at me and my life, and I know that even with all these things going on, I'm still astoundingly privileged. There are lots of war-torn places in my world right now – places being bombarded with bombs and bullets as we speak. People who are starving, children who are getting shot, and so many more horrific things. And it all seems so senseless. Fighting over which magical sky-dude to worship seems silly. Fighting over skin color seems silly. Fighting over the places people were born seems silly. Fighting over which genitalia are between a person's legs, and fighting over which genitalia are “correct” to prefer, it all just seems so... ridiculous.

It IS ridiculous. Who CARES how much melanin a person produces!! Who CARES if some people worship Allah, or Jehovah, or Yahweh, or whomever else!! Who CARES which genitalia a person has, or which genitalia they prefer to interact with!! Who CARES if a person was born in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Africa...??? Why do we care about these things??? Shouldn't we instead be caring about whether or not everyone is fed, housed, clothed, and healthy...???

I know I wish a lot that you could chill with us and eat snacks and sit together with us and talk and have walks and stuff, but... at least for right now, I'm really, really, REALLY glad you're not here. Things here are a bit too weird. Capitalism isn't sustainable and the planet is dying and everyone is at each other's throats, trying desperately to maintain a status quo that doesn't fucking work.

...Sigh... nonetheless, I'll keep trying to find glimmers of hope in small things. I'll keep following the steps needed to try to keep my family safe, at least. What else can I do...?

Still, I think I'm not gonna be too terribly sad when my time in this particular meat-mech is over. I'm tired, and having new adventures in a more peaceful place, maybe even in a body that is built properly and actually works, sounds really fucking neat right about now...

Well. Suppose I'll wrap up today's letter. Maybe I'll play some Chrono Cross for real this time.

Please do your best to stay safe out there, okay? With everything else going on, I don't think I'd be able to withstand it if you suddenly didn't exist anymore. So please... please build yourself that normal life you wanted, instead of running around, antagonizing Cloud and his friends, and trying to break things (or letting a weird copy of you do all those things). Because if you keep doing that stuff... awful things are gonna happen to ya, and... the whole concept “awful things happening to Sephiroth” is getting really super fucking old.

...I don't want to see you getting hurt anymore. So please try really hard to make a different and better choice. Please.

I love you a whole lot. And I'll write again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

[2000sangel]

Matchup???

hihihihi, I’m Gray, yes like the color/colour. I’m Agender(afab) and use any pronouns, I’m ace and on the arospec (I think I’m lithioromantic?) Ive had 3 crushes, 1 fem, 1 nb, 1 male. If you’re doing romantic, I do tend to have a preference towards masc people.

I’m honestly pretty average, I’m very middle energy between chill and energetic, it fluctuates depending on who I’m with. I’m an ISFJ 9w1 if that helps. I am the therapist friend and sometimes the mom friend. I am very much a listener, if someone starts ranting I’ll listen intently through it all even if it’s for 4 hours. I have gotten so many hyperfixations that way. I have generalized anxiety disorder (gad) and im currently being tested for adhd.

I’m fine with romantic or platonic, if you want to you can do both

My hobbies include piano, I’m currently learning Duet from Omori, Art, I usually sketch characters don’t usually do big projects unless it’s for a class, baking, I tend to make brownies and cookies, though I can make other stuff like cake, and this isn’t really a hobby but sleeping, I love sleeping(which is weird because I either sleep really fast or I don’t sleep til 6am)

I like my friends, art, rain, comfy clothes like hoodies and sweaters, music, my favorite artists at the moment are Jack Stauber and Khai Dreams, dreaming, reading, puzzles, sudoku, plushies, sleeping, butterflies, Arctic foxes, kittens, fictional characters, and fandoms, some of those include dhmis, hh, interloper(arg), home safety hotline, etc. Some things I dislike are really tight clothing, being yelled at, harsh criticism with no compliment of what I did do good, being left out, feeling lonely, overthinking, my face, specifically my nose, mouth and forehead, pushing people away, ghosting people, and confrontation is a big one.

