#good to know i can still be creative as long as it's self-deprecating

[loki-cees-all]

This came to me in a fever-dream and I couldn't get it out of my head.

[cherry-bomb-ships]

Hello everyone! Welcome to our Valentine's Week mini Self Ship event!

Pr*sh//ip please dni

From February 12th to the 18th, I'd like to invite you all to participate in a self ship event all about love! This is meant to be a low-effort, laid-back event where the hardest thing you'll probably have to do is interact with other people 😅 Each day will have a different theme for every type of f/o and self shipper! The themed days are listed below:

February 12th - Familial F/o Day! This day will be all about focusing on your familial f/os! Parents, siblings, kids, or any other character you consider part of your family. ❤️❤️

February 13th - Platonic F/o Day! This day is dedicated to all our fictional besties!! Give some appreciation to the f/os that are there for a good laugh and a shoulder to cry on. 💛💛

February 14th- Romantic F/o Day! Of course, Valentine's Day itself will be dedicated to the special f/os in our lives who are there for us through thick and thin. Our f/os love us every day and we love them, but we'll give them extra love today! 🩷🩷

February 15th - Self Love Day! Sure, it can be argued that all of self ship is a form of self love, but I really want us all to focus on it today, by thinking about and maybe even listing out the things that our f/os would especially love about us. 💝💝

February 16th - February 18th - F/o Takeover & Letter Writing Weekend! This one is a bit of a player's choice; option one, an f/o takeover! Y'all know the drill on that one by now, let your f/os of choice answer questions on your blog for the weekend. ❤️ Option two, for those not into takeovers, is to spend the weekend writing love letters to your f/os! They can be as short or long as you like, while also making as few or as many as you'd want to. I'd also like to highly encourage sending out f/o letters to your fellow self shippers from their own f/os! ❤️

There we have it! That's our weekend, laid out in its entirety. However, these are more guidelines than strict rules. You can really run the week any way you like, as long as you're enjoying yourself!

I would also like to add that this month, for those who don't know, is Black History Month, so while you focus on your ships, don't forget to show some love to my black brothers and sisters in the self ship community as well! 🧡🧡🧡

I'll have some more suggestions on things to do below the cut, but I'll end it here up top, because this is long enough as it is. Feel free to reblog to get the word around, and for just one week, let's only think about love. ❤️💝🥺💝❤️

Now then, here are some suggestions on things to do over the week on our themed f/o days:

For our creative types, you could create some art and doodles, writing and drabbles, gifs, screenshots, or any other type of content for your f/os of the day.

For those who want a more chill experience, just some good ol' gushing will work perfect! I'll also be trying to make some short ask games full of questions for each themed day.

For the self-love day in the 15th, I highly encourage everyone to make a list of things that their f/os love about them. Of course not everything is always perfect, so if you'd like, you can also talk about your flaws and the way that your f/os would still love you with them. I don't wanna see any self deprecation though, because I know all of you are much more wonderful than you may think! ❤️❤️

Lastly, for the weekend, as I said earlier I would love to see people sending out letters to other self shippers. If anyone remembers the To My S/i events from a few years back, as much as I would love to run an event like that, I know that's setting some people up for disappointment when they don't receive any letters, so I want it to be something that's encouraged but not expected. That being said, it's still highly encouraged! Even if you're worried about how accurately you may write someone's f/o, I believe you should still give it a try anyway! 💝💝💝

That's about all the suggestions I have, except for this last one: while this week is about love for our f/os, I still wanna see love for our fellow self shippers with plenty of interaction going around, even something as small as a reblog or question sent for an ask game makes a big difference! And remember, just like the New Radicals said, "you only get what you give."

If you're reading this far, then thank you! Go ahead and throw a "btw my f/os love me" into your tags to let me know you got this far. I hope everyone enjoys the event!! 🩷❤️💝❤️🩷

[aventurineswife]

Heres a little crack requests if you will, obey me characters and reading the readers old cringe writings LMFAO. this came to my mind thinking of my horribly written angst comfort of me and hawks from mha from 4ish years ago 😭, absolutely need Simeons thoughts tho

A Flash of the Past

Tags: Lucifer x Reader, Satan x Reader, Simeon x Reader, Crack fic, Humor, Fluff, Embarrassment, Light Teasing, Gentle Mocking, Lighthearted.

Warnings: Mild embarrassment (Reader's cringe-worthy writings), Light teasing (Reader's past writing), Possible self-deprecating humor, References to past writing (not explicitly offensive but awkward/cringe-worthy).

A/N: gosh I just remembered my old cringe writings, my grammar was horrible af... It still is but I'm trying to improve💀

Lucifer sat at his desk, a quiet and imposing presence as usual, though today his attention was focused on something unexpected. You had handed him a pile of old, tattered notebooks that were clearly decades out of date, and his gaze was sharp as he flipped through the pages. His eyes narrowed as he came across what could only be described as an overly dramatic, over-the-top fantasy scene. The protagonist was a self-insert with far too much flair, and the dialogue... well, let’s just say it was questionable.

You watched him from across the room, trying desperately not to cringe. Lucifer’s expression was unreadable, but you could see the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth as he read on. When he finally closed the book with a soft snap, you braced yourself for the inevitable teasing.

“Well,” Lucifer began, his tone dry but oddly amused, “I see where some of your more... creative ideas came from.”

You flushed, face burning with embarrassment, and Lucifer didn’t help by leaning forward, his eyes glinting with that all-knowing look. “The sheer amount of overconfidence in this writing,” he continued, “it’s almost adorable.” He shifted the notebooks to one side, leaning back in his chair. “I’d expect no less from someone who clearly has an exaggerated sense of self-worth... though I must admit, I’m impressed at how well you captured the essence of an overly dramatic protagonist. A good fit for you, I dare say.”

You huffed, crossing your arms in an attempt to hide your growing embarrassment. Lucifer raised an eyebrow at your reaction but didn't press further—though his eyes still glinted with amusement. "But," he added, softening his tone just slightly, "I’ll give credit where credit is due. You’ve certainly... evolved."

Satan was enthralled by your collection of old writings. He had asked to read them out of curiosity, and what he discovered was a curious mixture of humor and cringe. The flowery descriptions, the unrealistic drama—it was almost too much to bear, but Satan couldn’t help but laugh softly under his breath as he flipped through the pages.

“I see you were quite the... romantic back then,” he commented with a teasing smile, his voice warm yet mocking as he read a particularly intense love confession between your self-insert and a brooding, mysterious character. “The amount of passion here could rival the most dramatic of Shakespeare’s works.” He glanced over the edge of the book to see your flushed face, already too embarrassed to make eye contact.

"Oh, don't worry," he added with a wink. "I understand the appeal. Everyone has written something like this when they were younger. It’s a rite of passage. You just had... a lot of flair."

You groaned, but Satan merely chuckled, clearly entertained by your discomfort. He set the book down for a moment, folding his arms across his chest as he considered you. "I can see now that the person who wrote this is far from who you are now. You've come a long way," he mused, his tone more thoughtful. "I would even say... it’s a testament to your growth as a writer."

You felt a bit lighter as Satan smiled at you in a surprisingly understanding way. “And hey, if you ever want to revisit those creatively bold days, I’m happy to read more... for a laugh, of course."

Simeon couldn’t help but smile warmly as he looked at the tattered notebooks you handed him. He always seemed to find joy in the simplest things, so naturally, your embarrassing, old writings were no exception. He opened the first notebook with an air of fondness, expecting the typical teenage melodrama—but what he found was something far more hilarious than he could have anticipated.

“Well, well,” Simeon said, chuckling softly as he read a particularly intense scene where your self-insert character was dramatically declaring their undying love for a fictional character—who, unsurprisingly, was an exaggerated version of someone you admired. “I suppose it’s charming in a way.” He raised an eyebrow, clearly trying not to laugh outright. “But perhaps, a little... too dramatic?”

You hid your face in your hands, mortified, but Simeon merely smiled, clearly not mocking you, but rather, appreciating the innocence of your past self. “Oh, darling, this is exactly what youth is about, isn’t it? All the passion, all the dreams. It’s so... pure.” He paused, turning a page. “In fact, I’d say your enthusiasm is rather endearing. Though, perhaps next time, a little less of the... self-importance?”

You whimpered, but Simeon leaned in with a warm, reassuring expression. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. We all have our embarrassing moments from the past. Besides,” he added gently, “I think you’ve grown into a much more refined and thoughtful person.” He chuckled softly, his eyes sparkling. “Though, I do have to admit—this does make for an entertaining read.”

Simeon set the notebooks down carefully, his gentle smile not fading in the slightest. “Thank you for sharing this with me. It’s a lovely reminder of how we can look back and laugh at ourselves—and grow from it.”

[wellstringer]

Your light is brighter than you think

This is a Lumity tickle fic. Please don’t read it if this kind of content bothers you. Thanks, and to those who read it enjoy :)

word count: 1,957

description: Luz has been upset over the progress of her glyph research for days. Amity is determined to change this.

“Oh batata! Come out, come out wherever you are!~”

“Oh no, this is bad!”

Luz tried her best to hold her breath as she searched for a hiding spot. Earlier that day she made the mistake of saying something self-deprecating in front of her girlfriend, and now she was trying to escape the impending conversation that Amity would make her have immediately if she gets caught. 

Luz has been working on finding new glyph combinations using King’s recently developed titan magic, but not many have been successful so far. This led to Luz feeling frustrated, since she holds herself to a high standard that would be hard for anyone to reach. 

On top of that, Eda recently asked her to do a demonstration on titan magic at the university, so she needed to make sure she had a good list of spells to demonstrate before then.

After the latest failed experiment, Luz voiced her frustrations out loud.

“UGH, I really don’t understand why Eda chose me to do a demonstration, I can’t do anything right sometimes. I’m such a loser!”

After saying that she suddenly heard a gasp come from behind her. She was alone before, and she did not realize that Amity was going to come over to visit her while she was working.

Even though Amity had her own projects to focus on, she knew that Luz was upset over her progress lately, and wanted to surprise her with some sweets she learned how to bake to try to lift her spirits. She arrived just in time to hear what Luz said, and there was no way she was going to let her batata talk about herself like that.

“I’m gonna find you soon~ You are going to take back those words and then some if I can help it. No one gets away with saying bad things about my precious Luz!”

Luz was grateful that invisibility glyphs still worked the same way they did with King’s dad’s magic. She made it to a hiding spot, but she knew it wouldn’t cover her for long. 

She pulled a new glyph she was working on out of her pocket and stared at it nervously. When successfully executed, this glyph is supposed to create an illusion spell to disguise the user as an object of their choosing. She hadn’t successfully used yet, but she had to try, or else Amity would-

“Found you baby~”

“WAA-“

Luz suddenly found herself trapped within Amity’s arms. 

“How did you find me so fast!?”

Amity squeezed Luz tightly and then pressed a bunch of obnoxiously loud kisses to the back of her neck before responding.

“Because I know you and all of your tricks sweetheart. I knew that my awesome, brilliant girlfriend would use her glyphs to try to escape. I knew she would try to use one of her new glyphs, but would hesitate because she sometimes doesn’t believe in herself even though she should.”

Luz blushed and looked away from Amity; she was embarrassed that she figured her out so easily. Luz knew that she was supposed to believe in herself (she learned that from King’s dad after all), but it was hard to get past years of self-doubt.

This is especially true during situations like this.

“I have the most kind, selfless, and creative girlfriend in the Boiling Isles, she just needs someone to show her a mirror sometimes. Now, are you going to take back what you said, or do you need a little bit of convincing~”

At that, Amity began to lightly walk her fingers across her girlfriend’s belly in the hopes of getting a giggle out of her sweet potato. If Luz really wanted her to, she would stop in a heartbeat. As an awesome girlfriend, she would never overstep her boundaries.

She would find a way to get Luz to love herself as much as she does either way (well at least close to it, since it might not be possible for anyone to love Luz more than she does), but she figured a good laugh might get Luz more relaxed and make her more receptive to her compliments.

Luz giggled and squirmed under her girlfriend’s touch, but didn’t try to escape. She thought about giving in right then and there, but both her and Amity had been busy for the past couple of days, and she definitely wouldn’t mind getting some playful affection from her cotton candy haired goddess.

“I’m not sure if I can accept that so easily.” 

Luz fake pouted as she said this and pretended to be grumpy to provoke Amity.

Amity smirked at Luz and moved to lay her down across her lap.

“Don’t worry batata, I can help you with that~”

Before she did anything else, Amity looked down at Luz with an absolutely smitten expression and kissed the bridge of her nose.

“I love you. I won’t ever let you forget that.”

Luz blushed profusely and opened her mouth to say something, only to burst out laughing when Amity suddenly launched her attack.

Amity swiftly spidered her fingers up and down Luz’s sides and over her belly. She giggled along with Luz, finding her laughter to be endearing.

“WAHAHA AMHIHITY”

“Yes batata?~”

“HEHEHE WAHAHA”

“Do you have nothing to say after all? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what I want to hear from you in a bit.~ First though, I heard from Gus that humans have the same amount of ribs as witches do. I hope you don’t mind if I fact check his claim.”

“IHIHIT’S THEHEHE SAHAME! I’M SURE IT’S THE SAHAME HAHAHA!”

“Well I’ll be the judge of that. Let’s see, one, two, three- ah you can’t move baby, you’re messing me up. I guess I’ll just have to start again!”

This went on for a few more minutes, Amity sometimes pausing her counting to gently scritch at Luz’s ribs. Luz was in hysterics the entire time until Amity finally decided to stop and give her a break.

Luz breathed heavily as she attempted to catch her breath. She still had a wobbly smile on her face; Amity cupped Luz’s cheeks with her hands and swooned over how cute her batata was. 

“Oh Luz, how could you call someone so cute a loser? You have such cute, squishy cheeks, a beautiful smile, gorgeous brown eyes, and of course I could never forget these adorable little round ears!~”

Amity traced the shell of one of Luz’s ears, causing her to break out into giggles and lean into the touch.

Luz looked up in shock and covered her mouth, while Amity gasped and looked down at her sweetheart in awe.

“Your ears are ticklish too!? Whenever I start to think that you couldn’t possibly be any more adorable than you are, you always manage to prove me wrong batata.”

“Whahait, Sweheheet Potahato!”

Luz giggled in anticipation and wiggled within Amity’s grasp. She felt way happier than she did earlier that day.

“Wait for what? Do you want me to stop?”

Amity fully meant her question as she looked into Luz’s eyes inquisitively. She didn’t want to push her girlfriend too far.

“No, no, it’s ok. I promise I would tell you if I wanted you to stop sweet potato! I-I actually feel a lot better now.”

Luz blushed as she said this and turned her head away again, causing Amity to squeal at her cuteness.

“EEEEE YOU’RE SO CUTE! I’m happy you are feeling better, batata! I still want to try one more thing though, if that’s ok with you?”

Luz almost rivaled Amity’s typical blush with how red her face was by this point. 

“Ok, you can do what you want.”

“Thank you batata!~ Also, I think I have decided on what I want you to say!”

Luz looked at her girlfriend warily, knowing that she probably would have trouble fulfilling her wishes.

“What do you want me to say babe?”

Amity smirked as she looked down at Luz.

“I want you to say “Luz Noceda is an adorable, intelligent, kind, and brave sweetheart who is the best choice for the demonstration of wild magic.”

“There is no way I am saying that!”

“Suit yourself~”

“There is no way you actually expect me tohoho hehe Ahimihity!”

Amity began to gently scribble her nails over Luz’s ears, while also leaning down to pepper kisses over her face.

“HeheHe AhiMity!”

“That’s my name cutie~”

“MeHerCy!”

“Nah, you’re fine. Oooo, I wonder if these cute cheeks are ticklish?”

“Ehehehe”

“Looks like they are~”

Amity scribbled on Luz’s face as she nuzzled their noses together. She was really happy to hear Luz laugh like this, since she seemed pretty sad for the past couple of days. This definitely wasn’t the first time Luz was too harsh on herself, and luckily her loved ones knew by now that she just needed a little push to realize that she wasn’t disappointing anyone.

“Are you willing to say it yet?”

“Ihihi cahan’t”

“Welp, I guess I need to pull out the nuclear option.”

“Wahait, whahat’s theheHEHEHE AHIMITY NOHOHO!”

