#me and I'm just lazy. which makes me feel shitty

[gemisbored]

ppl with adhd need to stop being so relatable

[boxwinebaddie]

hi uncle nina! sorry if this is kinda overbearing, but you havent posted anything today so i just wanna check in and make sure youre doing okay! <3

oh my god, sweetheart!!! this is not overbearing AT ALL! this is extremely thoughtful and makes me feel extremely validated. <3

i'm sorry for causing concern, but ty for being concerned about me.

because the school year is coming to a close, things around me at work have been pretty intense, so i've been tossed around like a ragdoll the past week and haven't had much time to write as a result. i also haven't been sleeping very well and rush a lot in the mornings, so i've forgotten to take my mood stabilizer the past couple of days which makes me v sluggish, zombie-ish and unpleasant in general. :/

...when i am like that, as a weird way of sparing you, i suppose, i try not to post on here too much because it feels quite shitty indeed for you to get a notification for my blog just to watch me bitch n moan.

however, i have taken my medication today and feel bad for fumbling kyle week...as we know i'm not really good at holding myself accountable or making deadlines. oddly enough, it's not that i don't want to answer my questions, it's just that other than not being able to really find the time recently, i just can't find the right...words?

( this ask is long and irrelevant, but read if you wish. ilysm. )

or, rather, i don't feel knowledgeable enough the subjects to answer? specifically in the areas of my tsot/tfbw styles and ncuniverses, i feel a little insecure because i don't know sp or the games as well as many other people do, so i'm trying to speed watch episodes/watch speed runs of the games online so i can at least keep some canon intact?

i also am finding that creating and understanding how high fantasy universes work is...difficult? lmao? also because i did crazy stuff with mutations and science and politics in my tfbw ncuniverse, that's also complicated and out of my wheelhouse...tldr: i have big ideas, but i'm not very good at backing them in fact or doing analytical stuff.

but...iiiiii need to, lmao. mental illness, but if i make a universe it has to be fully realized, it has to all make as much sense as possible, echo the canon, enhance it, feel real and be fluid...so if i'm not around too much it's because i'm trying to bolster myself with my sp knowledge ( ik, i'm a fake fan ) and watch/read/research high fantasy concepts and superhero/scientific fiction/dystopian stuff...so if anyone has any recommendations for me to watch or learn from in those realms, i'd appreciate it. again, this is intense...but i care a lot about my craft.

and specifically crafting something worthy of all of you, that makes sense, lives and breathes, reflects the show we love & is interesting.

ANYWAYS!!!! with that said, i got a cool ask about whether or not i have a gunslinger kyle? which? not yet? BUT YOU'RE A GENIUS BABY I AM SOOOOO ON IT!!! please let me cook and watch some things because actually, oh my god, i am very down. i'll update you. i might make a board to gather ideas, omg, omg, it'll be SPICY.

i got an ask about princess kylie, which, bless you, i am also still developing her character, i am going to pour over the books, watch some GOT, do some mapping out, watch some intricate dnd play throughs...and have some answers for you very soon: hang on, baby.

( she's little, bitchy, prissy and does need to be babysat, i'm afraid. )

got some on jersey i'm excited about! sorry for writing that ask meme about the sour skittles like that, again, writing has been trying for me lately and i had a concept that i wanted to share but wasn't sure how to express that. if you guys are alright with getting my asks in the form of notes some times i would appreciate it! anyways, keep your eyes out for some of those...if kyle week runs into next week, sorry.

idk...this is so long. all this to say...i'm really sorry? i haven't been a very solid creator lately, but i'm a little unstable rn. but i am working on it and i hope to be back on the horse by tonight and share my notes at least and show you guys how my brain is working.

in the mean time, please direct as many questions as you would like in the direction of riley, teri and ana who not only are epic writers but have been an epic support system/helping me get back into things.

thank you for caring, thank you for reading...keeping up with this blog and the questions and creating constantly is sometimes challenging, but very rewarding. i promise that i am not neglecting my asks or all of you because i don't care, its actually because i care very much and only want to give you stuff that is awesome and cool and well researched. so, again, just give me a second to get my barings and while it kind of eats at my bad bpd brain i might try and share stuff with you guys that's half baked because the feedback might help.

tldr: i love you, this made no sense, i'm a mess, but i am fine.

miss you and love you. happy kyle week.

-uncle nina

[aeide-thea]

lol just found out the former owner of this property has been surveilling all our mail via usps's informed delivery service, to which he still has access because he never bothered to file a change of address with them even though it's been literal years at this point, and so now i get to put 'calling the post office to get him kicked off because what the actual fuck' on my to-do list for the day!

also: i found this out because he emailed my dad an image of a piece of mail he wants us (me) to forward to him. flames on the side of my face.

[becausegoodbye]

A home to treasure, a home to flee

(**This post contains big-time spoilers for Citizen Sleeper and Life is Strange: True Colors. No way around it! **)

In the last year, I've had two experiences with video games that unearthed some interestingly divergent intuitions in me.

In one, the game let me make a precarious little home for myself, and even though it kept giving me opportunities to leave – it really seemed like it hoped I'd leave, to strike out somewhere in pursuit of a better life – I clung to the fragile little home I'd created, savouring its small earned pleasures.

In the other, the game gave me a home, aesthetically dazzling and too good to be true, with a hideous past which the game desperately wanted me to forgive and to stay – laying it on thick about how beautiful it would be if I stayed – and I found I couldn't flee fast enough.

It makes me wonder a bit about my relationship to home.

*

Citizen Sleeper is one of my favourite games I've played in a long time. It's quietly etched its place on the list I keep in my mind of "proper Hall of Fame indie games", along with Celeste and Immortality and at most a dozen others. It's a game whose ambitions are restrained, but the light touches of its writing are pretty much all paintbrush-perfect.

In it, you play a Sleeper, a degraded kind of worker-clone, carrying the emulated consciousness of a real person inside a crummy bio-android body that'll fall apart if it doesn't get regular injections of corporate-controlled medicine. Your entire existence is a method of skirting labour laws. You managed to escape your corporate labour-camp, but now you're on this random space station with no money or friends, and your biological meltdown-clock is ticking. Just gotta keep moving, keep working, keep trying to figure something out.

I won't give a full review of the mechanics and story; what I really want to talk about right now is the apartment. In Citizen Sleeper, you're always choosing how to allocate your limited time and energy, and if you want, you can choose to spend an irresponsible amount of both fixing up an abandoned apartment unit, using scrap metal to try to plug up the holes and make it livable. This is, frankly, the best thing. With how nightmarishly precarious every aspect of your existence as a runaway Sleeper is, just to be able to lay your head somewhere that's yours is blissful.

And then – most special of all – once you've fixed up the apartment, a stray cat will sometimes stop by, and you can spend some money to feed it some crushed-up crackers. The cat never becomes yours (it always maintains its independence, coming and going as it pleases), but you can know each other. You can become part of the weave of each other's lives. Even in this hostile capitalist hell-hole, even with a body constantly on the verge of betraying you: you can eat some delicious spiced fungus and have a cat stroke itself against your thighs. Things can be worth it.

As I got on top of my finances and found a steady source of medicine, I only found myself more and more attached to my apartment. Some missions take you right over the other side of the space station, and (because it can take ages to get back) the game frequently offers you places to crash that are much closer to where you need to be. I didn't use them once. Once I'd fixed up the unit, I slept every single subsequent night of the game there, even if it meant traveling a silly distance to get there and back. I wanted to get back because, first, it was my home, and second, I had to feed the stray cat. It might miss me if I were gone.

As you get further into Citizen Sleeper, the game offers you all sorts of ways to get off the station. You can work/cheat your way onto a huge colony ship that's set to begin populating a new and uninhabited planet. You can hitch a ride with a mercenary and start a more knowingly dangerous kind of life. You can fuse your consciousness with a cyber-organic plant-consciousness, 'Grow Vast and Strange', and lose your sense of a distinct self entirely.

I didn't go for any of them. I got my friends on board the colony ship and waved goodbye to them. I gave the mercenary the cold shoulder. I thanked the plant-consciousness profusely for the opportunity, but wistfully turned away from what it was offering. I kept choosing to return to my own small world on the station: to the apartment, to the stray, to Emphis' spiced fungus stand, to Lem & Mina & Tala & Riko, and to all the tiny meaningful markers of the life I'd built for myself here.

This was my life. I'd made it, and that meant everything.

*

Life is Strange: True Colors is a much weirder game, and one I'd recommend to far fewer people. I've written before about my complicated feelings about the Life is Strange series, which have a tendency to take huge emotional swings with subjects that they're not really mature enough to handle responsibly. That's part of their appeal, admittedly: these games absolutely go for it, and even when they stumble, it's usually pretty compelling.

In True Colors, you play as Alex Chen, a shy 21-year-old orphan with a kind of superpowered empathy. She can read people's thoughts a bit, sometimes even accessing their memories, and when somebody near her is experiencing a big emotion, she gets overwhelmed with a mirrored version of it. This got her branded as 'emotionally unstable' in the Oregon foster care system, so she struggled to be adopted. She lost touch with her older brother Gabe after he was placed with a different foster family, but eight years later, with his own life straightened out, Gabe was able to track her down, and invite her to come live with him in the idyllic little mountain town called Haven Springs.

