#saw traps plural

[lindamccartneysstrap]

I would genuinely honest to god put paul mccartney in saw traps.

[gaywarcriminals]

AUs where the Shen twins/siblings are both dating Yue Qingyuan are so funny because the Shens would 100% put YQY in the middle of every fight. This poor man tries so hard to appease them both and just makes them both angrier.

[lovelyrotter]

yknow i think a lot of the really far-gone transfemme vs transmasc people who still play by the 6th grade milquetoast "trans women are targeted way more than trans men cause femininity is bad and masculinity is good In Our Society, so trans men get free acceptability passes" feminism forget that trans men/transmascs started life. as. little girls. we were mistaken, from birth, for baby girls. and we were raised by our parents to believe that we were little girls.

a lot of trans men and transmascs then grew up to be teenaged girls

a lot of trans men and transmascs were adult women too

and for a while we *believed* we were girls and women. some of us even WISHED we were girls and women (points at myself). and much more importantly, we were continually seen as girls and women. a lot of the time, we are STILL seen as girls and women, even with full fuckin beards and baritone voices. especially if we need to go to any kind of medical professional. this is what our free acceptability pass looks like?

its just so much more nuanced than these 'boys vs girls' people ever seem to care to think about. even binary trans folks dont have the same sense of cisgendered binary that cis people do. we literally cross from one fake end of the fake-binary to the other. thats where the trans in transgender comes from. i dont know how some other trans folks seem to forget that?? i don't know how, somewhere along the line, we forgot that trans men and transmascs also directly suffer under misogyny?

[candyskiez]

Hello singlet who doesn't know much about plurality. In front of you is a system talking about their experiences being plural. Your mission is to not treat them like a zoo animal, a fun game to play, or otherwise dehumanize them. Failure to do so will set off the saw trap, killing you instantly. Good luck.

[braxlrose]

silly and weird tom hcs

a/n: the last ones got deleted for some reason so I'm making a new one!

• this mf steals your food all the time. hes always munchin on something so if you have something that looks good, he's taking it. especially if it's watermelon. he loves watermelon 🍉

• he doesn't tell anybody, but he gets his nails done. he gets pedicures and manicures and loves it so much. you found out one day when he kept going off and not telling anybody where he was going. so you followed him and saw his finger and feet soaking in water 💀

• when you walked in you were trying so hard to hold in a laugh and he was so fucking embarrassed when he saw you. you thought it was extremely ironic because he always called mani-pedis "girly"

• now you two go all the time, and you're way better at making excuses than he was.

• he got high on edibles and thought his feet weren't attached to his body anymore so he started screaming 💀

• over indulges on gushers when he's high

• you guys know those Chinese finger traps? Idk if that's what they're called but you put two fingers in them and they're like really hard to get out of. he LOVES them for some reason, he thinks they're so much fun

• he loves the snow so much, and especially loves snowball fights. it's so much fun, and he also gets to wear extra layers of clothing because of the cold

• during the winter, he gets a bunch of different kinds of hot chocolates and when anybody asks what he's drinking he swears by it that it's black coffee 💀

• he loves watching futurama and says that he strives to be bender 💀 (have yall seen the new episode? I actually really liked it, ik a lot of people said they didn't but I did.)

• gets on his knees while begging (not sexually 🤨) and will even fake cry. he's a master manipulator 💀

• when you guys go to the beach he's always asking you to come play in the water with him

• for any reason if you guys happen to be at a hospital, he goes and looks at all the little newborn babies. they're so cute and he gets all smiley just looking at them.

• he loves romance movies. mf will deny it till the day he dies when anybody asks but you've seen his collection of vhs tapes and dvds. plus bill even admitted tom cried during The Notebook.

• he tries to balance random objects on his head while walking to see it he can do it. he'll add on a object every time he does it.

• he's weirdly amazing at solving Rubix cubes?

• he loves making balloons animals and he always makes the sword ones. he will literallt sword fight with anybody.

• he eats bowls and bowls of cereal so he can get to the prize at the bottom of the box. (I full-heartedly believe he's a little kid at heart)

• he tries to make home-made pizza but ends up burning it 90% of the time.

• he's extremely ticklish on his armpits, stomach and feet and will literally die laughing if you tickle him

• he also loves kids cartoon movies like fox and the hound, Anastasia, Mulan, James and the Giant Peach, etc.

• he loves slap bracelets and has an entire collection of them.

• it wouldn't be the first time you've caught him dancing and singing to Britney spears.

• tom loves everything bathes. on camera he says he prefers showers but in reality he likes bathes better. With candles, dimmed lights, bath salts, face masks, etc.

• do you guys know that episode of Friends where Monica convinces Chandler to take a bath and he ends up loving it and shit? he's just like that. if you don't know what I'm talking about here's some clips.

clip 1

clip 2

• he tried on one of your thongs one time because you dared him to wear it the whole day.

