#poetry is very embarrassing but also the only thing that matters

[dreamsoflightvalley]

Robbie Valentino X Reader (Headcanons)

A/N: Made a little banner for this myself since I couldn’t find any good gifs for him, thought it’d be cute! I noticed a severe lack of Robbie content and also a resurgence in the GF fandom (raising fellow Rob-heads from their grave as well). Good to know I wasn’t the only one with a big ol’ crush on him as a kid X)

Content: Completely SFW (not even a swear), typical teen shenanigans and romance, use of the nickname babe.

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Robbie is a mega jerk, but sometimes it comes from a place of approval seeking. He’ll start (and lose) fights with other guys over you, probably puff his chest in public and brag very loudly about how in love the two of you are, but he’s never had someone to really sit him down and tell them they love him no matter what. If you have a serious talk with him about things he does that make you uncomfortable or upset, he’ll listen. Actually listen. Sometimes he gets so caught up in impressing his (rather empty headed and shallow) friends that he forgets you don’t care about all that stuff.

He’s not the ideal partner, but he’s loyal to a fault. He’ll obsess over you, maybe even an unhealthy amount, but the thought of cheating never ever crosses his mind.

If you’ve ever told him about past partners, best believe he’ll have some things to say. Nothing good, that’s for sure.

“Those guys/gals were friggin’ jerks, and they didn’t deserve you. If I ever see their faces around town, I’ll kick their butts all the way to the mountain tops for you babe.”

Regardless of whether you’re a goody two shoes or not, he will try to rope you into some mischief. Whether it be more graffiti, vandalism, or petty theft, he’ll beg and plead for you to accompany him on his misadventures and if you’re lucky he’ll reward you with something romantic.

Even if you outwardly disapprove of his actions or reprimand him when he’s wrong, he is 100% a ride or die for you specifically and will very rarely if ever correct you on something or tell you you’re wrong. He either A, thinks you’re right, or B, thinks calling you out will embarrass you and if you look bad then HE looks bad and that’s not gonna fly with him.

Since he learned from his experiences with Wendy before dating you, he’s a little less rough around the edges. He tries to be more genuine with you, and do right by you. Instead of ripping off another band he’ll actually try his hand at writing his own lyrics/poetry for you. It might not be good, heck, it might be edgy drivel, but it’s from the heart and you can’t laugh in his poor little face like that!

If you are emo or decide to get a little adventurous with your fashion style, he will 100% help you shop or do other things like dye your hair and do your makeup.

It’s a surprisingly tender thing for him, very patiently doing your eyeliner, the air from his nose fanning against your face as he breathes quietly with that subtle yet concentrated smile on his face…

Surprisingly the big shows of affection aren’t what gets him shy and flustered, it’s the small things. Tiny pecks on the lips, morning cuddles, little whispers of affirmation, he runs on that kind of stuff. Public makeouts and sneaking out at night are still awesome, but they don’t give him the same flutters that the softer things do.

If you’re scene or just plain crafty, he will hoard all of the bracelets you make him like a dragon. He goes feral for black and red kandi, bonus points if there’s a little broken heart charm dangling near the knot because he’s never taking it off for as long as he lives.

He can and will make mix CDs of songs that remind him of you, and then hand over a copy once the ancient PC at the library is finished uploading it. He tries to save them for special occasions, but he makes so many it’s hard to resist for him sometimes…

Yes, he will draw both of you as emo solves, yes he thinks it’s deep, and no you cannot stop him.

You’re gonna have to put up with his insane beef with Dipper, and bite his head off for it (figuratively) every once in a while. For someone who cares about appearance he sure doesn’t realize how bad bullying a kid looks.

If you have any siblings, he’ll try to hold himself back for your sake. If they’re older they’ll probably get along well, but if they’re younger he’ll be weary of interacting with them and heavily dismissive at first… Until one night you catch them playing games and making microwave s’mores together. Don’t be surprised if your little sib starts to wear more black and stars painting their nails.

Ironically enough, Robbie likes being the little spoon. He’ll never admit it, but if you flop down behind him while he’s resting and snuggle up he gets embarrassingly happy.

If your styles are opposites, he’ll do his best to enjoy the contrast instead of trying to change you. If he’s in a particularly good mood that day, he’ll try some of your hobbies or let you pick some clothes out for him. No guarantee that he’ll like them, and even if he does he’ll still act like he doesn’t.

He secretly tries to sniff you when he thinks you won’t notice, even though its hard to sniff quietly with such a big nose he still tries to get away with some soft whiffs (or some heavier ones if you’re like asleep or something).

If you work at a job, specifically a customer service one, he can and will go up to the counter and try to flirt his way into the discount. If your manager is a strict jerk it’s best to keep him away from the property, because he will start beef and spray paint their car.

[starryelem]

So it seems you like a lot of ships… could you maybe feed me some Ink x Finch headcanons?

Oh gladly.

Ahem ahem

These came to the top of my head btw, there’s a lot more..

✦Finch isn’t the kind to complain about being tired but he will silently complain about being tired by going to Ink, asking if he can hold him and simply holding him for a moment with his head nuzzled into Ink’s neck. {Ink surprisingly doesn’t find this embarrassing and actually feels like he’s flexing}.

✦It took Ink a while to hold hands with Finch or do anything related to public display of affection but once he got used to it, he started to enjoy his hand being slightly warmer or being able to gently squeeze Finch’s hand when he wants to leave or feels uncomfortable or simply wants to make a comment.

✦Finch isn’t a big foodie but he is willing to try new things out. Ink is the exact opposite and so subconsciously, Finch began to memorize the textures, flavors and even smells Ink liked and so he’s able to pick out great date places where they can eat.

✦Ink may not be good at finding places to dine out or to hang out in but what he’s great at is going out at the right time; he has an unbroken streak of texting Finch at times like 3 am and asking if he wants to take a walk, Finch has never been asleep or on his way to rest during these times.

✦While Finch knows Ink’s favorite things to eat and what matters most to him in a food, Ink knows what Finch’s favorite things to wear and what colors he enjoys and is able to style the other.

✦At times when Ink is feeling the need to draw or to paint something, he always uses Finch as an example or at the very least has him on his mind, thus his art is different than before.

✦Finch adores writing poetry. He often writes poetry admiring Ink and the way he’s changing and showing him his softer side.

✦Ink at times will try to get Finch to talk about something he’s passionate about or has many opinions about because not only does he get to hear Finch’s pleasant voice but it also helps him form better sentences on how he feels {Guards say that instead of just saying “It’s annoying” he’s now willing to explain why it bothers him}.

✦Ink actually adores Finch’s full name and finds it so easy to remember.

✦Ink subconsciously calls Finch “Hendrickson” which he himself is surprised to realize at times because it just slips out.

✦Finch has a couple more days off than Ink due to their ranks. He doesn’t try to make their days off match because he knows damn well Ink needs his alone time and if he wanted to spend time together he’s gotten confident enough to ask.

✦When one of them is out to buy something, they subconsciously look for things the other might like and end up not only buy something for themselves but also for the other {Can be literally anything, even if it’s just a drink or a hoodie}.

[brw]

You've mentioned many times how you think Hank is at his happiest and most fulfilled when he's with the Avengers, but why do you think that is? In-universe, I mean. Is it just how he gets along with certain Avengers as individuals? Is it about how the O5 knew him from a way younger age and now there's too much baggage? Is it about how one team exists for protecting the common people and the other for protecting our people, and there's different kinds of pressure that come with each? Is it about (and this one is maybe just a less generous read of the last one) how he's got unresolved issues regarding being a mutant and with the Avengers he can just ignore this?

I think the main reason why Hank thrives in the Avengers environment more than the X-Men is the difference in responsibility and expectation.

On the X-Men, Hank is their resident smart guy. You have a problem that needs fixed? Hank's your guy. Legacy virus? Hank will find a cure. Mutantkind's population has been destroyed and only a handful are left? Don't worry, Hank's on the case. Your powers are on the fritz? Hank will make it better for you. Need a spectacular invention for whatever reason? Call Hank! Hank is their resident doctor, teacher of students, engineer, mechanic, biochemist, physicist, culture critic, etc. Hank's most valuable commodity, the thing that makes him important and valuable to the team, is his intellect, and how he can use it to serve the X-Men and mutantkind as a whole.

And Hank does take on this responsibility... but I think he also resents the X-Men for it at times. That he's being pigeon-holed as a scientist, that he has to dedicate so much of his life and time to the X-Men.

It's why he reacts as badly as he does in that Trail issue of Bendis' Uncanny. He's given his whole life to these people, hasn't he? For the past few decades of his life, he's worked tirelessly to do everything that was needed for the X-Men and mutants to survive, and they thank him by embarrassing him in front of an entire student body of pupils he's taught. Yeah, never something that was going to go well.

Compared to Avengers, where he is at best, maybe 7 on the list of smart guys they have to solve something. Who is the resident genius? They usually have about two per team. Tony, T'Challa, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, Bobbi Morse, Riri Williams, these are all different characters part of or associated with the Avengers who are geniuses and will help solve big problems. Hank isn't needed for his intellect. He's needed because they want him on the team. He adds an important role to the team dynamic, which can be stifling in its own way, don't get me wrong, but the weight of it is far less than it is on the X-Men. He instead gets to focus on levity and having fun and teasing Wanda and Simon and reading poetry and the likes.

It's not that he's never used as a smart guy; but the stakes are lower. If he fucks up then, they can probably speeddial Hank Pym or Bobbi or someone to come help and fix things. On the X-Men, where the consequences for failure is often making things materially worse either for his friends or mutants as a whole, the stakes are much higher.

