#like yes normalize it but to me it often feels kind of forced bc i don't need that sort of affirmation in my fics idk

[craetor]

if you’re interested in seeing some more blind!light, i recommend trashking’s in the eyes of god! brilliantly written and a really interesting exploration of how light would deal with losing his sight as kira

Yes, I actually do have it in my bookmarks already. I don't think I'll get to read it anytime soon, though. I also feel like I'll need about a week to prepare (my body yk) for that one because, just by reading the tags, I know it might hold a kind of vibe I need to conjure a certain amount of patience for.

[kelseytheballerina]

woa kelsey what happened

2pretty -> kelseytheballerina, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now. I’ve been over the 2pretty name for a while now and just ready for something that feels more ‘me’.

my YouTube channel name will match this one now too, so angelkels -> kelseytheballerina

I want to get a refresh on this blog so I’m going to private everything while I go through it all and make them public again as I decide what I want to keep. This account has been feeling pretty stale to me for a minute. Like we can do better than this!

I’ve decided to close down my patreon as well. As much as I sincerely appreciate everyone who has supported me there (like wow that’s so kind of you all???), I just don’t use it often enough and I dont feel comfortable charging you lovely people for something I barely log in to. I really do prefer having all of my content here as a one stop shop where everyone can view and enjoy it as normal, no payment required :) Again, I am so grateful to all of you who flocked to the patreon and supported me but I think it’s just not what I’m into right now. Your generosity has meant a lot to me and I hope no one is upset by my decision. I'm still doing pen pals though ♡

I had 27 (yes, TWENTY-SEVEN) videos made and ready to go but I accidentally lost them ALL. Hours and hours worth of content…gone. Just like that. When I tell you that I was in a depressed rage for the past 2 weeks…it doesn’t even begin to cover it. Like who wants to redo all that work? My maternity leave for ballet is ending so I was taking the time to batch film and now it’s just like…that was a waste of time. I couldn’t even open my computer for a while bc I was so upset. You don't understand, I've never felt this defeated before omg. I finally mustered up the morale to re-record but I kept leaving out shots, forgetting things I wanted to say, it just wasn’t as good as the original and that was sooo upsetting. Anyway I can’t stay upset about it forever so I have to force myself to get over it and just start remaking them as best as I can. Just know that even though I’m moving forward, inside I am the physical manifestation of gritted teeth, white knuckles and veins popping out 🙃. Did I buy a new external hard drive? Yes ma’am I did, with a swiftness!!

[nikethestatue]

What if SJM is enjoying the ship war because the BC is a taste of what’s to come in the book? My biggest fear is that the next book will have too much Gwyn. I find her extremely annoying and my biggest fear is that, even if she’s a lightsinger and/or evil, the book will have too much of her. I understand that she serves no role in Elain’s journey, but since the book could also include Azriel’s pov, she could have a big role in his journey. I don’t know, if she serves a purpose only on Nesta’s journey, then why include her in the BC? Half of the BC is almost entirely about her and Azriel. If that’s what the book is going to be about, it’s a hard pass for me, and I’ll come to Tumblr and “read” the book through your posts. I don’t think I can read a 600 page book where half of it will make my blood boil.

one thing to remember is that SJM often 'preps' things WAY in advance. Like way, way, way in advance.

You heard about Dusk Court in ACOMAF for the first time. A throwaway line when Feysand went to the Prison. Then, in ACOWAR, there was some mention again. But this time, of Fionn and Theia. There was a mention of Gwydion.

The idea that mate bonds aren't perfect was first put out there in ACOMAF. Then in ACOWAR, you have more conversations about it. And we STILL haven't had a story about that.

In ACOMAF, Feyre mentions that Amren and Nesta would be friends.

What I mean to say is that books pass, sometimes MANY books, because certain people and storylines are picked up again. So I wouldn't worry about Gwyn in Elain's book. I don't think she will be featured much, tbh. If at all.

I think Gwyn might be slated for a totally different story. I think it's still a story around that Valkyries. And if the Valks will be the 'witches of TOG' in ACOTAR, that story will be about a female fighting force.

Yes, Gwyn was in the bonus. But so was Rhys. And Clotho, who plays a significant role in not just the bonus, but in the overall ACOTAR story. How do we know that the bonus wasn't more about Clotho, who oversees this enormous mysterious Library, who has the confidence of Rhys and who was horribly mutilated over some secret, not to mention who played a huge part in Nesta's recovery, AND might be a daemati.

Maybe we were conditioned to look at everything through the prism of the shipwar?

What if SJM was pointing HERE, but we are looking THERE.

What if Clotho is a surviving Valkyrie? One of the original ones? What if she is a witch?

That's what I've been doing lately--and been very conscious of it--not to look at the text the way we've been looking at it for 4 years. Because EVERYTHING's been colored by the shipwar, and it was not something SJM intended for. So, what is the text ACTUALLY telling us? Where should we be paying attention?

WHY was Clotho in the bonus at all? If SJM was really gunning for some romantic Gwynriel interlude, then why not structure the chapter very differently?

You have all signs of 'charming irreverence' disappearing from Gwyn the moment Azriel turns his back. Why? Why no longing looks? But instead, Gwyn looks at the ribbon like it's an opponent. Why note that the shadows didn't warn him about her presence?

Then, instead of giving the necklace directly to her--which is kind of normal, if it's a romantic coupling--he has this whole mysterious exchange with Clotho. Gives HER the necklace. And then suddenly feels better for a moment.

The question is--what was SJM REALLY trying to show in the bonus beyond just Elriel? Was it really the Gwynriel mate bond? OR, was it turning our attention to not one, but two people with strange powers, who live in the same place and have a mysterious background.

I think we need to start caring less about Gwyn and Gwynriel, because that's not what SJM was writing. Whatever her story will be, it wont be the one that GAs have been feeding the masses for the past 4 years.

[utilitycaster]

Whoaaaa holy shit something just snapped into place reading you mention the concept of creating a shape of negative space bc i've been thinking so long abt the "unspoken things/quiet part" of characters. I've often had this feeling that fandom will go a million and nine yards to red string board an ocean of depth for their favorite blorbo over.... what comes down to what's technically extrapolating based off of xyz canon, but said canon will be like "this character fidgets once, half his dialogue is quoting an in-universe play he tries to recreate (by ruining ppl's lives), and he doesn't understand why someone wouldn't want to be called a monster, therefore he is AUTISTIC and that drives his logic," or "this character has xyz vague background and is TRAUMATIZED because of WAR" inventing an entire character and it's like. Oh boy. This might be a matter of not being invested enough in these characters to TRY and delve so "deep" but I keep thinking that none of this is actually. written or feels purposeful in the context of How Storytelling Works/the Narrative to MAKE me invest or think that it's worth doing so. I always wonder how many people are trying so hard to project a better story onto something without understanding that the story actually needs to BE THERE and ADDRESSED, even subtly, and token moments aren't enough. But then that gets me thinking about how Thereness needs to exist for something to be subtle but written as opposed to Conspiracy off loose projection.

I was kinda thinking abt Laudna and how to use her as an example, because she's one of those characters for whom like, yeah I as a person totally understand the cycle of being upbeat and normal and everything and then having a random spiral of Bad Upstairs before being normal again, but narratively how do you portray that and why does everyone do it so much better than her. With equal screentime, everyone feels like they have so much more meat to their motivations and psychology despite some being significantly less fraught backstory wise. What's happening here because things just feel like they come out of nowhere with her with "oh so that matters all of a sudden?"