• you also dared him to get his legs waxed and he ended up doing it and he was crying the whole time

• he loves those little stories where you add in words to them. I can't remember what they're called but it asked you for like an adjective, plural noun, verb ending in ing, etc. etc. (I hope yall know what I'm talking about, I think it starts like a m or something someone tell me please 😭)

taglist: @hearts4kaulitz @burntb4bydoll @spelaelamela @bored0writer @fishinaband @billsleftnutt @tokiiohot @bluepoptartwithsprinkles @saumspam @5hyslv7 @killed-kiss @memog1rl @80s-tingz @billybabeskaulitz @victryzvv9 @banshailey

[moos3-th3-goos3]

hello singlet who doesn't know much about plurality. in front of you is a system talking about their experiences being plural. your mission is to not treat them like a zoo animal, a fun game to play, or otherwise dehumanize them. failure to do so will set off the saw trap, killing you instantly. good luck.

[lulublack90]

Prompt 23 - Flower

@jegulus-microfic August 23, Word count 613

Previous part First Wolfstar part

Sirius stuck his arm out near to where Regulus stood and growled.

“No,” He’d guessed correctly that Regulus was less than a second away from stunning Narcissa. 

“No, what?” Narcissa questioned him, looking warily at his outstretched arm. “Sirius, what are you doing here?” She asked again. That’s when Regulus saw the shift of her hand. How it slid from her book and across her ever so slightly protruding stomach. He lowered his wand. 

“I need something from this room,” Sirius told her honestly.

“And how did you get in?” She looked nervous. Regulus had never seen her look anything but put together, serene, exactly how her parents had taught her to be. Delicate, beautiful and perfect, just like the flower she was named for. 

“You should really check who’s allowed in and out of your home, Cissa. You never know who might darken your door,” Sirius smirked. 

“What is it that you came to take?” She asked, ignoring his response. 

“You won’t want me taking it,” He warned her. 

“Oh, so the notebook then?” She sighed. Carefully, she placed her book on the small table beside her, glided over to the bookcase and selected a battered black notebook from the shelf. She looked at it with an air of disgust and tossed it to Sirius. “Here take it, I don’t want it anywhere near us,” She spat. Sirius caught it with fumbling fingers. He looked at her in confusion. 

“What? Just like that? You’re just giving it to us?” Regulus could feel a trap. His wand slowly rose again, pointing directly at Narcissa. 

“Our family has become too entangled with that man. Bella, Regulus, how many more of us are going to pay for another man’s greed for power? Andy left because of those same ideals that our parents spout, that Lucius and the rest of them have ingrained in them.” She sat back down and took up her book again. “Get it out of here and I won’t say anything to anyone.” Regulus nudged Sirius in the side.

“H-how do we know you won’t set your husband on us as soon as we walk out of this room?”

“We?” Narcissa narrowed her eyes. “Why do you keep speaking in the plural? Who else is here, Sirius?” She demanded. Regulus tensed. They couldn’t lose this chance. He pulled the invisibility cloak off himself and stared at Narcissa’s shocked face.

“B-b-but you’re dead!” She stammered. 

“Believed to be dead,” Regulus drawled. “You have Voldemort and Bella to thank for that.” 

“But your parents think you’re—”

“Dead? Yes, I am well aware and wish to keep it that way. What we are doing is far too important for my survival to get out." He glared at her.  "Have I made an error in showing myself to you, Narcissa? Or are you actually going to help us make this world a better place for your child?” He nodded pointedly at her stomach. Her hand tightened around the bump again. 

“Take it and leave. Your secret is safe with me.” She said truthfully. Her jaw quivered only slightly as she spoke.

“Good, now we need to transfigure one of your other books so no one else will think anything is amiss. Do you have any recommendations?” 

They transfigured an old copy of Witch Weekly, placing it on the shelf in the spot Narcissa had retrieved the notebook from and slipped out of Narcissa’s study. 

“I’m glad you’re both alive,” She whispered before the invisibility cloak fell into place. “Maybe after all this, we can have tea?”

“Yeah, sure Cissa, that sounds nice,” Sirius said before they hurried away. The battered notebook clutched firmly in Regulus’s hand.  

Next part

[canmom]

I just read A Summoning! I really liked it. I’ve been told authors enjoy long-form comments, so if that’s true for you then here’s a reflection that got quite personal:

The use of second-person made me feel like I was looking in a mirror and the mirror was speaking into existence what it saw in me. I don’t think I’ve ever read something like that from a trans fem perspective. My social context (skewing heavily trans masc) is very invested in this sort of “listening and learning” approach, conspicuously uplifting and deferring to the sociopolitical opinions of trans fems because how could we possibly presume to understand their experience? Reading this knocked some sense into me about how alienating that must be from the other end. I don’t happen to be a trans girl, but why would that mean their experiences aren’t relatable to me? It seems absurd and unhelpful and dehumanizing and dangerous and just mean to reject that fact. Maybe this is just a painting of my own shortcomings, but I’m so glad that your story gave me an opportunity to connect better.