Amity suddenly took in a deep breath and then blew a big raspberry on Luz’s cheek. She did this a few times before moving down to her neck and doing the same thing.

“I’LL SAHAHAY IHIHIT! AHAMIHITY PLEHEASE!”

Amity giggled and smiled brightly at that, seeing that Luz was at her tickle limit for the day.

“Ohok ok, I’ll stop. Take your time batata.”

Amity loosened her grip on her girlfriend and moved to caress her bright red cheeks instead. She really loves Luz with all her heart, and she always hates when she thinks so lowly of herself. She is never upset with Luz for being sad, but she refuses to let her think she is worthless.

As Luz was catching her breath Amity peppered a few kisses here and there until Luz looked into her eyes as if to say she was ready. Amity backed up a bit and gave Luz a reassuring smile, encouraging her to speak.

“I know I’ve been a bit harsh on myself lately-“

“Just a bit?~”

“Ok, ok, more than a bit. I realize that even though it is not going as well as I hoped it would go I am still trying, and in the end that is what is important. I’ll try not to be so hard on myself anymore, and I’ll make sure my presentation is the best that it can be!”

Amity sighed with a small smile on her face. She knew that for now that would probably be the most she would get from her girlfriend, but at least it was progress.

“Ok, I think I can accept that. Hey, I brought some new sweets for you to try and some tea and water too. I’m sure that you are thirsty after all of that, do you wanna take a break and have a picnic with me?”

Luz smiled brightly at Amity’s suggestion and pushed her work away to the back of her mind.

Of course I would love to sweet potato! Let’s go!”

As they were walking back over to where Amity left her picnic basket a loud, grumbling noise was heard in the air. Amity blushed a bit while Luz looked over at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Sweet potato, did you eat anything today.”

Amity looked away sheepishly, but still answered Luz’s question honestly.

“No, I was so caught up baking that I forgot to.”

Luz sighed and then smiled at Amity.

“We can’t just eat sweets then, we gotta go eat food too, ok?”

Amity smiled back.

“Ok.”

Luz and Amity always have each other’s backs, even though they forget to take care of their own sometimes.

[ladylucksrogue]

I wanted to post something yesterday, because Mental Health Monday and all…but yeah, as it is, life got in the way. Specifically, I just kind of fell asleep on the couch as soon as I got home. Oh well, happens to the best of us, or the worst of us?

See what happened there? I wrote a paragraph that is both positive as well as a little self-deprecating, like bordering on negative?

Even as a psychologist, I catch myself lobbing negative thoughts at myself. It’s partially my sense of humor, but part of it is that, like everyone else, I critique myself constantly. Why is it that we do that?

There can be a lot of answers, and no answer will be the same for everyone. It can be force of habit, it can be due to life experiences, or it can be a sign of something deeper, like depression or anxiety or a handy mix of both. A bit of negativity doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as long as it stays within the confines of just a little bit.

When negativity becomes a pattern, it can get out of hand. Today, we are going to talk about a specific kind of pattern that I have seen a lot of lately, and what we can do about it.

Catastrophizing is when we start letting the negative thoughts spiral, when we start predicting all the worst case scenarios, despite there being little evidence that shows us something absolutely terrible is going to happen.

For example: I just lost my job, now I’m going to lose everything.

I failed a test, I am a loser, I’ll never get anywhere.

I suck so bad at this, I’ll never get my license.

These are the “simple cases”. Some people take it way further, creating doomsday scenarios that are cinema worthy. I am never one to critique creativity, but sometimes, it just isn’t that dramatic.

Am I being dismissive of someone’s fears? No. In order stop someone from catastrophizing, or even to stop yourself, sometimes you need a reality check.

Case in point, I was watching the news. I won’t go into specifics, but something very real world triggered something that I thought buried by me, and well, I’m sitting there listening to some expert talk about the situation and ramped up, going on a rant about the worst case scenario. My husband basically told me to breath, that there wasn’t anything I can do about it anyway. It’s not my problem, not anymore and I can’t save the world. And he’s right. What he did, whether he knew it or not, was to stop my spiral in its tracks.

This is important, we can all learn to do this. We all know ourselves pretty well. When we start to realize that a situation is getting critical, when we are feeling that turmoil, that spiral of negativity, we can take a step back. Breath. Find somewhere to sit, grab a coffee/tea/choice of beverage. Focus on the present, focus on the cup in your hands, the birds chirping, whatever.

Break down the situation, right now, as it is happening. It is easy to focus on the negative. We don’t catastrophize about positive things. But just focus on the facts. Facts are good, facts let us work.

Come up with a plan. What can we do in this very moment? Can we do anything at all? Do we need to wait it out? If we do need to wait it out, can we focus on something else so that we don’t get sucked back into that spiral?

Sometimes it helps to look at things from a different perspective, to imagine you are someone else looking in. If you have someone you trust to help you, talk to them about it, the more perspectives you have, the more you realize, things are not as clear cut as you thought.

Sometimes, especially in situations like exams or big events, it helps to positively visualize your end goal. How you get there is irrelevant. You want that license or diploma. Visualize it hanging on your wall, in your hands, you walking the stage. Then if/when you fail a test, you still have that vision in mind. It might be another obstacle in your way but your end goal is the same.

And finally, self care. Self care is important. Focus on you. If you need to take a break, take one. If you need time for yourself, take it. Take a nap, a spa day, a vacation day. Even if you have zero time, find five minutes. Get yourself that latte that you wanted, eat a cookie, something. Take time for yourself, no one else is going to give it to you. And you do not have to justify it to anyone. It is your time. You choose how to use it.

Find people you trust and confide in them. Sometimes the simple act of talking to someone who cares is really important. It lets us decompress and move forward. You know how pressure builds up in a boiler or how when you shake a soda? All that built up pressure has to go somewhere. When you talk to someone, it’s like letting that pressure out…

A little helpful trick I like to use is to find joy no matter what. It can be small. We all have bad days, bad weeks, bad months, etc. Find something, anything that brings you joy. Nothing is too small. Take a minute to look at the flowers on the side of the road, a butterfly, a bird. Let yourself enjoy that moment. The coffee you picked up from that new café is really good? Take a moment to savor that. Little things go a long way to improve your overall well being.

Do you all have any psychology questions or have topics you want me to discuss, let me know 😊 I've wanted to do something like this for a while. I contemplated doing a video, and maybe I will in the future. I just worry I'll come across too boring, like some professor. For now I'll just post here. Stay safe everyone!

[flowersoftheuniverse]

——— if you’re hearing HELLO MY OLD HEART by THE OH HELLOS playing, you have to know CASSANDRA LEWIS (SHE/HER; CIS WOMAN) is nearby! the TWENTY-FOUR year old has been in denver for, like, TWO YEARS. they’re known to be quite SELF-DEPRECATING, but being EMPATHETIC seems to balance that out. or maybe it’s the fact that they resemble KATIE DOUGLAS. personally, i’d love to know more about them seeing as how they’ve got those SOFT RAIN ON WINDOW PANES, RUSTLING PAPER IN A LIBRARY, WARM COCOA vibes. and maybe i’ll get my chance if i hang out around the MONTBELLO DISTRICT long enough!

prefers to go by cassie; thinks “cassandra” is too fancy for her

+ empathetic, kind, creative, friendly, loyal

- self-deprecating, isolating, obsessive, workaholic

4’10 and panromantic/demisexual

has always known she’s meant to be a writer; has been writing stories since she could hold a pencil

won several awards for her writing in high school and had her stories published in the school paper

despite this she holds herself at such a high standard she frequently thinks she’s not good enough to be actually published

it was just her and her mom for as long as she can remember

she felt guilty moving to denver and leaving her mom, but her mom encouraged her to move out and have new experiences

very introverted but also very lonely

was a loner in high school and got teased a lot, which ranked her self-esteem

works as a barista while she works on her writing. genuinely wants to publish something, but is too afraid of rejection to submit anything yet. has been working on the same draft for two years

is a part of a writer’s group that meets at the library once a week

wanted connections:

- roommate - high school best friend she’s still in contact with - coworker baristas - regulars at the cafe - fellow writer group members

ooc: feel free to come into my dms any time to plot connections/ask for starters!

[wouldntyou-liketoknow]

It's because of stuff like this that I have so much self-doubt as a writer.

Despite the fact that I love writing as a hobby/art form, that I've been practicing ever since I could string full sentences together, that during my time in college I entered two creative writing contests and won first place in both...

Despite all that, I still feel like I'm not good enough. I feel like the way I write dialogue or descriptions is boring, like I'm not clever/witty, like I don't make the characters likeable or funny or intriguing.

This is my personal philosophy: when a story takes a lot of time to write, as well as being a long, heavy-wordcount piece in itself, that means more passion and effort was put into it. (Not saying anything against writers who can whip stuff up in a short amount of time. We all have different schedules/work ethics, and they're all valid.)

I really try to make something thorough and deep with my longer stories, and I feel proud when they're finally complete...

And yet, they get so little attention.

And that makes me feel like all my work is for nothing. That my stories can't be interesting, that I must be a useless writer, because if they were and if I wasn't, then people would read them and I'd have a little bit more to show for all the time and emotion and energy I put in.

So, in summary, that stuff kinda hurts like a bitch.

I know the algorithms are bullshit, and I don't blame other people for being picky with what they consume, because I've been picky myself. But my anxieties still get to me a lot of the time, and it's not at all uncommon for them to make me think of people just not giving my work a chance because I happen to be wordy and they automatically deem that as boring or pretentious or what-the-hell-ever.

It's not gonna stop me from writing, because again, I genuinely love it. Plus, I've been lucky to make a few real friends online that I can trust to chat/brainstorm with; so, writing stuff as gifts for them is very nice, too.

I just wish some people didn't feel the need to be so blatant about stuff like this. Because we writers already feel uncertain/anxious/self-deprecating about it as it is.

Do they know that reading is not mandatory? Nobody is forcing them to read?

[luicifellt]

So I got some issues..

Emotional issues. This complicates communication greatly..

To try and explain my thoughts, and thought process to my new partner I decided to write some of it down. To help get him an idea.

Because I'm inept at explaining my feelings and emotions.

Beneath the read more will be a lot ... but I need to have it out somewhere. Maybe someone will read it.

I dont know what I hope to get out of this. But its fairly dramatic so ... someone might like to read it.

These are snippets of thought.

Sadness

Anxiety

Stress

Loneliness?

Self hatred

Self disgust

Can't do anything right

Won't finish what's started.

Anything created will be hated, and NOT good enough. At all times.

Am I toxic?

Do you love me? Yes?

I believe you..

But Why?

Not pretty, not talented, not smart.

Kinda phat.

Emotional but can't express it.

Depressive episodes and mood swings...

Females am I rite?

Why bother ?

Why would you pick this? There's better options.. hopefully.

Seems like a mistake to invest in me. Though I'm so happy you did pick me. Never thought I'd have a relationship.

So good to me... can't give anything back though. Its not enough.

Can't handle myself well. Will lash out..

Seems like a animal adoption form. Don't adopt me. I look soft, looks are deceiving.

No motivation hates Self for that

No inspiration hates Self for that

No dreams or aspirations hates Self for that

No hobbies doesn't do much hates Self for that

Probably the worst conversationalist. Only has about 5 witty bright and fun days where true humor truly shows (a year) hates Self for that.

Selfish! can't stand myself, but still want the nice things.

Egotistical hates Self 90% of the time the other 10% is spend on Self complimenting ???

Hates Self for that. Thanks brain.

Horrible body image. Hasn't realy looked at self more that absolutely necessary in 15 years. When mirror is used:  -10 don't recommend.

Uses self deprecating humor to feel better. Bad trait.

Can't control bad thoughts, let's it spiral like a junji ito story.

See! can be funny..is not enough though, is it.

Friend(s) will tire of this.

Got nothing to add to the group.

Can't (but should) find the energie and motivation to change that short term.

Long term probably not worth it. Tho Time will move anyway.. why have people waste it.

Fear of abandonment, fear of being left alone. Also weirdly craving it, to get it over with.

Convinced feelings can be turned off and broken. Maybe it should.

Who's kidding, sobbing mess in private! But can barely cry in company. Why. Nobody knows.  *ugly cryier

Should honestly, cry more... should cry more honestly. Shouldn't let it vester for months. But I will.

No fysical energy. No creative energy. Stuck In the limbo of adult life.

Gets envious of people that know how to express themselves and have dreams and can make art and spend their time productive. Hates Self for that.

Self hate trumps envy. Keeps me grounded.

Don't know where the balls to hold out like this come from.. weird episodes of righteous ideas on improvement and finding motivation to improve. Can and will not last longer than 5 to 7 business days.

Tried psychologic help. Makes head messier and can't express any thought or feeling without feeling like crying.. main reason to keep it in.

Why does it bother me? Will cry literally everytime, feelings need to be discussed. No one wants that... yes. I decided that, because I don't want that.

Convinced that whatever power the universe holds in its dark matter, it manifests as bad luck.. consistently.. Time and experience have proven this to me.

Maybe just pessimistic.

Definitely just pessimistic.

Good taste in music tho. Bit static perhaps.

Has grand ideas. Doesn't know how to express them. Dissapointing.

Will overthink most things. Takes pride in well thought out plans... overthinking still more a problem, than a benefit.

Loves deeply for a lot of things but can't invest in one thing. Took a long time to convince myself I could love. Inexperienced.

Wish I could do better for you. Wish I could like me more.

Has hope to get better with help. But the spirals... Make me tired.

Has thought about dying. Knows this is a no no. Been through this before at years 12 through to 18. Never again. Not like that.

Weight loss helped.... people around me, to behave normally.

With the exception of a few, people would be degrading, look down on me, find me disgusting.

What I later learned however is that its usually not okay to express these thing out loud, to the persons face... especially when underage.

except when you're fat apparently because people would... constantly, daily, even if they didn't know me. They'd still tell me in passing.. as if hearing it would change anything in that moment.

I have had people do double takes and track back so they could tell me I'm offensive to the eyes.

I wish i made that up to be dramatic.

I feel like I have lived 2 lives.

But the first one seems so far away. It's not just the "getting old" part, nor the nostalgia factor. I suspect I simply blocked out a lot of it. Memories have more gaps than I care to admit.

I grief over this often. Sounds dramatic, again... but its the truth. I feel like a big part of Self got lost in those years and I'll never find it again.

Regrets and heartbreak over small things seem, so big when you have a lot of them.

It hurts.

It hurts to look at all the stuff I possess and gathered over the years.

All the art supplies all the expensive materials. The tools, the airbrush, the paints and canvases. The clay, the silicone, the make up...

They mock me everytime I catch them gathering dust in the closet, or drawer. They take up endless amounts of space... but I can't get rid of it.. because, what if.. as if.

Not having these things hurts more...

I can write pretty decently. To bad everything written feels like a edgy YA novel. Dropped.

Reading used ro be a comfort.. now a pressure at the back of my head reminding me of how it USED to be. Reading now no longer an adventure, or practical pass time.

Feels like wasting time. ( and money)

Sometimes it feels like one more dissapointment away from running on empty.

No thoughts, head empty.

Sounds appealing. Where do you sign up.

Imagine being simultaneously most loved and taken care off by a partner, for the first time in your life... but also the most lost.

Feels like a disappointment.. one of many. How much more do I have, before it's to much for me, or the people around me.

Maybe i SHOULD write angsty YA novels.

Maybe not.

Wonder where the irrational thoughts and fits come from. Could it be trauma? Could it be drama? Maybe in another life I was a theatre kid after all.

Goals: be part of it, stop being a spectator.

Pick a personality that you like and stick with it. Be useful.

[trashpremiium]

Here’s the thing. Creativity was never my strong suit. I’ve never been very good at coming up with things. New ideas are few and far between. The sentence “do you have any questions?” drops my stomach because no, I never do. But I feel like I should. See, my brain works a little like an algorithm. I catalog as much information as I’m physically able to, and when presented with the challenge of finding answer C, I recall everything I know about topic A and topic B, and mush them together until something passable emerges. It’s made me very good at pattern recognition– and thus prediction– because that’s just how I work. But that’s all it is. A collection of “if… then” statements. 

