#sharing the way THEY do things. no perfectionism or “one right way.”

[gifsbysimplysonia]

Hola. Long rambling feedback behind the cut as well as

When he meets you, he hasn’t even thought of picking up a pencil in years. Ever since you’ve been at the mansion though, Logan’s fingertips twitch with the urge to start sketching your features every time he’s with you. It gets hard to ignore after a few days.

I think this is so beautiful. Anyone who is a creative knows how difficult it can be to find a muse. So for this person to inspire a twitch in Logan after YEARS? That's just a very beautiful thing.

He waits until he’s known you a few weeks, there’s no way in hell he’d ask if he could draw you. He’d probably embarrass you by asking, and embarrass himself by admitting he’s into fucking art. That’s not him.  Except, well, sometimes it is, when he’s inspired. And you’re nothing if not inspiring. 

And this is for BOTH 1) thinking it's not ok to be into art??? OK BUT CAVEMEN CARVED INTO WALLS, SIR and 2) "you're nothing if not inspiring" *screamingggggggggggggggggggg*

The first few drawings are shit, he feels like they’re almost an insult to you. It’s not that he’s accidentally drawing you ugly, it just doesn’t look like you. So he practises.  Logan Howlett sits down at night to practise drawing. 

I love that this fits with the Logan I know, the demand on self for perfectionism and the refusal to accept anything but. But it's especially important cuz he wants to do right by YOU/HER. *swoon*

And he totally knows that you’d never go for someone as rugged as him, that’s for sure. You deserve much more. So much more. 

Sigh. Oh Logan. Always thinking he's not worthy while he holds everyone he cares about up on pedestals. I both adore him and wanna shake him for these habits.

He doesn’t know what you’re doing to him; you’ve got him using social media.

He gets Rogue to show him Instagram for reference photos. HOW CUTE!

Logan hates how drawing makes him overthink, but he loves how it feels to create something other than violence with his hands for once – something that may even be the opposite. 

This is soooooooooooooooo beautiful. It is just a loud beacon of what Logan's heart really is. It's also really precious that he finally produces a drawing of her that he's satisfied with which then produces ANGST in him. Cuz he can't leave it out cuz what if people see? But he doesn't want to hide it cuz what if it smudges? Watching him go back and forth about it and the STRESS shows how much it means to him not to mess it up but ALSO, I think, how much it means to him to be back drawing. As a creative who goes through the longest dry patches, when a period of productivity comes up? OH DO I WANT TO HANG ONTO IT. And probably try so hard that I make it slip through my fingers.

He finally lets himself think the thought that’s politely been waiting to be allowed into his brain from the moment he decided he might take up drawing again.  He could give it to you. 

DO IT LOGANNNNNNNN!

Logan knows his drawing isn’t objectively a masterpiece, but if he’s proud of it he has to acknowledge that that probably means it’s at least decent. And you’re definitely the type of person to appreciate something like this. It’s weird admitting to himself that he’s even proud of what he’s drawn; he’s done so much in this world, who cares about a little drawing? 

YOU care, sir! And people who love you will SEE that and care too!!! Don't we all wish he valued himself and his opinions more.

The only thing is that Logan isn’t sure if he’s ready for anyone to see this side of him.

It's so precious to me, how relatable this is. Anyone who is a creative can relate, I'm sure. How nervous creatives are before they publish or they post or they even just share with someone they are close to. I wanna hug him.

He knows it’s stupid to hide but he just can’t. He decides he’ll leave the drawing in your room in an envelope, maybe a pink one to show you it’s not a creepy threat but meant as a sign of adoration, from someone who couldn’t resist but try to recreate your beauty. He won’t write his name on it, he just wants you to have it.  Sappy motherfucker. 

Some day, someone needs to tell him he can give himself permission to BE sappy. Corny is part of life and it's a blessing.

He’d doubt himself even more if he pussied out – a grown man who can’t even slide an envelope under someone’s door.  So Logan mans up and, like an idiot, kisses the fucking drawing before he puts it into the envelope. He licks the edges of it to close it and writes your name in the most anonymous handwriting he can muster and adds a little heart.  It’s soo stupid. 

It's annoying to read Logan's antiquated views on masculinity here. Completely understand that it fits with his character and how he has aged and evolved but omggggggggggg, it's just frustrating lol

You’re a friend and nothing more, and that’s fine. You probably don’t like him like that and he can deal with that.

The way we can convince ourselves of the worst possible outcome, eh? *smh*

You have one of those clear phone cases, filled with a bunch of tiny pictures and stickers (and is that your credit card?). But wedged in front of all of those is Logan’s drawing.  You turn around, giggling, “No, I don’t draw. And anyway, I wouldn’t be drawing pictures of myself. I got it in an envelope under my door yesterday, photocopied it because I was scared it would bend in my phone case. I don’t know who drew it.” 

SHE IMMEDIATELY TREATED IT AS SOMETHING PRECIOUS!!! SHE WANTED TO PROTECT IT JUST LIKE LOGAN WANTED TO PROTECT IT!!! BUT SHE LOVES IT TO THE POINT SHE MADE HERSELF A COPY TO CARRY IT AROUND WITH HER AT ALL TIMES!!!!!

“I don’t know, just, so beautiful. I’m not saying I’m not pretty or anything, but this looks… I don’t look like that. I wish I did. I can’t believe someone actually sees me like that. It’s stupid but I….” You trail off and, conveniently, the toast is done at the same time and you move on to that.  But Logan won’t let you, “What’s stupid?”  You turn towards him with a shy smile, “I’m embarrassed.”

To see the similarities in how they DON'T see themselves fully is kind of sweet and makes me root for them.

“I cried when I first saw it yesterday. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten. And it’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever received, for someone to perceive me in such an artistic way.”  The problem is that it makes him want to draw more, his stupid heart melting at your reaction to something he made– no, created. 

He thinks he’s sappy for drawing it but he doesn’t think the same of you for enjoying the drawing. 

This is HILARIOUS and KILLING ME because I also make rules for MYSELF that are different from the rules I have for EVERYONE ELSE lmao

He’s usually more of a silent carer but maybe that’s why he likes this. He’s not making it a grand gesture, not making it a thing that he’s the one drawing for you. It’s just for you to enjoy. 

Logan being an Acts of Service person makes ALL the sense in the world to me.

But of course now that he knows it means something to you, he can’t get anything right. He draws your hair too curly, then not curly enough. He draws your nose too big, then too small. Your eyes end up crooked. He can’t erase too much because it’ll look sloppy, so even the drawing he gets almost perfect, he ruins with a few final additions at the end. 

The curse of the sequel! I think a lot of creatives can relate to this type of self induced pressure which means nothing you produce is good enough.

“Good?” you take the frame from his hands defensively, “It’s beautiful.” He chuckles, “Sorry, I don’t know much about this type of thing. It is beautiful though.” He’s looking at you instead of his drawing.

She already has a frame for the new drawing cuz the frames came in packs of 2 and she will NOT STAND for someone not absolutely FAWNING over it and I love that from her. It's doing Logan's heart SO good to see how much she adores what he's created.

If there’s someone who’s worth it, it’s you. Seeing your pleased smile at something he made for you, he decides he’s never going to stop drawing you.

It was the stupidest joke of all that made you really laugh, some dumb comparison between Xavier and Caillou. You probably wouldn’t even giggle at it anymore now, but in the moment it was so funny you almost spat out your drink from the deep belly laugh he drew from you, holding onto his bicep so you wouldn’t fall over as tears formed in your eyes from how hard you were laughing. He wanted to engrave the image on his soul. At least he got your smile on paper.

Our man is S-M-I-T-T-E-N and I love that for him. Cuz look what it's brought back into his life?

“I didn’t know you draw”, you say without taking your eyes off it. “No one else knows.” You pretend to zip your lips, smiling, “It’s our secret.” Logan can tell that you like that. He likes it too. It feels much better to share a secret with you than to be keeping one from you.

This is so intimate. And he's finally comfortable all the way with her. She knows it's him and he's fine with her knowing it's him.

You don’t know how to put your feelings into words, so you’re kissing him instead. He pulls you down so that you’re not hovering over but sitting on his lap, and the mood immediately shifts to something different. Logan doesn’t want to overwhelm you, but if you’re ready then he’ll take anything he can get.

I appreciate that Logan is just the tiniest bit "selfish" here because this has been such an emotionally taxing ordeal for him. And she really really admires his talent and is THRILLED that it's him and that he sees her the way that he does.

From here the story slips into the Rated R portion of the story which is both hot and very sweet. The buildup means that I feel a genuine connection and intimacy between the 2 that feels "earned," if that's the right word. Cuz it doesn't feel forced or rushed or like we skipped a whole bunch of stuff to get here.