I won't go beat-by-beat through the whole plot, because it's bonkers and byzantine, but the key points are these. (Again, full spoilers.) After Alex and Gabe's dad abandoned them when Alex was 11, he ended up working for a locally hegemonic mining company called Typhon in Haven Springs. Later, Gabe tried to track him down, and Haven Springs was where the trail went cold. This turns out to be because their dad died in a hideous mine collapse, along with several other miners. A local foreman named Jed Lucan got credited as a 'hero' for saving the miners who survived, but in reality he was the one who chose to abandon the others to their deaths, and Typhon conspired with him to cover it all up.

When Gabe came to Haven Springs looking for their dad, that same foreman, Jed, now the owner of a local bar, felt guilty about having left this kid fatherless, and treated Gabe with a lot of generosity. He set Gabe up with a job in his bar, let him rent the great loft apartment upstairs, and really just ensconced Gabe in Haven Springs life (obviously without telling him the murdery truth). Then, when Gabe is finally able to track down his little sister Alex, he wants to pass on the generosity, and offers you the loft. He’s moving in with his girlfriend, you and your brother are finally back in each other’s lives, and it all seems too good to be true.

It is. Almost immediately after arriving in town, Gabe is killed – by the very same mining corporation – while up in the mountains trying to rescue his girlfriend's kid. Typhon were told that there were people in the area and they needed to delay their blast, but they knowingly went ahead with it anyway, because (it turns out) they needed the noise to cover up a second, more illegal scheduled blast nearby. That second blast was to fully cave in the old mine and bury the evidence of the incident that killed Alex and Gabe's father, in preparation for a coming inspection that could have uncovered the deaths.

So essentially: your brother was murdered casually, incidentally, as part of covering up your dad's murder from years ago.

I'm delivering this information in a totally different order than the game does (there, the relevation that Jed let miners die and your dad was among them comes very late), but I'm laying it all out so you understand the chronology of events. Just lay it all out flat in your mind. You're Alex, and you find yourself living in this town that seems pretty wonderful – picturesque and warm, with an economy of little other than bars and flower shops and record stores – but you eventually discover that both your father and your brother have been murdered here. You also discover that the person who's been kindest to you, the surrogate father-figure who let you work in the bar and live in the loft virtually rent-free, is the evil fuck who killed your dad.

You do eventually empathy-detective your way to exposing all this, of course. By the end of the game, Jed is going to prison, and Typhon is facing the absurdly (but not unrealistically) softer consequences of 'their CEO resigning' and 'their stock price taking a hit'. But then – and this is the part I've needed to go over all this melodramatic plot in order to talk about – the game wants you to stay in Haven Springs.

Alex's final choice is whether to stay or leave. Somehow, you're still living in the loft of the murderer you put in jail, and it's implied that you can just keep doing that. The game gives you an option to leave – to go off on a scrappy music tour with your indie girlfriend Steph – but the game gilds the lily heavily in favour of staying. You have an entire conversation with an imaginary ghost-projection of Gabe, and he spins this whole fantasia about how wonderful your life could be if you simply stayed, let "time do its thing", and commit to transforming this place.

But like ... fuck that, right? Fuck that!!!

As far as I'm concerned, this is a "noping out of a horror movie" situation. By the end of True Colors, Haven Springs feels cursed. This tiny pretty town is where every existing member of your family was murdered. What, you're literally just gonna stick around limply hoping they won't murder you too? While the hegemonic mining corporation is still stalking around, knowing you did this to them?

Like, Alex. Dude. These white people are not safe. The Chens are seemingly the only Asian-American family in a hundred miles, and the track record of Chens not getting murdered by the biggest and most powerful local employer is bad. Sure, that one guy is in prison now, but the problem was never that one guy. Underneath this town is a seam of raw murder and lies and evil, and everyone being so saccharine-sweet to you all game long only makes that fact worse. You can’t escape your trauma, you can’t escape your brother and father having been killed, and you can’t escape the horrorshow of capitalism – but you surely don’t have to stay here.

It's hard to overstate how repulsed I felt by the prospect of staying in Haven Springs. While Citizen Sleeper had me taking pride in the modest, scrappy life I'd clawed out for myself in the margins, True Colors felt like the complete opposite. It felt like a series of overbearingly loaded gifts, all lush and pretty and tailor-made, but with a violent catch spring-loaded inside every pocket. It felt like the bashful smile of a poisoner offering you a drink. All of my instincts were to run.

*

Some day soon, I'm sure I'll be able to write a thing about videogames without tying it back to transness, but look – I'm two months on HRT. Right now everything feels connected with transitioning, and I'd be lying if I said the trans-relevance of this little parable didn't occur to me immediately.

My body is the home I was given, and I’ve always lived here uneasily. I’ve never known what to do with the ‘gifts’ that came with being read as a guy (most of them are still half-unwrapped in the back of my closet). Everyone wanted me to like it here, expected me to like it here – why wouldn’t you like it here? – but I just didn’t. A seam under the surface was wrong, and kept itching. I don’t want this to come across as a matter of pure contrarianism, but being real: the amount of contrarianism at work here probably isn’t zero. The world tried to give me a gender I’d like – a whole sweet-ass loft if you just ignore the murders – and I’m leaving. I’m off to make my own thing. And even if it’s objectively shittier in tons of ways, I’m confident I’ll like it more.

Between Citizen Sleeper and True Colors, my inescapable conclusion is: I would rather sit alone in this cold empty abandoned apartment than live in Haven Spring's paradise. I would rather chew fungus and scrape for corpo-medicine as a girl than be the beloved centre of a twinkling idyll as a guy. Haven Springs is so pristine and gorgeous, so flush with friends and flowers and foosball, but at a certain point you just can't unsee the seam of wrongness under everything. Whereas the kind of life you can build in Citizen Sleeper – the crummy apartment, the stray cat, all the friends you make and all the people who pass you by – feels infinitely stronger to me. Infinitely more earned. Infinitely more durable and darnable and real.

[lord-radish]

man that Return of the Mack remix by Post Malone is terrible.

like yeah let's do some echoing wails at the start of the song, then play the first verse and chorus of Return of the Mack, and then end the fucking song. two minutes, in and out, subpar contribution on behalf of the artists, cut and paste a small snippet of a better song. Absolutely lazy and terrible.

[deathdetermineslife]

I genuinely cannot stand you and your account. Every time I make a new account, you're always the in selfship tags filling it up with your terrible art and shitty posts. You are a waste of space and no one in this community likes you. Your f/o (who isnt YOUR f/o by the way, stop calling him that) doesn't love you, he definitely thinks you're annoying and wouldn't love you in any universe. I want you to know that I have an entire group of selfshippers I'm friends with that wish you'd do the world a favor and kill yourself, just so you know. It doesn't matter if you block me, by the way, because I can and will make new accounts to try to make you feel like shit. I pray to God every day you get in a terrible accident and die a slow and painful death. You mischaracterize "your" f/o (just a reminder, he doesn't love you and wishes you were dead!), you make the entire selfshipping community look stupid, and you're a sharer, too, which means you don't actually love any of your f/os anyways. You should get off of Tumblr. I'm serious, several of my friends are skilled hackers and will dox you. You don't deserve any of the merchandise you own, you don't deserve to be happy, really. And don't even try to tell me that since I'm a proshipper this goes against my "antiharassment values" or whatever I'm sure you'll try to say, every single proshipper I've spoken to thinks you're a hypocritical, disgusting, terrible individual that doesn't deserve the likes and attention you get. I seriously cannot believe anyone will a brain follows you. They probably do because antis don't have brains. They're retards that like throwing pedophile accusations at anyone that breathes. You all are some of the most idiotic and stupid people I've ever seen in my entire life. I cannot stand you. No one likes you, any mutual you think you have is secretly hoping you die, and trust me, a few people I know who follow you or at the very least have reblogged your things are secret proshippers! Isn't that terrible? I'm sure you think so. Because you think we're so bad, don't you? You think that all of us are rapists and evil people that deserve the death penalty. Every time someone reblogs the art you make and says "otp" and "I ship it", just know they're lying to you, they don't believe that, in fact, everyone's out to get you and no one likes you. And that server you own? Just know no one in there likes you. All of the friends you probably think you have? They don't like being around you. He doesn't love you, no one loves you, and if you have more f/os, they don't like you either. Your familial f/os want to disown you, your platonic f/os wish you weren't friends with them, and every single romantic f/o you THINK YOU HAVE does not LOVE YOU they DON'T LOVE YOU and they NEVER WILL. THEY DON'T LOVE YOU. Every person I have talked to you about agrees they wish you didn't exist they wish you never made an account they wish you never started posting to selfship Tumblr. You are lucky that your main blog isn't linked here because if it was, I would be sending asks there too so you'd have to delete your main blog too, and maybe then you wouldn't come back to Tumblr. The entire selfship community hates you and your lazy posts that a five-year-old could write up. In fact, just so you know, I regularly steal your posts and post them to the proselfship tag and they get more attention than your blog. Antis are the minority in fandom, no one likes antis. Not a single person likes them, you're all braindead children who have no morals or understanding of the world. This website would be better without you on it. I know you'll post this, and I know that there's probably going to be people in the replies telling you that they love you so much and that you're a good person and that "your" f/o loves you but he doesn't love you and he never will love you and you're absolutely fucking delusional if you think so. I fucking hate you. I'll continue to ban evade until I can push you off of this website. You can't get away from me and I will dox you.

uh oh someone let grandpa out of the nursing home again. also you sound like an evil supervillain. you expect me to take this seriously? this CANNOT be serious I'm giggling so fucking hard

anyways, heres all the art i have of me and korekiyo!

also bad news buddy, i dont have any familial or platonic f/os. womp womp. go back to algebra class, lil bro.