But the other reasons you mentioned also influence why the Avengers is a more positive space for Hank. Certainly, if I was working and living with the people I'd known since high school where all of the same drama was still unfolding in its own way, just with more people to get involved, I'd want to get out of that situation as soon as too. No matter how much Hank loves the O5 and respects them and thinks highly of them, there is no way you can continue to essentially be perpetually trapped in your high school friend group without feeling stir crazy.

I think the Avengers being a more general space also appeals to Hank. Before Ben Percy, Hank was very much so a disciple of Charles' politics and perspective of mutants, which I've already talked about before on here are flawed and go hand in hand with his experience and struggles as a wheelchair user. It isn't that Hank is naïve to the struggles of mutants–he knows it better than almost anybody else, and he's worked insanely hard before in the past to make spaces for mutants–but he values different perspectives, I think, and his idea of a mutant community I don't think is a Mutant community, but a community where mutants are just one of a diverse group of people. Isolationist policies will never (or rather, should never) sit right with him, and with how insular the X-Men often are as a team, how often they stay confined to their own little corner of the Marvel Universe, I think it makes sense that Hank values how open the Avengers are regardless of origin, because I think in Hank's fantasy utopia in his head that's how things should be.

The thing is with Hank's feelings about his mutanthood and the Avengers is that, to be honest, Hank is probably more secure and comfortable in his skin as a mutant as an Avenger and Defender than he is as an X-Men. There's this issue of Avengers where Hank is dancing at a party with a woman, and this drunk guy gets incredibly angry and disgusted at Hank for, in his mind, stealing regular woman away from their own men. There's a confrontation, and Hank completely whoops the guy's ass and sends him into the wall and abjectly humiliates him, before going home in an understandably bad mood. X-Men Hank, while he would stand up for himself and call out bigotry when he sees it, I don't think would ever react physically the way Hank did there, because he is too aware of the optics of a non-human looking mutant hurting a non-mutant in public. He'll make fun of a bigot on live TV, but he won't hurt them, either. He keeps it under control. He feels like as a mutant in the public eye, he needs to be respectful and acceptable to a general audience.

Avengers Hank isn't as accepting. And it definitely isn't that being an Avenger means you can get away with more things like this than the X-Men can; Vision quite literally gets attacked by suicide bombers in Avengers, and Wanda and Vision's house gets burned down later in the series. The Avengers have never been a means of protecting yourself from bigotry, because it happens anyway. But I think the reason for this difference is because Avengers (and Defenders) Hank is not representing mutantkind as a whole. If he wants to do something for mutants, it's being done on his own terms, and not because if he does the wrong thing with an X, he sends a bad message not just to the larger non-mutant population, but to mutants too. It's why in the Whedon run it becomes a whole fight when he thinks about–doesn't even necessarily want to, just thinks about it–taking the mutant cure. Hank breaks ranks, he sends a message to every mutant in the world that taking a cure is preferable to looking non-human.

It isn't that Hank doesn't want to help mutants by representing them, but it needs to be something he chooses. Not something he is unwillingly participating in by virtue of having an X on his chest. He is perfectly willing to put himself out there when the time comes, but he also wants to be able to have a drink at a bar. You might be saying, "Well Brieuc, he's blue and furry, so people are always going to clock him as a mutant", and that's true, but I think with the Avengers and him fighting alongside Vision, who is also visibly nonhuman and acts far less ""human"" than Hank does, Vision sort of took a lot of that negative energy away. Hank might look like a blue ape man, but he laughs and might buy you a round of drinks and dances. Vision doesn't do any of that, and Vision is far less charming and personable than Hank is. Hank makes an effort in a conversation. Vision will just go through the floor and walk away if you're boring them.

The point being, while he is the only visible mutant on the Avengers, he's not the only person who doesn't look human, and I think that's another reason why he enjoys himself more. He feels more normal on the Avengers, because you have someone like Vision is so strange and off-putting that by comparison he's a regular man. On the X-Men, other than Kurt (and they've only been on the same team I believe twice in the history of X-Men), Hank is often the most mutated person on the team. He is the person most easily clocked as a mutant, and I think it's easy for him to internalise that fact, and to feel subconsciously resentful at his human-passing peers. Vs the Avengers, where he still is visibly a mutant, but he blends in more standing next to Vision, who is more of a mainstay on the team.

And to come to your first point for last, yeah, his experience on the Avengers probably wouldn't be nearly so positive if it wasn't for his best friend Simon. The Avengers could be a sadistic criminal organisation and I'm pretty sure Hank would still have positive things to say because he was doing it with his best friend, Simon Williams. He loves that man, and it stands out that when Simon left the Avengers, Hank did too, for a bit. His love for the Avengers is really his love for Simon, projected onto the whole team. Oh, he does genuinely like it there; but it's Simon's presence and friendship that changes things from a nice change of pace to objectively the best place for Hank to be. Simon's always brought out the best in Hank, and Simon is an Avenger, so that's where Hank is his best.

[slocumjoe]

Nsfw headcanons but, like, not horny. Potentially "gross"

Cait; So much pubic hair. It mats and needs to be shaved off, has broken razors and shavers. Has gotten dangerously close to clipping her labia. Prone to acne down there, and prone to UTIs. Nothing wrong with that, we don't body-shame here. See a doctor though, that can't be comfortable. Gets way too hung up on topping and being a top. A lot of kinks are a hard no for her, no matter what side of it she's on.

Curie; Doesn't get...horny? But still likes sex, if she ever has it. It's the same kind of enjoyment you'd get from, say, roller skating or something. Probably has said "This is fun!" in bed conversationally, with no ~heat~. It's very clinical, but Curie likes clinical stuff. If you refer to parts incorrectly, will correct you. Hope you weren't into dirty talk. Knows more about sex than you and God help you if you take a patronizing tone with her.

Danse; Erectile dysfunction, and struggles to get it up even if he's DTF. Nothing wrong with that, we don't body-shame here. He doesn't really notice anyway. Very worried about consent and what you want (good!) that he ends up not doing anything without being explicitly told to (can get tiresome). Please just make him be a dead fish bottom. Needs intense aftercare/cuddling every single time. Angry/hate sex would legit traumatize him, not trying to be funny. It would fuck him up in a bad way.

Deacon; Also has a bit of ED, but is more embarrassed about it. He knows how easy and fun sex is when you're able. Likes role play but it always goes off the rails. Sex with Deac has plot twists and third-act breakdowns. Its fun, but don't go into it requiring an orgasm. He's now invested in the story he's crafting. Skin is...pretty unpleasant to touch. Very leathery. His genitals have undergone lots of different operations even when he wasn't changing his sex. On one hand, will change it to suit what you like. On the other, feels really weird.

Hancock; Also feels really weird. His body fluids are irradiated and unsafe to...be around, really. Don't swallow. A condom is needed for safe sex, in a major way with Hancock. That and some rad-x and rad-away. His dirty talk is always too much for whatever you've got going on. Likes his sex spontaneous but also really worried about consent. Ping-pongs between 'lets surprise them' and 'if I so much as move their limb weird I deserve to die.'

MacCready; Smaller side. Nothing wrong with that, we don't body-shame here. He just gets...kinda hung up on it...he can also be pretty immature when it comes to sex. Like, cartoonishly so. Most likely to use hand gestures and charades to refer to genitals. Giggly in the bedroom. Ultimate sexual fantasy is being kidnapped by the Mistress of Mystery and Silver Shroud and...'interrogated.' JO'd to assaultatrons once. The post-nut clarity on that one, oh boy...

Nick; has to wear an oven mitt on the one metal hand and a plastic glove on the 'flesh' hand. The flesh hand attracts dirt and filth like nobody's business and doesn't wash easily. He is not sticking that thing in you. Basically needs a condom for his hand. Will quote poetry at you and its 50/50 if its weird or lands. Lacks genitals, so you've only got voyeurism or wireplay to satisfy him. I do believe DiMa has a dick though; why else would he wear pants?

Piper; her periods are nightmarish. Needs so many pads. Always ends up bleeding through. And it's never just one little spot. It fully looks like she crushed someone's head between her thighs. Has gone with that story before. Needs a lot of lube for penetrative sex, and God help you if you try to use your hands with dirty nails, or your mouth without brushing + flossing. Really insecure about how she smells and tastes. Girl. That was bullshit before the nukes.

Preston; takes so long to finish, often doesn't. He's chill with it. Doesn't make noises during sex and its honestly kind if off-putting, even if his expressions line up. Has a lot of skin tags and moles around his thighs, and a scar from where a molerat almost ruined his bedroom habits, so to speak. Wears, like, three cups. Very low libido, once a blue moon is in the mood. Has a thing for prominent veins.

X6-88; Asexual. It's not a courser thing, a surprising amount of them have sex. Was really weirded out when he figured this out about himself, despite always lacking interest in sex. Except for porn. Porn is fucking hilarious to him. Gets really into analyzing what literary elements he can, psychoanalyzing the characters in the 'plot.' Would totally be into Fifty Shades of Grey and other hot-mess porn media. If anyone found out about this interest, he would commit a murder-suicide.

[talenlee]

Speaking In Mangled Tongues

I don’t talk right.

I mean I talk in a way that has obvious incorrect ideas in it. My idioms, my reference frame, even the ways I engage a newcomer into my life, these are all things that I feel, in a very pronounced way, are weird and wrong.

I am blessed in that now I’m old enough that I just seem eccentric, or old fashioned, or, to my students, some boring old guy. I’ve passed the time when people my own age can hear the way I speak and think ‘hey, there’s something wrong there.’ I’m also lucky in that I don’t seem to look my age, which means people my own age talk to me and think I’m just weird and young, and people younger than me have no idea if I’m five or ten years older than them.

I have been out of fundamentalist christianity for twenty years. Doesn’t matter. The effect is still there. The effect is not a byproduct of doing things in a Christian way, but rather the result of my developmental period being limited to socially conversing with about ten people who were almost all the same age as me, and almost all as limited in their experiences as me.