If you’re doing romantic, please don’t ship me with Angel Dust, I see him in a very brotherly sense. Similarly with husk.

I have listed characters before that I simp over and usually it’s either stoic and kind of cold or excitable and kinda babygirl vibes (I don’t know how else to describe it) and I already said above that I tend to have a preference towards masc

Something else that I could add is I do tend to have a trope I like? I don’t know if it means anything but I’m in love with rude or some other kind of negative adjective but has a soft spot for that one person and soulmate aus but that’s something else.

-Gray🦋

Hey Gray! So sorry for the delay, your matchup is finally here though! I decided to go with a platonic matchup c:

I match you with...

Charlie!

· You seem like a very wholesome person, so I personally think that Charlie would be a great friend for you, being equally amiable!

· She’s your number one supporter and she tries to help you ease your anxiety on particularly bad days; she reassures you that you don’t need to match her energy all the time, and that it’s okay if you feel anxious, she will try her best to be there for you and help.

· She might need some guidance as well, being in charge of the Hotel and all. This is where your mom friend side comes in; she greatly appreciates that you try to help her back, and that you listen to her in times of need. Sometimes she just needs to let it out to figure out what to do next, and you’re the person she goes to for it.

· You will also get to listen to her rants for hours! No matter what they’re about. They will mostly be about the Hotel and how she can improve the quality of life in it, but she will ask your opinions on it as well, and occasionally rant about her interests too. She of course loves listening to you as well, so don’t hesitate to rant back!

· Charlie loves that you like sketching, because she loves drawing too! You show each other what you make and she’s so happy to be sharing a hobby with you, where you can tell each other what you like about the other’s art and point out where to improve if needed. I feel like it’s more about the first thing though, as you both like doing it casually more than anything, so it’s a very positive experience!

· She also likes singing to the tunes of your piano; the others will stop by, mesmerized by your skill and her angelic voice.

· Charlie of course respects all of your dislikes; on your first day at the Hotel you inform her that you dislike tight clothing, and she makes you find a bunch of cosy and oversize clothes on your bed as a way to make you feel comfortable and welcomed.

· She also never makes you feel left out, and always includes you in every activity that she organizes whether it be with the other residents of the Hotel or as just a friend outing or hang out.

· She’s also not a big fan of confrontation, so she gets your dislike for it. If anything, you two can go through it together, and advise the other on how to handle it the best.

· She will also pull you out of your overthinking by coming up with some fun activity to do together; maybe you can give your favorite show a rewatch with her, or you can introduce her to all the plushies that you own- the possibilities are endless!

[dashielldeveron]

I tried to type this ask up when I had just finished the route but I was too emotional and ended up sounding a mess. So now I’ve had time to compose my thoughts and omg. We need to talk about how fucked up the last soulmate troupe got me because holy shit????? U need to pay for ur crimes against me 😭😭😭

spoiler warning for like the entire last chapter of soulmate troupe

first of all I CANT BELIEVE THAT NOT ONLY WAS THERE A SUPER IMMERSIVE REAL WORLD, YOU ALSO CREATE A SUPER IMMERSIVE FAKE DREAM WORLD????? ur brain 🧠🧠🧠🧠 too big too talented. I loved the dream world so muchhh it makes me so excited for that fantasy shinsou ff you mentioned wanting to write especially because fantasy shinsou made me miss the fuck out of soulmate shinsou (AND THAT FEELING GETS SO MUCH WORDE CONSIDERING THE TIMELINE SITUATION SUBPLOT. we will get to it…………..) but back to the fantasy world. I love that we are dango in spirit world it’s so cute 😭😭😭 I have like a little sketch of it done already. Also love how we meet midoriya later so he doesn’t take complete focus immediately and we can get all this lovely world building and he fits into that so naturally!! But when he does show up?? Loved that detailed outfit description u know it’s being drawn up like rn… and I can’t wait to finish it so we can look respectfully at him.