[nica-my-beloved]

Tropes In Ikemen Series Games That I Dislike

These are my opinion so no hate!

MC BEING SHY AND BLUSHING AT THE SLIGHTEST TEASING

Some times I find it cute, but other times I wish she would just tease the male leads back.

A lighthearted flirtatious teasing would be funny to watch.

TOO MUCH SEXUAL INTERACTIONS

I understand, it spices up the story but when the most random interaction suddenly turn into a hot making out session just turns me off.

Some times in some scenes, when the moment is right, the whole steamy scene does feel nice. But not all cases.

SUBMISSIVE MCs

I mean, it's fine. I just wish the MCs were more diverse. The Ikemen MCs are way too submissive for my good. They don't even TRY to resist the advances of male lead.

They are so much in love with the guy they met for 2 weeks that they are ready to let them sleep with her, which is awkward as hell.

VERY PURE HEARTED MCs

I don't mind again, but they are not relatable at all. And I've already mentioned in one of my posts that MCs are not meant to be relatable. They are just tools that the writers use for spoon-feeding the stories to the players (because they think we're too dumb to understand the character's personality or intentions). But that doesn't mean I don't want variety.

There are so many different personalities, yet why are the MCs always so kind, so hardworking, so pure, so timid. Some times I dream about an MC who is lazy, foodie, loves shopping, doesn't like studying, doesn't care about what people say about her, doesn't like talking to people, doesn't even try to get along with people who treats her like shit, likes anime and has wallpapers of shirtless Sylus on her laptop, never follows rules......am I describing myself? Yep!

MCs don't have to hold a gun or kill someone or be the Queen of the Underworld. She can still be cool wearing pajamas and sunglasses, dancing on top of her bed at Shinee's Ring Ding Dong (I still love that song!)

THE USUAL CLICHES

Including random people coming inside the room (without knocking ofc), sees MC and a male lead in bed (fully clothed, or not doesn't matter) and still thinking that they slept together. Also MC wasting time and energy to clear up their 'misunderstanding'.

MC's promising that she will never fall in love but breaks her promise. She had one job!

MCs......*holding back puke* teaching male leads turru love *cringe 101*

Similar personality male leads. For example: Kurama, Silvio, Jude. Arthur, Sueharu, Nokto, Nica. I need more variety.

One month time period bullshit! It doesn't matter when at the end MCs are leaving their world to join the male lead (who they know only for a month). Maybe give like a 6 months or an year. Then I'll believe you.

I don't like the killing trope, where the male leads openly saying 'I'll kill you someday'. It triggers me and I don't really find it romantic in any sense.

Always MCs falling in love first and not the male lead. I understand that we play from the MC's perspective, but I really want to know how it feels when the male lead fall in love with MC first. It could be interesting.

Male leads leaving/breaking-up with MCs for her own happiness is also bullshit. I'm tired of seeing this over and over again and it annoys me. The male leads would always be like 'MC, you're not suppose to be in this world. You deserve happiness blah blah blah...' I don't like this because at the end, they eventually change their minds and decides to accept her. If they wanted her then why let go of her? So annoying. I just want a male lead, who is like 'I don't care if my world is shitty, I love MC and I want to be with her! I'll always make her happy and protect her!'

[1d1195]

I love your writing but I'm so mad at harry for that last traditional blurb. He never adequately explained why he ignored her for the entire function. He was a SHIT and she forgave him way too easily. There's no reason for him to ignore her for the entire night. None. She should've made him explain himself.

Traditional Extra VIII - BONUS

You're so right. I don't want to make any major excuses but to defend Harry it's not his fault. It was lazy writing on my part--I seriously just didn't write it because I didn't want to at the time and I was busy, etc etc. I read it back and noticed Harry's actually like barely in this part. I wanted this to be like entirely in her head sort of thing? Like she's worried and jealous. But she knows she doesn't need to be. She's well aware Harry was just busy. But you're right. He never talked about it and tbh it's very not-Harry of him in this story to let her let it go. But I do want to assure you it wasn't that serious! Like he wasn't meant to be THAT shitty. It was more like just business stuff and he was busy and couldn't make his way over. But you're def right, so I'm going to add another little scene here (especially because I'm def struggling to update today). I don't know if it will fix all of your concerns but hopefully between my little note here and the scene below, it will help!

Harry wrapped his arm around her waist and held her close to him as the music played softly from the band that was no longer packing up thanks to Harry's verbal and monetary encouragement. With her heels on, his lips were right at her hairline which was perfect for him. "Kitten," he hummed. His other hand held hers right against his chest.

"Hmm?" She sighed softly.

"Y'were too forgiving," he told her. "I ignored you all night," he frowned.

She shook her head. "You were busy."

"I know, but..." he sighed. "I kept seeing you. Little glances. Missed you so much. Wasn't nice of me."

"You had important business to--"

"My love," he left her hand without his on his chest and cupped below her jaw. He skimmed his thumb along her lip making her shiver. "You are more important than all m'business."

"I'm not mad at you, Harry. I'm mad I'm jealous."

"Did I make y'jealous?"

She frowned and shook her head. Tucking her face against his shoulder. Her eyes were still red-rimmed and stung from her tears. "No," she mumbled. "Not on purpose. It's me, in my head."

"Kitten," he coaxed a finger between her face and his shoulder and tilted her face back to look at him. "S'not the point," he reminded her.

She dropped her eyes to his shoulder again. "Why did you have to dance with someone so pretty?" She murmured.

He frowned. "I didn't think she was pretty."

"You're right she was beautiful, Harry."

He sighed. "Kitten," he tutted.

"You wanted to talk about this, Harry," she grumbled.

"Well, I keep expecting you t'act like me when m'jealous--"

"Well, I'm not insane, Harry. I would know I don't have to be jealous of my best friend."

He ignored her. "--but you're jus' making me sad, beautiful," he frowned again. "I adore you. You're brilliant, gorgeous, and the loveliest person I know." Her face felt flush because of his compliments. To an outsider, it probably sounded like she was fishing for them. "Y'seriously have no idea how lost I was without you."

"I do make the company better," she shrugged one shoulder smiling impishly. She loved deflecting. Harry knew that but he wasn't going to let her get away with it so easily.

"Kitten, I don't give two fucks 'bout this company, anymore. You make me whole," he promised her. "You make me feel like there's life outside the company. When m'at these events s'all talk and business. I missed you. I wanted t'know if y'liked the food. If the decorations were how you wanted. I wanted t'know what y'wanted me t'donate to the silent auction. I don't care 'bout anything I had t'talk 'bout because y'weren't by m'side," he explained. "And I should've jus' come t'find you and I didn't. M'a shitty boyfriend for that."

Her heart fluttered as he described all the sweet little things he wished he did. "Harry, you're not a shitty boyfriend."

"I made y'jealous."

She sighed. "Not on purpose, I just... get really insecure around pretty people who know more than me."

He kissed her forehead. "Do you know how many times I said my girlfriend would know that tonight?"

"Harry--"

"You are m'whole world," he promised her. "M'not kidding. You're intelligent and stunning," he scanned her face and then his gaze traveled further south. "Y'seriously think you're not sexy as hell in this dress? With all this going on?" He trailed a fingertip along the edge of her dress. Right against the swell of her left breast and dipping along the plunging neckline.

"Louis said it looked like there was a butt on my chest."

"It does look like there's a butt on your chest. S'unfair I didn't get t'see it up close 'til now." She giggled. "There she is," he sighed with relief hearing his favorite sound in the world. "I adore you. Only you. With m'whole heart. Y'have nothing t'be jealous of. Y'have every right t'be mad at me for ignoring you all night."

"I know you didn't mean to," she assured him. "Besides, I may have donated a lot of your money to the couples spa day in the auction. Probably more than it was worth."

He chuckled bringing her closer to him again so his lips could brush along her hairline. Peppering kisses along her skin. "S'probably impossible. And it was for a good cause."

"Yeah, I'll let you know how Niall and I enjoy it," her voice was full of teasing.

But Harry growled anyway. "S'bad enough he got t'look at your pretty dress all night, he is not going t'a spa day with you."

"A couples spa day."

"Last I checked, you and Niall weren't a couple."

"You're so sexy when you're possessive. Especially about Niall."

"If y'say Niall one more time, m'not responsible for what happens t'him tomorrow."

