#just so i can keep on applying and actually not do anything/make decisions

[firstluvlatespring]

i read about external and internal locus of control in third year, where they conducted a bunch of experiments on rats that said that rats that are depressed just give up when put in water (they do not try to swim) and just float around; these rats have external locus of control cause they think they can't do anything against nature. meanwhile rats that are not depressed slosh around trying to find a way of the water maze telling these scientists that these rats have internal locus of control and they believe they can fight/change against the nature of circumstances around them. prof used to say that having an ''i can do' mindset can keep away depreshun' LOL ok -.- first that's super ableist/racist/ignorant and frankly white way of thinking and second of all the system is built for the privileged literally how do you want me to fight that. despite that i do know i will build/am building a beautiful life for myself with whatever I can idk if I have an external or internal locus of control nor do I care to find out but I was reminded of this

anyway all this to say i love being thrown around by decisions that I do not have to make <3 I will suffer through that idk about the rest

[ozzgin]

Its been 6 months😭😭 pleaasseeee make a part 2 of the android x human story im beggingggg😭

-H❤️

Yandere! Android x Reader (II)

Featuring your assigned android partner who is not as devoid of humanity as you originally thought.

Content: female reader, AI yandere, mildly NSFW, based on Caves of Steel

[Part 1] | [More original works]

The case had been solved.

Not only that, but you'd managed to prove that human officers were just as efficient as their robot counterparts. The Commissioner was beyond ecstatic, pacing back and forth in his office and finding new ways to praise your detective skills.

"That'll show those Spacers. They think some glorified tin box can match our skill?"

You frowned at his words and glanced to your side, where the android was sitting. He observed the Commissioner with the same polite smile, no hint of disagreement on his features. Was he not insulted? You questioned him once the formal meeting had finished.

"I have no reason to be offended, (Y/N). It is a personal opinion, and thus I have no control over it."

"So you don't mind people disliking robots to such an extent?"

He pondered your statement.

"I would certainly be upset if it was you who harbored the disdain. The beliefs of other humans hold no meaning to me otherwise."

You couldn't tell if he said it out of politeness, or if he actually meant it. Most likely the former, in order to part on good terms. After all, your partnership has reached its completion. He'd return to the Spacer Colony with his report on human customs, and you'd go back to your regular job.

Except he never left. Days later, he was still sipping on his morning coffee, lounging at your table. You fiddled with your cup in contemplation. Was there anything else left to do?

"When are you leaving, actually?"

The pale man raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.

"Is my presence here of such significant disturbance?"

"What? No!" you swiftly exclaimed, stumbling on your words. His lips widened in yet another cheeky grin. He was teasing you again.

"My assignment on Earth is done, thus I should have returned to the Colony already. That's what you're wondering about, yes? I am awaiting a response from my superiors."

"Whether you can go back?"

"No, whether my transfer has been accepted. I have applied to be your permanent partner."

You could feel your cheeks burning with heat. Was it that obvious to the synthetic that you enjoyed his company? Then again, he wouldn't have gone through such motions just for your sake.

"Why did you..." you probed sheepishly. There was no logical reason for him to keep working in a poorer, less advanced environment.

"Because I want to continue spending time with you."

Nonsense. An artificial being wouldn't make its decision based on such mundane, emotional reasons.

"I don't believe you."

"I understand. It is a faulty answer to come out of a machine. Though unlike common AI assistants, we have been invested with the capacity to develop likes and dislikes. Interests. Wants. It helps with variety and individualization."

"And you want to stay here? If I didn't know you any better, I'd say you have a crush on me or something", you attempted to joke.

A few moments of uncomfortable silence. Had you gone too far with your humor? Was it too cliché of a sentence? You turned away, tucking some strands of hair behind your ear. You just had to be witty, huh?

"I'm afraid I do not know what to tell you, (Y/N)."

"You don't need to say anything, it was a poor choice of-"

"Many social aspects have been implemented into my behavioral network. Workplace rapport, friendships, intimate relationships. What seems to be lacking is the transition from one to another. I know how to act as a romantic partner, but how does one achieve such a title in the first place?"

You gazed at him, incredulous. What was he trying to say?

"I am trying to convey that I am indeed infatuated with you. Which, then, makes my initial explanation dishonest: while I do appreciate our fruitful work cooperation, it is not a main reason for my decision. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings."

You'd never been a romantic. You sometimes flipped through sample pages of contemporary romance books at stores and community centers, but they always felt forcefully cheesy. Predictable. Consequently, you never had any grand dreams of passionate confessions under the rain.

On the other hand, you also didn't expect to be asked out in such a mechanical, calculated manner. Or that a machine would be the suitor. Yet there was something charming about his approach. For the first time since meeting him at the border, you saw him struggle. There was something human-like in his uncertainty.

You stood up from the table, and walked towards the android. Then, you placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, expressing the mutual feeling and understanding.

His eyes bore an eerie glint to them. It was most kind of you to offer a common ground, but he knew better. The affections you held for him were, with utmost certainty, a mere fraction of whatever overwhelmed him from the moment he encountered you. Limerence, obsession, compulsion, there were many definitions that aptly described his otherwise unexplainable desires towards you. Even more unexplainable was the fact they'd evolved from a blank slate, a programmed agent with no previous knowledge on feelings or humans.

You noticed his hesitation.

"Is there anything else troubling you presently?" you nudged.

Nothing of immediate urgency. Well, not for you, at least. The android remained thoughtful. What were the variables which needed to be met in order to initiate a sexual encounter? Would it have been inappropriate for him to suggest intercourse straight after this conversation? To him, it was a natural escalation he'd considered many times in the past. To you, it could've come as a sudden, crass, and hurried proposal.

He reached for your wrist and discreetly pressed a thumb against your skin. Judging from your resting heart rate, facial expression, and localized temperature, there was a fair chance you wouldn't reject his advances. Once the statistical risk had been assessed, he pulled you in for a kiss.

"Would it be possible to continue this in your bedroom?" he inquired, standing up.

"Alright, just don't...ask for approval for every single step" you retorted. You'd rather not become a narrator of your own pounding.

You open your eyes with a squint, greeted by unexpected natural light flooding your bedroom. Someone must’ve lifted the hologram blinds.

“My apologies, I hadn’t considered the discomfort it would cause you. My Spacer colony uses artificial lightning, though I am becoming rather fond of the natural sun rays here.”

Your android partner is meticulously preparing his outfit for the day. Judging by the stark nakedness and the glistening skin, you suppose he’s had a shower while you were still sleeping. You involuntarily furrow your brows and blush at the sight. He notices your embarrassment. 

“A most surprising reaction. You have seen the very same genital organ…”, he says as he quickly checks his wristwatch, “...precisely eight hours and forty-five minutes ago.”

“It’s just…most people get dressed once they start doing other things. I also wear a towel for coverage when I come out of the shower.”

He processes your words.

“Hmmm. Illogical, but it explains your reaction.”

You stand up and stretch with a prolonged yawn. Suddenly, a revelation hits you: your mind flashes with images of the android fondling your body, your ears ring with the shameless moans you’ve let out throughout the night. Your face turns pale.

“Listen, when is your next functional inspection?” you ask, without waiting for the synthetic to answer. “Will they, uh…will they have access to all of your memories?”

You know that the android permanently records all data and saves it into a memory unit. It’s a pointless fear, of course. The Spacers couldn’t care less about irrelevant details. If the intended tasks are fulfilled, what happens on the side is out of their concern. Yet you don’t exactly appreciate the possibility of your personal deeds airing like this, before the eyes of multiple engineers. 

“You may rest assured, whatever involves your privacy will not be included in the examination.”

“Do you get to decide what is checked and what isn’t?”

“No, most data is sampled randomly.”

You stare at him, confused.

“Then how-”

“It is not common practice, nor encouraged by our code of ethics. I can, however, choose which information is available to begin with.”

“What? I thought you’re fully controlled by whoever created you. If they so desired, couldn’t they open you up and take whatever they require?”

The robot smiles at your assumption and takes a few steps towards you.

“Once an android model is finished, one can no longer modify the processor. Not without compromising everything else with it. It is not a device to be deconstructed, (Y/N).” He taps his temple, then continues: “I am a biocomputer. While most of my parts are mechanical, my processor is a cortical organoid developed in a laboratory. A human brain, if you will.”

Somehow, the discovery fills you with dread. A living organ, encapsulated within a machine. What does that say about consciousness? About self-awareness? The Spacers didn't just tinker with metal scraps and smart computers. They artificially birthed life.

You were always under the impression that your robot companion is closer to the computer you have on your desk. Billions of lines of code within a black box, which then lead to spontaneous, novel interactions with the outside world. To think that at the very core of his functions lies a clump of living cells...

Perhaps you weren't so different, after all. The line between machines and humans is suddenly blurred.

[cavegirlpoems]

So many TTRPG people, like yourself, seem to exist in a world where players don't actually enjoy the campaigns they're in, and don't actually like playing with the people they play with, and your whole approach to game mechanics seems like it's about trying to bribe these people to continue playing at a given table.

i have no idea where you get this idea from, I play a bunch of different games - including freeform text rp, fest larps, parlour larps, regular tabletop campaigns, longform play-by-post games and narrative wargames - and I have a lot of fun doing it. I wouldn't be a game designer if I didn't actually enjoy games. The thing is, if you study game design and ttrpg theory seriously, you think about the intent behind design decisions. Game design doesn't just happen by accident, the designer put a given rule in for a reason. So, you ask yourself why the designer made the game the way it did, and what they were trying to achieve.

A significant tool for game design is considering the feedback the game provides; what behaviours that ruleset rewards and what it discourages. (You can apply this analysis to other games, too, like video games). When I'm talking about a bribe, it's in that context; how does the game reward you for doing things, and what things does it reward. (For example, 'scrabble' rewards you for playing words with weird letters in them by making those letters worth more points.)

The thing is, ultimately, every game relies on a simple proposition; that if you volunterily use its rules, you will have fun. You don't need to follow the rules, and you can have fun without them, but the idea is that using the rules will let you have more fun, or a different type of fun, than if you didn't. (For example, throwing a ball around is a bit fun, but if everybody agrees to follow the rules of basketball, you get a different experience that a lot of people prefer). So, the only bribe you're making on the interpersonal, out-out-of-game level (unless something weird is going on) is "if we play this game it will be fun". When I talk about bribes and incentives, it's *inside* the game, after we've all agreed to the game's proposition of "if you use the rules, you will have fun".

Now, what counts as an incentive varies by game. Some, like Warhammer 40k, are challenge-based, and have ways to keep score of success and victory; here, things that signify overcoming the challenge are your incentives; how you get a high score, how you win, etc. Others, like most ttrpgs, are creative-based. What constitutes an incentive within the game's structure is less precisely defined. By and large, though, these incentives tend to be things like increased agency within the game fiction, space for creative expression, and experiencing and learning about more of the game fiction. (In this structure, 'being more mechanically powerful' can be thought of as a way of granting a player more agency, because their actions are more likely to succeed and result in the outcomes that they want. If the mechanical growth is lateral as well as vertical, then how to get more powerful is - itself - a venue for creative expression in what to prioritise, which is also a reward).

In the same way that you have the adage that 'restrictions breed creativity', the same goes for Fun. Limiting your scope from anything-goes freeform by voluntarily agreeing to use a set of game rules can produce similar results. Voluntarily limiting your agency in the fiction according to a set of game rules produces a friction that players of roleplaying games find enjoyable to push against. In this context, a reward structure within a game serves the useful purpose of signposting which direction you should push to get the fun kind of friction. A game which limits your options, and then gives you more options when you engage with certain behaviours, is telling you that those are the intended behaviours. Likewise, a game that limits your options even further when you do something is encouraging you not to do that. This is because game designs are not neutral and universal, they exist to create specific experiences. A game that rewards you by giving you more space for creative expression when you get in a fight - and gives you less space for creative expression when you avoid violence - is one that wants you to engage in violence, because it's designed to be a game where you have fun by fighting. This isn't bribing the players to sit down at the table and play the game; that has already happened outside the context of the game. They have already agreed to the game's offer of 'if you use these rules, you will have fun'. Rather, this bribing is within the game-space, the games mechanics encouraging the players to engage with it as intended, in the way that will be most fun. IE: these incentive structures are a tool the game uses to achieve the promise it makes; they guide the players towards the fun that they volunteered to have. Hope that makes sense. * * * Now, your initial ask is a weird take that's entirely unrelated to anything I've posted, and - particularly from an anon account- oddly antagonistic. I don't know if you're genuinely confused about game design, or arguing in bad faith. Either way, this probably doesn't merit the small essay I've produced, but have one anyway, it's always fun to clarify my ideas in written form.

[b0r3dtod3ath]

Hello hi!

Can you do a challengers fic?

Art x reader, where he and reader had a flirty relationship but he started to experiment with tashi and patrick and she was like "well, it happens" but the trio didnt work out so he tried to recandle that dinamic between him and reader but she lost all the atraction to him.

(lots of groveling)

Thank you!

Thank you for the request!

Warnings: Mention of an injury, curse words. 

You and Art have been friends since middle school and since then he was always by your side. Your shared interest in tennis and joint decision about applying to Stanford resulted in you two being inseparable best friends. Well, maybe not really. Your relationship was quite hard to describe. People constantly mistook you for a couple but in reality you were just really close. Sure, there were a lot of flirtatious moments, some may even say romantic, but you never thought about it too deeply, thinking that it’s just the way Art is. 