I also love that there's open dialogue. Often, the only talk between lovers is dirty - which I am a big fan of and absolutely fine with - but that here we have sweet confessions, constant check ins, and reassurances; these all fit with the journey we've been on with these two and I just really enjoy that aspect.

There's also good dirty talk, balanced give and take and praaaaaaaaaaaaise which I enjoy thoroughly. Logan also tends to take the possessive "my girl" over and over which just melts my butter!

@selfcarecap thank you so much for creating and sharing this! Thank you for following YOUR muse through to the end of this tale and then being brave enough to slip it under all our doors *bad dum tss* I really loved this look at Logan, his vulnerabilities, his abilities and desires beyond his powers / "job" and what allowing himself to create ultimately gifted him with. Well done smut that I also very much enjoyed too.

And thank you to K for putting it on my dash!

MUSE [L.H.]

Logan Howlett x reader

summary: Logan would never admit it to anyone, but over the course of his long life he has attempted to draw maybe once or twice. He hasn’t done it in years, maybe even decades, but he’s struck by inspiration when he meets you. Of course, no one can know that Wolverine draws, so he does it in the dead of night, sliding anonymous envelopes with the finished drawings of you under your door. When he sees how much you love them, he wonders if you could also love the person behind them. 

warnings: smut 18+ but with an actual plot for once (brief m masturbation, oral f and m rec, unprotected piv sex, kind of accidental (but consensual obv) facial; pet names: bub, baby, good girl, princess), soft!Logan but he won’t admit it, also soft!reader, fluff (although the summary makes it sounds a bit more dramatic than it is tbh), implication that reader has curly hair, implied mutant/X-men!reader, (obviously the pic doesn’t represent the envelopes Logan uses lol he’s not doing all that)

word count: 7.3k

also i feel the need to say something about the fact that it’s Hugh Jackman’s birthday today lol so uh thanks for being huge jacked man and for giving us our Logan yay <3 | gorgeous divider by @plutism

It’s everything Logan is the opposite of – he would never tell a soul – but over the course of his long life, Logan has attempted to draw maybe once or twice. It’s not really him, but he did have a phase or two.

When he meets you, he hasn’t even thought of picking up a pencil in years. Ever since you’ve been at the mansion though, Logan’s fingertips twitch with the urge to start sketching your features every time he’s with you. It gets hard to ignore after a few days.

He waits until he’s known you a few weeks, there’s no way in hell he’d ask if he could draw you. He’d probably embarrass you by asking, and embarrass himself by admitting he’s into fucking art. That’s not him. 

Except, well, sometimes it is, when he’s inspired. And you’re nothing if not inspiring. 

He gives in to the urge to get out pencil and paper again, waiting until everyone else has gone to sleep. The first few drawings are shit, he feels like they’re almost an insult to you. It’s not that he’s accidentally drawing you ugly, it just doesn’t look like you. So he practises. 

Logan Howlett sits down at night to practise drawing. 

He picks out a few other things to draw then, to ease the pressure that comes with drawing the woman he… is friends with. Yeah, you’re a friend. And he totally knows that you’d never go for someone as rugged as him, that’s for sure. You deserve much more. So much more. 

But after a few nights he feels more confident in his drawing skills again, but still, as much as he can picture you in his mind – he can do that absolutely perfectly – he’s not too sure he could really draw you accurately.

So he gets Rogue to show him how goddamn fucking Instagram works so that he can look at some of your pictures and use them as a model. 

He doesn’t know what you’re doing to him; you’ve got him using social media.

He can’t believe it, but the first time he seriously attempts to draw you, it’s perfect. It’s a small drawing, not even as big as his palm, capturing your gorgeous face. He thinks of adding another few lines to your eyebrows, or to your hair or another small one to the outline of your lips, but he doesn’t want to mess with it. 

Logan hates how drawing makes him overthink, but he loves how it feels to create something other than violence with his hands for once – something that may even be the opposite. 

He hides the drawing in between the pages of a book, and hides the book under a pile of random clutter on his desk that not even he would normally spare a glance at. But when he lies down to go to sleep, he gets all the stuff out again and gets out the drawing. He wants to see it again. And he can’t leave it there anyway, what if the pressure from all the items on top of it smudges it? 

But he doesn’t know what else to do with it. He can’t really have a drawing of you sitting in his room. What if someone sees? Then what is he gonna do with it instead? 

He finally lets himself think the thought that’s politely been waiting to be allowed into his brain from the moment he decided he might take up drawing again. 

He could give it to you. 

Logan knows his drawing isn’t objectively a masterpiece, but if he’s proud of it he has to acknowledge that that probably means it’s at least decent. And you’re definitely the type of person to appreciate something like this. It’s weird admitting to himself that he’s even proud of what he’s drawn; he’s done so much in this world, who cares about a little drawing? 

The only thing is that Logan isn’t sure if he’s ready for anyone to see this side of him. To see the side that has him staying up until 3AM to finely trace the lines of someone’s eyelashes and cheekbones and lips, the side that makes him feel calm inside. 

He knows it’s stupid to hide but he just can’t. He decides he’ll leave the drawing in your room in an envelope, maybe a pink one to show you it’s not a creepy threat but meant as a sign of adoration, from someone who couldn’t resist but try to recreate your beauty. He won’t write his name on it, he just wants you to have it. 

Sappy motherfucker. 

He puts the small drawing back into the book and carefully pushes it between his mattress and the bedframe to protect it during the night. God, who even is he – protecting a tiny piece of paper? He groans at himself as he turns around to go to sleep. 

He dreams of making a thousand drawings of you, with you as his live model. His muse. 

You’re his girlfriend in his dream, he thinks. 

He’s sitting in a chair in your room, drawing you as you tell him about your day. You’re lying on your bed on your tummy, elbows propped up to support your head. You’re gently kicking your feet in the air behind you, wearing nothing but a t-shirt of Logan’s, some silly graphic socks, panties with little cherries on them, and a bright, bashful smile as Logan attempts to capture your glowing features in a sketch block he’s dedicated to drawings of you. 

He wakes up with morning wood. 

Logan is no stranger to jerking off with you on his mind, so he spits in his hand and slips it beneath his boxers, stroking himself as he thinks of you. He imagines you on top of him as he jerks his cock, imagines you under him, or with your legs around his head, or you between his knees on the floor. He cums quickly and hard, leaving his boxers wet and sticky.

He goes for a run after he’s dealt with it and picks up an envelope on his way. He’s doubting himself but he knows he has to just do it. He’d doubt himself even more if he pussied out – a grown man who can’t even slide an envelope under someone’s door. 

So Logan mans up and, like an idiot, kisses the fucking drawing before he puts it into the envelope. He licks the edges of it to close it and writes your name in the most anonymous handwriting he can muster and adds a little heart. 

It’s soo stupid. 

He makes sure no one is anywhere near your bedroom, walks up to your door, and slides the envelope underneath. Except he didn’t check if you were in your room. As soon as the envelope disappears beneath your door, he hears a short creak from your bed and your soft footsteps. 

He hears the small and adorable noise of curiosity you let out – a confused hm? – and then he quickly and quietly makes his way down the hallway. He hears your voice about ten seconds later, an intrigued hello? as you open the door, but you don’t investigate further, closing the door behind you. 

Logan’s heart is beating so fast. He’s never doing this shit again. 

He’s antsy all day, waiting for some type of reaction from you. Except you don’t know that the drawing is from him so he’s probably not even getting one, and he can’t conspicuously come to your room the same day you receive an anonymous drawing of yourself. 

It’s also when the insecurity settles in. Maybe he should have added a few more lines or started the entire drawing anew. Who does he think he is pretending to be an artist? 

He shakes those thoughts off as he starts training with the punching bag in the gym. It’s not something that he necessarily needs to train, but it gets rid of some of that pointless energy. This isn’t him, worried about some lines he drew on a piece of paper – a scrap of a paper, really. Who cares about something like that? Certainly not him. 

He sleeps dreamlessly and wakes up the next day disappointed that he didn’t get to dream about being your boyfriend again. God, what are you doing to him? Making him think about being boyfriend and girlfriend. He’s pathetic. You’re a friend and nothing more, and that’s fine. You probably don’t like him like that and he can deal with that.

-

He’s not even thinking of the drawing anymore, truly, when he walks into the kitchen the next morning. It only comes to mind when he sees you, alone in the kitchen, leaning over the counter to scroll on your phone, your weird green coffee (“it’s Matcha, Logan”) next to you as you stir it mindlessly with a metal straw. 

“Hi,” you look up with one of those sweet smiles of yours, but redirect your attention to your phone. 