Some parts I found compelling and relatable:

- The self-shrinking, both physically and by the narrowing of memory. Painful but relatively brief experiences consume and overpower the narrative of self.

- Unwanted and painful bodily changes, and contending with the potential of taking agency to make further changes that are painful but (more or less) wanted.

- Plurality of the body, especially related to pain or division (dismemberment). This one hit me once for being bigender, and the a second time for chronic pain and old injuries.

I also greatly appreciated the intention and good research you put into describing the clothing. Historical costuming is a big interest of mine, and it always warms my heart when artists share that priority with me.

Also the esoterica cum gore (Latin pun intended) was delicious.

Thank you so much! This is exactly the sort of thoughtful comment I really appreciate getting <3

I think that 'how could we possibly understand' is a trap (hehehe... sorry). It's something that tended to get pushed very hard in the 2010s, this sort of standpoint epistemology thing, taken from a matter of courtesy (along the lines of don't talk down to people) to this kind of presumption of the intrinsic unknowability. Which is self-defeating! You've gotta believe communication is actually possible!

I plan to go into this more at some point but one thing I really perceived when I was on LSD a few weeks ago was a separation of the different faculties or parts of my mind; how much even different parts of the brain have their own spaces of concepts, like a sense of conceptual, image-like thinking that was being interpreted by the linguistic part of my brain; how all these elements work in concert to make 'me' happen. this was in part inspired by learning more about how artificial neural nets such as LLMs work, which encode concepts as vectors in high-dimensional spaces.

anyway the point being, communication within the brain and communication between brains, it's the same problem. we are attempting to map information that has meaning in one space to a corresponding meaning in another. and the way we do that is language. when I say 'red', it excites the various associations that my net of neurons has with certain sensory perceptions, a signal from my cone cells and so on. those are unique to my brain, unique even to different parts of my brain. but, by associating that word with a common experience, it's possible to excite the corresponding, analogous (or as I became convinced was a word when I was tripping, analogistical) set of associations in your brain. I think of it with a physics metaphor: thoughts are a lot like oscillations, normal modes and so on.

so we may not have had the exact same experience, the pattern of thoughts that get excited in your brain when I say 'red' are in no way identical to the ones in mine. but we are able to use the word as an anchor point, to excite oscillations in our respective brains that allow a back-and-forth to happen. if you talk about redness, I can imagine what you might be seeing by invoking my experience of redness, and vice versa.

so, for example, I haven't personally experienced what it is like to, say, live under anti-black racism, any more than you have experienced what it's like to be a trans woman. in fact, I haven't experienced a good many of the infinite contradictory things that one would consider to be part of The Canonical Transfem Experience(TM) either. but, if you're willing to listen, it's possible I can bring up analogous experiences and say, this is what my life's been like, and what other people told me they experienced, and these are some theories I find relevant, and perhaps excite some memory in you of what your life's been like that you can use to imagine what I'm on about.

the skill of a really good artist is to find the words, images, symbols, expressions, sensory effects, etc. etc. that can get across some of that inner world, that particular set of experiences, and let you construct something analogous in your own head. it will never be exactly the same, it is a limited channel and how you interpret it will be specific to your particular set of thought-resonances, but that doesn't matter. it's close enough to be meaningful.

thomas nagel famously asked if it's possible to know what it's like to be a bat, equipped with a sense that we humans lack. well, we don't know exactly what it's like to be a bat, but we can try to imagine it based on what we know about bats and what we do know. we can construct experiments in human echolocation, or use or knowledge in the differences between sound and light to imagine what echolocation would 'look like'. and we can build up a more detailed sense of bats by closely observing them (another @baeddel post: the amateur ethology one), so we can get a sense of the different ways bats act in different contexts, the nuances of specific bats, etc. etc. unfortunately we can't tell the bats what we've come up with and have them confirm or deny it! we are very limited in our channels of communication with most animals.

humans, on the other hand, have this absolutely insane invention we call language. we don't know exactly what it's like to be another person, but we can tell each other through the shared protocol, and that's a feedback loop, which will tend to bring our internal resonances more into concordance with each other. so the more we talk, the more curiosity we engage in, the better we understand each other.

(maybe the hippies were onto something with all that vibrations talk.)

so, all in all, I'm glad that my story made my experiences more comprehensible to you! in fact that's maybe the highest compliment you can give me, so thanks very much :3

and just to confirm your thought there - idk what it's like in your scene, but personally, I never want deference. I want friends. I want someone to meet me halfway, and take me seriously, but that also means if I'm talking shit, I don't want anyone to be like, ah, this sounds like bullshit but it must be mysterious transfem deep knowledge, inaccessible if you don't belong to this specific canonical demographic. like lmao what is that. even if one person is more knowledgeable about a thing than another so the information goes mostly one-way - a good teacher pays attention to and listens to their students. it's never only one-way.