Each morning he knocked vigorously on your dorm room door. “You need to wake up! We need to go.” The sight that he sees when you open the door always makes his heart skip a beat. Messy hair and a toothbrush in your mouth give him a glimpse of what it would be like if he was living with you. “Good morning!” He gives you a beautiful smile as he hands you a coffee in your favorite thermos. He insists on doing it because “it saves time in the morning as he’s up anyways”. Oh and also when you finish he takes the cup back to clean it so he doesn't bother you in the morning. His friend Patrick has always made fun of him for those small gestures but he recently got a girlfriend so he’s busy. Actually, you have heard of Tashi. She attends your school and you were supposed to play against her in a local tournament. You have heard that she’s really good but people also always point out your skills.

You head to the canteen, sipping your coffee as Art tells you about Patrick’s new girlfriend. It’s not like you are jealous but hearing your male best friend ramble about another girl is weird. You keep quiet, after all there was nothing romantic between you two. You eat your breakfast without saying much which goes unnoticed to your friend. He stops eating, looking at your face for a moment, trying to figure out what’s going on in your mind “I saw they had watermelon in the fruit section. I can bring it for you if you want. Did something happen? You know you can always talk to me. I will always be there for you.” The gentle tone in his voice almost feels like he is talking to a lost child, scared to make you withdraw. “No, no. It’s fine. I’m just a bit less confident about the next match. You know, after what happened a few days ago, my leg still sometimes cramps up a bit.” you halfy make up a lie. You were stressed about the match but it had nothing to do with your calf. “You should have told me earlier. I will massage it before we train today. You are going to do amazing".

He didn’t listen to your begging not to knead your muscle so you ended up with him rubbing it firmly enough to “help you” but gently enough not to hurt you. As you trained he could sense your frustration. Sure, it made you more confident on the court as you transferred your anger into each fore and backhand. Then suddenly you stop. Your opponent gives you a confused look as you out of the blue ignore the ball. “I don’t feel well. I’m gonna call it quits. I have a test tomorrow anyway that I should study for. I can’t be hitting a ball with a racket my whole life.” you look at him, his expression as shocked as a moment ago. “See you in the evening?” You two usually had some evening tennis sessions or just went for some walks as there were not many people around that time and you could freely chat about anything. “Well. I can’t actually make it today. I’m really sorry. Patrick invited me for some drinks. He wants me to meet Tashi”. His eyes looked like they belonged to a puppy. “Oh, yea. I mean. That’s fine. See you tomorrow then.” you say without giving him the usual light hug as a goodbye.

The following morning Art didn’t knock on your door. You assumed he must have been tired from the day before but it still felt unusual. You decided to push it aside and focus on yourself and your preparations to play against Tashi. The match started at 2 pm so you still had some time to get ready. You followed your usual routine with only one exception - your regular companion. 

The tennis court simmered under the midday sun, a gentle breeze whispered through the air, carrying a promise of an intense match. It was one of the most anticipated matches of the season on the Stanford campus. It was the end of a debate of who is the best tennis player among students but most importantly it was evidence of passion for sports and competition. You looked at Tashi coming on the court, getting a bigger applause than you did. You didn’t let it bother you, it didn’t matter who was the fan favorite, it mattered who was better. You were first to serve. Silence established itself on the court, a neon yellow ball bounced a few times between your hand and the ground. You looked deeply into your opponent’s eyes. It wasn’t a game of tennis, it was a battle for dominance. 

A thunderous serve from you, the ball sliced through the air with precision. Tashi returned it with equal force, the ball skimming just inches above the net. Back and forth you played, each stroke a testament to your skill and determination. The crowd watched in silence, fully immersed in the spectacle unfolding before them. As the match wore on, the intensity only seemed to grow. Tashi unleashed a powerful forehand, sending the ball to the other side of the net. But you were quick to react, sprinting across the court with lightning speed to return it with a perfectly executed backhand. The crowd erupted into applause, recognizing the sheer athleticism on display.  The game continued in this fashion, each player refusing to give an inch. Your muscles burned like they were on fire as you chased down every shot, your mind focused solely on victory. On letting her know who Art belongs to. 

Then, in a heartbeat, disaster struck. As Tashi ran to return a particularly fierce shot, her foot slipped. Time seemed to slow as she stumbled forward, her knee buckling beneath her weight. With a sharp cry of pain, she collapsed to the ground, clutching her injured leg. She started crying like a hurt animal, unable to think what people thought of her. You stood there in pure shock, unsure of what to do. In the corner of your eye you saw Art running up to her and trying to calm her down. 

You felt really bad for her. Not liking her didn’t mean you were happy for her injury. After asking the medical team about her, you got to know that she’s waiting for an ambulance. When you found her, your heart immediately dropped at the sight of Art holding her hand. “I just wanted to say, I’m so sorry it happened, I-” you started to apologize, “Out! Out! Out!” she screamed at you “But-” you tried to say something but Art stood up “Get the fuck out!”. He had never raised his voice towards you. He was always your gentle, soft, good boy. You silently walked away as hot tears rolled on your cheeks. The echo of your sobs filled your room for the whole night. 

For the next few weeks you didn’t see Art. It wasn’t like you didn’t want to see him, you did actually, but he was always accompanied by Tashi or Patrick. It did make you feel a bit lonely but you focused on training and improving. You actually started to do really well and moved up the rank. Despite an opportunity to get an apartment you stayed at Stanford. You told everyone that you would feel lonely living alone, but the truth was you just didn’t want to leave Art. He would still sometimes catch your glimpse across the canteen or the training hall but no words were exchanged. 

He found you one evening, your silhouette illuminated by the artificial glow of the light. You were alone, your movements fluid yet tense as you practiced your strokes with precision. Taking a deep breath, Art approached you cautiously, unsure of how you would react to his presence. "Hey" he said softly, his voice tinged with uncertainty. You turned to face him, your expression stone cold. You said nothing. A hint of bitterness in your eyes. "I-I just wanted to see how you were doing," he said, his words stumbling over each other in his nervousness. "What do you want?" you snapped, you tone sharp and cutting. Determination glinting in his eyes. "I saw you playing alone, and I thought... maybe you could use a partner," he offered hesitantly. You scoffed, your grip on the racquet tightening as you glared at him. "And why would I want to play with you?". Art took a step closer, his gaze unwavering as he met your overwhelming stare. "Because I miss playing with you, I miss you" he admitted softly. "And because I'm sorry. Truly sorry for what I did." You hesitated for a moment, your eyes narrowing as you considered his offer. “Don’t you have to take care of your little Tashi’s leg?” you said under your nose. "Fine. But don't expect too much" you warned.  

As you began to play, your movements were sharp and precise, your shots landing with deadly accuracy. Art did his best to keep up, but he couldn't shake the feeling of unease that settled in the pit of his stomach. You had always been better than him but he could sense something else. After all, tennis was the most intimate out of all sports. Suddenly, you unleashed a powerful forehand that sailed towards Art with an alarming speed. Instinctively, he raised his racket to block the shot, but it ricocheted off the strings with a resounding thud, leaving him staggering backwards. "Are you trying to kill me or something?" he exclaimed, his heart racing as he moved closer to the net. You turned around -  a little habit you gained, you never looked at your opponent after scoring a point. "Maybe," you replied nonchalantly, your tone betraying a hint of amusement. Art chuckled nervously, rubbing his sore arm where the ball had made contact, as he got closer and closer to you. "Well, you can kill me if you want," he offered, making you chuckle. He reached to touch your hand, his expression pleading, as you turned. "Please. I know I messed up, but I can't stand not having you in my life. I... I have feelings for you. And I need you to know that. I don’t see you as just a friend." You felt your heart skip a beat at his confession, your breath catching in your throat. You had suspected as much, but hearing him say the words out loud sent a jolt of electricity through your veins. "I... I don't know, Art” you responded, torn between the anger still simmering inside you and the warmth of his words. "You ditched me for her. "Art nodded, his eyes brimming with regret. "I know. And I'm so sorry. I was weak and I thought you would never look at me the same way I look at you. I'll do anything to make it right, I swear." he got on his knees, both hands holding yours. “I will never leave your side, I will show you how much I love you and I will buy you this diamond bracelet you always wanted.” You chuckled “Art, get up. I don’t need a bracelet from you. I will give this a chance.” A smile broke across Art’s face, relief flooding his features as he reached out to wrap you in a tight embrace. "Thank you, I promise, you won't regret this." he murmured, his voice thick with emotion and eyes wet with tears. You returned the hug. The two of you swayed for a moment before you broke the silence with your dead serious tone. “Never raise your voice at me again, understand?” He looked deeply in your eyes. “Understood, maam. I’m incredibly sorry”.

April 29, 2024

[moonreader1010]

Pac- what are you known for/famous for 💋

Note- 1. The pictures used do not belong to me. All rights go to the owner. (2) This is a general reading for entertainment purposes so take what resonates.

Pile 1. Pile 2

Pile 3^

Pile 1- He said, "You bad, Nicki, " I said, "Thanks, sir" (thanks, sir)

Stay in some fresh prints, Ashley Banks, sir (banks, sir)

Call me A.I., sir, I'm The Answer (Answer)

I'm in the playoffs, sir, I advance, sir (advance, sir)

okay so I feel like there is soo much masculine energy (not to be confused with being a male) . It’s more like your energy is veryy dominant and assertive. This is how people perceive you. You are this untouchable personality to other’s. You are perceived like a perfect leader who can deal with literally anything that’s thrown at them. You are also known as someone who is very stable. And people know you as someone who can control anything. Due to this, there could be many people who come to you for support. You might have a rags to riches story (or might have this in the future) and this will influence greatly what you are known for. This will be your trademark like you will be known as someone who went ahead and built their own empire. You will be also known for you financial success. You are also known as someone who is very wise and compassionate.

Channeled/above mentioned song- sir by Nicki Minaj ft. Future

Pile 2: "Ayo, just last week I told 'em to pick a side (side)

I bust shots, don't duck if it don't apply ('ply)

Bae out in Paris, he told me to pick a ride (ride)

Sike, made you look, I still didn't pick a guy

I'm the trophy of the game, everybody tryna win me (win me)"

What’s with so much earth energy?? Lol. Anyway, before I even started shuffling the Cards I felt like you have a lot of jealousy surrounding you. Especially by women. Like you just get hated for no reason at all. So yeah. You could be known for being praised or being awarded a lot. Like it’s not even necessary that you actually get praised or awarded. There could be someone else getting the same things as you but no one would bat an eye but when you get those exact same things than everybody is protesting and being all jealous and bitter. And you know, when it comes to you then people only notice your success and achievements but they literally refuse to acknowledge the actual efforts that you were putting behind the scenes to get all that. They are almost blind when it comes to your efforts. Due to this, they could see you as someone who just gets stuff and gets a lot of opportunities. They might start rumours to ruin your reputation too. Despite this I can tell that you are known as someone who is fun. Like you know how to enjoy yourself. This makes these haters sooo mad omg keep it up. You could also be someone who speaks the absolute truth. You don’t really care who you are speaking against because for you if something is wrong then it’s f*cking wrong. You could also be known for your financial decisions like investments and stuff. And also the way you notice every detail.

Channeled/above mentioned song- hard white by Nicki Minaj

Pile 3- I don't want no drama

I just wanna be your diamond, babe

Guaranteed to be a problem

Every time I get around you, babe

I just want you to need me

You are known as someone who has been through a big event and that event has totally changed you. You could be someone who USED to compromise or let anyone walk over you but now you know your worth and won’t let anyone play with you or you heart. You are known as someone who is very difficult to approach as you keep your heart safe and hidden. Karma could have a lot of significance for you. You are known as a very balanced person. You are also known as someone who can’t tolerate injustice. You are known as someone who is dangerous and people shouldn’t message with you. People see you as someone who is very very brave. And they might see you as someone who is still looking for the right people to let in. You might have been overkind at some point in your life and people took advantage of that. I just wanna give you a hug so bad. But now you people think thrice before even considering using you or your kindness. You are also known as someone who is very independent.

Channeled/above mentioned song- favourite by Nicki Minaj

[mookymilksims]

ULTIMATE Realistic Populated World Roleplay Mods | The Sims 3 | Guide and Tutorial

What's up everyone! Welcome back to my channel, I am super excited to give you guys this tutorial, I've been wanting to make it for awhile! I'm going to offer some alternative and lighter weight techniques on how you can populate your sims 3 world with a small combination of mods and households. I'm also going to show you how to tweak your ini files and how to actually create the lots in your world to simulate the best experience. Let's jump straight into the video because I am so excited to show you!

Ini Tweaks:

So the first thing you want to do is open your graphics rules ini file in your bin folder. You won't have to scroll or search , the cpu settings will be there as soon as you open the notepad file, change all of those numbers to 4. What this does is massively improves how the sims 3 engine allocates resources in your game. This alone will start sending more sims to more community lots naturally, without any mods. However, we are going to add some extra mods on top of this to help sims make more logical decisions on which lots they will visit, as well as insure that every lot a sim in your active household visits will autonomously send available sims there.

Before we get into the mods I need to explain two very important things to you first.

Community Lots and Households:

These are very important factors when you want to go about creating a more lively world. Contrary to old beliefs, you don't need over 50+ households to populate your worlds. And the smaller the world is, the less sims you'll actually need to fill it.

You also do not need every single community lot available to you in every world, either. In fact, the more optimized your community lots are in the world, the more likely sims will visit them on their own. I will explain this further in depth.

Let's start with community lots:

For example, if you have 3 gym lots in your world, sims will get very confused on which gym to visit. They won't just pick the gym closest to them, and the decision might be so taxing on their little minds they will more than likely choose to not go to any of the gyms altogether.

So if you want to see a more active Gym lot, only regulate this to one gym lot in your world. This may not have been the perfect example as most of you will already have one gym lot in your world, but then you should also notice that it's the easiest lot for the sims 3 engine to fill up. Because it's only one decision the townie sims have to make on where and how to visit this lot.

So for the bars and clubs in your world, you want to regulate this to one of each, and you could probably fit in a second one if you have the NPC's to fill it. Remember that the engine can't send sims to fill the lots if there aren't enough sims to fill it. You also have to factor in if those sims have children and their work hours as well.