Hi anon,

Yes to all of this! With regards to your first paragraph - I feel that a lot too. It's a tricky situation because I think it's completely valid to project things onto characters and imagine them to have specific qualities that either you have or simply that you wish to see in fiction. It only becomes difficult in a fandom sphere when people insist that this is a fully evidence-based endeavor and not a personal interpretation (especially because a lot of that evidence is, as you say, either very much open to interpretation, or else totally spurious. The number of times I've had to shoo people off my posts for talking extensively about how an immensely self-absorbed character who never thinks about others unless forced to clearly has ADHD...but I digress). And as for the conspiracy element, especially when works aren't as good - absolutely. If you haven't read this, which I reblogged a few weeks ago (has Good Omens 2 spoilers) I highly recommend you do because what you're saying resonates a lot with OP's post, both in terms of our need as fans to project or find similarities with characters, and the fact that when people are disappointed by a work sometimes they try to create a better one, but instead of just writing fanfiction and calling it fanfiction they go full conspiracy theorist and assume there's some secret twist, and fall so hard into that all-crumbs-no-schnitzel (to borrow a metaphor from that post) fanon echo chamber they forget it is, in fact, only fanon.

Which brings us to Laudna. Before I go deeper I want to cover three things. First: for me at least, this criticism comes because I know Marisha is capable of doing this negative space work. It didn't come up much with Keyleth since we kind of knew her whole deal very early (which, to be clear, is valid; not every character needs this), but it's present with both Beau (her relationship to her father is masterfully done; the hallmark of good negative space work is that when the reveal comes you say oh of course) and to a lesser extent Patia, who, like all the Calamity characters, conveys a story much greater than the one that unfolds over a single night. Second: I think part of why a number of us in the fandom are so frustrated is that we have been doing that work of generously interpreting Laudna since the beginning, but nothing ever sticks, so it's becoming less and less worth the effort.

I'd have to go back through my archives pretty extensively, but early on, the going expectation for Laudna was that she would explore the idea of being one of the bystanders in a larger story as someone killed simply because of a passing resemblance to someone the Briarwoods wished to send a message to; that we'd get insight into Whitestone during the occupation from someone who wasn't freed by Vox Machina but rather killed, indirectly, because of them. However, not only have we not gotten that, but she also was chosen for being special: Delilah chose her as a vessel because of her inherent sorcery. So then it was perhaps about that tension between finding power in her sorcery vs. warlock levels - Pâté seemed like a clear setup for Pact of the Chain, after all - but then Marisha admitted she had no intention of taking that third warlock level, and always just planned to play Laudna as exclusively leveling in sorcerer, until FCG attacked. And meanwhile, there's no exploration of those sorcery powers, either.

Speaking only for myself, I've been interrogating "hey, why is her backstory that she was chased out of everywhere but for the most part everyone is mostly fine with her?" and "in 30 years she did nothing about Delilah? Really?" for quite some time. There's a number of questions that are not just unanswered, but lack the hints that this negative space work would provide. And to be clear there are ways to explain those things! This meta does a good job of talking through why she may have been chased out, and I've floated, in the past, that even Delilah's unwelcome presence was better than the absolute silence of being truly alone. But the work to support these fandom theories, again, is not really being done at the table, and moreover, even if it starts being done...it's episode 70. It should have come up in some capacity.

Marisha said (to be clear, somewhat jokingly) in the 2022 ComicCon panel that "Yeah. I don't want to think anymore. I'm tired," re: Laudna but the thing is...honestly, in my opinion? A character with Laudna's premise requires far more work than Beau or Keyleth to do well. Not only is she tied into one of the most famous events and entwined with one of the most famous villains of Campaign 1, but she's got 50 years of backstory! Beau and Keyleth are in their early 20s! (I could make a whole other post about this but character intelligence does not equal how hard they are to play; Imogen is an immensely tough concept that Laura's doing a good job with and she's lower INT than Laudna. I'd rather play a wizard than a character like Grog any day of the week because I genuinely believe that the acting burden for making a character like Grog sympathetic and believable without going into cheap mockery and parody is immense).

Going back to that statement, it really does feel as though every 4-Sided Dive episode or panel, when Marisha talks about Laudna, it's always just that she was envisioned as being over her trauma, and the premise was always just "make that creepy girl from her nightmare". And even then: it's fine if she'd done that - simply made a creepy character who was here to be creepy and cheerfully macabre - but through gameplay it's become clear that Laudna is not over that trauma (her arrested development being one of many options), and has acquired new traumas to boot, and for that matter never was really over it given that she displays intensely but they come up so inconsistently that there's never any follow-through. I agree with you completely that the idea of her often seeming fine and happy and then having spirals is believable and true to life, but one does need to actually follow through on the spirals - I think a lot of us finally threw up our hands when Laudna's believable, well-played, and justifiable anger and resentment after being thrown across the world away from half the party, essentially pushed into a fight that isn't her own, being betrayed by Bor'Dor, and feeling Delilah's return melted away without resolution. If you want to make a character who's over their trauma and go-with-the-flow, I feel as though step 1 is to not have an eternal reminder of one's trauma permanently stuck in one's head. "Warlock who dislikes their patron" is actually a premise that requires quite a lot of thinking and effort, and we are consistently not seeing it.

I think what's most telling is that the defense of Laudna for the weird freakout this past episode is both vehement, and in conflict with itself. Is Marisha just making a joke (that didn't really land with anyone at the table nor much of the fandom, and was taken at least semi-seriously by both)? Or is it actually great and good that Laudna is incredibly traumatized and clingy and we should all hope she becomes even more clingy and codependent? When even the people who are shielding Laudna from even a whisper of criticism can't agree what Marisha's doing, it's pretty dire, especially when that criticism is "this character feels directionless and incoherent."

So getting back to negative space: It's my hunch that there just...wasn't a lot of clarity to Laudna's motivations, and the questions in her backstory weren't answered. She's creepy and she's kooky, Sun Tree corpse, Delilah in her head, met Imogen two years ago, was friends with a little girl at some point (which we only know from 4-Sided Dive, which is, to be clear, bad that it's never come up in-game). We don't know how she feels about her sorcery powers other than a vague enjoyment of their creepiness...but she also sees them as a way out from Delilah...but she also barely engages with Delilah and hasn't done anything to get rid of her. We have no sense of how she got to "the worst thing that's happened to me already happened" because while it's completely fair to play her as feeling that way 30 years later, I highly doubt she felt that way as she cut herself down from the Sun Tree. So as a result, it's hard to pick a direction because that foundation is lacking.

