#it is in fact not totally alien as an impulse

[selchwife]

i also think we shoot ourselves in the foot when we justify fictosexuality with shit like "well i was rejected a lot but i found this" or "i was traumatized and cant trust real people so i do this." i do not necessarily deny that those are real and true motivators for people. trauma is not the reason i do this, although it is likely most of the reason i am not particularly interested in flesh and blood dating at present. i just have been doing this for since i was a little child. it's always been a massive part of how i've experienced attraction. that's fine. like. whatever.

it just kind of sets up this like "well of course sad messed up people have no choice but to turn to these inferior relationship models" thing that's like. well, uh, i thought the point was to demonstrate how this sort of thing is a source of joy for people and not necessarily inferior. why would attributing it to trauma or failure help? it's also like. not every ficto is disinterested in or unable to find flesh and blood relationships, in fact a lot are poly and some date each other, crazy if true

the thing i think would go over better is like. relating one's experience to other people. i think most if not all people have feelings and tendencies that could be categorized as fictosexual-adjacent, so there is in fact some nearly universal ground to explain this from. it's just that for some people those feelings are more intense and more of a priority in their lives. that's literally it. it's not like, inherently tied to some sort of supervillain origin story situation

[emmkayyy03]

✨ How Your Dominant Planet Secretly Shapes Your Teenage Brain ✨

Have you ever looked back at your late teens and wondered why you were so obsessed with certain things? Like, one friend was glued to their guitar and poetry journals, another was training for their fifth marathon, and you? You were probably neck-deep in your thing. Here’s the deal: your dominant planet was pulling the strings behind the scenes, shaping how your mind worked and what you gravitated toward without you even realizing it.

Let’s break it down:

🌞 SUN Dominant: "I need to shine—what’s the point otherwise?" Late teens for Sun-kissed folks are like a personal hero’s journey. You’re obsessed with figuring out who you are. Your brain’s constantly asking, Am I good enough? Do people see my worth? You might’ve been the captain of the debate team, the drama club star, or just that person who somehow made walking to the cafeteria look like a runway. How your mind works: Everything feels like a stage, and you want to perform your best—even in front of yourself. You seek validation, yes, but deep down, it’s about finding your inner confidence.

🌙 MOON Dominant: "I feel… everything. Is that normal?" For Moon folks, the late teens are an emotional hurricane. You’re all about understanding feelings, whether it’s yours or everyone else’s. You probably overthink texts (why’d they only reply with “k”?), cry over movies you’ve seen a million times, and have deep, borderline-therapeutic convos with your bestie. How your mind works: You process the world emotionally first, logically second. You’re learning how to handle your empathy without drowning in it.

🔥 MARS Dominant: "Let’s go! But… where are we going?" Mars kids are powered by action and passion, and your late teens are when you’re learning to channel that fire. Your brain thrives on challenges, so you probably signed up for every sport, pushed yourself in the gym, or got way too into proving someone wrong in an argument. Impulse control? We’ll work on that later. How your mind works: You process through doing. Sitting around theorizing makes you twitchy. You need action, even if it’s messy. Picking fights on the basketball court because the ref made a bad call, then realizing you’re actually just mad your crush didn’t text you back.

💬 MERCURY Dominant: "Wait, how does that work? Tell me everything!" Mercury-dominant teens are curiosity machines. Your brain’s like a search engine that never stops running. You want to know why, how, who, and what if. You’re that kid who can’t let a fun fact go without looking it up. Debates? Bring ’em on. Trivia? Your jam. Group chats? You run them. How your mind works: You connect ideas at lightning speed. Learning isn’t just a necessity; it’s your love language. Staying up until 3 a.m. watching YouTube videos about conspiracy theories, then showing up to school explaining why aliens totally built the pyramids.

💎 VENUS Dominant: "Why settle for okay when life can be beautiful?" Your late teens are a crash course in pleasure, relationships, and aesthetics. You’re probably experimenting with your style (cue questionable fashion phases), figuring out love (hello, hopeless romantic), or diving into art and music. Life needs to feel good, or it’s just not worth it. How your mind works: You’re tuned to beauty and connection. Your decisions are emotional but driven by desire—whether it’s for love, art, or the perfect selfie.Spending an hour perfecting your eyeliner just to go to the grocery store because what if you meet someone cute?

🌍 SATURN Dominant: "I’m too busy for nonsense." While your friends are out making impulsive mistakes, you’re busy building your future. Saturn-dominant teens have an old-soul vibe. You’re focused on responsibility, probably working a part-time job while juggling school and worrying about saving for college. Fun? Sure, but only if it’s productive. How your mind works: You crave structure and long-term success. While others wing it, you plan 10 steps ahead. Skipping a party to study for finals because failing isn’t an option—not because of pressure, but because you expect better from yourself.

🚀 RAHU Dominant: "What’s the wildest thing I can do right now?" Rahu teens are like explorers charting unknown territory. You’re obsessed with breaking rules, chasing thrills, and doing the forbidden. If it’s edgy, you’re into it. You’re the one sneaking out, dyeing your hair neon green, or trying things that make adults nervous. How your mind works: You’re wired to seek more. More excitement, more knowledge, more of life’s extremes. Going on a spontaneous road trip with friends, breaking the rules, or getting into something your parents wouldn’t approve of—just because it felt like the next big adventure.

🌌 KETU Dominant: "I’m here, but also not really here." Ketu teens are all about spiritual detachment. You’re introspective, reflective, and a bit aloof. While everyone else is chasing their dreams, you’re figuring out why dreams matter at all. Meditation, tarot, or even just staring at the stars for hours—you’re vibing on a higher plane. How your mind works: You reject surface-level stuff, diving into the depths of existence. But you also need to learn to be present. Skipping out on big social events to sit at a park by yourself, journaling about the mysteries of life, or getting into spiritual practices like meditation because they felt more authentic than anything else.

🚀 JUPITER Dominant: "Knowledge is freedom, and I’m going after it!" Jupiter-dominant teens are all about growth, knowledge, and the bigger picture. Your late teens were likely filled with plans for the future, exploring new ideas, and constantly looking for ways to improve. You may have been the one always talking about your next big trip, your dream career, or the philosophies that shaped your world view. How your mind works: You crave expansion and understanding. Learning is your path to freedom. Deep-diving into a topic you just discovered, researching potential career paths, or discussing ideas about travel, culture, and self-improvement with anyone who would listen. Your teenage years were wild, weren’t they? Which planet had your brain on lock? Reblog with your planetary dominant and let’s compare chaotic late-teen stories. 🌠

[paper-mario-wiki]

My cousin is having a T.S wedding in August. How you theme an entire wedding off a singer I have no clue.

host it at a wedding venue with a meticulously kept barn that has no animals and in fact does not function as a barn in any way. this is meant to represent Taylor's disingenuous origin in country music (her father was a stock broker and her mother was a hedge fund manager) by presenting a manicured outer shell, hollow of its purpose.

the table where the food is should have an ice sculpture of the bride and the groom, with several cooling fans pointed at it. this is to represent Taylor's desire to remain a perma-teen, remaining impulsive and progressively becoming less coherent as the schism between her art and her lived experience grows wider, alienating the demographic she desperately covets and confusing everyone else.

release 778 helium balloons into the sky in a gratuitous waste of resources on something unnecessary when the bride and groom kiss. this represents the 77.8 tons of carbon dioxide that Taylor swift released into the atmosphere by using her private jet 15 times over the course of a month with a total travel time of 18 hours (shortest flight was 13 minutes).

and of course u gotta have the t-swift playlist bumpin the whole night.

[extasiswings]

Okay, SO! In the category of "I think it's possible that Eddie has a brain tumor/is sick in some way":

Eddie is acting weird. Eddie has been acting weird from the beginning of the season, and I know there has been discourse about "it's just that we haven't seen him so happy before" but I respectfully submit that multiple things can be true at the same time. Eddie can be happy AND it can be out of character for him to impulsively drop everything to take a helicopter ride with his new friend he met two seconds ago to see a fight in Vegas (the last time we saw Eddie be truly impulsive I'd argue was S3, buying a truck while in the midst of a serious crisis). Eddie can be happy AND it can be out of character for him to ask his girlfriend of five minutes to move in (and I recognize that we were given an explanation from Eddie in the episode, but Eddie is an unreliable narrator and his explanation also doesn't totally square with what we've seen previously - him rushing introducing her to Christopher tracks, him jumping into moving her into his house without knowing basic information about her life does not).

Then there are the Eddie-coded calls. The guy with the alien hand who is all about rigid self control and being the master of yourself - his body turning against him not because the control failed but because of a blood clot in his brain. And now the guy with encephalitis (the same condition that ultimately caused Chim to hallucinate dead people), who has amnesia and has forgotten the marriage that ended in divorce but recalls the happy time before that when his wife was just his fiancee, the guy who was experiencing chest pains that he thought was a heart attack only for Chim to say he was having a panic attack. They had Eddie be so open about his own experiences with panic attacks and coping mechanisms in 7x01 for a reason - he's genuinely doing better with his own mental health and isn't ashamed or afraid of talking about his mental health struggles. But looking at these two calls, the underlying reason for the call (alien hand, amnesiac/presumed stalker in vent) theoretically could have had mental health explanations, but instead both resulted from physical ailments in the brain. [Tangent: I also think there's something really interesting in the potential callback to S5 and the way Eddie and Maddie were sort of mirrors - Eddie with a seemingly physical problem that was caused by a mental health issue, Maddie with a seemingly mental health issue that turned out to at least in part be the result of a physical problem]

Then there is whatever they're doing with ghosts. Shannon's ghost has lingered over the narrative and was actively put on screen in 7x01. For Chim in 7x06, the ghosts were hallucinations because there was something wrong with his brain. For Bobby, I'm guessing his arc with the burn unit nurse from his past will be more of a metaphorical haunting, bringing up any number of old ghosts (but I'm also going to guess his wife will be one). For Eddie...unclear. Ryan was filming with Devin (ostensibly for 7x09 but if they're doing anything with Shanon's ghost I'd be shocked if it wasn't introduced in 7x07, "Ghost of a Second Chance"), but she didn't exactly look like Shannon. Is she supposed to be Shannon? A dream or hallucination of a different or older her? Is she a real woman who just happens to look like her? If Eddie is hallucinating, then something is clearly very wrong. If it's a random woman and he's, idk, pursuing her in some way because he's drawn to her/the fact that she looks like his dead wife, that's still another point in the "Eddie is acting weird" column (because Eddie is a bad boyfriend and wasn't the greatest husband, but what he has never been is a cheater, even when he and Shannon were separated).