My feelings abt midoriya in this route went through the biggest rollercoaster because he is genuinely crazy I can see why he was quite hard to write like 😭😭😭😭 PLEASE GET THAT MAN A THERAPIST UR MONOLOGUES ABOUT WANTING TO BE LOVED AND WILL CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT URSELF IS NOT NORMAL. Him in the waterfall was so intense and I really do love that mc is very stubborn and wants him to love her in an authentic way that’s not just a copied from his relationship with uraraka, like he wants him to love her in the right way!!! Healthy!!! That scene made me have kinda mixed feelings about him because although he’s very determined to love reader + insane body he’s also kinda ?? unhinged?? lolol, but I did grow to really really love him, him learning to love the mc not because they’re soulmates and supposed to but actually loving the person was very well done and he’s incredibly understanding about being mcs apprehension to being with him is vvv sweet (especially considering it causes him actual physical pain, to point of literally almost DYING, because reader rejected him so harsh) and his unhingness becomes kinda endearing🤗🤗 when it’s not depersonalizing ( it does really make sense for his character to be kinda crazy tho , being determined to change even the most impossible of situations is like his whole thing, so no wonder afo lit up when mc told him she doesn’t want him. Crazy ass man) . Vice versa reader learning to love him was also incredibly written!!!!! I loved that sun metaphor so much u don’t understand it’s a beautiful way to describe loving him and it fits so well😭😭😭😭😭😭 my heart 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 from wanting nothing to do with him to posting an edit of his nipples ❤️

however. HOWEVER. we do have to address the soulmate timeline situation because how can u wreck me like this 😭😭😭😭😭 WHATS WRONG WITH YOUUUUUUUUUUU WHEN I GOT UP TO THE SCENE WHERE READER FALLS INTO THE POOL AND GETS FLASHES OF THE OTHER ROUTES??? YOU ARE SICK!!! HOW CAN YOU WRITE BEAUTIFUL LITTLE SNIPPETS FROM EACH TIMELINE WHICH ENCAPSULATE THE ORIGINAL ENERGY OF EACH OF THE ROUTES SO WELL. IM SICK. It did not help that when I was up to that part I was already on the fence about midoriya and then I had to miss all the other guys as well 😔😔 (highlights for me was definitely monoma , because omg I miss ur monoma so much seeing him was so cruel…and my interpretation of him being the one to pop the champagne was definitely because it was an event about us….. engagement party…..(( at least in my head lolol)) also really loved shinsous it broke my heart in so many ways… ‘I’ve loved you for so long and I never thought I’d even be allowed to look your way’ I MISS HIM SO BAD. AND THE FACT THAT HE FEELS THE EXACT SAME WAY IN EVERY ROUTE OH MY GOD!! YOU ARE KILLING ME!!!) . Although I missed them all incredibly I think the way the ‘harem’ (lol) was handled with guilt instead of like typical fic harem was so so so good. It’s really a perspective you see addressed in fic like at all but I think readers reaction was incredibly realistic and (as everything u write is) so so so well written, like reader storming into bkgs office to sit on his lap and make out w him IN FONT OF MIDORIYA (also bkg opening his mouth?? He’s so messy 😭😭😭) and then throwing up and passing out on his carpet. it was so sad but also so funny at the same time. And then getting jumped by the whole harem at the end was CRAZYY THE FACT THEY ALL KNEW ( idk how aizawa took the news that in a separate timeline he’d be dating one of his students esp considering how he HATEDDDD it during his route lololol poor guy) but it was well concluded. Mvp shinsou ‘ he’s the only one who loves you enough to let you go’. Kill. Me.

