#im using this in defense of why i should go when talking to my parents

[fox-bee926]

Guys im going absolutely insane r n i just checked the tour dates and hozier is performing in my city ON MY BIRTHDAY

[starry-bi-sky]

clone danny's accident in the clone^2 au

Im thinking about clone^2 danny's accident in this au. he doesn't have his halfa powers in this au. He has his scary eyes and the ghost sense and the ability to see ghosts - kinda takes up a psychopomp role with his ghost cases - and enough ectoplasm to trigger the ghost defenses in his parents' house. But he doesn't have his ghost powers or his ghost half. He's just very strongly liminal.

And im just mmmmm thinking about how that came to be. When I originally made the clone danny au back in the summer i couldn't think of how he had his accident without putting him inside the portal, and I couldn't put him inside the portal and have it turn on and then just say "oh! he doesn't have any powers. he got hit with the full concentrated power of the sun a dimension with just a scratch"

like - like i can't do it. i just can't. i need some plausibility in my aus or i hit road blocks and can't continue (see: my jason variant au and why that took so long to post). but i was at work today thinking about clone^2 au and it hit me like a lightning shot. I think said in the original clone danny post that maybe he got electrocuted by the on button on the outside of the portal. But i was never really satisfied with that answer - it felt too placeholder-y to me. too simple. Less plausible to me than I liked.

so, solution: he still gets shocked by the portal outside, but its from a wiring issue that he spots outside of the portal. My first thought is; the portal had a wire that was unplugged. His parents, essentially, forgot to plug it in. Or maybe in all of their excitement they accidentally unplugged it and didn't notice. It just sounds like the right amount of cartoonishly silly that the Fentons are known for. "We put a second "on" button in the inside portal" -> "we forgot to plug it in"

Danny notices it while he's showing Sam and Tucker around the lab and the two of them are checking out the portal. Something caught his eye from the corner and while Sam and Tucker were talking, he went over to investigate. If this were canon, this would be just before Sam tells him to put on the hazmat suit and go into the portal so she can get a photo (iirc). (So he's currently in reg clothes)

And im imagining it as slightly off to the side. Its two black cords - an extension cord to the outlet and then the cord to the portal. and danny crouches down over it, frowning. his eyes follow the cord to the outlet, and then the cord to the portal, and he picks both up.

'did they forget to plug it in?' he thinks, turning his head to look at the portal's entrance. and logically he knows he should probably put the cords down and tell his parents, let them handle it since they have the expertise for this stuff. But...

his eyes draw back to the plug. it's just a plug. it'd be fine if he plugged it in, wouldn't it? surely, it'd be fine. he thinks about it for a moment.

he plugs it in.

immediately, the energy that had been building up slowly through the wires of the portal - the latent ectoplasm in the room being funneled through whatever tech his parents used to make it - goes through the cord. Like a dam bursting. In a flash, the portal turns on with a worrying bang.

At the same time, Danny is hit with a near-lethal amount of electricity. While not as agonizing as being inside the portal, danny still mentally checks out with pain. and he blacks out. when he comes to, he's laying on his back, still in the lab, with sam and tucker kneeling over him. they're talking - probably yelling, with panicked looks on their faces.

He can't hear a thing they're saying, his ears are full of the overly rapid, irregular beating of his heart and the pounding of his blood. His chest hurts like he's having a heart attack, and he grasps at his shirt as his breathing comes in short, labored.

"Hospital" he wheezes out, and sam gets up and sprints out of the lab upstairs. everything else feels like a blur - his parents and jazz are by him - his parents completely ignoring their swirling, working portal, someone's calling 911, danny's being loaded onto a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face.

danny gets discharged from the hospital a week later, and sick leave from school for another two. his parents refuse to allow him back into the lab, stating it was too dangerous, and their work comes to near grinding stop to watch over him. It's honestly kinda sweet, but the hovering is annoying him - stubborn, independent teenager that he is. When he gets back to school he's still relatively sat out for phy.ed - he's been getting random heart palpitations (which had been at its worst when he was still on sick leave) and what the doctors think is a strange case of arrhythmia. Although Danny insists that he's fine - he's breathing, alive. Nothing feels wrong with him.

Then one day in class, Tucker turns to him to say something - a joke -and yelps - "your eyes!"

Danny on instinct turns his head to the window, frowning. And in the faded reflection, his eyes are burning shade of green like that of the portal. He blinks, breathing in sharply, and they're back to the his old bright blue.

Unfortunately, they're in english class, and the entire room was staring at them. "Is there something wrong, Mr. Foley?" Mr. Lancer asks from the front. Tucker is still wide-eyed and in shock, and he looks quickly between Danny and Lancer.

"I- no, um- Danny's eyes- they- were, um..." He looks panicked, confused.

Danny steps in, and leans over to Tucker. "I think he just spooked himself, Mr. Lancer." He says, looking frontward with his brows furrowed. "Sorry, it won't happen again."

Mr. Lancer looks unconvinced, and suspicious, but he lets it lie. "Are you feeling alright then, Mr. Fenton? Do you need to see the nurse?" It wasn't a secret to the school or student body that he'd been to the hospital from a lab accident - and that it'd resulted in heart problems that he was recovering from.

Danny grins at him, and pounds his chest lightly, "I'm fit as a fiddle, Mr. Lancer. No heart attacks here." He jokes, and leans back into his seat. Mr. Lancer stares, eyes squinty, and then returns to the lesson.

It keeps happening. Danny's eyes turn green at the most random of times, and the three of them begin wittling down what was causing it. In general, Danny's eyes were turning green whenever he was engrossed with something, or when he got emotional - when he was laughing, angry, upset, anything. Sometimes it resulted in heart palpitations, sometimes it didn't.

his ears were hurting too, aching, like when they were cold. Danny wakes up one morning and spends twenty minutes in the bathroom turning his head left and right - his ears were beginning to point. Sam thought it was cool - Danny just thought it was concerning.

He was seeing things too - apparently. He struck up a conversation with someone on the street once - a strange looking man who looked terribly pale and wore old clothes. He looked delighted to be talking to Danny - and then Sam and Tucker walked up to him and asked who he was talking to.

("What do you mean? I'm talking to him.") ("Danny, there's no one there.") ("What?")

After multiple instances of this, they configure that the accident had given Danny some sort of ability to see ghosts.

("So you're meta now?") ("Mm... I don't know. That doesn't feel right.") ("Oh come on, that basically fits the name to a tee!") ("I know, but I just- it doesn't feel right to call myself meta.") ("If you don't like meta, why not just call yourself liminal? Since the portal is supposed to access the afterlife and it gave you powers to see ghosts.") ("Huh, good idea, Sam. Liminal it is, then.")

And as time goes on - and his parents begin to catch and experiment on ghosts - danny adjusts to these weird new abilities. It's not so bad, he supposes, its just some creepy eye magic and a ghost sense. He can live with that, and no one needed to know. He could go back to being normal - right. ...Wrong.

Do his parents really have to catch ghosts?

plus additional sketch that i made at like 3am last night because i needed to draw it down -- aha ignore the inconsistent drawing ability that i have. i'm more of a writer than i am an artist.

[retrieve-the-kraken]

Am i the asshole?

A coworker who is one of the pride leaders at our office posted last week on our deai group something about coming out day, but they captioned it “Love is love!!”

I wrote to them aside that, for future reference, the tagline “love is love” excludes other queer identities that are not related to romantic attraction, like aroace and nonbinary people, etc. (I had been wondering about this since pride month this year, and coincidentally came across several posts and articles detailing why the tagline became so popular, and now also problematic).

They got super defensive and said things that made no sense. I tried to explain that love is love came from marraige equality, that it became an umbrella tagline to ‘represent’ pride but it was outdated, the same way saying ‘gay’ was once used to refer to anyone queer, etc. But they still didn’t see what i meant, they said that it’s a lot like the people who refuse to acknowledge their identity because they don’t look more masculine (this person identifies as trans masc).

I admitted that, despite not negating their identity, i often used the wrong pronouns with them (they prefer he/they, but they say that they don’t mind if people use she, or even it, because they say it’s meaningless), and im always kicking myself for it. Bear in mind that in Spanish it requires a bit lore consciousness because EVERYTHING is gendered… so i try, but i also have a faulty brain, and my mouth is faster than my mind sometimes, and i often unconsciously say ‘she’.

Today, we were talking normally, and then I brought up that convo, asking them if they felt like i was attacking them, because of how defensive they got. They said no, but then they started saying some defensive stuff again, and even some problematic stuff, and i was trying to clarify why i said that love is love just doesn’t cover other queer experiences. I didn’t want to lecture; as Isaac says in Heartstopper season 3 “i don’t feel like giving my friends a vocab lesson”, because a lot of people unfortunately don’t know or don’t further understand aroacespec identities and what it all means. But i wanted to clarify, just so that we could be on the same page.