(social media fucking sucks why are we on it)

long tangent aside, thanks for reading my story <3 i am super grateful for every engaged and thoughtful comment that anyone ever gives, that is absolutely the best thing you can ever get when you make an art. I have thought this and that about whether this story was any good, but hearing this makes me glad i wrote it and glad I finally released it. I can't wait to send out some more more freaky shit from the inside of this brain.

[soft-pine]

spn20rewatch: 1.12 faith // cn discussion of 15.20 & dean's death //

am i going to wear out saying "my beloved" you bet your ass i am!!

but i mean look at him look at him look at him! sad because he's dying and he can't find a way to cheer his brother up! OH I COULD JUST ABOUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

faith is an episode that will drive you crazy with love. but if you watch it after the finale, it could destroy you.

in 1.06, we found dean declared legally dead. in 1.12 we find him actually dying. dean's impending death is a constant companion in supernatural. it stalks through faith, through devil's trap and in my time of dying. then through season two and three. resurrections don't stop it. it catches his scent. and it's for life.

i'm struggling not to just turn this into a finale post. because you could overlay dean's resigned, stoic attempts to make the best out of his death for sam over the cursed barn scene and nothing much would change. (except sam's attitude but that's a whole other conversation)

DEAN: Look, Sammy, what can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it, end of story.

unfortunately, the finale hunt also parallels this one. two siblings, trapped by a monster in the closet of a barn/basement. sam and dean find them and send them running off to safety. meanwhile dean...

and there is something so poignant about it being siblings they rescue both times.

but it's awful to watch dean's hopeless sunken eyes and know that even though he's saved this time, he will go through countless more deaths, countless more speeches about how that's all he's ever had waiting for him anyway and know he's right. that's it, end of story...

but i'll save the rest of the finale rant for its own post.

so let's move to another facet of dean's deaths, plural - his resurrections.

in faith, roy tells him the reason he picked dean is he saw "a young man with an important purpose. a job to do. and it isn't finished." so it begins - the condition of dean's resurrections. in 2.01, john sacrifices himself to azazel on the agreement he heal dean but not before john tells dean that it's his job to watch out for sam - and kill him if he has to. in 4.01, cas tells dean the reason he was brought back was because god has "work for you." in 6.11, though not technically resurrecting him from killing himself in that episode, death tells him, "you have use." in 13.05, billie resurrects him because? you guessed it: "you have work to do." the condition of dean's saved life is the labor others demand of him.

this brings us to another of dean's refrains - "why me?" in faith he asks roy what made him more important than the other people waiting to be healed (i will love you til the end of my days morals boy). in 2.20, he asks why he has to be responsible for saving everyone. in 4.01, he asks why an angel would rescue him from hell. in 4.02, he says "because why me? if there is a god out there, why would he give a crap about me?" in 4.15, he's arguing with cas that the people in the town deserve resurrection too, "you made an exception for me." cas says, "you're different."

"why me" communicates both dean's core belief that he's not special and yet he understands that for some reason he carries a huge amount of responsibility.

and this brings us to one of his other refrains, "pick someone else." dean says this to roy as soon as roy tries to beckon him onstage to be healed. after sam has pressured dean away from sitting in the back and chosen a seat much closer to the front. he doesn't want to be singled out - even if that means saving his life.

dean also says it in 4.16 after finding out he broke the first seal in hell and cas tells him it's his responsibility to stop the apocalypse. "find someone else. it's not me."

i think dean can feel the way the being singled out as special and the responsibility are all tied together. i think he feels he's being given second chances that other people deserve more for expectations he is never going to be able to meet.

he doesn't want to be saved like that.

so, at the end of the episode, when the reaper comes for him, he doesn't run. he knows layla is supposed to be getting healed that night. he lets the reaper painfully caress the side of his face. he falls to his knees.

[possuminnit]

I think if you were plural you would only have one other alter and that would be Jerma, as if he had broken into your mind

my mind would be like a saw trap for him

[devilish-parrot]

What if you put the Beatles in a saw trap

waay ahead of you there. ive been thinking about this a few days lol

disclaimer, as of now ive only seen the first five films + saw 0.5. anyway im going to infodump now and include some photos so gore and spoiler warning. btw im not very good at explaining things so sorry if i leave out important context

heres ringo in the famous reverse-bear trap from saw 0.5 and saw i

hes even got his arms up trying to get it off

speaking of ringo, remember this from the 1965 film help!

well, ive been thinking of this alot because it reminds me of a few different traps, namely The Rack from saw iii, which is among one of the goriest and is jigsaws favourite (i think)

so if ringo were placed in a trap, itd probably be in this one ^, which twists ur limbs and head around.

question is. would ringo be able to save himself? well, this trap specifically (and really all* the saw iii traps) arent made for YOU to escape them, theyre made for someone to forgive you and get you out of it

to explain the saw iii traps, or at least the relevant parts so i dont just talk about the film in its entirety (cus 3 is so far the best one even though the traps arent the most interesting part), theres this guy named jeff and a few years ago his eight year old son was killed in a hit n run accident. he becomes consumed with rage and obsessed with taking revenge on timothy young (the man who killed his son and got six months of prison time for it).