And then of course there's the will of it all. The will that Buck and Eddie haven't talked about since the shooting. Now, it's no secret I love the potential of a trapped dads experience circling back to the will, but I also think there is an argument to be made for a callback to "You're the guy who likes to fix things, maybe this isn't something you can fix." Because usually, when Eddie is in danger, Buck can do something about it, take some actionable step even if a futile one - he can dig through mud, he can drag Eddie's body out of the line of fire and into an ambulance and keep him alive. And for someone who, I would guess, still thinks of himself and the will as a backup plan/contingency, who if put in a trapped dads situation may not be able to stop himself from trying to save Eddie or, if necessary, sacrificing himself to do so, because in his mind, Eddie is Christopher's dad/who Christopher needs most, it is deeply compelling to imagine what happens if Eddie is in danger from something Buck can't fix, can't fight, can't save him from. And Eddie being sick in some capacity does that.

Anyway...I just think it would be Neat.

[tanoraqui]

Trick or treat!

obviously all disabilities are totally underrepresented in mainstream and non-mainstream fiction, but I’ve been thinking recently that one I’d really like to see, which you could easily write in offhandedly or as a compelling character-building plot point, and have no trouble casting for in live action, is simply: anything that requires continuous, consistently timed medication.

According to CDC surveys circa 2017-19, roughly 1 out of every 7 women in the USA use birth control pills, which usually need to be taken at a very regular daily time in a very regular monthly pattern.

According to my personal experience, it’s extremely possible to live a basically normal life with low but functional vision and also half a dozen other petty ongoing problems, while also having every single day of your life—and, god knows, any travel you want to do—organized around the fact that you need to take multiple eye drops roughly every 12 hours, one of which needs to stay refrigerated at all times.

If you need regular medication, a portal fantasy adventure presents a real problem. An unexpected urban fantasy adventure that prevents you from going home for more than a day is a problem. Excuse me, aliens who have abducted me? If I list the drugs I regularly take, and tell you very roughly what each does, can you synthesize them perfectly? No, I don’t know any of the active ingredients, sorry. Hell, as a romance novel protagonist, an impulsive overnight stay with a hot stranger I met at a bar isn’t an option!

I think this would be a fun challenge for writers to work around while constructing plots, a good source of characterization as they examine how scrupulous a character is about their schedule (or how anxious once off-schedule), and, seriously, so easy to slide into the background if not a focus of the story. Do you know how often I wander into my kitchen half-asleep and take an eye drop? Roughly twice a day! The sitcom au of my life would just have this as background in a wide variety of scenes! AND it’s not something you need to do a lot of research in order to depict—just note “character must take macguffinex every 6-18 hours or they’ll start to get worried about the long-term health of their [insert organ here]” and use that as a background parameter for your story.

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

the hardest part of writing is cutting very good passages simply because they don't fit the narrative in a cohesive way. ok remember this part?

He expected Gao Jianli to appreciate the story in the same way. But the look on the musician's face made him stop short. He had taken off his blindfold, there was no awe in his eyes, only pity.  "It must have been very painful," Gao Jianli whispered. "What's a little pain in the grand scheme of things?" the king replied with a laugh, amused by this girlish sentiment. "One suffers for a brief moment and earns a lifetime of benefits from it. Besides, I hardly remember it now."  The musician did not answer. He plucked a few notes on the zhu, and they sounded like raindrops falling on a hot terracotta roof. A gentle pitter-patter followed by the hiss of rising steam, like a tiny, sorrowful sigh.

Here's what was suppose to come after it:

The king frowned, not knowing if he liked this strange sound. It made something ache deep within his chest, a totally alien sensation. Like he was a bronze chime being rung with a mallet. Like the feet of one thousand ants marching across his skin. Like a cool, soft hand slipping under his clothes, tracing his fever-hot skin, and slotting itself between the bones of his ribs, worming around the fragile, blood-red membranes of his spleen and liver, so wrong and so, so gentle, higher and higher, until it reached his chest and laid itself softly over a bruise--  "That's enough!" King Ying Zheng's voice rang out harshly in the large, austere room. He had stepped backwards impulsively and almost tripped over the long train of his coat. It was a jerky, undignified movement, like he had been burned. Gao Jianli flinched at the king's voice and silenced the strings with press of his hands. His head was bowed like he was expecting a blow, yet his small, bright eyes were still focused intently on Ying Zheng.  The king stood there glaring at the musician, his chest heaving like he had run a mile, his mind all mist and jagged rocks. There was a gnawing at the back of his throat, the ghost of a memory of a boy who had been screaming for a long time, the wound torn afresh by the sight of a door opening twenty-three years too late, which was worse than never opening at all.  "Did that not please you, My King?" Gao Jianli's voice was rough. His tongue, small and pink, darted out and licked a bead of sweat from his upper lip. Ying Zheng itched to strike him, but could not force himself to get close enough to do so. The alchemy of Gao Jianli's music had not yet dissipated, the trembling coward was transfigured, in that moment he was half a sage and half venomous snake.  With great effort, the King of Qin collected the scattered pieces of himself with an imperious thrust of his chin. Qin men never show fear. In the bare light of day, the king could clearly see that the musician's hands were in fact very calloused. The tips of his fingers were armored in a thick yellow carapace, forged by decades of constant practice. Of course they're rough. The king reminded himself uneasily. Why had he assumed those hands would be soft? 

cutting this was the hardest decision in my life, but it just didn't fit. i cranked up the emotion too high without enough build-up, or any way to balance it out on the other end. (to put it frankly, there's not enough foreplay.) also gao jianli is suppose to be passively suicidal right now, and they've only just met. it would be a 180 for his character.

[totaleclipse573]

Okay but so can you make (or link me to) a post going over your OCs cause i am in constant confusion whenever i see them 😭

Well, if you want more info on the more lore-heavy oc's (Terios and Doleon) to get somewhat of an idea, they each have tags! They're :

#terios lore

#doleon lore? (with the question mark lmao)

Has a bunch of stuff there on them. I'd link you to the Terios lore post from some time ago but some of the stuff on there is really incomplete/some parts are inaccurate due to that now. I'd be happy to tell you about my silly little oc's though! (And maybe a refresher in case anyone needs it)

I'm warning you. This WILL be long 😅 Mainly because of Terios. It's all part of an alt canon of mine (Oc Universe au) and I have a lot of oc's. GRAB SNACKS.

DOLEON

Starting with him, because he plays a HUGE part in Terios' lore and story

Essentially, he's the Black Doom of this au. (Fun fact : he was created because I had no idea how to draw actual Black Doom, nor had the energy to learn, so I made him a hedgehog/alien thing. Then I got to thinking and now he has his own separate lore jhsdbfbkjdb. It's a bit complicated.)

Centuries ago, he had six other brothers (who also each have their own tag, just their names) https://www.tumblr.com/totaleclipse573/739530015615664128/can-i-dump-some-lore-on-yall-real-quick-actually?source=share

This explains everything pretty well I think. Still check out the tag itself if you'd like more info! (You should probably know for later, this guy right here is the definition of "I ALWAYS COME BACK >:D")

Personality wise, he's very egotistical, has a burning hatred for humans and humanity, and is always seeking power. He tends to see himself as much more intelligent and overall better than others (even though some *cough cough Starline cough* perceive him as dumb due to not knowing much about Earth or how things work on this planet.) While sometimes impulsive, he also really knows how to put up a good battle strategy wise. As of now, he (along with Shadow, Eclipse and Terios,) are the only remaining Black Arms left. (ALSO AS OF NOW : he met Starline, WHO IS TOTALLY ALIVE AFTER ISSUE 50, and they decided to form a partnership for each others own secret benefits, planning to stab one another in the back afterwards. They never do 😭 They're just really gay 😭)

TERIOS

(Cw for child abuse)

2000+ years after the Doleon shards incident, Terios is the accidental twin to Shadow, the initial project being rather mysteriously cloned. The only real explanation found had something to do with energy. This "clone" looked a bit off, with features that pointed to the idea that it seemed to hold more Black Arms DNA (ex. long pointed tail, all sharp teeth, green blooded, clawed fingers.)

But Doleon takes notice to that little mistake in the process. He can use that to his advantage. A pact is rather forcibly made, once the now two projects are finished, Doleon is entitled to one of them to use for his own purposes. He's part of the reason they even exist. He can make things happen if he doesn't get his way. (Geraldoom divorce arc /j)

He takes the black and white-striped one (who doesn't seem to want to be away from its twin it only JUST met, annoyingly.) It seems to be the exact opposite of it's twin, who is loud and confident. It (he can't keep calling this thing an it, for Supreme's sake...his name is Terios now) should be easier for what he has planned.

So while Shadow grew on the ARK, Terios grew on the Black Comet. And uh..............it was rough. He's essentially a victim of child abuse and a hell of a lot of manipulation. Brainwashed for years.

Doleon has Terios for his future plans now, but the downside on his end is that he now actually has to "care" for this small child until he’s old enough to begin his training.

But uh. Well...

Here's something from his lore tag regarding...a certain huge part of his lore

And some art of bitty him

Terios (and Shadow) grew rather quickly (in terms of appearance.) Doleon took that as a sign of "he's old enough" and the brutal and quite frankly traumatizing training began. He would be the BEST, and this was the way to make sure of that. He could never mess up, never make a mistake, he had to be perfect. And he made sure Terios knew that too. Every mistake he made would get him clawed at. The more severe the mistake, more likely the deeper the gash. (Learn how to heal yourself with that energy...or don't, and suffer. Sometimes, if his mistake was so bad, he wouldn't even be allowed to heal with the energy.) It was always on one of his arms or on his face. More often would he get shouted at, grabbed and tossed to the ground like some kind of rag doll. The lesson he eventually had to learn?