And they kept saying really weird stuff, and pretending like they didn’t understand, and i said that it felt like they weren’t even trying to understand or even listen.

And then they said “listen, I don’t care.”

I asked “what?”

They stood up and repeated slowly, “i don’t care about this subject”

I said “oh… okay… thanks.”

Why did i say thanks? No idea. I was really taken aback. This was literally the first person i came out to at work, and they just told me they didn’t care to understand more about my identity or my experience, and then they walked out.

When they came back, i just didn’t talk to them again. There was a meeting with the whole team, some of the team went to get lunch, came back, ate lunch. They were there. Then we continued working. Hours passed, and we work in the same office room, and i just sat there, working, and then they finally spoke to me.

“What?” I asked.

“I said, are you done with the cold shoulder?” They said, and they were giving me this small smile, like they thought i was being ridiculous.

It really pissed me off, for them to know that they made me angry, but instead of apologizing or trying to find out what exactly made me angry, they just thought i should be over it by now. Like i’m being too sensitive.

I said “no”, and went back to work.

It makes me really disappointed, because this is a person who is very outspoken about being queer, and encouraging other queer people to be open about their queerness, but the moment I want to talk about my queer experience, they were very rude.

I know they might be going through things, they just lost a parent, but we’re all going through shit, we all have problems, that doesn’t give them a right to dismiss me and be rude like that.

And especially since they’re supposed to be like the pride group/ queer community leader, for them to react like this feels very problematic.

Until they apologize or at least try to talk to me about this seriously, i don’t want to talk to them about anything that is not strictly work.

It’ll probably be noticeable to others, since we usually talk and joke a lot. But i don’t feel like it. If they don’t care, then i don’t care either.

Anyway, it doesn’t feel like i’m being the asshole, but… am i the asshole?

MASSIVE EDIT TO CLARIFY SOME THINGS, BASED ON A COUPLE OF COMMENTS I RECEIVED, AND ALSO ADDING A FOLLOW UP TO TODAY:

Thank you to the people who offered comments and advice. I will clarify some things, because, as I feared, I may have left some context out in my attempt to summarize the situation as much as possible.

- No, they didn’t JUST lose a parent, it was actually a couple of months ago now, and they’ve been mostly fine, but one day i had a meltdown from stress, and they comforted me afterwards, and they also became overwhelmed, and i comforted them in return. i know grief is a process, but i don’t think this was the kind of situation which would warrant them taking their grief out on me.

- No, I wasn’t trying to change their mind, I was trying to share something with them. I learned this recently too, and I wanted to share it with the person with whom I talk about things like this so often. I didn’t think they were already on my side or that I just needed to remind them. There was no side. We’re both learning about each other’s experiences. Neither of us know everything there is to know about queerness. Nobody does.

- No, I never said that “love is love” is exclusive or that it’s problematic (that’s what the article said, tho). What I actually said was that it kind of leaves out the aromantic and asexual experience.

- Of course, not all aromantic and asexual experiences are the same, and of course aroace people could experience love and sexual attraction, or other types of intimacy and affection, but that’s not what ‘love is love’ encapsulates, because it came from marriage equality. (This article probably explains it a lot better than I can, but it’s not the article that I read a while back that made me realize why love is love is not the ideal tagline for pride month, for example. there are multiple ones, by the way.)

- No, we weren’t arguing, at any point. Not over text message, not in person. It was never an argument.

- Their response was along the lines of “of course not! i love you but i don’t want to sleep with you!” “love your friends, your family, your pets, your queer chosen family…” “being queer is not always about sex, but i can be wrong. thanks for the comment.” “i need to understand others more, i saw the post and used it, never meant to leave you out.”

- my response (to the first message): “no, love is love implies romantic or sexual love, and as you say, being queer is not always about love or sex.”

- i clarified “no worries, not feeling excluded, but i thought i would clarify.” “Its like when gay was used as an umbrella term, and lgbt was also an umbrella term… but it has evolved. and now love is love is like an umbrella expression, but it’s still not considering some experiences.” “i’m more into ‘be unapologetically yourself’.” (all of this is because that message was in a group chat, with other queer people, who might react differently. my coworker might interpret ‘love is love’ to mean ‘all kinds of love’, but someone else might interpret is as being excluding of other queer experiences and identities unrelated to sexual attraction.)

- they responded “me too. and that’s why i’m leaving it as it is.” then they mentioned that people don’t acknowledge their trans identity just because they don’t care about looking more masculine. then they asked about my mum, and about the morning meeting.

- i didn’t see the message until the next day and replied to the last two. and then i said “yeah, i know i have problems using the right pronouns and i kick myself over it every time. melting emoji”.

-they reacted to it with a thumbs up, but this was after we had already fallen out.

- i arrived at work first, they came in, we talked about mammograms (they’re about ten years older than me, by the way). they left, came back, i said: “hey you didn’t feel attacked by what i was texting you, did you? i didn’t mean to, i just thought i would clarify, because i was reading about love is love-” they interrupted me: “it’s not about sex, it’s not, love is love, you can love anyone.” me: “Okay, yes, but the thing about love is love is that-” they interrupted me again: “well, next time i’ll write ‘love is love but no meaning to exclude asexuals.” I don’t remember what I said in response, because i was already a bit disconcerted. I tried to explain that the thing about love is love is that it kind of focuses on the identities that are more about romantic and sexual attraction, and not so much about the ones that have less or nothing to do with that, like aro people, ace people, nonbinary people, trans people, etc. But they started saying something about “pedophiles were once included among the queer people”, and i was stunned. “well, pedophilia is not a sexual identity, is it? it’s a mental problem, it’s a sexual depravation.” “yeah but they wanted to lump them in there.” “well, yeah but that doesn’t mean that it was right. the same way that asexuality is still medicalized because people think that you should definitely be sexually attracted to someone, and if you aren’t it’s a problem.” “just love who you want, it doesn’t have to be about sex, why do you have to make it about sex.” “i’m not… i feel like you’re not understanding what i was trying to say, but also you’re not even trying to understand-” they interrupted me again: “v, i don’t care.” i fell silent. “what?” they stood up like they were leaving and repeated: “i don’t care about this subject.” i stared at them and said: “oh… okay… thanks.” and they left.

- at no point did either of us yell or get heated or anything. it was just… words. like we usually talk, like we have all these debates and conversations and share opinions. this time, this was the outcome.

- then they came back, and they didn’t attempt to talk to me, and obviously neither did i. nothing else happened, until later in the afternoon when the room went quiet (there’s always a lot of people coming in and out, and our boss was in her office with the door open. I was working, and suddenly i heard them talk to me. i said: “what?” they stared at me with a smile: “are you done with the cold shoulder?” in that tone that says “are you done being a little child, are your feelings still hurt, or are you having that time of the month again” i stared at them in shock. no attempt to apologize, no attempt to clarify, no attempt to talk about it. “No,” i said, and went back to work. I didn’t want to talk to them in that moment, because it felt like they still wouldn’t listen, so why waste my time…

- i know we’re very different people, and we don’t have the same personality or point of view, but this felt very out of the blue.

- UPDATE FOR TODAY: I haven’t talked to them yet, except to say ‘hi’ and ‘no, thanks’ when they offered me something. I think they left something on my desk, and then they offered me dried mango. it feels like an attempt at extending an olive branch, but… i don’t appreciate it.

I might come across as proud and stubborn, but the truth is that I feel like I’m pretty non-confrontational, sometimes to the point that I feel like a pushover. So when I establish limits, and maintain them, in situations like this, I’m not being proud, just trying to not get hurt any further. Being the bigger person always seems to fall on me, and not the other person, and i don’t think that’s fair.

I think it was pretty clear that I wasn’t trying to argue. I don’t like to argue or be angry at anyone. But the fact is that, if they don’t care about trying to clarify things, then I’m not interested either. I’m sure we’ll work things out eventually, but for once I would like that I didn’t have to put my feelings aside to prioritize someone else’s, especially when it’s obvious they know that they said something that hurt me or made me angry.

And I know it’s different for everyone, and it’s not a competition, but being aroace is particularly difficult when most people don’t even know what that is about, so when you find someone that you feel you can talk to about this particular experience, even if they don’t fully understand, the last thing you expect is for them to be so dismissive.

Anyway, I guess we’ll see what happens.