Our way of speaking was simplified, our poetry was dulled, our grasp of language and rhythm and meter were all deliberately contained and curtailed. I don’t know how to dance and I struggle with clapping in time with music, I am uncertain of how to even describe the way I sing or the way music works, because these words, in a period where I was building the foundations of meaning in language, were all kept from me.

We’d repeat lines from TV, over and over, but we’d only be able to do that with the TV shows that were acceptable, that our teacher didn’t ban from hearing us say. We wouldn’t hear pop music of the day, except in tiny excerpts, at places like the supermarket. The idiom and language we learned therefore mostly was imprinted with references from our adult peers, and they were deliberately stifling us. I grew up delivering the jokes of the Rocky and Bullwinkle and The Goon Show affect, but didn’t watch or participate in the common public life of my age. I learned rhetoric presentation from the preachers in my family, I learned the way you pace and build and demonstrate a point.

It’s something of an embarrassing story, but I feel more it should be embarrassing to my family than to myself, but I learned about sexual reproduction not from my parents nor from school, but from reading an expanded dictionary and looking up every single thing I could until I had a working model. That working model had to then be interpreted onto some extremely dubious source material.

This creates a corpus of reference, of performance of language that is equal parts highly technical language pronounced wrong, a melange of calliopes, dated references that predate my entire birth, and playful words from childish source material, like the actual text of Alice In Wonderland. The whole mix means that a lot of my conversation, certainly in those early days, was not so much about talking to someone and sharing ideas or getting answers to questions, but to perform at people, to present in a way that got focus, so you could convey your position.

By the way, don’t be surprised to learn it’s also racist. Accents completely confounded me growing up. We had some neighbours from down the street whose names I remember, who invited us to their home and shared curry and rice and flatbread with us, and about whom I know almost nothing but their names and maybe that they were from Pakistan. I know they were nice and I know we dressed up nice to visit them and I know we went to them once and never again thereafter. I do not remember a single word they said to me and I do not understand anything but their names, and that isn’t because I was very, very young, it’s because when I try to remember what they said, what comes out is tone, and a sort of sloppy, choppy half-way handling of language. My memory can only remember those two people saying their names.

It wasn’t like they spoke to us in Urdu, I just had no idea how to process a thick accent at that age. Or later. It took me decades to build even a familiarity with grammar structures outside of my extremely normalised experience.

This isn’t built out of, by the way, glossalalia – not speaking in tongues. We didn’t truck with that in my church. In fact, those people, we could tell, obviously, were all faking it. Some of them claimed to be possessed, but they so obviously weren’t, that was silly. We could tell that there was something nonsense about that, so we didn’t do that. Of course, we also only read the King James Bible, which meant that that corpus got to form an underpinning for how we made points, how we were compelling; we quoted scripture at one another, meaning that particular manner of speech was the way good points were made.

The way my way of speaking is composed is so obvious — to me — as impersonations of media forms. Finding my own voice, finding my own identity, is so fucking difficult. Even writing as much as I do, as often as I do, I still have these moments of you got that joke from Douglas Adams or didn’t you copy that from Yahtzee?

I was a teenager who knew the word unctuous and cephalaphore but didn’t know what motherfucker meant.

And that’s part of why I love The Locked Tomb so much HAH bet you didn’t expect that to show up here. Look, the main characters of Gideon the Ninth are essentially, two of the most homeschooled fundamentalists you’re going to see without uh, meeting people like me. But instead of making the story sad and miserable because of that, the Locked Tomb books instead decide to make sure that story is focused on cool sword fights and creepy magic rather than, like, the trauma of being locked in a small wooden box and punished for looking at the sky. That particular way of talking Gideon’s narrative voice has, which is able to be sophisticated enough to know the term liquescent, while also base and childish enough to refer to galumphing down bread. And that’s of course, setting aside that ‘galumph’ is a word I knew out of nowhere, because it’s a word my dad uses, because it was used widely on radio programs across Commonwealth nations in the 1950s and 1960s including as part of an ad campaign to refer to when a character arrived quickly.

Yeah, random tumblr user, complaining about galumph. I’m coming for you.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[autumnslance]

Year of the OTP - September 2023 - I Wrote This For You

("Meet the Family" has a...long draft I'm still not happy with after 2 years of Endwalker. So have some 885ish words of yearning instead.)

[A letter in nearly type-perfect cursive font, the envelope also containing a pressed white flower yet retaining its sweet scent, delivered surreptitiously via postmoogle to the top of a certain gunbreaker’s pack…]

This is not at all fair.

I toss and turn, staring into the darkened ceiling and wonder when I became so restless. So needy.

I sprawl across the mattress, too big for only myself, missing you. It’s only been hours since we parted, only last night that we held one another, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

It’s not quite an ache, but almost, and I’ve no other words to describe it, running up and down my arms, my legs. A need to be touching, to be holding—but there’s only empty air.

A very specific not-quite-heated-ache low in my abdomen, between my legs, a sensation that will not be sated except by your touch.

I roll over and bury my flushing face in a pillow.

I didn’t used to feel such things. I used to not understand what others meant when describing wants and aches and needs. It was surely an exaggeration. Hyperbole for poetry and songs.

Even when we first met, and others hurled themselves at you, insistent—even desperate—I rolled my eyes and thought they were overdoing it. Certainly, physical intimacy can be enjoyable, but so is a game of tag, or cards, or simply sitting together discussing a book. Handsome you are, but I was convinced they were playing it up to win your attention.

Then somewhere, somehow, though I didn’t mean to, along our long and winding way I fell for you. And it seemed as if my entire world shifted.

The gleam in your eyes, the crook of your smile, the gentle roughness of your hands, the steady beat of your heart in your warm chest when pulling me close. All of you is a conspiracy to rewire my every reaction.

I understand now what it means to melt after seeing the ways you look at me. You ask me to tell you what I want, voice low and rough, and the frisson it causes is not imaginary. It shivers through me now, even just imagining you leaning over my back, calloused fingers on my skin, puff of hot breath on my neck, the rumble in your voice pitched just so…

I flip over again. Still alone. 

I could never be mistaken for wanton. There’s still much I don’t understand. I still need to be coaxed and encouraged because this is all so new and a little embarrassing and a lot messy and I worry my inexperience, my need for guidance, just isn't enough to keep you.

I’ve come to realize there are times you neglect your own wants and needs to tend to mine. And while I am grateful for your attention and your patience, I need your happiness too. 

There’s my blush again, as I think about not just your happiness but your pleasure, in duet with mine. The clench of your fingers in my hair, the tension in your neck and jaw as you arch. The way you moan, or call my name.

Your pleased reactions please me. And gods, the thought of seeing, hearing, feeling them again brings a fresh wave of aching in my limbs, more heat pooling low.

I want you. I need you.

I didn’t used to feel this way.

I didn’t see you, after hours or days or weeks, and think about how much longer it will be until I can have you alone, and then in my bed. Until we’re holding, kissing, touching…

There’s so much more to us than this; after all this time, all we’ve been through together. Some days I only want to sit silently in the same room, each doing our own work or play, basking in your company, your presence in my life more than enough.

Then there are nights like this, when I realize oh no, it wasn’t hyperbole, wasn’t exaggeration. That another person, that you, can make me burn and those desires will be the most wonderful and terrifying sensations.

I miss you, though it’s barely been twelve hours since you kissed me goodbye.

And so, since I cannot sleep, here I am writing down all the ways you make me yearn.

How I am counting the time until I have you here again, wrapped in each others arms, breath catching as lips and fingers find those perfect spots we each know so well on one another’s skin, your voice rumbling in my ear, demanding I tell you what I need but it’s you, just you, moving against me, with me, in me, until we both sing.

I would never have written anything like this before you. I would never have dreamed of sending such words as a letter. But I need you to know how loving you has altered my internal chemistry, and that cannot wait until we are face to face once more.

For one thing, you know I will be too shy to say it aloud. I can see you in my mind’s eye, smiling as you imagine my blushing.

But we have ever connected over written words, so here are mine, for you to hold and read and reread and imagine me imagining you until we are together again.

[mysterious-starlight]

How Fish is Made (Full Transcript)

 Lines starting with “>” indicate a player choice has happened.

 Text within [square brackets] indicates an non-spoken action.

Transcribed by L. Pierce for Academic Use on 04/16/2023

Green Room | Welcoming Fish

Oh, hello. You just dropped? Haa. . .

Tell me. Are you going UP or DOWN?

You’ll have to make up your mind by the end. 

Even the oilliest of us have to, so don’t flatter yourself with your choice, haa.

Where am I going? Don’t worry about that. 

So, which is it UP or DOWN?

>UP or >DOWN

Haa ha, are you sure? 

Rusty/Bloody Hallway | Flopping Fish

UP. . . UP. . . UP. . . 

You look like a smart guy! You also know the way is one way, and that way is UP and ain’t no two ways about it!

I’ve always known it was UP! I never asked, I never changed, never lied! 

Let me hear you sing it, I like to hear it, where ya goin’ where ya goin’?

>UP

UP! UP! UP! The water has it wrong, the flesh has it wrong! Everything goes UP UP UP in the end!

> DOWN

Whatcha say? Come again?

        > DOWN

Wonder what will happen to you! Will it hurt? Will it stop? Oh well!

Rusty/Bloody Hallway | Flopping Fish

UP! UP! UP!

Rusty/Bloody Hallway | Plastic-Trapped Fish

Ah! What fortune that we should meet. Do not be foiled by that one. He is lost, like so many are.

We can only POETRY them!

I see you are in awe of my throne of inspiration.

It clung to me suddenly one day, much like all my ideas do, complete and unden-

Undeniab- -

UNDENTABLE! Complete and undentable!

No, No, take it in as much as you like. It is a confirmation of my most oily brain.