At least you don’t immediately say something like hey, you know that drawing you slid under my door? It was so ugly I threw it away. Since when do you even draw? 

Not that he was worried you would or anything. He hasn’t been thinking about it. Obviously. Why would he? And he knows you would never expect that it’s him; that’s the only reason he did it. He never would have given you the drawing if he thought you could have even the slightest inkling that Logan would be someone who draws. But he still wants to know what you think of it. 

“You want some toast too?” You ask, putting your phone down and turning to get some bread. He sits down at the other side of the kitchen counter and as his eyes flicker to your green drink (he still doesn’t get it), he sees it. 

“Is that–” my drawing, he almost said, “What is that?” He pretends to be confused, drawing his eyebrows together, trying his best to look inquisitive, “No toast by the way, thanks.” 

You have one of those clear phone cases, filled with a bunch of tiny pictures and stickers (and is that your credit card?). But wedged in front of all of those is Logan’s drawing. 

“Did you draw it?” He asks. 

You turn around, giggling, “No, I don’t draw. And anyway, I wouldn’t be drawing pictures of myself. I got it in an envelope under my door yesterday, photocopied it because I was scared it would bend in my phone case. I don’t know who drew it.” 

“Secret admirer?” 

Smiling, you say, “I don’t know. I won’t get my hopes up. But the person must definitely be fond of me to draw me like that.” 

“Like what?” He asks, unsure if he’s about to be offended. 

“I don’t know, just, so beautiful. I’m not saying I’m not pretty or anything, but this looks… I don’t look like that. I wish I did. I can’t believe someone actually sees me like that. It’s stupid but I….” You trail off and, conveniently, the toast is done at the same time and you move on to that. 

But Logan won’t let you, “What’s stupid?” 

You turn towards him with a shy smile, “I’m embarrassed.”

Logan stays silent. He can’t seem too pushy and draw attention to himself, but his silence makes you confess.

“I cried when I first saw it yesterday. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten. And it’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever received, for someone to perceive me in such an artistic way.” 

Logan makes a noise of satisfaction and smiles, asking you to pass your phone so he can look at it more – pretending it’s his first time seeing it. If you think that way about it, maybe the three more lines he was going to add aren’t that important after all. 

The problem is that it makes him want to draw more, his stupid heart melting at your reaction to something he made– no, created. 

-

After a week, he figures he has to give in. Drawing another picture of you is on his mind twenty-four seven. 

It doesn’t help that he still catches you staring at the copy of it in your phone case lovingly more than once a day and you’ve put the original drawing in a special little frame on your nightstand. He thinks he’s sappy for drawing it but he doesn’t think the same of you for enjoying the drawing. 

This is for you. It’s not about him. He’s not an artist or anything like that, he’s just doing something kind for someone he cares about (which is honestly sappy enough but he tries to ignore that). He’s usually more of a silent carer but maybe that’s why he likes this. He’s not making it a grand gesture, not making it a thing that he’s the one drawing for you. It’s just for you to enjoy. 

He’ll just make this second drawing and silently put it in your room, and he’s the last person you’ll suspect. 

But of course now that he knows it means something to you, he can’t get anything right. He draws your hair too curly, then not curly enough. He draws your nose too big, then too small. Your eyes end up crooked. He can’t erase too much because it’ll look sloppy, so even the drawing he gets almost perfect, he ruins with a few final additions at the end. 

It takes him an entire month for the next drawing, and it feels more like him that it’s been making him so angry that he couldn’t get it right at first. Maybe he had the wrong picture of artists. They’re always talking about pain, aren’t they, and that’s what he experiences too (over a drawing. Who is he?). 

He takes another few days to keep track of your routine, to monitor when you’ll be in your room. He can’t have it be as close as last time. 

He ends up doing it in the evening. There’s a time after dinner when most of the team stays together to watch tv, just talk, or play some games. It’s normal for some of you to wander off, come back or stick around a bit longer. It won’t be suspicious if he leaves for a few minutes and comes back.

Logan wants nothing more than to follow you when you say that you’re going to your room for the night; he wants to see your reaction. But he can’t. All he can do is go up to his own bedroom fifteen minutes later, lingering in the hallway longer than he needs to.

Just as he’s about to give up and go to sleep, you walk down the hallway, coming back from the bathroom.

“Logan!” you call all excitedly when you see him, and his heart skips a beat. Do you know the drawing is from him? 

“Look,” you take his arm and pull him to your room, “I got another drawing!”

He breathes out in relief; you don’t know it’s from him. He smiles when you hold up the drawing, already framed.

“Were you expecting to get another drawing?” he teases.

“Noo, but the frames came in a pack of two. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

Logan looks at how your eyes sparkle, how proudly you’re showing him this drawing. All the work he put into it was definitely worth it. It’s another picture of your face, this time from a new angle, and with your hair styled differently, curls coiled another way from last time.

Logan clears his throat, remembering to keep up his act. “It looks good.”

“Good?” you take the frame from his hands defensively, “It’s beautiful.”

He chuckles, “Sorry, I don’t know much about this type of thing. It is beautiful though.” He’s looking at you instead of his drawing.

“It is. And you don’t have to know much about art or drawing to see how pretty this is. I still can’t believe someone would take the time to make these for me.”

Logan remains silent instead of saying what he wants to tell you. Of course he would take that time for you – and you don’t even know how much time it really took him. If there’s someone who’s worth it, it’s you.

Seeing your pleased smile at something he made for you, he decides he’s never going to stop drawing you.

-

He’s on a roll for some time. He’s better at drawing again now that he’s getting in practice, and he makes five drawings of you within the next weeks. Logan watches the collection of them on your nightstand grow fuller, along with your smile that somehow gets bigger every time you tell him about a new drawing.

It’s a wonder you haven’t caught on yet, but you don’t seem particularly interested in snooping around to find out who it is. You respect the person’s privacy, but you’ve confessed to him that you’d still love to know. 

“I won’t try to find out who it is. I won’t push it if they don’t want me to know… but, I mean, anyone would want to know, wouldn’t they?”

You’ve adopted the nickname of ‘secret admirer’ for this mysterious ‘they’, after Logan used the term about ten times. You were reluctant at first, because the person isn’t calling themself a secret admirer – you’d just be putting words in their mouth. But after seeing how much more beautiful the drawings get each time, you’ve accepted and admitted that, okay, yes, the person must be an admirer.

Your secret admirer Logan is particularly proud of his latest drawing, excited to bring it up to your room tonight. 

But this time he’s sloppy. He’s stayed for a few post-dinner card games with the team, and it’s risky, because you’ve been saying that it’s your last game for the last two rounds. But he also knows that you always say that, and never mean it.

Logan gets up to leave, and he hears Scott convincing you to play just one more round.

It’s stupid, really, risking it like that. Even if he’s gone from your room in time before you come upstairs, you could easily guess that it’s Logan. He’s the first one leaving the round tonight, so your first assumption could be that it was him.

Maybe subconsciously he wants to get caught. He’s seen how you light up at every drawing, and no matter how much you respect your admirer’s anonymity, of course you want to know who’s dedicating so much time and work to drawings of you. Of course it’s crossed your mind that the person isn’t just doing this because they’re a good friend. They’re drawing your face because they think it’s beyond beautiful.

Logan doesn’t really know why he hasn’t told you yet that he likes you. He’s good at flirting, and he’s attractive – he’s not blind. But with you it’s different, there’s a bigger risk, for the both of you. The older he gets, the harder it is to open up to yet another person. You’re friends, and you talk about personal things, but confessing that he’s in love with you is different.

Not to mention this stupid recurring dream he keeps having, in which you find out it’s Logan who’s been drawing you, and suddenly your opinion of the drawings changes. You don’t like him back like that, and suddenly the drawings feel creepy if you think about him staying up late drawing your face.

He rolls his eyes at himself and gets the thought out of his head, taking the small envelope out of the back pocket of his jeans, smoothing his hand over it. He looks around, making sure no one sees him.

Logan bends down to slide the envelope under your door as usual, but one of the corners of the paper catches against the wall, and he quickly opens it to check the drawing isn’t damaged. His heart is beating so fast, he feels stupid. 

He can hear footsteps, still far away, but he can hear them. Logan messily licks the edges of the envelope to close it back up, but it’s not sticking. He can’t decide between shoving it under the door like this or leaving now and bringing it back the next day. He can feel his heart hammering against his ribcage now.

Then he hears it. He miscalculated how far the footsteps were.

“Logan?”

He turns around slowly, and it feels like the world has frozen.

You come closer, looking at him and then at the letter that he must’ve dropped. It hasn’t made it under your door yet.

He says something before you can, “I’m delivering for someone else.”