[connorjared]

there are so many things I could say and back up with my annotations but there are some things I want to say

- connor is an unreliable narrator, but in an interesting way. unlike evan, connor's text is purposely written like he's trying to seem WORSE than he is. that's why I think rereading the book as an adult (especially if you have worked with kids) is so incredibly tragic. it's easier to see every way he was utterly failed both personally and systemically when you are no longer the child being failed personally and systemically

- connor is canonically a victim of the troubled teen industry and says it was BETTER than rehab. this genuinely breaks my heart because you can catch little pieces of CPTSD throughout his text and dialogue—he becomes extremely defensive and assumes evan is "tricking him into looking crazy," he states relief there's no longer anyone "waiting around the corner to catch him or check for red in his eyes" this child was treated like a criminal and the one place he felt safe in was removed when he chose to take the blame for something that he didn't do (see below)

- connor taking the fall for his... situationshipfriend miguel because he knew his parents were rich enough and he was white enough to get a more lenient punishment for WEED (which. the criminalization of that and the stigma is a whole OTHER thing) this haunts me. the act itself is noble, unhealthily self sacrificing, but that's not what gets me. his proclaimed friend not only allows him to do this, but even after connor GOES TO REHAB FOR HIM miguel doesn't tell his own mom the truth, causing her to ban the two of them hanging out and connor LOSES his only safe space right after undergoing rehab that he never even needed

- connor canonically has been put on and off multiple medications , we unfortunately don't know when this started but we DO know it was not in his control. SSRIs take a long time to work and shouldn't be switched quickly even for adults, let alone teenagers, and they ESPECIALLY should not be used as stand-ins for accommodations of a disability. there's far more I could say about other medications this might have been such as an SNRI (which connor has said to have less than favorable opinions of) and this is possibly even MORE concerning

- there has been a BUZZ on tiktok about how zoe was a girl icon for being forced to mourn her "abusive brother" and while they definitely had a toxic sibling dynamic fed by their toxic parental dynamic, the idea the toxicity was one sided is just... wrong. not even subjectively, the narrative WANTS you to know this is wrong, at least in the book. the musical... lets just say, im glad they wrote the book. it doesn't undo the honestly pretty shit messaging of the musical, but it adds context that helps derail claims like the one above that add further stigma to victims of suicide. zoe is verbally degrading to connor in recollections and in the small amount of time we hear her speak about him (though, this does change as her character develops throughout the book and she begins to mourn him properly.) zoe is a glass child. she resents all of the negative attention connor received because she didn't get any attention at all. so, she often sides with larry through the book, who is said to have more or less gotten tired of connor and considered him attention seeking, which would be something INCREDIBLY validating for a glass child to hear. zoe is, unfortunately and ironically, often written with detail but no substance. evan, who I could talk about at length and very angrily, constantly prattles small things he notices about her—but, and im not sure if this is the author's intention or not, she barely gets any true characterization outside of her interactions with others, which strangely almost makes her a side character (which i suppose she is) but there are some core parts of HER identity and her character alone that can be picked up throughout the book and i could go on for hours about that and i will not now but i will

- i didn't even touch on cynthia and larry and their abuse (yes! people can love their children and be abusive) but by god i will. by god

dear evan hansen fandom please interact. if u disagree i will probably point an autism beam at you in the form of a personally crafted video essay on why I am right and you are wrong. I have read this book inside and out

[kasaneteto]

ok i need some opinions

so i had the talk with my roommate about not wanting to sign another lease with him. that’s all fine and good he understands why we can’t be roommates anymore but the problem is he doesn’t want to let me be the one to stay at this apartment because he claims he can afford to live here by himself. i don’t really believe him but its neither here nor there because i know i can only afford to live here if i rent with two other people.

my reasons for wanting to keep living here are: i can walk to work, its going to be really hard to find another place that allows TWO cats, my cats are CRAZY and this apartment is perfect for them (lots of windows for passive engagement + a loft area for them to get up in), i have a LOT of plants because the place gets a lot of natural light, to find another place that would support all of these plants will be difficult. & in addition to all of that - my name is on all of the utilities + the WiFi. because he is too irresponsible to take initiative with anything. in a worst case scenario I would be able to move back in with my parents, but that would mean moving to the country where i would be completely isolated and would have to quit my job.

his reasons for wanting to keep living here are: he was the one who found the apartment & he can afford to live here on his own, and he doesn’t want to move. if he has other reasons beyond those he hasn’t told me what they are.

ive known he was a selfish person for years. i mean ive completely given up on ever asking him for a favor because he acts so burdened by it, if he even is willing to do it at all. its my belief that his selfishness is a trauma response due to his upbringing, but yknow, i can only tell the guy he needs therapy so many times before i have to give up to save my own energy. but i can’t help but feel like i deserve this apartment way more than he does. im the one who’s been taking care of it and keeping it nice for us. im the only one of us who’s in any way responsible. so for him to be so hostile about me wanting to stay (he got really defensive about it) hurts me a lot. i want to believe that he’s a good friend but I don’t feel like a good friend would see me move out of an apartment that’s perfect for me just because the alternative would make his life harder. he hasn’t been a good friend for a while so why am i still pretending he is?

so should i tell him all of these feelings? im worried that its going to come across as emotional manipulation. because like… i can’t lie, my main reason for wanting to tell him all of this is so i can stay here and he’ll move out. its hard to not feel like a hypocrite calling him selfish when thats my deepest motivation. but its not my only motivation, i truly do believe that erik is unaware of this behavior of his and that he WANTS to be a good friend, and i wonder if me being honest with him is the wake-up call he needs in that regard? idk. i just want to be a good friend while also standing up for myself. its hard to navigate stuff like this.

so uh. should i tell him i think he’s being really selfish about this? and that ive noticed a pattern of selfish behavior in him? be honest if im being a dickhead about this too and should just give up the place to him like if thats he truth i wanna hear it. it would just kill me to see his irresponsible ass bite off more than he can chew and lose this place, esp since the rate we’re renting at is the 2021 housing rate like its gonna be SO much more expensive to find a place this nice in the current housing market 😭

[the-casbah-way]

im fucking wheezing about that last post lmao. he WOULD. anyway please share the failed marriage lore <3 i love them -rivstyx

i could write an entire prequel on octavius and amelia's cringefail marriage alone but here is just a little lore off the top of my head

they went to rome for their honeymoon and wanted to kill each other after an hour because octavius just wanted to mansplain every monument and statue but amelia wanted to have a Proper Adventure and every time amelia tried to speak to a native to improve her italian octavius would correct her pronunciation before she could even finish her sentence and it got to the point where she was literally begging him to stop talking because he was annoying her so much <3

there was never a proposal. they were just eating dinner one night and it was like "everyone is expecting us to get married" "yeah" "we should probably do that then" "ok"

octavius never told amelia he was getting a cat he just showed up with one after work one day. and amelia started to get genuinely irritated very quickly because suddenly her emotionally constipated husband who has never shown affection in his life was cradling this cat like a newborn and calling it every pet name under the sun and talking to it in a stupid baby voice

all of amelia's friends hated octavius but her parents LOVED him which is half the reason she felt pressured to marry him in the first place. he was the rich successful man they always wanted instead of her and she always resented him for it even though she never said it

they tried couples therapy once but octavius kept zoning out because the therapist was really hot and amelia scrapped the whole thing because every session made her want to strangle him even more

they both hate their parents and it was one of the few things that kept them bonded during their marriage. whenever their parents would visit they'd both do terrible impressions of them while they weren't looking to try and make each other laugh

you know about the dreaded sexting incident but that's just the tip of the sexual nightmare iceberg. there's the time amelia accidentally said the name of one of her male colleagues during sex. the time octavius started getting bored and awkward and nervous during a blowjob and asked if he could read a book during it to distract himself. the time ahkmenrah walked in on them. the time ahkmenrah and octavius had sex literally an hour after the divorce papers went through. i could go on

octavius’ cat vomited on amelia’s favourite shoes once and it caused an entire year long ordeal because amelia was Very angry and octavius was very indignant and annoying about it because ‘well i’m sorry but she had to do it somewhere’ and every time they would go shopping amelia would see a nice pair of shoes and passive aggressively be like “i’m pretty sure i had a pair like that once. i wonder what happened to them— oh yes i remember now :)” and then the whole argument would start all over again

once amelia got jealous of one of octavius’ female colleagues because he was spending a lot of time with her and octavius genuinely could not understand why amelia was concerned about this because he completely forgot he was supposed to be pretending to be straight and into women

one of octavius’ deepest and darkest guilty pleasures is musicals which are amelia’s least favourite thing on this earth and sometimes she would catch him subconsciously singing something from a musical under his breath and she would be like can you please shut up and octavius would get very defensive about it because “its not my fault its stuck in my head someone was singing it at work i don’t even like musicals—” and amelia would be like “oh shut up ive heard you in the shower you liar” and it was like a whole thing

they both have the exact same dry overly british sense of humour so even when they ended up hating each other they were still painfully good at making the other laugh without even trying and they would both get bitter and frustrated about it

[bwobgames]

Previous First

"I. Uh. Might have developed a small crush on my brother's girlfriend.