Do tell. What blind groping has brought you to your choice?

Be forewarned! I did a lot of thinking to know which is indeed, the correct way. 

All answers come to me very quickly. Such is my burden. 

Would you like to know? It might change your entire WORLD FEW. 

It is. . . DOWN. Yes, this I know for sure. 

But how?! I hear you ask. Let me explain. . .

No. . .

It is simply too complex for you to PHANTOM! My methods are beyond simple minds!

I have never EVER thought of a single reason to question myself, can you believe it?

No, you cannot.

I am elated to have saved you from making a FATHER embarrassment of yourself!

Just think of me as your guide, mentor and sage.

You’re welcome!

Rusty/Bloody Hallway | Plastic-Trapped Fish

My throne? No, no, no! It’s not uncomfortable at all.

. . .Mrrgh. . .

Red-Lit Room | Screaming Fish

Aaahh! ! !

. . . Oh, hello. Um, the way’s over there.

Red-Lit Room | Screaming Fish

I don’t know what to do. . . my family went UP, but my best bud said that DOWN is the correct choice.

The family is big but distant in their togetherness. But the big group together is safest, it’s the toppestest truth!

. . .Why would he do this to me?

. . .DOWN is wrong, I can feel it between my shiniest flakes

We’ve swam together since both of us were but scrampy things but. . . H-how can I know if he’ll agree to always be my friend?

No one cares about how I feel! Not even him!

I don’t want to choose if I can’t know exactly how it will turn out!

Y-you. . . Which way should I go? UP with the family or DOWN with my buddy?

>UP

. . .You’re right. It’s not my fault he was stupid and flattering himself trying to be big and important. 

I don’t always get along with them, but I suppose what your family decides is always, ALWAYS best in the end.

Thank you, I will never question them again!

>DOWN

R-really?

I’ve been so stupid! I can’t make decisions for myself, my buddy always told me as much!

He’ll be angry when I join him, but he always tells me how to earn his forgiveness. 

I won’t make this mistake again! Oh, how wonderful, how good, this freedom of certainty!

Red-Lit Room | Screaming Fish

Um, by the way, you’re going the same way right?

>YES

Oh, whew. Good, good.  N-not that it mattered anymore! Ha. . ha . . . 

Um, be seeing you. . . 

[Screaming Fish Disappears]

>NO

. . . Oh.

S-should I? . . . My stomach hurts. . . Uuwgh. . . But what if. . .

I-I have to go! EXCUSE ME!

[Screaming Fish Disappears]

[Player falls down intestine-like tunnel]

Dark Room | Sobbing Fish

Behold! [Turns toward a condom that contains a dead fish and a small amount of white fluid.]

What did we do to deserve bearing witness to such glory?

It. . . It must mean something. (sob) But what? What is it trying to say?!

Ohwoowaagh!

I’ve groped through my noggin (sob) I’ve eyed every detail!

I don’t understand the message! (sob)

There must be a way out of this creature’s stomach. The answer is here! It looks down upon us! Awaugh!

What is it revealing?

>UP

… No! I think it’s DOWN! Can you see it? I-I think I can see it!

It talks to me! I can hear its approval in the back of my throat!

I must get inside. . . I must be cleansed by this untainted substance!

>DOWN

Yes. . . Yes! I see it, can you see it? It has to be! Behold, behold!

It swallowed us down, so we must keep going DOWN! (sob)

First I must get inside. . . I must be cleansed by this untainted substance!

Join me! Wash with me in this purity!

Dark Room | Sobbing Fish

Oh, to be chosen for such sublime anointment. . . I truly envy him!

I must become worthy. . .

(sob. . .sob. . .sob)

Room with Gears & Button | Gear-Trapped Fish

Oh, oh!

Please help me!

It’s embarrassing. . .but I thought I had found the gills of this creature that swallowed us. 

So I figured I’d wriggle my way out through them.

But who would have thought! They were not gills!

If it’s not too much of a bother, could you unstuck me?

Thank you ever so much for your kindness--

Ahh, wait! Hold on!

This is important. 

Whatever you do, just make sure not to touch that round, red, glowing thing over there, okay?

Thanks! . . .Whew! What a relief, I thought I might be stuck here forever!

Room with Gears & Button | Gear-Trapped Fish

I can barely feel my fins. Are they still there?

[Player moves toward red button]

Room with Gears & Button | Gear-Trapped Fish

Wha-What are you doing!?

Don’t touch that!

Somebody help me! Help! Aaah!

[Player pushes button, Gear-Trapped Fish breaks into pieces. The door to the next room opens.]

Well-Lit Room | Parasite within Infested Fish

Ah-a!

What fortune that you dropped into this most productive of places!

Him?

Why me ‘n’ my Friend-O here go way back!

I ate his tongue and we’ve been coworkers ever since!

I’ll betcha we have a lot of learnings we can share.

I always say ya have ta get passionate about something. 

Me?

I’m passionate about friendship. I want to be there for people as much as possible. 

It’s like my buddy here always says, “Teamwork is the soul of success.”

I think that’s beautiful.

Now well by golly! I’ve been struck by the most brilliant of ideas!

Would ya mind if I incentivized you with a little musical stylings of my own creation?

My Friend-O does so enjoy a little show tune here n’ there.

Alrighty then! Hold onto your gills!

[Music Break]

Well-Lit Room | Parasite within Infested Fish

Whoo whew! Well buddy, how we feelin’?

Synced with success? Aligned with ambition?

>YES

No doubt about it, my buddy, my pal!

I daresay I snuck a lil’ of my. . . core competence in ya.

You’ll feel it real soon, don’t you worry!

> NO

. . . 

. . . . .

. . . . .Are you stupid?

Well-Lit Room | Parasite within Infested Fish

. . . 

. . . . .

OK. Keep it movin’, pal.

Wasp Nest Hallway | Disembodied Voice

Why do you deserve it?

Will you be able to live with it?

Try and try and try and try and try again.

Aah, those double action hinges have always been there, just for you, right?

You’ll come back.

Everyone does.

Weak.

Or you’ll go looking. One way or another, right?

Weak.

Imposing Room | Fish in an Imposing Room

It is time.

Choose.

>UP or >DOWN

I see. Do you understand yet?

This privilege of choice that has been given to a worthless critter like you?

That is the gift. Not the outcome.

Did the uncertainty scare you?

Or does it scare you more to know there is no choice for you at all?

Then all of this would have been for nothing.

But wouldn’t it feel better? Don’t flatter yourself.

I’ll tell you a secret.

You’ve already made your choice.

This is not about making a decision.

This is a test of conviction.

Have you strayed from your path?

Have you been honest and true to your truth, even to others?

. . .

. . . . .

He he he. Did you believe me just now?

I’m just a fish in an imposing room.

Good enough, right?

Imposing Room | Fish in an Imposing Room

I wouldn’t eat any of those. They taste awful. 

Grimy Hallway | Big Fish

This is really it, huh. I’ll level with ya, ain’t real sure I can do this.

Did ya run into that smart-talkin’ fella earlier? He sure did seem to know what he was talking about. 

Here I been always thinkin’ I’m the biggest thing in the water.

Look at me now, a big ol’ boy shiverin’ like a scramp out in the blue!

Hah!

Anyway, I thought keepin’ track of how many fish went in either direction could help.

Not sure it did at all, lemme tell ya.

Reckon ya wanna hear how many have gone each way?

>YES

Ya sure? Might be best to just follow your gut at this point.

         >YES

Alrighty. By my count�� 199 fish have gone UP, and 474 have gone DOWN.

>NO

Right on partner, swim your own way!

Grimy Hallway | Big Fish

Ain’t all this just worse than a loose flake in your gill?

Well. . . Hell.

If I can’t help myself at this point, maybe I could at least give you a better change, partner.

How bout I go on and skadoodle into one of them, and just. . .

HOLLER out real loud the first thing I notice. Whatcha think about that?

Hahahaha! Heck, it’s so stupid it just might be genius!

Lookit us! Two big ol’ oily friends makin’ our own dang currents! Hahaha!

Alright, hit me. Which way, partner?

>UP or >DOWN

Lemme tell ya, before I go, partner.

You made a dumb ol’ fish feel real big again right at the end. 

For a small lil’ thing, yet lookin’ real big too right about now! Hah!

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!

ROO-HAH! It’s go time! Catch ya on the flipside, partner!

[Big Fish disappears]

PAAARTNER! HERE I GO, LISTEN UP!

RO-WHEE!

It. . It feels SOFT!

. . .

. . .

.

>[Player swims UP or DOWN]

??? | ???

You know I always hated hearing, “Don’t worry, a lot of people are going through the same thing. You’re not alone.”

There’s this selfish, barbed wire inside my chest that coils up at that.

“No, my pain is more tragic. Grander! Deeper! If only you knew!”

That’s not true, of course. I hate talking about it.

Because I hate people who talk about it.

And that’s not very nice, that’s not okay, that’s not how you can be about all this. 

It’s not romantic, but at least it’s true.

Don’t worry, a lot of people are going through the same thing.

And that’s what makes it the best USP yet.

Thanks for playing.

[Player sees either HFIM  END CARD UP or HFIM - END CARD DOWN]

END CARD UP:

END CARD DOWN:

[monstrous-femme]

Have you ever felt embarrassed posting fic?? I have so many ideas and I really enjoyed doing stuff for fsw but I cringe at the thought of writing anything else?? Or at creating anything generally? I don't know why and I really want to get over it n u seem insightful about this stuff.

(feel free to answer public or priv I don't mind, also feel free to ignore me entirely x)

I love this question bc I think it's about art and vulnerability and imperfection and those are things I think about a lot! (Alternatively, I may be viewing this question through the lenses of art and vulnerability and imperfection BECAUSE I think about those things a lot.)