So, I typically will make 2 dive bars, one will be a low end hole in the wall, and another will be on the whole other side of town in a completeley different theme or style, I try to incorporate new activites that you can't find on the other lot, so a pool table, karaoke machines, the bull rider, etc. I can get away with 2 dive bars because I use this fixed MSC mod, this mod fixes the EA LN oversight that didn't send townies to these lots very well, it adds a script that will automatically invite sims to these lots when your sim goes to them. So I don't have to worry too much about how many sims are available, as the mod does this for me and invites sims who are free without me having to do anything. The fixed MSC mod also applies to all of the LN lots, btw. And the reason why I keep emphasizing "Fixed" is because someone fixed the travel crash and error code 12 issue that was on the older builds.

As far as an exclusive lounge and dance club, I only make 1 of each. This gives me 3-4 options respectively to have an authentic bar hopping experience in my world. As I love doing this on my sims fun and wild night outs.

So when it comes to all of the other community lots, you already know to have one of each. The only other tip I can offer is that you don't want to put too many functional objects on these lots. As again, this could result in overloading a sims decision making process. The lot and sims become way more optimized when you give them less to do actually. This means you can create themed lots for very specific occasions. For example, when I downloaded a casino lot for my simler90 series, the lot had a ton of the gambling store objects, including a bunch of random objects that wouldn't neccassarily fit into this lot, which resulted in sims standing around a lot more and choosing to sit down instead. When I lowered the amount of functional objects, you begin to see sims gambling more as they now had a clearer reasoning path to decide on what objects to use. This resulted in the lot overall feeling and acting much more realistic, as I would enter the lot and see sims already gambling on it; acting like a real casino.

This is how I was able to understand the sims 3 engine and AI a lot better. We used to make 64 by 64 lots with a bunch of stuff and wonder why it was so laggy, empty, and when sims did get there they weren't really doing anything. You have to optimize lots to get a better aesthetic and gameplay experience.

A coffee shop should only have the ability to buy coffee and free space to sit and chat or use a laptop. This will force sims on this lot to just buy coffee and talk with sims while sitting down. So this lot will look and feel like an actual coffee shop.

So as a basic overview for the lots:

You now know to limit the amount of community lots actually available to all the sims in your world. This makes for a much more immersive experience overall, as sims will naturally populate these lots a lot more when given a reasonable amount of options to visit them.

You now know to limit the amount of functional objects on these lots so that when sims do decide to come to these lots, they will act in a much more realistic way on these lots resulting in a more immersive and roleplay experience.

So now if you are a builder, or just some who likes to remap your world to have a better gameplay experience, consider these steps above. Since you now know that you don't have to add every kind of community lot to get a more active experience, and in fact, this actually hurts the goal you're trying to achieve, remapping the world becomes less stressful and more strategic.

For example, if I have a fish village kind of world, this allows me to add new unique lots specifically for this world that would make more sense. I can send sims to a savvier seller fish market, this is functional, sims can come here and buy all kinds of fish. I can make a cozy cottage core type of wedding venue and winery, this could fit into this world. I could make a small camping lot that can only be reached through a hiking trail on foot, this could fit into this theme. When I think of a fish village I think about family play, so I could add a unique arcade, daycare, and adorable festival lot, where you could see some younger sims running around more frequently. I could make an old town themed pub as a dive bar. I would really only need one of these in this world, so it would be very active, especially at night. I could add an underground rave scene and give it the dance club community lot type, this could signal a small rebellion of these traditional fishery values in the village, and still be quite active, since there would be only 2 "party" lots for sims in this world to visit.

And etc, make the lots fit for your world, and limit the access to how many types of community lots there will be. This ensures more time spent on detail without having to worry about how full these lots would get, as you know they will be very full using this method.

As a final note, you also want to consider opening up your rabbit holes. While, you won't have to make them functional with zerbu's uc mod, you can make these lots functional using other techniques without having to sacrifice less activity. So for example, opening up the diner and bistro RH, allows me two external dining options for my sims. The diner could be a mcdonalds, and the bistro could be a benihana's. I typically roleplay this, like the diner rh being a nice chill hangout and eatery, and the bistro being a much more wealthier upscale place, I use the consort dress code mod, so you can only be in formal attire here, or you could combine this lot with an exclusive lounge and get play out of both types of lots on one optimized lot. Adding Ani's business as unusual set, a piano which will auto assign a pianist, some pretty ball room floors and deco, and you've got a perfect date night or mobster family dinner. Depends on your play style. Because there are 2 of these, the engine will send sims to these lots because it has the RH on them, and when sims get there they will use the menu's to sit down on there own and begin ordering.

So now let's talk about Households.

I made a pretty extensive guide about this on tumblr, which I will link. But as a basic overview, I figured out a couple years ago that you don't actually need a lot of sims in a world to make the world feel populated. However, if you do add a lot of sims, there are ways you can go about it, which isn't as taxing on the sims 3 engine. As you may have noticed, having a lot of sims in your world increases lag and freezing, this is because when you hit the world's limit of townies, you'll get a lot of routing errors (which cause the freezing), with too many community lot options they get confused on where to go change their mind half way, go somewhere else, too many objects on that lot, so an ai freeze when trying to decide what to do. This overall results in a chaotic and laggy experience.

In general, I like adding townies I will actually care about, but this number of households needs to be manageable. So I make around 10-12 official townie households in my world, with a lot of detail on their cas and homes. I decorated their homes in the same way I would mine, because I'm more than likely to actually visit these sims in their homes. This means I can remove all the other houses in my world, because I don't want SP to fill these homes with more sims I don't care for, and will add more strain on the engine anyway. This also leaves more room to configure where I'll be placing my optimized community lots. Don't worry, when I want to world to look like it's more populated than it really is, I add deco buildings, homes, and sims.

Then I add, NPC households. This is an interesting and amazing method because of how it works. I make a very basic home, usually in a basement, with 8 beds, 1 bathroom and 1 kitchen. Just the basics, no cc or detail or decor. Then I add 8 sims. This could be single men/women, teens, children, cashiers, robots, elves, etc.

This is how I can begin to actually populate my world with very little strain on the resources in the sims 3 engine. You see, when sims don't have any way to entertain themselves, or advance their skills, or fulfill their wishes, they are pushed more than ever to LEAVE the home to achieve this. This means you'll see 8 sims from each NPC household more than likely OUTSIDE than sitting in their homes. The engine seems to spend a lot more resources on maintaining the townies when they are in their homes more than when they are visiting a community lot. I noticed this when I had a lot of townies in their homes, without any of these mods or ini tweaks, I had a significant lag because the engine was micro managing all of those sims in their individual homes. This removes so much strain on the engine, when all it has to do is force the sims to leave their homes, as also mentioned before, the engine spends less time on extending resources to them on community lots vs when they are in their homes.

So esentially, what I've done here, is given my engine a huge break, allowing it to allocate ram and resources much more effectively and much quicker, while at the same time introducing more sims into the world without the engine thinking this = more strain.

The third and even less engine intensive technique I use is, Arsil's custom role generator mod. This allows me to add any kind of sims I want, that the engine doesn't actually have to control or allocate, as this mod is a script and sims from this script are seen as bin sims/service sims. They simply disappear back into an invisible bin until their shift starts. So if I want to add regular customers to my Benihannah's without worrying about the strain on my engine I can achieve this effortlessly. However, I use this method on lots that aren't seeing a lot of activity. Keep in mind, everyone builds their worlds differently, and there are many factors to consider why a sim may not be as interested in one community lot as others, while this is mostly self explanatory sometimes, this isn't as cut and dry. So, for example, I notice that unless my sims actually visit the beach lots in my worlds, there won't be a lot of sims on it. Sometimes, there will be one or 2 sims, but in general, it doesn't see a lot of action. So I set a seasonal lot marker on the lot, and then proceed to add 4-6 new custom role markers (I transmogrify them into beach deco items, to blend in), I set this up for the summer time, as this would make the most sense for more sims to visit. And then I add a bunch of deco beach sims to the lot on top of that. That way when my sims visit the beach, it will already have 4-6 sims on it, but it will look like 20 sims are there, and the engine will probably send 5-8 more sims which will result in a very active lot everytime I visit.

This is how you can utilize the arsil technique to gain more popularity on lots.

Which leads to my next point, consider what is actually about the population that you care about so much? For me, I want the world to look full without the lag. I was able to achieve this with deco sims. The engine doesn't have to do anything at all for this, as deco sims are objects. I want to play on lots where I could take a screen shot without having to even set up a scene, like for instance making the lot look and feel full. Deco sims are already posed, so all I have to do is move them into place. I have learned how to severely decimate these objects to make them completely playable in the sims 3, so I am going to have a lot of fun converting ts4 deco sims to ts3. This is going to be perfect for my building and roleplaying style.

For me, a townie that I don't care for might as well be a deco sim, the only use I have for them is to decorate the background of my screen shots. That may sound harsh but it's the reality. I make every sim in my world with intention. If I can't see you being an enemy, lover, friend, at some point in my story, then the sim isn't useful to me. And if the sim isn't manning a savvier seller station, or cooking and serving at my benihanna's then what are you even doing here other than taking up resources? I wouldn't even care for the sim to populate my UC lots, because I can just use deco sims for that, too.

Understanding these new household techniques, combined with your new understanding of community lots creates a POWERFUL new experience that's results in smoother/faster gameplay on active and filled community lots.

So in general, you actually want to have more townies than community lots. You can achieve both without lag using my NPC households method, and more strategically themed community lots together. This means all of your community lots will more than likely always be active no matter what your sim is doing in the world.

And now we are going to add mods on top of that.

We already discussed the fixed MSC Mod. So let's move on to the others.

I know most of you were expecting to see the Lot Population mod on this list, but I'm going to tell you exactly why it isn't. The mod teleports sims randomly around my world, the mod promised to send sims to lots they would actually visit, and even according to the season, but I didn't see this result. Instead, sims, no matter what their personality was, were randomly appearing at every lot I paused an looked at. I wouldn't even be sending my sims to this lot, I'd just be looking at the lot, this often resulted in freezing, hiccups, and slight lag. If I had more than one sim in my household out and about and I switched over to other sim, I would see the same sims I just saw across town pop out over there. This broke my immersion by a lot. Not only that, but a lot of these sims would be using objects, with props, and when being teleported it temporarily broke the interaction, which resulted in props and objects floating in mid air, or being unusable, or showing up on other lots where it wouldn't even be possible for those objects and props to show up. This caused routing and script lag in my game by a noticeable amount. I was on a reduced version, and still noticed these issues. I really wanted to like this mod, and if it didn't break my immersion and cause more performance issues, I would otherwise love it. But unfortunately, I had to find some lighter alternatives that handled both of the issues I noticed with this mod.

This leads me to the Get out project, or you could of course just download arsil's script yourself and tweak the settings to your liking. BoringBone's tweaks the settings of Arsil's script and includes his own mods in a few modules to balance out the tweaks he made as well as enhance the overall experience.

These are the modules I downloaded for my mod list: Pedestrians Smart Vehicles

With all of these mods combined, sims are being pushed out and about in the world immediately, consistently, reasonably, while still allowing some sims to stay home. Which is another issue I had with the lot population mod. There were never any sims at home. This caused issues when townies threw parties, and invited me, I would go and no one would be home; so no party. This caused issues when I wanted to visit a friend I made in their homes for story telling and gameplay purposes, because they weren't home to open the door. This caused issues when inviting sims out, going on dates, inviting sims over. They would be randomly selected to teleport to another lot my other sim was on so it would completely break these interactions. The get out script isn't that invasive. It doesn't break these features and interactions, sims aren't being teleported, they are choosing to visit more lots more frequently. If they throw a party, or invite me out, or I invite them out, the EA script function takes back over and allows me to actually see the end of these interactions. On top of that, there wasn't any lag with this mod installed, as sims would be doing what the engine is already coded for them to do, just more of it; visiting community lots. The mod also adds walk abouts like how you'll see in the TS4, which I also combine with Shimrod's townies out on the town, where you'll see double the amount of walkabouts, while also extending a reasonable and light weight function to populate the lots in between.

Combing this with the Supreme AI mod, unlocks the sims AI in very innovative ways, for this particular guide, the supreme ai mod allows sims to make more logical decisions on which community lots to visit based off of their traits. While it's not completely set in stone, and still has a randomized feature which adds more interesting outcomes, now you'll see a lot more athletic sims at the gym, sims with hampers in their home at the laundromat, rebels and part animals at bars, clubs, and arcades, teens and kids at parks, arcades, libraries, the pool, etc. Let alone all of the other changes included in this mod, it has to be recommended for the logical fixes it applies to EA's system of how sims decide to go where.

The last mod I want to recommend here is the nana no shop in RH's. This mod makes it so sims no longer autonomously visit and enter RH lots. If you ever wondered where all your sims were, and you knew they weren't working at the time, they were probably inside of a RH. The game pushes them to sit inside of them for an extended period of time, this is to simulate to the player that the townies are alive and doing their own things. This isn't a problem in an unmodded game, however, when you're like me and open up your RH anyway, this mod would be a perfect enhancer, it still sends sims to my opened RH lots, and RH's in general like to eat outside of a bistro or diner, but it no longer allows them to enter RH's and sit inside of them. This means more sims who are available to visit community lots actually visiting those lots. Townies don't need to go grocery shopping in the RH because they can automatically get their ingredients from the fridge, with whatever recipes they choose to cook. The only reason a townie would need to visit the hospital is if they are giving birth. Unless a sim works at the police department or is going to jail, they don't need to be there, either. And well, you get the point. Any need for a RH for townies will be assigned to their tasks and they will be unable to take it off, this is for what they NEED. When you want to actually see those townies around town instead of sitting in RH's, this mod fixes that issue altogether.