Now, I dont really believe in love at first sight. But it was close enough.

She smiled at me once, twice, thrice, and then I realized I wanted to see that smile forever. It's just!! Everything felt better with her by my side, you know? Have you ever felt that?"

An image comes to his mind, but he can't recognize it. It quickly disappears.

"We were best friends. We shared makeup and talked all night and raised kids together, bestie stuff.

I always thought of me and my brother as equals, i mean, we are both dumb rich kids who love pretty girls and sweet popcorn

But I never understood his ambition. He had everything! A beautiful wife, lovely kids, money, time, fame. Some of us dont have even one of those things!

So why did he not care about them?

He just left Mari abandoned in their house everyday, he barely went to do his job as CEO, He just ran around doing whatever! Why couldn't he just see how good he has it? The people he was hurting? The responsibilities of a husband and father??

One day Mari came to me, barely speaking, saying he divorced her.

I uh, didn't take it very well.

In my defense, if you saw someone having everything you've ever wanted and just threw it away, wouldn't you be a little mad?

And I know it's selfish and envy is bad or whatever. But he was hurting people. People I love very much. Even himself, i think.

We fought a lot, i told him he was a stupid spoiled child, and he told me i'd never achieve anything even with our parents' money. Then I, uh, said that I was glad he had little youth left because it meant he was gonna die soon.

Yeah... uh... maybe bringing childhood trauma into the divorce thing wasn't a good plan.

And I only realized it later, when he made some crazy internet thing and he was getting detained by the police.

Mari was not coping well, me neither, honestly. We both realized the person we knew was actually just in our heads and that the real person is some cruel stranger. It was almost like grieving.

We fought over the smallest things. Nadia and Simon decided to move to their friend's house. I went back to mine as well, I couldn't take it.

Just like him, I left her all alone. It must run in the family."

"So, yeah, she's probably super mad at me. And doesn't want to be with me ever again"

Beebo tries really hard not to tell her how wrong she is about that

"Well, let's go look for her then! I'll speak on your behalf, so you two dont have to face each other, but the message goes across. Where do you think she is?"

"Um, she said something about her kids, right? They usually are in the observation tower, so she might be looking for them there?"

"Alright, let's go there"

"I'm back I'm back!"

"The Vivi has been secured"

"You literally just made me turn every single location tracking app i have"

"And now you are secured"

"Um, hello?"

"Oh! This is my friend ..."

"Uh. Um. Oh fuck I still dont remember his name. And I literally asked him out! Seems like I still get all stupid in the presence of handsome men. I'll just wait until someone else says it"

" ... from college!, and his friend, Vivi right?"

"Hey Ollie, where is the lady with the blue hair I left you with?"

"We are going to her! She might be in an observation tower, we think"

"Wait, are we all going?"

"Yes. You need your emotional support me, I need my emotional support him and he needs his emotional support her"

"I can take it"

"Wait! I still dont know what to say to her! How do I say that Im sorry? That I love her?"

"I have suggestions"

"So do I"

"Mine would be funnier though"

"...Im so fucked"

[oreo-creampie]

th- THANKS FOR THE FOLLOW OMG?!1!1?1!?#?$3!3?3!3(3(4?_1(1!3?49(

HOLY SHIT IM SO FUCKING STARSTRUCK

oh!!!!! and!!! do you have any tips on writing smut that involves a hard shell character (whos rly mean on the outside but he would die for u in reality)

aaking because you're so fuuuucking good at it

i plan to binge your masterlists today to study more about smut writing too! (for my upcoming genshin fic that is)

hehe, thank you so much for the follow! im so damn awestruck right now and it was such a treat waking up to your notif!

Ok so this is half mini analysis, and part me just gushing.

Toji is my favorite when it comes to hardass who is soft for his s/o. He’s cold, brash, upfront, defensive, and calculating. It’s easier when I can answer to why they are like that. Which is where we get into character back story.

Toji neglected and beaten by his by his parents wouldn’t have an easy attachment style. Cold, standoffish and crude due to barely being shown a scrap of love had made him a rather heartless man. In reality he would be a walking red flag to stay away from.

It’s the calculating part that majorly comes into play with him being a softie. Chances are when he starts fooling around with someone it’s for two things sex and money. He is aware that being charming, using his good looks and sweet talking is going to help him get his way.

Would likely brush off/ignore most advances towards a romantic relationship, a sexual one would be easier to get with him. Which might lead to a romantic one, if he starts staying afterward because it’s a free place to crash and morning sex

He would crave while also reject softer intimacy. Such as hand holding, cuddling, forehead kisses, hugging you close. It starts off with pulling you in his lap, putting a sexual tone to it makes it feel less vulnerable.

Since I doubt he was valued, or validated emotionally so when he finally gets that from someone who sees toji for toji, flaws and all, he is a bit of a sucker for it. When he drinks a little too much, he opens up about his childhood, and hearing you validate how shitty it was and how he should have been treated better makes his heart beat faster. Has him softening up for the reader.

It helps to think about Toji at all given stages of the relationship within any given fic. From when they met to him falling in love, it would be a process that would take years before the finally said it.

But he would show it in his actions, for being a smooth talker he fumbles when it comes to vulnerable emotions. And with the reader he would be nothing but vulnerable when he is falling for them.

So while he might still sound rough, his sweet actions let you know more about his true intention. But at the same time Toji can't be too mean, otherwise that jumps into abusive territory.

As a calculating man he is very aware of his words and their affect. And once he cares for you, he doesn't want to hurt you. Unless it for kinky fun times. So this is where I head canon him changing small part of himself, this is where the softening begins.

I try to think about it from Toji��s perspective. Abused, neglected, beaten and hated on by most of the people around him. The thrived outta spite and became hard because of it.

Now there is this beauty of a person who is gentle with him, seeing his flaws but accepts him anyway, loves him anyway. Gives him all the patience and understanding he needs, at first its off putting. He isn't used to it, but he kind of likes it.

He would put some space but find himself thinking about the size difference of your hand. The warmth of your smile, the sweet way you say his name, the sparkle in your eyes that reserved for him.

He wants to hold you close, check in on your safety. So he comes back, you don't have questions for where he is been and there is no anger for his absent. Just concern on if he is taking care of himself.

Never having someone give a fuck if he eats, breaths or sleeps would be the norm. So you worrying for his well being is welcomed and addictive so he wants more. It has him coming back for more.

When in a relationship he is loyal, he’s smart and knows that eventually you'll catch him cheating. Every cheater gets caught at some point, so once he has chosen you. You’re his everything

Romantizing the reader through their eyes. Of course they are gonna soften up for you, you’re their everything, the one person who they feel comfortable with, who holds they heart. Toji love sick when it comes to his love, so attached to his partner he is willing to kill for them

They know you like a book and you can read him just as well. He knows he doesn't have to be the most love dovey always. That you understand he is rough around the edges, but love them anyway

[noxiatoxia]

Hi! So I have a few things I wanted to say/ask so hopefully this isn't too long or out of place or anything

Okay so first off, you always reblog and say such nice things about my art in the tags and I wanted to say I appreciate it so much, I never know what to say but like you're the backbone of the hikakao community so it feels like a seal of approval in a way haha. And your art is so amazing like, damn! I love it sm. Kaoru has been my fav character for nearly a decade so I love seeing that its not just me he has a grip on, and as an autistic person myself who loves princesses’ and specifically Cinderella… well your hc means a lot to me haha. Oh and your hanahaki fic??? I ugly cried. SO damn good like the characterizations… one of the best Hikakao fics I've read on god

So I kinda wanted to ask two things, first being if you had to choose for the other hosts to have a fav princess who would it be? Im personally very partial to Tamaki loving Belle, given the like french beauty and romanticism of it all, plus her giving herself up for the safety of a parent connection. I like the idea of him being kinda dumb and taking it as you need natural inner AND outer beauty, which he oh so obviously has in spades and that kind of nonsense. Idk I was just curious if you'd have an opinion on this as ive been giving it some thought lately. Especially on Hikaru, I think he would like a more down to earth princess that doesn't have too much frills or singing in the film, like Merida because it's the most adventurous one without character songs if you're just going off disney. But idk I feel like another princess would suit him better, I just can't think of one rn

Second was if you had any thoughts or analysis of how the maid the twins had when they were young impacted them and their development? And more importantly how it impacted them each differently? Like obviously her saying no one may ever be able to tell them apart fucked with their heads, but like idk. Ive been thinking about it. And what if they never met her, and she never said that? Would they of been less warped? I think they'd just meet someone else who they liked who couldn't tell them apart, who'd just say the same thing in a different way. But how key was her betrayal of trust during a high stakes robbery of their parent's estate to all this? Im just musing at this point lmao

Oh also less an ask but I personally hc Kaoru to dissociate and the like frequently, and how maybe them being in sync all the time in their mannerisms really helps him with his autopilot moments, and Hikaru is always ready and able to catch him up to speed on what's happening and what they just did, if its something he would care to know that is. And I hc Hikaru as bipolar, his depression just manifests really angerly instead of traditional sadness. But my point is I love the idea that they're just so used to the other that any mentally ill or neurodivergent behavior one of them does the others just like “Oh yeah Kaorus just like that. You know how it is. What do you mean you don't know anyone afraid of hairdryers? Like legit afraid? Yeah no thats just a thing. Hmm. Well you should get over it it's his fear not yours I dont see how it concerns you.” and like gets defensive if anyone tries to say it's weird lmao

Okay that was long oops I hope this wasn't out of place or weird or anything, I got excited talking about it haha. Hope all is going well!!