anyway I’m so sorry for the absolute wall of text. I’m no wordsmith so hopefully it wasn’t too painful to get through. I’ll probably have more concise thoughts when I reread this route a million times like a have others, there’s always something that I miss the first time around that I’ll comment on lolol (hopefully wayyyy more short than this )Concluding statement is that I actually fucking loved this fic so much it made me clinically insane. I can’t wait to finish all the little doodles I have sketched up and send them to u. I’m so fucking sad that soulmate troupe is ending because genuinely no fic has fucked me up like that ever in my life, but I’m also so excited to see what you write next so I can be fucked up yet again. And if you ever do return to the series for like any vignettes I’ll scream and cry ❤️

route discussion under the cut!

firstly, i'm sooooooooo relieved that the dream world/reality stuff was clear and made sense. i was worried i was too far up my own ass to see if anything about dream/reality were super baffling!!! we needed to be dango. we needed to be the world's most reluctant catgirl. it's good for the reader character to get to claw into people every once in a while; she needs the stress outlet. and yayyyy yeah we meet midoriya later in the fic......i imagine they started dreaming about the fantasy world on the same night, but they were so physically far apart that they didn't find each other for ages. but lol it must've SUCKED for midoriya lololol bc at least reader gets to wake up with friends, right??? he wakes up, like, three feet in snow, completely alone, near a town he can't recognise, and suddenly there's a DRAGON. i'm interested in looking at him, but i can't guarantee it'll be respectfully 👀👀👀

midoriya's fucked up!!! he's so fucked up!!! and he's so sincere about it!!! yeah and he gets to monologue/ramble a lot, so we hear all this crazy shit....like, dude, i get that one of the minor themes of this route is "to be loved is to be changed," but NOT LIKE THAT, IZUKU. i imagine he's v v unhinged about things bc he's in his head so much and therefore doesn't anyone to say that perhaps are not healthy. however it's v sexy, so for the sake of fiction, i forgive him 💚💚💚

yeahhhh the sun metaphor is a bit of indulgent meta commentary from me, particularly about how it seems like, in some parts of the fandom, talking about him alone, on his own merits, is seen as boring. some people tend to talk about him in comparison with someone else, like bakugou or todoroki. and then!!! the stuff about how we only know about katsudon, the only fact outside of hero pursuit/worship!!! it's another contributing factor to why this route was difficult to write!! bc there's not a whole lot of straight info/facts out there; i ended up rereading a lot of the mange to scrape for his personality traits/mannerisms myself!!! i really think there's a lot to be said about midoriya, especially his self-destructive/-sacrificial impulses (bc he essentially only thinks of himself as Useful, not confident or capable), but he's usually not talked about alone!!! (at least in my experience.) and i think that contributes to him seeming not as interesting--like, we know weird shit about bakugou, like he mountain climbs, goes to bed at 8:30, hates when people smoke--and we don't get weird little details like that for midoriya. we only get, like, hero training stuff. which is NICE, but it's not the whole cow. it's up to us to spruce up our boy 😤

yes yes yes the altar!!! the pool!! the glimpses back to other routes!!!! isn't it nice to feel angst for situations impossible in real life??? angst usually gets to me in fic and i have to be in a mood for it, since it tends to be very realistically written, gut-wrenching subjects like cheating and [realistic] scumbaggery. so lololol i gave myself everything i wanted by having angst that in could no way happen to me IRL, and so it feels good to feel sad about it. i am sick; thank you 🤗🤗 in my head, monoma's champagne stuff was celebration the publication of his first book (bc i have him writing shit and fascinated by storytelling stuff in his route), but engagement party is probably more thematically apt, since it's a public celebration of their relationship lolololol. maybe somehow both :)

and yeahhhhh you can tell how much i miss shinsou by how much i give him to do in this route....which is, like. we have to like midoriya! it's his route! we can't miss this other guy!! but then we do, and we lean into that feeling, and it's horrible :) yes yes yes he's the only one i have absolutely decided feels the same way in every route (other love interests can, of course, but i'll leave that up to individual readers to decide), because that makes it Worse. shinsou is such a lover boy, and i Need Him Expeditiously. "he's the only one who loves you enough to let you go" yessssss bc shinsou would NOT want to give you that option. he's so scared of having you snatched away from him; it's the sad little insecure, selfish part of him that wants to keep you clutched to his chest 💚💚💚 but it's endearing so i'll let it slide

