#i think i need more therapy

[thefriendofdorthea]

Chat, am I cooked?

[sunlighticarus]

i really gotta stop saying “he like me fr” to men in their mid thirties to fourties’ who have multiple problems and mental illnesses

[inkskinned]

he says i hate everyone except you and that is addictive and that is kind of romantic and beautiful because you're young and you're kind of a sarcastic asshole too and you don't like bad boys, per say, but you don't really like good ones either. and you like that you were the exception, it felt like winning.

except life is not a romance book, and he was kind of being honest. he doesn't learn to be nice to your friends. he only tolerates your family. you have to beg him to come with you to birthday parties, he complains the whole time. you want to go on a date but - people are often there, wherever you're going. he's just so angry. about everything, is the thing. in the romance book, doesn't he eventually soften? can't you teach him, through your own sense of whimsy and comfort?

at first - you know introverts often need smaller friend groups, and honestly, you're fine staying at home too. you like the small, tidy life you occupy. you're not going to punish him for his personality type.

except: he really does hate everyone but you. which means he doesn't get along with his therapist. which means he has no one to talk to except for you. which means you take care of him constantly, since he otherwise has no one. which means you sometimes have to apologize for him. which means he keeps you home from seeing your friends because he hates them. you're the single exception.

about a decade from this experience, you'll type into google: how to know if a relationship is codependent.

he wraps an arm around you. i hate everyone except you. these days, you're learning what he's actually confessing is i have very little practice being kind.

[starry-bi-sky]

this just in: danny fenton is just as much of a mask as Brucie Wayne? - another danyal al ghul au

Turns out, being placed in a civilian family who have no knowledge of your background is actually detrimental to the health and development of a child assassin due to lack of proper support! Surrounded by strangers in a foreign city, Danyal Al Ghul does as assassins do best. He hides. Espionage is one of many teachings one learns in the League, and it only takes half a day for Danyal to construct a new persona to hide behind: Daniel Fenton.

By the time dinner rolls around, Danyal al Ghul is safely and securely tucked behind the face of Danny Fenton; brand new adoptive child of the Fenton family who came from overseas. A shy, quiet little boy with a thick accent and curly hair, with brown skin and blue eyes, and an avid interest in the stars. The best fictions are always cobbled together in a little bit of truth, it's some of the only truth he ever lets through. He apologizes in a meek voice for his behavior early, he didn't mean to be rude, and he watches the three of them eat it up with coos.

Lies roll like silk against his lips, he struggles to meet their eyes and offers them his weakest, shyest smile. It's too easy. It's easy to go from there.

Danny Fenton, adoptive son, shy and awkward and unconfident but friendly. Who struggles in his classes and isn't the brightest, but tries his hardest. He makes bad jokes and has a quick tongue and a sarcastic mouth. He wants to be an astronaut. He's got the best aim in school, and is a terrifying dodgeball player. He's one of the least athletic kids in his grade.

It's like playing two truths and a lie, but there's only one truth, and the rest are lies. It's easy to pretend when he knows it's insincere.

Danyal Al Ghul, grandson to the Demon Head. Deadly, trained assassin. Has spilled blood, has had blood spilt from. Environmentalist, animal activist. He loves the stars. He owns a calligraphy set. A sharp tongue, an even sharper blade. He's clever, quick-witted, he would be top of his grade if he tried harder. He purposely doesn't.

He misses his family. He misses his mother, and he misses his brother. Mother visits a few times a year, so few times that he can count it on both hands. He cherishes every visit, as brief as they are. It helps remind him who he is.

Sam and Tucker are Danny's best friends. They've never met Danyal, but Danyal's met them.

It becomes routine to become Danny Fenton. As familiar and as easy as pulling on a shirt in the morning. Danyal wakes up and is always first to the bathroom in the mornings; stares at himself in the mirror until he can finally see Danny staring back at him. At night, he locks his door and sheds the mask.

Dying throws a wrench in his mask; splits a crack straight through the porcelain. He's able to smooth it over with sandpaper and liquid gold, but it's a little hard keeping his ghost form under wraps. It instinctively wants to shift to show his true self. Danyal can't have that, he's spent four years as Danny Fenton, he'll spend another four as him as well. Even if the feeling of the hazmat suit in his ghost form feels restrictive, like a too-small shirt suctioned to his skin that needs to be peeled off.