“Who?” you ask, bending down to pick up the envelope. If he wasn’t petrified, he’d enjoy the view of you bent over in front of him.

He breathes. He can’t have anyone taking credit for his work, for his art (you called it that recently, he would never). But his heart is beating so fast he doesn’t know what the fuck to do or say. 

This is exactly why he never wanted to do any of this. He’s making a fool out of himself and that doesn’t usually happen, especially not over a piece of paper. Logan is confident, cocky even, he can admit that, and has no idea how to deal with things like being nervous; he never has to. This really isn’t him.

You don’t wait for an answer and look at the envelope. You open it so carefully, gently taking the drawing out with your fingertips. You’re treating it with so much care he immediately feels better. Again, this isn’t for him, it’s for you. (Well, it’s for him too but it’ll take him a while to admit that). 

He’s drawn your smile this time. You were happy in most of the drawings before, but he focussed more on the eyes, and your lips only ever tugged up in a slight smile. 

This one is a full-toothed grin, mid-laugh. 

You two were drinking last weekend. He barely felt it but your tipsy, giggly mood was contagious. He couldn’t imagine himself feeling any other way but blissful when you’re happy around him. 

It started when Logan made a casual comment about something silly Scott was wearing that night, and he had you giggling. He wanted to immediately hear that angelic sound again, of course, and so he gave you every joke about your shared friends he could think of – all light-hearted, but he was still glad you two were alone. 

It was the stupidest joke of all that made you really laugh, some dumb comparison between Xavier and Caillou. You probably wouldn’t even giggle at it anymore now, but in the moment it was so funny you almost spat out your drink from the deep belly laugh he drew from you, holding onto his bicep so you wouldn’t fall over as tears formed in your eyes from how hard you were laughing. He wanted to engrave the image on his soul. At least he got your smile on paper.

You look up at him now, eyes filled with tears. 

“You drew this?” you ask.

He nods softly. He can’t say it but he hopes the drawings convey how in love with you he is. 

Suddenly, Logan feels like his heart has stopped beating.

You’re kissing him. 

You’ve leaped up, wrapped your arms around the back of his neck, and now your lips are on his. 

He feels your mouth falter, probably because he’s being a fucking idiot and not kissing you back. Logan places his hands on your waist to pull you further towards him. Then his brain finally catches up and he can do what he’s wanted to for so long. 

He takes your chin with two fingers and angles you so you can kiss him easier. He closes his eyes and revels in the feeling of your soft, warm lips against him. You’re soft and warm all over. Your top has slipped up over his fingertips at your sides, and he slides his hands further around your back to support you against him even better. 

Logan’s tongue pushes at your lower lip, and you let out the sexiest, tiny moan of surprise as you part your lips for him, granting him access. 

His tongue touches the tip of yours and from then on your cravings intensify. You feel your way over his muscular shoulders, his big biceps and over the hard planes of his chest. When you’ve had a good feel there, your hands grip his shirt in desperation and Logan gets even hungrier for you. He gently bites at your lower lip, but then you shriek into his mouth and squirm out of his grasp. He opens his eyes wide. 

You grip Logan’s forearm for support when you bend down in a panic, picking up the drawing you just dropped. You let out a big breath of relief when you see it hasn’t been damaged. 

“You made me drop it!” You slap a hand to his chest; it doesn’t actually hurt and it’s not meant to, but it leaves a pleasant tingle behind instead. 

“I didn’t do anything”, Logan laughs, and you shake your head at him with a smile.

You take him into your room where you make him sit on the bed while you stare at the new drawing in awe. “I didn’t know you draw”, you say without taking your eyes off it.

“No one else knows.”

You pretend to zip your lips, smiling, “It’s our secret.” Logan can tell that you like that. He likes it too. It feels much better to share a secret with you than to be keeping one from you.

“I’ll only draw for you anyway, so there’s no point in telling anyone else.”

“You’re really good. I love the drawings.”

Logan gives a satisfied hum at your words, “You inspired me. Can’t have you walking around all pretty and not expect me to try and recreate it.”

You straddle Logan and hover over his lap to hug him, “They’re the best thing anyone's ever given to me. Do I really look like that?” You say the last question more quietly, and Logan wraps his arms around your sides, careful not to bump your hand that’s still holding the drawing.

“You’re more gorgeous than anything I could ever capture, but I think it comes close. I didn’t change anything about you to make you more beautiful. I couldn’t if I tried. I just tried to draw you as accurately as possible, that’s why it’s so beautiful.”

“I really love it,” you say again, happily staring at the details of the drawing. Hearing you say the word love so much tempts Logan, but he doesn’t want to move too fast. He doesn’t want to overwhelm you. He does, however, want to kiss you again.

Logan carefully takes the framed drawing and puts it on your nightstand. You push your mouth against his before he can initiate the kiss, and he grins against your lips.

You don’t know how to put your feelings into words, so you’re kissing him instead. He pulls you down so that you’re not hovering over but sitting on his lap, and the mood immediately shifts to something different. Logan doesn’t want to overwhelm you, but if you’re ready then he’ll take anything he can get.

Your chest is pressed against Logan’s, and you can feel the rise and fall of his chest when he breathes. You may or may not be pressing your boobs against his body on purpose.

“God, baby, I’ve waited so long for this,” he says, already breathless, as his hands trail down your back, leaving goosebumps behind.

“You’ve waited long?” you raise your eyebrows, grinning, “I’ve wanted to fuck you since the day I met you.”

You see the look in Logan’s eyes changing as he bites his lip, “Who says I didn’t want the same?”

You giggle, “Why did it take us so long?”

Logan chuckles, readjusting you so that you’re even closer to him, “I was too busy to actually talk to you, just been starin’ at you so I could draw you.” His cheeks have the faintest red tint, and you kiss them, hugging him.

You whisper into his ear, “Then it was worth the wait. And anyway, it’s not talking that I’m interested in right now.”

He pulls you back to look into your eyes, then at your lips. “Where do you want me?” he asks. You giggle slightly helplessly; you weren’t entirely prepared to have a man like Logan at your mercy like this tonight.

“You can do whatever you want,” you say softly, kissing him.

Logan’s lips are hungry against yours, strings of spit falling between you two, but he pauses the kiss to lie you on your back. “Wanna eat you out,” he husks, “Been dying to know what you taste like forever, bub. Can I?” He reaches for the hem of your top, and you nod so that he can pull it off you, admiring what’s underneath. 

“Sometimes I make myself cum imagining that I’m going down on you,” you confess somewhat shyly, but you figure he’s been so vulnerable for you that you can share a secret too.

Logan smirks, and pulls off his shirt, “Maybe we can make your dream come true then.”

You move to sit up, but he insists on eating you out first. You both take off all your clothes, staring at each other with huge smiles on your faces for a few moments. You’ve never seen Logan this happy.

“Look at you, baby. So pretty,” he leans down to kiss your lips, then down your neck, all the way to your legs. He spreads them, lying down between them as he all but drools at the sight of your wet pussy.

You get nervous all of a sudden. “It’s been a while,” you tell him. He looks up, taking your hand, enveloping it completely in his much bigger one.

“You sure about this? We can wait,” he gently kisses your knuckles, and a warmth spreads in your chest, slowing your heartbeat down a little.

“I’m sure,” you nod, and Logan comes up again to kiss you. The head of his hard cock catches against the space above your clit, and you both look down between your bodies. When Logan looks back up at you, his eyes are desperately begging you. You place your hand on his head, threading your fingers through his hair as he moves down your body.

“Such a pretty fucking pussy,” he mumbles into your thigh, kissing you there. You giggle, getting comfortable, your hand never leaving his hair.

Logan starts eating you out, his tongue gentle but determined against your clit.

“Taste so good, baby. Even better than I imagined.” You hum at Logan’s words, already feeling yourself come undone with his mouth on your wet pussy.

You sink further into the mattress when he starts sucking on your clit, licking into your pussy like a man starved every few moments, and your thighs squeeze around Logan’s head, and it’s even better than in his fantasies.

“Feels really good,” you tell him, pulling on his hair to stop yourself from moving too much, and Logan moans against your skin. Hearing your words motivates him even more, and he pushes two fingers into your wet pussy. He curls his fingers, rubbing up against that spot that makes you see stars.

Your back arches as you cum, Logan’s lips wrapped around your clit as your legs push harder against his head, and all he does is moan, revelling in the feeling.

Logan doesn’t stop licking your pussy until you’re tugging his head away by his hair, and he comes up for air with a grin on his face. You smile back, pulling him up to kiss him. You give yourself only a few seconds of recovery time before you make him sit down. You know you’d never have enough strength to actually make him get into a different position, but he lets you.

You push him onto his back, getting between his legs. You’re blinking up at him all prettily when you ask, “Can I suck your dick? Please?”