I’m also an artist, which seems like a bit of an oxymoron. I picked up this hobby out of pure spite against a teacher who said I’d never be any good at it, and so I always will continue out of spite. But I’ve also noticed something, over the years. Certain hobbies– ones that require the process of creation– are unique in that they require two different components: technical skill and what I will refer to as the Sense. And it’s not so simple as “talent” vs “hard work” either. Technical skill can be attained by either of these methods. But the Sense is innate. It can’t be taught or acquired. It’s the ability to see something in your mind's eye, to breathe life into something you make. The essence of creation. 

In some ways, it’s a great equalizer. Though some people naturally have both (every 12 year old artist that you look at and think “how the fuck did you do that”), a person that puts in the work to be self-taught can be just as good an artist as someone naturally talented or someone with formal training– as long as they all have the Sense. It’s most prevalent in beginner artists. Sure, their lines might be shaky, their proportions wonky, but there’s life in what they draw. It’s… natural, in a way I don’t have the words to explain. But without the Sense, you can never be as good as even someone with far far less technical skill than you. 

Think of it like this: you can train your whole life to be a pianist. You can move your fingers through chord progressions faster than anyone. But if you don’t have an ear for music, you’re just hitting keys. You can have a mastery of your facial expressions that rivals the best, but if you fall apart the second you don’t have a script, you won’t be able to act. 

I don’t have the Sense. I never have, and I never will. It’s… frustrating, to improve in technical skill but still know everything I draw is flat and lifeless. To see friends who very rarely draw instantly become better than me because they have something I never will. 

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t meant to be self-deprecating. I’ve never had any delusions about myself as a “good” artist. It’s a hobby, one that I find great joy in. But for a long time I felt like I was broken– that I didn’t have some spark that everyone is supposed to have, the one that makes it possible to sing and dance and create. The one that supposedly makes us human. 

So this is for every “uncreative” person out there. For everyone who tries so hard but can’t find life in the things they make. For those who feel like they’re missing something that’s supposed to be innate. For those who create anyway. I love you.

[threepointseven]

hey! i was wondering if i could request hcs of scaramouche, childe and kaeya with a female s/o with a low self esteem? thanks!

-💕anon

When you have a low self esteem

Type- HC’s 🌷

Flowers included!🌼= kaeya x gn! Reader, scaramouche x gn! Reader, childe x gn! Reader

Note🍀= i have no creative energy im sorry this was so lazily made 😞

Genshin masterlist

💐Your bouquet has been delivered <3💐

Kaeya

- He’d be such a good ego booster ngl—

- Every second of the week hes already showering you in peace, complimenting you on your looks even the weirdest things like how your joints move-

- Hes always flirting with you and bragging about you to everyone. Especially to dilute

- So why do you have such a low self esteem </3 he’ll shut you up with a kiss rn if you keep on with the self deprecation

- When he catches you talking to yourself in your shared bedroom panicking cause you think your not good enough for him he’s immediately putting his arms around your waist, whispering in your ear how every inch of you is more than worthy enough to be with him, it doesn’t matter how long he has to stay there hugging you, kissing your skin while chanting the things he loves about you, as long as all that negative stuff about yourself you’ve been thinking comes to and end..

- “Im a push over, im literally a doormat, iim not good enough for you” he cant stand hearing those things come out of your mouth. If its asserting yourself or self consciousness thats stopping you from smiling hes gonna help you get rid of those stupid feelings

- He couldn’t stand to see you crying like that again so he priorities making you feel wanted from then on, whenever he even sees diluc he’ll start telling stories about you and showing you off while reminding dilluc that hes still single, and his oh so charming brother has an amazing lover he’d die for

- So many compliments to the point it gets embarrassing, and if you ever have a breakdown like that again he spends no time wrapping his arms around you and reassuring you once more

Scaramouche

- He has no idea what to do. I mean yes he also has a pretty low self esteem but he doesn’t ever really show it???

- So he proceeds to just hesitantly approach your shaking figure, he can see tears roll down your cheeks but your mouth is twisted into a smile while you degrade yourself with that joking tone of yours.

- He cant stand it. He doesn’t know what to do, at first hes trying to console you but all he’s greeted with is more self depreciation that stings him as much as it stings you. In a whim he pushes himself on you, hesitantly hugging you tightly while he reassures you that you’re nothing of the sort. You’re not unworthy, you’re not a failure, not everything bad that happens is your fault! He’s trying his best, he has no idea how to put it into words but hes trying.

- He doesn’t say much, he’ll let you cry and shake in his hold while you let all your insecurities out, sometimes flinching at the excessive self deprecation.

- He’ll sit there, burying his head into the crook of your neck while he rubs your back before protesting and attempting to make you feel better.

- It’ll be really really badly attempted compliments at your personality, your appearance…

- He’ll actually start telling other people about you, bragging about your strength, your appearance, your kindness. If it makes you feel like enough he’ll talk about you as much as he can.

- He doesn’t know how to deal with it but he tries reassure you, he even asks Childe for advice-

- He just needs you to know that you deserve him more than anyone in the universe really. You deserve everything good, and all those negative thoughts you have about yourself are just nuisances

Childe

- why 😡

- He gets what having such a low self esteem is like so he’ll be all over you

- He’ll probably know youve been feeling gloomy before you even tell him! Maybe its the way youve been looking at the mirror for too long lately, or how you unconsciously bring yourself down at times and excuse it as a joke

- He’ll know.

- And he just becomes such a sappy loving boyfriend.

- He’ll open his arms wide open and beckon you to give him a hug, its a bone crushing hug. One filled with utter love as he whispers every single thing he loves about you.

- He’ll let you sob on his shoulder and he’ll rub your back gently.

- It probably breaks his heart more than it breaks yours when he sees you sob, in the back of his mind somewhere its a voice shouting at him with disappointment, he promised you a life of giggles and smiles when he asked you out and here you are crying because you think you arent worthy enough to be dating him, worthy enough to be anything really.

- If you say sorry for being a trouble hes gonna get whiny and start cuddling into you more while refusing to let go

- Hes spoiling you to the bone after your crying session😡😡

- You wanna go shopping? Go ahead!! If it makes you feel better you can snatch his wallet and use it to your liking!!

- Wanna eat? Hes already dragging you to liuli pavilion

- His arm will be on your waist the entire time, bragging about you to practically every single one of his friends

- If it puts a smile soon your face after you cried that much he’ll do anything

[insecateur]

Okay, I didn't want this to be in the main body of the art LOL but I wrote a whole lot of words about Pokémon X&Y's 10th anniversary. If you'd like to read them I'll put them under a read more. Whatever you decide to do, thank you for your support always 💗

Wow, can you believe it? It's been ten years.

I see people say these kinds of things a lot when it comes to milestones like this. It's been ten years… I feel so old… I can't believe it's been that long. It feels fake, it feels wrong. All of that.

I've felt like this with a few things, of course. Even a few games I liked in my teens or in my childhood. But I've always kept track of Pokémon X&Y's anniversary, so it's never felt like something that took me by surprise. Year after year, I knew Pokémon X&Y was getting older, just like me. The 3DS was slowly falling behind, then the e-shop closed, and now it's been announced that the online features will be deprecated, too. It's been ten years…

A lot can happen in ten years, you know?

Starting my transition journey has taught me to be kinder to my past self, I think. I'm more at peace with myself. I look at my face in the mirror and it's no longer a stranger staring back. I've found people who love and care for me for who I really am and want to be and not who I was trying to be for the sake of appearances. If I went back to ten years ago, do you think the twenty-year old kid I'd find there would believe that? I'm not sure he would.

In 2013, I was in a rough shape. I think I was in denial about it. I was still carrying wounds I didn't want to look at. I'd put bandages over them and tell myself I'd be okay. It worked, mostly. I was making new friends. I was rebuilding something that was closer to who I wanted to be. My life had been torn apart; it had only been two years. I thought I was stronger than that, that it didn't matter to me anymore, that I'd moved past it. I was wrong, obviously, but it would take way too many years for me to realize it.

Telling it like this now, I feel a bit embarrassed, like I'm making myself out to be worse than I was… I don't want you to picture some tragic mystical figure or anything… I was a kid who'd gotten out of a very bad situation and couldn't entangle everything that had come out of it as a result. I sought out support that I didn't get. I had reached a realization about who I was and nobody in my real life was ready to hear it, as far as I could tell. The world was a very scary place. Twenty-year olds feel so young to me now, but at the time I felt like such a loser for not having my life together. How silly…

I'd been a Pokémon fan since I was seven, back in 1999. I wrote a whole post about it for the 20th anniversary of Pokémon as a whole, but some of it kind of stings now, so I'll give a quick rundown. I got into the series first through the TCG, then the anime, then one of my childhood friends' copy of Pokémon Gold. For reasons I still ignore to this day, my parents wouldn't let me get a GameBoy and only relented when the GBA came out.

Pokémon became one of those things that were in and out of my life, always in the background. I was a fan, but most of my love for it came from how good it was as a sandbox for creative endeavors. I'd make OCs, roleplay with friends, invent stories that featured my own ideas and creations and rarely left any room for existing characters to be involved. I had other series where I cared about the characters a whole lot, like Final Fantasy or The Legend of Zelda or Ace Attorney or even TV shows like House MD or Prison Break, but Pokémon was all about the setting and the creatures, and not much else.

I had a short-lived passion for Eusine in HGSS, and then I had a very bad time playing BW that put me off the games for a little bit. I told myself I'd outgrown it, after all, these things happened, and tried to move on. When the XY games were announced, I was wary, unwilling to pour emotional investment into something that could very well further stain my good memories of a childhood favorite. (I'm being a bit dramatic here, but I was 100% in that mindset back then, unfortunately.) That the games turned out to take place in Pokémon France only made it seem even more as if they were mocking me. I was so needlessly sarcastic and negative about it. (I was twenty, so I'm practicing self-forgiveness, but damn, boy, chill out!!!)

What was it that ended up grabbing me, in the end? I think it was a combination of things. Something about Pokémon X&Y, its characters, its story, its setting, reached me deeper than I expected. I think some of it was timing, some of it was themes, and some of it was the overall vibe at the time. Everyone was playing and discovering the games together; it was the first time main series games were coming out worldwide at the same time. To this day, this is one of the most important aspects of Pokémon X&Y, to me. That feeling of playing it with others even through kilometers and kilometers. Those early fandom memories, especially those spent alongside Japanese fans, are some I still cherish to this day.

I still think the catalyst was beating Team Flare though. Something went on that day. I wouldn't even be able to tell you what. I still remember where I was; I almost remember exactly where I was standing. I beat Team Flare and stopped playing for a week and just marinated in that feeling. For a week.

That's how they get you!! That's how the brainrot set in!!

Anyway… I'm not going to go over everything that happened after that year by year; this isn't an autobiography. It's just a silly post about a game that changed my life. The fact that I got my name change confirmation today of all days feels so pointed, though. Perhaps it's even making me a little emotional.

All throughout this year, I agonized about how I could make something that would perfectly encapsulate all that Pokémon X&Y has given me. It's the ten years anniversary! It's a big milestone! Wouldn't I be betraying my love for the game if I couldn't pull off something incredible? I had many ideas, that all fell to the wayside when I realized how exhausted I was. Which was the answer to my problem all along, I think.

Because the reason I'm exhausted is that I'm making a lot of big changes in my life.

I've met people I love and want to be a better person with. And I've met them through Pokémon X&Y, too! Isn't that a celebration in itself? Building a better future together… That's what Pokémon X&Y was all about, wasn't it? I don't need to prove anything to anyone. I'm making my own beautiful world, right now.

…AND ALSO MY NAME IS LEGALLY SAMUEL LYSANDRE NOW SO THERE'S THAT.

If you read all of this, I hope you have a good day. I'm having a good day right now. That's already a lot! That's already something to be thankful for! Let's keep at it! One day at a time!

🔥🧡 joyeux anniversaire pokémon x&y!!! 🧡🔥

[chaos-monkeyy]

I am also a smut writer but lately I've been really down. I have gotten some comments, just people saying I must constantly have a dirty mind or that they could never think like that or write like that, or they imply that some of the kinks I've written are gross. Others have said I've given myself a reputation now. I don't want a reputation, I just want to be me. I think they are meant to be jokes but it's hurtful. I was wondering if you ever experienced the same thing and how you handled it. Thanks

Hi Anon, sorry for taking a little while to answer 💙 I've been quietly mulling this over in the back of my mind since you sent it, trying to think of something actually useful to say.

First off, I'm sorry the shitheads have got you down. I've been pretty lucky avoiding that nonsense for the most part, but I do know how fucking awful it feels to deal with that sort of thing.

One way I've found to handle it is to be... well, a little arrogant about it all. Yeah, I can write stuff or think things that a lot of other people "never could" because that's.. like... literally what a good writer's job is. (and anyone who thinks we're only capable of writing fictional things we actually want to see or happen for real is a fucking dipshit. but I digress.) Anyway, just because someone meant something like that negatively, doesn't mean they're actually right about it being a bad thing.

I also know for a fact some people think some of my kinks are gross, and.. I mean, that in itself is fair. I think a lot of other people's kinks are gross. One person's kink, another's squick, etc. The difference between being an asshole or not is whether they feel the need to tell you, when they could instead have just... Not... Interacted..... And the assholes can fuck right off. I know it still sucks at the time, and it's hard not to feel down about it, but they're seriously just not worth your time and energy.

As far as the reputation and the unfunny "jokes" go, I don't really have any good way to deal. People like to shove other people in boxes and label them and ignore what the actual person wants, and it's frustrating as hell. Depending how well you know and trust the people making those jokes and comments, it might work to just tell them it hurts to be kind of.. reduced and two-dimensioned like that. You are allowed to be you, and who "you" are in fandom spaces and as a writer is allowed to change over time, too.

I did find that it made a difference when I stopped and took a look at the side of my reputation I'd built for myself. Because for a long time I was the first one to go "oh ha ha I only write filth I can't do *real* story", so that was.. how other people saw me too.

So I did my damnedest to stop doing that, because fuck that.

Fuck the self-deprecating bullshit we're expected to do, as fandom creators generally and as smut and kink writers specifically.

PWP and filth for its own sake IS still a story and it IS still creative and imaginative. You put work into that. Writing smut and kink is not easy to do well. Be proud of what you write, whatever it is. Yeah, it's not gonna be for everyone, and that's how it should be. The world would be a boring fucking place if we all liked the exact same things, and anyone who's a dick to you because the stuff you write isn't perfectly suited to them?

Fuck 'em, they don't deserve your fic.

[thecrowslullaby]

Intrulogical with 48, J, 12

Not proofread, but I wanna nap xd

Anon im so sorry I just realised u responded to the wrong ask. OTL

Ship: intulogical

Wordcount: 1230

Warnings: kissing, a few self deprecating thought (Remus)

“I can’t believe you dragged me into this.” Remus grinned as Logan kept running, pulling the shorter man behind him. The man made no indication at having heard him but Remus knew his boyfriend. And the way his ears were tinted red told the hufflepuff the man definitely heard him and was fighting with himself not to respond. Not that that was going to stop Remus from lovingly pestering the ravenclaw. “You know, usually I’m the one who gets us into trouble.”

“Can we try to focus, Remus?” Logan hissed, embarrassment seeping through, and oh if that wasn’t just adorable. Remus could grab him by the shoulders, pin him to the wall and kiss restlessly right here and there. And he would, if it weren’t for the professors hot on their tails. And if there was one thing Logan enjoyed less than messing up it was being caught doing so.

“Why don’t you just blame it on me?” Remus asked. The teachers were certainly more than happy to accept him as the sole cause for setting a few cursed toads loose in the corridors. He was an oddity from the beginning. A hufflepuff and a delinquent at once. Certainly not something most professors wanted on the school records. At least Headmaster Janus (and it was disrespectful to call him by his name, Logan’s voice echoed in his mind) was fond of him. He was certain that if that wasn’t the case he would be thrown out onto his ass long ago.

Point was, most students and staff were easy to write Remus off as nothing more than unnecessary trouble, but not Logan. At least not anymore, if the bewildered glance over his shoulder was anything to judge by.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Not that it really mattered, most of the time. That’s why Remus kept insisting Logan shouldn’t announce their relationship to his friends just yet. He was sure he would wise up eventually. And there was no need to put Logan’s future at stake, especially not as the end of the 7th year approached and the teen was applying to jobs like a madman. He would be content with a few fleeting kisses Logan managed to spare over the first half of the semester, spending most of his time with his nose in some kind of obscure book.