THIS IS SO FUCKING SWEET YES!!! I WAS DRAWING HIKAKAO RIGHT AS YOU SENT THIS ASK TOO BTW.... i was htinking like, should i post this... theres kissing..... but then i remember why it's so rewarding to do what I love <3 really and truly. I've met SO many incredibly kind, creative, and thoughtful people through hikakao it's insane. And tbh it makes me want to never stop posting about them even if it nets me hate every now and again LMAO it's just, stuff like this is irreplaceable to me. And I LOVE your art!!!!!! It's SO cute... the picture of Kaoru dressed as cinderella made me legit scream. I sent it to all my friends and showed it to my brother haha. The whole Kaoru/Cinderella headcanon is very personal to me as you can probably gather from my carriage posting. so whenever I see it I go nuts (in a good way. it not destructive).

I think it's very funny (in a good way) that you already had a special interest in princesses, esp Cinderella. For me, it's like...I can NOT look at anything Cinderella related normally anymore because I'm reminded of the carriage allegory, and yet we have Cinderella movie nights every thursday now because of me...I describe my relationship with Cinderella as "stockholm syndrome" because i legit didn't care about or really even know Cinderella before all this went down, but now she is my Worst Enemy but Best Friend and if anybody says Cinderella is mid I'm blowing up another hostage.

Also!!! Thank you so much about the fic!!! While looking back I feel like there are def things I could improve on, I do really like that fic. As somebody who's personally arospec, I have trouble writing the "feelings" of romance so I tried my best. I have other Hikakao adjacent stories I'm writing and I wanna post them here!!!

Okay, onto the questions...firstly, YES, Tamaki DOES seem like the type to love Belle. He may also enjoy Rapunzel and her whole being held captive her whole life because maybe he feels the same way with his own family situation. Haruhi strikes me as a little mermaid type, no real reason, I just get that vibe. Although Kyoya probably relates to the original fairytale of the little mermaid in some ways for sure. I actually HC Mori's favorite movie is Beauty and the Beast, so he's probably also really into Belle. As for Hani, I'm not sure...Giselle, maybe. He likes her whimsy.

Hikaru is interesting, because I feel like he's like Me in which he HATES Cinderella because he has to hear about it 24/7 but if ANYBODY said anything mean about cinderella he'd be like...you bitch...you take that BACK. Altho I have this headcanon that Hikaru's favorite princess is Alice from Alice in Wonderland (tho she really isn't a "princess") because he always liked that movie better. Kaoru would cry as a kid tho when Hikaru said he thought that movie was better so he pretended to like Cinderella more. But he doesn't. Merida tho...that's a very good choice, I can defff seeing Hikaru being a big Merida fan.

So, to the second question: it's very interesting! What stood out about that maid to Hikaru and Kaoru was the fact she was mean to them. being raised as rich and "better" than everyone else, all the maids HAD to be nice or they got fired pretty much, so to see a maid go against that status quo, to treat them honestly...that's why they liked her so much.

If anyone else had said "nobody will be able to tell you two apart", would it have hurt? sure. But it wouldn't be devastating, because they likely wouldn't care about that person's opinion. but they liked this maid, they looked up to her in a weird way. Having somebody you like and trust tell you something hurtful is way more harmful than if a stranger did it.

Now...would they be LESS twisted if it never happened? I doubt it. I mean, maybe they'd be LESS focused on looking identical, but they would still be rather cruel and mischievous, because that's how they were simply raised: they were raised being taught their actions have no consequences, because they're better than everyone else. Simple by being "Hitachiins", they had a pass to do all sorts of nasty shit to people because they were rich and powerful. Besides, canonically, their mom & dad were barely in their lives, and child neglect causes the children to act out to get attention, usually via things that would get them scolded. So, while they miiight not have been AS keen on matching had that maid never said what she did before leaving them forever, they would probably be just as mean and cruel.

To le third point: YES that is so good. Kaoru very much dissociates in my heart of hearts as well. He has days on end where he doesn't feel like he's in his own body, everything's sort of a blur, he can't remember things well...Hikaru's there for him in those moments at least.

I always saw Hikaru and Kaoru as ADHD/Autism solidarity. But bipolar is an interesting one, too. I could def see it.

Also the hairdryer thing FUCKING RELATABLE...I'd think Kaoru is "afraid" of hairdryers/thunder - just really fucking loud noises that are sudden and/or unceasing. They don't make him "cower" necessarily but like, he gets super jittery/irritated because he gets overwhelming anxiety from it. Hikaru as a kid probably didn't understand why his brother acted so strangely to certain sights/sounds/touches, and maybe at first teased him about it, but when it was clear these things actually DISTRESSED Kaoru he stopped and did everything he could to make him feel better. and if anybody makes fun of kaoru for it Hikaru beats the shit out of them.

This was super nice ;w; I love receiving long asks, asks about ouran and the twins especially. legit if you ever wanna talk about them u can send an ask or DM me you seem really nice!!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

pondering a framework of Theme re: deh as like, the tension between having an idea of people that can be whatever you want it (them) to be, vs the realities of people that that idea doesn't cover, whether by conflicting w/the idea or being [more stuff you don't know]....from the aspect that doesn't really get taken up by audiences in how like, via the distance of Social Media you can be dealing w/those Ideas via what people choose to share to present an idea, and not see behind the scenes into the reality (which is like, this whole show could've happened with the [social media] component excised & replaced by other mediums/methods so it's not the most surprising that nobody's going "yeah my takeaway is that this wouldn't have happened if evan had been more offline & faced a book instead of facebook") to like Thee In-Person Relationships he's having

the whole story's focused on evan dealing w/the Ideas more so, putting in most of his effort on trying to offer Thee Idea of [whatever he thinks they want from him] to the murphys, and then to others beyond that via tcp, and then that all inevitably falling apart b/c reality didn't align is most of the runtime....the ending's always just kind of peak baffling b/c it's like, a Resolution sure is difficult when it's maybe more so been like Stuff Happening and then like, what does evan do to deal with The Realities instead of the Ideas....that would potentially be a whole second story from that point lol but he gets the (i guess first part of) resolution needed from like, confronting the supposed reality of himself (but still just an Alternate idea about himself in going like "im the guy who sucks plus i got depression") and this can be handled by his mom, who he also can handle realizing is admittedly not some Ideal of [the concept of The Mother] which is like, okay, except where do we go with that....here where they go from that is "not peacing out from each other's lives" but also like, "being in each other's life at all" is kind of just a peak basic premise of having any relationship, not the highest bar here or in & of itself a guarantee that now this is All He Needs, Really

meanwhile I Guess his second part of his resolution is meeting with zoe, i mean, It Is in that that's what the show offers as finale lol. but where zoe's kind of here to mostly talk about Ideas as still being helpful, including that i guess we can assume her life is fine Enough now just b/c her parents aren't going to divorce? like i think it would be better for everyone if they did, actually lol, but there seems to also be this [assumed shared assumptions w/the audience] aligning with Normality throughout of like, thee truly important, Necessary, Real relationships here are like, parent/child, parent/parent, [your dream soulmateship] as proto-[parent/parent] ideally surely, can i make it any more obvious what more can i say....for example iicth is agonizing to me lol like being hit with the details of evan's like Secret Joke Smile Bandplaying mini monologue is like oh my god lmfao. this is peak An Idea territory, like you're just making shit up about her but clearly in an Idealized way, and the song says nothing abt Why he likes her, personally, while for zoe it's just offering this contrasting idea to Her idea that idk connor hated her like skiing, or what all, and/or the possibility that there could've been a different dynamic....only us(tm) is back at it lol like yeah sure In Theory that evan shouldn't have to be on the defensive waiting to let people down but like, it's all downhill from there, like zoe should also be Able to say anything she likes about evan specifically, isolating yourselves & ignoring everything else = not great, actually. and it Could be examined like, i guess your just being a nervously polite someguy boyfriend who was supposedly separate Enough from all the stuff about connor was a nice enough distraction while it lasted....but i have no idea why zoe is still particularly fond of evan as The Idea Of The Romantic Ideal Of It All in the conclusion like, girl what. what did you guys ever talk about. the most like Interaction is that pre iicth moment, where also zoe's like grilling him about what classes his mom takes & where his dad is & why he doesn't appreciate being poor & is calling him weird & all which is still more interesting than the Non Interactions they will now proceed to have for the rest of the show lol