She giggled. "No need to punish Ni--him, when you could punish me."

Harry groaned. "How much was y'dress?"

"Uh..." she blushed. Worried he was going to be mad over the cost of how expensive it was for a one-time wear. "It was $900 but I actually am just renting it. I was going to return it because--"

"No, no," he brought his lips to her ear. "M'going t'ruin it and buy y'two more so I can ruin the next one too," he promised. She felt flushed, overwhelmed, dizzy, and completely turned on. "Cat got y'tongue, kitten?" She nodded silently against him. He chuckled. "Good. Let's go home and get y'out of this dress."

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I said I have OCD when I don't?

I (20X) don't have OCD. I do, however, have some of the symptoms, which is probably a comorbidity thing (ADHD diagnosis). The symptoms that are relevant here line up with contamination OCD.

I can be particular about "clean" things and "safe" spaces. I still live with my parents, and they're used to my habits. They know not to sit in my specific "clean" chair, to let me disinfect things with alcohol wipes before they get brought into the home, et cetera.

Right now my symptoms are relatively under control. There was a time when a brush against something I consider "contaminated" would result in me chucking any clothes that made contact in the laundry and washing any skin that it touched. I'm trying to avoid doing this when I feel like I can, to try and condition myself into being, for lack of a better word, normal. However, it still bothers me, especially when I'm feeling particularly anxious. And it really bothers me when we have guests over who don't know about my preferences and get their outside "contaminants" everywhere, which is where the problem arises.

We're going to have family over. They're flying in from a different country and will be staying in an Airbnb, but the main purpose of their trip is to visit us, so they'll be at our house frequently. This is mostly fine. My main "safe" space is my bedroom, and I would keep that door closed the whole time, and I think they would respect me enough to not enter. But I also have two "safe" furniture items in shared space -- a dining room chair and a couch (we have two in the living room).

Basically, I want to ask my family members to not sit on those two furniture items and say that I have OCD as a shorthand for "if you do this I will become genuinely distressed". I just feel like it's the only way for them to take me seriously and actually remember not to do it without me having to go into a whole explanation about my neuroses.

But at the same time, it feels shitty to lie about a having a disorder. And I'd also be doing this partially out of laziness, which I feel almost definitely makes me an asshole -- because in theory I could just keep disinfecting the chair and the couch between each visit for the couple weeks that they're going to come over for, but both of them are fabric, and it would be so much work to wash and dry them every single day. To be frank, I can't be bothered doing all that, and would rather they just didn't sit there at all. But it might also be an asshole move to tell them not to sit on one of our couches -- I mean, Christ, it's a fucking couch. It's meant to be sat on. (Even if I'd rather they didn't -- not because of them specifically, but because they'd be visiting in "outside clothes", which aren't clean. I also don't sit there if I'm not in clean clothes.)

So -- WIBTA? And if I am voted TA, any advice for how to proceed that doesn't involve having to steam-clean a couch every day would be appreciated.

[fourmoony]

James and reader having a lazy weekend!! They usually have pretty active weekends due to errands and seeing friends, but this weekend has been made the LAZY WEEKEND! Lots of eepy cuddles in bed and on the couch, easy meals with yummy snacks, and movies on 24/7!! Cozy pajamas with only the softest blankets too teehee

I love this!! I need a lazy weekend with Jamie and I need it NOW! Thanks for requesting, sweetheart!!

cw: brief mention of sex, 800 words

You’re not sure you’ve ever felt this level of content. It’s a peace that blankets your entire apartment, your entire body, right down to your muscles and bones. For the first time, you’re not thinking about the million errands that need to be run, the assignments that are piling high for various different classes, or birthday dinners, nights out with friends, sports games that you have to cheer at. Everything is quiet. Even the television, of which has been turned down to a significantly low volume, is quiet.

On a normal day, you’d feel like a slob. Almost an entire weekend on the couch, eating takeout and snacks, letting the dishes pile up, the washing basket overflow, and your phone go ignored would usually have your nerves on end. But you can��t bring yourself to care. Not when James has you tucked into his chest, a leg nestled between yours, and his hands rubbing incessant circles on the skin of your hip. You’re both lying facing the television, watching what’s probably your fifth movie of the day.

Every morsel of your being feels calm. You're grateful for your life, especially so that you get to live it with James and your friends. But there's always something happening, always some event or dinner and you really do enjoy them, enjoy spending time with the people you love, but it's nice, for once, to just be lazy. It's nice to lay on the couch and watch movie after movie and eat shitty takeout with your boyfriend.

You're sure the noise of your chaotic lives will resume first thing on Monday morning. But it's Sunday afternoon and you're floating on the high of your boyfriend's lazy touches and a weekend spent doing nothing.

"I wish we did this more often." James mumbles into your shoulder, as though he's been reading the very thoughts running through your mind.

His voice is laced with lethargy, a lazy husk that would make you kiss him silly if you weren't so comfortable. You sigh wistfully in agreement. The calm and quiet of it all is great, but even more so, you love just being close to James. You love the quality time and the lazy cuddles, the slow sex and the feeling of him constantly surrounding you. "Me too. Our lives are too hectic." You agree.

James grumbles a laugh and the feeling of his chest rumbling against your back makes you smile. "You'd rather be a social recluse?" Your boyfriend teases.

His pointer finger and thumb pinch the skin of your hip playfully. You roll your eyes at his teasing. "No," You deny, rather petulantly, "It's just... we're always doing something. I'd like a couple days a month where we can just exist. You know?"

He hums thoughtfully, thumb smoothing over his pinch mark. "I'm sure if we try we can make that happen, baby."

Your muscles protest when you turn in his grasp, chest to chest, until you're looking up into his stupidly beautiful eyes. James' eyes were the first thing you noticed about him. How bright they were, how when he smiled, they lit up like fairy lights strung across the most perfect landscape. They never fail to steal the breath from you, a melted honey-hazel colour you wish you could bottle up and sell, if only to make yourself a millionaire so you and James would never have to work, again, so you could spend all day every day snuggled on the couch, watching shitty Channel Five movies.

His eyes steal the breath from your lungs, now. James looks at you with such gentleness, such love, that your chest constricts and you feel that overwhelming, all consuming sense of love that only he has ever made you feel. "Really?" You ask, ghost of a smile on your lips.

It makes James smile wide, your evident happiness to his suggestion. He's so giving, so caring. Sometimes, the amount of love you have for him feels like it might swallow you whole, crush you into a thousand tiny pieces.

"Really. We'll find time. 'Cause it matters." His words are final.

You hum happily, push your face as far into James' sleep shirt clad chest as it will go. His arms tighten around you, warmth and the familiar scent of him encompassing your very being. Right now, this moment here, you never want to leave it.

"I love you." You tell him, and the words don't feel enough. They don't feel like justification for the way you feel about James Potter. They never will.

James' lips are soft and warm as they find the skin of your forehead, a reassuring kiss left there that you think means James gets it, and he feels the same. "To the moon and the stars."

"And all the way back?"

James huffs a laugh, arms squeezing even tighter. "And all the way back."

[lucysgraybird]

⋆｡𖦹° i mean camaraderie! °𖦹｡⋆

part 2 of the short 'n sweet series

modern!WILLIAM H. BONNEY (BTK) x fem!reader

warnings: smut (18+), dry humping, oral, potentially unrealistic refractory period, penetrative sex, there was supposed to be more plot but i got lazy

a night out on your own isn't exactly your perfect idea of fun, but there are worse things to be doing on a friday. in a dress that doesn't leave quite enough to the imagination with glitter smeared on your eyelids, you're just about the picture of a girl on the town, and you intend to make the most of it. you've claimed a seat and a cocktail (generously, little more than liquor and juice) at the shitty bar you've wandered into, and dedicated yourself to some intense people watching.

and boy, were there people to watch.

most importantly, a man sitting at a table across the room with his legs spread wide. such was a trait you normally found unattractive in men, but as he wasn't inconveniencing anyone with his need to lay claim to his space, you let it slide. with thick dark curls that curved out from the nape of his neck like little wings and crystalline eyes, he would almost be more pretty than handsome if it wasn't for an inherent ruggedness in his being, in the slouch of his shoulders and the cut of his jaw and his lazily buttoned shirt and the way he reaches down to adjust his pants- oh, wow.

anyways, he's caught your attention partially because of his genuine attractiveness and partially because you've been able to feel the weight of his gaze on you since you walked in. you're waiting to see which one of you will break first.

as it turns out, it's him, the click of his boots heavy as he walks over when you tear your eyes away to take a sip of your drink.

"hiya, miss."

and oh, you're done for. he's got the sweetest little drawl and the slightest curve to full, pink lips, and those two words are spoken with such a genuine cordiality that it almost makes you cry. it's as though he should be touching the brim of a cowboy hat at you as you take your morning prom, rather than sidling up in some run-down dive.

he's an angel. you have to fuck him.

"hello," you say, crossing your legs. his big eyes drop to follow the slight movement, and you don't miss the way they stutter over your body on their way back to your face.

he clears his throat. "i'm billy."

his hands are fiddling with the hem of his pearl-snap button down.

you introduce yourself with a gentle smile, taking pity on the poor boy's obvious nerves. "i felt you watching me."