Remus on the other hand had spent the time causing as much mischief as he could while still getting away with it. He promised Logan he would try. And for some reason that promise seemed more binding than anything he ever told his parents. Or Janus. Not that the professor needed to know. (Although Remus had a rising suspicion he did. Janus seemed to know an annoying number of things.)

But for some reason today seemed different, and Remus found himself being the one to help Logan out of trouble for once.

“So what do we do?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know.” Logan huffed as he pulled them behind another corner. “That’s why I need your help.”

“You’re the smart one.”

“You’re the more creative one.” Logan pointed out as if that was true. Sure, Remus was always quick to come up with some kind of trouble, but he certainly wasn’t all that good at fixing them. He was good at hiding them though.

He yanked Logan backwards. The taller teen gave a small yelp of surprise as he landed in Remus arms. The Hufflepuff was quick to drag them both into a nearby alcove, pulling slightly on the curtains, just enough to hide them from passing teachers, but not enough to raise suspicion.

“Quiet.” He whispered as he put a hand over Logan’s mouth, pressing the teen as close against his chest as he could. “They might hear us.” Logan seemed to be dazzled for a moment before he nodded slowly and Remus grinned back. 

They watched as the teachers passed by in a flurry of robes, missing the obvious hiding spot. 

He didn’t let go of Logan, not until the footsteps faded and all Remus could hear was two quickened breaths of students who barely avoided detention. Even then, he lingered, just a second longer before releasing Logan from the albeit compromising hug. Logan didn’t step away and Remus was once again tempted to wrap his hands back around him. Plead Logan to stay a little longer. But one thing Remus was not, was selfish.

“Thank you.” Logan whispers. His back still pressed against Remus chest as he tried to turn his head at a weird angle to stare back at him.

“You would have done the same.”

Logan chuckled.

“Not sure I can think so fast.” The teen finally stepped away and it took all of Remus' restraint not to chase the warm feeling of Logan’s back. The ravenclaw turned around, a smile creeping up on his face as he took Remus' hands in his own. He seemed to hesitate for just a moment before casting a glance behind the curtain, most likely making sure the teachers weren’t coming back, and letting go of Remus' hands in order to cup his face instead. “I love you.” He whispered, so sincerely Remus had trouble convincing himself not to let his heart flutter. He didn’t succeed, not when Logan leaned in, ever so slightly, their lips just inches apart. “May I kiss you?”

“Yes please.” He wasn’t sure why Logan still asked. Not like he ever said no before. But he supposed that was just another part of Logan. The teen never stopped asking questions, wanting answers for them all. It was a funny feeling. Being something Logan wanted to know more about.

Oblivious to his inner turmoil Logan leaned in, capturing Remus lips with his own. The hufflepuff melted as he felt Logan’s hand slowly travel up his cheek, to the back of his head, only for the ravenclaw to finally tangle his curls with his long slender fingers. Remus wasted no time to return the favor. Messing up Logan’s hair as he pulled the teen closer. The ravenclaw let out a small sound that was a mix of a laugh and a yelp and oh, Remus could just swallow him whole.

And after what felt like far too soon Logan pulled back. Hair messed up, morning light hitting it just right to cast a halo. Face delightfully red. His tie far too crooked, even for Remus’ standards, and the teen wanted nothing more than to grab Logan by it and pull him closer.

But the ravenclaw didn’t let him, stepping away as he did his best to comb the mop of tangled back hair into order using his fingers. Adjusting his tie, before flashing Remus a grin that was far too endearing.

“I need to go.” He whispered, trying to keep his voice serious, and failing miserably as Remus grinned up. “I should go check what the commotion is about.”

“You go help the teacher chase that delinquent who’s responsible for this.” Remus snorted. “I’ll be here in case you need someone to blame it on.”

“I won’t.” Logan said, leaning in to give Remus a quick peck on the cheek.  “Don’t get into trouble.”

“I could say the same to you.”

Logan huffed, his cheeks going red.

“It was one time.”

And with how delightful it turned out to be, Remus sure hoped it wasn’t the last.

[tillidontneedfantasy]

A Track-by-Track Breakdown of Taylor Swift’s 9th Studio Album: ‘evermore’

“My collaborators and I are proud to announce that my 9th studio album and folklore’s sister record is here. It’s called evermore,” is how Taylor Swift introduces us to this album in its foreword. One might assume a “sister record” would entail b-sides, or tracks that didn’t quite make the cut for folklore, despite Taylor’s explanation that “we just couldn’t stop writing songs.” evermore’s release came at a strange time, upon the heels of the Folklore: Long Pond Studio Sessions film on Disney+, as well as 5 Grammy nominations for folklore. The world still captivated by folklore, it’s understandable why one might not consume evermore as critically. Even as a die-hard fan, I felt some whiplash by this announcement; I am still processing folklore! Hell, I’m still processing reputation!

If this was the Taylor from two years ago, this may have been a big enough fear of hers to hold off on releasing evermore. But as she explained upon folklore’s surprise release, life is too unpredictable now, and there are zero givens or guarantees. So she followed the same path this time (although making sure it fell in line with her birthday weekend). But it’s not just the strategic timing of the release that she’s thrown out the window for now, but also her mindset whilst making records. As she explains in the evermore album foreword,

“I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one as soon as an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found. So I just kept writing them.”

This is a revelation for Swift, to let the music lead her into artistic freedom, which is what makes evermore such a triumphant return. Truly folklore’s sister record, Taylor wrote evermore with the same creative team: Aaron Dessner of The National (Swift’s favorite band), long-time pal and collaborator Jack Antonoff, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and William Bowery aka Swift’s boyfriend, Joe Alwyn (as officially revealed in the Long Pond Studio Sessions). Additionally, former 1989 tour openers and close friends of Taylor, the HAIM sisters, join the crew, along with Marcus Mumford for some dreamy backup vocals.

The production is just as wistful and mesmerizing as it was on folklore, yet the storytelling on evermore is kicked up a notch, expanding on the topics and worldbuilding established in its sister record, with even sharper lyrics and an effective and elaborate use of alliteration. The best thing about Taylor is that no matter what she does, her masterful lyricism is always at the heart of her art, and somehow, she keeps getting better. Once again, I wanted to explore the rich stories she’s crafted in this woodsy universe. This is how I’ve interpreted the album, but I hope you find your own meaning in the songs as well.

1. willow It is fitting that the opening track to folklore’s sister album, where we wade further into the forest that is Taylor Swift’s imagination and storytelling, would center on the type of tree that is a symbol of hope, belonging, safety, stability, and healing. “willow,” one of the few more obviously autobiographical tracks on the album, is a hymn of gratitude for her man (as she wants you to know, yes, thirteen times), Joe Alwyn, and how the invisible string tethering them together pulled her to him in a time when everyone else was counting her out. Though not as present on many of the other songs later to come on this record, you can feel the lightness in her heart on this song as she embraces the way in which the willow has bent, wrecking her plans, throwing her into the water and leaving her happily lost and afloat in his current. The downward key modulation throughout the last two repetitions of the chorus is beautiful and very fitting for Swift vocally, but also sounds like the feeling of finding your comfort and settling into it, basking it in while you wait for the next place the wind pulls you. Best lyric: “Now this is an open/shut case / I guess I should’ve known from the look on your face / Every bait and switch was a work of art.”

2. champagne problems On the second track of the album, Taylor dives back into the fictional worldbuilding she began to explore on folklore. While on folklore high school relationships and dramatics took center-stage, evermore graduates from adolescence to young adulthood, not that it is any easier emotionally on the listener’s heart. “champagne problems” chronicles a rejected marriage proposal between two college sweethearts at their old dorm building. Taylor sings as the narrator, a reflective, self-deprecating young woman who jokes about belonging in a madhouse and dismisses all her turmoil as champagne problems. The term ‘champagne problems’ itself could have various meanings here: their trivial concerns, the fact that their “sister splashed out on the bottle” of champagne that they will not be using to celebrate as they had hoped, or perhaps it could even hint that excessive drinking is a piece of all the ways the narrator is “fucked in the head,” as they said. Although the person she is singing to is the one who got hurt in the story, the hurt in the narrator’s heart is just as palpable and relatable, because you only have yourself to blame when you self-destruct. Best lyric: “’She would’ve made such a lovely bride, / what a shame she’s fucked in the head,’ they said / but you’ll find the real thing instead / she’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred.”

3. gold rush On her YouTube live chat prior to the album’s release, Taylor explained that this song “takes place inside a single daydream where you get lost in thought for a minute and then snap out of it.” The daydream consists of a love story so pure that the town had never seen such a thing; it could only happen in a fantasy for the narrator. How could she possibly have the gall to call them out on their contrarian shit, or end up with her Eagles t-shirt hanging from their door, when they are so coveted by all, and when she cannot withstand the thought of even competing? She sings, “My mind turns your life into folklore / I can’t dare to dream about you anymore,” a sweet little connecting piece to this album’s older sister, effectively convincing herself out of the idea of jumping into the chaos of the gold rush because even inside her own imagination it’s too dangerous. Best lyric: “I don’t like that falling feels like flying ‘till the bone crush.”

4. ‘tis the damn season According to Aaron Dessner, Taylor had written the lyrics for “’tis the damn season” in the middle of the night amidst their Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions recording after a long night of chatting and drinking with their co-conspirator, Jack Antonoff. The lyrics perfectly encapsulate the guttural ache the track evokes. It is a tale of two people who always find their way back to one another in their hometown, which acts as the ever-returning fork in the road. The path taken, back to L.A. in pursuit of her dreams, is the one she chose and continues to choose, but whenever she returns home, she takes a ride down the road not taken, just to get a taste of what could have been, even if just for the weekend. What starts off as an icy homecoming always transforms into the warmest intimacy. The success of this track is aligned with the success of Taylor’s entire career; even with such specific details, it feels so deeply personal to the listener. You know the street you’d drive along late at night laughing, the spot you’d park the car, the person who stars in every what-if. You will never really know if the road not taken is as good as it seems, but that might be ok; sometimes, the fantasy is better than the reality, anyway. Best lyric: “It’s the kind of cold / fogs up windshield glass, but I felt it when I passed you / There’s an ache in you / put there by the ache in me.”

5. tolerate it Inspired by the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, “tolerate it” is an agonizing track from the perspective of a devoted wife who polishes plates and paints portraits and waits by the door for her husband with a battle hero’s welcome, who at best tolerates all her adoration. There are few things as painful as idolization being met with indifference, when you have all this love to give to someone who just leaves it there untouched. “tolerate it” captures that desperation for the approval you know will never arrive, but you sit and watch, waiting for it just in case you’re wrong, but you know you’re not. Best lyric: “I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life / drawing hearts in the byline”

6. no body, no crime feat. HAIM “no body, no crime,” the one evermore song solo-written by Taylor, has the clearest plot from beginning to end. In the same vein as the female powerhouse country classic “Goodbye Earl” by The Chicks, Taylor is out for blood to avenge her friend, Este (named for one of the HAIM sisters). The story goes as such: Este’s husband kills her for calling him out on his infidelity, and then Taylor kills the husband and frames his mistress. The HAIM girls, who are long-time friends of Taylor’s and former touring mates, lend their vocals to reinforce the accusation on the husband and to provide Taylor’s alibi. “no body, no crime” is so far the closest we’ve gotten to a return to “country Taylor,” proving that she is still the master of a killer country tune (yes, pun intended, it had to be done I’m sorry). Best lyric: “Good thing Este’s sister’s gonna swear she was with me / (she was with me, dude) / Good thing his mistress took out a big life insurance policy”

7. happiness Written a week before the album’s release, “happiness” is one of Swift’s strongest and most reflective breakup songs. Although she writes it as though it is recent, there’s a lot of power in knowing that she’s been happily in love for four years, and that she is even better now at doing the thing that has always been best at. She is finally “above the trees,” as she sings, and is able to see it all for what it is, but her character is still in the heat of it all, trying to navigate the stages of grief when a relationship ends. We see the narrator grapple with many of those stages throughout the song. Most striking is the anger displayed in the second verse when she sings: “I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you / No, I didn’t mean that, / sorry, I can’t see facts through all of my fury.” That section is jarring and feels like one of the most honest moments in a Taylor song, the insanely difficult emotional balancing act when we are grieving a relationship. The devastation of loss can distort our perception, and a part of that is the difficulty of understanding how multiple seemingly opposing things can co-exist in our hearts, such as happiness because of someone and happiness after them. But when you leave it all behind and finally find your place above the trees, you can find happiness after someone and also look back and appreciate the happiness they once provided. Both of these things can be true. Best lyric: “Showed you all of my hiding spots / I was dancing when the music stopped.”

8. dorothea Taylor Swift has the uncanny ability to create such developed and well-rounded characters with such little information, which is what makes her storytelling so compelling. In “dorothea,” we learn much about the title character through the narrator’s eyes, and the relationship they once had. The lyric “skipping the prom just to piss off your mom and her pageant schemes” alone tells an entire story in itself. “dorothea” is also the companion song to “’tis the damn season,” just from the other person’s perspective, which helps shine even more light on the story. The narrator of “dorothea” reveres her but wonders if she’s still the same soul in L.A. as she was back in their never-changing town. Whatever the answer, they’re still willing to support her no matter where she is, but she’s always welcome back in Tupelo by her hometown love’s side if she ever just wants to be herself rather than someone known for who they know. Besides, they’re the only soul who can tell which smiles she’s faking. And you can always return to the road not taken. Best lyric: “They all wanna be ya / but are you still the same soul I met under the bleachers? / Well, I guess I’ll never know / and you’ll go on with the show.”

9. coney island feat. The National What really started the folklore / evermore journey was Taylor’s love for The National. Taylor has cited them as one of her favorite bands for many years, and as we know, this led to her beautiful new collaborative relationship with Aaron Dessner. So it would make sense for the track written with the intention of this duet to be so well executed; you can feel the love and care Taylor put into writing this song. In her press for these sister albums, she has spoken about trying to channel frontman Matt Berninger’s writing style. But what actually happened was she just produced her own signature lyricism at its sharpest. “We were like the mall before the internet, it was the one place to be / the mischief, the gift-wrapped suburban dreams / sorry for not winning you an arcade ring over and over,” is a hall of famer Swift-ian lyric. “coney island” explores the confusion, hurt, and self-reflection when a passionate affair burns out fast because you did not prioritize that person. And to top it off, Swift and Berninger’s harmonies are achingly beautiful, transporting you right there in the story, on the bench, wondering, over and over. Best lyric: “Do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there? / Will you forgive my soul when you’re too wise to trust me and too old to care?”

10. ivy Leave it to Taylor Swift to make a song about an affair sound so romantic, and so sympathetic to the narrator, that you’re rooting for adultery. “ivy” tells the tale of a woman in a lifeless marriage, likening her home with him to the tombstone that the widow in town visits each day. I like to think this is the same wife whose husband was out there building other worlds without her in “tolerate it,” because then that means she found someone who celebrates her love, who holds her pain for her, who blooms all over her; they started it, but she’s fighting for it all the way to the end, nonetheless. “ivy” showcases Swift’s gorgeous vocals and her sharp lyrics, with a melody so infectious it is bound to permanently plant its roots in your dreamland. Best lyric: “Oh, I can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland / my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now I’m covered in you.”

11. cowboy like me With the beautifully blended backing vocals of Marcus Mumford, “cowboy like me” is an entrancing love story of two con artists who lost at their own game and got conned into forever with each other. She’d gone from swindling old men for their money and fancy cars to falling victim to the danger of dancing with someone who only has eyes full of stars, and she knows she’ll pay for it. “cowboy like me” is one of the most romantic tracks on the record, proving that life never plays out quite as we plan. Best lyric: “Now you hang from my lips like the gardens of Babylon / with your boots beneath my bed / Forever is the sweetest con.”

12. long story short One of the more pop-sounding tracks on evermore, “long story short” is pretty much a summary of the long story behind reputation (2017). The song is filled with various metaphors for her reputation crumbling around her, and then finally putting her defenses down to be with her lover, someone as “rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky.” It is a sweet ode to her boyfriend, and a gentle comfort to her past self that it will all work out. But it is also an oddly relatable example of how we shrug off our struggles and minimize them to just a “bad time,” when the time she is singing about was obviously something that deeply affected her (as will be further explored in the title track); but sometimes it actually feels good to just shrug it off as just a blip in your life, because at the end of the day, you survived, and that’s what counts- even if you’re not keeping score anymore. Best lyric: “Pushed from the precipice / clung to the nearest lips / long story short, it was the wrong guy. / Now I’m all about you.”