Logan huffs to himself because he can’t believe how hot you are, can’t believe that this is really finally happening. He tells you yes – he has no more words to describe how badly he wants this – and he watches you wrap your pretty lips around his cock.

It’s hard to grasp that it’s really you doing this right now – the woman he’s been into for so long. His cock is in your mouth and you look so gorgeous with spit running down from your lips, and all he can think of is all the dirty drawings he can now make of you, if you’ll let him.

He closes his eyes when you take him deeper, enveloping him with your warm, wet mouth. “Good girl,” he whispers absent-mindedly, too gone to say much more.

You’re not using your hands as you suck his cock, your spit trailing down on him, and you’re so eager. But it’s also late, and he sees you getting tired, eyes blinking slower as you pause to catch your breath every few moments. He also sees the determination in your eyes, and the absolute want, but he doesn’t want you to exhaust yourself. 

You look so sexy all fucked out, strings of spit connecting your mouth to his cock as you pull away another time, giggling up at him shyly when you realise that he’s noticing you getting tired.

“Just need a second,” you wipe your mouth, out of breath, and it’s not that you’re not incredibly hot like this, but he still wants to fuck you tonight and he’s not sure that will happen if you keep going.

“C’mere, baby,” he says, reaching out his hand.

“Huh?” you ask, taking his hand nevertheless.

“Get back here, baby. I’m gonna fuck you now, alright? Don’t want you tiring yourself out.”

You let him lift you and put you on your back, but you pout, “Wanna taste you.”

Logan grins, “I’ll cum in your mouth, princess. Promise.”

You smile at his answer, satisfied, so you lie back down, pulling your legs up to your chest. His cock looks huge as he jerks himself off between your legs, rubbing the tip against your clit, making you squirm.

“Don’t know if I can take you,” you bite your lip. You’re not entirely sure if you mean it or not. You definitely want to try.

“We’ll make it fit, baby, we’ll make it fit,” Logan assures you, leaning down to press a kiss to your mouth, a mix of your wetness and his precum between your mouths. You feel his cock at your pussy, “You ready?”

“I’m ready,” you nod desperately, letting him push his cock into your pussy. He pauses after a few inches, but you wrap your legs around his waist more tightly, and he goes deeper.

“Y’okay, baby? You can take it, right?”

You nod, unable to form words with your pussy stretched like this, a combination of pleasure and pain between your legs – but it’s infinitely more pleasure.

“That’s right. You’re my good girl, hm?” He kisses along your neck as he bottoms out, and you both moan when he’s got his cock fully stuffed inside you for the first time. He pulls out slightly when you whine at the stretch, but you scratch down his back to get his attention.

“I can take it,” you tell him, and you watch the look in his eyes darken.

He begins to fuck you, the pain subsiding more with every thrust into your wet pussy. You can barely take him, but it feels good. With your slight tiredness, you feel like you’re floating on cloud nine. 

You can’t believe that Logan – your super hot friend Logan who you’ve been fantasising about for so long – is fucking you. He not only feels the same way about you, but he’s been your secret admirer this entire time, taking hours and hours out of his day to make you smile. You’re the only one he wants.

And now he’s fucking you, fucking you well, and you feel so warm inside, not just from the sex but you feel warm in your heart, because of Logan’s care.

“You okay?” he asks, stroking a hand down your face when he notices you’re not entirely present. You nod happily, smiling up at him, and you can’t talk because you feel so good.

“Good, that’s good, bub, but let me know if it gets too much,” he says as he starts rubbing your clit, watches you nod while he’s fucking you so well, and he’s so big and so deep inside of you, “Squeezing me so tight, baby, feel so fucking good.”

You cum suddenly, letting the warm pleasure flow through your body as Logan keeps fucking you through it, rubbing your clit in just the right rhythm.

“That’s my girl, taking it so well,” he moans, breaths stuttering. You slump against the pillow after a few moments, with a soft smile on your face, and Logan pulls out.

“Gonna make me cum, baby,” he jerks his cock, and you sit up on your elbows immediately, looking him in the eyes with a smile as you stick out your tongue for him. He promised.

Logan moans when he cums, painting your face in his release, jerking himself off. He holds your head in place with his other hand, aiming for your mouth but you’re making no effort to catch his cum there.

“Such a pretty fucking face, princess, ’m cumming all over it,” he rasps, shooting more ropes of his cum all over your cheeks, jacking off onto your face.

You open your eyes when he’s done and breathing heavily, and you smile up at him. You open your mouth, taking the head of his cock between your lips to suck off the last drops of cum.

“Look at you, baby. Look so fucking pretty with my cum all over your gorgeous face.”

You hum, pulling your mouth off him and licking your lips, tasting his salty release. You brush a finger over your cheek, sucking it into your mouth to taste him more. Logan kisses you then, the flavour of himself mixing between your mouths.

He cleans you up gently, carefully wiping your face with a baby wipe and kissing every inch of your cheeks afterwards. You take his face to kiss him properly, and if you didn’t seem so tired Logan would be ready for round two immediately.

“Next time you could try to actually cum in my mouth,” you tease, making Logan grin.

“Sorry, baby. Got too excited. Couldn’t focus on asking you again if it was okay.” He presses an open-mouthed kiss to your lips.

“It’s okay,” you tell him, “I liked it.”

Logan grins, “Oh I could tell you liked it, baby.” You lightly slap his chest as you giggle, pulling him in for another kiss.

You cuddle for a while, not saying much because you don’t have to. You’ve both waited for this for so long that you’re just enjoying the moment, enjoying that it finally happened.

You slip out of his arms to sit on top of him. You’re in nothing but panties, the blanket bunching around your hips. You lean your hands against his chest as you tell him more about how much the drawings delighted you. And Logan cares, of course he cares to hear that, but he’s also just a man seeing the woman he’s into naked for the first time still. 

You become quiet when you realise that he’s not listening, and you giggle, “Distracted?”

Logan grins, “Just a little fucking bit, baby.” His eyes don’t leave your body, and you laugh as you bend down to kiss him. He grabs your ass, kneading the flesh. When you slightly sit up again, your tits are near his face, and he can’t help himself. He cups your breasts, playing with your nipples, making you hum.

“I should draw these,” he looks up at you, “Should draw every perfect fucking inch of you.”

“You wanna?” You adjust how you’re seated in his lap, and you feel that he’s already half hard under you again.

“Maybe after I’ve fucked you again.”

You smile, feeling yourself growing wetter on top of him.

“Tomorrow,” he continues, and your smile drops.

“But you’ve got to get more familiar with the inspiration, right? If you’re going to draw me.”

“That’s true, baby. But I think you’re too tired.”

You smile bashfully, ignoring how your eyelids were drooping shut just a few seconds ago, “Okay, but then I’ll have more energy for tomorrow.”

“That’s my girl,” he smiles, pulling you off him to cuddle you again. He tucks you in and kisses your head. 

You turn to your side, taking one of the framed drawings and looking at it for a while. 

Logan watches you looking at it, and the sparkle in your eyes never fails to make him feel all warm inside. “Now that you actually know about it, I don’t have to draw you from memory anymore. I can study my muse in peace.”

“Aww, I’m your muse?” you beam.

“Of course you are, princess. You’re the only reason I’m drawing again.”

“I love your drawings so much.”

Logan clears his throat, and looks at you. “Well, I love you. So, I think that went into them.”

You look at him, pouting and then kissing him. “I love you too,” you say into his mouth. He grins against your lips, pulling you closer to kiss you some more. He can barely grasp that you just said that, but he’ll have enough time soon to comprehend how lucky he is. 

For now, he takes your hand, and asks, “The question might be redundant now, but do you wanna be mine? Be my girlfriend?”

“I’m already yours.”

Logan grins, takes you in his arms, and you’re still cuddling when you’re both drifting off to a peaceful sleep.

P.S. reblog with a comment and let me know your favourite moment/what you liked to get a drawing from Logan under your door tonight and a facial <33

gorgeous divider by @pommecita

[knifeforkspooncup]

My dream is literally just to have enough time and energy to share my skills with other people.

I long to invite someone over and show them how to bake my favourite cake recipe. How great would it be to show someone how to tie a bowline knot in a way they'll remember? Yes, I would actuallt love for you to come over to my house and learn stained glass with all my supplies, it would make my year. Oh your parents never taught you how to use an electric drill or how to change the oil filter on your car? Don't work luv I'll walk you through it. Here don't forget your eye protection.