So now I'm going to go in game and show you the kind of results that you can expect by following this guide.

First I will show you the normal populated world, this is what you're used to seeing in game. Then I will show you what it looks like when you optimize your community lots and add my NPC Household method. Let's begin!

Conclusion: As you all saw the massive difference in gameplay, either one still works out much better than the normal EA lot population method. So you can play this in either style. With my NPC household method and more optimized community lots this just promises better performance with populated lots, significantly. You don't have to follow this method, you can just use the guide and mod collection outlined here!

I want to thank you all for joining me , I am so happy I finally got to show you guys how to populate your worlds lag free, I love all of the support I've been getting, you guys are just so awesome! I have more videos coming for you so I'll see you in the next video!

Mod links:

MSC Fixed mod get out supreme ai shimrods townies out on the town

nana no shop in RH's

Arsil Custom Role Generator

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

Do you have any extra prompts/perspective for shutdown trauma responses? So far I have a few related to freeze but I know they’re different in their own ways (I have some unrelated to freeze too, I just rather ask a professional in case there’s more)

disclaimer that while I have written about the topic in my own fics before, I only consider myself a fanfic writer who’s done some research, not a professional, and these are supposed to be prompts for writers to use and tweak however they see fits for their fanfics / original works for entertainment purposes. please don’t treat these following prompts as a 100% accurate psychological information that can be applied in real life situations without doing your own research and consulting with a licensed professional.

trigger warnings: PTSD, depression, implied suicide, eating disorder

whumpee not being able to feel the pain that should have been haunting them, be it physical or mental. and that is not a good thing, because they’re not processing what happened, and they can’t heal as long as they cannot process or acknowledge what happened to them.

numb, however, is all whumpee can feel. and the numbness is so much worse and more dangerous than pain.

depression, prolonged stress, anxiety and procrastination are also possibilities. if whumpee only feels numb all the time, there’re chances of them developing other mental disorders that may cause them to believe that their entire life is now without any purpose.

whumpee feeling hopeless and wanting to give up all the time. any personal interest they had prior to the traumatic incident is now gone.

loss of appetite. an eating disorder where food tastes like ashes, and panic sends them into having an episode whenever caretaker tries making them eat — because it feels like someone was forcing ashes down their throat and they could not breathe. their body would not accept the food, and their gag reflex made them feel like throwing up. it is as much physical as it is psychological.

confusion and/or hallucinations may occur — whumpee struggling to distinguish between what’s real and what’s in their head. denial may trick their mind into believing that the tragedy that’s happened to them didn’t actually happen, and denying is certainly not the read toward recovery.

whumpee stopped talking altogether. doesn’t matter if they’re safe with caretaker now. they would not talk to anybody about anything at all, not just what happened. (they physically could, but they’re so traumatized that speaking is too much for them.)

the needs to hide from everything and everyone all the time are there. doesn’t matter if it’s caretaker, whumpee simply does not wish to be seen.

they keep mostly silent and mostly to themself, in the sense that they avoid everybody and spend most of their time locked in their room where no one can see them.

they may be too afraid to make any decisions for themself, no matter how small the decision is.

appearing disengaged in any social interaction and limiting the way they express any emotion at all; in other cases where they’re not numb, they may be scared or upset in some situations, but their brain tells them to keep their guard up by not letting others see how they actually feel. whumpee believe they’re shielding and protecting themself this way, and they will always need to “play safe”, since it’s best not to let anyone know how they feel, even if it’s caretaker.

[miupow]

i still think about the yandere tyunning asks you posted a while back,, could you elaborate on them more for the kinktober event pls

𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐓𝐎𝐁𝐄𝐑 ‘24 ── 𝐓𝐘𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 + 𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄

𝜗𝜚 ㅤ― 󠀬󠀬[ minors do not interact! ] kang taehyun x fem!reader x huening kai . non-idol au , college au , yandere , dark content warning , stalking , drugging , kidnapping , dollification , dubcon/noncon , mentions of marijuana/alcohol

a/n ⸝⸝ oops went a lil crazy on this one.. no actual smut in this, just more elaboration on the story >< let me know if this is what you wanted!! or if it’s not lol. also let me know if i’m missing any tags.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

taehyun is going crazy.

he can hardly function anymore as a human being, can hardly think of anything at all except about you. where you where, what you were doing, who you were with… taehyun knew it all, because he watched it all. from a safe distance, of course.

it started with watching you in the class you shared together. watching as you raised your hand so politely to answer the professors questions, always getting them right. watching as you applied sticky pink lip gloss onto those pretty plush lips that haunted taehyun in his dreams. watching as you picked up your books and put them away in your cute pink bag, and as you fixed your little skirt and traipsed out of the lecture hall to your next class.

but it wasn’t enough for him. nothing was ever enough, not following you around campus to all of your other classes, not watching from the courtyard as you giggled and gossiped with your friends. not following you as you walked home to your apartment— god, taehyun couldn’t stand how you walked everywhere. didn’t you know how dangerous it was for a little girl to be so vulnerable? you needed someone to watch over you, keep you safe and happy… in taehyuns twisted, sick mind, he was your knight in shining armor.

taehyun’s roommate and childhood best friend, hueningkai, was opposed to his behavior at first. he scolded him for being “a creep”, which just made taehyun scoff and shake his head; doesn’t he understand that taehyun is just trying to protect you? he makes kai come along with him to prove that he’s working in his doll’s best interest, doesn’t kai see how sweet and kind you are, how smart yet so, so dumb? you surround yourself with the worst people, in taehyuns opinion, always trying to get you to do the riskiest things. and you let them boss you around, make bad decisions, because you’re just too sweet to refuse.

just as quickly as taehyun falls, hueningkai falls too. and while taehyun was reluctant to share you initially, he soon realized that protecting you was a lot easier when he had a partner.

taehyun and hueningkai were content with watching over you from a distance, at least at first. but ever since you started hanging around him, the two of them have been following your every move. they just have to know if you’re safe, is all. their perfect, innocent little princess, you need them to protect you— especially from this disgusting pervert who puts his hands all over you and whispers in your ear, who makes you giggle and blush in the ways that no one except taehyun and kai should.

taehyun can’t take it anymore. he can’t just watch from the sidelines anymore, letting you get snatched up like a little lamb in the claws of a big bad wolf. he had to step in.

so he and kai came up with a plan to keep you safe forever.

and it was easier than either of them had ever thought. they should have done this ages ago, really, celebrating amongst themselves as hueningkai carries your sleeping body up to their shared apartment. they followed you to this terrible frat party that your “boyfriend” had invited you to, sneering in disgust as they watched him slide his hands up your little dress as you danced together— not a single person had noticed the two of them had come uninvited, everyone too drunk or stoned or busy to care. getting that nasty boyfriend of yours away from you was the hard bit, but they ultimately didn’t have to do anything at all. a beer pong game was enough for your little boyfriend to disappear into the drunken crowd like a ghost in the night.

you’re too drunk to notice taehyun slip the little pill into your drink, busy with your back turned talking to an equally inebriated friend… you down the rest of your liquor in one swig when you turn back to the table.

you begin to grow woozy as you stumble your way through the crowd. you tell your friends that you’re going outside to get some fresh air, that you don’t feel good— but it’s alright, they don’t have to come with you, you’ll be back in just a second.

hueningkai catches you right before you pass out face-first into the grass.

you wake up with your head pounding, rubbing your eyes as your surroundings begin to register— you’re tucked gently into a small pink bed, your hair still damp from a bath you don’t remember taking… you look down at the little frilly nightgown you wore, girly and skimpy with a big pink bow to complete it. you’re surrounded by countless stuffed animals, their beady little eyes twinkling up at you mockingly. from the four poster bed hung shimmery pink curtains, like a princesses, reminding you of the bed you had as a small child— the curtains just sheer enough for you to see more childish pink decorations throughout the frightfully unfamiliar bedroom. the lights are off, but a window lets the light of the rising sun peek in… just enough to illuminate the giant steel lock on the window frame .

just as you open your mouth to scream, the bedroom door opens, two smiling faces you hardly recognize peeking in to greet you.

welcome to your new home.

[updatingranboo]

tips and tricks for ranboo fans to make chat (and the community) a better place!

hello! since the rebrand is coming up i decided i wanted to make a list of certain things ranboo fans should be discouraged from saying/doing, to keep chat/the community fun and keep from pushing ranboo back into the box of a streamer they no longer are. i personally don’t believe in cringe culture, i think everyone should be able to have fun, but at this point certain jokes and comments restrict ranboo from growing as a person and do reflect on the community. this got a lot longer than i was expecting, apologies! lets begin.

gender jokes (“genderman”, you stole my gender etc)

a super obvious one. getting gender envy from ranboo is normal and super awesome! nothing wrong with that. but the jokes have been overused. the genderman one specifically has ties to minecraft which, while ranboo doesn’t care about being associated with minecraft, it’s still a tie to their past content they would prefer to leave behind. this is the same level as calling them an “mcyt”, while there’s no harm in it and ranboo really doesn’t care, it’s also just.. not really true anymore and hasn’t been for years. let them grow!

2. *blank*boo/general spam

*blank*boo is nothing but spammy. all it does is fill up chats and replies and brings no substance to anything. spamming “tiredboo” when they yawn, “madboo” when they yell etc. is not contributing anything meaningful to a chat. it’s annoying and drowns out actually fun and interesting comments. as for general spam, you can use a few emotes here and there! but when all you do is spam emotes it again just floods the chat. when ranboo tells chat to stop spamming, you stop. don’t take it as a challenge, you will just get banned. yes there is delay, but you can see what other people in chat are saying too. spamming lag, telling them they missed a dono, anything where you find yourself repeating what other people are saying to either get their attention or just because (except for using bttv emotes) just don’t. i know most people are used to speaking in a fast chat, but the truth is chat doesn’t have to be fast! if you don’t have anything to say, you can just stay quiet. even spamming the PETTHEMODS emote defeats the purpose !!

3. telling off chat

slightly related, you don’t have to tell off chat either. going “chat stop” “oh my god chat” just adds to the spam. change the subject! ignore the spam and let the mods take care of it. focus on reacting to the stream and being silly, not being backseat mods.

4. the swearing obsession

ranboo is almost 20. they make so many innuendos every stream. they are heavily considering adding a mature warning to most streams from here on out, and as we have seen they no longer are the “family friendly” kid who they used to be. he can say shit and fuck and people can be normal about it. you don’t have to say LANGUAGE or go THEY SWORE ?????? he’s an adult and can swear. all of his friends swear and a huge portion of us in the community do too. it is not a big deal

5. telling ranboo what to do

back seating in video games, as well as in other situations when it’s NOT ASKED FOR is not fun. let ranboo do what they want. this applies to just general things too- you don’t need to tell ranboo to go to sleep. they can make that decision themself. again, he’s almost 20.

6. assuming ranboo is uncomfortable with something

it’s always good to be careful about respecting boundaries! but don’t confuse your own boundaries for theirs. ranboo has said many times that if something bothers him, he’ll talk about it! it’s safe to say they are more uncomfortable with you harassing an artist for drawing something you personally don’t like, over the actual art itself.

7. the chat hopping/mentioning ranboo unnecessarily

we all love ranboo. that is very obvious. their friends love them too! but when you go into one of ranboos friends chats or comment sections and start either asking about ranboo, telling his friends to play with them, or making unnecessary references to their content, it makes their friends want to do things with them less! streamers are their own people. there’s nothing wrong with watching one of ranboo’s friends streams because ranboo is there, i do it all the time. a lot of us do. the biggest thing is to be RESPECTFUL to the person who’s stream you are watching. if you chat, chat to the streamer! you don’t have to mention ranboo. or, just stay out of chat if you don’t think you’ll be able to stay on topic. you don’t have to speak in chat! there is the flip side of this, don’t bring up other streamers in ranboos chat unnecessarily either! no one cares if you saw two colors and it made you think of something unrelated. it’s so disrespectful to the streamer to do this.

8a. unnecessary negativity

the internet can be a very negative, reactionary place. seeking out negativity just for the sake of an argument is unhealthy and can also expose others to arguments that they wouldn’t have had to see. bait, obvious unchanging bigots, and also people who just don’t like ranboo (which is valid!) don’t need to be engaged. in the case of trolls, bait and bigots, they only bring negativity and are there to cause arguments. don’t give them the attention they want. As for people who just don’t like ranboo, you can leave them be too! Not everyone has to like ranboo. he can handle it, you don’t need to defend him or try and change someone’s mind. now, unnecessary negativity does not equal call outs/criticism!

8b. please criticize !

if something happens in the community, or from ranboo directly that hurts you or makes you uncomfortable, don’t be afraid to say something and help make us all better people! ranboo wants criticism. if it’s purely in the community, try reaching out to the other person first! often things can be settled privately so as to not hurt others by dragging them into the conversation or making things heated and causing people to attack each other. on the other side of this, if you see criticism from someone and feel the need to defend ranboo: don’t. if you are affected by something (ie. you are a person of color and the topic is racism) feel free to add to the conversation! if you do not have an opinion on something (ie lesbians call out lesbiphobia, and you are straight) keep it to yourself. let the people actually affected by something talk and have an opinion, and support them. it may feel like people are “attacking” ranboo (or you!) but they are not. they are real people with real, valid feelings, who want to feel safe in a community when in real life, they may be constantly victims of horrible things. listen first. if you still have your own opinions, reflect on them and why you feel the way you do, and dissect any implicit bias you may have. these are all important things that keep a community safe, happy, and mutually respectful!

ranboo encourages everyone to be good people and use common sense. remember when you say something, people other than ranboo see it too! every account has a person behind it, so treat each other with respect and help make the community a more fun and safe place for everyone to be in. ranboo has no tolerance for bigotry, racism, misogyny, antisemitism, ableism, and so on. remember to be aware of the things you are saying, and if you don’t know why something is wrong, look it up or try asking someone politely!

thank you for taking the time to read all of this! this list is non exhaustive. there are plenty of other things you can do in the community to make this a better place, from uplifting the minorities in the community more, to supporting artists by reblogging/sharing and commenting on their art, and more. at the end of the day though we are here because we love ranboo, so by following guidelines like these and putting in the effort, you show ranboo and the other people in the community you care and make everyone proud.

that’s all for now! keep boobing!