Don't ever mess up. On anything. Expect pain and suffering otherwise.

There's also this one other little habit he was eased into...

He doesn't hate his father for these things though. He still cares deeply for him and doesn't ever wish to disappoint him, as he's been doing. Father's doing this for a good reason...! Terios would soon be passed the honor of the power the Shards of Chaos hold, he needed a lot of training and discipline to be able to handle that...!

And that's what he told himself. Every. Time.

This goes on for a few years, and he's gotten much better with his training (he pretty much had to, the injuries weren't healing fast enough.) He rarely speaks unless told to, he's terribly obedient, he's tired, he's hurting, but it doesn't matter. He's what he's supposed to be! He's finally near perfection! (Except for these weird sparks and bursts of shard energy he gets whenever he feels sad...or angry...maybe he could just drown that out?)

Then things get crazy bc Tikal is here now. LET ME EXPLAIN PLEASE-(I first made Terios' story when I was like, ten years old? XD He's a revived oc)

Short summary : In this AU, Tikal is more like a free-ranging spirit. Tikal knew Doleon and his brothers, way back then. She was a ghost and could somehow get through the strange barrier of this little area the brothers were confined to, so they became friends! Tikal, Kieran and Doleon specifically. She wasn't around for when the others were killed, but the last person she saw was Kieran once the barrier was no longer there. That wasn't the only thing that was broken.

Since she already knew Doleon and what he had done in the past, she knew he had no good intentions. While he was away from Terios, she appeared before the Darkhog, alerting and telling him of what the shards really were, and what they could do to a person. And Terios, of course, started to panic. Was he being corrupted right now? Was he ALREADY corrupted? He needed to escape. But how? There was no escape. 

Luckily for Terios, Tikal’s spirit was able to transport him back to where he was created, the ARK (not without Doleon putting up a fight of course.) Unluckily, however, at the time he was transported there, the whole ARK fiasco was going on, and Maria had already sent Shadow down to Earth and stuff. Now there were only G.U.N. soldiers, and they spotted him, calling him “Project Shard," for some reason (He had a separate file. There can't be TWO Project Shadow's) So he tries to run from them, but can’t, and they catch up to him. Soon enough, they lock him up in a facility, putting him into cryostasis. 

Skip about...54 (???) years (4 years after SA2) and Terios is about to be released for nothing good. And guess what.

There's a one shot for one of the parts I randomly felt like writing out one day :D

This leads up to months of subtle brainwashing (aGAIN) and being brought back to his old mentalities until Terios just HATES that one hedgehog he's never met (gee doesn't that sound a bit like another irrelevant plotline of mine-) He's fully loyal to the Black Arms and to his kind only! Finding the Shards...for Doleon...that's his destiny. That's why he exists!

And so when they finally arrive to conquer earth (and find the remaining shards,) Terios is sent out to do his job. Except he meets people. Whoops.

The first person he ever met was Rouge, out on the streets of Westopolis. She just kind of...appeared? Upside down? Flying? Apparently, she'd seen him around. The things he could do...and she'd like his assistance in a little something. She was getting in his way, he could NOT be sidetracked by some bat.

He got sidetracked by some bat. The power of Rouge everybody. (But its okay because he didn't realize it. No panic attack here.) He still found one of the Shards afterwards! She led him to it, almost...surely a coincidence. Unless she was looking for them too? For some reason? WHY WAS SHE BEING NICE TO HIM ANYWAY??? WHAT TRICKERY WAS THIS??

...Not bad, though. If his tail would stop MOVING LIKE THAT FOR AT LEAST FIVE SECONDS, THOUGH, IT WOULD BE NICER.

Going back to Doleon with the shard, he should've expected somewhat of a lecture for socializing with allies of the enemy. AND OF COURSE, he got that. He's lucky he came back with the shard...he won't be punished.

After that, Ter, being sent out to the same place as a current horde of Black Arms soldiers, runs into Tails after going astray. Lecture down the drain, somewhat. What’s his name? Why is his tail so long? Can he use it in battle? Does he have any powers? He could ask questions all day if it weren’t for Terios starting to look overwhelmed by them (which gets an apology)

All the sudden, that horde of Black Arms start raiding the area Tails and Terios are in, so Tails, knowing this as current danger, grabs Terios by the hand and tells him he knows a safe, inside place.

A more simplified summary of events that come after all this because this is getting too long already sdbjbjkacvhjj

Terios says he has to go and this happens :

(that last part will become relevant in just a bit....)

More shard hunting

Doleon is harder on Terios now that Shadow is out of the picture. He isn't STUPID, Terios, he KNOWS what you've been doing. You keep derailing. Making mistakes. You know exactly where that leads.

Terios is quite literally beaten some sense into and this is the result :

Terios soon realizes Doleon PROBABLY isn't actually trying to help him at all, and instead joines the heroes in an attempt to stop him. He's with them for a while, starts to get somewhat comfortable around them...enough so that his real self starts showing.

And it confuses most. So you mean to say, this weird looking alien hybrid thing that only first showed himself in an attempt to brutally murder Shadow, had an alliance with Doom and the Black Arms from the start, and showed nothing but pure loyalty to them, even to go so far as to declare his actions in their name for the better? He's actually just this...guy. That was really, really badly manipulated.

Look at the way he came in. Even if he wouldn't specify where all those injuries came from, he was obviously treated like garbage. Just something to be used and then thrown aside. But oddly enough, he felt safe around these people. They were supposed to be the enemy!! Just another lie. He could change!! He could be better. Not the kind of better Doleon expected him to be, the kind of better that really just felt like the right thing now.

But hoooooooooooo when Doleon finds out about this.

Terios goes back into the comet after a while of being gone, its noticeable and he's mentally beating himself up about being so stupid. It's part of the plan, though. He'll go in first, so that the others remain unnoticed. Doleon has known about everything. And, if this kid won't LISTEN, he'll just have to MAKE HIM. His mental barriers were always weak anyway...he was the one to really mold the Darkhog into that for convenience.

Um.................angst...............it naturally follows :

When the others see him walking back out again they're confused. What is he DOING?? This isn't part of what they planned at all!

Until Doleon makes himself known as well and says something like "I only took back what belongs to me! It was rightfully mine from the start..." or some other CLEARLY rage-inducing thing. It gets on Shadow's nerves specifically sooooooooo bad, the way Doleon is speaking of Terios. Doesn't matter what they do, though. Terios won't listen. He won't speak. Everything else is blocked out. He belongs here. It's where he's always belonged. He's safe now. This is all he needs. He's home again.

And if it's what the Master told him, wanted of him, he would do anything to prove his loyalty. Anything.

He's forced to fight them, and they're forced to find some kind of way to snap him out of it before he can hurt anyone. He seems to be specifically going after Shadow for the kill, though.

Once he DOES get snapped out of it, he feels IMMENSE guilt. He can see how he hurt some of them, even if it was only a little. And that hurts him

APPARENTLY DOLEON OVER HERE WAS JUST HAVING SOME FUN, BECAUSE ONLY AFTER THIS DOES HE BRING OUT THE SHARDS AND GAIN A NEW FORM ENTIRELY TO FINALLY ENACT HIS END GOAL. Luckily Shadow has the Chaos Emeralds >:D Terios, though? Still terrified, and even more so now. WHAT IS A SUPER FORM?!?!?! He might need some help...

So they have to defeat Doleon in their super forms but Terios is still very new to the concept of chaos energy and super forms and such (he's far more shard energy than chaos energy,) and there may or may not be a scene somewhat reminiscent of that one SA2 scene in my head except no one dies. HOORAY!

And after all that, Terios can finally learn to be himself with his new allies, which leads to his redemption arc!

This part of his story moreso revolves around Terios learning to break free from what had happened before, and learn to better himself with the help of others. He also needs to learn some decent self care (whether it be simple things like taking better care of his fur, or more complex things like learning to accept help with his current mental state.)

At first, he’s still a bit paranoid about everything that happened. He’s worried Doleon could somehow come back at any moment, that the Black Arms could return along with him, that he would be forcibly dragged back in again, even after his life had only just started getting better (oH the nightmare scenes.) Luckily for him, though, now he has people that can actually help with these fears, and he eventually does feel ready to try and move on. Then he feels comfortable enough to start meeting people, and interacts with more of the cast!

This is also the time where he meets Eclipse and the Dark Arms! Short summary : Terios wants to do a Steven Universe and help Eclipse the way all the others helped him. Terios just kinda randomly stumbled into him while he was out one day and got VERY much lost. Eclipse doesn't like him and his sappy “I can help you bc power of friendship!” attitude at first, but then he's able to sense Terios' connection to the hivemind. It feels a bit different than Shadow. So now he's pretty curious as to why and starts asking Terios questions. Eventually Eclipse kinda grows to like Terios, this hybrid is actually nice to him, for some reason. But then Shadow finds them. You can probably tell where that goes (It’s bad for a long while, but it eventually ends with Shadow, Eclipse and Terios all living together bc they're brothers, it’s my own little canon and I can do as I wish XD)

Some redemption arc stuff I've talked about :

Aaaaand a little something about the way he behaves, even now :

Theres one more relevant story arc for him after this, and thats the "Doom arc" I rarely talk about. So shortened version : Shards of Chaos need a new host, they literally POSSESS Terios to do so (since he already has an established connection to them,) Doleon ends up being revived by the energy anyway, due to corruption, Tikal comes back, Espio becomes a sort of mentor for Terios post-possession so he can learn how to manage his newfound unstableness, aaaaand...yeah XD Like I said, this part is more in my head than written. The possessed form is still able to be accessed, very rarely, since Ter can't control it in the slightest.

And so now he's....the way he is! He is him :D He's shy, lacking in confidence, somewhat naïve due to wanting to see the good in everyone, and rather pacifistic, a surprising trait for that of Black Arms descent. He's very sweet, but can be angered on rare occasions. And when that rare occasion happens : start running.