GOD a harem would be so stressful. nice to think about, but stressful. i wouldn't be able to handle it. put aside the romance and psychology for a second. on the simplest, practical level, can you imagine how much food you'd have to cook for all those people? it would be like plannning for christmas dinner all the time: making a lot of food for a lot of people with different tastes, and then you have to make it all at the same time so it hits the table simultaneously??? When I cook, I tend to make enough for like four people MAX, and with this harem, you'd have to make enough food for nine people. yiiiiiikes

and lololol bakugou's like "this might as well happen" when reader starts kissing him. inappropriately enthusiastic acceptance. love that for him. and gosh i hadn't fully thought about how aizawa would process the news in this route!!! gosh!!! he was definitely already thinking of reader as a friend at this point, bc he does NOT want her to call him sensei but just his name...oh gosh. i haven't considered. i must take the time to ponder this......

and don't apologise!!! never apologise!!! i loooooooove your enthusiasm and want to talk about this stuff with you!!!! i love hearing your perspective on things!!!!!!! i am shaping ideas into my next project, buuuuuut i'm hoping you like it just as well!!!!! lololol i think i will have to commit to one love interest though, bc writing a CYOA fic took a lot of out me lol. thaaaaaank you for being so kind!!!!!!! xx.

[granulesofsand]

hi there, just wanted to say i love your page a lot and appreciate all the info you put out. :3

we’re a system of i don’t know how many members, undiagnosed but we’ve been tracking symptoms for years and we got a specialist about a few months ago. i don’t feel like she’s taking us seriously and wanting to move forward with diagnosis, or at the very least treatment. we got an assessment and she says we may have DPDR, but i’ve had day- or week-long blackouts/grayouts and every time i mention them, she sort of glosses over it. i know there’s a possibility we don’t have DID or OSDD but i feel very strongly about it, and i’d like to tell her without being too forceful. do you have any advice? and do you also have advice on tracking alters + switches? much appreciated!

During our system discovery, we kept a notebook. Alters signed off if they could and wanted to, and we wrote everything from research to memories to conversations between us. When we were in a position to talk to our therapist, we handed that over and ran.

Y’all don’t have to do that, but there are a lot of pros to writing it down. A cheap spiral notebook would do it, and you have the benefit of seeing changes in organization and handwriting if those come up.

There are a few tests you can take just be reading the questions yourself. The DES 1 and 2 both have options to fill in bubbles on an internet-accessible device, with 2 being the more relevant version for you. The bottom describes possibilities with your calculated number.

There’s several online versions of the MID that compare your results to those of DID, OSDD-1, and PTSD test takers if you run it with a spreadsheet software. They usually require you type the number in the cell, then map it out in a color titled whatever you put in as ‘client name’. We never could use a cellphone for that, though you can run any Word sheet on the free version.

We use (*cough*) Simply Plural for alter tracking. You make little profiles, only requiring a name or placeholder, and add them to front with a button. You can choose ‘add’ or ‘replace’ as the default button.

Mostly we leave sticky notes for each other with task lists and daily information. We have a journal for therapy (memories, rants, research) and one for communication (conversations, front log, calendar).

Try introducing yourself and asking questions about the others on paper. Possessive switching makes this method look good, but switches that feel more like changing or shifting are more common and also require communication.

Alter-specific memories are common in complex dissociative disorders, and journals allow you to see those different experiences even if you don’t notice switches.

There’s a lot of use for the journals; those little discrepancies add up, and you don’t have to face the others too soon (which is a common phobia in systems with trauma-holding and trauma-free members).

The gathering of evidence makes it harder to turn you away. You can always fall back on the slow unmasking, using plural language and referring to the others. Working through trauma introduces the possible origins of dissociation, and clinicians might believe you more if you start there.