The thing about that negative space is that to do it well, you really need to know what you're trying to convey. Which is also why, as you say, characters with much simpler backstories are fine; Fearne was basically hanging out at her grandmother's place until EXU and her parents left when she was very young; she is curious about her parents and loves her grandmother and is a chaotic fey entity who was sent into the Material Plane with the Weave Lens, and mostly she just wants to explore and have fun and hang out with her friends. Ashley just needs to...play Fearne like that, which she does with aplomb. The complex setup for Laudna demands a huge number of answers in the backstory, and my guess is that Marisha does not have them. I think the problem isn't with the acting (in fact, I'm fairly confident it isn't, because, again, I know from past characters Marisha can do this); it's that Laudna's concept prioritized the aesthetic, mechanics, and facts of the backstory, and didn't adequately fill in her beliefs and motivations, so she's just flailing. I also suspect from the most recent 4-Sided Dive and the most recent SDCC panel that Marisha is specifically looking for interparty conflict, and to be clear that's valid...but again, to do that believably and well, Laudna's philosophy and motivations and characterization need to be much more clearly established than they are.

[stateswscarlet]

Not really an accusation, but I think that there isnt enough attention paid in the loa community for lonely people.

I read so many advice to live a life etc but I am honestly so lonely. I only have 2 friends (who have a very busy social life so I don't see them often) and no sp (broke up with me for another girl, while I'm still in love). I try to do hobbies like art, doing a new class, to distract myself a bit and because it's something that interests me, I have dating apps etc, but every time going to something alone or doing activities alone makes me so deeply unhappy, especially now that summer is coming and I see everyone doing things together.

If I had something to do it would make manifestation so much easier, but because I'm just so lonely it's hard not to put my desires on a pedestal

i used to feel like this for the longest time!! I literally remember feeling so mad whenever I would see “go live your life!” early on when i was newer bc as an introvert who has a small circle and is kind of a homebody, i felt awkward forcing myself to do things for the sake of manifestation.

i completely understand how you feel, its super nerve wracking to do things alone especially when all our friends have other friends or have plans/live far. but i promise you, you taking small steps toward doing stuff even once in two weeks will help SO SO much. yes its uncomfortable but if we always stay in our comfort zone we will never get anywhere, both manifesting wise and life-actions wise.

ask yourself why u feel unhappy, is it bc you feel left out? is it bc ur comparing urself to others? is it bc in the past u unconsciously relied on others company? whatever comes up, it is your responsibility to dismantle and shift away from that. theres nothing wrong with liking being with others or preferring it, but theres a difference between that and being upset when theyre not with you. im telling you rn, your friends and sp even if they surrounded you and showered you with love all the time, its never going to stop you from feeling empty or lonely, it may distract you temporarily but it will never fill your cup if youre not already whole and complete without others.

please see your desires as normal and something you can live without and more importantly be HAPPY without. you dont need it, you choosing to be fulfilled is smth youre choosing for yourself, it wont come in and save you and make you any less lonely.

[shadowcatzone]

(the au in which only the high elder of the vidyadhara can get one child in each reincarnation)

-imbibitor lunae being too good to have kids (kids are for losers and distract you from your job uwu) until dan feng who in the beginning thought thought the same before meeting yingxing

Dan feng: fertilize my eggs please.

Yingxing: what

Dan feng: what

-xingyue child having a long list of health concerns from birth. Bc they're born a little early. Some aren't actually health concerns but dan feng overreacting

Dan feng: they squeeze their eyes shut when i feed them a lemon! That's not supposed to happen!!

Yingxing: ...why are you giving them lemons??

Dan feng: for their vitamin c deficiency?? Why else would they be so pale???

Yingxing: ...they were born two days ago. Of course they're pale, just take them outside twice.

Dan feng: but they'll die from the light exposure and also whatever the xianzhou put into their air to keep it clean!!!

Yingxing: ...love.

-I need the cut higher bc tumblr is a slut again-

-this means in modern times, xingyue child has a long list with things that aren't actually an issue anymore. Still in dan fengs handwriting.

Bailu: oh you're allergic to lemons?

Xingyue child: not really, no

Bailu: okay... but, you easily get sunburned?

Xingyue child: no, not that either.

Bailu: so... do you have breathing problems?

Xingyue child: yes actually i do have those.

-xingyue child not forgetting prior lives (which will eventually become an issue.) (There are also vidyadhara that forget MORE often, so there should be some that forget LESS often, right?) Meaning they spend 100 years at most in the egg as their body regenerates. They remember everything down to 'melting' in the egg.

Xingyue child: do you know what melting feels like?

Dan heng: no...? ...Do you?

Xingyue child: yeah. It's pretty fucked up and very painful, pray you never remember.

Dan heng: ??????

-it's getting a little dark past this point-

-xingyue child having been forced into a war/conflict (the idea is that there was a non-canon small scuffle between the zhuming and another party. No longer than one or two weeks.) In this life which gave them ptsd as a child (child soldier??) They were supposed to learn, lets just say craftsmanship as a broader term. Ardens regia was the one to throw them into said conflict.

-ardens regia also being the one to tell one or more of their kid/s to watch over xingyue child. But xingyue child still almost dies on multiple occasions.

-xingyue child returning from battle with multiple wounds, fractures and the like. They're getting heavy painkillers and none of the bones properly get fixed. They end up smoking something for the pains, can't feel anything.

-they also have glass jars with their bones, from their ribs, their arms and their teeth. Takes them out as a "party highlight" (they don't like or have parties) literally threw the glasses into yanqings lap when he visited them once. It was a traumatic experience for yanqing, then for jing yuan who yanqing told it to, then for renheng and bailu, who heard it from the general.

Xingyue child: wanna see my bones?

Yanqing: ...your what?

Xingyue child, throwing a glass jar into his lap: MA BOOONES, those are rib bones, oh, these are from my left hand, these are from my right- oh look, the field doctor even gave me the small piece of my lung back!

-they're dead afraid of jingliu (a post i made a while back) and will not be normal about it, even if jingliu doesn't remember OR didn't mean it

Jingliu: *trying to grab them as they try to walk away from the seat of divine foresight* aren't you-

Xingyue child, jumping back, hiding behind jing yuan: DO NOT! TOUCH! THE BLACKSMITH!! DON'T TOUCH! DON'T FIGHT! DON'T BOTHER!

Jing yuan:

Jingliu:

-the artisanship commission being very loyal to their blacksmiths. You fight one of them? Now the order of you and anyone who has any kind of contact to you will be delayed, indefinitely.

Master blacksmith (that one guy, i think): oh they fought and hurt xingyue child, one of our blacksmiths? That's it guys! Put down everything connected to the cloud knights!

-the blacksmiths can and will close down the forges. And the senior cloud knights know better than to pick a fight with a blacksmith.

-xingyue childs muscles being anything but torn and they're basically doing everything with bone strength alone. They don't realise bc too many painkillers. They. Dont. Feel. A. Thing.

-also meaning the first time they're off painkillers after anyone decided to fix their bones, they can't work. For months. They insist. Doctor says try it, be my guest. They try to pick up blades sword- their thumb hurts in this position, but its fine - try to lift it and their arm feels like. Searing pain. Nothing ripped (luckily) but yeah. Not gonna work for a while.