I also gave him a speech disorder, specifically trauma-induced stuttering. He doesn't like it since it makes him sound nervous all the time, but otherwise, he doesn't mind, barely ever notices anymore. I did a lot of research just to be able to portray it accurately (I hope)

I know this was long, but I really just wanted to be able to explain everything clearly. I have other oc's that are FAR less complex, which is most of the others, so if you want, that'll probably have to be like a part two post 😅 Hope you found my oc rambling at least somewhat interesting! (I also hope it isn't too confusing 😭)

[patricide1885]

One thing that trips me up with butch lesbians and trans mascs is that a lot aren't masculine really, they're just not feminine in the ways that are appealing to men. Meanwhile I feel I walked through the world as a femme lesbian type person, but I'm also actively masculine in personality in certain ways that a lot of butches and trans men don't really connect with me with. When I see a lot of butches I don't see masculine women really, but lesbian women with short hair. They aren't masculine as far as my personal understanding of masculine is. They want to talk about the zodiac and queerpop and knitting, and they aren't interested in any (what I consider to be) overtly masculine things like shooting or athletics or technology or mechanics or what have you. In fact they might judge me for being into that stuff. They are very much women's women.

Also a lot of trans mascs actively deride a lot of normal harmless masculine things, almost in an intentionally self distancing way. It seems (from my position and personal understanding of masculinity, while acknowledging the extremely subjective nature of that) like they are inventing an entirely new form of masculinity just for themselves. One that they seem to expect me to implicitly get and be into, but I'm not. I'm very competitive, I enjoy certain aspects of being aggressive, mentally I am very systems-based, experimental/risk-taking, efficiency/truth focused and willing to prioritize that over discomfort in many cases, impulsive, self-dependent intellectually, and I guess, disobedient/legally agnostic. I don't see these things very often reflected back to me.

Of course I have a lot of "feminine" aspects to me too that they might not necessarily have. For example I'm vain as hell and deeply neurotic.

I don't think our immediate modern culture has actually established what is actually masculine and what is feminine, and there's a false equivalency that has made me a little confused and like there's something wrong with me when I interact with them. I think we are simply on totally separate vibes. Of course, there are some butches and trans men and even straight women who I feel are more masculine in the way I tend to naturally inhabit. But almost feels like it's not a very strong correlation between being butch/trans masculine and being masculine in these sorts of ways. Being butch or trans masculine can mean almost anything really, and the connecting lines might not actually be as real as people act.

The tl;Dr here is that I don't think everyone is playing by the same playbook and I am happy that there is little community between trans mascs because I really don't like the culty forced assimilation aspect that seems to arise. One that demands that I identify exactly how they do and doesn't grasp that that's happening. We don't see masculinity in the same way, and our connections to masculinity are in very different places. As a result I don't feel very connected to them. In fact I feel viscerally and deeply alienated.

[dis0rderly-cl0wn-nerd]

Crack A Smile and Cut Your Mouth

Ledger!Joker Origin Story

Chapter Twelve - Calloused Heart

Warnings: Self harm

Chapter Summary: Things keep getting worse and worse for Jack. He does something horribly unexpected one night and leaves the apartment to get some air. He discovers that outside things aren't much better than they are for him.

Author's Note: This took way too long. And I don't think it's even that good for the amount of time I spent on it. Oh well. Staying at home this week due to the storm has certainly helped me get things done. Anyway, we are getting closer and closer to Jack's complete transformation. Just 4 more chapters. I can't wait for the ending! 😈

Taglist: @alittlesmartcookie @furisodespirit

If you would like to be added to the taglist please let me know! <3

< Previous - Next >

Another year passed and still things did not improve. They had in fact gotten much worse.

Every day it was the same old same old. Yet Jack was starting to feel like everything was getting increasingly out of control by the day.

Tonight, he sat at his kitchen table, his mind wandering and his eyes distant. He held an apple and a knife in his hands. He was supposed to slice it and have a snack before he went on his nightly run but something had distracted him from the task, causing him to sit in silence, lost in thought.

He finally snapped out of his daze and placed the apple on the table for him to cut. He sliced it into halves and went from there. When he was done, he looked down at the sharp knife in his hands and the shimmer on the blade. Mesmerized, he twisted the knife around his fingers and played around with it. 

Back when he was deployed and everyone was sitting around bored with nothing better to do, some of the other soldiers would do that knife trick from Aliens to some poor private that didn’t know any better. Jack would always watch from afar and laugh to himself.

He continued fidgeting with the knife, reminiscing about the past and mulling over his current situation. Sometimes he just liked to sit and think.

Then the impulsive thoughts took over all at once. 

Jack didn’t know what came over him. What happened next was all a blur afterwards. All he could think about was how he wanted to feel something again. What would just a little pressure on his arm feel like? Maybe a little more?

Before he knew it, there were two angry slashes and red trickles of blood across his forearm. He gasped faintly as he realized what he was doing and threw the knife down, rushing to the bathroom. He found bandages in the cabinet and began frantically cleaning up the wounds, dousing them with peroxide. 

Jack was starting to feel the pain now that the initial high of the adrenaline had worn off. It burned and spread across his arm like wildfire. Tears pricked his eyes. What the hell was he thinking?

Thankfully the cuts weren’t too deep. He dressed them with bandages and not long after went back into the kitchen. He stared down in disbelief at the bloody knife discarded on the table. This was a new low. 

“I’m so fucking tired…” He said to no one in particular, rubbing his weary eyes. 

He decided that in order to clear his head and ward off those harmful thoughts, he needed to go get some fresh air. After all he still had that run to do. 

Throwing on a brown flannel over the black long sleeve shirt and worn out gray slacks he was wearing, Jack grabbed his keys and out the door he went. The January night air was crisp and sharp. It burned through his lungs as he took off running.

He slowed to a light jog as he moved into a busy area. The streets were alive with activity. Groups of people walked briskly from place to place. Being a Friday night, which Jack had totally forgotten, businesses in Gotham were booming.

Jack kept his head down as he went, avoiding eye contact with anyone. He chose to take a side street and get out of that mess. Weekends were never a good time to go for a night run.

Leaving the busy side of town, he entered a quiet street with little traffic or nightlife. The few people that were out were usually homeless or like Jack and just wanted to go outside for a bit. 

As he passed an alleyway, an older man jumped out in front of him. Jack flinched, a little startled. The man wore a blue beanie, a tattered heavy jacket, and jeans nearly torn to shreds. He pawed at Jack’s arm desperately.

“Can you spare me a few bucks, son?” The man asked.

Jack felt horrible. If had any money with him, he would have given him some. 

“Sorry man, I don’t have any cash on me.” 

“Oh. That’s alright. Sorry I bothered ya.”

The man turned away and walked back to his spot in the alleyway. Jack saw his ‘homeless veteran’ sign laying next to the pile of blankets he was sitting on and felt even worse. Maybe he would see him again when he had some money.

The further through the city Jack went, the worse things got. The streets were trashed and dimly lit. He passed another alleyway and caught a glimpse of a man shoved against the wall being mugged. The man looked utterly terrified. Jack quickened his pace and chose not to get involved. The mugger looked like he might have a gun. 

Jack finally stopped at an intersection and looked out at the rest of the dismal city. He figured out pretty fast that this run was not going to benefit his already fragile state. 

It isn’t any better out here than it is inside. He thought with a sigh.

He made a mental note to never go this way on his runs again. Instead of turning around, he took another route home and ran with a quicker pace so he could get home faster. He slowed down as he got closer to his building and paused to catch his breath.

Jack trudged up the stairs back to his apartment, defeated. He didn’t know what to do. Nothing was helping him feel any better. He tossed his keys carelessly on the counter as he entered, flipping on the dim kitchen light.

He grabbed his journal off the shelf and sat down at the table, opening to a new page. He sketched the homeless old man he encountered and the mugging he witnessed in pen to make it look more rugged. Above the drawings he wrote down his stirred up thoughts about the whole situation. After the brain dump, he sat back and read over his work, shaking his head at himself. 

Here he thought all of these problems he was having would somehow disappear. It seemed utterly hopeless now that he saw the state of the rest of the world. Wars, increased violence, poverty…

He would have to tough it out just a little longer and hope things miraculously got better. It wasn’t looking likely. How could he ever expect to recover from the horrors in a world that was so dark and cruel?

Jack closed his journal and stood up with a grunt, placing it back on the shelf. He moved into the living room, took off his flannel, and kicked off his shoes, throwing them on the floor. He sat down on the couch and turned on the TV to yet again pass the time, skipping through the channels. 

The evening news popped up. They were talking about the fighting in the Middle East. Jack wanted to turn it off so bad but something made him keep it on. The images on the screen nearly jumped out at him. He was there in the hot sandy desert reliving it all over again. Witnessing death and destruction. 

The media made the soldiers seem like such heroes and patriots. Jack didn’t feel like that at all. He thought back to that little girl in the village where they had the firefight. He may not have done anything directly but he was there. He contributed. 

New outlets and political campaigns glorified war. If they had actually experienced it themselves right in the thick of it, they wouldn’t be doing that. 

Jack felt his blood boil, a deep hatred and rage brewing inside him. He threw the remote across the room as hard as he could. It struck the wall and cracked the plastic, breaking it into several pieces. The anger melted away. Destroying that remote was weirdly satisfying to watch. 

But then the satisfaction faded and he came to his senses. Why did he just do that? Did that help anything? No. 

He sighed, disappointed in himself, and got up to shut the TV off. He turned back to the batteries and scattered bits of plastic on the floor, embarrassed at how immature he just acted. Hastily he swept up the mess and threw it away so he didn’t have to look at it anymore.

There was nothing left to do now but go to bed and get some rest. Jack knew that was nearly impossible these days. Still, he had to at least try. 

So Jack walked into his bedroom and stripped off into just his boxers. He crawled into bed, nestled under the covers, and turned off the lamp on the nightstand beside him, closing his eyes and beginning to drift off.

Heh. I’m gonna need a new remote.