If I tried to make this all connect it'd be a 1500+ word essay, so instead I'm going to provide some random thoughts and you can connect them however works for you:

1. No fic I write is ever going to get the number of kudos of a very mid Drarry fic I wrote when I was 18. It plagues me that this is my most-read story. I also refuse to take it down. It might still be meaningful to someone, even if it's not too me, and it did mean something to 18 year old me and I want to respect that. But the real reason I keep it up is because I don't want people to think my new, better work appeared from nowhere. I write so well now in part because I wrote a random 50k Drarry fic in high school. Writing it helped me become the writer I became.

2. I think a lot about the cartoon of a dog(?) playing piano with the caption "He plays very poorly, but it keeps him from destroying things."

3. I make paintings and don't post them because they aren't beautiful but I am still glad I paint, and when I first started making earrings I didn't understand how to use little beads to hold big beads in place so things often fell apart.

4. Someone who I met while writing fanfiction and meta for a tiny webseries fandom became such a dear friend that she flew across the country for my wedding party.

5. Many of the best scenes from In Her Hips are ones that scared or embarrassed me to write.

6. While we're on the subject of embarrassment, those smut scenes/fics I wrote that y'all like so much? Literally almost couldn't handle posting them but I bet you're glad I did 😉.

7. When my poetry collection came out and we did a reading and discussion, one of the members of my poetry cohort talked about the paradox of vulnerability, how we think that people will only connect with us if we write broadly but it is actually only in the personal details that we manage to connect. I really, really want to connect with other people. It feels like the most important thing I can do.

8. If you write your stories and never show them to anyone else, I promise they still matter.

9. If you write stories and choose to share them, I promise they will not matter less with someone else's gaze on them.

10. It's terrifying to be perceived because we can't control what other people see when they look at us. When I let myself be perceived, it's like admitting that I want to be loved, and the terrifying thing about admitting that I want something is that I may not get it. I may lose in public. I may be seen as small and human and wanting. There is no way around this.

I hope this somehow answers your question.

[frozen-fountain]

For the book recs asks: 1, 5, 18, 23, 54, 71

A book that is close to your heart

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer. I read it about three years ago now and find myself thinking of it when I'm feeling at a crossroads and weighing up consequential decisions.

5. Something in fiction that reads like poetry

Not to be a stuck record but just... anything by Angela Carter. Not only for the beauty of her language and the images it creates in your mind but because, as florid and maximalist as her writing can be, it's all constructed to support layers of symbolism and deep wells of meaningful connotation. It's economical purple prose.

18. Your least favorite book ever

The most recent contender is probably Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw, which on the surface contains a lot of things I should love but completely failed in execution. Everyone knows that I love me some ornate, orchidaceous prose, so you know it's serious when even I am inwardly curling up into a ball of secondhand embarrassment at the excess on the page. Lady, you cannot drop "chiaroscuro" into your narration more than once without a damned good reason, and there's also some really cringy lampshading of cliched illogical things horror protagonists do that read less like an attempt to deconstruct these things in a meaningful way, and more like "So that just happened" humour to cover up the laziness of running the characters through these motions. Worst of all, there's no real subtext to add substance to the scares. There's some stuff in there about mental illness, about toxic and stagnant friendships, about marriage customs in feudal Japan versus contemporary America and what they do to women, but it failed to add up to anything enlightening or compelling. I loved the location, but that's about it.

A popular choice for this question, I think, but I'd throw in Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, too. Not because of the subject matter, or because of the ending, but because it's using these terrible experiences to cover itself in the trappings of a literary great while being, at least in my estimation, incredibly pulpy and borderline exploitative in its execution. I also did not at all see the beautiful, poetic prose that some people did and actually found the language really flat throughout, and found myself especially frustrated at the author's habit of over-explaining the characters' motivations and psychology instead of demonstrating them through action and dialogue - it read like a therapist's notes in many places, which doesn't work for fiction that's so centered on inner experience. But I do also see how and why this book could deeply move and become important to someone, and it frustrates me a bit that a lot of criticism of it seems to focus on anachronisms and lack of realism instead of asking why these devices were employed. But it's very Not For Me and places high on this list because my inability to DNF anything meant it took a long time to slog through.

I feel bad for saying so much more about books I hated than the ones I loved, but in the case of the latter I really am hoping anyone who reads these answers will check them out for themselves. I feel like my "Stay away!" needs a bit more qualification.

23. A book that is currently on your TBR

When I'm finished with Earthsea, I want to reread To the Lighthouse. It's been calling me and I was only twenty the first time I went through it, so I'm interested to see how it hits with all these experiences under my belt and after such dramatic changes in perspective as I've accumulated. For spoopy month I have Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller, Sisters by Daisy Johnson, and The Vegetarian by Han Kang lined up, and I'm really excited for all of those.

54. A book with the best opening line

It's pretty hard to beat "It was the day my grandmother exploded" (The Crow Road by Iain Banks).

71. Your favourite LGBTQ+ fiction

To just about everyone I would rec The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter, which is gorgeously written gender fuckery; The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, which is really effective sci-fi horror with a complicated sapphic slow burn at its centre; and Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, because what more could I say? With a much bigger pinch of salt I would add Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt to that list, because not everybody wants to be in the head of a violent and possessive rapist for several hundred pages, but it's a descent into the abyss that will stay with me for as long as I live.

[wangsejabin]

Chapter 117

Pan'er was suddenly embarrassed.

   "You are the emperor, how do you know what the chief constable does all day long? Besides, he is supposed to be chasing criminals and arresting thieves, doing a proper job. And what do you mean by a woman thief? She is obviously a woman warrior, robbing the rich to help the poor!"

   "Yes, robbing the rich to help the poor." Zong Cong pretended to be serious, but the smile in his eyes gave him away.

   Seeing that she was about to become angry, he hurriedly said, "You are right, the dog officials here should indeed be killed. I've just had a look at it, and I think the contents of this book are very innovative and different from the ones you've read before, why don't I have someone take it outside the palace and find someone to print it for you?"

   These words instantly turned Pan'er's attention away.

" Can that be done?" Her eyes lit up for a moment.

   "Why not? It's written for people to read, isn't it? Some people write bullshit poems, but they also print them and call them something elegant, and when they come to poetry fairs, they bring them out to fetch fame."

   He had met one or two famous scholars who looked and acted fine, but when he went back and looked through the masterpieces they had presented, he almost spat out his tea.

   Pan'er knew of this, and therefore knew what he meant by his words.

   "But what if someone says it's not good?" Pan'er was a little apprehensive when it came down to it.

   When Zong Zong looked at her, he had only wanted to coax her not to be angry, but now he took it to heart.

   If you can't accept the criticism of others, then you might as well not write it." He thought for a moment and said, "Whether it's good or bad will be known only when others read it.

   Apparently he hadn't really understood the woman's mind, and hearing him say that, Pan'er became a little upset instead.

   "How can you be so persuasive, if you can't say something nice."

   Kind words?

   The emperor had never said anything nice to anyone before, not when he was the crown prince, and even less so now that he was the emperor. But she was the exception to the rule, and he had already broken the rule in her case many times, so there was no reason not to break it a few more times.

   "I also want to prepare you mentally, so that you won't be unhappy when the time comes."

She glanced at him and said, "It's not like I'm writing a masterpiece, so I don't think anyone will criticise it, but at most the booksellers won't accept it or no one will buy it." She had paid attention to these things when she was in Yangzhou, so she naturally knew the trick.

   "How can no one buy it? There are always people who buy it. If you give the stuff to me, I will have someone arrange it." Zong Cong even secretly planned to send someone to buy more if no one really bought them.

   Who knew that Pan'er would say, "You are so busy with government affairs, I don't have the face to bother you with such a trivial matter. Besides, you won't do it yourself, you'll just give it to the people below you. You don't mind, I'll take care of this myself."

Seeing that she was talking in a logical manner, Zong Cong became curious.

   "What are you going to do?"

   "I won't tell you."

Don't look at Pan'er's secrecy, but in fact, Zong Cong knew without using his brain that she was definitely planning to send a eunuch out to pretend to be a fallen scholar, and then find a bookstore to sell the manuscript to a bookseller. Whether the bookshop would accept it or not was another story, but from Zong Cong's point of view, it should not be difficult to sell it.

But since she said she would do it herself, he would leave it alone, and he could always find out how it would turn out after a while.

Seeing that it was getting late, Zong Cong did not intend to leave and stayed at Jingren Palace for the evening meal.

After dinner, he would not rest for a while, so he asked Fulu to go to Qianqing Palace and bring in a pile of his documents, and asked someone to put an extra lamp on the bed table, and leaned on the bed to read the documents.

Pan'er also had nothing to do, so he had someone bring a pen, ink, paper and ink stone and sat down opposite him to continue writing the unfinished manuscript.

   It was a very harmonious situation, with one person on each side.

   As time passed, the night grew darker and darker.

Pan'er felt an itch on her face and didn't take it seriously, just rubbed her hand against it and continued to write. Who knew that something didn't feel right, and when she stretched her hand, she realised that there was a smear of red on the back of her hand.

   The red was on her face.

   She looked up, only to find the man across the room smiling at her with a vermilion pen in his hand, and only then did she feel something wrong with her face, reaching up to wipe it again, and there was another splash of red.

   "What did you do to my face?"

With that, she took her hand and wiped it towards his face, Zong Cong didn't expect her to be so bold and was wiped right in the face, and then both of them froze.

   "Who told you to get me first." She scolded, and hurriedly got off the bed to look for a mirror. Xiang Pu and Fu Lu and the others didn't dare to come in when they saw that they weren't called inside either.

Pan went to the mirror and realised that she had become a big flower face.

On her forehead it was fine, he had painted a plum blossom design on her, so she took it as a flower decoration.

   But on her cheeks?

   There was one side that she hadn't ruined, and it was a turtle!