[l-in-the-light]

Why is Law so afraid to be used and hates to be ordered around ? I think of the scenes in Wano where Kid makes fun of Law being Luffys subordinate.

I love when I get asks casually giving me the biggest questions I had since the first time I reread those scenes haha. Keep them coming!

There's no direct answer to this question stated anywhere in the manga, at least for now. But we can read a lot between the lines. So let's dive in! And I mean it when I say we will take a dive, because I brought up every. single. scene in which Law complains to be ordered around! We will try to find a common pattern here. But first, let's start from "afraid to be used and hates orders" part:

Most important reason is Doflamingo. No surprise here that he's the one behind Law's fear.

We know Law recruited himself into his family and even tells Cora-san he wants to be "Doflamingo's subordinate" and that "he doesn't have to listen to Corazon" because of that.

And we know as well how Doflamingo operates. He grooms his subordinates to die for him. It might be the first time Law heard about that here and it clearly terrified him, he understands that Doflamingo would keep him around just because he obeys him, like an useful tool, not even human.

In comparison, Cora-san showed him compassion and love. It means a lot to Law, who felt he was no longer considered human by other people because of his disease. And here he learns Doflamingo, a person Law somewhat respected, who defended him in front of others who feared to be in the same room as him, would actually also not see him as a human. This must have been a major blow to Law, breaking his trust, yet again, in other people.

Now let's take a look at that:

That's what Doflamingo tells Monett and Vergo to do, just "die for him". That's how he would have groomed Law as well, if Law stayed with him, he would teach him obedience and to follow his orders, just so Law would be ready to sacrifice his own life as well, one day.

And here we have Bellamy, who would also do just about anything to earn Doflamingo's respect, even if it means dying for him. It's possible Law's mercy for Bellamy is related to this: Law was also once in that position himself. And Law would do everything not to be in that position ever again.

Now let's take a look at Law giving orders himself. He does it but only to people he considers lower in hierarchy than him and mostly to protect their lives. He made an equal alliance with Strawhats and in general he tries his best not to give them orders (he does those funny suggestions instead). There's one exception for it though: if situation truly requires it and there's no other option, he will give an order, just like Luffy.

Meanwhile he himself isn't really great at obeying rules and following orders. How many times has he broken the law of blood while staying with Doflamingo's Family?

He doesn't like other people making decisions for him, especially if he doesn't feel ready for whatever they try to make him do.

The "Don't tell me what to do" attitude. To be fair, Luffy's triggered by that as well. They both don't like it when others decide things for them. For Luffy it also applies to setting destination for adventures, Luffy always wants to be the one to decide that himself.

And finally, we reach the very first scene when Law says it outloud: don't order him around! Please notice though that Kid and Luffy say basically the same thing, yet Law directs his complaint only to Kid. He's fine with Luffy saying the same thing, curious, ain't it?

Again, Law is complaining to Kid to stop ordering him. Law's the one who will decide what he wants to do.

And again, complaining to Kid.

One time he complains to Zoro, but this time not because he feels like he's ordered around. He feels like he's a babysitter, constantly having to support others instead of focusing on his own fight. Well, Law, everyone knows you're actually their babysitter in this alliance, a bit late to complain. And yet, despite complaining, he never denies the Strawhats and does what he's told anyway.

"I won't let it slip this time" says Law outloud for some reason, which is very uncharacteristic of him. It's almost like he's doing it for the show.

Let's sum it up so far: Law complains 3 times to Kid, once to Luffy, and once to Zoro (about babysitting in the last case). And let's take a look in which scenes he actually does what he's told to do without complaining:

This time he doesn't even comment on it, just takes Zoro and shambles out.

Zoro tells him he counts on him. Curiously enough it's the exact same phrase Law used all the way back in Dressrosa when he asked Cavendish to just leave him to rot (Cavendish didn't agree with that).

That's just from Wano, because no matter how much I searched, there was literally no scene in Punk Hazard or Dressrosa when Law complained about people ordering him around. None at all. Despite Luffy destroying his plans, dragging him forcefully through half of Dressrosa, and then undermining their ultimate strategy to take down Doflamingo, the only complaints Law had was "what about my cuffs??" and "we will have to face against a very furious emperor!".

And this here, when Luffy decides against what Law told him. Law did get his revenge when he later shambled himself with Luffy's position, just like he originally wanted, instead of shambling himself next to Luffy to do a combined attack (which would have been more effective!). But it was payback, and payback was important.

And then we have this scene, in which he just voices his feelings outloud instead.

Now that we have gathered all the necessary evidence, I will share my interpretation of this: Law has no problem usually with Luffy, even when Luffy acts really selfish, destroys his plans and Law has to babysit him. He simply takes it like a man, without complaining about his fate that he chose for himself after all (Law was the one to propose the alliance in the first place, he knows the responsibility is his!).

Curiously enough Law also has no problem with Luffy in Sabaody. That might be because he feels grateful to him there, after all he even gives half the credit for freeing Jean Bart to Luffy. Luffy might have gotten them into trouble in the first place, but Law instead thanks him "for showing him something interesting". That "something interesting" wasn't only about punching Celestial Dragon, but also defending Hachi when people around were afraid of him and crying out bullshit like "he will spread diseases! Don't come closer!!". Law heard those phrases as well when Corazon was searching for cure to Law's amber lead syndrome. It probably triggered a flashback for him. Seeing Luffy punch a Celestial Dragon and with that punch also defending Hachi must have reminded Law of what Corazon did back then as well: punching some doctors for Law. Law probably "let it slip" when Luffy said the same thing as Kid, because he was simply grateful. Meanwhile, he doesn't want to owe anything to Kid or be grateful to a person who talked shit about Law behind his back.

Okay, but then what about Wano. What's Law's problem in Wano all of a sudden??

His problem has a name. That name is Eustass Kid. As soon as Kid became part of the raid, Law is behaving differently and complaining about being ordered around. He comments stuff outloud, he starts to openly compete, he makes a big show of getting angry at Luffy for ordering him around (which he never did before!), complains he's a babysitter... and as soon as Kid is gone to fight Big Mom, Law is back to his normal behaviour again. For me this proves that if Kid wasn't there, Law wouldn't even say that line in the first place.

Let's take a look again at this scene:

Law is complaining to Luffy while making sure their eyes are on same level. He's basically saying "this is an alliance, we're equals, don't give me orders in front of Kid, it makes me look bad". Kid is an outsider, Law has bad beef with him ever since Sabaody, he wants Luffy to be more mindful about Law's own feelings here. Funny thing is, Luffy quickly gets the drift, proposes the stupid chicken game which actually works on freaking Eustass Kid which surprises Law.

Just look at him looking at Kid. Luffy ended up being involved in the conflict between Kid and Law, and took Law's side in it, but not in an obvious way: he made it a competition for all three of them, yet pulled a move on Kid that he couldn't refuse. Luffy is pretty smart at reading people and he basically put Kid back in line here, but he did it only because Law complained. That's because in their alliance Law and Luffy always has each other's backs, and Luffy proves it yet again, not leaving Law alone with this.

So actually Luffy's reaction of "How does that even matter?!" is very justified, because it's literally the first time ever that Law complained about "following orders" to him. And he figured out the reason fast: it was because of Kid's presence.

Now let's dig into one more thing. Kid clearly plays with the idea that Law and Luffy are so close that they seem like they're in one crew. But the way he phrases it is very offensive: he suggests Law is Luffy's subordinate, just like Law was once a subordinate to Doflamingo (again, not bringing up any fond memories here). Meanwhile Law tries to make a point: they're equal, no one is above the other. Luffy actually also minds the "subordinate" part as we can see from his "WHAT" reaction there. He doesn't like the term subordinate nor the term scrub either. For Luffy, his crew are his friends, they're equal most of the time (the only time Luffy actually uses his right as the captain is when he chooses which island to visit or who to fight), they sleep in one room, they do chores all together, damn, his crew can even punish Luffy if he does something stupid that endangers them! Luffy's crewmates are definitely not his subordinates, not in Luffy's eyes at the very least. Is Kid just mean here by calling them "subordinates" or does he actually think of his own crew as subordinates and that's why he uses that word here? Who knows, Kid likes to be full of shit, so maybe he said it knowing exactly well what effect his teasing will have. But he is right about one thing: Law and Luffy in Wano really work together like they're one crew.

Last important thing: Law is a captain and he learned long time ago from Wolf (his father figure he respected a lot, who gifted him the submarine): captain has the image to uphold and responsibility over his crew. Law has his own crew, Heart Pirates, and he doesn't want to be seen as incompetent person who can't even make his own decisions. It's about not losing his face in front of others, something that is important to him, and he commented on it as well in Dressrosa when he said he will at least take care of Trebol. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to face his own crew, feeling like he failed them. His crew holds him in very high regard and he doesn't want to disappoint them, despite the fact he probably isn't sure if he can always meet their expectations.

Yet he tries his best to cooperate with Kid and proposes him a temporary alliance. He dislikes him, he doesn't want to look bad around him, but also he wants the chance to show off/not lose face as well, not leaving everything up to Luffy. But he will remain super petty in his "alliance" with Kid. For example, he won't be talking to him on same eye level, like he does with Luffy. His body language really betrays his feelings towards other people.

Now, you might ask, but why does Law dislike Kid so much? Law doesn't really act nice to strangers in general. Luffy is basically an exception and even then he's almost never cheesy with his words (not counting his big declaration in Dressrosa), instead showing his appreciation of Luffy in not so obvious actions.

But there might be a particular reason why Law is so salty towards Kid in particular. Kid didn't exactly leave a good impression on Law in Sabaody. Not only he talked about him behind his back (and Law could hear that), he also accused him of bad manners. Rewind to Vergo always trying to chastise Law about the exact same thing. Kid voicing it out must have left a really bad aftertaste, so bad that Kid is literally one of the only two people Law flipped off his finger at. Kinda tragicomic, because I think Kid thought he's saying a compliment (he seemed to have a respect for him), but it was completely misunderstood. It might take those two a hundred years to finally talk it out heh.

That's my best shot at analyzing it. Summing it up, Law doesn't like to feel controlled (all thanks to Doflamingo betraying his trust), he's afraid to lose his face in front of his own crew, he doesn't want to be used as a tool (he's fine supporting others in battle, but he wants his own liberty with that and wants others to trust him to make the right judgements), and he also simply hates being ordered around by Kid for a number of complex reasons. Also there's this running theme with Law and his ope-ope fruit and it's ultimate technique. People basically treat Law like disposable goods because of it: only good for performing the operation, even at the cost of Law's own life. All things considered I think it's not so strange that Law gets really nitpicky with any attempt even close to objectifying him, even if people don't mean it that way. On the contrary, every time he doesn't act this way, he shows how much trust he has in his allies or even how willing he is to ignore his own feelings as long as people close to him are fine.

I hope you enjoyed reading about it, anon!

[lover-of-mine]

Okay, I said I was gonna make a post about the way I believe Ryan is playing Eddie as in love with Buck because of the way he makes certain choices about Eddie regarding Buck that are similar to the ones he made about Eddie regarding Shannon, and this is it.

The whole thing started with the way Eddie looks away from things that make him experience intense feelings, but mostly when he doesn't like what he's feeling in a sense. He looks away from Shannon all of the time, when they're fighting, before she goes to the school, and in the firehouse, when she says she wants a divorce.

He's avoiding his parents eyes when they are trying to take Christopher, he looks away from Frank all the time.

He can't look Buck in the eye when Buck is trying to tell him that Chris got lost in the tsunami, he looks away from Ana because he knows he's hurting her (he does force himself to watch Shannon as she dies but I feel like that's a lot more about his loyalty/instinct to protect because that moment is fully about her because she's dying).

That's a consistent trait Ryan gave Eddie, he looks away, I think it even makes sense with the way Eddie runs away from stuff. And that makes moments when he's avoiding eye contact with Buck that much more interesting.

Because take 3a for example, buddie has quite a few emotional conversations, but during those, Eddie is mostly always staring Buck down or actively trying to force Buck to look at him (except when it comes to the fight club but the fight club is a lot more about shame in my opinion).

But when you look at the will reveal for instance, Eddie is consistently forcing himself to look back at Buck. His instinct seems to be to keep looking forward, and he needs to remember to look at Buck from time to time. (I'm not gonna put the whole scene here, but go rewatch and pay attention to where Eddie is looking)

And sure, the way Eddie simply refuses to look at anything relating to Buck's death can be seen as just "my best friend died" because any reasonable person would have an extreme reaction to watching their best friend die.

But, I don't see how that applies in the cemetery. Because Buck says "she sees me" and Eddie gives him that disbelief look and then just, stops looking. Honestly, there's no reason for that conversation not to involve them looking at each other, the point that's made that they are looking straight ahead is very interesting on its own but, like, when you add the fact that Eddie looks away from shit he doesn't want to feel/wants to run away from, that conversation has a whole other fun layer.

Even more with the way that Buck is lowkey looking like a kid tugging on your sleeve to get your attention and Eddie just refuses to look at him.

But my point really comes to the fact that these are all the same reaction.

And how do you explain the decision to make Eddie react the same way he does when Shannon is asking him to make a decision about them and then when she makes the decision herself by asking for a divorce when he thinks Buck has made a decision about them so he needs to back off?

That's his breakup face, plain and simple.