13. marjorie Whereas track 13 on folklore was a tribute to Swift’s paternal grandfather, evermore’s track 13 is a tribute to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who was an opera singer in the 50s, and passed away in 2003 when Taylor was 13 years old. “marjorie” is quite possibly the most touching track Taylor has ever written thus far in her career. Grief is one of the most difficult topics to tackle in a song; the genius of “marjorie” is that it is simple, yet not understated. Swift reflects on the profound lessons she learned from her grandmother, about the difficult balances of kindness and cleverness, and politeness and power. She curses herself for not cherishing the moments she had with her, for complaining rather than understanding in the moment how admirable her spirit was, for all the amber skies she’d love but will never see. The chorus, blunt and hard-hitting, reminds us that someone does not have to be living to be alive, to be all around, to be with us. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were singing to me now,” Taylor sings towards the end of the song, right before you hear a sample of Finlay’s opera singing in the background, a truly eye-swelling moment. It is clear that Finlay played a pivotal role in Swift’s own ambitions, as she sings, “all your closets of backlogged dreams, and how you left them all to me.” Marjorie knew she was leaving them in good hands. If you haven’t yet, check out the moving lyric video for the song, where you can see photos and video clips of Marjorie, both throughout her career and in her time with Taylor. Best lyric: “Never be so polite you forget your power, / never wield such power you forget to be polite.”

14. closure On the most experimental track musically on the record, Taylor writes off her need for closure from a relationship of some sort, whether it be romantic or platonic or business, all of which can cause hurt of equal intensity. The subject of the song is trying to make nice with Taylor, and she is just not having it, as it is not coming from a genuine place, but rather to ensure that their life remains picture perfect, or to clear their guilty conscience, or to preserve their own ego. This is a deeply relatable sentiment; as valuable as forgiveness can be, sometimes the person who hurt you just doesn’t deserve it, and all you can do is forgive yourself for blocking their number or shredding their letters. Best lyric: “I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life / staying friends would iron it out so nice.”

15. evermore feat. Bon Iver To close out the standard edition of the album, Taylor joins forces once again with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, with whom she collaborated on the Grammy-nominated duet, “exile” for folklore. However, Swift leads most of the track this time, lamenting the difficult time she went through in 2016. The piano and Swift’s vocals are haunting, particularly when she describes this time in her life as “catching my death,” consumed by a pain that she feels will never end. If you’ve ever been depressed, you know what that feels like, and the dark places it leads you. Although she is singing about a time four years prior, it sounds so present, and it is heartbreaking to hear her in such a state. When Bon Iver comes in, the tempo of the song picks up, the piano riff becomes more erratic, like a winter storm hitting you in the face, and he voices all the anxieties of the cost of such a downfall. But through those anxieties, Taylor finds not a cure, but an anchor in love, and then the tempo slows back down. By the end of the song, Taylor has the foresight to understand that although it may not feel like it now, the pain she is experiencing is not permanent (a sentiment my therapist has been trying to instill in me for years). In her Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, Taylor explained how the lyrics parallel the times we are in currently, and so it feels really special to have the album end with someone who knows how it feels to be imprisoned by your pain gently comfort us with the wisdom that “this pain wouldn’t be for evermore.” I hope one day soon, as we leave 2020 far behind, we can all truly believe her. Best lyric: “I was catching my breath / barefoot in the wildest winter catching my death.”

16. right where you left me (bonus track) The first bonus track on evermore, “right where you left me,” captures a moment so earth-crushing, a piece of you is trapped in it forever. In this song specifically, the narrator finds herself stuck in the same corner of a restaurant where she was told by someone she loved that they had met someone else. “Glass shattered on the white cloth, everybody moved on,” she sings in mourning. We have all experienced those moments that we could teleport back to if we just closed our eyes; the scenery, what you wore, the smell and taste of the season, the very point in your body where it felt like your insides were collapsing. Or that one particular person, who is long-gone from your life but seeing them is like time-travelling back to that person you once were, ready to pick up where you left off. But as much as you want to stay in that moment forever, just in case it changes in your favor, the cold reality is that the world stops for no one. Best lyric: “If our love died young, I can’t bear witness / And it’s been so long, but if you ever think you got it wrong / I’m right where you left me.”

17. it’s time to go (bonus track) “right where you left me” was Taylor’s cry for help to get out of restaurant, and “it’s time to go” is the answer to the call, as she sings in the first line, “when the dinner gets cold, and the chatter gets old / you ask for the tab.” This song is about gathering the strength to leave situations and relationships behind that no longer serve you. She grieves the betrayal of someone she thought to be a twin from her dreams (almost definitely referring to former friend, Karlie Kloss), acknowledges that keeping a marriage together for the sake of the kids often actually has the opposite intended effect (possibly- but not certainly- something she and her brother experienced), and recounts attempting to bargain with someone consumed by greed, only able to leave with herself (absolutely referring to the end of her fifteen-year long business relationship with Scott Borchetta, her former record-label owner). But as painful as leaving all of those situations was, Taylor has gained the wisdom to understand that walking away sometimes takes as much strength as persevering. You can’t stay at the restaurant, or at the mercy of someone else forever; you have to forge your own path, even if it’s in the opposite direction of what you envisioned for so long. And even with all her past success behind her, as folklore and evermore have proved, there is so much more ahead of her. Best lyric: “That old familiar body ache, the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul / You know when it’s time to go.”

In a time where we are all trapped in our homes and in our heads, the folklore/evermore experience has been the sweetest escape. If anything, the creation of these wonderful sister records has taught me that our most powerful tool in times of distress is our own imagination. Even just the ability to close my eyes while listening to one of these tracks and feel the character’s story is a gift. The way I’ve always been able to pick up Harry Potter and escape to Hogwarts when I’ve felt alone and friendless, I can listen to folklore and evermore when I feel scared or hopeless and escape into this enchanted forest Taylor has built, where I can climb above the trees and see it all for what it is. I feel so lucky to watch Taylor’s imaginative world unravel around me. I can’t wait to see what she creates next.

DISCLAIMER – REVIEWER’S BIAS: I would literally die for this bitch.  

[tiny-feisty-gay]

@lenfer-incarnadine first of all, i'm so glad you like it! vaggie and charlie matching makes me so happy tbh, like, they already are matchy in the show and i feel like the early days where there were just little hints of it must have been so cute. thank you so much! <3

as for the writing part, god, i wish had magical writing secrets. writing a lot in one sitting is exhausting, albeit fun, and quantity doesn't always equal quality. this happened to be a very long bit because i hit a stride partway through, but i also wrote and rewrote chapter eleven four? five? times before i hit that stride.

so, with that said:

Don't be afraid to start over. I use Scrivener because it's really easy to move paragraphs, blurbs or entire scenes into a folder and out of the main text body, but you can mimic that by just making a new document(s) for those cut words if, like me, you would rather saw off your own arm than actually delete words. If something isn't working, you've already walked away from it to let it rest, and it still doesn't work... go back to where it was working and start over. Trust me, wrestling an uncooperative scene into submission is a whole lot harder than accepting that the foundation is bad and rebuilding it. Nuking the words you're struggling with gives you a blank slate to start from, and another chance at catching that elusive writing stride.

This works for my brand of neurodivergence but your mileage may vary: track your progress, whether that's by words written or time spent writing. Personally, word count is more reinforcing to me, so I track words written. I have a GDoc spreadsheet dedicated just to word tracking, which I update at the end of each day and then tally up at the end of the month. It's a really good way to get that "ah, finished!" feeling even if you're still in the middle of a project.

Specifically for writing "lots of words", first decide if your scene needs a lot of words. Action scenes tend to need less and do better with short sentences and sparse internal dialogue, whereas emotional and introspective scenes do better with longer sentences, descriptive language, and more sensory detail. I write a lot of internal stream-of-consciousness style stuff, so my word counts tend to go higher than someone who focuses primarily on action might.

Writing a lot of words is at least partly down to consistency, and the best way to tackle consistency is to find what works for you. For me, it's listening to some music and carving out time (usually at night, when I'm most productive) to write. Whether I write 50 or 5000 words, they get added to the spreadsheet all the same, I brag to friends about them all the same, and I'm proud of myself for getting them done all the same. I know it's easier said than done, but mindset is everything with writing and self-deprecation/guilting yourself will kill creativity faster than anything else.

Lastly: having a friend group of other writers changed my ability to write entirely, and I'm not exaggerating at all. I also write original fiction and most of our conversations revolve around our novels, but finding a group (for me, it's a small discord server) where you can bounce ideas and workshop wording and just gush about what you're working on it so helpful.

Writing a lot is less about the writing itself, and more about removing as many barriers as possible that might stand in your way. Things like doubt, demotivation, distractions, and isolation. Writers tend to be a pretty introverted bunch so the isolation part is, in my opinion, one of the most important.

Also: basic self care. Food, water, cleanliness. And if you're struggling to get those basics done? Decide whether you can handle writing at all, or if trying to force it will just make you feel worse. There's no shame in taking breaks; nobody (including the great writers of history, yes I will die on that hill) can write every single day without faltering. Nobody should force themself to write every single day without faltering. Pick something reasonable, stick to it as much as possible, and give yourself enough grace to be flexible on it.

Forgiveness of self goes a long way for writers.

Idk if any of this was helpful but I couldn't really answer the question directly since it's a lot more than that, but I hope some of this gave you some ideas <3

"surely this will be a normal length chapter"

~six thousand words later~

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Lie to Me

Prompts: Post Pof: Janus is not doing ok, everday he can taste Roman's lies, he can feel Roman's pain. He can feel the ego crumbling. Guilt plagues him as hes done the opposite of protecting the ego. Hey uh... could you write a fic when you have the time? - meltheromanstan

Roman is having issues trying to keep up his facade (and maybe struggling with his work cause ADHD makes everything difficult on top of everything because I love the idea of the twins having ADHD) and he is one bump in the road away from a full on meltdown. And Janus realizes a lie in a conversation that’s concerning and at some point in Roman begrudgingly gives a self deprecating reason and Janus is like heck no and Roman’s like why not and Janus is like because i care? And then Roman breaks down because no one has told him anything like that in a long time. Sorry that’s so long. You can write this whenever, or never if you don’t wanna. Anygay, bye and thank you! - anon

Thank you for the requests! oh this poor man. roman i'm so sorry you didn't do anything to deserve this and here I am hurting you. I'm so sorry bb you need to be wrapped up with a hot chocolate and sat far away from everything.

Read on Ao3

Warnings: self-hatred, self-doubt, poor roman’s got so much internalized hatred this poor man, some things that can be interpreted as self-harm but nothing explicit

Pairings: main focus on roceit but it can be platonic or romantic you decide, background LAMP, DLAMP, DLAMPR

Word Count: 10,554

Janus hears every single lie in the Mindscape. It doesn't matter whether or not the liar believes it to be true or knows it's a falsehood; if it isn't true, he hears it.

Roman lies. A lot.

Or: 5 times Janus had to hide that he was taking care of Roman, and 1 time he didn't.

1. 

They never gave Roman enough credit for how good of an actor he can be.

 The wedding is an absolute dumpster fire. The aftermath is a nuclear explosion. Roman sinks out in silence, long before the video is over. Virgil never shows up, neither does Remus. Logan is cut off before he can realize it.

 Well, that’s not true.

 Janus cuts Logan off before he can realize it.

 Because he didn’t care about them, no. Patton has the most influence over Thomas. Patton is the one who influences the other Sides more than they realize most of the time. And Patton is the one who needed to listen.

 So it didn’t matter that the others weren’t there when Janus had to talk to Patton and Thomas, because it worked. Thomas listened, Patton finally understood, and things could start getting better.

 …or so he thought.

 In fairness, the others came around…fairly quickly. He approached Logan with a book on philosophy and an apology on his lips, only to be swept up into a conversation that had drawn both Patton and Virgil into the living room by the end of the day. It felt…well, right isn’t the correct word, but…warm, perhaps. Yes, let’s go with warm.

 Of course, Remus belly-flopping onto the couch—and the rest of them—near the end was certainly an additional factor.

 But Roman…

 Janus didn’t expect Roman to forgive him. Certainly not quickly. He certainly expected Roman to forgive the others for whatever little parts they played in harming the prince’s precious ego. And he absolutely expected the prince to admit that he was wrong, that it was indeed his fault that everything had gone so spectacularly wrong.

 The first time Roman walks into the kitchen after the wedding, Janus flinches.

 Virgil notices and all but jumps in front of him, snarling a ‘what do you want?’ in Roman’s direction. Patton had turned around and his smile had frozen, staring at Roman.

 “Hello, Roman,” Logan says cooly, “may we help you?”

 “Yeesh, aren’t you lot jumpy this morning?” Roman shakes his head and sighs dramatically. “I am not here to grace you all with my glorious presence, simply to grab a little food and depart on a quest!”

 “Thank god,” Virgil mutters, too low for Roman to hear.

 He pushes Janus behind him as Roman waltzes into the kitchen to take something out of the cupboard.

 “…when will you be back,” Patton asks warily, “and where are you going?”

 “Into the Imagination, my dear Padre!” Roman spreads his arms wide. “To see where the spirit of adventure takes me!”

 “That answers only one of the questions.” Logan closes his notebook sharply.

 “Time is a social construct,” Roman says airily, “but I suppose I shall try to return for dinner?”

 “Don’t force yourself,” Virgil snarks, crossing his arms, “looks hard enough already.”

 Roman just laughs and leaves.

 “Goodness,” Patton mumbles, leaning on the counter, “I didn’t expect him to be so—so—“

 “Roman?” Virgil rolls his eyes. “Princey’s got a head bigger than a fucking balloon—“

 “Language.”

 “—and he’s not gonna come down to earth for anything.”

 “Roman is—or can be—remarkably immature when it comes to admitting his mistakes,” Logan adds, “it’s not to be completely unexpected that he is still in denial.”

 Patton sighs. “I know, I just…expected better.”

 “Don’t hold your breath,” Virgil huffs, “what about you, Janus? Are you hurt?”

 “I also noticed you flinch,” Logan says, standing, “are you alright? Did Roman…”

 “He didn’t hurt you, did he, kiddo?”

 No. No, Janus is absolutely fine right now.

 The instant Roman had appeared in the doorway, the lies slammed into Janus.

  They hate you, they never want to see you again.

  Everything is your fault.

  Virgil is right to try and shield Janus from you, you were so fucking cruel to him.

  They don’t deserve to be burdened with you.

  Leave. Leave so they never have to put up with you. You know they don’t want you.

  They’ve never wanted you.

 And yet, as clearly as he heard those lies, he heard Roman, the blustery, pompous Prince, loud as ever, spoiled as ever. He saw Roman, the swaggering adventurer, the cocky Creativity who was always right, always the center of attention.

 The actor.

 Janus had definitely given him enough credit for that.

 “Janus?”

 Right, they’re still waiting for an answer.

 “I’m fine,” he says, a beat too late, “just caught off guard, that’s all.”

 Virgil eyes him suspiciously. “You’re lying.”

 “Well of course I am,” Janus sighs, rolling his eyes, “it’s not like Deceit is one of my primary functions, after all.”

 “Kiddo,” Patton says, “you know you can tell us if Roman—if someone hurts you, right?”

 Something pinches just under his chin. “I know.”

 “…so?”

 He shakes his head. “Roman hasn’t hurt me, nor has he threatened to.”

 Virgil bumps his shoulder. “Just…keep us in the loop, okay?”

 “Because it’s very likely that Roman will hurt me.”

 The others chuckle or brush it off. Of course, they did. When they aren’t paying attention, Janus lets his gaze trail up the stairs, following the line where the prince vanished. The others have never paid much attention to when Roman returns from his ‘quests.’

 Janus does.

 Even if Janus weren’t consciously coming to the prince’s aid, he’s certain he’d be summoned regardless.

 He waits, quiet in the shadows, for the telltale squeak of the lower hinge on the red wardrobe door in Roman’s room. He’s learned to keep still, keep quiet, not yet fully materialized, watching as Roman stumbles back through the door, one of his arms sagging in relief as the other holds him up. The door creaks shut and a shuddering breath leaves the prince’s chest.

 His head bows.