jeff is placed in a saw trap wherein he is forced to either forgive a few key people and help them get out or let them die by doing nothing.

the first person he encounters is a woman who was the only witness to the accident. shes in a freezing cold room completly nude with cold water being sprayed at her. jeff has to get a key to unlock her or else she freezes to death

the next person is the judge who gave timothy six months prison who is tied to the bottom of a big silo. beside the silo is a meat grinder that keeps shredding up dead pigs and letting all the remains go all over the judge, so hed eventually drown in pig liquid. jeff has to burn his sons stuff to get a key

and the last person is timothy himself, who is placed in The Rack. jeff has to get a key off of a gun trigger, risking shooting himself (idk how to explain it very well, im a very visual explainer)

*idk if id count the yuri necklace thing as a trap but thats for another infodump

as for the other beatles, i have not thought of them at all because the movies (to my knowledge) have not placed them in crazy contraptions and also..... RINGO...

however, you said "what if you put the beatles in a saw trap".

beatles plural. saw trap singular. a trap with multiple people, that exists.

saw i has the two guys, lawrence and ADAM (<3) in the one beathroom together chained to pipes on opposite ends of the room

saw ii features like, eigth or so people in one big house with multiple mini traps for each person

saw iv has this one trap with two people standing back to back with spikes going through both of them, and one person (lets say, person A) has an advantage, meaning if A pulled the spikes out, person B would die due to how the spikes are placed

saw v has five people in a series of linear rooms with a trap in each room they need to work together on to get out. personally, i think this works best for the beatles to all be in.

so uhhh tldr, if ringo was alone hed be in the rack, but if they were all together theyd be in the saw v house

(im rlly sleepy and i want to get this out today so im not gonna bother trying to find any more images)

[candyskiez]

Saw ur also a ???% fan… 👀

Care to share your thoughts around him? Or headcanons if you have them? :D

1. You just noticed? I have NOT been talking enough about him then. I will rectify this immediately. (This is a joke you're good)

2. SO.

These will be scattered. Because I am a very scattered person.

I will flip flop between if I like the disconnect between ???% and Mob better as a plural thing or an allegory .I like both! Both is good! He's so fascinating as an allegory but also he's the most accurate representation of being plural I've ever seen and it's not even canon. So like. Two cakes!

I will always be insane about the manga version of confession arc. Hold on I need to talk about this in detail or I'll actually die.

His fucking. His fucking talk with Mob. "And you were never...never...looking at me." WHAT IF I SCREAM. Literally everything he says to Mob is so interesting and also relatable as shit whether you view it as plural or as an allegory. Both is good. Like you can view him telling Mob he forgot to protect himself and all that shit as like "You only do these good things to ease your own guilt. You don't actually want to be around people. You're selfish. This is who I am. I want to be able to exist without trying to be normal. I want to be able to be seen and not be harmed for it. I am tired of everyone ignoring this part of me because they prefer you. Would they actually do what I've done for them, or are they using me?" Like. Holy shit. It's so so fucking OW especially as an autistic person. But also as a system it's so easy to read him going "You pushed all the memories you didn't want onto me. You let me handle the things you didn't want. You shoved everything onto me, and I took it with stride because I loved you. You let me take all the hard things so you didn't have to face them, because you're a coward. This is my body too. This is my life too. Why don't I get to have that? Why do I have to give it up because you don't want me? They're my family too. You don't get to decide I don't deserve to exist because you hate yourself too much to admit I'm here." Like. Its so easy to read it as him being a protector who is SO fucking resentful of all the shit he's had to deal with, all the memories he has to hold alone, all of the shit he's experienced, and not a sliver of gratitude. Like goddamn does it remind me of my experience being a system. Either way the distance from him and the relationship between him and Mob has been my favorite part of the show since I started watching. And the manga is even more interesting and it's so!!!!!!!!!!!

More confession manga thoughts!! Him saying "Ritsu is my little brother. He was calling me Nii-san." Is so. He said that when Mob asked who he was. He viewed that as a solid part of his identity. RITSU is a massive part of his identity. Does he view Mob as not Ritsu's brother then? Does he feel like he was cheated out of his own family? I wouldn't be surprised nor would I blame him for feeling like that.

And even more confession arc shit. Hi. Thinks about how ???% in the anime at least had to steel himself before raising his hand at Reigen. He hates him but he still cares about him. He hates him but that guy raised him as much as his parents did. Clawing at the walls.