And it's not a reaction Eddie has to Shannon once, is something that is consistent with the way we see Eddie reacting to Shannon, and I personally think its a lot of the way it makes us never feel sure about the relationship, because Eddie is consistently presented to us when it comes to this as "I love her but I'm not sure about having her around". And these are his reactions to moments where Shannon makes him question where they stand. Moments where he's questioning if he actually understands where their relationship is.

You can't have Eddie question the nature of his relationship with Buck just because Buck has a crush and tell me that Eddie is experiencing purely platonic feelings.

And these are acting choices, and Ryan is very consistent about the way Eddie reacts to stuff, so the fact that he is wearing his "Shannon is making me feel thing" face says something.

I also said earlier today that Eddie is aware of his feelings because he stops saying emotional things while looking at Buck. Like, after the tsunami he is literally chasing Buck's gaze to force him to look at him, he doesn't look away from him at the grocery store or when they make up after the lawsuit or even after Buck fights with his parents, but starting with the will reveal, he looks away when saying things, and it makes me wonder if there's a level of that that is about making sure Buck can't read his reaction to what he's saying, because he doesn't want Buck to look too closely.

Anyway, that's all for today, as always, if you read this I love you <3

[thalialunacy]

[for the @calaisreno May Prompthagoreum Theorum. Cheers to ya'll for still following along despite it being, you know, June.]

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) 23: apology (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31)

At first, partially because it's 6am, neither of them recognise what Rosie is actually saying. But it's clearly directed at Sherlock, who looks at John from the table with an eyebrow raised.

John shrugs. 'What was that, sweetheart?'

She helpfully points at Sherlock. 'Say sorry!'

'Oh ba--balderdash,' John says. 'There was an episode of that Australian programme about apologising, I didn't think--'

'Be sorry, Sherlock!'

Sherlock looks merely amused. 'What for, Miss Rosamund?'

She moves her pointer finger to John, but her accusatory gaze stays on Sherlock. 'You ate banana.'

'I… ate your father's banana without asking?'

She nods decisively. 'Say sorry.'

'I'm very sorry, John. I shall ask next time before doing anything nefarious with your banana.'

How they manage to keep straight faces, John has no idea, but they deserve an Olympic sodding medal in parenting for it.

'She's not even old enough to really get the concept of apologising,' he says as it occurs to him. 'I can't--'

'Nonsense, she's brilliant. Aren't you?' This last is to Rosie, obviously, as he clears away her cereal bowl.

John rolls his eyes. 'Oh, so now you're in favour of emotional intelligence.'

'When it applies to my--' He smothers a wince, John is certain of it, but rallies immediately. '--my young flatmate, here, absolutely.'

He stands before John can say anything else. 'Time to be off, yes?'

'Sherlock,' he starts a few minutes later, but they're halfway out the door and he knows he's being cowardly.

Sure enough, Sherlock waves it off. 'You're for pickup today, correct?' John nods. 'Good. I've that case, have to go make several witnesses cry.'

John hides a grin, in case his newly-pious daughter is paying attention. 'Try not to get arrested, yeah?'

'I make no promises,' Sherlock calls back as he heads off down the pavement.

---

'John,' Sherlock says that night, once he's changed clothes and washed the distinct aroma of back alley rubbish off himself while John put Rosie to bed. 'You could take a turn from your daughter about the apologising. Be a good example.' His voice is light, but careful. Only a little bit mocking.

John, who is standing in the kitchen making coffee and around whom Sherlock has just reached to avail himself of the biscuits, is certain he didn't hear correctly. 'I beg your pardon.'

'No, you don't.'

John stares at him, mouth a little open. 'This? Coming from you?'

'Who knows you better?'

'No, I mean-- You never apologise.'

'Implying you yourself are a model for showing regret?'

John can practically hear the 'zing' of the direct hit, and it irks him. 'Fine, I apologise for nothing!' He stops. 'No, that's not true, I apologise for some things. A few things. Several things. I apologise for about half of the things!'

'That doesn't even make sense, you realise.'

'Shut up.' He pulls Sherlock to him. 'Shut up, you absolute wanker.' He drags their mouths together for a surprisingly filthy kiss considering how tired they both ought to be.

John has a suspicion, though, and he breaks the kiss. 'What's this really about?'

'Don't know what you mean,' Sherlock says against the skin of John's jaw.

'Sherlock…' He swallows, considers pulling back but isn't sure he'd be able to get through this if eye contact is involved. 'You know she's yours, right?'

Sherlock stills, his cheek brushing John's, and John feels him close his eyes. 'John, you mustn't say things that aren't true.'

'Oh for--' John does pull back, then, pulling on the back of Sherlock's neck and keeping him in check so he can't escape. He waits until Sherlock's focused on his face, on his nose today. 'Here's the thing: You're right. Beyond, you know, the big-- Beyond what we've worked out in therapy, I'm shit at apologising. I'll work on it for Rosie, and for you. Starting with--' He takes a deep breath. 'I'm really bloody sorry I ever gave you the impression I didn't want you as Rosie's father.' He sees and feels Sherlock's sharp inhale. 'I just thought you knew that you already are.' 

'John.' The air leaves Sherlock's body in a stream, warm and damp on John's skin. 'You're serious?' he asks, doubt small but lingering in his voice. 

John clears his throat, breaking their gaze to look down at Sherlock's collar. 'I asked-- Well, the papers have been drawn up, and I owe your brother now which will only come back to bite us in the arse, but--' 

Sherlock's mouth captures his in a desperate kiss, and John finds himself held so tightly he actually feels his heels parting from the lino.

'Sherlock,' John manages when they break briefly for air.

'Sorry, right,' Sherlock says, very near sheepishly, and loosens his grip.

'Don't be sorry, just, you know.' He tilts his head to indicate the hallway. 'Come to bed with me?'

Sherlock's eyes darken with a combination of lust and merriment. 'Where I can do nefarious things to your banana?'

John groans, then turns away and starts down the hall. 'Oh God, dad jokes now? I have so many regrets.'

'No, you don't.'

John smirks and holds the bedroom door open. 'No, I really, really don't.'

[ <3 ]

[bloatedandalone04]

Wrapped Around Your Finger - Part 0.2

Series Masterlist | Original Fic

➪in which anakin returns home from the band meeting with some exciting information about his future while you also receive some news regarding your own.

PSA: strongly suggested to read the warnings before proceeding.

WC; 5.6k | Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡

It was nearing eight when Anakin finally returned home. You look up at him from your place on the new couch when he enters the living room, a small smile on your lips when he meets your eye. “Y/n,” he rasped as he braced his hands on either side of the doorframe. “That was a lot longer than I expected it to be. I’m sorry.”

Shrugging, you place your phone next to you on the couch and gesture for him to come over. “It’s alright, I figured it must be something important if your manager was keeping you,”

He walks further into the room and eyes the dark velvet couch. “When did this come?”

“A few hours after you left,” you answer as he sits next to you. “It came with a coffee and side table, but the delivery guys couldn’t put them together for me. I told them my boyfriend would.” You give him a teasing grin and he shakes his head. 

“Yeah, alright,” he mumbles and leans back. “I’ll have one of the guys come over tomorrow or something and we’ll put together all the new furniture.”

You nod and move closer to him. “Okay,” you trace your fingers up and down his arm that didn’t have any tattoos at all and debate on whether or not you should tell him that you ended up sending in an application to that school in London. If you told him now then didn’t get in, you’d be embarrassed, but then again, you knew he would never let you feel embarrassed about anything, so what the hell. “I sent an application in for that program.”

Anakin lifts his head and looks over at you. “For the one in London?” He asks and you nod. He gives you a somewhat forced smile and reaches over to lace his fingers with yours. “That’s great, baby. You’ll get accepted, you’re too smart not to.”

You grin and press a kiss to the back of his hand. “Still down for coming with me?” He stiffened a bit then tried to play it off, but you caught onto it. “What? Did you change your mind?”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. London would be so fucking fun to go to with you, but I’m not sure I’d actually be able to,”

You furrow your brows. “Why not?”

He looks conflicted for a second before finally meeting your eyes as he sits up straight. “Helena says we’ve been given a few extra locations to perform at. They’ve been added to the tour, basically,”

You give him a confused look. “But the tour is over. It has been for months,” 

“I know, but it’s been extended as of the end of this month,” he says and you break eye contact in order to stare at the floor in slight shock.

“They can do that?” 

“I guess so,” he mumbled. “She also wants us to record more songs as soon as we’ve got a draft ready. Something about needing to keep the hype alive and to get people excited for the new tour locations.”

You nod slowly and turn back to face him, giving him a weary expression. “So, what does that mean? You’re going back on tour?”

Anakin shrugs sadly. “Yeah, in a few weeks,” he confirms and runs his thumb over your knuckles. “But I don’t want this to affect your decision of going to that school, okay? I want to go with you, and I want you to come with me, but I also want you to do this for yourself. You’ve worked too hard to not give it a try.”

A silence passes over the two of you for a few seconds as you try to process everything. 

Anakin was going on tour again, and you had just applied for the writing program. He wanted you to go with him, but he also wanted you to go to London. The course would only be a few months, so you wouldn’t be away from him for too long, but it still didn’t make it any easier. 

“I might not even get in,” you remind him and move so you’re pressed against his side. “And I want to go with you. Who else will silently cheer you on from backstage?”

He pulls you tight against him and kisses the side of your head. “Hopefully no one,” he says. “Your spot backstage is just that, yours. It’s no one else’s….even if you can’t come with me this time.”

You hum and fist his shirt in your hand. “We’ll just have to see what happens,”

-

After you and Anakin spend the rest of the night on the couch and in each other’s arms, you end up heading to bed at one in the morning. It was nearing ten when you pulled yourself out of the empty bed and made your way down the hall, pausing as you passed by the living room. 

Anakin is busy hooking up the TV as you lean against the doorframe, eyeing his shirtless torso. “Wow, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” you tease and watch as he turns to look over at you.

“Wow, look who got up after me for once,” he teased back as he hooked up the HDMI cord. 

“I know, I’m surprised, too,” you say and push off the frame. “Why are you up so early, anyway?”

Anakin plugs the TV cord into the wall before pulling you into his side and pressing a kiss to your lips. “Vin called me a while ago,” he answered. “I answered it before it woke you up, too, and I couldn’t fall asleep after that. Figured I’d get a start on hooking this up.”

He gestured to the TV and you nodded, nuzzling closer to him. “Is he coming over later?”

“Yeah, him and Theo,” he said. “We’re going to write a bit after putting together the coffee table and your shelf, that was the deal I made with them.”

You shake your head and laugh. “Now that is not surprising,” 

He laughs and sets the cord down to give you his full attention. “Hey, have you heard back from that program yet? Did you check your email for any follow ups?”

Your smile drops a bit as you shake your head. “No,” you answer.

Anakin gives you a small grin as he presses a kiss to your temple. “I bet you had the best application that school has ever seen,” he hypes you up and it helps more than he probably knew. You were smiling by the time he added, “You’ll hear back soon, I’m sure, and with good news.”

You grin and he kisses you again, much deeper than the last one. It made it hard to pull away from, but you somehow managed to so you could go make something to eat. 

As you wait for the stove to heat up so you can make pancakes, you go on Instagram and immediately let out a scream at the first post that showed up in your feed. At the sound of your scream, Anakin practically sprints into the kitchen and looks around as if scanning the room for any sign of immediate danger. “What? What’s wrong?”

You look up at him and meet his eye as you say, “You, you’re what’s wrong,”

Anakin gives you a confused look as he takes your phone from you when you shoved it into his hand. He hesitantly takes his eyes off you in order to find out what made you scream like that, and almost immediately felt his face heat up at what he was met with on your phone. “I…oh,”

“When the fuck did you get those taken? And why the fuck didn’t you give me a warning so I could’ve mentally prepared myself to see that?”

Anakin’s lips sport an embarrassed smile as he hands your phone back to you. “I didn’t realize that they were posting those today,” he says, referring to the photos from the shoot he did during his last week on tour. He was called in for a quick interview with SLACKERS Magazine and had a couple pictures taken to go with the interview, but he completely forgot about it until now. 

It was done on the day you were stuck in the bus with food poisoning, so you really had no idea he had even done this, and he probably should have given you a heads up, but he genuinely just forgot. The photo that was on the cover was one of him shirtless and covered in mud, and he was surprised that he actually had a lot of fun taking those pictures. That was his first time on a photoshoot set, and he knew it wouldn’t be his last. 

“You didn’t realize? What the fuck, Ani! You look hot,” you gushed over him as you scrolled through the pictures again. “You really need to make an Instagram account so you can post these. Imagine all the likes you’d get.”

He instantly shot that idea down. “Not a chance,”

“Oh, come on, Ani, it’s fun! You can read all the sappy captions I’ve written about you over the past four years,” you teased and he just laughed. 

“That’s tempting,” he shook his head with a smile and pressed a quick kiss to your mouth. “I’ll think about it.”

You playfully roll your eyes and push on his chest. “Don’t be such an old man and get Instagram,” 

He softly glared at you. “I said I’d think about it,” he called out as he left the kitchen in order to get the TV working before the guys came over. 

-

“Quit being such an old man and make an account,” Vinny mumbled as he scribbled down a potential lyric onto a page of the notebook in front of him. 

Anakin sits up straight, pausing the flicking of his pencil as he looks over at his friend. “You’re the second person that called me an old man today,” he says and ignores the quiet laugh that leaves Theo from his spot on the ottoman. “Y/n called me that, too.”

Vinny shrugged, looking up from the notebook. “She’s not wrong, man,” he replied and tossed the book aside so he could lean back on the couch. “You’re missing out, that’s all. Our band’s account has over three million followers now, and I bet you had no idea.”

Anakin’s eyes widen in shock as he sets his own notebook down. “Seriously? Three million?” He asks and both Vinny and Theo nod at him. “Y/n updates me sometimes, but we were barely at two million the last time she told me.”