 Before the charade completely falls away, Roman pushes himself up and starts getting ready to sleep. His sash, normally laid so carefully over the back of his chair, is given barely a second thought as he throws his costume onto the floor. Janus winces at the slam of the bathroom door and again at the way Roman all but collapses into the bed with a miserable expression on his face. He doesn’t need to pry away the pillow to know that Roman is desperate.

  Stupid, stupid, worthless prince.

  Not even a fucking prince, not even the fucking squire.

  Useless, can’t even do your fucking job.

  Can’t even stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself even though you know damn well you don’t deserve it.

  You don’t deserve anything.

 Janus grits his teeth and waits. Waits for Roman’s lies to grow less vitriolic, more sluggish, waits for Roman’s breathing to even out, sagging against the pillow, before he moves.

 His footsteps are silent as he crosses the room, keeping a wary eye on the door, lest someone else knock and wake up the now sleeping prince. He swallows, leaning down, his lips barely brushing the curve of Roman’s ear.

 He doesn’t touch, doesn’t want to risk waking him now.

 “You’re not stupid, Roman,” he whispers, barely loud enough to be heard, even by himself. “You’re not worthless, you’ve never been worthless.”

 Roman shifts in his sleep. Janus freezes. He stills and he breathes out. Bends just a little closer.

 “And you deserve to know that.”

 Even if he can only even whisper it when Roman is too deep in sleep to hear him.

 2. 

The lies don’t stop. They just get worse.

 Fortunately, Janus’s powers aren’t limited by the physical space, not when the lies are particularly pervasive. For example, every time Logan insists that he doesn’t have feelings, or Virgil insists he doesn’t care about the others, or Patton says—particularly passionately—that everything’s fine, Janus hears it. These ones typically merit a scoff and a roll of the eyes, or a quip if he’s actually in the same room. These ones he’s used to.

 Here’s the thing about the lies that Janus can hear; it doesn’t matter whether or not they’re lies that someone knows is a lie or whether it’s something they believe. If it isn’t true, Janus will hear it.

 Case in point: Roman’s lies, and the lies that took Janus far too long to figure out were lies.

 When he decides to tune into Roman’s mind, he’s normally greeted with statements lauding about how amazing the prince is, how he’s the best Side, how much he loves himself. Even when he’s not paying particular attention to Roman, he can hear those sentiments loud and clear.

 The issue with that? He can hear them loud and clear.

 Now, is it likely that these are things that Roman believes that aren’t true? The possibility exists.

 Is it more likely, given recent…developments, that these are things that Roman has known aren’t true, and is intentionally thinking them in order to keep playing a role?

 No, of course not, why would you ever think that?

 They won’t go away. He can barely look at Roman now, can’t stop seeing, hearing all the lies he tells himself every day. The others are starting to worry, growing colder towards Roman, concerned about how much Janus tries to put distance between them. Virgil keeps shoving himself in between the two of them, Logan keeps pulling Janus into long conversations that Roman wouldn’t dare insert himself into, Patton makes sure the two of them are never alone.

 Well, almost never alone.

 The lies are the worst at night. When Roman is in his room, curled up under the covers, his head buried in his hands, they roam freely, coloring the red curtains with shadows, smearing themselves over his paintings, his drawings, his writing, his keyboard.

  They’re right to be scared of you, right to hate you.

  You don’t deserve their forgiveness, especially when you haven’t even apologized for the amount of things you’ve done wrong.

  And you’re selfish enough to want a fucking apology from them?

 Janus, waiting in the corner for Roman to fall asleep, winces, the strength and magnitude of the lie filling his mouth with bitterness.

 Does he deserve an apology from Roman? Yes, perhaps, that would be nice. Laughing at his name in a moment of vulnerability was…perhaps not ideal.

 But the idea that Roman doesn’t deserve an apology? From any of them?

 Roman, the only one who consistently defers and gives and tries and hopes for them, the one who works nonstop to make sure they have something, anything to do, for Thomas, for each other, the only one who’s called out to apologize to them, who apologizes to them when he realizes he’s done something wrong?

 Roman deserves an apology. If only to make up for the amount of times he’s been blamed for something that someone else started.

 A noise.

 Janus blinks, coming back to the present as Roman stirs. For a moment, he worries that the prince has woken up, that he’s discovered someone else in his room, only for a trail of sluggish lies to funnel into his mind.

  Janus hates you more than anyone else and he’s right to.

  You hurt Janus on purpose.

  You never stop hurting Janus.

  You will always be someone he can use, a puppet, until you are nothing more than an obstacle.

 Before he can stop himself, he’s striding across the room to murmur in Roman’s ear again, chest aching with the weight of the lies.

 “The others,” he murmurs, flooding the words with as much sincerity as he can, “they don’t know what I can hear, what they have never noticed, and that is what hurts me, my prince, that you are so quiet and so brave that you can convince the world that you’re not suffering.”

 Roman clutches his pillow a little tighter.

 “I don’t hate you, my prince, I know you didn’t mean to hurt me like that, and I know—“ he takes a deep breath— “I know that the hurt you caused me is nothing compared to what I have done to you.”

 He closes his eyes and feels the guilt well up in his chest. He knows he can’t say the full apology that Roman needs—that he deserves right now. He can’t even begin to imagine all the little things he hasn’t even realized he’s done to Roman, how many things he’s done that he’s forgotten that were just another Tuesday to him, but rewrote entire chapters of Roman’s life.

 He can’t begin to imagine how much of this could’ve been stopped if only he’d realized just how hurt Roman has always been.

 “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m sorry that I never realized how far I let this get.”

 3. 

Roman is touch-starved, he realized, horrified one day when he walks into the living room to see Logan and Patton sitting on the couch, Virgil sprawled across their laps, and Roman in the corner, far away from everyone else, hiding such a look of heartbreak that Janus almost stops in the doorway as Remus brushes past him.

 “Hey!” Virgil splutters when Remus lies down on top of him.

 “Remus!” Patton pushes lightly at him. “You’re going to squish Virgil!”

 “He’s durable, he’s used to it.”

 Logan raises his eyebrows, looking to Janus for confirmation. Janus sighs.

 “I can remember every single time I’ve walked into our living room to see the two of them on the couch,” he says dryly, “and I’m certain that all of them have started with Remus asking Virgil’s permission to lie on top of him for hours.”

 “See?” Remus wraps his arms around Virgil. “He’s fine.”

 “Yeah, yeah, Pat and L’s knees won’t be though.”

 “Ooh! Did you know that some people have a third bone in their knee?”

 “I would be more than happy to follow this train of conversation,” Logan mutters, “if you were to get off my lap.”

 “Fine.”

 Janus shakes his head again as Remus clambers off, landing cross-legged next to Logan on the couch and immediately info-dumping. Virgil sighs and scoots, laying his head in Patton’s lap and going back to his phone. Patton runs his hand through Virgil’s hair and wiggles his free hand at Janus.

 “Come on, there’s plenty of room.”

 Remus snorts, interrupting his tirade long enough to say: “Jan-Jan’s not a cuddler,” before going back to talking about…something to do with knees. Patton frowns.

 “What?”

 “’S true.” Virgil peers up at him. “He’ll hug you if you ask for it but he’s not big on cuddling.”

 “O-oh.”

 “He should still come sit with us, though,” Virgil says quickly, shooting Janus a very subtle look, “so get over here, J.”

 Janus sits, pulling out his book and opening it. After a few seconds, Patton looks away, and Virgil tunes out again.

 Good.

 The lies were getting a little too hard to stand.

 Here, behind his book, he can shift his attention to Roman, scribbling in his notebook and looking every bit the creative genius at work, dead to the world, couldn’t give less interest as to what’s going on around him.

 As he said, Roman is a fantastic actor.

 This time, it’s not even that the words are the thing hurting him now. No, these lies are the type he’s more used to, someone frantically muttering the same thing to themselves over and over and over, trying to convince themselves it’s true. The problem is what’s being carried with the lies, and how deep this need must run in order for it to make it to Janus.

  I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it.

 Roman’s hand is trembling a little on his pen as his brow furrows, eyes skating back and forth over the page. The ache starts just under his chin, right where it meets his throat, and surges, rushing through his arms to the very tips of his fingers. All of them, even the hidden ones. His gloves twitch on the pages of the book.

 He’s so cold.

  I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it.

 The words start to blur together. It hurts. His arms ache. He risks looking more openly at Roman only for him to notice, looking back and quirking an eyebrow.

 “Something wrong, Deceit?”

 “He has a name,” Virgil growls.

 “Janus,” Roman amends, shooting Virgil a glance, “is there something wrong?”

 “Why’re you over there?”

 He meant to ask why Roman wasn’t sitting with the other Sides. He meant to ask whether Roman chose to sit by himself and starve himself of physical contact or if the others had cut him off. He meant to ask if Roman wanted to come to sit with the rest of them.

 Instead, Roman smiles.

 “You’re right. It’s getting quite late. I must be off!”

 Before Janus can say anything, Roman assumes his dramatic pose and sinks out, cheerily declaring his farewells.

 Next to him, Patton lets out a shaky breath.

 “Goodness.”

 Logan adjusts his glasses. “Quite.”

 “Thanks, Janus,” Virgil mutters, making himself more comfortable, “I thought he’d never leave.”

 No.

 No, no, no, this is all wrong.

 “Why did you want him to leave?”

 Virgil shrugs. “It’s harder when he’s here.”

 “Harder how?”

 “We do not know how to act around Roman,” Logan admits, fixing his tie, “he’s not—well, he seems content to behave as if nothing is wrong, and…”

 “It’s not,” Patton says softly. He fiddles with his hands. “We can’t go back to the way it was before, and Roman…Roman doesn’t seem to know how to move on.”

 Virgil snorts. “Not that he seems to care enough to try.”

 Well, if the lies still plaguing Roman’s thoughts are any indication…

  Why would they want to touch you? You ruin everything you touch, haven’t you ruined enough already? Haven’t you ruined them enough already?

  They’re done trying with you. They hate you. It’s a wonder they only realize it now.

  Broken, useless, toxic prince. Finally left out in the cold where you deserve to be.

 Roman curls up under his thin sheet, the heavy blankets put away for the colder seasons too far away and too close to Patton’s room for him to get them safely. Janus watches as he twitches miserably, curling up tighter, turning over, hugging his pillow to his chest, trying, trying to feel warm. Every now and then there’s a quiet noise, quickly stifled. His arms start to ache again, not just from the cold, but from how much Roman seems to believe that no one wants to touch him.

 He makes up his mind.

 He sinks out to his room, quickly grabbing one of his weighted blankets from his own storage. Returning to Roman’s room, he waits with bated breath until Roman’s chest rises and falls at a steady rate before carefully creeping forward and spreading the blanket over the prince.

 “Don’t make yourself cold,” he murmurs, tucking it into place, “stay warm for me, my prince, stay warm, it’s alright.”

 Roman shifts, turning his head so it accidentally brushes Janus’s hand.

 Janus freezes.

 Roman hums slightly and falls back asleep. Shaking, Janus moves his fingers, letting them card through Roman’s hair. The prince mumbles and doesn’t wake.

 He does it again, firmer this time. Roman all but melts under this, just this, just a proper blanket over him and someone running their fingers through his hair.

 “Oh, Roman,” Janus murmurs, unable to resist cupping Roman’s face in his hand, “you’re don’t ruin everything you touch, far from it.”

 He cups the back of Roman’s head, guiding it to a more comfortable angle.

 “On the contrary,” he whispers, “you make us better.”

 And maybe…maybe he can try and provide a little of what Roman needs. Even if they have to be stolen moments, felt only on the very edges of sleep, when Roman is conscious enough to remember them but not lucid enough to lie and say he doesn’t deserve it.

 4. 

The time when Roman barely managed to stumble through the door in his room before passing out is the only time Janus seriously considers calling the others to help.

 But no, he reminds himself as he rushes to the prince’s side, they would want to wake him up, to scold him, to figure out exactly what he thought he was doing, whether or not he’s considered whether this is hurting Thomas.

 Janus bites back a growl as he starts examining the prince.

 Perhaps if they were so concerned about whether or not hurting Roman hurts Thomas, they’d be more considerate about what they say to him.

 He pushes that away for now, more focused on getting Roman’s tight collar away from his neck and checking the state of his bruises. From what he can see from the dirt on the costume, he’s fallen, from quite a significant height, and who knows what else might be hiding under here?

 “I’m sorry,” he murmurs as he looks around for something to help, “but I may have to peel you out of these.”

 Sure enough, he can get most of the costume top off fairly easily—and gains a newfound respect for how difficult it must be to put the thing on by himself, there are so many buttons—but the undershirt proves more difficult, especially as it seems to be stuck in places that it should not be stuck in.

 …oh.

 Oh, no.

 Janus bites back a curse and moves quickly. One arm reaches for the first aid kit he knows is in the bathroom, one arm grabs a pillow and stuffs it under Roman’s head, two gently move his arms up and over his head, and two carefully, carefully take the edge of the undershirt and beginning to take it off.

 He presses a gauze pad to the wound over Roman’s hip.

 He holds an ice pack to the swollen lump on his rib cage.

 He checks over the wound on his chest.

 He tilts Roman’s head from side to side to see how far up the bruises go.

 The pants have to come next and Janus grits his teeth, running his hand over Roman’s forehead as an apology before he shucks the article of clothing.

 More bruises. So many bruises. Thankfully no more bleeding wounds.

 He lets out a breath and sits back on his haunches, staring down at the injured prince.

 The best thing about it, he decides, is that there’s no way for Roman to know that he would’ve been safe passing out and not taking care of any of these.

 The wound on his hip has all but stopped bleeding as Janus tends to it carefully, wiping away the blood and soothing the angry skin with a balm, covering the whole thing with a bandage. The mark on his chest isn’t as bad as it looks, bits of dead skin that Janus clears away and brushes off Roman’s torso. The antiseptic makes him hiss a little and he rubs soothing circles into his tummy until he resettles, murmuring that he’s doing so well, he’s almost done, they’ll get him into bed and he can rest.

 None of the bruises on his legs are bad enough to merit bruise cream, let alone keeping the poor thing from his bed for a moment longer. Instead, Janus quickly covers the one on his ribs and lifts the prince into his arms.

 Roman jolts.

 “Shh, shh,” Janus murmurs, stroking a free hand through his hair, “shh, shh, shh…”

 Roman shushes, just in time for Janus to lie him down and tuck him in, one hand still in his hair as he sits on the edge of the bed. A furrow grows between his brows.

  Should’ve gotten hurt worse.

 Janus freezes.

  Should’ve let them hit you more.

  Got off too easy.

  It should hurt more. You deserve it. Maybe if you pay enough it’ll get better.

 “No, sweetie,” Janus whispers, reaching out before he can stop himself and cradling Roman’s sleeping head in his hands, “no, no, no, don’t ever believe that we want to see you hurt.”

  Shouldn’t have come back.

  Shouldn’t be a burden.

  At least none of the others know about it, they would only complain and ignore you. Useless, worthless prince.

 “You’re not worthless, sweetie,” Janus promises, still cradling the poor thing’s head, running his fingers through his hair to keep him lulled and asleep, “shh, now, everything’s alright, hush now…”

 As the lies drift off into nothingness, Roman along with them, Janus’s face falls.

 Roman is the protector. The prince that will always put himself between them and whatever dared to try and hurt them. He’s not meant to fight a war on two fronts.

  Who protects the protector?

 “I will, sweetie,” Janus whispers, so, so quietly as he tidies up Roman’s room and gives the sleeping prince one last pat, “I’ll look after you.”

 5. 

Roman, perhaps more than any of the others, is essential to Thomas’s mental help.

 Roman is Thomas’s hopes and dreams, the things he wants above all else, the things he strives for, the things he desires. He reaches and reaches and reaches for Thomas, holds every single one of his wants close to his chest, and keeps them safe until they can bubble up into reality.

 Roman is romance, the reason Patton gets all fluttery and bubbly inside. He’s the suave, fabulous, gay disaster that encourages Thomas to be happy, to reach for who he wants, for who he desires.

 Roman is creativity, the livelihood that Thomas has chosen. He works nonstop, tirelessly producing idea after idea for Thomas to film, to write, to create, so Thomas can live and be proud of what he’s doing.

 Roman is the Ego.