Pan'er was about to faint with anger, and when she saw him following her, she complained, "You are so grown up, you are the father of many children, why are you still doing this kind of child's play."

   "I think I've painted it quite well." He admired the plum blossom on her forehead and said.

   "Then I will draw one for you later too?"

   "I'm a man, I don't need to put on the flower makeup."

He was the most powerful anyway, and he was justified in saying whatever he wanted.

   Pan'er didn't argue with him, and afterwards, seeing that she couldn't really wipe it clean with a handkerchief, she went to the bathing room.

   In one corner of the bathing room was a shelf with a mirror on it and a copper basin with water in it, the place where Pan'er usually used to clean her face. The water in it was changed by the palace maids after it had been used, so the water was clean.

   She washed her face with the water and finally got it clean.

   She dried her face and saw him standing by with a red line on his face, like a red cat's beard. She held back her laughter, looked at the red water in the basin and said with false affection, "Would Your Majesty like to wash it too? But the water in this basin has been stained by my servant, you wait, I will let someone come in to change the basin."

   If he let someone come in to change the water, he would let others see his improper appearance, where would his face be then?

Zong Cong looked at his own face in the mirror, grabbed her and also said with a straight face, "There is no need to change the water, it is used by my beloved consort anyway, it is not that Consort hasn't bathed with me in the past, I don't mind you, so Consort can use a handkerchief to dab the water for me to wipe it."

It was clear that the situation favoured him, so Pan'er had no choice but to give in.

She chose a clean spot on the handkerchief and dabbed it with water, stood in front of him and wiped his face, and as she did so, she couldn't help but fall into his arms and laugh, i.e. at the way he looked and at what he said about his beloved consort.

   "What are you laughing at?"

   "Nothing, nothing ...... Well ......"

Fulu pricked his ears to listen to the movement inside, and after listening for a while, he finally dropped his heart and stood up straight.

He bumped right into Xiang Pu on the side, he straightened his chest and assumed the stance of a chief eunuch, "What is the little girl listening to, why don't you go now?"

   Xiang Pu wilted and walked away, but couldn't help but look back at Fu Lu indignantly as she went.

   He said I should not listen, but you are also listening to the wall.

   ---

Zong Cong guessed correctly that Pan Er had indeed intended to sell the manuscript at first, to find a eunuch to go out and disguise herself as a down-on-her-luck showman.

   But after yesterday, she had a different idea.

In the vernacular, there are those who take the serious route, printing the four books, five scriptures, classics, histories and collections, or various masterpieces of famous writers, current articles and examinations.

   Another type of book is the lower class, selling all kinds of vernacular novels and countryside stories. There is a common saying that it is better to sell ancient books than to sell current texts, and to print current texts than to print vernacular novels, referring to the wider acceptance of this lower-class route.

   The wide acceptance means that more people buy them, and more people buy them means that there is profit to be made in them, which causes booksellers to flock to the market, and it is not uncommon for books to be sold at low prices in order to capture business.

   Since the prices are low, there are relatively natural disadvantages.

   For example, when Pan'er bought books in Yangzhou during her southern tour, the best ones did not cost more than two taels of silver at most, and the second best ones could be bought for a few dozen. She usually bought the best ones, because although they were cheap, the paper quality was poor and the engraving was extremely crude, so the writing was blurred and the ink might get all over her hands, making it impossible to read.

   But even the most expensive ones were rough for her to look at. If she really intended to have her manuscript printed, how could she accept it being made to look like this, so she planned to have someone go out of the palace to buy a bookshop.

   This would give her manuscripts a place to go, and even if she couldn't sell them, she would be happy to see them printed in a more beautiful way.

The bookshop could continue to do its business without any delay, and it could be considered as a small shop for Wan Yin to earn some silver for her rouge and powder.

   Pan'er left this to Feng Hai.

Now that Feng Hai has become a jack-of-all-trades, Pan'er began to feel that the people around her were not quite enough, but this kind of thing cannot be rushed and can only be done slowly.

On the other hand, although Zong Cong did not mention the dismissal of the respectful service room, the people in the respectful service room did not dare to come to Qianqing Palace anymore, and they were even more peaceful than before when the emperor had just fallen ill.

   Empress Chen was relieved to see that the matter was settled, although the result was not as satisfactory as she would have liked, and that she was finally free to do what she wanted most.

[ntrider]

5 13 27 39

hehe I asked for more attention and I got it thank youuuuuuu I love you anon

5: Do you take drugs? in a sense, no. I am personally really against alcohol and drugs for recreational use. one of the advantages of having a driver's license is that you can always count on me to be sober no matter where or when. I don't have any drug trauma or anything I just. REALLY hate it. cannot stand it. I'm cool with other people doing it of course, but I can only be so cool about it. if everyone's hanging out to drink and smoke yall can see me some other time yknow

13: Biggest turn ons shit that's hard to say. to answer honestly, I guess I like when people surprise me with how they approach me and others. so I would say people who display a lot of patience but still make you feel like they WANT to be patient, or that love to play on both yours and their terms and engage with teasing you but are still mindful to how much moderation they should have based on your reactions. attentiveness, even when subconscious, is very attractive. also when people see affection and attraction in similar ways than me or differently but still in a way that can connect with how I see it. so, focused on conversation, playing both together and in parallel, and casual intimacy. I guess. I was going to describe physical turn ons too, but slowly realized I was just going to describe the full anatomy of a human being. also praise. I adore compliments, especially when they feel earned (i.e. something I actually put effort into doing or saying was recognized and appreciated)

27: A description of the person I like they're really beautiful in every sense of the word. the passion for the things they engage with is extremely inspiring, and you know I mean it knowing the person I am. they show a kindness and way to... I guess focus on what they are and want to be? that makes me feel like I want to help them get there. not that I'm needed, but that it would help me to be there for their help, y'know? their sense of humor delights me, and the stories they share with others makes me feel assured that they're someone I want to truly spend time with because of how well they can exist with others and with me. I guess. is this what you'd call a description? look, I post a lot of poetry on main that you can read, like 90% of that is a description of a person, just through my emotions (so I guess it's also a description of me, in a sense?). besides all this admiration, they also just make me feel like they like being friends with me, which is really important. I feel appreciated, and pulled into allowing myself to be there. I suppose. they're someone who I feel like I would appreciate their every word but also their silence. their every touch but also their distance. whom I'd just like to hear about their day more than anyone else's. I suppose. I guess. I think. the more I say things, the more I feel like I'm saying the wrong things, or that I should be saying more things, or that I should be giving more. but I imagine they'd be satisfied with my answer because it's what I thought of saying...? or maybe not maybe they'd super not! but that's unlikely. would YOU be satisfied with my answer, anon? that I have no clue of. but I think people here like me because of how I am, and if this is a mess, then they like my mess. if you wanted a description of appearance, sorry I'm really bad at those. but I did say beautiful in every sense, didn't I? also it's embarrassing if I describe them too much because they and everyone else who knows them can read this. oopsies. I know I'm like, the honest person who's also really romantic and loves giving compliments, but you have to understand past a certain point of being a loving mess I just start getting self conscious of how much they should be hearing. some things I should not be saying!!!!! some things I should probably keep to myself!!!! I couldn't tell you what, though!

39: My favorite ice cream flavor hm... I like most flavors equally because I like ice cream more than most things in the world... I just really want every flavor available... but neapolitan is always nice. and lime. lime is very important. lime ice cream is so... so important... my favorite ice cream type ever was those cones that came FILLED with stuff, but I've never found diet ice cream cones, so I haven't had anything like that in years. sad!

[managician-tls]

Sub story - Sunny Spot Poetry (3/3)

And here's the last chapter! Not enough to warrant a full-on warning, but there are light mentions of school bullying, so please do be careful if that bothers you in any way.

Have I mentioned yet that Yuyu and Aika's friendship is adorable?

Featured characters: Yuyu, Aika, Protag-kun

Location: School Grounds

Yuyu: Okay, Mister— I mean, Darling ♪ Say aah ♪

Ehehe, is it tasty? Yuyu made these dango out of mud!

Aika: Don't let him eat that, Kinoshita-san!

And you, don't just eat it without complaint, please! Your stomach will get wrecked.

Yuyu: It's filled with lots of love, you know~?

Aika: (Aaah — I didn't think it'd develop into any sexy-like scenario to begin with, but...)

(This is more like "playing house" than getting "a real love experience", Kinoshita-san!)

(I'm relieved it didn't become any sort of indecent male-female friendship thing, though.)

(If we moved in front of the flower bed, I could say "there's a romantic mood here"—)

(But since we got so close to the school gate, the students walking home keep staring at us! How embarrassing...!)

Yuyu: How's it going, Aika-chan? Did you get any reference materials for the novel?

Aika: Eh? Ah, mm, not really— no, I mean, yes I did, I did!

So, let's stop this already, okay? Or let's go back to the clubroom, at least?

Yuyu: Eh~, but it's romantic at dusk. Daniel thinks so too, right?

"Mm! In matters of love, that which we call the 'mood' is a very important thing! The older, the wiser, as they say!"

Aika: Uugh~!

Yuyu: But hey, doing this stuff is fun — thank you, Aika-chan. You too, Mister.

When Yuyu became a high school student, everyone stopped playing these kind of make-believe games with her.

Even when she was just chatting with Daniel, she'd get weird looks.

Yuyu did not understand it much — she'd always been together with Daniel, after all.

But the kids who used to play with Daniel were all drifting further and further away, and Yuyu got lonely.

Only Yuyu was left, and that's why she's always with Daniel. When she felt lonely, Daniel was always the one to comfort her.

If even Yuyu acted like she doesn't see Daniel, she thinks that'd be very awful.

Aika: Kinoshita-san—

Yuyu: Ehehe. These feelings, too, Yuyu might forget them someday.