Not every therapist is willing to work with systems, and it’s up to y’all whether you could make progress with someone who isn’t. Therapy is yours, and your therapist should be a stone you can lean on.

If you do stay and don’t work with the system, consider working on that separately and deciding amongst yourselves who goes to each session. You don’t have to do trauma work to work through individual problems, though it is preferable your therapist recognize you as individuals.

And honestly? It’s okay if you don’t show the typical markers or have trauma on hand. If you are a CDD system, the hard parts will come up in time. If not, you can still work on system adaptions and quality of life.

Good luck with presenting your case. I hope your specialist will rise to meet you, but I believe you can find a way no matter how it goes.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Joseph Burgo, Ph.D

Published: May 11, 2023

In 1942, the psychoanalyst Helene Deutsch published a landmark paper in which she described a particular type of person who relates to the world and to other people in ways that appear normal but who, over time, comes across as inauthentic. “Every attempt to understand the way of feeling and manner of life of this type forces on the observer the inescapable impression that the individual’s whole relationship to life has something about it which is lacking in genuineness and yet outwardly runs along ‘as if’ it were complete.” Hence the term she coined to denote such people—the “As If” Personality.

When these individuals come for therapy, they often appear to engage enthusiastically in the psychotherapeutic process, though over time, no progress is made; a feeling of futility might plague the therapist. The challenge is to recognize and address a fundamental dynamic crippling the work: rather than being used to convey meaning, the words employed by the client instead conceal and ward off an internal truth felt to be intolerable. The personality enacted for the therapist’s benefit embodies a kind of performance, the simulacrum of an actual person with emotions and connections to other people, when in fact, the person feels empty inside and unable to engage authentically with anyone.

In the early years of my practice, one client (a highly intelligent and verbal young man) once asked, “If you tell me what you believe my unconscious is saying based on what you hear, how am I to know if you’re right? How do I know if some other formulation isn’t what’s actually true?” It’s ultimately up to the client to decide whether an intervention is accurate, of course, but this young man couldn’t connect my words with his inner world to assess their accuracy, largely because he relied upon language to obscure rather than to illuminate. He appeared to be a willing client, but the way he communicated instead made sure I’d never get anywhere near him.

As the treatment progressed, he began to offer alternative interpretations to my own. “That’s one way of looking at it,” he might say. “But it could also be …” At that point in my career, I viewed such client-therapist interactions through the lens of dependency and the common defenses against it; I would have pointed out how he was relating me as if we were colleagues or co-therapists and couldn’t allow himself to be a client depending upon me for help. While that formulation is true, I would now add this: while it appeared as if we were engaged in a psychotherapeutic process, he was thwarting my attempts to make contact by substituting an alternative reality for each one that I proposed. Therapy became a competition via language to define what was “true”; he ultimately won that contest and moved on.

Historians of psychoanalytic thought view Deutsch’s formulation of the “As If” Personality as a precursor to our understanding of borderline conditions and pathological narcissism, and my own clinical experience bears that out. The use of language to obscure or annihilate hated truths regularly features in psychotherapy with clients afflicted by disordered personalities; helping them to connect with and tolerate acute psychic pain is a central challenge of this work and means developing a more authentic language connected to emotional truth.

* * *

In my more recent work with gender-distressed youth, I find myself again confronting this disconnect between language and emotion, but it feels less to me about disordered personalities than a social media-induced kind of dissociation. One teenage girl, trans-identified, talks at length about her daily interactions with her mother, her peers at work and at school, but the space between us feels dead. At times, I have a feeling of futility, that if I try to make sense of the actual words she employs and events she describes, we’ll remain stuck in a place without meaning.

Another client, a highly intellectual young man, uses sessions to expatiate on the socio-cultural construction of gender, explains to me why he rejects masculinity and embraces the feminine, but has no connection with his body. He never masturbates and finds his nocturnal emissions to be disturbing. Now and then for reasons that mystify him, he will begin to weep in session. He feels relieved by his tears but has no words to describe what he might be feeling.