[statementlou]

Hi, I always like reading your thoughts. What do you thinking was the main point of all this parmageddon/chickengate nonsense? I just don't see how Louis answering that and making a few headlines about "denying" larry will benefit him in some way, at least with part of the fans it doesn't. Or at this point is any publicity is good publicity?

aw thanks babe! Well... first of all I'm not sure what you mean by "at this point" like... this is a very GOOD point, objectively speaking, things really just couldn't be going much better! That said, today's twitter chat was definitely Louis at work doing promo: it was pre planned and announced, hardly just a spontaneous impulse, he came on at the usual time for maximum exposure (around 5 pm UK/ 9 am-noon US time), he hit lots of standard promo talking points, and it was without question happening because he just announced a bunch of major dates, his first solo stadiums (and very possibly they announced those during the tour break so he could do promo for it). He answered questions about music, about how excited he is to visit LATAM and that yes, he wants to go other places, he threw in some of the trademark sassy snark we love so much, he mentioned Freddie and, of course, there was the anti-larrie tweet. He doesn't do that last one every time it's true; but mostly he hit the usual points, and throwing in some kind of "hi I'm straight btw" when promoting something IS absolutely part of the standard playbook, and this is actually much less effort than getting papped with a girl- especially now that Louis seems to have decided he's not doing that anymore. Every time something like this (Louis or Harry actively promoting the idea that they are straight) happens, there's an outcry at how they are alienating people and losing fans and it's bad for their brand so someone must be forcing them to do it, etc- which I find completely bizarre. It's always possible to find specific fans who are alienated or are like fuck this I'm leaving but if you take a step back their fandoms, both of them, are DEFINITELY NOT SHRINKING!! This is empirical completely objective FACT like just LOOK! Saying this hurts them in any way is, in my opinion, not being able to see the forest for the trees. The things they are doing are working extremely well for them- so it doesn't seem strange at all to me that they just keep doing the same things. I don't think anyone is doing it against their will on their behalf, I don't think they are being forced to do it (except by the heteropatriarchy and homophobic society generally), and I don't think it's bad for their brand: and as far as I can see today nothing has changed with that. Larries think exactly what we have thought before this and are carrying on as usual, solos/antis got a little boost, hell maybe Louis got to vent a little even (lbr larries ARE so fucking annoying at him all the time and it must seem SO ludicrous to him that we spend so much time thinking about this and care so much), his tour gets some press, and everything continues on as ever! Like I think calling it parmageddon is hilarious so I'm totally in, but also I mean... a bit dramatic yknow lol, it's just not that big a deal??

[godsfavoritescientist]

(this post is satire)

I keep seeing people be like "Mabel caused the apocalypse when she gave Bill the rift!" and I think those people are missing the bigger picture. The REAL reason why Mabel caused the apocalypse is because she didn't press the red button in nwhs to shut down the portal before it finished powering on!

She had NO reason to trust Stan by that point, all the evidence she had up until then pointed towards him being some kind of supercriminal who LIED about his identity and maybe even killed the real stan, and she KNEW for a FACT that the portal being turned on would cause the end of the world, because she saw the blacklight warning messages about it only a few minutes beforehand!

But when it came down to it, she didn't listen to her own brother (a reoccurring problem :/ its so toxic to have different goals and interests and opinions from someone as perfect as Dipper), and let the portal finish activating, which DIRECTLY led to the rift existing in the first place.

And sure, you might wanna argue that Stan was the one who spent thirty years making the portal functional again, and was also the one who started the portal-turning-on process, and was also the one who convinced Mabel not to shut down the portal at the last second, and he had plenty of time to see the blacklight warning messages between the time he discovered that Ford used blacklight and the time the portal finished powering on, but she still could have shut it down before it was too late! A little bit of emotional anguish doesn't excuse making a decision that led to the end of the world.

You might also want to argue that Ford was the one who made the portal in the first place (and he was manipulated by Bill for years... which is WAY worse than being tricked by Bill for one day or for one second, and is totally 100% definitely Ford's fault. Like... who would let themselves get tricked by Bill... just don't fall for it?) but Ford at least TRIED to shut down the portal after he discovered how dangerous it was. Like, sure, he started out ignoring a lot of people who warned him that it was dangerous, and even after he found out he never fully disassembled the portal before he fell in (or even just burned the portal schematic pages), and the last thing he told Stan was "help me!" which made it sound like he WANTED Stan to turn the incredibly dangerous portal back on.... but after he came back, he dedicated all of his time to fixing his mistakes! I guess except for the time he played dungeons dungeons and more dungeons for multiple days in a row with Dipper, and didn't say anything about Stan and the kids leaving the shack once it was bill-proofed, and didnt put alien adhesive on the rift right away when he found it in the spaceship, and let himself get captured by a security droid (as if letting himself be tricked by Bill wasn't enough...) and let Dipper, a 12 year old, carry the rift in his backpack while it was still cracked, but he at least he didn't say or do anything impulsive while upset with his sibling! And DON'T say "he punched Stan" or "he told Stan to leave his house by the end of the Summer" or "he corrected Stan's grammar right before they were going to defeat Bill in a way that wouldn't have required erasing Stan's memories", none of that helped to CAUSE the APOCALYPSE. Except for I guess the time he sent that postcard to Stan. He should have never brought Stan into such a dangerous situation when he knew he might get frustrated at him tbh, and he basically goaded Stan into shoving him into the portal, which helped to eventually create the rift. He should have dropped everything with their argument and turned off the portal before continuing the conversation! But even then, he wasn't the one who let the portal get turned on AGAIN, so he's STILL less to blame than Mabel.

Even if you think he DID somehow help to cause the apocalypse more than Mabel did (btw i am judging you for that if you are. Stan and Ford did basically nothing to help cause the apocalypse how could you hate them :/), Ford was the one who bill-proofed the shack! He did way more to try to stop the apocalypse than Mabel ever did! I mean yeah, Mabel was the one who fought tooth and nail for that unicorn hair, which they couldn't have bill-proofed the shack without, let alone have a safe haven during the apocalypse or make a successful shacktron without, but she wasn't the one to glue the unicorn hair into place around the shack. All she did was follow Ford's orders (unlike Dipper, who was willing to physically fight back against Ford and almost erase his mind when he thought Bill might be possessing him! And also the time he ignored Ford telling him not to try and save him and just focus on fixing the rift, and even brought the rift with him onto the droid, a highly dangerous environment that could have broken the rift and caused the apocalypse. It was so brave of Dipper to make such a risky move even though he knew what would happen if the rift broke open). All Mabel cared about was not getting separated from her sibling (a flaw she and Stan share tbh..... but at least the only thing Stan broke on accident was a science fair project and not an interdimensional rift!). She should have just sucked it up and accepted that Dipper getting away from her toxic behaviors and getting to be taught by Ford (the best possible mentor anyone could ever have!) would have been the best thing that ever happened to him. The show literally definitely 100% implies that Mabel is suffocating Dipper's potential just like Stan did with Ford, and its really sad that she was immature enough to be THAT UPSET about something Dipper was really happy about! Like, she's literally almost 13, she should be more mature by now. Not to mention picking up the wrong backpack and not even knowing what the rift was... use your critical thinking skills, Mabel! The audience knows how dangerous it is and we don't even live in the world of the show, its not that hard :/

Handing over the rift was less influential in ending the world than LETTING the rift be CREATED, but she still should have not wanted to spend more time with her friends and family. It's just like the time Stan spent decades trying to bring back his brother (who isn't even a good person?) instead of accepting that he was gone.

Like, sure, she didn't knowingly make a deal with Bill, but she still should have known better! The time Dipper knowingly made a deal with Bill after Bill made him upset at his sister was totally different, and even though he almost dropped Mabel from high up in a theater while she was in that cake prop, its not like she actually got hurt or anything, and if anything Dipper was in more danger from that mistake. Unlike when Mabel got put in that prison bubble! She got to be in a perfectly good and not-even-all-that-creepy fantasy land! Her getting lowkey brainwashed while in the bubble and trapped in there for away from any of her friends or family for what was supposed to be eternity is a pretty good deal as far as Bill deals go! And even if Bill ended up half a second away from killing her in the end, that's still nothing compared to the bridge plan he had for Dipper that he didn't get the chance to get close to following through with.

The bottom line is, Mabel is the worst member of the Pines family, and YES it IS a competition. Comparing all of their flaws and mistakes is what the show is all about! She should have either listened to what everyone else told her to do all the time or been kicked out of the house for the summer, and even that wouldn't have been enough of a punishment. If only she had shut down the portal before Ford came back, she would have been so much more bearable :)

Tl;dr: contrary to what was said in The Last Mabelcorn, Mabel Pines is NOT a good person and nearly SINGLEHANDEDLY caused the apocalypse!!!!!

[kohutgaming]

Kohut Gamer Nation Bullshit #1

(CW: mentions of abuse and neglect)

We're engaged in a war against alienation and the solipsism it brings, marching towards meaning and connection with reality, and the very fact that I'm writing this post instead of doing anything else is evidence that we're losing.

"Consumption" has taken on a different meaning from "use".

"Property" has taken on a different meaning from "having".

"Production" has taken on a different meaning from "creation".

A commodity, to the consumer, contains no evidence of the work that went into its manufacturing as a used tool may in a different, more connected world. Property, to the owner, has no reason to exist aside from the owners own whims, no obligation to a community of others.

In the same way, the very structures of the social bonds we share take on a different meaning from what we might see in fleeting moments and call "love". The representations of self and other in our internal worlds take on a distinct character from wholeness, reality, "stakes". What I'm aiming to describe here is the process of alienation. Our war against consumerism, for example, is not a war against the production, having, and use of items - it is a war against consumption, property, and production; aspects of the cyclical generation and utilization of items which have become alienated from the whole of the process.

Whatever it is that we call love today is made up of emphasized aspects of what love may one day be, but that takes on a wholly different character through this overemphasis. Our war is one that examines and deconstructs this overemphasis, this aspect that has been alienated from the whole, so as to restore the whole.

The psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn believed that the baseline state of the psyche, the state we embody only in infancy, is one of unencumbered, free-flowing attachment hunger (crucial point, at the risk of yoinking myself off a little too much with this post: This is not the same as Freud's belief in the "oceanic" state of "primary narcissism". Freud believed that the infant had no recognition of the other as a separate object, but Fairbairn believed - and was eventually vindicated in this belief - that the infant began to recognize others as separate immediately from birth). It is not drive seeking, but "object seeking", reaching out to form connections with the other and thus to create the self. In Fairbairn's view, all forms of intrapsychic "structure", the ordering mechanisms that allow us to organize our internal experience, are inherently pathologic - borders which cut up the mind into discrete sections, isolating affects and thoughts, creating elements of the unconscious by splitting off aspects of the unencumbered self and locking them away. I'll be honest and say I don't really get anything else Fairbairn wrote, but I think about this concept a lot these days.

Heinz Kohut of Kohut Gaming fame, lesser known as a Psychoanalyst, points out something I believe is crucial in understanding the human condition and the state of the unencumbered self in his 1977 book The Restoration of the Self: "...in principle, the base line of psychological life is not revealed either in states of complete psychic equilibrium (the dreamlessly sleeping baby) or in states of seriously disturbed equilibrium, i.e., in traumatic states (the raging, hungry baby) - it is given in the experiential content of the first impulses towards the reestablishment of the psychic equilibrium at the moment it had begun to be disturbed (the healthily assertive baby who announces his wants)" - pp.105, emphasis my own. Here, Kohut recognizes that the babies aggression, what Melanie Klein (no shade, she basically invented object relations and for that she is an eternal legend) believed to be an innate supply of hateful feelings, and what Freud (infinite shade, total eclipse, darkness darkness darkness) dubbed the "death drive", isn't innate at all - it is a "breakdown product", the result of unmet attachment needs. The baby calls out for care, and when none is received, they reassert their need for care, increasing in desperation and what we might reasonably call aggression. In this way, aggression is seen not as a destructive force, but as evidence of an underlying and desperate need for creation, for the establishment of a connection.

Donald Winnicott of Winnicott Gaming fame, another highly influential psychoanalyst in the field of Object Relations Theory, reaches a similar conclusion in his essay, "The Use of an Object and Relating Through Identification". In it, he describes what he sees as a dichotomy in the way one perceives others. The first, object relating (and to clarify, as I should've earlier - "object" doesn't literally connote objectification, it's a loan word from Freud's language - others were seen as the objects onto which drives were acted upon. In this context, the object can be thought of as an internal and necessarily imperfect model of the other), is a way of experiencing the other in which they become the embodiment of ones own projected thoughts and feelings, a mirror of the self. This carries some pretty dire connotations, namely that of narcissism, but I want to hurriedly point out that this is a state we all find ourselves in regularly, and without it, our experience of ourselves would have no chance of consolidating into a genuine sense of self. In the second state, object usage, the object begins to truly exist outside of the self, understood as having an interiority that cannot be fully understood, but that can be reached imperfectly through empathy. The punchline of Winnicott's essay is that, in order to move from object relating to object usage, the object must first be *destroyed* - they must first demonstrate their ability to contain the extremely negative feelings and actions of the baby aggressively asserting their needs. The use of the term destruction eludes to an all too common tragedy of infancy and childhood - That we call it destruction; "...not because of the baby’s impulse to destroy, but because of the object’s liability not to survive..."

The significant other, the parent, the omnipotent object upon which you rely desperately, may not be able to contain the child's neediness. They may go cold and turn away, they may glibly ignore the child's cries, they may become rageful and destructive towards the child themself. If such experiences are commonplace, organizing structures build up in the mind. Schemas, object-relational dyads, family systems - whatever you call them, the effect is the same. Alienation. Finally, the beginning of this post is starting to make a little sense (hopefully. That was directed at me as much as it was at you, hypothetical reader)! Melanie Klein disagreed with Fairbairn's view that structure was pathological, but I'd contend that she still saw this process occurring in her patients, and aptly described the process as splitting, part of what she called the schizoid-paranoid position (schizoid here literally meaning "split off").

One of my favorite bands, Dismemberment Plan, said something surprisingly pertinent in their song Spider in The Snow: "The only thing worse than bad memories... is no memories at all." Better to internalize the angry, shaming, or dismissive voice of a destroyed object, than to internalize no voice at all. To internalize no caretaker. To internalize a caretaker who denies or attacks ones needs means that certain parts of the self necessarily have to be cordoned off - feelings of bitterness, anger, and hatred towards the caretaker (the result of decades of fermenting attachment hunger, of countless moments of needy and hopeful assertion denied and forgotten). We become alienated from ourselves and others, and though it's scarier to talk about, we actively begin to alienate others from themselves in our own minds, escaping in preconscious repetitions, moments of object relating that slip through our defensive line.

Do we know ourselves? Do we know others? Can we know others? Or is it too frightening, too close in proximity to our long denounced and denied feelings which we understandably, though perhaps faultily, recognize as destructive. "It's my anger that made them act like that". Fairbairn described this process as "the moral defense". My therapist describes it as a slow Monday.

Anyways I'm gonna shut up now, but before I do, let me try and tie everything together because it still doesn't make much sense, and I'm the one writing this fucking thing: I think as a culture we're all coming to the weary conclusion that something isn't right in the way we relate to each other. We recognize now more than ever the mechanisms of alienation that capitalism, consumerism, "democracy", etc. put upon us, and now it's dawning on us that there are mechanisms of alienation pervading our very sense of self and others - an alienation that's become so painfully clear in the way we talk about love, or really, the seemingly total absence of it. We don't know ourselves, we don't know others, and we don't allow ourselves to know others out of fear of our own cordoned off desperation for attachment. So to reiterate: we're engaged in a war. We've been engaged in this war since we were very young, and nobody has won the war since, likely, the dawn of organized civilization and patriarchy (note how we've probably been thinking in terms of the nuclear family this whole time - if not, you're based and a true Kohut Gamer. I'm not based, though, I'm brainpoisoned, and I'm trying to point out how the child's need to assert their attachment needs is deeply hindered by the lack of an extrafamilial community to pick up some of the slack, of the immense pressures placed on women who are very often the primary caretaker, and conversely, the persistent lack of men in child rearing by and large). Hopeless as it may seem, I believe that if the assertion of these analysts are true - that our baseline state is one of desiring attachment and working towards the fomentation of trust and care and love - then we can win. Someday, somehow, we can win. And we have to win.

"WE ARE FEROCIOUSLY RELIGIOUS and, in so far as our existence amounts to the condemnation of everything that is known today, an inner necessity demands that we be equally unyielding.

What we are starting is a war.

It is time to abandon the world of civilised people and its light. The time has passed for being reasonable and cultured – this has only led to a life lacking in any attraction. Whether secretly or not, it is necessary to become completely different, or else to cease to be." --- Georges Bataille, La Conjuration Sacree.

[yourvassal]

in the doctor who au, how did dream and wilbur first meet?

they meet while wil is sorting out a minor alien invasion on earth! he's already been alone for a bit so naturally he's searching for someone who clicks with him and is willing to travel the stars on a whim, he can't help himself really. he runs into dream while he's up close vlogging an alien "crime scene" (i haven't come up with what the aliens are yet, but they're going around earth cities and rooting themselves in the ground causing damage to the streets and housing), dream is advised by cops to stay back from the alien sources but he just wants to get the best footage, not to mention it's the closest he's ever been to an actual alien (this will change very soon obviously, hehe). wilbur is going around trying to coax the things out of the ground so he can figure out if he can talk to one of them, and he sees dream getting dangerously close to one, he goes up to him and warns him of the danger. but dream seems totally excited and not frightened in the slightest. he starts to tell wilbur that he's somewhat of an alien expert, he's got a whole blog and his own classification system and everything, and he says he swears these aliens are docile and not aggressive if the fact that they are able to get so close with no defensive response is any evidence. wilbur considers what dream says and tells him to stay back while he goes up to it and observes more closely, i imagine he's able to communicate and "reason" with it and even gives it coordinates to a new planet they can settle on that isn't already, yknow, occupied. and hilariously he is able to talk the aliens out of the invasion, docile, like dream said. the fact that dream was right, whether intellect or pure coincidence, and also seemingly fearless charms wilbur completely and he gets that sensation within him to very impulsively offer dream the chance of a lifetime (to run away with wilbur in his blue box). and as i said before, he of course needs to do a bit of convincing that he's telling the truth about all the space and time travel, but i think as soon as dream sees the inside of the tardis he would find it nearly impossible to say no

[t00thpasteface]

@artbyblastweave no yeah totally like it's convincing and internally consistent once he gets into the swing of things after the intro three-parter. we see him totally fuck up his first shot at the iconic Plane Catch in like ep 2 but by the end of ep 3 he's very obviously getting into that habit of like... If(Problem) -> ThrowSelfAt(Problem)

he's incredibly cocky and stubborn but in a really fun, wholesome, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny way that really only comes with having lived with that powerset for a while to the point where it's totally second nature to manage it or flex it from minute to minute. he knows exactly how much momentum something is going to have when he steps in front of it, how malleable industrial metal is, and whether people will be looking away long enough for him to do something incredibly stupid at work.

two examples i think really exemplify his instincts:

1. saving a train on an exploded bridge by grabbing two I-beams, flying up to the track, and LETTING THE TRAIN PASS OVER HIM (way crazier and smarter than just jumping in front of it)

2. picking up a pen he dropped by (first checking to see if anyone's looking and then) LIFTING HIS DESK TO GRAB THE PEN

like he's not just insanely confident to the point of being foolhardy, he has this completely alien (ha) method of problem-solving, and his brain jumps to conclusions that make sense for someone who's lived with those powers 24/7 but that no human in their right mind and squishy body would ever have as plan A.

so when he's depowered or outmatched or whatever by some villain and he makes some dumbfuck impulse decision, it's consistent for the character because he's practically never not been able to just move the whole world out of his way when he needs to get stuff done, so it's totally believable that he has absolutely zero self-preservation instinct, bc he doesn't need one, and in fact would be actively inconvenienced by one!