 What is the Ego, you may ask? Well, although Freud is largely considered bullshit by modern psychologists—or at the very least, upsetting due to the fact that his research was largely corrupted by the rich men funding it—there are certain aspects of his work that remain in the public mind.

 Simply put, the Ego is the conscious mind. It is the sum of your thoughts, beliefs, and habits as they interact with your physical body. The tether that stretches into your awareness and consciousness and into your physical form. It is a combination of body-thoughts-feelings and the consciousness taken to activate it.

 The Ego gives you a sense of self-worth. It is a mask, one you put on and play as a role.

 Everyone and anyone, it seems, has been warned about the dangers of an out-of-control Ego. Overconfident, hubristic, arrogant, with no regard for others. A vapid complainer, sustained by the power of approval hoarded selfishly. You are encouraged, if not instructed outright, to learn how to live without paying any attention to your Ego.

 Here’s what they don’t tell you.

 The Ego is what you think of yourself. It gives you self-worth because that’s its job. To make you feel secure in who you are. It is sustained by approval because it lives in fear. It itself puts on a mask of strength, of imperviousness, that it is indestructible, because it is soft, malleable, and so very afraid.

 It is true that the Ego is nourished by positive comments, because it isn’t a crime to feel good, or to feel proud, or to want to be validated. It is true that the Ego sometimes reaches too high, only to fall, because that is its nature, to want, and to hope.

 They don’t tell you that when you turn your hatred inwards, your Ego doesn’t just bruise, it crumbles.

 So when Logan constantly tells Roman that they can’t do something, or it isn’t a worthy use of their time, despite his best intentions, he’s not doing much other than snatching Roman’s dreams away. Roman learns not to ignore Logan, yes, but at the expense of constantly being told that it is his fault when Thomas feels crushed, never mind that Roman is crushed, too.

 So when Virgil insults and belittles his worth, tells him he’s stupid and unimportant, despite the fact that Roman will snipe back at him, all he does is reinforce the idea that Roman is the only one at fault, that Virgil is allowed to sit and insult him to his heart’s content while Roman has to apologize for standing up for himself. Roman learns to stand quietly while Virgil tells Thomas he’s a disappointment until the time comes where he believes it’s true.

 So when Patton decides that Roman is bad, after how much Roman has sacrificed for Patton, to do what would make Patton happy, Thomas happy, when all he needs is just someone on his side, something, anything, Roman has to stand there, alone, hurt, angry, upset, and be told that he’s wrong. Roman learns that he’s only here to give, not to receive, that no one will hold him when he falls apart.

 So when Remus starts to show up, more and more, less and less restrained, no one puts it together that Roman literally does not have the strength to hold him back. Roman learns that the others don’t realize how little confidence he already has, only that their approval of him is directly proportional to how much they hate his brother.

 So when Janus decides that Thomas needs to take better care of himself and that the only one he needs to focus on is Patton, Roman is the perfect tool, the perfect puppet, to be used and tossed aside when he no longer needs him, because it’s so easy to twist and turn the little prince so he dances in just the right way, never mind how much it hurts. Roman learns that no one ever cared about him, not really, and perhaps they never will.

 As you might be able to imagine, destroying the thing that gives one self-worth is absolutely the best way to go about things.

 Can any of you guess where the blame gets pushed when Thomas’s mental health suddenly plummets?

 It’s definitely where it should be.

 The thing that scares Janus the most about how that meeting goes is how resigned Roman is.

 His hands are folded neatly behind his back. His face is politely blank. His mind is quiet.

 When there’s a break in the conversation—if you could even call it that—he opens his mouth.

 “What would you like me to do?”

 “Have you not been listening?” Logan adjusts his glasses. “To…anything we have said?”

 “Of fucking course he hasn’t,” Virgil grumbles, shoving his hands into his pockets.

 “Kiddo,” Patton admonishes, crossing his arms, “Thomas hasn’t had any ideas or dreams lately and it’s stressing him out.”

 “Which means you need to get out of the pity party and back to reality with the rest of us,” Virgil adds.

 “Which means,” Logan sighs, crossing his arms too, “you are going to have to start talking to us again.”

 Roman looks between them. “Are we not…talking now?”

 “He means actually interacting with us, Princey.”

 “Have I…not been doing that?”

 “It means accepting that things have changed,” Logan snaps, “and working through it.”

 Roman tilts his head. “How would you like me to do that?”

 “Well—“ Logan adjusts his glasses— “let’s start with an apology.”

 Something flickers across Roman’s face. Janus looks back and forth between Thomas and Remus. Thomas just looks a little confused as to what’s going on—which, when doesn’t he?—and Remus is staring right at Roman. There’s a strange expression on his face.

 “What would you like me to apologize for?”

 Janus winces when Virgil scoffs, turning away, and Logan’s mouth hardens into a thin line.

 “Why don’t you try starting,” Patton says, “and we’ll see.”

 “No, you know what? No.” Virgil points a finger at Roman. “I’m done holding your hand through all of this. Waiting for you to realize that you fucked up.”

 “Virgil—“

 “No, Pat!” Virgil gestures between the three of them. “You know how hard it’s been on us, waiting for something to change, and now he wants us to just…what, walk him through what he did wrong?”

 Patton spares a glance at Roman before looking away.

 Roman’s face twitches. He looks down.

 “Perhaps Virgil is right,” Logan says, “when Roman can try taking the first step, then maybe this conversation will be more productive. Until then, I see no reason to waste time.”

 “Great. Bye, Thomas.”

 “Wait, you guys are just leaving?”

 “I see no reason to simply stand here and be unproductive,” Logan shrugs, “perhaps if something changes, you can summon us back.”

 “Doubt it,” Virgil mutters, grabbing Logan’s shoulder and sinking them out. Patton spares one last look at Roman before he leaves too.

 Thomas shuffles a little. Remus keeps staring at Roman.

 After a moment, Roman moves.

 “…you want me to apologize?”

 Janus definitely imagines the chill that goes through the room.

 Roman raises his head. He does not look at where Patton stood, he does not look at where Virgil stood, he does not look at where Logan stood.

 He looks directly at Thomas.

 “I’m sorry, Thomas.”

 Thomas splutters. “Roman—“

 “I’m sorry that I sent you to the wedding,” Roman says softly, Thomas’s words dying in his throat, “I’m sorry that I made a decision that I thought you wanted. I’m sorry that I tried to put your friends above your own wants, because I thought that was right. I’m sorry that I thought I was doing what was right.”

 Thomas’s eyes go wide.

 “I’m sorry that you never had faith that you would win the callback,” Roman continues, never once looking away from Thomas, “I’m sorry that your dreams are always too far away, that you must always feel the need to crush them in favor of what is more practical. I’m sorry that you constantly feel like you’re set up to be one big disappointment.”

 Janus’s arms drop in shock.

 “I’m sorry that I can’t do what you want,” and by this point, Thomas looks on the verge of tears, “even though that’s supposed to be my job. I’m sorry that nothing I do is ever good enough on its own, that you feel so afraid, so scared of doing the things you want. I’m sorry that I’ve made you feel even the tiniest bit of my fear.”

 Thomas stifles a noise.

 “I’m sorry that I don’t know things.” Roman chuckles sadly. “I’m sorry that it takes me so much time to figure out what to do. I’m sorry that it always feels like everyone’s one step ahead of me, that you have to wait for me to catch up, even though I never, ever do. I’m sorry for not sticking to the plan.”

 Something heavy presses against Janus’s throat.

 “And I’m sorry that I’m hurt. I’m sorry that it’s been a little too much for me to handle. I’m sorry that my pain is an inconvenience to you.”

 “R-Roman—“

 Roman just smiles sadly when Thomas can’t finish the sentence. He spreads his arms, giving a little gesture to himself.

 “I’m sorry that this is your Ego.”

 Janus sees the moment the horrified realization dawns on Thomas’s face.

 “I’m gonna fucking kill them,” Remus snarls and it’s only years of practice that makes Janus’s reflexes fast enough to catch hold of him before he sinks out. “Let me go!”

 “You can’t hurt them,” Janus grunts, “you know you can’t.”

 “Fucking watch me!”

 “No, no, Remus,” Thomas splutters, “don’t—don’t do that.”

 “Why the fuck not?” Remus snarls, spittle flying from his lips as he struggles against Janus’s hold. “You heard what Roman just said, they—they—“

 “We did it too, Remus,” Janus says softly, glancing at Roman, “we’re not blameless either.”

 Remus keeps struggling. “Let—me—“

 “Remus.”

 Roman’s soft voice still the duke entirely, his head whipping around. Roman just stares at him, resignation and acceptance written plainly on his features.

 “It’s not fair, Ro,” he mumbles.

 “Life isn’t fair.”

 “I—I can summon them back, we can get them back, they can listen to you—“

 “But they won’t,” Roman cuts off in the same soft fury, “they won’t listen to me.”

 “Roman, they love you!”

 Janus winces. Roman just turns to look at him. He can’t meet his eyes.

 “Maybe,” Roman says eventually, “maybe not. Either way…”

 He spreads his hands.

 “Here we are.”

 “Let me go, Jan.”

 “If I do, will you stay?”

 “Fine.”

 Janus lets him go, only for Remus to lunge and wrap his brother in a tight hug. Roman stands there, immobile, until Remus lets out a howl. Roman just murmurs another soft ‘I’m sorry,' and sinks out.

 Remus collapses to the floor, his Morningstar cupped in his hands.

 “What—what just happened?”

 “The twins share things,” Janus murmurs quietly, his eyes still on Remus, “including emotions when they are particularly strong.”

 “So—“ Thomas shakes his head— “so Remus is feeling what Roman’s feeling?”

 “No,” Remus snarls, still gripping the weapon tightly, “I’m feeling what Roman isn’t feeling.”

 He stands up, eyes blazing.

 “I am what Roman isn’t. To you. What Roman isn’t, I am. Which means—“ his knuckles turn white— “the fact that I’m feeling so strongly right now means that Roman isn’t.”

 Thomas goes pale. “What?”

 “Roman is numb,” Janus says quietly, “he’s closed himself off from…everything. To protect himself.”

 “It means my brother, the good Creativity, passion, desire, romance, hopes and dreams, whatever you want to call him,” Remus growls, “is now numb, touch-starved, and too afraid of rejection to reach out for anything.”

 “What do I do,” Thomas asks frantically, “how do we fix this?”

 “You can let me kill the others.”

 “No, Remus.”

 “Talk to them,” Janus suggests instead, “I’m not sure they realize what Roman being the Ego means.”

 Thomas nods. “Okay, we can do that. Should we do that…now?”

 Janus opens his mouth to respond only for something very familiar to trickle into his mind, along with an all-too-familiar tug.

  Stupid, useless, worthless, toxic, dumb, unimportant, bad, can’t do anything right, selfish, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong—

 “Not now,” he manages, “get some rest. You need it.”

 Thomas nods tiredly. Remus just gives him a look that says ‘you’d better not fuck this up’ and leaves, probably to go work out some of his aggression on creatures in the Imagination.

 Janus sinks straight into Roman’s room and his heart breaks.

 Roman is on the floor, pieces of his prince costume thrown haphazardly around him, sobbing hysterically. It’s so loud that for a moment, Janus worries that someone else will come, trying to figure out what’s wrong, before he’s hit with another wave of lies.

  Broken broken broken broken broken broken broken broken wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong hopeless hopeless hopeless hopeless hopeless hopeless—

 He aches.

 Because he knows he can’t do anything while Roman’s awake. He’d never let him close, never let him see this. A sick feeling crawls into Janus’s stomach at the thought of invading Roman’s privacy like this but it wars with the knowledge that he’d be summoned anyway, and that Roman is falling apart.

 So he has to wait.

 Watching as Roman falls apart, believing himself unloved, unwanted, and unseen.

 Slowly, far too slowly, the harsh sobs morph into softer cries, then sniffles, then Roman stills, slumping on the carpet as his breathing evens out. Tears of his own threaten the corners of Janus’s eyes.

 The poor thing cried himself to sleep.

 But as he moves closer, reaching out a hand to stroke back his hair, he lets out a coo before he can stop himself when he sees more tears.

 The poor thing cried himself to sleep and kept crying.

 “Oh, sweetie,” Janus whispers, moving to cradle him as gently as he can without waking him, “sweetie you come here, shh, shh, honey, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.”

 He lifts the poor prince into his arms, moving swiftly to the bed and laying him down, tucking him in protectively and running his fingers through his hair.

 “It’s okay, sweetie, you’re safe now, it’s okay, you’re safe…” He settles Roman’s head on the pillow. “Shh, shh, shh, that’s it, shh…”

 Sleep-clumsy fingers curl around his arms. Oh. Oh, dear. Well…

 “Oh, sweetie, are you—do you want me to stay?” Janus tries to pull away a bit only for Roman to grumble and hang on. “Oh—okay, sweetie, I’ll stay, just—just a moment.”

 He snaps the fingers on a free hand and changes into something softer, something he can sleep in, something Roman can hold and cuddle. He slides into bed next to him, only to be immediately cuddled by a sleeping, still crying Roman.

 “Shh, sweetie,” he whispers, nuzzling Roman’s head, “I’m right here, I’m not leaving, I won’t leave you.”

 Roman mumbles something and snuggles into Janus’s chest. He makes another comforting noise at the evidence of more tears.

 “It’s gonna be okay, sweetie, I promise, I’ll look after you, I’ll take care of you.”

 And when Roman lets out a little cry, still asleep, he breaks, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

 Roman melts.

 “Oh, sweetie…”

 Janus spoils him with kisses, across his forehead, down his tear-stained cheeks, running his hands through his hair, down his arms, over his back, soothing a particularly painful hitch with a hand on his tummy, rubbing gently until he lapses back into a peaceful sleep. He buries his face in Roman’s hair and holds him tight.

 He swallows heavily, guilt and concern warring in his throat.

 “I don’t want you to think,” he begins carefully, “that I’m only apologizing because I feel guilty over seeing you hurt and that it’s my fault.”

 He tightens his grip on the sleeping prince.

 “I am sorry, Roman,” he whispers with his lips against Roman’s forehead as if to speak the truth into the prince’s dreams, “for all the hurt I have caused you. For using and manipulating you, for dismissing you and letting you think you were useless, and for letting the others make you believe you were so unlovable.”

 He shudders, his breath coming out shaky.

 “But mostly…” he swallows, “mostly I’m sorry that I won’t be brave enough to say that to you when you’re awake.”

 +1.

Janus blinks. There’s sunlight coming in through the curtains.

 His room definitely has curtains.

 Oh. Right. He’s in Roman’s room.

 Shit, he’s still in Roman’s room.

 He’s fallen asleep, he realizes, in Roman’s bed, with Roman cuddled protectively to his chest, after the poor thing had sobbed himself to sleep in the aftermath of that awful, awful meeting.

 Unconsciously, he goes to tighten his grip on the sleeping prince before realizing that he should be doing the opposite.

 He should leave. Now. Before Roman wakes up and sees him.

 He definitely wants to be around for that conversation.

 So, despite the ache in his stomach at the thought of leaving Roman alone right now, he grits his teeth and starts trying to disentangle himself from Roman, despite Roman’s best efforts to cling onto him. If he weren’t so afraid of the consequences of getting caught, he’d find it adorable.

 Okay, maybe he still finds it adorable.

 But Roman’s so soft when he sleeps, so lovely, so unabashed at chasing what he wants. He clings to Janus’s shirt with clumsy fingers, burbles soft noises of protest when Janus’s warmth leaves his side.

 “Come on, sweetie,” Janus coaxes, gently prying Roman’s fingers off, “let me go, you don’t want me to be here when you wake up.”

 “Mmno.”

 “You say that now…” He still won’t let go. “Come on, sweetie, let me go…”

 He leans down to press a kiss to his cheek, hoping Roman will melt and he can escape.

 “That’s it, just go back to sleep, sweetie,” he murmurs, his voice low and hypnotic, carding his fingers through his hair and kissing his forehead, “sleep, sleep, sleep…”

 “Stay,” comes the sleepy little mumble, its voice still lost in the dream, “take care ‘f me.”

 The earnest plea brings a sad little smile to Janus’s face.

 “If you knew who I was,” he whispers, “you wouldn’t ask that.”

 Roman opens his eyes and stares right at him.

 Janus freezes, his hands still caught in Roman’s hair, Roman’s hands still gripping his shirt.