Yet another teenage girl, also trans-identified, adamantly insists upon her desire for cross-sex hormones. Like my other two clients, she has no relationship with her body. She spends much of her free time playing video games online, inhabiting her avatar, and interacting with the avatars of other online players she’s never met in real life. The possibility that testosterone will make her sterile or eventually lead her to have a hysterectomy bothers her not at all; she finds the idea of sexual intercourse to be disgusting and has no intention to marry or have children. She has never masturbated and finds the idea “gross.”

Like many young people who survived the lockdown years by going online, these clients have spent so much time inhabiting virtual worlds that they’ve lost connection with what’s visceral, immediate, and real. They live in a realm of imagination where anything is possible, where infinite malleability has taken the place of a physical world with reality-based limitations. By changing your name and your avatar, you can transform yourself into someone entirely new. The laws governing this alternative space give rise to a belief that you can change the very nature of reality simply by describing it in a different way.

The apparent re-creation of reality via language lends an “as if” quality to their personalities. They seem to have an internal psychic life that’s meaningful to them, they appear to have friends and other social relationships, but their emotional lives lack depth. Because their words have become untrustworthy guides to truth, I’ve taken to teaching my clients about how we human beings come to recognize our own feelings as they arise—when it comes to sadness, for example, through the perception of bodily sensations around the eyes, chest, and back of the throat. With the first client I described above, most times when I ask her to move her attention down into her body, she will begin to cry.

For many young people, social media usage has severed the connection between specific words denoting feelings and the visceral indicators that help us to identify those feelings. The signifier has become detached from the signified. As a result, language becomes a disembodied and self-contained set of internal rules and interrelationships without connection to psychic truth and often external reality.

* * *

In our daily interactions with other people, we usually assume that the words they use to communicate accurately represent the meaning they intend to convey; this fundamental assumption underlies all cooperative efforts to engage with other human beings. But in our modern world, it’s increasingly difficult to believe that much of the language exchanged conveys meaning or objective truth, especially in the contentious realm of social media. Like my patients described above, the public language deployed in this space often serves to deny or obscure truth, to replace it with an alternative reality constructed via language. Life on Twitter often boils down to a war of words to determine whose version of “reality” will prevail, a dynamic obscured by the misleading appearance that both sides are using language in the same way.

In her keynote address last month at Genspect’s historic “The Bigger Picture” conference in Ireland, Helen Joyce, author of the book Trans, drew attention to this issue. While proponents of the affirmative care model for gender-distressed youth speak and write in the empirical language of fact-based science, they actually disdain it. Gender ideology is like a cuckoo bird invading the nest of empiricism says Joyce, appropriating its language and apparently respecting its methods while all the while subverting them. Like my long-ago patient who spoke as if he was authentic and in contact while deploying language to obscure truth, the gender ideologues publish studies in professional journals, written in language that appears to respect the empirical method but actually undermines its assumptions and replaces objective reality with their own disembodied version of “truth.”

The work of Jack Turban, for example, relies upon copious footnotes and citations to other studies which, upon closer examination, either have nothing to do with the position he claims they support or directly contradict it. Turban writes as if he were devoted to the scientific method and its standards of proof but actually cares nothing about them. Colin Wright, Jesse Singal, and Leor Sapir have devoted thousands of words to debunking Turban’s claims, highlighting his factual errors and misleading citations; for those of us firmly rooted in reality, their efforts are crucial, but for Turban and his acolytes, they are irrelevant. Gender ideologues only pretend to care about empiricism, mimicking its techniques for understanding objective reality; what they really intend is to replace immutable facts and objectivity with their own subjective version of the truth.

This dynamic reflects core tenets of post-modern thought and critical theory, where so-called reality is supposedly determined by the discourse around it, and whoever controls that discourse has the power to determine what counts as “true.” While it appears as if gender ideologues are engaged in good faith debate over what scientific studies can tell us about, say, the reality of biological sex, their position really boils down to “because we say so.” They amass flawed and flimsy studies published in professional journals and devote entire books to “proving” sex actually occurs along a spectrum of possible expressions, all in order to control the discourse around the nature of sex. Objective truth is irrelevant; whoever speaks with the loudest voice gets to decide what is true.