He'll live. Er-- well, you know what he means. It's frustrating however, trying to keep his Danny Fenton mask up even as Phantom - fighting in the air is something he needs to get used to, and the sudden propping of powers throws him off. But he is nothing if not adaptive, and he hates that he needs to slow his own skills down in order to keep pretenses up in front of Sam and Tucker.

The first time Danyal summons a sword when he's alone, is one of the few times Danyal gets to grin instead of Danny. He's fighting Skulker, and from an invisible hilt he draws a katana from thin air. It startles them both. Skulker takes a step back at the smile that spreads across his face.

They're both silent as Danyal examines his new sword.

"Do you know what people like me do to people like you, poacher?" Danyal finally asks him, the accent he began to hide a few months in slipping through. He drops all pretense, dragging the flat end of the blade slow and appreciatively against his palm. It's a good make, and when he cuts it through the air, it slices through like butter. He looks up at Skulker with a smile; "are you ready to find out?"

When Sam and Tucker ask about why Skulker seems so skittish around Danny now, Danny shrugs at them and says with a playful smile; "I don't know, I guess I kicked his butt too hard after our last fight." and he watches as Sam rolls her eyes exasperatedly, and Tucker snickers with his own joke.

By the time he reunites with Damian before their 15th birthday, Danyal is buried beneath so many layers of Danny Fenton that his brother will need a shovel to dig him out. He's not sure what he'll find.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bunny pile!

[Commission for @newfriendly]

[rawrsatthetree]

Tired: Tav that’s good for Astarion cause they play therapist and give him support and space to heal

Wired: Tav that’s good for Astarion cause they’re such a disaster he has to get his shit together cause gods above one of them needs to be a functional adult

[magicpiano]

I have seen multiple Demon Twins AUs where Damian sees Danny, assumes he is a clone and tries to kill him. Then after the truth is revealed, Danny is just like, "oh okay no big deal! He just thought I was a clone." Then they hug or something. But I disagree?

Yes, Danny is very forgiving of harm done to him, he is friendly with a lot of ghosts who have attacked him. But how friendly is he with people who hurt those he cares about? Even more so, those who aren't even sorry about their actions? I can see Danny forgiving Damian for trying to kill him. I am more skeptical about him forgiving if it was done purely because he was believed to be a clone.

Danny, who has a clone he actually cares about, would be more pissed by this explanation, not less. I can see him thinking something like, "Oh you thought murder was okay because they were a clone? You don't think their life has value?" This explanation would do the opposite of reassure Danny. I can even see him feeling a kinship, a brotherhood, with Damian's dead clones. I can see him, a dead teen himself, mourning them.

This isn't really fair to Damian for sure. He has a lot of legitimate trauma around cloning. Even more so if we use the idea that he (and Danny in this AU) were test tube babies. And he has worked so hard to grow and change and leave his more violent upbringing behind him. His long lost twin believing him to be nothing more than a violent murderer would hurt a lot.

But even so... No matter what their relationship was like before, Danny would not trust Damian after this. How could he trust someone who would have killed Dani?

Idk, I just haven't seen a single demon twins AU where Danny is defensive of clones and I think it is a huge missed opportunity for angst and drama.

[bags-of-regret]

Thinking about how long both Stans were alone for. Stanley trying and failing to not be alone while Ford pushed everyone away. How everything would be different if they just always had each other. It all came to an end with Dipper and Mabel omg sedate me

[ghostlakan]

no feeling is final

[the-witchhunter]

You know those video games where the character has to complete puzzles and work through their trauma to escape/wake up/something? Obstacles getting in their way and being tied to their past as they delve more into their trauma and have to learn/heal from it before they can progress?

Danny has been around a loooong time. He's old, he's powerful, and has a space in the ghost zone that he controls much like a god. The ghosts have long since started leaving him alone, the ones he's friends with have their own affaires to deal with, and in his ever shifting labyrinthian layer he's too powerful, and even outside of it he can still kick their asses.

and he's without a purpose

His friends had long since passed on after leading long and wonderful lives with him, not even leaving a ghost behind. His Family as well. Jazz had never had children, and try as he and Sam might have, half dead as he was he couldn't have children. He had no one left and nothing to do, and all of eternity to do it in.