anyways it's just like, so far as we know All Evan's Needed for the year and a half has been his mom not hating him so much she wants to leave, and he's doing fine....like idk fine sure maybe but it's like, it's sure just like, the most important connections are "we held hands & That Status was magical regardless of like, being able to express the least Specific Thing we liked about each other, or talking about anything" and "at least my parents aren't divorcing, so things are good" and "at least my parent isn't disowning me, so things are good" like, i mean are they lol. maybe, but hardly a guarantee via these facts, and very like "yes you'll encounter conflicts w/your ideas of people that require effort, better focus that effort on the Peak Atomized Normal(tm) Relationships which are so most important that they're required, and so required that they're most important: nuclear family, and monogamous cishet lifelong romance as your path to nuclear family (the next generation)" like yeah man if you talked to zoe once ever maybe everything would be the same. what then? nonrhetorically.

and that also The Idea/ls vs The Realities of people, when it comes to Family, also only goes so far when the authority of Thee Parent is this foregone unalienable fact, so that the "yeah i'm not perfect" Fact of a parent's personhood doesn't have to translate into effort to do things differently (for the child) but rather means the child is supposed to lower expectations and just accept whatever negative experiences imparted by the parent, b/c also They're Your Parent so the child's required to have that Relationship just regardless of what the specifics of the relationship Actually Are. like how i guess dating is amazing & important b/c you sure were dating. cue heidi just cutting through an apparent breakdown of her actual relationship with evan with the aggressive I'm Your Mother, to be revisited when the murphys aren't your Family....and then concluded with kinda a [i'm your mother: nice mode] situation of like, guess you'd better Hope your parent/child relationship exists at all and is good enough, like you'd better hope your eventual romance exists at all and is good enough, both for forever, with these also being the only connections that can Really matter rather than like, what, peers you don't date? friends, acquaintances, strangers? log off & do family game night

anyways it's all like, not expecting or wanting deh to be like "any of this is all good or all bad," and that goes for like the [the actual person, beyond being able to be Known In Full] and [the ideas crafted to make enough sense of things along the way] and how too much Idea can be dehumanizing, but you also can't write everyone off as black boxes of the unknown so as to Never Get It Wrong if you even exist proximately to them....but it's like, if we're going like "hmm why do we feel so isolated" like i have some ideas and it's not "just call your mom" or anything. the deh finale doesn't have a character who gets to be like "what the hell" or suggest anything's still shitty so it's like, yeah great that there's (everyone needed it for / it's) Something, but we could even have some more things

[herbirdglitter]

Im trying to work out my thoughts on something. Because my therapist is busy with some less stable patients. Feel free to skip.

One time, I told my sister she couldn’t borrow my phone anymore because my parents were threatening to cut mine off entirely if I kept letting her use it, and she stopped speaking to me. I put up one flimsy boundary in my entire life and she stopped speaking to me. She told me it was a good thing she hadn’t killed me yet. And then tried to gaslight me into thinking that was a normal thing to say. My oldest sister told me she could support me because she was already supporting my little siblings, during the hardest five month long mental health crisis of my life.

My sisters decided to stop telling me the important things because I live with my parents and I guess they’re worried I’ll tell my parents something I shouldn’t. Because i don’t have anyone to talk to round here. Then they said that it was my fault for not talking to them enough. They still hit me up and asked me to buy them mermaid tails because they’re too poor and I did because I’m a doormat.

When they call me out for things, I should listen, but when I call them out for things, I’m just lashing out because of my alleged victim complex. Even if it’s something simple, like them calling me a bitch.

Then recently I sent a picture where my little sister didn’t look that great to friend, who was also in the picture, fully believing she was ok with it, and I apparently l didn’t apologize properly and now none of my sisters are speaking to me because I violated her boundary. I immediately stopped them from being passed around to all the other people in the photo (worse luck for them as they were the only pictures we had from the day) like their were supposed to, but you know, I didn’t apologize. They’ve never apologized for anything they’ve ever done to me. And they’ve said and done some absolutely horrible things.

I should have apologized properly, probably. But I didn’t. Because when I said I’d sent them, instead of going, hey I didn’t want those sent, why didn’t you ask me? The little sister called me a bitch, and reacted like id sent them fully knowing she didn’t want me to. And then instead of apologizing, I got defensive and started explaining that that wasn’t the case. But she said that it was. When I’d just explained that it wasn’t. And it only escalated from there.

And now, they’ve decided not to speak to me, specifically because according to them, I kept defending myself for doing something shitty, as they put it. For context, they also explicitly said that explaining the situation was the same as defending myself.

And I can no longer tell who is right. Because i don’t trust their opinions on subject for a multitude of reasons, and I don’t think I can trust mine. Because what if im the crazy one???My therapist said they’re manipulating me, which I fully believe, because at the very least they take advantage of me, but my brother says I just need to apologize and it’ll all be fine. But my therapist thinks they’re manipulating him too.

But it’s never going to be fine if they never apologize, don’t respect me, and only speak to me when I have something they want.

To sum up: dear god, let my therapist come back to the office even though it’s the weekend because I need a session literally right now so I can stop making concerning vent posts on tumblr

[dreamwritesimagines]

Dream! I can’t decide who I’m most mad at, Clover, Benedict, or you! (Kidding, of course!) this chapter is amazing, the pain is so real! Really well written!

Their lack of communication is so huge, and so relatable. Clover should have asked him to stay when he offered, and Benedict should have known that if Clover wanted to talk at dinner then it was important. But so often in relationships we can be so bad at talking to one another about what we need.

And man that fight, clover really knew where to hit Benedict. Im worried about how quickly she lost control - it was so easy for her to lose her trust in him after one miscommunication, and to not be able to stay calm and rational. I really hope Clover is able to see that her trauma is causing her to make rash decisions and hurt others as well - it’s not just about being able to trust Benedict and his actions, but also being able to recognize her own trauma and learning how to react and work through situations when she is triggered. Not to go too personal, but I definitely have trauma from a past emotionally abusive relationship, and sometimes when something triggers me and I want to go straight to defensiveness or pretend everything is fine so I don’t have to talk about it, I’ll have to stop and say to my current partner, “look, I know I have baggage attached to (whatever the issue is), but this is how it’s making me feel and here’s why.” And that helps us both figure out how to deal with whats going and and better see where we’re both coming from. But it also took us a long time to get there, and I would imagine for Clover, having been so young when she was abused, she hasn’t developed those kinds of coping and communication skills. And, even knowing some about her past, Benedict has never had to deal with trauma like this, and doesn’t know how to spot when she’s being avoidant or know how to help her through it.

I’m wondering if Clover will eventually be the one to tell Benedict about the letter from her parents, or if he’s going to find out about the situation from someone else? I think knowing about the letter will help him understand she’s reacting from a place of pain and panic, but if someone else tells him, I think he’ll also be hurt that she didn’t tell him initially. I’m sure he never would have left if he’d know what was going on and she hadn’t insisted she was fine.

Anyway, wondeful as always! I can’t wait for the next chapter!