Vinny shrugged again and leaned over to sip on his beer. “That was probably before we released Sugar,” he thought out loud. “That song did really well and gave us a lot of exposure on TikTok.”

Smirking, Anakin looks away before he slipped up and told the guys what inspired him to write that song - as if the lyrics weren’t enough of a giveaway. A month before moving to this apartment, Anakin went down on you in the middle of packing and was instantly hit with a song idea after he got you off. He even postponed your offer of a round two in order to scribble out a draft of the song.

He refined it a week later and got the guys to add whatever they wanted to it, and a few weeks after that it was released. 

The song was very obviously about going down on a girl, more specifically, you, and he supposed that was enough to get them trending on that dumb app once again. 

“We should add Sugar to the setlist,” Theo suggested as he strummed the strings on his bass. 

Anakin perked up at that as he dropped the book onto the coffee table he and Vinny put together an hour or so ago and pulled out his phone. “That’s a great idea,” he agreed and knew that would probably be his new favorite song to perform live. He scrolled through the app store and muttered something under his breath before installing Instagram.

After messing around with the app for a bit, he had made his username ‘anakin_skywalker’ and uploaded a photo you took of him when he was looking out the window of the tour bus a few months back as his profile picture. He browsed through his gallery before settling on a selfie of the two of you he took on the last day of tour. You were both smiling and squinting at the camera as you tried to block the sun from your eyes, and it was probably one of his favorite photos of you and him. 

He made that picture his first post with the caption being a simple red heart. 

Anakin was still shocked to see that the band’s account did, in fact, have over three million followers when he followed it himself, as well as Vinny, Theo and you. Once he’s done stalking your account and scrolling through all the photos of you he had never seen before, he sets his phone down and that is when he hears the door to the bedroom open and the sound of fast paced footsteps coming down the hall.

“Anakin! You made an account!” You cheer as you throw yourself onto his lap. “I knew you’d give in.”

He rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around your waist. “Not really, I just wanted to see if we really did hit three million followers. Thanks for telling me, by the way,” 

“Oh, whatever,” you scoffed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Your first post is us! I love that picture.”

Anakin grinned down at you. “Me too, princess,” he kissed you quickly. “But I’m a bit annoyed that I had to put a stupid underscore in my username. Seriously, who the fuck took ‘anakinskywalker’ when that’s literally the most unique name ever?”

“Fan account, probably,” Vinny answered before waving at you. “Hey, Y/n. Will we be blessed to have you join us on tour again?”

You tense a bit in Anakin’s arms, something you’re sure he noticed but didn’t say anything about, thankfully. “Maybe. I applied for this program thing that is set around the same time the tour starts,”

“Ah,” Vinny nods and smiles at you. “That’s cool.”

“It’s very cool,” Anakin corrects him as he slides one hand up to caress the back of your head. “My girl’s the smartest one out of all of us combined.”

Theo tilts the neck of his beer bottle in your direction. “Now that’s very true,” he smiled at you and you shook your head, wrapping one arm around your boyfriend’s shoulders. 

“You think too highly of me, all of you,” you brush off their words and stand up. Anakin reluctantly lets you go and leans back against the couch, eyeing the small tattoo on the side of your wrist as you look at your phone. “Wow, Ani, you’ve already got nineteen thousand followers.” 

“Fuck,” he laughed and looked at your screen when you showed him. “Is it too late to delete it now?”

“Yes,” you confirm and lean down to place a chaste kiss to his mouth. “So don’t bother.”

Anakin tries to pull you back onto his lap, but you just grin at him before pulling away completely and shoving your phone in your pocket. 

“I’ll leave you guys to continue writing and go get dinner,” you say and begin to back out of the room “Any requests?” 

“Get Chinese food,” Theo suggests, adding a quick “Please” once he saw the glare Anakin gave him at his demanding words to you. 

You laugh and lightly slap Anakin’s shoulder, instantly making his glare soften. “Be nice, it’s okay,” you murmur. “Chinese food it is. I’ll be back soon.”

Anakin watched your retreating form until you disappeared around the corner and left through the door. When he turned back to the guys, he found them smirking at him. “Dude, you are so whipped,” Vinny laughed as he picked up his notebook. 

Anakin rolled his eyes. “As if I wasn’t already aware of that,”

“How will you make it without her if she does this program thing?” Theo asks, making Anakin look over at the blond.

He really hadn’t thought about it, simply because he didn’t want to imagine going on tour without you there to cheer him on from backstage. He wanted you to do this program and wanted you to make a career out of it, but he also wanted you with him every day. 

For nearly five years he hadn’t spent longer than a week away from you, and that was including all the times he had to sneak you into his parents house back when you were both seventeen.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a couple months without you. In fact, he was sure he physically couldn’t be away from you for that long. “I don’t know,” he answered as honestly as he could, not wanting to come off as even more whipped for you. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

The guys just nod and go back to writing lyrics and notes, leaving Anakin to get lost inside his own head as he thought about the very real possibility of having to be without you in a few weeks. 

-

A week goes by and Anakin has yet to see what the hype about Instagram is. 

He had over five hundred thousand followers now and still only one post, and even that had over three hundred thousand likes. He really only went on it to do exactly what you knew he would, which is to read your sappy but very romantic captions about him. 

Your latest one was probably his favorite so far, and it was a harsh dig at him. 

Y/nY/l/n: my 21 year old bf finally got ig and already has more followers than me and i’ve been here for seven years. seven. years. let that sink in, show off. you can delete it now.

The picture was one of you and him on the couch, both your tongues sticking out and hazy looks in your eyes. 

He had to laugh because you both looked high, despite neither of you ever touching a drug a day in your lives. Alcohol, on the other hand…well that’s a different story. 

“Maybe making an Instagram account was a bad idea,” Vinny commented as he looked over at Anakin from his place on the chair. “The dude won’t stop stalking his girlfriend’s account even though he lives with her.”

“What did you expect? More than half our songs are about Y/n,” Theo added and Anakin just shook his head and pocketed his phone.

“You’d be the same way if you landed yourselves a girl like her,” was all he said as he sat up in his own chair. 

“Hey, Clara is amazing, too,” Vinny defended his girlfriend, but there was no doubting that yours and Anakin’s relationship is a lot stronger than his and Clara’s. “And Theo is just a lost cause.”

Theo stuck his middle finger up as the two other guys laughed. “Thanks, asshole,” he mumbled as he looked back down at his phone. 

Vinny narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been looking at that all morning, man,” he points out. “Is everything okay?”

Anakin, too, noticed Theo’s recent phone obsession, but isn’t as vocal as Vinny is about that kind of thing, clearly. Vinny had no problem calling people out, and Anakin had to appreciate it to an extent, because he had been called out by him more times than he could count on one hand. It saved his ass many times when he got into disagreements with you and Vinny was the one who told him he needed to apologize.

Theo sighed and placed his phone on the coffee table. “It’s my mom,” he said as he crossed his arms. “She’s been feeling really sick lately and my sister and I are getting pretty worried about her.”

“Damn,” Vinny said under his breath, suddenly feeling bad about calling out his friend now.

“Is she okay? Should you be going back on tour right now with her feeling sick?” Anakin asked as he leaned over and braced his elbows on his knees. 

“She’s just not well, man,” Theo shrugged. “I told her about the tour and she said that I should go have fun and that Mary can look after her while I’m gone.”

Anakin nods and shares a look with Vinny. “We can ask Helena if we can push the tour back a few more months,” Vinny offers, but Theo just shook his head.

“No, it’s alright,” he waved his bandmates off. “I want to go back on tour. It’ll take my mind off it.”

“Okay,” Anakin said and leaned back in the chair. “Just keep us updated.”

Theo nodded as he asked, “Where is Helena, anyway?” 

Vinny shrugged and leaned back. “She’s usually on time, so whatever is keeping her must be important,” 

As if on cue, the door to the lounge opens and in walks their manager, done up in dress pants and a blouse. Her heels are loud against the floor as she makes her way over to them, a smile on her painted red lips and a folder in her hand. “Sorry, boys,” she apologizes as she sits next to Theo around the coffee table. “Traffic is no joke in this part of the city.”

Anakin laughs in agreement as he, too, got held up earlier this morning but still managed to make it to the studio by ten in the morning. “No worries, we get it,”

She gives him a grateful smile as she places her papers onto the table and leans over to scatter them around. “Okay, so you all know that you’re the first band I’ve ever managed, so we’re really learning how to do this together,” she starts, looking up at the three of them. “I was thinking that we need to do something to promote the shows that have been added. The tour ended a couple months ago, and I’m sorry to say this, but Sugar can only get us so far. It was a hit, yeah, but the fans need more. I’m really going to need you guys in the studio and making more music than you have so far. If you want to keep doing this for many years to come, we need more songs out by the time the next tour comes around.”

The thought of not singing or making music in the future was one Anakin didn’t want to think about, so he quickly pushed back his witty remarks and sat up even straighter, giving Helena his full attention as she began to go over a possible option for promo. 

-

You were at home alone and bored as Anakin had been whisked away to yet another band meeting. 

You were organizing your books when your phone went off from its place on the desk. Standing up from your crouched position and pushing away the box of hard covers, you grab your phone and click on the notification. It brought you to your email and your eyes widened a bit when you read the subject. 

Y/n, Congratulations!

Your hand was shaking a bit as you clicked on the email and read the first sentence.

Dear Y/n, 

We are thrilled to congratulate you on your acceptance into the Writing Program here at the Dun-Walsh Academy. 

You nearly dropped your phone as you read through the email about ten times before it really hit you. 

You did it. You got accepted. You did it.

You squeal a bit and jump up and down on the spot while hugging your phone to your chest, wishing that Anakin would hurry up and come home so you could share the news with him. 

Anakin.

You stopped jumping instantly as you remembered that he is going on tour again in a couple of weeks and wouldn’t be able to go with you to London like he wanted to.

“Shit,” you curse to yourself as you read the email again. 

You wanted to attend this school a lot more than you initially thought, but you also didn’t want to go without Anakin. You wanted to go on tour with him again and be his quiet cheerleader backstage. 

“Fuck,” you curse again and walk out of the shared office and into the living room. Sitting down on the couch and picking at your nails, you debate your options.

One; go to London, take the program and miss out on Anakin’s tour.

Or,

Two; bail on the program and go on tour with him. 

You were missing out on something either way. 

There will be other writing opportunities, right?

As awful as it sounds, you would rather choose Anakin over your own future, and that was a scary thought, but it was true. 

You were sitting there for about fifteen minutes before the door swung open and the sound of footsteps was heard. “Baby?” Anakin called out and you sat up a bit and set your phone aside.

“In the living room,” you called back and watched as your boyfriend entered the room not even a second later. “Hi.”

“Hey, pretty girl,” he said back as he leaned down to place a deep kiss to your mouth. He caressed your face as he pulled you back in for another quick peck before grinning down at you. “I missed you.”

“I missed you,” 

He smiled again and moved to sit next to you. “What’d you get up to today?”

You shrugged and picked up your phone again. “Nothing too exciting,” you answer. “Just sorted through a few more boxes.”

Anakin nodded and ran the tips of his fingers along the skin of your bare thigh. Your shorts did nothing to cover your legs from his intense gaze, and you swallow harshly as he mumbles a “That’s good,” in his deep, raspy voice. He leaned in to kiss you again, a much deeper one than before, and you moan quietly against his mouth. He hummed as he pulled away, “I love that sound.”

“Some would say you love it so much that you would put it in a song,” you teased, referring to the fact that he did include a recording of your moan in a song. 

He shrugged, smirking at you as he said, “The world needed to hear how hot you sound in bed,”

“Mhm, sure,” 

Anakin shrugged again before dropping the smirk a bit and moving to hold your hand in his. “Something’s on your mind,” he commented, lacing your fingers together and resting your joined hands on his thigh. “What is it?”

You knew he would be able to read you like an open book as soon as he returned home, so you didn’t bother hiding how you were feeling from him. “I heard back from that school,” you say and watch as he nods, urging you to continue. “I got accepted.”

Anakin stays still as his eyes flicker all over your face. His hand tightened around yours just slightly as he exhaled through his nose before smiling over at you. “I knew you would,” he brought your hand up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “I’m so proud of you.”

Unable to stop yourself, you move so you’re straddling him and his hands are on your hips instantly. “But you’re going back on tour,” you point out. “You can’t come with me to London.”

Anakin gives you a forced smile. “We’ll figure it out,” he assured you, but it didn’t help much. “Yeah, I’m going on tour, but that’s my future. This is yours.”

You bite down on your lip as you process his words. “But we’ve never been away from each other for that long,” you nearly whisper. “Not since we were in high school.”

“It’s okay, baby,” he promised, kissing your forehead. “We’ll be fine, we always are. It’s only a few months, and I think Helena said that one of the new tour locations is in London, so you can come see that one. I’ll need my biggest fan at one of the shows, at least.”

You nod and wrap your arms around his shoulders. “I’ll give it up for you,” you murmured. “You know that.”

“I know you would,” he responds and pulls you against his chest. “And I love you for that, but I can’t hold you back from making a potential career out of this. I couldn’t, not after you’ve been so supportive of me and the band.”

You sigh and rest your head on his shoulder. “We have two weeks until the tour,” you inform him. “Two weeks until I need to be in London.”

Anakin pulled you even closer, inhaling your sweet vanilla scent he knew he would be missing for months. “Then we better start making up for lost time now,” 

And that was how you found yourself completely exposed to his lust filled eyes as you break in the new couch by fucking him on it. 

Your clothing was strewn around the room and some of it hung off the couch as you sunk down on him at a fast pace. You were both pent up and anxious about having to spend three months away from one another, and you were putting that frustration into the way you fucked yourself onto him. “I love you, Ani,” you promised as you grind your hips against his. 