Helen Joyce’s observations were inspired by a philosophy symposium she attended focused on the work of British philosopher Roger Scruton; she was particularly struck by his delineation of two opposing views of human nature that give rise to very different ideas about how a society should be governed. One views human nature as a blank slate and believes it can be improved and eventually perfected; from this perspective we are evolving toward an ideal society. The other, “constrained” by the facts of biology and our evolutionary heritage, believes humans cannot fully transcend their bodies, and society must therefore pass laws and uphold traditions that restrain the more brutal aspects of our nature. The American economist Thomas Sowell believes these conflicting visions characterize the conservative versus progressive debate in the United States.

On a broader level, these opposing views also help us to understand the current battle about sex and gender, especially on social media. On the one side we have proponents of biological reality who hold that facts are facts and sex is real; they believe in the scientific method and esteem empiricism as a mode for apprehending truth. On the other, we have those who behave as if they care about the scientific method, but in fact care only about wielding power.

* * *

Just as Helene Deutsche’s landmark paper led to deeper insights into borderline states and pathological narcissism, recognizing the as if quality of contemporary discourse helps explain why our society exhibits so many features of the Cluster B Personality Disorders. Disordered personalities characteristically display overly emotional and irrational forms of thinking along with an unstable sense of self and its relation to others. As patients, they at first appear to engage in the psychotherapeutic process but remain quietly hostile to the process. They will defend their fragile sense of self in often hostile and verbally abusive ways against attempts by their therapist to illuminate painful psychic truths.

Due in part to the rise of social media and the increasing influence of virtual online spaces, young people today inhabit an as if world that mimics reality but actually denies many hated truths about it—that sex is real, binary, and immutable, for example. Adopt a new avatar or change your pronouns and you can become somebody else, even alter your sex. Your subjective belief about who you are overrides objective truth. And if anyone should challenge your self-image by asserting so-called “facts,” you are justified in weaponizing language and hurling abuse to ensure that objective reality will not prevail. Rage, invective, and crude insults to dehumanize the other are the order of the day.

Welcome to Twitter, a place where daily interactions between two conflicting visions of human nature resemble one prolonged eruption of borderline rage. On one side are those who insist reality must be what they say it is; they feel sorry for themselves and persecuted by those who, on the other side, assault them with facts and arguments about objective reality. It takes a non-defensive therapist with a high tolerance for pain and a strong sense of self to work with disordered personalities, in part because they so often attack your own sense of self-worth when they feel threatened; it’s no wonder that even the rationalists ultimately resort to contempt and abuse as Twitter discourse descends into name-calling on both sides.

How are we to heal a disordered society such as ours? Most of the time, I’m cautiously optimistic that the Colin Wrights and Jesse Singals of the world will eventually prevail and, through dispassionate analysis and assertions of fact, reinforce our connections to objective reality. But sometimes, in the dark of the night, I worry that the proponents of radical subjectivity will win. Like my long-ago patient who defeated my efforts to connect him with psychic truth and who ultimately destroyed his own treatment, they will shout the rest of us down with brutal abuse, in the process annihilating all the glorious achievements of Western Civilization and the Enlightenment.

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Ideologues like Jack Turban don't post for truth, but for narrative. This is the guy who, like Kendi, blew up his core premise with a single tweet.

Turban's strategy is one he's learned from media on both sides: publish the narrative you want to be true up front (especially in the headline or summary); that's the story the initial wave of your most regular readers will see and retain; when forced to clarify, correct or retract, do so quietly; now you can say it's correct, but you've already convinced your regular readers of the original version.

It's designed to create repeatable memes, with the theater of linking to studies, regardless of whether what he's citing actually says what he claims, or even refutes something else he's already said.