Awww thank you so much love! 🥰❤️

Exactly! I think that sort of lack of communication is something almost all of us have been through, something being important to us but the other person misses that or vice versa❤️ In Clover's case, it clashed with her trauma💔

You're absolutely right, she knows where to hit to make it hurt💔 I think in her situation, it goes either way, she either shuts down or lashes out because that's what she has experienced in her home life, and she ended up doing both with Benedict instead of explaining what was happening ❤️

I'm so sorry to hear that about your past relationship, but it's wonderful to hear that you have a safe relationship now where you can have open and honest communication! ❤️❤️

Yessss for Benedict, it's rather hard to understand the signs of her trauma (except for the wrist rubbing thing) because he has never dealt with that before, and he also never really had to answer to anyone where he had been before, or like...have these kind of responsibilities 😁

I think he will be so shocked when he hears because he is one of the very few people who knows about her home life, so he always assumed if something like that happened, she would immediately tell him and yet...😏

More angst is comiiiing! ❤️

[wizardofgaysex]

vent post, ignore

my life has been crashing tf down around me and I just feel like my best friends are excluding me because of it. for the last several months I've been falling back into a really bad depression and it's been harder and harder for me to be social. these people know I pull away and that with time I'll come back but this time I feel like they want me to leave for good. like I pulled into myself one to many times with them and now I've ruined our friendship forever because of it.

so I've been pulling away. and I've been doing the weekly hangout less and less. it's also because I got a job where I work mornings so I can be with them and they all became nightowls. I didn't even realized it happened until one of them got mad at me for going to bed at 9 (I wake up at 5 for my job). and it sucks because they know I struggle with insomnia so it feels bad they punished me for trying to be healthy

but sometimes I do make it to the hangout and I have to leave because they say shit that is going to make me burst out in tears. I can't cry in front of other people so I just straight up have to leave so I can sob my eyes out. and I know they think it's nothing but I've asked them over and over "don't make fun of me for things I like" and it's not because the things I like is lame (they r) or that they don't like it but it's being made fun of for liking it. I just hear every thing that my parents use to say to me growing up and I become the defensive person I had to be when I was 16. it's not "we don't like this" that gets to me but the "your stupid for liking this" "you're boring for liking this" "you're cringe for liking this" that gets to me

it all really came to a head a few weeks ago. before one of the weekly hangouts I got my car broken into, all my shit stolen (including my meds that I need to survive), and then almost lost my job on the same day. I started self harming again too. I never thought I would be that person again but I caved and started the scratching again. it was a terrible morning but my boys were doing a hangout and I hadn't seen them in a while so I got intoxicated and joined. and they were really really mean. they were talking shit about how I'm stupid before I joined and then when I did they talked shit about me to my face. so I left and joined some other friends.

and those friends saw me with the scabs on my face and were like holy shit, what's wrong? and maybe I am fucking stupid because I had to have people explain to me why I shouldn't be treated like that essentially after the day I just had. and they forced me to leave my friend group because if I'm treated like that when I had a day like that then why would they ever treat me with kindness when I'm doing okay?

but im a fucking chump and I decided to rejoin that friend group and I'm still treated like crap. I'm trying so fucking hard to be social even though all I want to do is sob my fycking eyes out every day and it's still like "well, you should never join us again. go talk to other people" but I want to talk to them :( they're my best friends :(((( I love them and I think they r cool but I'm just too fucking sad to be their friends anymore and it hurts a lot.

like Wednesday I was in a good moofld for once and I wanted to hang out and I was told to go fuck myself. "go hang out with ur marvel friends" from the guy who already said he was busy that day and couldn't join. and it sucked because I love him. I really do. like it was too bad to not be able to hang out with him when I was able to but it happens. but then he said I can't hang out with our friends without him :( and then today, for the Friday hang out, I was like "what are we doing?" and he said a movie thing I don't like. that's fine! everyone else likes it and I don't care. they know I don't like it but I've never been like "you can't do that" so I was like, oh well. and he was like

hold on I'll just post it

I don't like 80s horror because it's misogynistic. but like what's his deal? he doesn't like pokemon or superheros??????? I'm allowed to simply not like everything he doesn't like

and then I tried to talk to him about why he got really hostile for no reason and he told me to fuck off. and it's okay, he had a hard day (I also had a hard day so I get it) but when I was like "can we talk about this at some point?" he left me on read and said he doesn't want to spend time with anyone (before he was like "Well........ does anyone with good taste want to join???) and like

bro it sucks. my friendship with these people is probably over. earlier this elyear they were my best friends in the whole world and I've been rejected because I'm sad

[mental-health-advice]

Submission about academics and mental health in Korea

Hi, uh.. im still not teally sure i should be writing this, im really used to keeping it under wraps but recently things have been... really bad for my mental health i guess. Fair warning i might kind of vent my whole life story.

Im a 17 year old turning 18 in a two weeks, and also Korean. My parents are somewhat conservative and traditional koreans, and that basically means im terrified when it comes to talking about school grades and my mental health.

I live in Korea, but i spent a whole 6 years of my childhood in the US before moving to Korea at the start of 3rd grade. I also had a very hard time adjusting to Korea and developed.. well, lets say trauma regarding new environments and people altogether. I was quietly bullied, or treated like i was nonexistent, had little to no friends for a long time during 3rd to 8th grade, the friends i did have were toxic, stuff like that. Didn't exactly help that everyone from that elementary went to the same middleschool. It got better once highschool started but Im still scared of people from this neighborhood.

I have a few friends that I wouldn't trade for the world and Im grateful for that, though my pre teen trauma is not why Im writing, well maybe it took part of me writing, i don't think i'll ever get the full picture of how much damage those first few years in Korea caused. I can't remember 3rd and 4th grade at all except for a few bits and peices.

I think I self harm. I don't know if it counts, but I just.. scratch my wrist and fingers until they turn red and i feel the burn for hours, Whenever i get frustrated or mad or disappointed with myself. I've been doimg it for a long time now that i think about it but never really realized it until a few months ago when pressure about suneung(the Korean SAT of sorts) got really bad.

My country takes academics extremely seriously. A bit too seriously. Students here are pretty famous for being miserable and it's not a secret that Korea has the highest teenage suicide rates.

My parents take them quite seriously as well. They don't say it out loud at least, but my mom's body language just screams disappointment and anger every time my grades come out and it's suffocating. Im not a vocal person. Im also shy, and on top of all that i just can't say a word back at my mom. Im almost 18 and we never fought once. Never argued to the point I raised my voice. I was only ever scolded or I just backed down. I can't bring myself to stand up for myself every now and then and it all kind of boiled down to this.

I can't open my mouth when i want to say something in my defense. Im always just left with my thoughts, and after getting the scores for sunueng its just becoming unbearable and im scratching my wrists almost daily. Im starting to scream at myself in my head for being such a disappointment and at the same time my moms disappointment feels suffocating enough that i almost blurt out that ive been thinking of jumping for years now just so i could end this godforsaken disappoint of a life and i know i shouldn't think that but i can't. stop.

I can't tell my parents that every time I think of my 30s i get nothing because i always pictured myself dead during my 20s since middleschool. I love them and i know that's bot something you should ever tell a parent and can't do that to them, and i cannot stand up or defend or speak for myself if my life depends on it to my parents or anyone else.

Oh, and on top of all that Im pan. My parents are low key homophobic so I've been in the closet for 5 years now.

And to think of the fact that everyone thinks im pretty optimistic and put together that they come to me for advice is laughable really.

I don't know where to reach out to. I've never been comfortable saying my insecurities in Korean, maybe it's all the trauma regarding people and relationships in elementary and middle school, maybe it's not. So Korean hotlines are a no go, my parents.. I don't even know if they'll take this seriously even if I somehow muster up the coutage to tell them. Mental health issues are kind of taboo in Korea in the first place. I live in a whole other country so english using hotlines are also a no go. My friends have enough on their shoulders and I know this because they come to me of all people for advice when something goes to shit in their life. I don't know what to do, I feel like Im going to go crazy one of these days, i fantasise about jumping every other day, my wrist is still burning.

Despite the wording my life isn't complete shit, it's just.. been a trying few months. I just ...i really needed to vent that. That Im not really okay all the time despite my life not being all that bad these days and everyone thinking that im fine.

Thank you for reading this, whoever it is. Knowing that someone, even if I have no idea who it is is reading this surprisingly helps a lot. Sorry for thrusting this on you too.

Hey there,

Thank you so much for sending in your Ask! Sometimes just writing and getting everything out of you can be extremely helpful and like you mentioned, knowing that someone will read it and consequently you feeling heard!

Life in Korea sounds really difficult when it comes to grades and the stress that is put upon you which can then unfortunately lead to a number of different mental health conditions. It really sucks that you don’t have the support that most other countries have regarding your mental health and I bet that your friends offloading stuff on you isn’t helpful for you either! Can you or would you feel comfortable confiding with your friends about certain aspects of what you are struggling with, even if you just mention the academic side of things and how you are left feeling by your Mum when your grades come out? Maybe they feel the same way or similar and you can help each other through even?

I too find it really hard to speak up for myself and I live in Australia where it’s safe to do so, to speak your mind within reason and talking about how you are really feeling, so you are not feeling alone and access to mental health help and support is also fairly good. I am so sorry it’s not the same over in Korea.

In terms of self-harm, self-harm is the deliberate injury to oneself and can come in a variety of different ways. For more information and some helpful ideas on how you can help to control your self-harm urges or even stop if you want to – completely OK if you are not wanting to either, stopping has to be your decision and it has to be when you are ready to do so. Anyway, when you have the time, please do check out this page on self-harm.