"i didn't mean anything...funny by it. i thought you were pretty and i couldn't help but stare. you know how it is." he's moved now to lean on the bar next to you, facing out towards the room with his elbows braced on the wooden top.

glancing up at him, you say, "do i?"

"don't think i couldn't feel those eyes of yours on me, darlin'," he replies, and when he flicks his gaze back down to you, it's different. heavier, darker. he might be the picture of polite, but he's not shy - or inexperienced, if you had to guess.

there's a beat of silence, a taught string holding to see if it'll have to snap on its own or if someone will take a knife to it and put it out of its misery.

"do you wanna get out of here?" billy asks, and the second you nod, he's threading his hand through yours and tugging you out the door.

outside, he sneaks a chaste, silly kiss against your lips, a smile on his that you would classify as drunken if he hadn't just displayed wonderful conversational sobriety. it sparks something in your chest, a kind of carnal need you've never felt before, and you're surging to kiss him for real. he's responding in kind without much of a reaction time, pressing one large hand to the small of your back and using the other to tip your face up towards his. this creates an effective angle for him to lick into your mouth - he tastes like whiskey and smoke - as he steers you both into an alley and presses you up against the brick wall.

"someone could see," you mumble when the kiss breaks so that neither of you asphyxiate on pure desire. you're still so close you can feel the way his breath hiccups against the thin skin of your lips, and you might just go insane.

"i'll cover you," billy replies, like it's the simplest thing in the world.

he curves his broad body over you as he starts to press kisses to your cheek and jaw, revelling in the way your breath shakes when you exhale. when his tongue sneaks out at your pulse point and laves the skin there, you have to grab onto his bicep for stability. your free hand sliding into his hair coaxes a low groan out of him and the vibration almost makes you buckle, your whole body feeling raw and hot like a live wire stripped to its copper core. billy nudges his knee between your legs to keep you upright, and the way it brushes against the most sensitive part of you elicits a bitten-back moan.

"you like that," he says, and it's not a question.

his hands slide down to your hips, guiding them back and forth on his thigh, and the combination of the seam of the shorts you're wearing under your dress (you wanted to look hot, but you're not stupid) and the feeling of his firm muscle under you makes your head spin. as you start to rock against him of your own accord, his mouth returns to your neck where he muffles his own sounds into kisses and bites. the way he drags his teeth over the taut tendon at the same time you manage to rock against the hard line of his desire makes you cry out, and billy captures your mouth in a fierce kiss.

"shh, baby, gotta be quiet," he murmurs. "wouldn't want anyone hearing how good you're making yourself feel on my thigh."

you know he's just as affected by this as you are, but he's managing to keep his head much further on his shoulders despite it and it's maddening.

when your movements speed up, he starts talking again.

"there you go, pretty girl. take what you need, okay? fuck, you're gorgeous. you look so good like this, darlin', you're gonna ruin me."

the rumble of his voice in your ear has you feeling very much like he's going to ruin you, actually, a coil of heat twisting in your belly to the point where you can't decide whether you want to get closer or get away.

"billy, billy," you whine, hands twisting in his shirt. "oh, oh, i'm gonna-"

"atta girl, honey, you gonna cum on my thigh? this all it takes to get you all worked up?"

he's teasing but it's almost sweet; there's a distinct tone of wonder in his voice as he pulls back to watch the way your lashes flutter and your lips part around a gasp. when you manage to confirm how close you are, he pulls his leg away just before you finish, tight hands spanning your waist keeping you upright. the frustrated look you give him has him huffing out a laugh and kissing your nose.

"wanna fuck you for real, honey," billy hums. "and i'm not doing that in an alleyway."

and okay, maybe you're a little stupid, because you're walking home with him and fumbling with your keys while he presses against your back and lets you feel all of him, then presses you up against the wall in your entryway and kisses you like he needs it to live. his hands are making quick work of the zipper at the back of your dress and pushing the straps off your shoulders, lips following nimble fingers over your collarbone and down your chest. the heat of his tongue over your nipple has you arching towards his mouth with a whimper. before you can process it, he's on his knees in front of you, hands around your hips. he thumbs the waistband of your shorts.

"can i take these off?"

when your brain catches up with your body and you figure out what he's offering to do, you immediately start, "oh, you don't have t-"

"'s that what i asked?" billy's looking up at you with soft eyes, his thumbs rubbing over your hip bones.

you shake your head. the tender way he's treating you juxtaposed with what he wants to do is stirring an aching want in your chest that drips like lava to burn in the cradle of your pelvis.

"so...can i take these off?"

but when you nod, his hands don't move.

"words, please," he murmurs, and kisses just below your navel.

"yes, god, please, billy, just-"

in one swift motion, billy yanks down your shorts and panties to leave them dangling around one ankle and lift the other to hook over his shoulder, and then his mouth is on you. licking and sucking, his goal seems to be to make as much of a mess of you as possible. he alternates kitten licks at your clit with sweeping strokes with the flat of his tongue. there's a pleasure-pain mix where his hands dig into your thighs to hold you still and upright as you try to writhe against his tongue, and it's dizzying. when he fucks his tongue into you, he uses his nose (intentionally or otherwise, you can't be sure) to maintain a hard pressure against your clit, and it's dragging you to your precipice embarrassingly fast. you're dimly aware of the way his hips are moving, the brush of denim against the shin of your (not-so) supporting leg, but you don't have the wherewithal to think anything of it. before you can even think to warn him, you're coming with a moan of his name, giving a short tug to his curls when he mouths at you through your orgasm. the sheen of your pleasure is smeared around his nose and lips, and there's a haze in his eyes like he's high off the taste of you.

"you taste good," he says, a gravel to his voice that makes you want to tug him up so you can drop to your knees.

which is, in fact, what you try to do, and he just clutches tighter at your hips and tips his forehead to rest against your tummy with a breathless chuckle.

"just...give me a second, honey."

it's then that you notice the way his body's trembling slightly and the - it might just be the lighting of your entryway - slightly darkened patch on the front of his trousers.

"did you...?"

billy gives you a cheeky, wry grin. "you taste really good."

minutes later, he has you leading him to your bedroom. it proves to be a difficult enough task because neither of you can spend more than ten seconds without kissing the other, so there's quite a bit of unsuccessful tumbling before the back of his knees hits the bed and you go tumbling on top of him. immediately, you're fumbling at his belt and freeing him from the confines of his pants. he groans as his cock springs up, rock hard and a pretty shade of red. an involuntary whimper sneaks out of you - he's big. not, like, monstrous, but definitely large enough that you can expect a dizzying stretch.

billy's hands drift over the fat of your hips, caressing. "everything okay?"

a beat, then: "i want to ride you."

he blinks. "well, i'm not going to say no."

you raise up to ease down onto him with his help, and you were right about the stretch. soaked as you are, there's a distinct burn that has your chin tipping down to your chest. when you're fully seated, he's pressing against every spot imaginable inside you, and the experimental roll of your hips sends verifiable sparks flying up your spine. billy leaves one hand on your hips, guiding your rhythm, and the other comes up to cup your chest as he looks up at you in wonder.

"you're so- shit, beautiful," he strangles out. "prettiest girl i've ever seen and i'm lucky enough t...fuck, to see you like this? god, you're squeezing me like a fuckin' vice, darlin', i'm not gonna last-"

and again, his coherence in this moment amazes you, because it feels like the push of his dick in your cunt sent all thoughts flying right out of your head, but as you brace your hands against his chest and start to move faster, he starts to be affected in the same way. his muttered oaths mix with your whines and cries, and soon he's scrabbling at your skin.

"hold on, baby, i'm gonna- just-"

without the mental means to finish his sentence, he flips the two of you over and pushes back into you, one hand flying down to rub your puffy clit. your head tips back and you stammer out a warning before your vision whites out with the force of your orgasm. billy ruts into you once, twice more before he's pulling out and fisting himself, painting sticky ropes over your stomach with a broken groan of your name. when he falls over you, both of you panting, he keeps his elbows braced by your head so you don't take his full weight. after a while, he laughs.

"what?" you say, just barely returned to yourself enough to process your surroundings.

"probably should've bought you dinner first," he breathes. you smack his shoulder; he kisses the corner of your mouth and goes to find a cloth to clean the both of you up with. hazy and sated, there's a sneaking warmth in your chest with the feeling that this isn't the last time this'll happen - and that there might be a relationship beyond it in the near future.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I don’t know if you already wrote about this so forgive me if this is a repeat question but, what do you think about Leona’s depression? I feel it’s pretty obvious in game and yet it’s always glossed over as him being ‘lazy’ idk but I don’t find many talking about his really shitty mental health with any seriousness.

Surprisingly I haven't addressed this (at least not in detail)! So thank you for bringing this to my attention; I definitely feel like I've heard people (especially Leona fans) discuss this quite frequently. If you look in the right places, you’re sure to find insightful commentary on the subject! I know I certainly have, but I've yet to say my own piece on it yet.