Actually y'know what I haven't talked about my thoughts on Reigen and ???% with anyone but the friend that I watched the show with and that is a tragedy that will not stand. ???% hates Reigen so so much but also cares SO much about him. Thinks about he passed out the second Reigen told him his parents were fine, and contrast that to him saying that he can't listen to Reigen in confession. He knows that if he listens to Reigen he'll believe him and that fucking terrifies him. He'll follow after Reigen because he means the world to him, because that man raised him, because he just wants him to be proud of him so fucking badly. He'll go back to being miserable and trapped, and everyone will go back to pretending he doesn't exist. He's terrified of Reigen, I think, because he knows Reigen is a good liar. Reigen can make him believe things. And he doesn't like that. He doesn't like how gullible he actually is. That's why he doesn't trust anyone- he's gullible enough to believe anything, so he has to distrust ANYTHING, no matter how much sense it makes, because he knows he can't trust his own judgement. He's been tricked before. He'll be tricked again. Don't trust anyone. Don't trust anything you see. This is another thing that works with either autism or plurality. The autism trauma of being lied to and deceived as "jokes" constantly turning you into a trust issue riddled mess that doesn't trust your own judgement or view of people, or a traumatized protector who FORMED to help you deal with people taking advantage of you and now distrusts everyone you love because "it happened before, it'll happen again, i wont let it happen." Or both!

God. I just LOVE ???% y'all don't understand. He's everything to me. Please god read the manga. I don't know if the translation I read was completely accurate, but I love the manga and anime both so so much. ???% is my favorite character as anyone who knows me can tell you and I will never shut up about him. My GUY

[sparkles-rule-4eva]

(no I'm not waiting for the real morning-)

HAPPY WHOLESOME SONIC AND TAILS WEDNESDAY!!!!!

@skimmingmilk got me curious about AoStH so I started watching it, and yes Sonic & Tails in it are ADORABLE 🥹

I also loved the little "Sonic Sez/Says" at the end of every episode, and seeing Sonic correct Tails' faulty 4-year-old spelling gave me an idea so I drew it and then wrote a fic to go with it.

Enjoy!!

------------------

"Tails, that's not how you spell 'telephone.' It's 'p-h-o-n-e,' not 'f-o-n-e.'"

5-year-old Tails stared at his older brother in bewilderment as Sonic took the pencil from him and wrote out the proper spelling beside Tails' attempt. "What? That doesn't make sense."

"Nothing in English makes sense," Sonic replied without missing a beat, his eyes still fixed on the paper as he set the pencil down. "But it somehow works. I figure it's better not to question it."

Tails frowned at the words on the paper. Sonic's handwriting wasn't neat, but it was more legible than Tails' big, spaced-out letters.

"Sonic?"

"Yep?"

"Did you ever go to school?"

Sonic shifted his gaze to meet his little brother's. "For a little bit, yeah," he answered, turning to wander back over to the tree stump he'd been sitting on before Tails had asked him to read the list of words he'd written out.

"Is that where you learned to read and write?"

"That was the start." Sonic flashed him a little smirk. "I figured the rest out myself."

Tails blinked. "How?"

"I dunno how to explain it," his brother protested, waving his arms a little. "I said words. I saw words. I put two and two together. And now I can do it."

The fox glanced back at the paper, comparing his writing to Sonic's. "So how come 'p' sounds one way, and 'h' sounds another way, but when you put them together they sound like 'f'? Why don't people just use the letter that already does that sound?"

Sonic groaned and leaned backwards over the tree stump, sounding frustrated. "I dunno what to tell ya, kid. I didn't invent these stupid spelling rules."

Tails sighed. With all the amazing things he'd seen Sonic do, between destroying robots and beating a middle-aged mad genius over and over again, he kept having to remind himself that his older brother didn't know everything. Sonic was . . . 13. That seemed so much older to him, but . . . he supposed that wasn't that old, compared to how long Mobians normally lived.

Still lying backwards over the tree stump, Sonic stretched his arm up and held out his hand against the sky, like he was trying to touch the clouds. "'Kay, kiddo, pop quiz. Let's see how stupid English really is. What's the plural of goose?"

"That's easy. Geese."

Sonic turned his head away a little, but failed to hide a mischievous smile. "Good. What's the plural of moose?"

Tails hesitated. He hadn't actually thought of that before, and this felt like a trap.

". . . Meese?"

Sonic snickered. "Nope. It's just 'moose.'"

There was a moment of silence, then an exclaimed "What?!" from Tails. Sonic immediately rolled over and started laughing.

"I told you English is stupid!"

The little fox started grumbling quietly to himself, something about wishing he'd been alive when English had been invented, then buried his face into one of his tails and let out a muffled scream of frustration.

"Hey, hey, take a chill pill, lil bro." Sonic sat up and faced him, still grinning. "It's not a big deal. You'll figure this out."

"I can see it all perfect in my head," Tails complained, lifting his head a little. "Why can't I just make what's in my head be on paper and be real?"

Sonic gave him finger guns. "That'd be an awesome invention. Do it."

Tails shot him a look, but his brother continued to smile back unwaveringly.

He took a deep breath, risking another critical glance at the words on the paper. "You know what, you're right. I'll figure it out. Can I just take a break?"

"Sounds good to me!" Sonic flipped to his feet (because why would he get up the normal way?) and strolled over to him. "I coulda sworn I saw a chili dog stand in the last town we ran through. Let's go grab a few."