as much as he gets mischaracterized as a meathead, a la captain kirk, i like how superman is pretty sharp and has to actually think his way out of the problem of the week in stas. but also during his typical day-to-day he doesn't HAVE to be that much of a genius, so he still regularly gets outsmarted bc he doesn't usually need to plan or strategize and therefore isn't exactly in the habit of it.

even with most of the big threats, he can generally get 90% through a problem by hitting it hard enough... but the trend seems to be that he finds out the precise boundary of that 90% by flying directly into it. he's got the capacity for brilliance but he just needs a little "percussive maintenance" to get the gears turning

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary210

4/12-13/2024

friday - saturday

saw this morning that i am not gonna have my birth day off of work.

it shouldn't matter but it is kind of ruining my day, i just can't go out at all + the shift is closing into an opening shift the day after. why do that? it must show them i asked for the day off, it's like, pointed. plus they have me working in the 'back hallway' one of these days. i don't know what the fuck that is so if i hate it i will just walk out of the place i think. #lol.

today just kind of sucked. the wind on the way home was insane and really made me unhappy and my gf slept through my calls to come get the gate for me so i had to do this thing where i get in through the bars which is okay but it just feels bad and makes bad days feel worse. so for a while i just came home and felt miserable.

that makes reading feel more important though, for some reason foucault felt very weighty to me, i cried talking about his essay about bataille, written around the time of his death, with my gf today. something about the weight of his thought/non-thought to another, and the way foucault carries him and the ideas of transgression forward, the way he critiques the way history is built, it is so incredible to me.

i cried a lot today, my stuff with our friends is just really driving me crazy. like one of my best friends, he didn't do anything except be oblivious and dumb and like, i just don't want to look at him kind of because to not even think, when you have a partner who literally enables some kind of manchild-life it's like, how could you, and making her so angry that she might like, enter into discourses that make her more alienated from a bunch of people and make her resentful like fuck, guhh there is just nothing good, no good. it's how i feel, no good no good no good. just horrible and sad but it's not true, it's not really like that. i shouldn't care so much or be so involved i just think too much but it's hard not to. i really did say 'i don't even want to hang out with him, it doesn't matter, i can't go out anyways, it doesn't matter', is that like, teenaged or what. i am turning 26 , why am i like that?

today i read more about prison as it works and the evolution of prison into the corrective, it's blurry i guess but it's also not as dense as the stuff on docile bodies felt, still the notion here of work in prison, labor not as useful for production but instead the impression of a kinetics on a body and submission/acceptance via being kept busy, by laboring and by one's mind when not laboring being put to other tasks or things which approach the conscience, which is interesting. one thing here, the isolation of the criminals is really crazy to me in some of these cases, working together in total silence, seeing one another, alone in huge groups, and here one of the things i think about / thought about a lot reading the book, where when you're told to go to your room for bad behavior and you wait so hopefully for your parent to come talk to you and absolve you or see how sad you are or even just acknowledge you, this is the mechanism at play in prisons, or aimed for, with the guards. the walls are cruel, says one person foucault quotes, he goes on to say, the guards are not. this vertical arrangement of sociality is a reward, there is always something above you, and this kindness is part of the reward system where if one is truly repentant, one's sentence can be shortened, good behavior, true submission, proving use, proving normality maybe, proving one is not a true traitor, this is the value of work in prison, that one may integrate into the normal.

and here is the thing, the production of the normal, being in the fact that school, the medical apparatuses, hospitals and so on, work in factories and beyond the factory now we must admit, the family, all of this sharing these impulses of training, normalization, not even of separate method but often very similar methods, all reinforcing the other, feeding the other, then it becomes the case, as i have heard people say talking about this book, the prison follows not just naturally as the most rational and useful sentence, an aberration/tyranny made human and economical, not in terms of a condemnation on foucault's part (he condemns it but not as a tyranny against the human, he sees the humanist goals as needing this tyranny, his question is of how and why does this occur, how do they justify it, how is this cruelty still present, accounted for, used, attenuated, power expresses and strengthens itself without being as excessive/festive as public execution (there enters a transgression in a way)), but in the course of life for many. how the world is constructed, categorized, it is a repeated relation and not just relation but a set of technologies which produce knowledge, collect data to reinforce knowledge of categories, and so on.

there is a lot there . i need to re-read his bataille essay. i'll put that on my to do list tomorrow. i'll also draw tomorrow.

i wrote today though, misery helps with good pieces to add to things. my assemblage thing is i think going to be a cycle of a couple things, exciting to me, i need to take some stuff out of notes for that, and the long thing also has received a couple parts tonight.

i also read some agua viva this morning, in my upset-ness, at everyone and myself for being so stupidly upset about my birthday. i think over and over, about the hallelujah the book begins with, 'hallelujah merging with the darkest human howl of the pain of separation but a shout of diabolic joy', i keep thinking she understands, i don't know if i understand what she feels but it transfers to me, she talks then of the immediate is of moments, or instants, passing passing passing, i speak it it is gone, and the separation, nothing can hold her back from the 'is' of things. i feel it, i am separated and un-separated, affirming, attacking, it is so strange, i do feel in my rather tiny body this inertia and i am hurtling down or up, or in place hurtling, i just want to touch everything, she speaks that urge, or not urge, fact? i would like it to be fact, i think it, i feel that shriek / hallelujah in my heart, honest, i think, really honest.

this is good, it made me write more. yay. cute. fun. or i hope it's cute.

to be honest today the heat and wind made me go so crazy too because it messes my fucking bangs up and i can't just make them wet and blow-dry them again always it makes me so so so so unhappy. guhhh. stupid stupid stupid i kept thinking it would just be easier to die than live today. but i don't want to be that way, i don't want to just negate myself like that.

although i had weird thoughts omw to work, deathliness is kind of perfect recognition, this is why the self-possessed corpse feels so overwhelming to me, deathliness affirms circumstance, it is not necessarily negation or non-contestation, if one views death as still managed, maybe even more managed now if we consider the ecological-capitalist structures appearing which seek to evaluate all constantly, death is necessarily anti-discipline, anti-evaluation, it is revived under the eye of affirmation as the erotic thing, or an erotic thing, not necessarily true death but maybe certain things, idk, it feels true in some way to me, love as a kind of deathliness, where the deathly is simply that which refuses the rules of life as constructed by the apparatuses that individuate us, as well as construct us as human, an erotics of 'injury' even i guess, although that's really just me wanting to be grievously injured during sex in order to experience an elongation of instants, to really sense things as they stretch, it's actually really lovely to experience, honest.

i guess what is important about that is it feels poised towards living, essentially, the corpse as possessing itself the main thing, i suppose in order to back that up better i need to re-familiarize myself w/ the text i reference and some more artaud, beyond what's in that one big compilation of his writings. but yeah. that will be worth a lot for me i think, he is so great to read anyways.

another thing i keep thinking about today, is that i can't tell if my nature of getting really disappointed in people i know just means, since it seems like a pattern, that i'm actually a really bad and mean person and i am awful to be around and maybe i'm everything wrong with the world and stuff. i would like to know but honestly the thought that i am wrong about everything makes me want to kill myself but it's whatevs.

here is a song:

so far this is the best song for sure on this album, some songs have some very fun break sounds and there's lots of great synth sounds, except this one after this one is way too 80s but whatever, it's basically good but there's some fatigue i guess. but i really love the bass synth in this song, it's so genius.

here's another song, this one's by the genius kota hoshino, i'm glad he got big w/ people on yt, he's so smart w/ everything he does.

another thing today, my friend's piece of writing got put out,

one of my best friends, he is very very good, hard to say a lot about this work, i suppose partially because it feels very new, part of what made me almost cry reading it this time around is the interview with the missile, he's so sensitive there, it's very unique what he manages with that, he is much better at using humor in a way which cuts, i suppose truly carnivalesque, instead of reducing weight/pain it mounts it, more and more, very beautiful in that way.

any wayzzz, what else, idk. i need to listen to the album tomorrow too but i am like, scared i guess, like, what if i hate everything, then i guess i hate everything, bbut i couldn't right? but i shouldn't when i'm in such a sour mood from today i guess, being so disappointed.

did i talk about this song yet?

i am so forgetful, but i guess i can't recall everything, the fact that these entries help me interface w/ my reading is super nice and helps me remember that stuff better. this is, compared to that, much less. this song is kind of awesome, mgna crrrta definitely have some songs i like, which maybe bites cuz they're annoying nyc kids i think, not in a bad way or whatever they're just like, you know, why should new york keep mattering so much . it's just gonna and i can't do anything about it. anyway, the song is good and i really love the chiptune-y synths. i like that everyone likes them now, and i like that in my songs they're just kind of fucked up and irritating and not as pleasant as these. i think the way they pitch the 'oh yeah' up is kind of awesome and sounds way better than i expect that kind of thing to sound, idk how they made it sound like, cute instead of annoying? lots of stuff that tries for that gets very grating, the specific hyperpop pitched vox stuff.

and wtf, jack dangers is collaborating w/ merzbow? kind of sick, funny day for music stuff, oh yeah that new drain gang song is also really good, which is nice.

anyway i need to sleep soon i think sooo ,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[redorich]

to those who carried on

A fic for @petrichormeraki​ and their Hermit!Tommy AU.

-------

The hermits know Tommy as a quiet young man who is very sad and contemplative. The more time they spend with him (against his will, but they know he needs the company) the more they learn of the little details. His favorite block is cobblestone, he likes building towers, and apparently his favorite woman is the Queen. They don’t ask why he wears a smiley mask even though he never seems happy. They don’t ask why he hides important things in his ender chest. They don’t ask why he wears a shattered compass on a chain about his neck.

(Once, he died in lava and lost his absolute mind. He was so upset about the compass that he didn’t even mention the stack and a half of diamond ore he had on him. Xisuma ended up manually rolling back the server just so Tommy could have it back.)