I know how easy it can be to think of suicide when everything gets so hard and overwhelming, and it’s OK to have the thoughts as long as they don’t occupy your mind 24/7. It’s important to know though that if you do become actively suicidal and cannot keep yourself safe then you reach out to your emergency services or go straight to hospital so they can help to give you the help and support you may be needing at the time. You don’t need to be yet another suicide statistic and even though you thought you didn’t want to make it through to your 20’s, let alone your 30’s you are still here today and I know that there is a good reason for still being alive and you reaching our to us proves that you do want to be OK!

Please also know that we are also here for you too so please do let us know if we can support you in any other way – either now or in the future. You don’t have to go through this completely alone!

I’m thinking of you and hope that you are going OK, or at least as best as you can be right now!

Take care,

Lauren

[sea-lilli]

This is how it should go.

Me: what’s up with these memes

Him: I’m feeling stressed bc Jane is a fucking lot and I didn’t realize that when I took on parenting her 50/50. I’m still adjusting bc I realize now that I’m supposed to be a full parent on my own and I’m not used to it bc Emily didn’t ever make me be a full parent until you came along. I thought when I got 50/50 that you would actually be stepping up and helping me with my half of the parenting bc that’s what Emily always did. I understand you told me differently, but I just really wanted it, hoped it would change and I was disappointed for a while. Now I’m not, but I still get a little resentful sometimes bc you don’t have to ever be a parent with Jane, and I do and I’m exhausted. I’m also realizing Jane is very behind in some basic stuff that probably should have been taught a lot earlier. I feel really guilty because I didn’t teach her those things and now they’re causing big problems with you and I love you. I’m worried you will leave me because of Jane and am trying really hard to improve because I don’t want to be left. I also feel really guilty because I feel like I messed up my kid by not doing those basic things when I should have. I’m also defensive because I don’t really know how to teach Jane those things (I’m trying my best tho!) and make up for years of “meh” parenting. I’m working really hard to teach Jane those things so you don’t eventually leave me, but also I just want to enjoy my kid because I love her and I don’t know how I’m supposed to teach her boundaries and emotions but at the same time still have fun with her. I just feel very inadequate. Also, I feel really bad because your methods are really harsh for Jane because she hasn’t ever been exposed to boundaries before. It is hard for me to watch Jane cry and get distressed and I worry about her emotional state and if the stress of others having boundaries is too much for her. Plus, I work this hard job at the psych ward where I have to work sooo much just to make ends meet, our schedules don’t ever line up and then when we do have an off day together, I don’t have the energy for you because Jane has completely run me wild. I’m also concerned in talking to you about my feelings, because the things you say are always right, but what you don’t get is that they are still hard to hear and to feel. I’m scared to tell you my feelings, because you have trauma and can articulate your feelings better than I can. So I feel the full effects of your feelings, but because I can’t express my feelings to you, you don’t get mine. Or if you do, then you have a reason why I am in the wrong. It’s a lot of accountability for me when I’m not used to being held to a higher standard. Im used to people praising me for just existing in the same room as Jane, and I don’t get that praise from you. I’m dealing with Emily as well, constantly second guessing me and making me think I’m a bad parent or reminding me of when I was a worse parent than what I am now. And all of this together is just very overwhelming. I don’t have the words for all of the emotions like you do. It feels like I will never get out of them. I will never get a break. When I do get breaks, it’s never enough. And sometimes I wish I had never had a kid, but I also love her so much and she saved my life, but it’s just very exhausting. And I feel guilty about feeling all these feelings, because it’s all I ever wanted, so that’s why I don’t really like to talk about any of the feelings. Also, instead of being empathetic and taking on my feelings as your responsibility, in order to help me, you put my feelings back on me, so that I have to feel those feelings myself and work through them myself. You’re always there to support me, but you don’t take on my individual problems like a team.

I am different now than I was when I first met you, and I’m confused about if I like it or not. I see a lot of growth and I’m more proud of myself in some aspects than I ever was before. But it is hard. I’m thankful you’re sticking with me through it all, even if you also are making me feel a lot of stuff I didn’t really want. I don’t think I ever would have grown this much with anybody else, and it’s intense. I want to see a therapist, because you’re challenging my world views and how I see myself and rayne, and it’s confusing and I don’t know what to do about it. I love you though, and you are worth it. I’m probably just going to be quieter about my feelings for a while as I process through stuff. I’ll get through it eventually.

How it actually goes:

Me: what’s up with these memes?

Him: nothing. I just like them and they relate just a bit.

Me: how do they relate?

Him: stress and stuff. *tries to change subject*

Me: why the stress?

Him: I don’t know. I’m at work not worried about my feelings. Don’t worry about it. I’m ok.

😒

[azumasoroshi]

DGS 2 London Side DLC

just started watching like. the one video translating these and OH MY GOD IS SHOLMES GONNA BE THE DEFENSE LAWYER FOR IRIS AGAINST BAROK????? WHAT???????????

and ryuunosuke gets to be the competent judicial assistant this time i'm assuming

this is gonna be great i can feel it

omg iris gets her own hold it?? or at least i assume it's a hold it since it's not iyai

OH NOOOOOO WE DONT GET SHOLMES' PERSPECTIVE goddammit

ryuunosuke i love you but PLEASE i need to know what's going on in sholmes' head

i guess they don't want to reveal that he's actually a genius or show his real thought process to keep the mystery of whether he's really smart or a fucking idiot but i was excited for that :( oh well

"What on earth are you doing here, amateur detective?"

"Whatever do you mean? ...Reapy."

im telling you there is SOMETHING up with the way they talk to each other it's the exes energy i swear to god

oh my god it definitely wasnt a murder trial was it ahskdgJHDJHGSD sholmes is giving off real phoenix wright energy right now

"For the [impropriety?] of reaching for the Lord's chalice after failing to find another outlet for my anger...I beg for your indulgence."

ahh so that's the more direct translation of "forgive the discourtesy of filling my hallowed chalice"

we are 3 minutes into trial and this man is already done six ways from sunday

not ryuunosuke telling sholmes to look at the court record when we're not even in control of him asdkhgKJDHGSDKJKHJHJDS

OHH yeah i guess he's saying it to sholmes but hes really saying it to us cuz we have to look at evidence n stuff

omg the notes on each evidence are in sholmes' perspective too

why is the pocketwatch in the evidence lmfao i dont think ryuunosuke gave that to you sholmes

watch him just grab it from ryuunosuke's pocket when it's needed

oh barok's name is translated as baroque that's kind of interesting

oh something was stolen from van zieks office?? if it was wine im gonna laugh so hard why would you convict a ten year old of stealing wine

LMFAOOOOOOOOO sholmes' perception of the world is so fucked

"terrifying" help oh my god

I CHOKED he knows barok fucking hates him

aww the person playing said this is basically all we get of hurley's perspective that's so sad ugh

"The only suitable punishment for such an atrocity would be submersion in hellfire!" damn barok really said gay people belong in hell

racist and homophobic what's next capcom

"Looks like we were too late, Mr. Naruhodou. He already threw his first chalice." like 7 minutes into trial dawgggg this is the worst day of barok's life second only to The Incident while Sholmes is having a fucking blast

"[Iris' charge] was...um. Serial murder!"

"It sounds as though you've got yourself a rather thrilling roommate, great detective." are they ever going to refer to each other by their names or what

i love how herlock is like "i look forward to hearing what weird thing you'll say next" if you get the answer wrong bkjDGKSJDGhsd literally encouraging you to make the wrong choices we stan a good dad

"Honestly, what must [Iris'] parents be like if this is how she turned out?" BAROK........BUDDY.............….thats such rich kid dialogue he’s such a rich kid

"[Reapy], I really don't think you should say such things so lightly." SEE EVEN HERLOCK OBJECTED TO THAT AHSUDGKSDJH barok come on man

is he taking personal offense to that as Iris' basically-dad or is he taking offense on iris’s parents’ behalf

"The item that was stolen was incredibly special to me." i have a feeling it's related to Him but for now im still sticking to it being wine

imagine if it was a black pocketwatch the chaos that would go down

Barok: "[The girl I saw] was, without a doubt, Iris Wilson."

Sholmes: "Are you sure about that? She doesn't have many distinguishing features, after all."

bro have you seen your daughter

oh it was his chalice :sob: yeah that's basically his wine

barok maybe you just tossed more than one chalice into the fire than you recall maybe that's it

oh it was his FIRST court chalice i seeeee baby's first time being drunk on the job

"I guess there can only be two types of memories associated with [your chalices]. "Should I throw it", or "Should I crush it"?"

[Barok throws his chalice right after crushing his last one two animations ago]

"I can't anticipate what the truth will be at this point in time. But we musn't allow that ruddy criminal to get away with this!"

was it sholmes. did he steal the chalice

that line sounds kind of sus ngllllllllll

"Sholmes-san sounds pretty confused..." homie doesnt even know what a cross examination is oh god

(source: x)