Thinking of Jazz is what made him do it the first time

She loved helping people with her psychology, and Danny decided to do it in his own way. It hadn't been pretty, and it hadn't been easy, but he had found his method. Some took to it better than others, and many had different theories about his lair and his motives, but he helped people move past their trauma. Some believed his lair was some kind of purgatory, and... they weren't totally off

So, when Danny moved on to the timeline of the DC multiverse, he had some experience under his belt

He just underestimated how much trauma superheroes can have

[fromdarzaitoleeza]

Spring is here , the true beginning of the year , the season where my soul reborns and blooms .

I have made some progress in terms of the person I am becoming, truly in all my honesty all that i have done is to stop caring for everything that once used to matter , the less I care about anything in particular the less I am bothered and the happier i stay. And i really hope everyone here is doing well and I appreciate all the love that was sent.

The problem is I care a lot about everything and i don't even get the bare minimum in return and when i do get it it's too late, so much time has passed by then ,when it comes by then i do not want or need it because it's the not care that came out of love it came out of their guilts. And the longer i wait for it to come by -the more I learn why I don't need it anymore .

I am slowly learning to value myself ,trying to put myself in a position where I can agree that i too deserve all the good things and love even on the days when i have nothing to offer .

Idk guys I am just here to rant and to be stupid

Better late than never they say , I guess it's not too late for me either, I will start my life and live up to what I want & how I feel ,i don't have to care about anything else as long as I feel alive in my bones things will eventually flow, I will fall in love with myself little by little day after day.

I will choose myself instead of choosing others and I will fall in love with my solitude instead of bearing it with me , i don't care if I end up alone if I do end up all by myself I will be with someone who i know has a tendency not to give up .

Life is really short i just don't want to sit and watch it pass by , if I am lucky enough I will have 40 more springs to experience , I have clear boundaries and thoughts in my head now, eventually i will find peace through it I hope so.

Ramdan kareem to people who celebrate it here please remember gaza in your prayers and fastings

[ineed-to-sleep]

Yk I don't think ai art will ever really substitute real art. Like I don't think a future like that is possible, and if I'm wrong, we'd be living in the saddest, most depressing version of reality.

The thing about ai is that it will never be able to tell you a story in the way that an artist who actually drew the image will. Even my old drawings I did at age 13 with the wonky poses and huge anime eyes could tell you more of a story than ai ever could, even if it was just a very human story about a kid who liked soulcalibur iv and wanted to draw her ocs. If I'd only been messing with ai back then instead of picking up a pencil, imagine how sad it would be to look back and realize the art said absolutely nothing about me or my personality or intentions or where I was at in my life and with my skills.

It might look pretty. Maybe. But that's it. The result is shallow. You can't read into it, you can't think about the person behind it, because it says nothing about them. It's honestly the saddest thing. I hate to think about a future where people only want to produce ai art because it just sounds so empty. You can see none of yourself and your tastes and your history in an ai produced image. I think that's what people mean when they say ai art is souless and has no human behind it, because even if a human used the ai tool to generate it, there's none of themselves in it.

Real art feels more like an inescapable mirror. An amalgamation of the things you love poured into every line and brushstroke. A frankenstein of everything in the visual world that has ever inspired or fascinated you, built up over a lifetime of learning and repetition. And the more you learn and the better you get the more it grows and the more of yourself you can see in it, the more it looks back and screams at you the story of who you are. If your art doesn't feel like a living thing your hands have birthed then what's even the point?

[smilesrobotlover]

Small Revali’s for anyone who needs it. This guy has me in a chokehold

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for voting in the poll to decide who was going to be the leader of the band! It turned out to be such a close race!

[huginsmemory]

Just. percolating thoughts about Bill, denial and his lies are lies. Bill as a character I'd say is characterized by deep deep denial. He's a character that's both aware and immediately not aware of his feelings and his situation; it's all very doublethink. It's about denying everything and drowning it all out (yeahhhhh big partier? Alcohol and drug abuse? Totally a result of being healthy; not to mention the dissociative episodes he APPARENTLY GETS???).