[burntoutdaydreamer]

Weird Brain Hacks That Help Me Write

I'm a consistently inconsistent writer/aspiring novelist, member of the burnt-out-gifted-kid-to-adult-ADHD-diagnosis-pipeline, recently unemployed overachiever, and person who's sick of hearing the conventional neurotypical advice to dealing with writer's block (i.e. "write every single day," or "there's no such thing as writer's block- if you're struggling to write, just write" Like F*CK THAT. Thank you, Brenda, why don't you go and tell someone with diabetes to just start producing more insulin?)

I've yet to get to a point in my life where I'm able to consistently write at the pace I want to, but I've come a long way from where I was a few years ago. In the past five years I've written two drafts of a 130,000 word fantasy novel (currently working on the third) and I'm about 50,000 words in on the sequel. I've hit a bit of a snag recently, but now that I've suddenly got a lot of time on my hands, I'm hoping to revamp things and return to the basics that have gotten me to this point and I thought I might share.

1) My first draft stays between me and God

I find that I and a lot of other writers unfortunately have gotten it into our heads that first drafts are supposed to resemble the finished product and that revisions are only for fixing minor mistakes. Therefore, if our first draft sucks that must mean we suck as writers and having to rewrite things from scratch means that means our first draft is a failure.

I'm here to say that is one of the most detrimental mentalities you can have as a writer.

Ever try drawing a circle? You know how when you try to free-hand draw a perfect circle in one go, it never turns out right? Whereas if you scribble, say, ten circles on top of one another really quickly and then erase the messy lines until it looks like you drew a circle with a singular line, it ends up looking pretty decent?

Yeah. That's what the drafting process is.

Your first draft is supposed to suck. I don't care who you are, but you're never going to write a perfect first draft, especially if you're inexperienced. The purpose of the first draft is to lay down a semi-workable foundation. A really loose, messy sketch if you will. Get it all down on paper, even if it turns out to be the most cliche, cringe-inducing writing you've ever done. You can work out those kinks in the later drafts. The hardest part of the first draft is the most crucial part: getting started. Don't stress yourself out and make it even harder than it already is.

If that means making a promise to yourself that no one other than you will ever read your first draft unless it's over your cold, dead body, so be it.

2) Tell perfectionism to screw off by writing with a pen

I used to exclusively write with pencil until I realized I was spending more time erasing instead of writing.

Writing with a pen keeps me from editing while I right. Like, sometimes I'll have to cross something out or make notes in the margins, but unlike erasing and rewriting, this leaves the page looking like a disaster zone and that's a good thing.

If my writing looks like a complete mess on paper, that helps me move past the perfectionist paralysis and just focus on getting words down on the page. Somehow seeing a page full of chicken scratch makes me less worried about making my writing all perfect and pretty- and that helps me get on with my main goal of fleshing out ideas and getting words on a page.

3) It's okay to leave things blank when you can't think of the right word

My writing, especially my first draft, is often filled with ___ and .... and (insert name here) and red text that reads like stage directions because I can't think of what is supposed to go there or the correct way to write it.

I found it helps to treat my writing like I do multiple choice tests. Can't think of the right answer? Just skip it. Circle it, come back to it later, but don't let one tricky question stall you to the point where you run out of brain power or run out of time to answer the other questions.

If I'm on a role, I'm not gonna waste it by trying to remember that exact word that I need or figure out the right transition into the next scene or paragraph. I'm just going to leave it blank, mark to myself that I'll need to fix the problem later, and move on.

Trust me. This helps me sooooo much with staying on a roll.

4) Write Out of Order

This may not be for everyone, but it works wonders for me.

Sure, the story your writing may need to progress chronologically, but does that mean you need to write it chronologically? No. It just needs to be written.

I generally don't do this as much for editing, but for writing, so long as you're making progress, it doesn't matter if it's in the right order. Can't think of how to structure Chapter 2, but you have a pretty good idea of how your story's going to end? Write the ending then. You'll have to go back and write Chapter 2 eventually, but if you're feeling more motivated to write a completely different part of the book, who's to say you can't do that?

When I'm working on a project, I start off with a single document that I title "Scrap for (Project Title)" and then just write whatever comes to mind, in whatever order. Once I've gotten enough to work with, then I start outlining my plot and predicting how many chapters I'm going to need. Then, I create separate google docs for each individual chapter and work on them in whatever order I feel like, often leaving several partially complete as I jump from one to the other. Then, as each one gets finished, I copy and paste the chapter into the full manuscript document. This means that the official "draft" could have Chapters 1 and 9, but completely be missing Chapters 2-8, and that's fine. It's not like anyone will ever know once I finish it.

Sorry for the absurdly long post. Hopes this helps someone. Maybe I'll share more tricks in the future.

[hiitsm]

Hi dear all,

I'm excited to share a little teaser for my upcoming Alexia Putellas x Reader piece with you all. Can't wait for you to dive into it!

Also, I'm still writing bits of it to perfectionize so if you have certain ideas please send them to me and I will see what I can do.

Please let me know if you would like this because I'm still a bit in my insecure feels 🫣

This piece will most likely include smut, so it's for 18+ only.

-

Teaser

"You're always leaving me," Alexia shouts, her voice trembling with emotion. You know she shouldn’t be yelling, and deep down, you know it’s not true. You’ve always done your best to be there for her. At home, at her matches, at family gatherings, and even at work events. You’ve tried to be by her side, always.

"Mi amor, you know that’s not true," you say gently, trying to keep your voice calm and soothing. But her next words pierce your heart.

"What if you find someone else?" she cries, the fear in her voice making your chest ache.

You step closer, your voice soft yet firm. "I won’t, because I love you. I only love you, Alexia. No one else."

You gently take her hands in yours, tracing soothing circles with your thumb as you try to calm her. "Why can't I go with you?" she asks, her voice tinged with pleading.

"Because she’s my best friend, and she wants to celebrate her birthday with just her three closest friends," you explain softly. "She’s asked for something small, without partners, and I want to respect her wishes."

You lean in, resting your forehead against hers, feeling the warmth of her skin. "I promise I’ll only stay for two hours, then I’ll come straight home to you. But you have to let me go," you whisper tenderly, hoping to ease her worries.

"Lo siento mucho," she whispers, a tear slipping down her cheek. You gently catch it with your thumb, wiping it away. "Lo siento mucho," she repeats, her voice trembling with emotion. You can feel the depth of her pain, the fears she’s been holding inside.

"It’s okay, amor," you murmur softly, your voice full of reassurance. "This is all part of the process, and I’m here to help you through it, to reassure you every step of the way." You cup the right side of her face, and she leans into your touch, finding comfort in your warmth.

"I don’t deserve you," she says, her voice catching with a sniffle.

"That’s not for you to decide," you reply gently, before leaning in to kiss her lips, hoping to convey all the love and devotion you feel for her in that single moment.

"I’ll be back in two hours, I promise," you reassure her, your voice firm yet gentle. You put on your coat, give her one last kiss, and then head out the door. As it closes behind you, you walk towards your car, fighting the urge to turn back. The guilt tugs at you, but you push it down, reminding yourself that you both need space for your own lives, too.

You want to give her everything, to always be by her side, but she needs to understand that sometimes you have your own things. Just as she has hers. When it’s a football celebration with her team and she doesn’t invite you, you don’t go. You respect her and her team’s wishes. But when it’s your turn to go out, it feels like a much bigger deal, even though it happens so rarely.

You sigh as you reach your car, opening the door and sliding into the driver’s seat. Gripping the steering wheel tightly, you take a few deep breaths, trying to keep your emotions in check. You care about her so much, but you know you need to find a balance. For both of you.

Ever since you met Alexia, you knew there was something special between you. When you could no longer contain your romantic feelings, the two of you started dating.

It all began on a rainy day when Alexia, drenched from the downpour, suddenly appeared on your doorstep. Without warning, she rang the bell, and when you opened the door, she blurted out that she had feelings for you. Before you could even admit that you felt the same, she had already sprinted off into the rain.

The memory still makes you chuckle whenever you think about it.

But Alexia has been deeply hurt by past partners, leaving scars that make you want to love her even more fiercely, to show her how deeply she deserves to be cherished.

Because of those wounds, Alexia has developed her own ways of coping. Sometimes in unhealthy, even toxic ways.

Since the two of you made it official, you’ve noticed Alexia’s fears surfacing. Fears that you might hurt her in the same way her past partners did. These fears have led to many unnecessary arguments and misunderstandings, which are painful for you but even more so for her.

Seeing how much she struggles with these feelings, you’ve made it your mission to support her in every way you can. You’ve worked to communicate openly, discuss your feelings honestly, and offer reassurance. You even suggested therapy, which she was hesitant about at first. However, because it was coming from you, she decided to give it a try.

That’s also why you’re currently working to find a balance in your relationship. Right now, it often feels one-sided. Alexia remains very protective of her own feelings, and while you know she trusts you, her past experiences sometimes cloud her judgment, leading to misunderstandings and arguments.