[nardaviel]

tw eating disorders, weight stuff, OCD

let me paint y'all a picture! there's an observed link btwn OCD and eating disorders. my OCD often centers around health. my mother died of (among eighty-seven thousand other things) diabetes complications, after managing it for my entire life, so despite the lack of a genetic link bc i'm adopted, i am Very Excruciatingly Aware of diabetes. this is all backstory

i had a whole years-long cycle of "your a1c is high enough that you have prediabetes" -> i try to find a way to eat that both addresses this and is sustainable -> it's not strict enough so i start eating badly again -> "hey your a1c is back up by the way" before i finally found a way to get it under control. that way requires extraordinarily strict measures in some areas, not so much because of how nutrition works but just because of who i am as a person and how my willpower works. for years i didn't eat any sugar, ever, at all (except for when i was in japan and bc of sensory issues there was almost nothing else i could eat bc like. what was i going to do, starve (but part of me was like YES???? which is the issue))

i lost a lot of weight like this, but that was a side effect, not the goal. people compliment me on my weight loss all the time and i hate it, bc it's a product of terror and constantly flirting with an eating disorder until i found something that worked. (don't compliment people on their weight loss unless you know they'll welcome it! my aunt lost a lot of weight when she was depressed and got compliments, people lose weight when they have cancer and get compliments, there are all kinds of reasons it could be a touchy subject.) but because i accidentally lost all that weight, it taught my OCD that weight is a marker of whether i'm about to get diabetes and fucking die. when 1. it's a1c actually and 2. you have a prediabetes period where you can get things under control, i've personally done that, and 3. you don't fall over dead the moment you get diabetes. i know all that stuff. but my OCD doesn't give a fuck

so as of like a year ago i have my doctor-approved plan of eating sugar three times a year. the past couple days i ate my gingerbread house and it was like. a transcendent experience. i don't even have that much of a sweet tooth, but when you mostly don't eat sugar it's amazing. ... but it also confuses your gut. so right now my gut is like "what the fuck did you just feed us?? what is this???? hello??" and so i'm aware of my abdomen in a way i'm usually not. and i'm just like. "i've gained thirty pounds over the holidays, haven't i. i can't eat anything but vegetables and whole wheat pasta for the next month, and i need to eat smaller portion sizes of those." i can feel how much fatter i supposedly am. i can see it in my face when i look in the mirror

all of which can lead me down a really, incredibly dangerous path if i let it. so i have to force myself to eat like i normally would, but it's so fucking scary. it feels like i'm poisoning myself. this has happened before and i'm sure it'll happen again, so i know that i'll get over it and feel better and i'll be really glad i did it. but for now i'm so miserable. it's all i can think about

[poplohours]

oh shit since this is tumblr i could hide my insane thoughts about ryuunosuke behind a read more wrt dgs.

i think ryuunosuke keeps trying to appeal to the older men he meets in britain in order to try and regain the sense of stability he lost after he got accused of kazuma's murder as well as everything around "kazuma shoved me in a suitcase and then a literal closet and now i have to carry the reins of this legacy i have no idea how to follow."

ryuu trying to appeal to sholmes and zieks only to be turned away awkwardly bc they're like ... you're ... listen, kid, you're 23, but you clearly have issues, let's just. not. do that. ever. awkward pat on the head. ryuunosuke gets drunk and cries on sholmes. sholmes is sweating thinking about the fact that he kinda sorta mighta covered up a murder of this guy's friend? and maybe that's kind of why he's so hyper-dependent rigth now?

but also i'm insane and think of ryuu and kazuma and go "oh they were bad for each other" because i think that's fun for some reason and get stuck on "ryuu should probably disengage from that kind of intensity and have normal non-romantic relationships for a while." meanwhile susato is trying to figure out how to be a person in another country after being an object to the side of kazuma for most of her life. sholmes is like "ahaha! yes, i can fix this."

no you can't. you can't just fix this. trying to adopt an adult man and a teenage girl forced to be an adult too early is not going to fix anything. the best you can do is give them a place that won't fall out from under their feet.

i'm also weird tho bc ziek never seemed that "racist" to me in terms of the really weird nationalism that soaks the broader narrative of DGS (are you a japanese nationalist takumi???) zieks should calmly say hello to ryuu and ryuu should latch on and then zieks can go "oh um alright, i have somewhere else to be" .

why do i think about this. great question. i think ryuu is more compelling if i think about him trying to latch onto people who are older and really aren't interested in him in trying to find some thin comfort in a strange place. funny bc i don't even care about dgs but this does live in my brain. zieks has his boyfriends but all of his relaitonships are normal (i mean the blood drinking but thats fine). sholmes is operating on another level that i do not think anyone elose can touch because of how many drugs he's taken, so he's not really available or interested either.

do i ship anything in dgs. this is a good question. honestly i dont even think i ship susato with her friend bc her friend isn't much of a character u_u also i think susato deserves the chance to become her own person considering how withdrawn and cold she often is. her dad kinda seems like a slut but i have no strong feelings about that either. slut in a normal way not in a weird way. again this is a Vague Impression. i do not remember most of these characters. i think kazuma should maybe never be allowed to date anyone until he is at least 35. i think kazuma needs to be studied under a microscope. i think there's not a cure for whatever disease kazuma has.

[that-cheer-up-anon]

Been up since 4am and it's 6:22am now.

Been stressed since my doctor appointment about whether or not I have ADHD he didn't see it.

It's been making me anxious and scared and making me feel crazy w self doubt bc all I have is self diagnosis and no official one. Not that I can afford an official diagnosis. Feeling scared that I've somehow gaslit myself into thinking I have it when I actually may not.

Like yes you can tell I've got PTSD of some kind (I think it's CPTSD) and depression, but not ADHD. Maybe bc we don't spend time in unprofessional settings where I don't have to try to look and act normal? Maybe bc my ADHD type isn't the typical zooming and bouncing around like most people think when they hear ADHD?

"ADHD is one of the most over diagnosed diagnosis" BUT IT'S STILL UNDER DIAGNOSED IN WOMEN? Also a lot of ADHD symptoms look like depression and is often diagnosed as ONLY depression and/or anxiety instead. ADHD IS COMORBID WITH DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

I am so mad.

I spent all day feeling like I'm going crazy.

There is no way to fake my executive dysfunction that dates all throughout my childhood. There is no way to fake being unable to prioritise correctly. I still have to ask my office coordinator for help w prioritisation for which room to clean next, and I've been working here for over a year. Way longer than most of my coworkers!

How the hell do you explain my hyper fixations throughout my childhood and teens? I still get them now, just less strongly and frequently and the length has decreased dramatically compared to high school and uni. How do you explain how I can think multiple things at the same time it feels like my mind are two separate things being forced to meld together?

The worst part is I think of all this and worry that much like a Mormon going through a faith crisis, when they're close to breaking it and understanding that all they knew about their belief system is incorrect, they double down.

What if that's what I'm doing and there actually is a neurotypical explanation for why I think and feel the way I do and isn't ADHD or some other mental illness?

I've been through a faith crisis and broken free from a cult. I know what it's like to have your mind feel like it's unraveling and having everything you know being false and your foundation ripped out from under you.

What if this is happening again?

I thought I had ADHD.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

For the ask meme: Vio and 7, bc while I know you like the ship, I'm curious about the characters individually!