Because essentially, hes constantly warping his perception of everything occurring around this glass tower he's built of who he is, a ruthless, unfeeling tyrant of a monster, akin to a god (and beloved by humans when he deigns to charm them). This persona is something that he's made in response to his own belief that he's a monster, his own deep insecurities for being a freak and wanting to have proper connection, care and vulnerability with someone that he's lacked. It's a persona built upon self destructive tendencies, denial and the pursuit of pleasure for the purpose of drowning out anything uncomfortable, that he's practiced for trillions of years. And at the same time these insecurities that built this persona are all deeply denied in the way he'll deny that Ford meant everything to him but also when asked if Ford meant nothing to him, backtrack. He's both aware and not aware; he'll never have a thought of 'oh I loved Ford' because that is IMMEDIATELY repressed. He can't even admit that. It doesn't fit who he's supposed to be, it's vulnerable, and we can't have that. This triangle is more repressed than a fucking gay Catholic priest. He's both emotionally literate and completely illiterate because any emotions or situations that don't fit his fictional self gets immediately suppressed/skewed in perspective.

And that's how he's both good and terrible at manipulation, because he knows how to play people and can be very good at it, but his denial gets in the way. That's why you see him not talking about his dimension unravelling to Ford to ask him to make the Portal, instead of pulling the rug out under Ford; because it's vulnerable, it doesn't fit 'him as a monster' and even if it would get his way he can't do that. He mentally cannot even conceive of asking that and can't even in a way to himself accept that his dimension is unravelling and he can't do anything prevent it, can only take over earth instead. And he assumes that Ford will simply just bow to his will because that's what's supposed to happen, right? And it's the same as his lies about all the people he contacted over human history that were annoyed by him; he's too far in denial to even acknowledge that they didn't like him because hes supposed to be loved by all he tries to charm, that's why he puts the pages in to TBOB because he thinks it makes him look good, even if anyone looking at that goes 'yeah that's not what's happening'.

And this is all the most obvious with what he did with his dimension, his guilt around it because if pressed he will never admit those feelings, and he doesn't even admit it too himself; in fact when it's brought up by others such as time baby he gets angry, because his denial over the situation becomes questioned. And it's only ever one instance, that you see Bill admit to vulnerability, to admit to being actually aware of any of all these underlying feelings, and that's the moment that he shares unprompted about Euclydia with Ford, in response to Ford's own vulnerability... in which he indirectly calling himself a monster.

And it's all so fascinating, because if his denial is ever properly cracked enough, oh BABY you know that glass tower is going to shatter, everything is going to come down like a house of cards, and Bill will be left in the wake of everything that he's done, with nothing to shield him emotionally. And so isn't it better to be in denial? To deny he killed his dimension? Doesn't it hurt less than to admit all along it was guilt, it was insecurity, and that after his dimension burned, he's razed civilizations to the ground in denial and self-destruction?

post previous to this (similar vein)

[beneathsilverstars]

i keep adding things to this one post and then realizing they'd make more sense as a separate post. so here's how the party explained what happened in dagger ending au to bonnie:

Siffrin was very sad and worried about everyone leaving, because he was alone before he met us and he didn't want to be alone again. But he didn't talk about it because we all had plans that seemed very important, and he didn't want to get in the way, and he didn't want to admit that he didn't have anything else to do. It sounds pretty silly when you put it like that, but the rest of us were nervous to admit how much we cared about each other, too! Sometimes it's hard to tell someone how important they are to you, if you don't know whether you're important to them.

During the quest it was okay, because Siffrin knew we would stay together until Vaugarde was saved. But getting to Dormont meant the quest was almost over, and they got so upset at the idea of everyone leaving, that they didn't really care about what they were doing. Why did it matter what happened to them, when they were going to be sad and alone tomorrow either way? So they weren't very careful while they were training, and they got hurt. Luckily Odile saw, and Mirabelle healed them right up.

Now, he's really glad that we all decided to stay together longer! But he might still feel worried for a while, because it's hard to believe that everyone isn't leaving, after he's been dreading it for so long. And sometimes when you're sad for a long time, your brain just tries to keep being sad even when there isn't any reason to be. But if we keep reminding him that we love him just as much as he loves us, it'll start to stick in his brain better! We might also need to remind him to be careful and take care of himself, because that can be hard to remember when you're sad. And while he practices that, we can help take care of him, too!