Now, before I actually get to actually rambling, I want to preface this post with a few points so we can walk in knowing the perspective I'm coming from. Analysis isn't a "one size fits all"! My experiences and background will color the lenses through which I view Leona’s mental health.

First and foremost, I usually don't go out of my way to claim, "this character has X condition" beyond what is outright stated or implied in canon. That does NOT mean that I disapprove of fans who may have their headcanons that say otherwise or project onto or relate to characters' mental health. You can consume the media you like however you want! I am just saying that I don't have this preference so I feel somewhat uncomfortable speaking on this matter.

Secondly, I am trying to approach this situation from a very clinical viewpoint (as I do have knowledge in this area). This means that when I look for “implications” or read between the lines, I am doing so as objectively as I can. It’s how I choose to process and understand characters from a health angle. This does not mean that my opinion is certain; you could very well find someone else in this area that gives you the opposite opinion. As always, I warn you that my response is for fun, it is NOT meant to be taken as medical advice.

Lastly, PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE POST before you comment or share your own thoughts. I'm up for having a discussion, but I ask that you not do so without getting the full context of my thoughts. It’s a lot of information, and I did my best to break it down in a way that (I hope!!) is easy to understand.

CONTENT WARNING: due to the nature of the question at hand, I will be discussing or mentioning potentially triggering topics such as ***depression, suicidal ideation, dieting, homophobia, and substance abuse.*** Please look away if you are not in the right headspace to read about such topics.

Okay, let's rip the band-aid off now: I don't think Leona is clinically depressed.

Pause. Rewind. Take note of my careful wording there: clinically depressed. I don't think Leona is clinically depressed. What does that mean, and how does that relate to "being depressed"?

I think when people describe Leona as "depressed", they commonly mean that he "has depression", not that he is just feeling sad or has low self-esteem. By "having depression", I'm going to assume they are referring to "major depressive disorder", which is the technical term for the condition.

"It's just an abbreviation of the longer term. What's the issue with using 'depression'?” you're probably wondering. “You understand that we mean major depressive disorder.” Well, equating the two does NOT a diagnosis make.

Mental conditions such as major depressive disorder are documented in a handbook known as the DSM (or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The latest version, the DSM-5-TR (5th edition with text revisions), was published in 2022. The DSM is a manual that sets forth criteria for each diagnosis in its pages. Of course, this includes major depressive disorder—and it may surprise you to learn that Leona does not meet its diagnostic criteria.

A diagnosis of "depression" (the term I will henceforth be using as shorthand for the disorder) is much more than having persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, being unmotivated/lazy, and wanting to sleep often. (I bring up these three things specifically because they are the ones I see being pointed at most frequently to “prove” the diagnosis.)

In order to be formally diagnosed, an individual must be experiencing at least 5 or more of the following symptoms during the same 2-week period:

Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day.

Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day.

Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.

A slowing down of thought and a reduction of physical movement (observable by others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed down).

Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.

Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day.

Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day.

Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide.

At least one of the symptoms should be either 1) depressed mood or 2) loss of interest or pleasure in activities they previously found enjoyable. Furthermore, the symptoms must cause what is known as "clinically significant distress", which is defined by impairment in important areas of functioning. This includes, but is not limited to, socialization, occupation, and/or education. The symptoms must also not be the result of substance abuse or another medical condition, and the individual must ever have experienced mania or hypomania.

Let’s briefly go through each criterion + additional documents and see what evidence there is or isn’t to support it:

We do not have his medical records to cross reference, so for the sake of convenience let’s assume no underlying or additional medical conditions.

We must consider additional context about family, lifestyle, etc. which can confound his symptoms. For example, as a prince, Leona has grown up having most things done for him by servants. This is what he is used to. So when we observe Leona not doing basic things for himself (getting food, doing laundry, making his bed), how much of this can we truly attribute to an underlying condition and how much of this can we attribute to Leona being accustomed to a certain kind of lifestyle?

Leona (at least from what we know of) does not experience mania, nor is he depicted as taking mind or behavior altering substances.

Of the first two criteria, Leona must fit into one: either 1) depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, or 2) markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day. These depend on how you interpret his actions and behaviors. Personally, I don’t think Leona strongly fits into 2 because he still has an interest in his hobbies like Magift/Spelldrive and playing chess (though his involvement in it varies depending on the context). I will concede that there is stronger evidence for 1 over 2, as Leona has definitely expressed sadness and despair regarding himself and his future prospects. It is these thoughts that drive him away from home and keep contact with his family at a minimum. It is these thoughts that prevent him from seeing himself as worthy or even capable of change—a sentiment he shares in book 6, when he encourages Jamil but does not grant himself the same kindness or optimism. For this reason, we will go with the first criterion.

He has not experienced notable weight loss nor gain, nor a notable increase or decrease in appetite. Regarding his general diet, Leona has expressed a preference for meat and rejects vegetables. This by itself does not really provide any useful information in of itself; many people have this preference.

Leona does not experience a slowing down of thought. He is still very sharp and quick-witted in responding to his surroundings, especially in potentially dangerous ones, and coming up with an appropriate plan to counter. It can be argued that Leona has had a reduction in physical movement, as many characters often make remarks about how they perceive him as lazy or not doing much. However, this criterion actually refers to the speed at which one completes an activity and as far as I know, Leona is not said to be moving sluggishly, he only conducts himself in a manner that can be described as "lazily elegant". Even if we stretched the definition to encompass long-term goals he is putting off (like graduation), this criteria is still not counted for Leona since the wording used in the DSM-5-TR states “slowing down of thought AND reduction in physical movement” must be present. In other words, both must be true, not just one of them.

Leona does seem to experience some level of fatigue or loss of energy. This could be one way of interpreting his desire to sleep excessively instead of tending to more meaningful matters (like class). Fatigue, in this case, can also refer to emotional or mental fatigue. The sleep, then, can serve as a means of escape from reality for Leona, but it does not indicate actual physical tiredness. Rather, the tiredness can be intangible. This is also a potential explanation for his lack of motivation when it comes to some activities, especially those that demand him to take charge.

Leona does appear to experience feelings of worthlessness, though perhaps not excessive or inappropriate guilt. In fact, I would wager Leona does not demonstrate the latter, although this could be attributed to the fact that we are not in his head and he does not open up to others about his feelings. For example, we still don't know what his feelings are on almost killing Ruggie in a fit of rage. This does not discredit this criterion though, as the wording in the DSM is “feelings of worthlessness OR […] guilt” meaning one or the other suffices. It is no secret that Leona seeks recognition for his skills—something he was denied as a child and even put down for. While he is aware of his strengths, he has moments when he doubts himself (stating that he can’t change, or giving up when he realizes his plans won’t work so what’s the point in trying?), the contributions he can make (even when his older brother reassures him he can help their country), and encouragement from others (Jack telling him his play inspired him).

As I've said before, Leona does not have a diminished ability to think or concentrate. It has been shown to us time and time again that he doesn't do schoolwork not for lack of trying or lack of understanding, but because he thinks of himself as above it. Leona has already been tutored by the finest teachers royal money can buy, so he believes there is not much else for him to learn. He is also not shown to be indecisive--he can make decisions very quickly and can guide others or at least convince them to go along with him.

Leona does not have suicidal ideation or have recurring thoughts of committing suicide/death. While it's true that this is a game rated for ages 4+ (and therefore has restrictions on what content is and is not allowed in it), TWST has demonstrated to us that there are ways to imply suicidal ideation and other dark themes without explicitly saying it. (One notable example is Idia in late book 6, where he drops lines like "I'll go with you" and expresses dissatisfaction with "this world" to Ortho, who is known to be dead. To this, Ortho reassures him and encourages him to keep living. In fact, I could go on a whole tangent about how Idia better fits the criteria for major depressive disorder, but we're not going to get into that here.) The fact that TWST does not really imply this about Leona makes me think this is not true of him.

It can be said that the symptoms Leona does have are clinically significant, as his behavior is shown to have significant impact on his studies to the point where he was held back a grade. This was not because he did not know the material, but because he failed to find the motivation to attend class and to do his assignments. It also appears that Leona didn't really make an effort to work toward his future until book 7, when he actually talks his internship plans and about wanting to graduate.

We may guess that the symptoms persisted for two weeks or more (given Leona’s history and involvement in the main story), but the frequency of the symptoms is unclear since the game controls what we see of Leona and what we don’t.

Taking all of that into consideration, Leona does in fact exhibit depressive symptoms, but only 3 at most (I say “at most” because we have no idea about the true frequency at which some behaviors occur; we aren’t with Leona 24/7, nor has he reported it to us) out of the 8 total criteria. That’s 2 short of a diagnosis.

“But wait, there’s a lot of information missing here! We don’t have medical records, his weight and appetite changes, etc.” That’s true—but see, the main issue I take with diagnosing fictional characters in the first place is that we oftentimes do not know a character in detail enough to understand the full scope of their lives and symptoms. Noticing a few details is one thing and valid to an extent, but to evaluate an individual is not purely observational. This is particularly true for TWST characters, as even though there is plenty of content to refer back to for behavior, there is still a lack of really going into daily activities or deep feelings (beyond the one post-OB flashback for the OB boys). We cannot observe their behavior extensively. Because of this, tons of key criteria may not be visible to us from the audience’s perspective, let alone a medical history or other data to consider for assessment. We will almost always have an incomplete profile of a fictional character. Health is holistic and not entirely based on what we as individuals see or on all anecdotal evidence.