7- What do you like most about this character?

warning i went on an entire meta philosophical Thought Journey with this one and you will literally be able to SEE where it went off the rails. and then it just continued going off the rails until the rails disappeared from my field of vision and i have no idea if anything i wrote actually makes sense but here just take it

honestly i think part of why I love vio so much as a character is i did NOT expect to like or care about him, and then he ended up easily my favorite. the only thing i knew when i picked up the manga was that i would probably enjoy shadow as a character, which. of course i did. bc he's a very specific flavor of character i always gravitate towards, but vio was like... girl what? why are you in this story and doing the things you are doing? and by the end of my first reading i was just BLOWN AWAY by him and shadow and their entire subplot so i went to tumblr because i felt like i was hallucinating it and here we are now.

re: what i like most about vio... i go into it a lot in this post. vio is fascinating to me as a character from several perspectives, as a writer, a gay person, and just... having the philosophy and experiences that i do. there is such an inherent tragedy to his character that i don't think is lost on the authors--like i say in the post, shadow and vio both don't quite feel like they BELONG in this story, especially with how it ends.

like, i often write vio in particular struggling with the ways he deviates from the narrative set for him, both in canon and out of it. yes a lot of that is tied to queerness, but it also relates to themes of self-determination sub-textually tied to his arc. vio seriously just does whatever the hell he wants a good amount of the time, to like an eyebrow-raising degree. when he separates from the others and joins shadow he's on the Side of Good from the start, but i think he also realizes very quickly that there's more to himself than he'd expected. that doing what he had planned to do, especially to shadow of all people, was going to be shockingly difficult, and perhaps not even the correct choice at all. which is why vio's canon ending kind of falls flat to me, even though i can't imagine it could have ended any other way. this isn't to say he shouldn't have tried to betray shadow--it's an internal conflict he's going through, and a character usually makes the choice antithetical to what actually fuck i just boiled it down to the essentials i know exactly and fundamentally why i like vio as a character holy shit okay

SO normally a character in a story will start out Wanting something and Needing something else, and their entire arc is realizing, "aw beans, my Want actually sucks, i Need my Need" and then they pursue that instead. hero's journey etc.

think about the general premise of vio, and to an extent the other three: character is given individual consciousness to serve a specific noble purpose, and then cease to exist once said purpose has been served. and with the others, that's basically it, minor emotional and relationship arcs aside. but with vio? the premise GOES somewhere. oh no! character finds themselves drawn to the dark side by a "tempting" "evil" person or force, who CORRUPTS them into THINKING they WANT to defy that destiny! that they should be selfish, and bad, and turn their back on what they actually Need to do. so says the narrative, the character NEEDS to accept that they're not meant for anything but being used and discarded, because that's what good people do, and these are the Sacrifices We Must Make to Be Good. does your hero have any kind of unconventional or deviant leanings? well either that shit's getting straightened the hell out, or they are going to perish to save the Pure Good Guys, because that's all they deserve. that is a very common way to handle's vio's exact sort of character premise, and at first glance at the manga, one could argue that it's no exception. link still reforms, after all. arguably this kind of happens with shadow, but i think i like his ending a lot more outside of the shipping context. it says something more nuanced than above, but this isn't the post for going into that.

i would argue that almost every fiber of this manga pertaining to vio is actually trying to do the opposite of what i described above, even though it never is able to come to fruition.

quite simply, compared to the typical Needs and Wants of a corrupted hero type, vio's are like subverted. he's given a corruption arc, and it looks pretty basic at first, but it quickly becomes so... unconventional? and fun? and, dare i say, queer? i say it lot in reference to his whole turn of character once he joins shadow, but vio commits to the bit way more than is necessary to carry out his plan. shadow's not that perceptive and vio didn't need to be so close with him, so snarky and clearly enjoying himself, so bizarrely extra and innovative with the means by which he psychologically tortures his friends. his internal conflict, especially towards the end of his villain era, is less "i'm miserable because i'm a good guy and i want to save the world but i HAVE to pretend to be evil and like shadow," and more "i'm miserable because i'm actually enjoying a lot of these villainous theatrics and also i have become genuinely endeared to shadow, but i know i HAVE to betray him and rejoin the others because the world needs to be saved." i don't think it's a reach to say that that's what vio's conflict is, in the text. we see it in his expressions, his dialogue, and his reactions to things that happen.

i think this whole subversion was something the authors did with his character, whether accidentally or purposefully, REALIZED they did with his character, and didn't want to give up. but still, the story needed to end with vio rejoining the others and reforming the hero, because like. duh, of course it does, nintendo and source material and all that. but with the way a himekawa built up their obvious faves' (vio and shadow's) stories, it's like well shit, we came up with something we love but we can't really see it through. because within this brilliant subversion of the typical corrupted hero arc, the WANT is vio's sense of obligation to turn on shadow, reform link, etc, and his NEED is to say, "hey fuck this actually, i deserve to be a person and have relationships and do things i enjoy, and that doesn't make me any less of a hero. i'm smart and resourceful and there's definitely a way to both save the world and preserve who i am and get through to shadow."

self-sacrifice isn't inherently heroism. in fiction, it's often a deeply shallow and underwhelming resolution, especially when the character spends so much time growing and becoming who they truly are. i didn't grow up with religion, but i have a slight suspicion it plays a huge part in this entire attitude, and it sucks how much that permeates into media culture. doing good isn't something you can just phone in at the last second; it is a constant and ever-changing way of life, based on a moral system you develop for yourself as you grow. pretending to be someone you're not, acting solely under a prescribed ethical code especially as a grown-ass adult, makes you hollow and spineless, as well as unhappy, resentful, and unfulfilled.

doing good is hard. staying alive is hard. making decisions and forming connections and constantly being challenged are all very hard. but when you choose to embrace life, to accept failure and flaws but still try to be good, make meaningful connections and allow yourself to be genuine and happy and queer? that, to me, is the Goodest of the Good. and it's unique to each of us, while being something we all have the ability to choose for ourselves. and it's never too late for that. until the narrative tells you to jump off a cliff because that's, like, way too nuanced to be sustainable, and sure the story's resolved and it ended happily for the purest of heart, but what a bleak happiness that is. fuck that.

like, compare to vio to adora from she-ra. adora got the ending revelation i wish vio could have gotten. the whole, "i am worth more than my usefulness to others, i deserve love and self-determination" thing, and THAT's what really saved the day. adora saw her future, living happily with catra and the others, not dead or used but just LIVING, and said "hey, maybe the real answer here? the key to being a hero and saving the world? maybe it's loving, and letting myself be loved, and not sacrificing myself because someone said it's what i'm meant to do." and holy shit, she was right. and the narrative rewarded her for it, with a kiss from her catgirl gf and also destroying Big Evil and saving the galaxy or whatever.

fucking IMAGINE if that could have been the thing to save the day in the manga, just for a second. if you isolated just vio and shadow's arc and made them the Main Characters, like how adora and catra are in she ra. if it was truly allowed to be Their Story, if it was able to transcend the source material, if if if. it wouldn't even have to be just vio and shadow's story, honestly -- the four could realize, each for their own individual reasons, that maybe they can't unring the bell of their own existence. that they can protect hyrule better as themselves, that they deserve to continue the development they're been experiencing for the past 300 pages. and maybe vio would be the one to set that line of thought in motion, because has it not been set up exactly so he could?? if you've read my main au, you know exactly what i'm picturing here. and while i like some of the manga's canon ending, there's a reason most people who love these characters engage most often with alternate resolutions.