 “Stay,” Roman repeats, his tongue thick with sleep but awake, “don’t run away this time.”

 This time?

 Oh.

  Oh.

  Oh, no.

 Janus swallows. “How long—“

 “You said you didn’t hate me,” Roman mumbles, still tugging on Janus’s shirt to get him back, “and that it hurt more that the others didn’t realize.”

 “You were supposed to be asleep.”

 “You were supposed to hate me.” Roman tugs harder. “Come back.”

 Janus gets slowly back into position, letting Roman cling to him like a child with a teddy bear. Without permission, his own arms wrap around the sleepy prince, and Roman all but purrs.

 “We c’n talk later,” the prince mumbles, already drifting back to sleep, “but stay. Want you to stay.”

 And…well, if it’s the first time Roman’s asked for something he wants in god knows how long, what else is Janus supposed to do but obey?

 “Alright, sweetie, I’m right here,” he murmurs, curling his arms tightly around the poor prince, “do you want to try and go back to sleep?”

 “Mm.”

 But his eyes don’t drift closed. Instead, they stay glassily alert, one hand fisted loosely in the slack of Janus’s shirt.

 “Sweetie,” Janus calls after a little, “do you want to change into something easier to sleep in?”

 He lifts one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug.

 “Can I help?”

 Another shrug. Janus tucks a loose piece of hair behind Roman’s ear, snapping his fingers to put the costume on the mannequin in the closet and replace it with a soft red shirt and boxers. He presses another kiss to Roman’s forehead and ruffles his hair.

 “Why don’t you hate me?”

 Janus frowns, pulling Roman closer. “How could I hate you?”

 He holds a finger gently up to the prince’s lips before the lies can fill Roman’s head again.

 “Let me rephrase: I don’t hate you, Roman, I promise.”

 Roman’s disbelief is palpable. “But why?”

 ...maybe he is going to have to do this.

 “I can hear lies,” he murmurs, “whenever someone says them or thinks them. If they’re not true, I’ll hear it. No, no—stay here, sweetie, shh, I’m not angry, I’m not disappointed. I can hear them when you tell yourself that you’re worthless, or toxic, or that we all hate you.”

 He lifts Roman’s chin gently.

 “They’re lies, sweetie, that’s why I can hear them. You’re not worthless, you’re not toxic.”

 Roman whimpers.

 “You’re not broken,” he continues softly, holding him still, “you’re not hard to love, we don’t hate you.”

 He cups Roman’s face and pulls him in to rest their foreheads together.

 “And I care about you, sweetie, so, so much.”

 Roman’s breath shudders warmly on his cheeks.

 “Shh, shh, oh, come here, sweetie—there you go, you can cry, honey, I’ve got you, I’m right here, shh, shh...”

 The weight of the prince’s tears drying on his collar makes it hard to swallow. He tugs the blankets closer around them and lets Roman cling onto him as he cries.

 “I know you don’t believe me,” he whispers as familiar lies start to drift across, “but it’s true, sweetie. It’s true, it’s true, I promise. I’m here to take care of you.”

 “I’m—I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sor—sorry—“

 “Shh-shh-shh, don’t apologize to me, sweetie, you don’t have to apologize, I’m right here, I’m not angry, nothing’s so bad.”

 “I’m sorry.”

 Janus hushes him gently with a kiss to his cheek. “I know you are...even though you don’t have to be, not like this.”

 His chest aches when Roman won’t stop burbling apologies.

 “Roman.” He takes the prince’s face firmly in his hands. “Roman, look at me.”

 Roman’s glassy eyes fixate on Janus’s face.

 “I forgive you, my prince,” he says, “I forgive you.”

 Roman’s mouth stills.

 “If that is what you need to hear,” he continues, softening his grip, “I forgive you, my prince.”

 “You...you do?”

 “I don’t want you to think that you need my forgiveness for me to love you,” Janus murmurs, “but yes, sweetie. I forgive you.”

 Roman collapses.

 Janus catches him. Of course, he catches him. He curls around his prince and murmurs sweet nothings, reassurances, anything he needs right now.

 It’s messy, it’s frantic, it’s desperate, it’s human.

 He can care for Roman while Roman lets himself be human. So he holds the poor thing while he cries himself out.

 He doesn’t cry himself to sleep again, thankfully, just enough to slump against Janus’s chest and huff.

 “Sorry.”

 “No need to apologize, that was long overdue.” He runs his knuckles up Roman’s back. “Can we get you something to drink?”

 Roman stiffens. “Does that mean going downstairs?”

 “No, sweetie. Come on...”

 He gets Roman seated on the edge of the bed with a glass of water in his hands. Roman drinks, blinking as Janus passes him a warm cloth, then a cool cloth, to clean his face.

 “What do they want me to do,” he asks after he’s finished the glass and the cloths are hanging over the laundry basket, “now?”

 Janus winces. Is he surprised? No.

 “Shh, sweetie, I’m not angry,” he soothes when Roman tenses, “I’m concerned. You’re still—you still need to take care of yourself first before you worry about everyone else.”

  But everyone else is worthy of the worrying, not me.

 Janus hisses gently. Roman just sighs.

 “It’s what you’ve told me,” he mumbles, “I don’t—I can’t just stop it.”

 “I’m not expecting you to be able to just stop it, sweetie, it’s going to take time, but part of it is going to be recognizing what’s not true.”

 “I know.”

 Janus opens his mouth to say something else when Roman gasps, his hand flying to his chest.

 “Sweetie? Sweetie, what is it?”

 “I’m—I’m being summoned.” Roman clutches his shirt, staring up at Janus. “Thomas—Thomas—“

 “I’ll go.” Janus gives Roman’s shoulder a squeeze. “Just wait here for me, sweetie, I’ll be right back.”

 He can still feel the warmth of Roman’s shoulder tingling under his palm as he appears in the living room.

 “I’m sure you have a wonderful reason for trying to summon Roman,” he drawls, raising an eyebrow at a Thomas.

 Thomas looks up from his computer. “We were still filming.”

 Janus stiffens. “You’re not thinking of trying to continue—“

 “What? No, no, I’m saying that while Roman was talking the camera was still rolling.” Thomas points to the screen. “Which means we have it. All of it.”

 Ah, now he sees where Thomas is going.

 “You want them to watch.”

 “They should, shouldn’t they?”

 Yes, a bitter part of Janus growls, they should see how badly they’ve made Thomas’s Ego crumble.

 “What do you think?”

 Thomas rolls his shoulders back. “I think up until Roman said...all of that, I didn’t think the others were wrong either.”

 He glances up at Janus.

 “Did you?”

 Janus huffs. “I don’t think we ever give Roman enough credit for how good of an actor he is.”

 With that, the whole sorry tale spills out of him. He doesn’t reveal the exact nature of the lies, just the broad swaths of them and how many there are. To Thomas’s credit, he deals with it better than Janus expected. That is, he doesn’t burst into tears.

 Thomas takes a deep breath.

 “...yeah, we’re watching this now.”

 “Right now?”

 “Answer me this,” Thomas says, looking up at him again, “where is Roman? Right now?”

 “...on his bed.” At Thomas’s pointed stare, he relents. “He’s not alright, Thomas, he hasn’t been for a very long time.”

 “Then yeah. Right now.”

 “Then I’m going to ask Roman if he wants to be here.”

 Thomas nods. “Can you—can you tell him I’m sorry?”

 “You can do that yourself when he’s ready to hear it.”

 Understandably, Roman does not want to be there. Janus wraps him tightly in the softest blankets he has, tucked up with a pillow and a glass of water nearby if he wants it, along with the reassurance that if Roman wants him back here, at any point, to call. He’ll listen.

 “Thank you.”

 Janus leaves him with one last squeeze, appearing in the living room with the others. Thomas is back to setting up the computer so they can all see the screen.

 “Thomas?” Logan adjusts his tie. “I was unaware we had something scheduled for today.”

 “We didn’t. Spur of the moment.”

 Remus shoots Janus a look. Janus nods. Remus shifts a little closer to him and his hand grips his Morningstar.

 “Is this about the video from yesterday?” Virgil looks around warily. “Or is it something else?”

 “It is about yesterday.”

 “Shouldn’t we...wait for Roman?”  Patton rubs the back of his neck. “He kinda—well, if we’re talking about yesterday—“

 “Roman’s not coming.” Thomas keeps fiddling with the computer.

 Logan raises an eyebrow. “Are we deciding how to film the video without Roman?”

 “No.” Thomas glances at Janus. Janus nods. Thomas looks back at the others. “Roman’s not coming because he doesn’t want to.”

 “What the fuck?”

 “Language, kiddo,” Patton mumbles halfheartedly.

 “Wait, so—“ Virgil doesn’t look so much as chided— “you’re just gonna let Princey throw his temper tantrum and not come work?”

 “How much attention were you guys paying to what happened after you sunk out yesterday?”

 “…not much, why?”

 In response, Thomas just pushes ‘play.’

 Their voices fill the room, telling Roman what he’s done wrong, why he’s holding all of them back, why he’s the source of all their problems. Lies, lies, and more lies. They get to the part where the other three sink out and Remus tightens his grip on the handle.

  “…you want me to apologize?”

 Virgil opens his mouth, presumably to make some quip, only to cut himself off with a strangled noise once Roman’s apologies begin.

 Janus watches with a sick sense of satisfaction as Patton’s hands fly to his mouth, eyes wide at the hopeless tone coming out of the computer. Next to him, Virgil goes rigid, borderline catatonic. He looks as if one little push would send him toppling over.

 He can’t see Logan’s face until Thomas stops the playback. It’s only when Logan takes his glasses off to clean them that he can see the tears on his cheeks.

 Thomas looks up at Janus.

 “Can you still hear them?”

 “The lies?” Thomas nods. “Yes.”

 There’s a moment of silence.

 “Roman is the Ego,” Logan whispers, mostly to himself, “Roman is the Ego. Of course…of course, I understand—I understand now.”

 “What does that mean?”

 Logan takes a deep breath and looks up at Patton. “It means that Roman is Thomas’s sense of self-worth, more or less, and that he—he takes the brunt of Thomas’s reactions to…any sort of feedback, more than any of us. Good or bad.”

 Virgil stifles a curse. “And we’ve taught him to hate himself.”

 “Quite.”

 “We—“ Patton takes a breath— “we need to apologize.”

 “We all do.” Thomas closes the computer and sets it aside. “I don’t…I don’t know how we do that, though.”

 “Breaking patterns of thinking is hard,” Logan says, “and…especially hard when you have been taught not to ask for help.”

 “But there has to be something!”

 “Touch-starved,” Virgil breaks in, staring at a spot on the carpet, “Roman’s touch-starved.”

 Janus raises an eyebrow.

 “…when I was still having trouble,” Virgil says after a moment of them all looking at him, “Roman—Roman would just come and ask me if I wanted to—to—“

 He hunches his shoulders.

 “Sometimes it’d be a hug. Sometimes he’d sit next to me and—and lean on me. Sometimes he’d just—you know, with the forehead thing—“

 “Bonk.”

 They all turn to Logan, who has…a surprising flush to his cheeks.

 “Roman said that he—he wanted to be able to express affection for me and not disturb my work,” he manages, “so we…came up with a solution.”

 Patton blinks. “Is that why Roman will just walk up to you and bonk his forehead against yours?”

 “Yes.”

 “Huh.”

 “That’s adorable,” Thomas says quietly, “that’s—wait, hang on, that’s really adorable.”

 “It was Roman’s idea.” Logan swallows. “Most of his ideas are good.”

 “Yeah,” Thomas says, “maybe we should try telling him that next time.”

 Janus looks around. The others look to be in various states of remorse and determination. With the exception of Remus, who still looks like he wants to bash a few of their skulls in.

 “…can we go hug Roman now?”

 “I wanna do that.”

 “If he’s—“ Logan glances between Thomas and Janus— “do you know if he would be amenable to that? If he—would like that?”

 “We can ask,” Janus says quietly, “but I don’t know.”

 “And if he says no,” Remus growls, “you get out.”

 “We understand, Remus,” Logan promises. He looks at Thomas. “Thank you, Thomas.”

 Thomas shakes his head. “Don’t thank me. Not yet. We all have stuff to fix.”

 Janus adjusts his cape. “Then let’s get started, shall we?”

 They don’t sink right to Roman’s room. Instead, Janus knocks quietly on the door and waits for the soft ‘yes?’ from the other side to open it.

 “Roman,” he calls softly, “hey, sweetie, why’re you over there?”

 Because Roman, the poor thing, is at his desk, trying to work.

 “I—um—“

 “I’m not angry, sweetie,” he murmurs, arms going around the prince to pull him up out of the desk chair, “just concerned.”

 “I figured that if I got to work they’d be less mad that I wasn’t there,” Roman mumbles, even as he lets Janus pull him back to the bed, “so I…”

 “Oh, sweetie, no one’s angry at you.”

 Roman looks up at him with such a heartbreaking look of disbelief that he lets out a soft noise, cupping his face.

 “Would you believe me if I said they want to apologize and make it up to you?”

 “No.”

 He squints. “Have you believed anything I’ve told you since you woke up?”

 “No.”

 The lack of hesitation makes his eyes widen. Leaning forward, he rests his forehead against Roman’s as he pulls off his gloves, reaching up to cup the prince’s head.

 “I meant every word,” he murmurs, doing his best to wipe away the bits of salt in the corners of his eyes, “every single word.”

 He pauses, then leans closer.

 “They’re sorry, Roman,” he whispers, “they’re so sorry and they want to know how to make it better.”

  They don’t want you. They hate you. They’ve never cared about you. They don’t even want to touch you.

 Janus hisses softly as he pulls Roman in for a hug. The poor thing still reacts like it’s the first time someone’s touched him in years.

 “They want to see you, sweetie,” he whispers, “and I believe their exact words were ‘can we go hug Roman now?’”

 “W-what?”

 In response, Janus pulls away a little and nods to the door. Roman’s eyes widen.

 “Can we let them in, sweetie?”

 “They’re here?”

 “Right outside.”

 “They want—they want to—“

 Roman’s desperate gaze flies to the door. He raises a shaking hand and lets it open.

 Patton’s through the door before it’s even all the way open. Roman lets out a wounded noise as Patton barrels into them, his arms wrapped around Roman before Janus can blink.

 “Pat—Patton—Pa—wha—?”

 “I’m sorry, Roman, I’m so sorry, kiddo—“

 Virgil follows not too long after, pulling Roman’s legs into his lap and reaching out to take Roman’s outstretched hand.

 “Hey, Princey,” he says, the growl from not five minutes ago softened to a low rumble, “missed you.”

 “Mis—miss—missed me?”

 “Yeah, Roman, missed you. Didn’t feel the same without you there.”

 Then Logan. As Patton and Virgil move to get Roman into a more comfortable position, Logan sits behind him so that when Roman leans back, his head rests against Logan’s shoulder. Logan reaches up to tangle his fingers in Roman’s hair, smiling softly at the low noise from Roman’s throat.

 “Bonk?”

 Roman nods, still blinking in confusion but lets Logan press his forehead gently to his.

 “Thank you, little star,” he murmurs, smiling at the way Roman’s mouth falls open, “I didn’t forget, Roman, even if I haven’t been the best at showing it.”

 “We don’t hate you, Princey,” Virgil says, squeezing his hand, “and we—well, we owe you one hell of an apology.”

 “But we don’t have to talk about that now.” Patton adjusts his grip around Roman’s waist. “Not if you don’t want to.”

 Remus picks this moment to not walk through the door and climb onto the bed but to sink down through the ceiling and land on top of them.

 “Re!”

 “Hey, Ro-Bro.”

 “Re, get off, you—it’s too much.”

Remus rolls to the side, right into Janus’s lap, effectively making sure that none of them are leaving, not that they particularly wanted to.

 Janus watches as Roman slowly asks if they can stay like this for a while, smiling when the answer is a resounding ‘yes,’ the cuddle pile closing in around their prince. Roman’s head rests against the crook of Logan’s neck, one of his hands wrapped in Janus’s, the other in Virgil’s. His legs lie in Virgil’s lap, Patton cuddling him protectively as Logan strokes his head. Remus and Janus keep watch, sentries over the resting prince.

 For the first time, in a long time, as Roman drifts off to sleep, the only lie in his head is this won’t last forever.

 They’ve got time to prove him wrong.

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