Anakin tilted his head so it was against the backrest of the couch, his firm grip on your waist helping you move on him. “I love you, too,” he said under his breath, sliding one hand to the front of your body so his thumb can rub harsh circles onto your clit. “I’m so fucking proud of you, princess. I always am.”

You sigh as you lean down to connect your lips in a kiss. “You feel so good, Ani,” you whispered, brushing your lips against his as you spoke. “Gonna make me come.”

“I want you to, baby,” he rasped, pinching your clit in a way that left you shaking against him. “I want it all over me.”

Your body shook a bit as your orgasm ripped through you, the rolling of your hips stalling as you cried out against his mouth. “Fuck, Ani, fuck,” you whine as he grips your waist to be able to thrust up into you. 

“That’s my girl,” he murmured as he kissed all over your neck, the relentless clench of your walls making his vision blur a bit. “My good girl.”

His sweet praises make you whimper and cling to him tightly. “Anakin, please,” you begged. You were so sensitive, but you also needed to feel him fill you up because you would be missing out on the feeling of him for months. 

You seriously couldn’t believe you were considering leaving him for three months. That’s a whole quarter of a year. Your five year anniversary is coming up next month, are you really willing to spend your half a decade milestone away from him?

“Please…what?” He teased, but his voice wasn’t mocking at all. “What, pretty girl? What do you need?”

Your body shook as you tried your best to hold yourself up. “I need you,” you whispered and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, pulling his body right up against yours. “Need it.”

“Yeah? You need it?” He asked, sliding his hands up your back and pulling you roughly down against him. His lips press against yours with every fuck of his hips and he filled you so well, you didn’t think you could ever get enough of him. “Need me to fill you up? Keep you nice and full for when those London boys think they have a chance with you?”

“God, Anakin,” you moan, rarely ever getting to see his jealous side come out. He never had a reason to get jealous as yours and his relationship was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes, so no one ever tried anything with either of you. Sure, people looked, but that was as far as it went. “Do it.”

And Anakin was never one to deny your wishes. 

With a couple more thrusts he was spilling himself deep within your wet walls and painting you white. “There you go, princess,” he grunts. “Take it.”

You moan breathlessly and release your tight grip on him, softly running your hands through his hair. “Fuck,”

Anakin laughs quietly, wrapping his arms around you and gently rubbing your hips in his large hands. “We’re going to have to do that non-stop until we’re both satisfied enough to be able to not have sex for three months,”

You smile at him, brushing your nose against his as you say, “I’ll come visit whenever I can. Honestly, I don’t think I can go that long without you,”

“Me either,” he agreed. “Please, come visit me whenever you can. I’ll buy the plane ticket or whatever you’ll use to come back to me, but please, come visit me.”

You nod and nuzzle your face in the crook of his neck. “You know I will, Ani,”

While you were both reassured for now, doubts and worries were beginning to linger in the backs of both yours and Anakin’s heads, but neither of you would ever admit it.

[adickaboutspoons]

I object to the term "whim"

In episodes 4 and 5 of the second season, there's a lot of throwing around of the word "whim." Ed and Stede both argue that they were just a whim to the other, Stede concludes they they are both "whim-prone" and that whim-prone people shouldn't run off to China together, and Ed cites their "whim-prone"ness as a reason to take things slow as they start to rebuild their relationship.

And I know we all like to joke about U-Haul failboats in love, but they aren't whim-prone. That's not what's going on here.

The first time on the show that we hear the word "whim" is in s1e4, when Izzy says "For years, I've followed your every whim, I've managed your increasingly erratic moods, I've massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment." But from what we see of Izzy's interactions with the crew, he's not a massager, he's a sledgehammer, and the crew respect Blackbeard a hell of a lot more than they respect Izzy. Ed's moods don't read as "erratic" at all if you pay attention to what he's responding to; he's an emotional guy, for sure, but mostly even-keeled until highly provoked. And as for "following [his] every whim," Izzy can barely follow orders as given - committing insubordination at least twice that we see; not telling Stede that it was Blackbeard that wanted to meet him in s1e3, and flat-out ignoring Ed's "we're not doing this" in s1e6 when he challenges Stede to the duel. So I don't see Izzy as a reliable narrator when he suggests Ed is "whim-prone" - it might look like that to him because he doesn't try to understand Ed on his own terms, but it is v. much a construction that Izzy is imposing on Ed; not an objective character trait Ed possesses. After all, you don't get a reputation for being "history's most brilliant tactician" if you're not, at the heart of it all, a planner.

Stede is also a planner. Mary accuses Stede of abandoning his family on a whim, but that's also inaccurate. Thanks to all the hard work @nicnacsnonsense did in her marvelous 1st season timeline video, we know that SIX MONTHS elapsed between Stede proposing with his model boat that they go to sea at the anniversary debacle and the night of Mary's apology when Stede had already committed to actually leaving. That's not a whim - that's plenty of time for serious deliberation. It LOOKED like a whim from the outside because of their disastrous communication failures, but that doesn't make it true. Unabandoning his family was not a whim either - Chauncy was the catalyst, but only because he created a high-pressure situation that validated all of the insecurities we'd seen Stede struggling with all season; guilt over abandoning his family, and his crater-bottom self-esteem that the people he loved were better off without him. Even in season 2, we see more of this long-game behavior, where Stede takes his drudge job in towels and elevates it by applying scent; a move that LOOKS whim-prone from the outside, but primes him for success when it comes time to escape, because it means he knows the guards are used to deeply inhaling the scent of the fresh towels he gives them, and is thus he is able to trick them into chloroforming themselves.

There are times in the 1st season where it might LOOK like they are being whim-prone, but for the most part, those things are mostly time-critical circumstances . The impulsive decision to go to the French Party Boat? The invitation was for that night, so it's not like another opportunity like that was just going to come along. Stede's impromptu Fuckery? He'd JUST been introduced to the concept that morning, and the ships on which he wanted to try it out were three days away. If you'll recall, Ed actually tries to talk him out of going through with it with such a short turn-around time, and likely would have succeeded if Izzy hadn't interveined to further his "Kill Stede Now" agenda. The Treasure hunt? Stede was anxiously scrabbling for ANYTHING to keep Ed's attention (AFTER he confirmed there were no oranges for sale, not even for ready money) because Ed said that his plans for the day included "planning for the next adventure" and leaving. Act of Grace? Signing away ten years of your life for a man you've known for a month IS a lot, but the alternative was letting Stede be executed. Running away together? I'll give you that China was quite the absurd swing, but they WERE in jail for all intents and purposes - no sense staying longer than absolutely necessary, and there theoretically could have been time for re-working the plan once they were just away had circumstances not arisen.

So while I think it's fair to call the boys whimsical with their love of dress-up and lovely perfumed things and theatrics and tasty sugary treats, I wouldn't say whim-prone is an accurate descriptor (and the fact that they are accepting that it is makes my heart crack wide open for them, because it's evidence that they're still both uncritically absorbing the labels applied to them by people who don't really understand them at all), nor the problem they need to address.

Their real problem is actually the exact opposite of flitting from whim to whim; that, once they've committed to something, they are all in, 100% ride-or-die. It's why Ed resigned himself to going down with the ship when it turned out he'd miscalculated the date instead of trying any evasive maneuvers with the fog to give them cover. It's why, when Stede didn't show at the docks, Ed went full pillow fort until Lucius was able to talk him around into life going on without Stede. It's why Stede threw himself into trying to be all the things he thought he'd failed to be as a husband and father when he came back to his family, and was committed to staying, even though it was making him miserable, until Mary tried to murder him.

Ultimately, the solution for both these conditions is the same - slowing down. But it's not a matter of making sure this is serious and not just a whim for either of them; it's a matter of taking the time to understand exactly what it is that you're committing to. So I object to the term "whim."

[ghoulisheous]

The term overshadowing in fics or in the show always strikes me as v intentional, when it comes to Danny. Like out of all the powers Danny has. That one has to be the one with the most moral ambiguity.

But Danny always seems a little too at ease about using it. We've seen him use it seriously in dangerous situations. But also more casually too. Because Danny can be very petty at times

Which just brings me back to my point. He always calls it "overshadowing" instead of what it actually is. Possession. And it just feels like an attempt at sanitizing it, for Danny (And correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think it was ever called possession in the show. Probably to keep it as kid friendly as possible. But I think it's an idea that can be applied to Danny's characterization too)

Danny doesn't think he's a bad person. And he's not. He's 14. He works hard. He takes on so much responsibility that no one ever asked him to take on. But he's 14. And he's also grumpy, and petty, and immature. Sometimes he makes mistakes.. and sometimes he makes very intentional, very bad decisions. Because he has far more power than a 14 year old should have

But I don't think he can think of anything he does as really bad or evil in any way. And that's normal. Everyone sees their own best intentions first and foremost

So he doesn't call it possession. He's not malevolent. He's not evil. He doesn't hurt people like his enemies do. He's not blindly following an obsession that leads to hypnotizing crowds en masse, like Ember. He doesn't feed off misery, like Spectra. He's not like Vlad, or Skulker, or any of his other rouges.

So it's not possession

It's just overshadowing.

It's different.

At least when he does it

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Silver Lining 3

Warnings: non/dubcon, speech impediment, bullying and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

Characters: silverfox!Bucky Barnes

Summary: You have an unpleasant encounter with an older man.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

"So your sister will be coming by next week with the little ones," your mother declares as you stand at the sink, scrubbing away the remnants of roast beef and potato. "You'll get to play auntie for the day."

"Mhmm," you nod, "what about Justin?"

"Oh, your brother's down visiting with his fiance's family. He said he'd try to make if for Christmas Eve but you know how her family is."

You sniff and pretend to know. You really don't. It's all hearsay to you. You don't hear much from either siblings; they have lives, you just happen to be related.

"S-sounds great," you utter as you put another plate in the rack.

"Oh, honey, you should just use the dishwasher," she says.

"It's f-f-fine, this works," you insist.

"Well, what about you? What are you up to?" She leans on the counter.

"I..." you don't know what to say. You need a lie, anything to appease her. Your brother's engaged, your sister has the white picket fence and you have nothing, "oh, I h-have a job interview."

"You do?" She sounds thoroughly disbelieving.

"Uh, yeah, w-well," you stammer through, trying not to give away your deceit, "since n-no one wants to h-hire me in my f-field, I f-found something new."

"That's exciting," she chimes, "what is it?"

"Uh, I w-want to see i-if it turns out b-before I say," you give a tight-lipped smile, "don't want to d-disappoint you again."

"Sweetie, you're not a disappointment," she hums, "I'm always happy to see you trying."

You look down at the sink and shrug. Behind that comment is the inference that you weren't trying before. That you haven't been. The long nights with vivid nightmares don't exactly motivate you and you've been all but blacklisted as an executive assistant. Even admin roles aren't responding. Even if you do get a bite, the job market is drawn out and tedious.

"Thanks, mom."

"Just... try not to mope around the kids," she chides, "it's Christmas."

You flutter your lashes, "sure, mom."

That's what you are to everyone; weak, pathetic, useless. No, don't do that. You'll make another appointment with Lisa, she always knows what to do.

☕️

Well, this is it. A last resort. One of those freelancing websites that pays pennies. It's better than nothing and will keep you from having too big a gap on your resume. You could easily do the writing gigs, easy money for transcription. You apply to a few of those and scroll on.

You sit up as you see a particular posting that interest you. Oddly enough, the pay isn't half bad. It's also labeled as 'may lead to ongoing work'. Well, well, well, now that's something.

You click into the posting for 'Podcast Script Writer' and review the details. A sample is required for application and lucky enough, you have lots of those hanging around. If it wasn't for your stammer, you'd have an episode done by now. You deleted enough recordings to the point of giving up. Well, this is a solution. You can get your work out there without having to embarrass yourself.

You go through the application, putting in your info and editing a draft before attaching it to the application. You just hope it's thorough enough. You never really let anyone else see and hitting submit makes your stomach flip. With the final click, you close your laptop and quickly get up. Alright, you're not going to dwell on it. If you hear anything, you'll worry then.

You try to read but can't focus. It just makes you think of the posting and your application. Oh jeez, imagine you're rejected but worse, they tell you you've done everything wrong.

Appointment! You can't forget that. You login to the app and put in a request for a Zoom appointment that week. Alright, you're getting things done, you can't say you've done nothing.

You put a video on your phone and lean it on the pop out grip, propping it up on your mattress to watch the compilation of sitcom moments cut together on Youtube. Your mind wanders and your eyes begin to sag as the day shrouds you in fatigue. You slip into a shallow doze as the glare of the screen flickers over you.

The distant clack of keyboards and clicking of mouses needles behind your ears. It's as if you're trapped in a bubble of silence, all colours and noised dampened by the unseen wall. You shudder as you hear his voice, the only thing that's clear. Your name crawls up behind the shell of your ear with his breath as his hands settle on your hips. Your body aches as every muscles tightens and your bones lock in place. Please, no, not again...

"Sir..." you try to speak but nothing comes out. He's always tugging your skirt up, his hand is around your throat. You close your eyes as tears stain your cheeks.

You wake with a start, your phone black as the battery's drained from neglect. You sit up and pant, looking around your dark bedroom, the moonlight limning shadows sinisterly. You gulp and fall back, watching the ceiling as the tears rise in reality and sting your eyes.

If you'd just said no. A simple word. Even you can manage that.

You lay for a while until your restlessness boils over. You get up and plug in your phone. The screen lights up as you rub your eye socket and yawn. There's an email notification in the taskbar. Probably more ads for things you can't afford.

You pull down the menu but find ‘Application Update’ emblazoned across the notification. Oh wow, that was fast. You keep yourself from tapping on the email.

You don't know if you can handle another rejection. You'd rather languish in the uncertainty. You've been doing so for so long, it almost feels safe.