i think i like vio so much because he surprised me, and that's because he surprised the fucking AUTHORS OF THE MANGA. even more than a decade after publication, they made a point to say in their note that they appreciated the way people "got" what they were trying to say with shadow and vio specifically. i can't speak for them, and i will concede that i am mostly overthinking just for fun and none of this is that serious, but... come on. do you not see what i'm seeing here. they did something so fascinating and tragically unfulfilled here, and that all hinges on vio. and it's also just. so resonant to me as a gay person, in the same way she ra was.

obviously i could say more, and this is embarrassingly unhinged and maybe delusional, i don't know. i just wrote a lot of words about something so silly and arbitrary, but i took the time to write them because i care and can't get that time back now. so i might as well commit to the bit like gayass purple boy and post anyway

[spikeinthepunch]

rebrand conflict

idk how to decide what is a good or bad decision in terms of like...wanting to rebrand. i wish i could count back to how long i have used "morrysillusion" overall, i dont have a specific date. but i know after the white/brown antelope/wolf fursona, i think i dropped "moreyytilatot"? i think i tried to just go by "morey" in some form (i recall "princemorry" url). and then i dropped the 'nisovinsillusion' url maybe in early 2016? but i also had the coffini url here for a good while after. i cant remember if i used morrysillusion outside of tumblr around that time so. idk...

and heres the thing-- i dont really feel disconnected from my username, its fine and i think its p cool. but also in my head i keep wanting to change it, and part of that is wanting to claim a super old username i have no bad associations with. and i think part of that is bc of all the ways i am trying to do the things i was denied through my younger years-- so i am just reliving a lot of nice things and recalling the vibes and online trend etc i had. but also like.... attitude? personality wise? i feel like im not reflecting that w my current "brand" so to speak. at the very least if i didnt change my username, i still dont feel like the current look is something i want. i think the urge on the username change is just an additional feeling to push away from what i have been under this name.

the username i keep wanting to fall back to is 'spikeinthepunch/spikedpunch' (had the short one on xboxlive and the long one on deviantart) which was a short lived username but has no negative relations to anything, and i wished i kept it for a bit longer. and its kind of an edgy username lol. but in my recent years of growing as an adult, moving out, and being my own person, i feel soooo different than how my accounts have been presenting me. i guess ive been like soft, simple, and stiff in presentation? i think i fell into this when i was thinking id keep doing art commissions etc in a "professional" way, and especially bc i was doing my CN internship around then and wanted to still look presentable for the industry when looking for jobs. and while i certainly would love to work in the creative industry potentially, i obviously dont need to keep up that Normal-er image, i never should have, but also at that age and time i didnt feel like i could be that way at all. i was far more nervous of people interpreting me badly, negatively, etc if i was more edgy or mature. i was young and not dealing with my issues and so fixated on trauma etc.

this is also lining up w my plans to rework my website too. and i think a lot of this feeling also comes along w my "mascot" who i think is lovely! but him being a "mascot" makes him.... very detached from me as a person. i havent had any sonas to relate to in almost over a year... and my mascot was never meant to be a sona, just a Guy to represent my vibe (the colors, aliens) and social media appearance. and i guess i dont like that vibe anymore. i havent even felt all too into the shift i made to Mikike just having a vague spacesuit either, i felt i was just forcing that in order to fit the simple minecraft skin format for readability. (if people were to draw my skin, making it plantigrade and less animal would be easier)

and of course an additional observation i have had in more recent times are manic episodes that make me uproot parts of my life and change a lot of stuff about my identity etc. it may not seem like that happens online but its bc i manage to hold back on changing things abt my online branding lol- but it often results in making sideblogs for whatever new fandom/media i attached to in my episode and irl changing my entire appearance to fit and much more (and promptly drop both in about a month or so- its why i have so many abandoned sideblogs). this is obviously the bigger issue bc its what makes it Very hard for me to not do this (n yes i am in a bit of an episode rn despite my medication so...). and shocker, so many of my username/url changes and failure to ever keep one long enough to form an identity is related to that as well! its a surprise i havent done it in years but it was the expectation to stay with one identity, one look, in order to be Normal and recognized in a professional way, and i dont like that.

making this post and dumping thoughts has me thinking on a solution. as i said i dont really feel detached from my username. but what i dont relate to the most now is the way i feel i have gotten stuck in presenting myself online, and as a "brand". i want to toss out my color scheme, my mascot, my outward attitude. i want to let myself actually present in a way i like and not in a way that feels "clean". when my wcrp got shut down i had to come to the idea of acceptance and letting go of things i cannot control. and the reality of what truly doesnt matter in terms of what people may think of me. that was a huge pressure left on me for YEARS thanks to 2014-16 tumblr mindset and it is so so much harder to break esp if you want to try and be a creator and build an audience. i felt like i had become aware of this, and i have, but i didnt really click the fact that i wasnt into my current online presence bc i was still living with a piece of that era.. the fear of getting popular and being 'called out' for something for years ago, that wasnt even serious or bad, feeling like i was stepping carefully everywhere even when nothing was wrong. this doesnt entirely tie to WHY i want to do all the above. its just an observation on one of the things that hold me back too. just staying the same and staying safe. i hardly ever post, and while its something i chose to do its also a 'bonus' to not giving people much things to read off of me and assume from too.

this is getting too long and i think i have my point. idk what im gonna do but im thinking a lot abt how i should take control of my online life.

[magnoliamyrrh]

Thank you for talking about all this even through it's uncomfortable. I'm from the Balkans too and I went through some similar things, but I did not know it was such a common experience until I read the other anons and your experiences. I have never really told anyone about it and I still have hard time knowing how to feel, but I think what my Aunt did technically count as being molested? When I was still rather young she would "play" with me down there often and it would always feel overwhelming and too much. It has always made me feel odd looking back at it, and it disturb me to realize that she probably made me orgasm, but because it was not forced or painful and she was nice and because it was normalized for family to grope and sexualize in general I never complained or knew it was wrong and I have never known if it counts as actually being abused or not. But I guess... I am starting to realize that was not really normal

hey <3 yea, of course. i think its helpful to talk abt this shit for once, this culture of silence and shame and normalization doesnt seem to have rly helped any of us. thank you for sending this too

no its.. its definitely not normal, and im sorry you went through any of this anon <3 v much sending u a hug. we have just... for sure normalized a certain level and kind of pedophilia and incest in the balkans, particularly with young children, and its... really fucking weird. i totally get what you mean, i grew up w a v similar thing for years, and its v confusing and conflicting to grow up and realize it.. wasnt ok..this whole thing w messing around w little kids like that in the open and noone seeming to have any issue w it whatsoever bc they find it cute or endearing or playful or harmless or whatever the hell is just. really fucking weird. really weird. i still have a rather hard time trying to wrap my head around it bc i just.... really don't fucking get it ?? ive never been around a kid and thought oh yea hey you know what would be cute. doing that. and yet somehow this was just. fine???

and i know what you mean. often when you think of abuse or csa you think of something that is traumatic and violent and forced and leaves you feeling scared and violated and... its real odd when its not like that, and when it was just kinda a normalized thing that didnt necessarly seem bad or unpleasant or unwanted or traumatizing in the usual sense, tho personally i do think it definitely fucked me up. i think it makes it harder to know how the hell to feel about it, or how to feel about these people frankly.... i really dont know what to make of them. is this pedophilic behavior? yes...? do i think theyre pedophiles......???? yes? no? both? i have no idea, it doesnt seem like the sort of thing they do to get themselves off but rather bc its just.. normal to them and a normal way to show affection even though it is most fucking definitely not, and its definitely abusive. ..... I don't know. it really is all such a confusing entangeled mess, and I still cant believe weve somehow reached the point culturally where this stuff is just so normalized. im sorry again that uve been through this too anon im wishing u all the best and may you find some peace with all of this <3

[ratten-man]

My personal complex feelings about staying in Latvia

Me and my partner got an amazing housing offer here, which means we wouldnt move away to a different country like planned which has left me with many complicated feelings :/ mostly about how disgustingly nationalistic and xenophobic this place is so a lotta complaining down below:

Some of the things i hate about this place:

Eastern europeans stop being xenophobic challenge has a 100% fail rate 🫶 xenophobia is just built into the culture in the baltics, its so maddening. People born in latvia who grew up latvian but just have russian parents are considered to be foreigners and treated as such. The amount of friends I have from russian families or that (god-forbid) have an accent of any kind who get the most vile shit said to them is insane. Dont even get me started on when the xenophobia turns racist...