Just as health considers all parts of the individual, we, too, must consider individual cases of depression. It is possible for depression to exist without a diagnosis—many people (especially older adults), unfortunately, go undiagnosed for their condition. At the same time, it is possible for Leona to have depression which manifests in an atypical way. Each person with depression presents differently than the last, so I so not intend to make any blanket statements about the general population with this condition. The only statement I am making here is that based on my own interpretation of the current lore TWST has granted is, Leona Kingscholar does not satisfy the criteria for a formal clinical diagnosis, at least not for major depressive disorder as is defined by the DSM-5-TR.

Interestingly, Leona does fit the diagnostic criteria for a subclinical form of depression in a 1994 version of the DSM (IV). Minor depression or minor depressive disorder, colloquially known as “everyday depression”, is defined as having 2–4 depressive symptoms persisting for more than 2 weeks. One of these symptoms must be either depressed mood or loss of interest. It should be noted that this terminology is no longer recognized, as new information is added and dropped from the manual all the time. The information is flexible based on the consensus of a panel of hundreds of experts. Older versions of the DSM can be horribly outdated and it is not advised to reference them over newer ones. (As an example, "homosexuality" was legitimately listed as a mental illness in the very first version of the DSM. Yikes. Thankfully, this was dropped from the DSM-II. Other conditions like "multiple personality disorder" are granted new names like "dissociative identity disorder" or reworked altogether as our studies and understanding of mental health and science improve. It is important to keep up with the research coming out and update our approaches accordingly.)

We do not currently have a label for Leona’s situation aside from perhaps experiencing depressive episodes (periods of notable sadness lasting under 2 weeks) and exhibiting some depressive symptoms. I must stress that just because we lack a full-blown diagnosis, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t impact his life. Leona is shown to very clearly be struggling with his mental health. He spends a lot of time in bed, typically cannot be motivated to attend class or do complete assignments, and has moments where he thinks very lowly of himself in spite of the confidence he exudes to others. What's more is that because Leona does not speak to others about what he's going through, it comes off as laziness or arrogance to his peers. Think of it this way: if you have a bad day and snap at a stranger or an acquaintance, the stranger/acquaintance is far less likely to grant you grace or forgiveness for your behavior compared to, say, a friend. They are not as familiar with you, so they will have less patience and are less likely to consider what you may be going through on a personal level. This also applies on a fandom level; if a fan is not actively reading between the lines, they, like Leona's peers, may miss the depressive symptoms he is displaying because they aren't looking for it. How many people can we say are close friends with Leona for him to open up to them about his circumstances? I would say Leona barely even lets his own dorm members be intimate enough with him to let them know about this part of himself. He has Savanaclaw backing him, but he probably does not talk to the mobs extensively. Ruggie is his errand boy, but I doubt Leona pours his heart out to him. And Jack is the newbie who did technically betray their dorm, so Leona might not trust him. Forget about people beyond his dorm. Even his family is not much better off; we've seen that Leona tends to brush off his brother's friendliness and attempts to make amends. There is no strong support system in place for him, which is tricky because Leona perpetuates it by keeping others at bay. In the light novel adaptation of book 2, Leona has an inner monologue about how he is afraid of letting others give him hope because it will encourage him to try again, only to fail another time. I imagine similar logic applies here; he is afraid of showing his vulnerable side because it might give him hope for change when he as late as book 6 expresses that he has given up on himself. I think that this is the detail about Leona most look to when they consider his mental health. The hallmark of depression is, after all, the feeling of perpetual sadness and despair itself. Most do not realize that other factors are considered.

From a clinical lens, it is not “obvious" that Leona is depressed. However, I understand why the prevailing sentiment tends to skew in the opposite direction. For the layman, it may be difficult to distinguish what is and is not clinically significant enough to warrant an actual diagnosis. Again, most will cite the same three pieces of information to support the depression reading: Leona's irritability, his unwillingness to participate, and the rejection he experienced as a child (which has now manifested as self-doubt and low self-esteem). Characters are often judged based on fans' own experiences, and this naturally comes with biases and subjectivity. Thus, some fans may project their own understanding or preconceived notions of what the "typical" depressed person acts like in their head onto Leona. This is normal human empathy at play. I believe that other fans see depression in Leona either because they experience it themselves or are familiar with someone in the same shoes. It can be difficult, and at times we can find solace and solidarity in fiction, especially if we find a character that “speaks to us” and seems relatable. That character may be Leona for some people. If you see do see him in this light or relate to his situation, I’m not invalidating your feelings. On the contrary, I'm happy that you were able to find comfort in him and that a piece of media you love can serve as a coping mechanism. You keep on doing you!

It is at this point that I will reiterate what I said at the start with a little extra nuance: I do not think Leona clinically depressed BUT I do believe he has depressive symptoms and poor mental health as the result of his cumulative circumstances. It is possible for him to have major depressive disorder, but we cannot determine this for certain with the information available to us right now. We are still missing several key components that would typically be considered in the evaluation process.

I think it's important to step back from focusing on labels and instead focus on the individual experience, and how you can still grow as a person and not let a perceived label define you. Leona is definitely working on himself! Changing, particularly changing a deeply ingrained mindset, takes much time and effort. We may not see the progress since Leona tends to hide it and/or we have limited intractions with him. We may not always see giant strides because the process is difficult. Even so, Leona is trying to jump over those mental and emotional hurdles. He's putting his all back into Magift/Spelldrive training. He's attending classes and doing the assignments. He's going home for the holidays. He has an internship planned. He wants to graduate. I've enjoyed following Leona's journey of growth and self-development and seeing all the intense discussion surrounding that. It all comes from a place of love and wanting to support the characters we care about, no matter how we may individually view him.

[sullyfortress]

I have a question that's made me think. With the AU you've drawn for, would Jake and Neytiri's reaction to the events of both movies be, roughly, the same? Or would they be different since their positions are different?

I have to put more thought into this, but in a nutshell reactions are similar - BUT just saying that Jake is now Jane and Neytiri is now Neytir - I feel like I would be lazy to say 'oh yeah they have the same personality as original'.

It's the same idea I think when writers suddenly change the genders of characters, aspects should change. Now I'm not saying Jane should be a damsel or girly - naw fuck that.

But growing up a woman on doomed earth she might have had a different experience than Jake would have had as a man on earth. We are not given much info about Jake's family on earth in the movies - but for this AU; Jane and Tanya were raised by a single mother in a shitty part of what used to be Boston. (Jake is supposed to have an east-coast American accent, which is how I placed it).

Jane had to grow up tough in a shitty environment that really didn't care for her or her family.

Neytir also has different aspects to effect personality. In this little AU, he is the second born of the Olo'eyktan. He was the spare, he could live his life free and careless, knowing Sylwa'tey (Sylwanin gender bent name) would be the one to take over after their father.

My plan is that Neytir's sudden loss of his brother and suddenly the pressure of taking his brother's place as next Olo'eyktan makes him incredibly bitter and stressed.

[ayaisokay]

The Kids Aren't Alright

* ~ I'm sorry for making this ~ *

Doomers & Fatalism

Regardless of your age, you need a reason to move forward. You need hope. Yet, it's hard to find hope for teens and young adults.

Not a year goes by without an update on the planet's decline (at our hand), wealth is only feeling more unstable and unequally distributed, a pandemic destroyed any hope of sociability for some, and social media does more harm than good when it "connects" people.

There's no true community, nothing to take pride in, there's hardly motivation for ambition or wealth. Hell, we grow up being told we'll be a generation of renters, because it's a statistical improbability than any of us will EVER afford a home without working 3 jobs into our grave.

I can't speak for America, but I know my government haven't made any real effort to prevent renter's from taking that news and slowly inflating rent costs each month.

I'm a part of the generation that is thought to deal with the broadest range of mental health concerns; however, I'm also part of the generation that's most likely to be told to "deal with it," or "grow up," by the people perpetuating our suffering, or the peers that fell victim to toxic hustle culture— enabling the shitty circumstances.

When you start adulthood with so many problems that directly impact your life, most of which come at no fault of your own, you'd hope for help in addressing those matters, but it never comes.

We're told we're lazy, we don't try hard enough, and we've got it easy (which is a demonstrable lie). How is it any surprise we became hopeless doomers? At some point you just get the idea that we were destined to fail.

Threats of War

Now we're told to be ready for World War 3 and I'm struggling to understand why. What values am I defending? Why should I die for a country that doesn't care about me?

Sure, Ukraine and Palestine are in shitty situations, but saying that doesn't require me to do anything. Though they demonstrate something: the government will risk our lives for money, and turn a blind eye to genocide if it suits them.

All that matters is that we're made to feel like our interests align. They don't represent us. They represent themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I don't support either conflict, and I sympathise with the aforementioned nations; however, I am not willing to die for them— I don't think you are. So is it even fair for us to bother complaining? It's not like diplomacy has done a thing so far.