If that's to happen, Yuyu will write a novel about Daniel. If Yuyu leaves things written down, they'll stay there forever.

What Yuyu is feeling now, and all she has felt up to now—

And the time she's spent together with Mister and Aika-chan, along with Daniel.

With that, Yuyu won't ever be lonely. And surely, it'll make Daniel happy, too.

Aika: ............

You cheater!

Yuyu: Eh, what? Cheater?

Aika: I'm Daniel's lover! Daniel is my husband,

and you're cheating on this Mister over there with him, Kinoshita-san! Daniel is mine!

Yuyu: Eh, ah, so that's the kind of setting we're going with — Daniel is a girl, though.

Ehehe, Aika-chan's also going to play along with us? Aika-chan, you're a kind person, hm?

Aika: I'm no "Aika-chan", I'm Lover-san! Okay, Mister, you get into your character too!

Today, up until the sun sinks below the horizon, I'll be your opponent, Kinoshita-san!

Yuyu: ...Ehehe~ ♪

Isn't this great, Daniel?

"Yes. This, too, may be lost to time someday — but even so, it is a precious, real thing."

Aaalright! Yuyu's all excited now! Mister, come and give Yuyu a kiss, a kiss!

We'll make it happen for real, and drive off Lover-san!

Aika: Y-you can't do that!

Yuyu: Ehehe — today's a day Yuyu might not ever forget ♪

◀ Chapter 2 •

[mostlymalena]

August 25th 2024 11:38pm

Our landlord finally fixed our hot water today! Such a relief since it's been over a week since me and Jo took a hot shower in our own house. I spent most of my day yesterday at Lala's which was nice. She always brings me such joy and can make me laugh. We played lots of games and I even took a small nap.

Work has been so good I'm finally catching up on my LP's and ppc campaign build outs. I love my job so much!

My sweet apple and I are enjoying the time I have left. 50 something days which is hard to swallow. It's not like I'll be gone forever just 4 something months. It's nice to have something easy and well, nice. No pressure and very relaxed, mostly.

I have been hanging up pictures and art around the house and I have also started drawing again. Something about life right now is making me feel creative. Tonight I made ramen for the family and Ethan came over and we drew a little and I made brownies. He is my very very best friend.

Saturday I went out with the whole gang and a local girl who I have spoken too maybe ONCE approached me and demanded I tell her why I unfollowed her on instagram and removed her as a follower. I told her what I typed on this very blog" I don't fuck with you". She then proceeded to ask why and it got a little heated. I was steered away but it unfortunately creeped me out a lot. This girl has never had one full conversation with me. She acted like I owed her something. I wasn't sure and still am not sure what her goal was in coming at me like that. Her and my ex were posting each other before I washed away most of my followers in my social media cleansing, so maybe it has something to do with that? I'm not sure.

Why does that matter so much. I feel like she only followed me to report back to others or to find something to bad mouth. It was so fucking WEIRD. She should feel embarrassed.

This week I am having lunch with my old friend Nat who just bought a house in wilmy. I havent seen her in 4 years now so that will be exciting. I am also meeting with a family lawyer to start the prosecution process for the person who made the false CPS report.

Fall has woven its thread into the air. It smells like devotion and the death of a careless summer. Surf might be good this week and my old friend Juliet might come to town soon and we will surf as well.

I am very happy right now. Life seems perfect with my family and friends and my little house and my front porch that is always warm.

Ive become very smitten and a strange but not unwelcome peace has settled over everything. I'm hoping the autumn leaves that fall down cover the memories of summer and bury them. Spring will bring fresh blossoms and the promise of never seeing her around town ever again. It is something I dread but it is something I look forward too more. At this point it feels more like surviving her than getting over her.

I think this Adam from the Bible character has become the apple of both of my eyes. It's just so easy going. I think it helps that I'm leaving so nothing is serious, I still mourn and he just listens.

But things are different for me now. The CPS thing broke something inside me I thought was a solid thing.

I must rest now and write a bit of poetry. I took all the love I had for her and used it to fall in love with my life. I feel real. I feel like everything is okay. I feel right and that is a little scary but I'm so grateful for it all.

[raphaelapproves]

RAPHAEL AND HAARLEP // MAIN // @thishouseofhope

This will be a long post largely as the other writer involved is not on tumblr and all of this has been plotted and written on discord. This is the relationship between Raphael and Haarlep, as written with my friend Bro.

This is the default when interactions are specific/isolated to this blog rather than a plotted wider verse with others, or with writers of the characters involved, such as Shadow's Haarlep at hopeteased [ with whom I have another verse and will be making another post about that relationship at some point; theirs is the main Haarlep I will write with outside of my default canon explained below ].

Though Bro and I have two different verses that depend on in-game choices, the gist of it remains the same at the start and only diverge later. In the one verse, Haarlep doesn't betray Raphael to the adventurers when they go to the House of Hope. In the other verse, he does.

|| two halves of heart and soul || { Raphael & ███ }

Raphael had always been an outcast in his father's home, from the furthest back he can remember. By nature, he was more of a bard than a wizard or a fighter or any other such useful thing. He loved reading—historical accounts, arcane knowledge, though nothing so much as poetry. He loved everything to do with drama and theatre. He was also very fond of the arts in general, and has a certain knack for drawing and painting and so on. He was an artist and a poet, and that was unacceptable to his father and fitting of mockery in the eyes of everyone else in his father's halls. All except one, a young incubus who was, comparatively, quite near to his age, and not quite yet in service. ███ was intrigued by Raphael—by the oddity of him, by his love for poetry and learning, by the fact that he was far softer than all the others within Mephistopheles' domain, perhaps even in all the hells—and befriended him, showing compassion when others of the stronghold would harass or harm him. To be accepted for exactly who he was when everyone else had made it quite clear that he was wrong, broken, lesser, weak… That meant the absolute world to Raphael. To have one person who didn't look at him with derision or scorn or hatred or disappointment… but who, instead, marveled at his difference, at his mind, at his passion for his crafts. The two became close friends. Were it not for Raphael fearing how his father might react to his interest beyond use with a 'lesser' creature, they would have been inseparable. As it was, they stole moments to sit and talk together. The incubus became his muse and his confidante and his best friend as they grew older and, though it never crossed into sexual intimacy, the two were extremely close in every other way. Raphael even swore to them that one day he would see them freed from his father and he would steal them away to remain with him. The two were deeply in love, even if the words were never said, even if it was never openly acknowledged, even if Raphael didn't realize it until only just before it was too late. Because, in the end, it was only a lovely fantasy that could never become reality. His father knew, had known for some time but allowed the absurdity to continue to play out for his own amusement, all the while mocking his son to others. He assumed Raphael had become enamored, charmed by the incubus, but that it was a passing fancy. When it became clear that it was otherwise, Mephistopheles intervened. ███ disappeared. Raphael could find them nowhere. He was utterly distraught, but had to disguise it lest his father wield it against him the same as he did every other perceived weakness or wrongness. Mephistopheles was the one who broached the topic, all saccharine condolences for the 'loss'. He refused to say more, claiming that the details would only upset his son—as though that had ever before mattered to him. Raphael knew it was only his way of torturing him further, perhaps for the embarrassment of his son having been running about with so lowly a creature. Had it merely been a physical relationship of convenience, Mephisto might well have left it alone. But the truth of it, the fact that it was actual love, was an embarrassment. Raphael never really recovered from the loss. On the one hand, it motivated him to become stronger and more powerful, made him aspire to one day be rid of his father, to prove himself enough, perhaps even better. [ Nevermind that he pushed himself so hard because he hadn't been enough then, when the person closest to him in all the realms needed him to be. ] However, it also only aggravated already existing insecurities and issues, as well as made him unwilling to get truly close to anyone again, often keeping people at arm's length, all the while making them see him as a friend, an ally, a savior.

MORE BELOW THE CUT.

Upon Raphael acquiring a house for himself, Mephistopheles presented his son with a gift, a mockery aimed at his previous 'secret' relationship—an incubus named Haarlep. Mephistopheles' oh so gracious 'gift' was in poor shape when Raphael received him and brought him to the House of Hope. Whether it was simply the condition of the other, the fact that Mephistopheles had meant to mock him, the fact that this was just another broken being due to his father, or perhaps something else entirely. Regardless, Raphael set about the course of getting him cleaned up and healed, on a path to recovery. Knowing that he had little interest in keeping a lover after he had lost his dear one, yet knowing that the other would require certain things to feed, he drew up a contract to make sure he saw to what was required. During the course of this, Haarlep took up Raphael's form, originally as an ill-conceived attempt for Raphael to better invest in the other and, in a more practical sense — for most, the benefits of your personal incubus taking on your form would be rather *mindblowing*… [ A Not Safe For Work Sidenote: Raphael had no prior experience with such matters, as surprising as some might find it, and, as it turns out, he gets overstimulated very easily. Hence the commentary about him being 'bad in bed'. The fact of the matter is that it was just way too much and he wasn't able to be quite so present during. Without the experience to what the issue was, Raphael just assumed he was the problem and just had to bear with it and eventually it would get better with exposure. It didn't. The issue persisted, which only made him more convinced that he was somehow the problem, hence the insecurity over the issue and how angry and hurt he gets when the player characters says what they can say. He hates not being good enough. He hates even more being bad at anything. It was a constant source of frustration for him, as well as for Haarlep who just started to assume he just wasn't interested. ]

But, back to the topic at hand. Over the years Raphael and Haarlep did grow close, despite Raphael knowing why Mephistopheles had gifted him. What better way to keep an eye on a threat? Much like a widower, Raphael carried guilt over the feelings slowly developing for Haarlep as he never really stopped grieving his first love, which led to a lot of guilt and turmoil. Much as Raphael's mind itself is a rollercoaster of extreme highs and devastating lows, as I have mentioned in another post, the relationship was no different, several periods of the two being quite close, interspersed with periods of Raphael being distant and moody, throwing himself fully into his work to the detriment of everything else—and Haarlep being frustrated, feeling helpless to solve the problem that he knew existed when, truly, only he could. For more details as well as events leading up to the game and during it, with permission of my friend, I have copied the threads into my carrd, that they can be read like fanfictions by anyone who is curious to know more. It is broken into the two verse categories: The Devil You Know [ non-betrayal ] and A Devil of a Time [ betrayal ].