My boyfriends dad is american so he keeps getting treated like a foreigner even though he literally has close to 0 memories of america cuz last he was there he was 5!!

The xenophobia is so ingrained into the culture here that i genuinely dont think itll ever leave :/ itll improve in small numbers but the small number of ppl that realize this, wanna leave lol cuz its EVERYWHERE

And yes its so ingrained here, even left leaning people will often have xenophobia they havent worked through🤧

Latvian nationalism is so intense, ive been treated and keep getting treated as an outcast/foreigner because I have a speech impediment and so i dont speak latvian eloquently ♥️

Then theres the recently gone through mandatory military conscription because boomers have a hate boner for russia and normal boner for military power, so latvian amab people will be forced to do (depending on whether you volunteer or not) year/s of military training and then their location tracked for years and years just in case 😃 this could even affect me cuz i wanna have my documents changed to reflect that im a man. Id rather eat screws than ever serve a nation funded cult. I mean just every class would be hours of nationalistic conservative propaganda garbage. We already have plenty!! Ever interacted with latvian media? lol

Ofc every other type of bigotry is just as present here bc ofc... transphobia and homophobia is still very present, out and about its less due to gen z getting older but the medical system and legal system still have a lot of issues with it. A whole lotta racism, latvia has a lotta problems with nazis and skinheads, which has lead to poc being attacked in many different ways.

i dont feel at home here, i feel at home with my friends and fellow leftists, but the country as a whole? Never welcomed me and I dont even want it to :/ rrly going through the emotions rn, cuz the offer is just too good, the housing markets in shambles worldwide, wed never get an offer like that again. So now i have to face a future where i stay in this shithole :/

I am apart of small political orgs so its not even like im not doing anything, but i dont think id see much change here before im around retirement age :[ which sucks when youre doing your best to enact change

[masschase]

“#gooh is in my top 5 “i question writing this into my hc” things gonna be honest” i would honestly LOVE to know what things you hesitate to include in your canon? one thing i really love and respect about your work is your dedication to sticking to the actual canon so i’m super curious to hear what things you actually don’t consider part of it. or at least the ones you go back and forth on.

OK firstly, thank you, that means a lot to me 😊

There probably isn't anything that isn't a part of it at all unless I forgot about it which does happen pretty often! Things I go back and forth on is definitely the best description of it.  Like, almost all have led me to write some moments I really like and yeah I am proud of making the canon (at least the bits I didn't forget!) fit, but I feel like when I started writing I didn't even think about just *not* sticking to canon. This list is not ordered or exhaustive, it's just the stuff I could think of off the top of my head.

1. GOOH. This is actually a kind of minor one, bc the pros outweigh the cons massively but it's been on my mind today bc of the chapter I've been writing.

Pros: a very sweet Matt/Boss moment and Matt/Boss/Johnny friendship moment after they return from hell, throwing in Jezebel as a character, and obviously the new planet ending is sort of essential to my "they tried to save the earth but couldn't so now they need somewhere new" thing. Plenty of smaller jokes and again some other good parts that factor in.

Cons: so this is actually stuff that just canonises monotheistic religious views that my characters wouldn't normally hold that makes me feel... weird... idk. I feel like they have enough time between GOOH and my fanfic to process that but I was thinking about it today and it bothered me. GOOH also canonizes Matt and Asha sleeping together in some capacity... ok that's not so bad, it adds some depth to the storyline and stops them having unresolved sexual/romantic tension as implied in SRIV. But at times I worry I'm portraying one or both of them as pretty dickish.

2. All SRIV romance options

Pros: I mean, Casey probably would fuck all her friends if it was the only option. And I hc SRIV as taking place over 2-3 months. After that time-travel ONSs were an option. And her whole one time rule has its place in the plot.

Cons: Kind of forces everyone into bi/pan/other mspec apart from Ben and Keith. I would have highly considered making Pierce gay. Maybe Asha would've got thrown token straight lol. Plus who says everyone (again, except Ben, who... seemed like he would say yes to whatever she was about to ask... and Keith) would fuck her? Seems a tad Mary-Sueish. 🤔 Also doesn't gel well with her and Johnny having a primarily brother/sister relationship but I think I've mostly explained that with her having a false romantic epiphany and the fact that he struggles to connect 'hot 30ishyo woman who I massively respect' with 'that kid i knew back in Stilwater' after the 6 year gap. Plus... romance options aren't really true canon, I definitely could have left some out! But considering I did use them all, I could've said better things about the Casey/Pierce time bc that was a culmination of a lot of UST.

3. Cyrus Temple plastic surgery disguise thing.

Pros: definitive 'end date' for Casey getting plastic surgery for scars etc.; it put her off. One amusing joke.

Cons: Idk I just hate it hate it hate it. I think because a lot of game mechanics are easily explainable e.g. forgive&forget and notoriety wipe being bribes, an advanced alien race COULD have time travel etc. whereas this is something that's pretty batshit by SR3 standards but mostly at the expense of like two moments I COULD'VE JUST NOT MENTIONED IT. So if this list was in order I suspect this would be #1 😂

4. The destruction of Earth; or more specifically that they don't/can't undo the destruction of Earth despite having time travel.

Pros: I mean it's inkeeping with the Saints for me. Some people do just die and don't come back. The idea that the new planet thing is moving on from something irretrievable. A new beginning.

Cons: It just feels like a cop out using the 'oh they have time travel but can't use it to save the world bc that's a paradox' thing?

5. Matt and Casey's age gap.

Pros: The millenial/zoomer dynamic, parallels being drawn i.e. joining/creating gangs at 15, Casey being 24 when they met and Matt being 24 when the story begins. I guess relationships where the woman is older are also underepresented compared to the reverse, and being able to give Matt a "coma years don't count" line.

Cons: Idk just on a personal level obviously I'd just prefer them NOT to have a 7.5 year gap. I make it clear that she wasn't ever attracted to him until he was 22 and that the spaceship changes things in terms of life stages but still.