You’re committed to helping her through this process as much as you can. Even though it can be overwhelming, like it was today, you try to keep your own emotions in check because you understand how much more difficult it is for her. You genuinely appreciate her willingness to work on her behavior to improve your relationship.

Still, you never anticipated how challenging this would be. Maybe it was a bit of naivety on your part, but you’re determined to support her through it all, hoping that together you can build a stronger, more balanced partnership.

You feel a sense of pride as you arrive at your best friend’s birthday celebration, knowing you didn’t let Alexia’s worries hold you back, even though a twinge of guilt still lingers.

You open your car door and step out, making sure to set an alarm for when you plan to leave. Trust is essential in any relationship, and you’re determined not to break Alexia’s trust by staying out too late.

As you set your alarm, you receive a notification.

It’s a photo, and you have to close your eyes for a moment to avoid letting it affect you. It’s a provocative picture of Alexia in the lingerie you bought for her a few weeks ago.

You recognize it as a tactic she’s using to try to bring you home sooner.

You understand that she’s struggling with letting you go to fulfill your commitments, and you know she can’t help but act on her feelings. It takes a lot of effort to keep yourself from sending a frustrated message, knowing that she’s finding it difficult to manage her emotions.

Instead of letting your frustration take over, you decide to send her a reassuring message. You want her to know that you understand her feelings and that you’re committed to being there for her.

Mi amor, I just saw your photo and I have to say, you look absolutely stunning. I want you to know how much I love you and how much I appreciate your patience. I promise that when I get home, I’ll make sure you feel just as special as you look. Can’t wait to be with you. ❤️

-

[hotchfiles]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ❝ on my mind since the flood ❞ ─ a darling, in any life blurb

pairing: aaron hotchner x reader. summary: the red thread between two people destined to be together may stretch and tangle, but those ties will never break. or: a 45min train ride makes two 43 year olds feel like teenagers. content warnings: divorce babes, divorce. kinda spoiler-ish. watch the 3rd season before. the reader has a backstory and a job, if that bothers you grow up don't read. word count: 960+

Your hair was different, that was the first thing he noticed.

Much like himself, you had soft wrinkles beginning to show up on your forehead and around your eyes, a gift from your late thirties that kept on giving. Your eyes were the same though, he could recognize those anywhere at anytime, even if it had been decades since the last time they stared back at his. Your nose, your lips. Your smile. The way his name sounded coming from your tongue. It was all extremely familiar, as if he was fifteen again.

"You're staring, like a creep, airhead." The old nickname rolls out like you had spent merely seconds apart and it makes him laugh, it has been weeks, maybe months since he last laughed genuinely like that, with his whole face.

"I just got lost—" In your eyes. "In my memories for a bit. You look so much the same."

"Well, my pay check won't allow me any plastic surgeries so—"

"Wise ass." And there it was, like a reflex, his own nickname to you leaving his lips before he even thought about it, if he did think about it he probably would've held it in, a 43 year old FBI agent using childish nicknames not being the best look, but it didn't feel like that with you, at all, it felt natural. You both laugh at it for a second and a comfortable silence follows it, but Aaron couldn't keep it like that, he needed to know more, where have you been, what were you doing... Have you been in Virginia for long? He kept it as casual as he could considering his curiosity, "How have you been?"

"Alright, good, yeah. I’m teaching at Scalia, started this year, I want to keep practicing though, but I’m gonna settle down in Virginia first." You shrug, taking a sip of your coffee. You were purposefully leaving details out, you had seen him on TV a lot since coming back to the states, FBI, profiler. You wanted to see how much could he get from you without words. "What about you, mister FBI hotshot?"

If you two were still teens the way your teasing came out would've made him blush, and quite frankly if he wasn't so self controlled maybe he would've blushed right now, he did feel warm, but instead he just let a chuckle out of his throat, "Well, FBI hotshot just had his divorce finalized, not that glamorous being in these shoes." You already knew what he was doing with his life, it made sense to give the only actual news he had, "Scalia? Law degree too, then." Aaron clicks his tongue, not holding back the instant smirk the realization brought. "Your mother used to say we were so similar we shared the same brain, remember?"

"Welcome to the club, then! Meeting every Friday, membership perks only after the second one, though." His eyes went straight to your fingers, seeing the lack of any rings he nods to himself. Twice divorced. Dark heavy coat, makeup accentuating your features, red lips, hair pulled back. You care about being seen, and desired, but don't want to be approached, a teacher-lawyer, no time, a lot of perfectionism. "Yeah, I stay far away from criminal. Civil and International Law cases mostly. Families, divorces, cross-board custodies." A child of divorce trying to save other children of divorce. Very typical behavior.

Aaron felt like he could stay like this for hours on end, sitting by your side uncomfortably on the train after fate pulled you two to one another again, hearing you tell him about your life in London, your divorces, your time in college. You made him feel young, like you were still his childhood best friend who he fell for. Like if he were to kiss you like he did when you were both thirteen you would still blush and grip tightly on his shirt. Nostalgia was indeed a bittersweet thing.

"I think when you moved away was the last time I openly sobbed." He shakes his head, the thought leaving his brain in a quiet, hushed voice tone, like a secret he wasn't supposed to be telling. It had been years, you were both fifteen when your parents got divorced and you were taken to England with your father. 28 years since the last time he saw you, and he still can feel the same pain if he thinks too hard about it, the way his heart felt like was being sliced apart, getting smaller by the minute as your father's car got further and further away. His mood soured in a way his feelings were only able to function normally again after meeting Haley.

Your hand softly touched his with the confession, your thumb going to his palm and drawing small comforting circles, "I cried myself to sleep a lot that year." Aaron glued his eyes on the way your hands touched, and you thought he might reject it, find it weird after so many years, but instead he just closed his around yours tightly, a silent thankful prayer to the universe, mixed with the warning that he had no intention to let go.

You both stay like that as you talk the rest of the ride, cellphone numbers and e-mails are exchanged, along with longing glances beginning to make you shy like the school girl you once were, when you fell for him the first time. You often wondered what would've happened if you stayed in Washington. Before Jack, Aaron wondered it too from time to time, but truly, he wouldn't do anything different now, he wouldn't choose any alternative ending that would take Jack from him.

But at least now he had a second chance, right?

[itsalliebitheway]

make a move, do your thing

chapter 6: poet

Lena Luthor was objectively good at a lot of things. She’d graduated from high school at 16 and went on to get multiple degrees and even two doctorates. She had been running L-Corp successfully now for almost four years. Even outside of her academic success, she was good at many things. She’d been a chess prodigy and almost good enough at fencing to go to the Olympics. As a child, she learned how to play the piano to entertain her parents’ guests, and she learned to ride horses good enough to compete at charity polo games to represent their family.

Lena Luthor was good at many things.

But one thing that nobody knew about Lena was that she enjoyed writing poetry. And sure, she was no Goethe or Emily Dickinson, but she enjoyed playing with words. She’d discovered her love for writing poetry in middle school. Her teacher even encouraged her to keep writing, even recommending a special tutor since Lena showed talent. But of course, the Luthor’s vetoed it, since it was a worthless skill that brought no value to the family empire.

Recently, things had calmed down. L-Corp ran smoothly next to Lena’s occasional DEO duties. CatCo was safe and sound in Andrea’s hands and the friendship between them might not be back in full bloom but it was at least rekindled. The only thing that wasn’t going Lena’s way was her love life, and more specifically, her painfully unrequited crush on her best friend.

Kara was oblivious to all of Lena’s advances, had been from day one. She’d thought the office full of flowers was a thank you between friends and the personal gala invite just because Lena wanted some friendly company. Even when Lena bought CatCo for her, Kara saw it as a strategic step against Morgan Edge rather than Lena professing her undying love for her.

So, Lena turned back to one of her old outlets: poetry.

 She’d been rusty and it had been painful, trying to fight the urge for perfectionism. Where Lena had written sonnets in her middle school years, she now tended to write in free form, letting her thoughts wander where they wanted and writing them down in a pleasing way. She even added a backdrop to all of them and edited them as pictures into a secret folder in her phone.

Still, it didn’t quite feel like getting her emotions out while these photos were hiding in her gallery. So, she did something she was almost sure she’d regret later – she asked Nia for help. The younger reporter had intermittently showed her some posts on Instagram, whenever they got together, and some of the inspirational quotes reminded Lena of the format she herself had been creating. Nia was thrilled to help her set up a profile under the penname @dreams_in_poetry where Lena slowly but surely shared her new poems with the world, or her current 33 followers.