They can be found here: || two halves of heart and soul ||

[arctic-hands]

Long, depressing, bipolar rant ahead lol. This ended up being longer than I wanted it to be but I couldn't decide what to cut out.

I was also an "early bloomer" for bipolar type 1–meaning my bipolar came with psychosis. I started hearing voices as a toddler, constantly asking who said that, who was whispering in my ear? My mom told me it was my guardian angel whispering how she'd always protect me, and that was that. I asked her as an adult who was diagnosed why she said that, she said she didn't want me to be scared.

Eventually the auditory hallucinations stopped, but in its place came paranoia and depression. I was 8 when 9/11 happened, and like every American child I was very scared, but unlike any other child in my class, I blamed myself entirely for what happened. I thought I should have been there, on a plane, in the towers, rescuing people. And I don't mean in a child-playing-superhero kind of way, I really honestly felt that people had died because of me. I went so far as to express I wished my birthday was on September eleventh, because I didn't feel I deserved to have a happy birthday ever again after my failure. As a teenager, I idly read a psychology magazine where it detailed an account by a schizophrenic woman who was a young child when JFK was assassinated, and she had voices and feelings and guilt telling her that she was responsible for everything. I still didn't make the connection, and I was still many years from a diagnosis.

It was at 9 when I suddenly stopped my work in class and asked the question out loud, "Does time feel suddenly faster to anyone?" Time wouldn't slow down again until I was on antipsychotics as an adult. Adults thought I was remarkably patient for a child, the truth was that an hour could pass by in five minutes for me. After being put on abilify, I became a highly impatient adult as time stopped zooming by and making me confront my fast impending mortality in any quiet moment.

I was also nine when I started fantasizing/ideating about dying. I wondered what it would be like, how I would do it, how many people would miss me, how much it would hurt, what came next? I was ten when my class was in line to get our books about a disabled dog signed by the disabled author who came to our school. He was asking us as we approached him what we wanted to do when we grow up. I blanked, and mumbled how I wanted to die. He immediately grew concerned, but that doesn't matter because my teacher physically grabbed me and yanked me into the classroom where she proceeded to scream in my face about what an embarrassing little dramatic brat I was who had no right to say that, and then she locked me in the classroom for the duration of lunchtime and recess. I spent my time writing poetry about dying on the chalkboard, which she immediately erased upon returning. She never told my parents about what happened. I didn't either, because I didn't want to be screamed at again.

It was around this time I started, in what my parents called, throwing temper tantrums. These were not unprovoked, my parents had grown tired of having to deal with a child with lifelong health problems and became more abusive than just unthinkingly spanking me like they had been taught by their parents. I fought back, and the trauma for that combined with my high temper meant I was always getting in trouble when someone else started provoking me. My parents, in an amazing lack of self-awareness, blamed the steroids I was on for my Crohn's, and demanded I be taken off them and when my pediatric gastroenterologist told them truthfully that it was the only thing controlling my illness, they transferred me to another hospital entirely. I nearly died because my new doctor kept me on a medication that hadn't worked for years at that point, and no one ever listened to me about how it was making me feel worse until it nearly killed me.

Anyway, before all that I was labeled by my parents and teachers a bad kid, and shunted from one therapist to another, all for my parents' benefits. It was never about asking me what was wrong or what I felt like or anything about me. It was always "why are you being so difficult to your parents", and my insistence that my parents had started it went ignored and unreported. The final straw was the therapist I had at thirteen, who after my second appointment with her, told me I was a bad kid who should be ashamed of myself. My parents were so, perhaps hypocritically, incensed on my behalf that they called her to bitch her out over the phone and I never went to therapy as a kid again.

(Even tho in high school I was so stressed out my hair was thinning and I was having sobbing breakdowns every few months. I told my father I needed therapy again, and he–who had a bout of depressing that required medication, and therefore he was obviously an expert on mental illness–told me that I was too happy to need therapy. He did jazz hands as emphasis. Eventually I mentally shut down and refused to get out of bed, and eventually my parents stopped trying to physically and violently drag me out of bed, and I officially dropped out of school a month before my junior year was over. I never even went back to get my things out of my locker.)

This isn't to say my life was constantly doom and gloom. There were periods in between where the guilt and paranoia that the government would kill me that I snapped out of depression, promised myself I would turn my life around and be a good kid, that I could just do it and be happy and, idk, become an athlete despite my disabilties, become president. There was a three year stint where I became a born-again Baptist and was convinced (not without reason from this completely insane place) that I was God's chosen and I would lead the crusade into changing the world in God's image. And during these periods I was really, really happy and hopeful and knew things would be different now. These were all manic episodes.

I was twelve? Thirteen? Middle school aged, when I finally had enough and I unbuckled my seatbelt and tried to crash my mom's car while she was driving. Didn't work, she hit me, then reported what I had done to my school. Nothing was done, other than one of my teachers (she refuses to this day to tell me who is was) told her that if I was their kid they would beat me senseless.

To wrap this ramble up, I didn't get therapy again until I was twenty-one, got a bipolar 2 diagnosis at twenty-two, upgraded to bipolar 1 about half a year later, tried killing myself twice a few months after that, moved out of Indiana and all the shit I had to deal with there behind, got put on mood stabilizers less than a year later, got put on an antipsychotic in twenty-sixteen when I thought nuclear war would happen on election night, and with some minor paranoia relapses from time to time that went away after a dosage increase aside, I've been pretty stable and even thriving mentally (physically my body is still ehh, lol). My parents even reached out and apologized for everything they did to me, the fact that they acknowledged it at all is a rare miracle. I'm not angry anymore, but I still carry some resentment over every sign of bipolar I had that went ignored or glossed over. I have spent more of my thirty years of life being suicidal and psychotic than I have being stable, and I do resent all the adults who failed me–my parents, my teachers, my neighbors who commented on my behavior but never stopped to be concerned about it, all my pediatric therapists and the high school counselor who told me to stop crying, I had it made. If I had the support from adults that I needed, would I have dropped out? I got my GED about six years later, only after receiving therapy as an adult. I've never been to college. I knew I had at least two scholarships lined up for in-state university had I not dropped out, I have no idea how much tuition they would have covered. I def can't afford it now. I'm not angry at my parents anymore, but I don't think I've forgiven them either. And if I ever return to Indiana and run into any teacher I had again, I have my bitchy speech already planned.

Oh and by the way, bipolar is the only thing I have that's genetic. Half of my mom's side is diagnosed with it, the other half needs to be diagnosed with it but are in denial. My mom is in the denial half, and I pity her for it if nothing else.

There's this idea, fairly common in society, that mental illness is for teens and up. Children are happy little creatures, generally, right? Sometimes they're abused and the trauma can make them mentally ill, but that's not common.

There are two fundamental problems with this attitude. One, it's incorrect to assume that trauma is the only reason a young kid can be mentally ill. Two, trauma is more common than people think. I'll be covering the first problem in this post through the lens of my particular experience.

Where I live, you can be diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18 years old. You cannot be diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a minor. This poses a problem because my age of onset was in first grade, roughly six years old. Because of the fact that I was very young and new to the world, this was also the age of my first suicide attempt. Thinking I wouldn't be able to pass a spelling test genuinely felt like something worth trying to die over. So, I ate some hemlock, since I'd read about Socrates being killed with it. Luckily, I ate western hemlock, an unrelated species, and just felt kind of sick.

I'm not recounting that for fun or pity. I'm recounting it because children with mental illness are in genuine danger because they have little to no experience with managing their emotions, have little to no concept of the idea that their life can change and improve, and are dismissed by adults. I told a teacher that the test made me want to die, though not that I'd attempted to, and it was brushed off as little kid hyperbole. If I had used a method that was effective rather than one I thought would be, I would have been dead at six years old.

I would not receive medication that worked even a bit for another two years. I would not receive treatment for bipolar disorder specifically for ten years, and that required my PCP fudging the reason for the medication because she was afraid I would die if she didn't, and diagnosis was still two years off at minimum. I received a formal diagnosis at age 19, thirteen years after onset.

But surely that's uncommon, right? This story is a huge edge case, right? I actually have no idea, because age of onset and age of diagnosis are massively conflated for most disabilities. Policies like the one in my area that restricted bipolar diagnoses by age can artificially raise the age of "onset", in my case by thirteen years. The general idea that children are somehow immune to mental illness can also delay diagnosis by several years, perpetuating the idea that young children can't be mentally ill. The data on when people start experiencing mental illness is inherently skewed upwards, and I frankly don't have a good estimate on how bad that skew is. If anyone does have that data, please chime in.

Listen to children. If they're saying they're sad all the time, that they don't care about anything, that they don't see a future for themselves, those are signs of depressive symptoms. If they say that tests make them feel sick, that they can't do anything because they're scared, that they can't breathe and freeze up, those are signs of anxious symptoms. Many children talk about imaginary things, and that's just fine, but slip in a question or two about them to make sure that the kid is just playing, and not experiencing psychosis.

Children are new to the world and vulnerable, and they don't know what's normal and what isn't. They need people who are more experienced watching out for problems they might be having, and listening when they talk about having problems. If you can, try to be the person who perceives them, and tells them that things can be better.

[aeirs-moved]

starting to write poetry again was one of the best decisions i’ve made in quarantine tbh