Whether we're roped into a war or not, it doesn't feel like we'd have a choice.

Hobbies and Corporations

Normally I'd propose finding an outlet for everything. I'm not sure that's ideal anymore. Commonplace hobbies like gaming, sports, martial arts, reading, and art, they require 3 things: time, motivation, and effort.

Thanks to hustle culture, holding 3 jobs, running a drop shipping business, and abandoning any meaningful social life is considered just enough and reasonable. That doesn't leave time for personal hobbies, entertainment, or time to actually live. A life like that is no life at all. You're an animal operating on the exclusive goal of survival. You're alive, but you're not living.

Among those of us too physically or mentally scarred to work like our peers, we compassionately took to pen and paper, or software and devices, writing stories, drawing and animating worlds, or making music.

I fear that pocket of joy is getting smaller. AI image generation has already impacted artists, AI voice recreations are already being used in place of some voice actors, and we've all seen the AI voice covers for songs— claiming "you don't need to learn to sing." It didn't take long for me to see "generative AI" being proposed as a source for track samples and stems in music production.

Considering such things, it's hard to motivate yourself to put your work out there. You struggle to justify spending time creating anything, and you're probably not ready to put the effort into producing enough algorithm optimised works per day. After all, no one will see it. No one cares.

That's how it feels.

Social Media

Maybe we still have digital spaces? Really. Are cespools like Twitter spaces you can enjoy? Even Tumblr is quite detached, with small accounts struggling to get so much as a couple likes— nevermind a reblog, and god forbid you get a comment or DM.

That's minor though, it's the relationships that bother me. The ability to lock someone out of your life, within 5 seconds, for the slightest of perceived infractions. You're sensitive and a snowflake if you need boundaries, and you're "rude" and "mean" when you're pushed too far for not establishing them.

You can join a fandom or community and run into those issues, but do you really need more trouble? Ive hung around with furries since I was 13 or 14. It wasn't a furry that SA'd me, and I've never been groomed. But as a child online, I was labelled as a dog fucking groomer (at 15), because I was in a furry community discord server. I don't like to think about how that made the young adult owner of the server feel.

Social media is good for "satirical trolls," who take pleasure in hurting as many people as they can, and then claiming it's OK because they're joking, and you should've known. Is it really worth the effort for anyone else? You know, us "normal people," not bogged down by million strong fanbases, actively managing parasocial relationships and morally questionable stalking.

Closing Statements

I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this post. I guess I'm just another girl crying on the internet when I should save it for the therapy I can't actually afford.

I want to be hopeful, to feel like there's something attainable to desire, or even just things to look forward to. It's been a long time since I woke up and felt there was a good reason to be awake or even alive.

Thanks,

- The Girl That Doesn't Exist

[tyrantisterror]

So I Saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

...and listen, I went in fully expecting it to suck ass. I was expecting my nostalgia to actually make me hate it even more for sucking ass than I would have if I had never seen Beetlejuice before. I figured it would be a lazy, heartless cashgrab, with tired actors awkwardly forcing themselves to play a caricature of their old roles and young actors given nothing to work with beyond oooing and aaahing at references to a movie that was made before they were born, directed by Tim Burton, a man who hasn't made a good movie since at least 2007, if not even longer.

So I feel really weird about saying it was actually... good? Somehow? Against all odds, it was good?

Like, I assumed it'd be a lazy rehash of the original, but no, it has a very distinct plot from the first film. It takes Lydia and Deelia Deetz and not only allows them to have grown from where they were in the original film, but keep growing to the end of this one. It uses Beetlejuice himself sparingly, shows new aspects of the entertainingly weird and surreal bureaucratic nightmare afterlife of the original, and actually makes a really strong theme about escaping from manipulative and predatory relationships.

There are references to the original, yes, but overall far fewer than I expected - like, there were so many iconic gags from the first film I expected them to repeat in a "See? It's like the first one!" nostalgia moment that just... didn't get repeated at all. On the other hand, there were clear jabs at the stupid bullshit OTHER legacy sequels have been doing - like, you know how the trailer had the groan-worthy "serious" cover of Day-O? Yeah, in the movie itself, the "serious" cover is sung in-universe in what is clearly meant to be a moment of comedic tonal dissonance - the very idea of using that fun song in a serious context is the joke. They also have a "baby Beetlejuice" gag where the baby version of the pre-existing characrer in question is a horrid little ghoul who spends every second of screentime being as repulsive and awful as possible. It's like it knew what I, personally, expected from a shitty Beeltejuice legacy sequel, and decided to goof on those tropes for my entertainment.

It's not perfect or anything - it has a shitload of subplots which it mostly manages to juggle really well but has, like, just one too many, but that one easily cut-able subplot also revolves around having a Monica Bellucci frankenstein, and I'm enough of a freak to admit I can understand not wanting to cut the Monica Bellucci frankenstein even if it added nothing to the movie beyond the pleasure of seeing a Monica Bellucci frankenstein.

But, like, it was funny, it explored a fantasy setting that honestly is ripe for more exploration, and it had surprisingly more heart than I expected. Like, it actually had more sympathy for both Lydia and Delia Deetz than the original, which is one of the flaws of the first movie in my opinion - it understands that Delia is kind of a great artist instead of maing her just a joke, and that Lydia's anxiety and grief actually has some true pain in it beyond "lol teenage girls are so overdramatic amirite," and it lets those two actually form a really great bond while ALSO adding Jenna Ortega's character into the mix kind of seamlessly? It helps that all three of these women have great chemistry together as actresses - Winona Ryder and Catherine O'hara play off each other so well, and Jenna Ortega adds this great third point to the dynamic the former two had in the original film, it's kind of inspired? And Michael Keaton's Bettlegeuse is used just sparingly enough, as he was in the first film, to be funny and threatening without wearing out his welcome.

It was good. I can't believe I'm saying it, but it was good. I enjoyed it, and I'm still kind of baffled by the fact that I did so. I can't believe I'm writing this in 2024, but Tim Burton finally made a good movie again.

[otomiyaa]

nice.png

(literally how I named the image, couldn't think of something else)

Hi guys :') To my followers and tumblr friends, I'm really sorry if my sudden disappearance scared or upset you. It wasn't quite... planned. And today was a busy day and I needed some time to consider what I wanted to do.

Short version of the story:

My tumblr account got terminated for copyright infringement. A certain Mr. Green got me in unlucky trouble (ref 1, 2).

I won't get it back, or try to get it back. It's gone.

Needed a moment to consider 2 options: ask Mia to extend my dramatic farewell letter and stay gone, or make a new blog.

Not planning to post new writing here. I won't be using words like 'never' or 'forever' because I'm a known clown with things like this, but the intention is to no longer post fics. I will finish Tickletober on AO3 and then take a break from writing. So yes, I cancel the swiftscribbles event too, sorry!

When I opened my laptop, I could see my old blog in its final hour lmao (I found out about the loss on my phone). So that's what the snap is from on a fitting grave. It was fun while it lasted!

Long version of the story:

Losing my blog(s): My Tumblr account with main blog + sideblogs got terminated overnight, it was quite the surprise! I've either been reported or tracked by bots. The posts are a bunch of numbered URLs I can't open, but the message is clear: for including anime content, genshin impact or media from other sources (whether it's videos, screenshots, official art, gifs or even fanwork) you technically can get a strike. Upon googling the claimer I quickly found this first, and knew it was a lost cause. Although it feels shitty and unlucky, I am in no place to appeal. It's like when I used to make AMVs in the past, you never knew whether a song or even anime footage was going to give your YT account a copyright strike or even a ban, it was a gamble. I have lost YT accounts before, and now I lost the Tumblr one. With 7+ years of tickle trash content and a bunch of sideblogs. But oh well, moving on!

Starting a new blog: It was a serious consideration whether this was my ultimate chance to do what I've always said I wanted to do eventually - quit my blog. My first thought was to ask Mia to share my explanation and literal goodbye with you guys, and stick to my chaos of a Twitter account to indulge in fandom stuff. But then I thought of how happy Tumblr made me, even without the fic writing, but just.. reblogging things, getting random asks, shouting about life and of course, about tickles. I decided to make a new blog after all, but also decided the following:

The 7K+ milestone swiftscribbles event is cancelled, for which I apologize! The follower milestone, together with the motivation to write the fics, and even the asks with the requests I got, all died with my former blog.

I will see how long I can survive without posting a new fic or drabble. A loose headcanon or two might fly around sometime. And if necessary, a link to a new fic on AO3.

Tickletober? Hell yes I'll finish it, I would cringe in bed for 49 days at least if I would stop. I just won't post the fics here, but on AO3.

Reposting/reblogging my old works? Undecided at the moment but I'm tired and lazy. I don't feel too upset since most of my fics are still on AO3 at least and not completely gone.

Anyways, I'll see what happens and how long I can enjoy this nerfed version of blogging.

Surprisingly I'm not upset about losing my other blog, there were a lot of memories but it was also very cringe. I'm gonna be just as cringe here, but at least I feel cleansed.

For those who choose to follow me again, thank you, but please know that there won't be much original content coming from me, for now!:)