Bonus of some things that were my own decision that I go back and forth on: the name Casey Clark at times (there is a whole thing of 'bc she is secretly a nerd like Matt/Kinzie but she's an analog nerd' but still), Matt being (at least based on his own history) heteroromantic (ok supports split model of attraction but at the same time... Matt to me reads as a canonically bisexual character which we don't often get, why not make him bi/panromantic too?), Casey and Johnny's brother/sister thing in general (idk if that was trying too hard to make them platonic bc generally I rather like GatBoss), writing in accents, not giving enough focus to the secondary pairings esp the more visibly queer ones all bc I originally wanted to keep secondary pairings up in the air for the reader, Casey's SR3 look at times, POSTING HER NAME ALL OVER FUCKING TUMBLR. I could go on 😅

This all seems more negative than I'm meaning it to be bc I put pros first. I love working in the canon and the way plot points have blossomed from it. In fact I put something at the end of my last chapter about how things for this often just fall into place and just leave me 😲.

I will probably make a second list at some point when I think of more 😅

[teenandbeyond]

some angsty Raphael X fem reader where raph says things he regrets like "I use to love you" and "I don't know how I love you" with a fluffy ending????

Raphael x Fem. Reader Angst

Sure! I'm in an angsty mood today. Headcanon alert.

Want more from me? Masterlist 2

☆*: .｡. .｡.:*☆☆*: .｡. .｡.:*☆

🧶Regrets🧶(TMNT or Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Warnings: Angst, fluff, short bc I finally wanted to finish it b4 I went to sleep

Society may have gotten to Raph's head a little...

✨✨✨✨

When you caught feelings for Raph...

He didn't believe it.

You, a human, liked him, a mutant?

It was impossible.

His insecurity was so strong he forced himself to believe the obvious bias toward him as friendship.

Until you kissed the corner of his lips and said, "I like you, doofus."

It took a while to become a pair, and you often had to reassure him (you expected it, though).

"Yes, I do like you."

"I want to be with you."

"I want you as much as you want me, Raph."

And he was...starting to feel that way for himself.

He really was.

But then you got into this romance movie phase and would watch them together.

You decided to be adventurous, copy some of what you saw...only it turned out a little awkward with Raph's towering form, not that you minded, you giggled, not caring too much about it.

That's where his doubt settled in.

You would've easily been able to do these things with a human man.

You couldn't kiss him like you could a human.

He had to be cautious of what strength he used with you so as to not hurt you.

He wasn't good enough for you, you deserved better, you deserved normal.

So, he put his feelings aside so you could get better.

"It's simple, [Name], I used tuh love ya' but I dunno how to anymore."

You blinked in confusion, "Where...where is this coming from? You weren't acting like this last time we were together..."

"Just didn't wanna hurt ya'."

"Too late for that."

He bit the inside of his cheek as you left the steamy argument.

He couldn't have regrets. He continued to remind himself for hours.

"Raphael."

Oh no, it's a rat.

"Yes, Master Splinter?"

"...Something happened between you and [Name], I presume?"

"How'd you--?"

His expression turned fond, "I know my son."

Raph broke eye contact, "I just...know she deserves better than me. I did it for her sake."

The elder mutant hummed in thought, "Did you even consider she might not want better than you? She could simply want you as you are."

"There's no way--"

"Did she ever confirm that she didn't want you, Raphael? Or is this stemming from your insecurity?"

"..."

"A major part of a successful relationship of any kind is communicating your emotions properly. You should give her and yourself the courtesy of doing so. Go find her."

And found you he did, crying into the stuffed animal he stole got for you.

He did that.

He gently knocked on your window, which was unlocked, a habit of yours he hated.

You didn't even have to look up to know it was him.

"What do you want, Raphael? Here to tell me how much you don't love me some more?"

"I wanted to talk...properly this time...And say I'm sorry."

You revealed a sad expression that broke him, "The Raphael is saying 'sorry'?"

"Yeah. I didn't mean to say those things to ya'."

"Then why did you?"

"Because you deserve better than me."

"Who said that?"

"The world."

"Well, we're in our own. I could care less about what anyone else says."

"You can't do things with me that you could do with human guys."

You raised a brow meeting him at the window, "Yeah, and? I know that. If I wanted to be with a human, I would've. I'm with you for a reason, Raph."

Good, you're calling him Raph again...

"Like what?"

"Because I love you, doofus. You, the ninja mutant turtle, who's a total grump, but a mega softie with me. The mutant turtle who protects me, but always allows me to protect myself, too. The turtle who makes me so many sweaters I need a plastic storage container to fit them all. Who makes me so many wood carvings I need a cardboard box. The mutant turtle who always finds a way to check up on me, even when I'm out of his patrol range. The turtle who watches romance movies with me, despite only liking half of them..."

He's speechless.

"I don't want some random human because that's what society accepts. I want someone I actually love."

You love him...him.

"...I love you too, [Name]. So much."

[thebibliosphere]

Feel very free to ignore this but yea . I'm starting to think I may have been underestimating how generally ill I am and that I may have something medically significant going on and it would be an understatement to say that its freaking me out a little bit. I grew up with my mom being chronically ill so I got it drilled into me that I basically had to grin and bear shit bc at least it wasnt as bad as hers. Any tips on dealing with this mindfuck lmao

Solidarity, friend. I grew up with a visibly disabled sibling, and it's still a mental slog sometimes to get past the whole "but at least you're not as bad as X" I get from some people just because I'm not as visibly affected.

It took me years to stop internalizing that too. I still struggle with it, sometimes.

Therapy helps a lot. I go to grief counseling. It helps with both acceptance and also managing rapid cycling emotions. This is often something we experience when we first realize Something Is Wrong and we could have been having help this whole time and entirely normal. I also find mindfulness (yes, really) and radical acceptance to be helpful.

Going to put this under a cut because it's long :)

Some people mistake radical acceptance to mean "guess I'll just give up then" when what it actually means is to stop fighting things you cannot change, accept them as reality and focus your energy elsewhere.

For me, that meant giving up on the idea that I'd ever be a healthy, able-bodied person. For the longest time, I was sure if I got the right diagnosis and treatment, I'd eventually be healthy and my suffering would stop. It was my motivation to keep pushing through the medical abuse and gaslighting and, honestly, all that kept me alive sometimes. I needed to name the beast so I could kill it and claim my life back. And then I got diagnosed with two genetic disorders that can't be cured, lol.

Not gonna lie, struggled for a bit with that: both with the idea that I'd been allowed to suffer for decades through medical negligence, and also that now, even knowing the name of what was wrong, I was stuck with it forever. It could be managed, but it couldn't be cured. And that's where radical acceptance can help. Which for me looks like:

"I have (at least) two genetic disorders that cause lifelong problems that cannot be cured. There is literally nothing I can do to change this. This is a fact I cannot fight. But, with treatment and self-care, they can be managed and my quality of life can be improved, which is incredibly important! So that is where I will focus my energy. On improving my quality of life for the person I am, not the person I could have been."

It sounds simple, but internalizing it is another matter.

As for mindfulness, whenever I catch myself in a negative thought spiral of "I should do more because I am not X enough", I force myself to pause and ask: If this were happening to a friend, would I urge them to rest, or would I tell them to keep going even though it's harming them? No? Okay, so why am I not offering myself the same care and compassion?

This can apply to many aspects of life, but mostly I use it to herd myself into being kinder to myself because, goodness knows, someone needs to be kind to this body and it might as well be me.

This is like... not even remotely enough to help with everything you will be experiencing. But I hope it's a helpful start in pointing you in the right direction. Good luck and take care!