"I'm sure I would've noticed that. You were probably hallucinating." Tails jumped up and hovered in the air, ready for Sonic to take off at his trademark speed. "Do we even have enough rings for that?"

"Of course we do." Sonic blasted off running back down the highway, and Tails followed close behind.

"I thought you spent almost half of them on a picture frame at the other place."

"Please, that was just a hundred."

"Why do we even need a frame? It's not like we have a camera."

"Maybe I'll buy one of those next. Sentiments, Tails, sentiments."

"Since when were you a sentimental guy?"

"Shut up, Tails."

BONUS: the drawing I made of this (before writing it and remembering they were homeless and outside 🤣)

Also, both this and last week's fic are now posted on Wattpad! I'll leave the link to it here :) more fics and art to come!

[wayward-aeon]

two* new arrivals, and the lessons they bring

as a system, our rate of growth is generally quite steady. i would say we get a handful of new folk each year, never enough to overwhelm. oftentimes, new headmates form with specific purposes, such as to handle a specific stressor, or fulfill some manner of niche that isn't already being filled by another member.

since this past june, two* newcomers have arrived specifically to challenge what systemhood means for us.

despite not being the original, i am as prone to doubt and denial as anyone else. our overall inner activity levels are very low - i am alone in here the grand majority of the time. there is a bit of a "chicken or the egg" situation there - i doubt us because things are quiet, but what if it is quiet because i doubt? either way, i'm working on it, and i would like to think i have made a lot of progress lately. still frontstuck, but to my recollection, we've co-fronted and generally communicated more this year than we have since our post-discovery boom back in the late 2010s.

yet, in many ways, i am still subconsciously resisting this change. there is part of me that is afraid. afraid of being wrong, afraid of losing control. afraid that someday this might not be "my" life anymore, not that this life was ever mine (or at least not mine alone) to begin with. our previous primaries/hosts have all either gone dormant or integrated, and it has been stressful each time, adapting to the changes that come with confronting the world with a different face than before. i worry, deep down, that it's only a matter of time before i follow in their footsteps. i worry that i might lose everything.

i am also grappling constantly with internalized pluralphobia. i was unfortunate to be introduced to systemhood through the exclusionist side of the community, and in my confusion as a newly aware system and my desperation to have my experiences validated, i ate up every awful, hateful piece of rhetoric that they fed me. although i am now staunchly pluralpunk (at least towards others, if not yet for myself), much of what i saw and was told during those times clings to me like a parasite. despite firmly believing there is no right way to be plural, i still fall into the trap of thinking myself to be the unique exception - that i must do systemhood the "right way", or else i have been lying to myself all along.

these are the biggest hurdles in the way of our health and function as a collective, right now. and that's where our newcomers come into play.

firstly, they are both fictives. this already ruffles the feathers of my "inner sysphobe", who tries to tell me that each new fictive we form is a point against our validity. never mind the fact we have always been a fictive majority.

secondly, they are both extremely plural-coded in their respective sources (hence the asterisks when i say there are "two" of them), and for both, it is a huge part of who they are and how they interface with the world at large. for both, it is a source of pride and strength rather than something to skitter around the edges of like a nervous cat. one of them in particular sees it as a form of art, viewing the consciousness as the clay with which to mold countless priceless artifacts of selfhood. this goes against everything i have told myself for years: that we cannot be proud, that we cannot be visible, that we cannot present in a fashion that falls outside of arbitrary parametres invented by people who view us as mere symptoms of a disease.

it has been a lot for me to take in.

to an extent, i see a reflection of myself and my own median-ness in them. they are many, all sharing the same face (and often the same name), yet each is uniquely different, even if only to the most minute details. the version of them i speak to today may not be the same as who i spoke to yesterday, but that isnt a bad thing. this is probably a big part of why they showed up here in the first place. whether or not i want to accept it, i need them. they have come to me with outstretched hands, offering to teach me plural joy, and all i have to do is let them.

and that is a process in itself, but we persevere. even if it is centimetre by agonizing centimetre, or even if we move backwards at times, progress is progress.

[chronurgy]

economic navel gazing and weird childhood situations under the cut I guess

Apparently there's some poll going around asking about how much your parents made/your economic situation growing up and it's weird for me.....

Growing up my parents divorced when I was very young. My mother had primary custody and her economic situation was......complicated. I'll come back to that in a minute. But my father was very well off. Possibly not at that time, definitely later. But I didn't.... Well frankly I saw little to none of it for a number of complicated reasons. Except when I got older I definitely did benefit from it so that's even more complicated. It's just a weird situation all around.

Uh, but getting back to my mother. I know there were time periods things were very bad for us. I know especially early on after the divorce and then after 2008 it was food stamps bad. I knew things were really precarious for us at times, that's part of why I got my first job. I needed to help contribute to things like my clothes, school supplies, etc.