As time goes on, the tremors in Tommy's hands grow lesser. His dull blond hair seems a bit brighter, his bruises fade quicker, he doesn’t look quite so skinny-- he spends his time serenely building, resource gathering instead of running and fighting. He has a sense of humor under all that trauma, which the hermits unfortunately find out after another massive-scale prank war thought to be instigated by Grian actually turns out to be Tommy's fault.

Tommy starts swearing more. Doc gets the stink eye from Stress for this, but Doc insists he’s never once sworn around the young man. (That’s an absolute lie, but it wasn’t anything Tommy hadn’t heard before. Tommy thinks Doc is remarkably unoriginal in his cursing. He does take note of the German ones, though.)

Inviting Tommy to PvP minigames can be touchy, they learn. He likes to fight, but he fights like an animal with nothing to lose. Grian once chanted, “It stays in the pit!” and everyone present had to spend the next five minutes wrangling Tommy’s soul back into his body from wherever it’d floated off to.

Tommy likes to glide with his elytra. He claims he’s never had one before, but he flies like such a natural that a few people have their doubts. On a dark desert night, with dark blue eyes watching the night sky, he confides to Cub that it reminds him of the way his dad used to fly. He hates rockets, though. He does not confide to Cub that it reminds him of what his brother did to his best friend. He says enough that Cub can guess, though.

Scar gets fed up with Tommy’s creeper holes and makes Tommy help him fix them. At first, Tommy has no clue why Scar is breaking out things like coarse dirt and birch leaves and making the ground all fancy, but he’s not afraid of a little hard work and Scar makes it fun. He learns a lot about terraforming that day, and awkwardly comes back a few days later asking if Scar needs any more help terraforming. Tommy still hasn’t built a real base, not by Hermitcraft standards, but the small hill he’s built his dirt hut near now has a very beautiful, if amateurish, waterfall. He doesn’t tell Scar about this, but Scar finds out anyway. Tommy wakes up one morning to find that someone has left a shulker box in his house. Instead of iron-gripped paranoia, he just feels wonder that someone would give him a gift-- to the hermits, a single shulker box is nothing. To Tommy, it’s everything.

The shulker box contains coarse dirt, birch leaves, and a silk touch shovel.

Tommy helps Xisuma mine a giant hole in the ground near bedrock, because he realizes that he’s never thanked the admin for getting him his compass back. Well, that and the fact that instamining with a haste two beacon and an efficiency five pickaxe is a novelty. Xisuma lets him keep the cobble, since everyone knows it’s Tommy’s favorite block, but also insists he keep some of the other blocks like andesite and diorite. He pats Tommy on the head and tells him to talk to Bdubs about building a house some time. Tommy nods. He's taken aback by how tall Xisuma is, completely contrasting his mild nature. He reminds Tommy of Wilbur, on one of his good days before... Before. Not Ghostbur, though-- the admin is much too alive.

Tommy waits too long, so eventually Bdubs comes to him. The man is silly and outrageous, playing everything for laughs and unexpectedly tender. Bdubs plays up how beautiful he thinks Tommy’s hideous dirt shack is, then offers to help him build a house that’s better. For Tommy, building a house means settling down, accepting that this is his home now. Bdubs doesn’t know this. Tommy builds cobblestone dicks while Bdubs tries to lecture him about depth and block variation. Nothing gets done and Bdubs feels like he might have failed, but come next week Bdubs is flying over the area and sees the dicks are gone; so is the dirt house. In its place is a spruce-and-cobble cottage nestled near the tiny waterfall. Off to the side, he’s made a cozy doghouse for his fox, Theo. Bdubs doesn’t know how close that fox came to being named Fundy.

He spars with False, and she very pointedly does not mention how his stances are uniquely suited to a piglin. There’s only one renowned fighter who’s a piglin, after all. It's Tommy’s story to tell, if he ever does, why he’s seen enough of the legendary Technoblade’s fights to pick up on his stances, yet he’s not experienced enough to know that they don’t suit him. Instead, False gives him different stances suited more for tall, skinny people like the two of them. She’s got blond hair and blue eyes just like him. (Not that she’d know. She’s never seen his eyes, hidden behind his mask as they are.) Every now and then, he imagines her as an older sister, and the one time he says so, she smiles. When Tommy’s at home, looking at his own distorted reflection in his waterfall (he’s improved it since he built it), he muses that their eyes aren’t the same, their hair colors are subtly off. It’s close enough, he thinks.

Stress dies from fall damage and Tommy goes out of his way to pick up her stuff, because the hermits do these things out of the kindness of their hearts. The thought never even crosses their minds to steal. It crosses his mind. He doesn’t do it. Stealing from Stress would be like stealing from Niki.

He shows up at Cleo’s base unannounced and demands to see the “cool shit”. He is appropriately enthused by the giant armor-stand-bugs. She tries teaching him her armor stand magic, but it doesn’t really sink in. It’s okay, she assures him, most people don’t have the knack for it. He does, however, learn that buttons make excellent decorations. He also learns how to braid hair, bribed by ice cream. He is terrible at it, to the point where Joe has to come by to help the two untangle her hair so Tommy can start again. Watching the two bicker over capitalism and six million armor stands and a whole host of other inside jokes he doesn’t get, he thinks he’s starting to understand what friendship is supposed to be like. Joe and Cleo don’t see him clutching his compass. He and Tubbo weren’t too far off from this, given their circumstances. Maybe...

Maybe Tubbo can be forgiven.

Tommy makes minigames of his own, ones that don’t just kill you and steal your stuff. He builds things that are pretty instead of just functional, brews potions with Stress and only calls them drugs once (again, upsetting her is like upsetting Niki. Best not done), and sets up chicken bombs above people’s bases instead of just lavacasting them. (As Grian saw the hundreds of chickens slowly raining down upon his mansion, he got such a peculiar look on his face that Tommy feared he’d fucked up. The shorter, stronger (much stronger oh god why is he so strong despite being so small) man nearly crushed Tommy’s lungs in a hug, proclaiming how proud he was of Tommy. Tommy was proud of himself for not accidentally murdering Grian out of reflex. Was this what healing was like?)

Yes. It is what healing is like. Tommy knows this because that wound gets ripped open again. Tango shows him how to build the most obnoxious redstone-powered noise machine the two can think of. Tango digs a small pit, and asks Tommy to throw down his axe. Suddenly, Tommy’s in Logstedshire again; it’s not Tango asking, it’s Dream. His hands don’t shake when he tosses his axe into the pit, followed by his sword and his armor. It isn't until he’s placed the TNT down that Tango grabs his wrist and asks him what he’s doing. Tommy’s eyes clear enough that he can see past the blond hair and freckles. Tango isn’t green, he’s red. He's shorter than Dream, and his worried eyes are unhidden. Tommy shudders, then tells Tango everything.

Tango has no pity for Tommy, just understanding and sympathy. He doesn’t push Tommy to talk about it, but when Tommy’s done telling his story, Impulse and Zedaph show up. They all pretend that Tommy’s voice isn’t hoarse, that they all didn’t conveniently happen to look away when Tommy took off his mask just long enough to wipe his eyes. The men bake a cake together, fool around with honey blocks, and don’t talk about it.

Tommy knows very little about redstone, considers himself more of a builder and a fighter than an engineer. Still, Mumbo’s living base is inspiring, and Tommy often hangs around the man’s industrial district just to watch Mumbo work. Mumbo knows that Tommy hasn’t purchased a day pass, but it’s nice having someone around to talk to while he works. It’s not like Tommy is stealing anything. (Tommy totally steals from Mumbo’s industrial district storage system. The man’s farms are so efficient that he doesn’t even notice, so Tommy assumes it’s fine. What Mumbo doesn’t know won’t hurt him.)

Lava still isn’t his favorite thing in the world. He stays far away from it, instead of imagining what it would be like to hurtle towards it. Ren doesn’t really notice this, but he does notice that Tommy doesn’t seem to like his mustafarian base. On a spur-of-the-moment whim, Ren whips up some absurd plotline in which he is a lone weary traveller seeking refuge at Tommy’s base from strange alien overlords. The two have fun together, and the young man cracks more absurd jokes about it than the hermits have ever seen him do. When Ren leaves a week later to return to his own base, Tommy keeps being absurd, if a bit more subdued without someone to play off of. He builds a shrine to the “prime log”, which grows more elaborate each day. Beef and xB pretend to be his acolytes, despite having no clue what a “twitch prime” is.

They can’t see his face, but the smile in his voice is a far cry from the despondency he once wore like a heavy cloak. He is so much more animated and alive, full of motivation. He builds an entire island in three days, and hand-delivers an invitation to each and every hermit for his beach party. Everyone shows up, even those with packed schedules (Iskall) and those with introverted tendencies (Etho). Tommy is nearly moved to tears when they show up in groups of twos and threes, as though he hadn’t expected anyone to come. There aren’t enough chairs for everyone, but there is more than enough cake to go around. Tango brings drinks, Impulse brings meat to barbecue, and Zedaph makes an elaborate jump-powered grill. Keralis brings way too much confetti and several handfuls of cheap, obnoxious party noisemakers. Stress brings Tommy a crown made out of alliums. It shines far less than his brother’s gold crown, and it’ll die in a few days, but he wears it all night and keeps it in his ender chest until it withers away.

He spends five days teaching himself to make flower crowns. Even his best attempt is awful, nowhere near as pretty as the crowns Stress makes, but when he gives it to her, she takes off the one she was wearing and wears his until it falls apart.

He dies fighting a creeper on Grian’s behalf, and doesn’t even panic, because he trusts that however many times he dies, no matter how stupid or ignominious or revolutionary or important, Xisuma will always let him respawn.

He spends a grand total of nine diamonds to buy a single plot of land in the shopping district. He builds a cute little bench facing the sunset, with warmly glowing street lights on either side and a small garden. At the end of the bench he places a jukebox, and buys every single disc that Beef’s music shop sells, including Pigstep. He sits on the bench while Mellohi plays and watches the tiny silhouettes of his friends flying in the evening sky. Tommy looks alone on that bench, even if he seems happy, so sometimes other people stop by to sit with him. Scar declares the bench area a public park, since everyone likes it so much, and refunds Tommy his nine diamonds straight from the throne.