But. Um. Well frankly, it isn't clear how true to life that precarity I felt was. There were times when it truly, genuinely was bad, I know that for sure. But it also seems like there were plenty of times where it wasn't nearly as bad as I was told/assumed it was, especially in my later high school and college years. During that period there were definitely times where my mother leaned on me to pay for clothes and food and my half of the phone bill when she probably didn't need me to. She just, uh, found it more convenient to leave me to my own devices. Like with my wisdom teeth (and the road trip after that, oh boy) and the dentist more generally and when I was sick and really any time she just didn't feel up to things. So there are a lot of things looking back where it isn't clear that we didn't have the money for it so much as we had the money and she didn't want to spend it on me.

So I don't really know what we had going on, money wise. I think I definitely assumed we were of a lower economic class than we actually were, at least later on. I probably didn't need to have part time jobs plural in high school. I think I would've kept them anyway because I liked having a source of money that I could rely on, one that wouldn't change its mind or hold it over me if it bought me something. But I thought it was all necessary back then and in retrospect I don't think it actually was. More weird feelings all around there. Just. Yeah. I don't actually really know what economic class it would be fair to say I grew up as. I usually stick with middle class because that feels fair, I grew up in a house in a nice suburb and that felt mostly stable, so I had most of the trappings of that sort of upbringing. And sure we were poor at times but to a lower degree and for a shorter period of time than I realized, I think. So middle class seems fair enough, I don't think I'll net any complaints about that. It's just......weird. There was a period of time where I thought we were really poor. Where I didn't ask for things because I thought/knew we didn't have the money. It's weird to have to rethink and reframe it all in light of what I know now/have learned since. It's just weird.

[idkjustletmescroll]

As a girl eagerly counting down the days until July 26th, I've made up a list of shit I want to see happen in season 6 of the dragon prince that I do in fact expect everyone to care about:

1: Janaya janaya janaya janaya I just love themmmm (buuuttt they both have to stay alive).

2: Speaking of janaya, i know there's a chance we get a wedding this season, which i wouldn't be opposed to. If we kept humans and elves as the main conflict like we did in the first three seasons, I'd say they should have it at the end of the show, but it feels more like aaravos vs the dragaang at this point, which...

3: More characters with more to do! In the first dragon prince, we had a bunch of minor characters (the other monarchs, prince kasef, opeli and corvus, nyx, ethari, a shit ton of soldiers, etc.), do things that affected our main characters in plenty of ways, which made it feel like there was a whole world out there being affected. Now, it's not that there are NO side characters affecting the main plot, it just feels so centered on the aaravos plot. I feel like they should have kept a bit more "elves and humans need to unite and move forward to defeat aaravos" but it's fine. I still like the show.

4: Rayllum making up. Not necessarily in a romantic relationship, though I would EAT THAT UP if it happened, but, if they haven't gotten back into their romantic relationship by the end of season 6, they should clearly be well on their way there, and we should know how they both feel about it.

5: De-coining. They've been trapped in there long enough.

6: I kind of want to see viren well and truly dead, just because of the downward SPIRAL it would send my girl claudia into. But I also feel like he has more to offer? I know we have a clip of him doing SOMETHING this season, but that could be a flashback. Idk. I feel like him voluntarily giving up power, and his own life, was a good ending for him, and the way claudia reacts in that first teaser we got definitely makes it seem like he's dead? But I also kind of want him to have a meaningful interaction with the other characters he's affected--rayla, callum, ezran, obviously; I kind of want to see what would happen if he realizes how far gone claudia is, joins the dragaang with the belief that he can save her from aaravos, and somehow meets janai? I feel like they've always had really strong writing for viren, though. So I'm trusting you, tdp writers.

7: Terry turn away from Claudia. This could turn into him trying to sabotage her, straight-up leaving, becoming a double agent, whatever. But he can only delude himself for so long.

8: I want the sunfire elf conflict to end and for them to help fight aaravos (he killed khessa and corrupted lux aurea, okay? They deserve to help beat him). I'd also be fine with them wrapping THAT conflict up somewhere around the middle of season 7, but I don't want them dragging it out all through to the end of it.

9: The key of aaravos should become more important. I get that it was essential to callum figuring out primal magic, but also, we've had it since s1 ep4, and it's still very distinctly in callum's possession. What else is up with this thing?

10: Janaya (again) being badass war generals. We all saw them in the first three seasons, right? Amaya was fully ready to kill a teenager (an elf, but still), in her first episode. And also kicked down a door and won my heart. She threw multiple elves into lava. Janai took over amaya's fortress thing and tried to kill her for a good bit of her screentime (I wish they would emphasize janai being strategic a little more. Like...she would've HAD that stronghold if that soldier didn't start using sign language). THEY led the defense of the storm spire!

11: ANDDD speaking of janaya, one last thing: I want the human soldiers respecting janai, and the sunfire elves recognizing Amaya as their queen. Even just a "your radianceS," plural, or something. She's going to be their queen--consort, i guess, technically, but still. I feel like we haven't gotten a big enough sense of that.