She didn’t mind that not a lot of people were seeing them, she just wanted to write up her feelings and get them out into the world before she’d blurt them out in front of Kara.

Most times, Lena was also very good at keeping her emotions in check. She rarely cried and angry outbursts only happened in the privacy of her home or office where nobody could call her emotional. But there were times when her feelings for Kara were so overwhelming that Lena just needed to get them out to get on with her day.

So, on a Tuesday morning right after hiring a new scientist for her new ocean clean-up project, Lena closed all work documents in favor of opening a blank word document. The words flowed out of her easily, dripping like molasses from her fingers.

She went to her secret Pinterest account in her browser half an hour later and downloaded a picture of shattered glass, editing it under the text. She posted the picture with the caption “breaking the illusion” and was just about to close the window when she heard a slight tapping at the balcony window.

Kara, clad in her supersuit, waited outside with two coffee cups until Lena opened the door.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Lena asked when she’d closed the door behind Kara again.

“Well, I brough you a coffee, but full disclosure, I saw your screen and I thought you didn’t have Instagram?! Why aren’t you following me, and how come I didn’t know you had an account?”

“I don’t really have an Instagram, it’s just something silly I do,” Lena deflected and tried to push herself between Kara and her desk, but Supergirl had already put the cup down and sat down in Lena’s chair. At the same time, a ding sounded in her office and Kara pulled her phone from her boot.

“Oh look, my favorite Instagram poet just posted something new, now that you have it too I can finally show you this page, it’s truly amazing.”

Kara turned to her computer, apparently determined to put the poet’s name into the search bar, when she stopped short.

“Wait why is your profile pic the same one as…” she trailed off. She clicked on the little profile picture icon and was led to Lena’s posts, the new one on the top left.

“Kara I can explain,” Lena tried but Kara interrupted her.

“You’re dreams_in_poetry? Lena oh my god that is amazing and everything makes so much sense now!”

“It does?” Lena asked but Kara couldn’t be stopped.

“I’m not even mad anymore that you didn’t tell me, I’m just amazed honestly, and also a little bit sorry. You’ve been going through this alone the entire time, even though I could’ve been here for you.”

“What exactly am I going through?”

"...I can understand why you didn't tell me, I'm the press, but Lena I would never tell on you. You guys make such a powerful couple, imagine the charity galas you guys can throw, I bet you can collect a Guinness world record donation, I mean, golly. She's very beautiful, you as well, a magnificent couple, the prettiest."

"Kara... What the hell are you talking about?" Lena finally interjected loud enough to make Kara stop and breathe.

"You and Andrea? The poems? You obviously have feelings for her again and this is how you expressed yourself."

Lena almost laughed she was so confused. “Where on earth do you get this from, Kara?

“Just look at this one. Titled Past Love.”

“longing stares and almost kisses only moments apart ruining a friendship feels inevitable the drinks taste tart

have we ever been closer when we should be apart fleeting touches linger too long flirting morphs into art

familiar hugs without letting go rest your head on me we dance around each other I’ll never be free

of you”

“That just screams and Andrea. You’ll never be free of her. Your past love that can happen again.”

“Kara, I wrote that about Sam and Alex when they were dancing in the club while Sam was already dating Andrea. The two of them who are still together, by the way, so there is not a chance I want Andrea. None.”

Kara scrunched up her brow in confusion, looking at the words, and most prominently, Lena’s most recent post, open on her page.

Lena sighed and clenched her jaw, unwilling to crack now that Kara was so adamant about there being nobody else for Lena than her ex.

“Then who are all these about? Do you not want to tell me, Lena? I’m your best friend.”

Lena groaned loudly and buried her fingers in her own hair, ruining her pristine updue. This line had broken her heart far too many times.

“Why don’t I read the new one to you, and maybe you can figure it out, Kara.”

“will you let me kiss you once so that I know for sure I’ve dreamed too big

will you let me hold you close to let me convince myself I’ve been foolish to hope

will you let me take you home to show me I’ve been wrong to think there was a chance

of ever having you”

It was almost too painful to get through the whole thing, but thanks to her photographic memory, Lena didn’t need to read the lines. She stared into Kara’s eyes, reciting each word, and just hoped that it would finally click.

When she was done, she closed her eyes, too afraid too see how Kara would react. When she heard nothing, she slowly opened them again, watching Kara stare at her, her mouth agape, her eyes wide.

“Do you… can you, I mean. You can’t mean me, right?” she stuttered and swallowed hard enough for Lena to see it.

“Of course I mean you, you beautiful idiot,” Lena whispered, fighting the urge to just run all the way home to her apartment.

Then Kara reached for her, standing up from the desk chair, she towered over Lena again. Before Lena could think, Kara’s lips were on hers, chasing her when she broke away for air, not letting her get farther away than a hair’s breadth.

“I don’t think your illusion needs shattering after all. You can have me for as long as you want,” Kara whispered and pulled her in again.

[moonlarked]

Can you talk more about OCD Light Yagami? Not my headcanon,but the idea is intriguing and cool.

I would absolutely love to share the brainworms, actually. (Disclaimer I am not a psychologist etc, this is mostly based on my own experiences.)

The most painfully relatable part of Light in this regard, imo, is how absolutely desperate he is. There’s a need to be good that’s under all of his motivation, and we see through the story how he rationalizes that needing to be good and needing to be right under all of that talk of justice and helping the people. (I could probably make a whole other argument here about Light having high masking autism and the black and white thinking that comes with that feeding into his ocd, but that’s for another post.)

That need to be right, that need for balance, is something that has always been a key part of my experience. With that comes the compulsions - and Light’s seem to pretty clearly be rumination. Yeah, we make fun of his dramatic speeches about making a better world, but they also can slot neatly into the winding rationalizations that I myself have made to keep that sense of balance in myself. I’d compare moral ocd to standing on a sheet of thin ice with cold, plunging water right below you feet. You make your ruminations, your compulsions, to scrabble against the ice and keep yourself on your own two feet without cracking the ice and falling into the current below.

Another one of my compulsions back when i was really struggling was confessions, and while you could argue he steers away from that because it would be acknowledging how what he did was awful, he does fall into that at times. His speech to Matsuda about Kira. He’s acknowledging how what Kira does is evil, and at the same time he’s somewhat searching for absolving. Obviously, this is hindered by the fact that he’s hiding the fact that he actually is Kira, but the pattern is the same. He’s voicing his fears and his rationalizations - because in his mind, his ruminations, they just swirl and swirl without any sort of balance. I’m wondering if Ryuk was a sort of lifeline in that way, though obviously he wouldn’t absolve Light of his guilt in any way. Similarly, I wonder if Light ever gave his confessions and fears to L during the Yotsuba arc - if L somehow became the subject of his absolution. In my experience, they’re generally given to people you trust, but Light didn’t really have anyone he trusted during the Yorsuba arc. L was, unfortunately, the closest thing he had to a lifeline. Much to think about.

Anyway, most of this usually stems from high expectations of oneself and perfectionism combined with a colossal amount of insecurity (the water beneath the ice) (as well as a big imagination - to fit all of those ruminations in!). Sure, Light isn’t really shown to have insecurities at the beginning, but people raised to be perfect generally do - especially considering the fact that Light was hiding so much of himself. Who did he have to talk to? To go through his fears with in a healthy matter? They just sat, and sat, and swirled around like muck.

Sure, most ocd spirals don’t come from murdering two people. But that sure as hell could trigger it.

[lullabyalikpoptarot]

Suga and RM's Dynamic Reading

So, decided to go ahead and do this reading to see what the energy is between these two. I can see these two being able to talk about deep topics together and having drinks from to time. They seem like a chill bond and hopefully not a confusing one. I kind of wanted to do a more lowkey bond this week with little drama, so hopefully this lives up to it, but I don't know we'll see.

Overall energy: Okay, looking how I expected with some surprises to me. Now, we have the Sagittarius card, which is about exploration and freedom. They both seems to exude this energy. They both have this energy of wanting to try new things. They may even push one another to do so. There is this carefree energy they seem to have around each other.

Now, we have the 8 of Pentacles, both seem to be very work focused, diligent, persistent in their goals. There is a need to do better. A sense of perfectionism these guys both have to get the job done right. They both seems to relate to this and get along well because of this they understand this type of mindset. I just see them both having similar energies of wanting to achieve a lot of goals and expanding themselves in any way they can. They also seem very philosophical, so they relate on that as well.

Suga's energy: He seems a bit more stable than RM in this dynamic, which kind of surprises me. He seems a lot more extroverted, exciting and fun when he is around Namjoon. It is like he has more energy when he is around him. He seems to be the more optimistic one of the two. The one trying to cheer him up. Suga seems to have more confidence of the possibilities. I feel Namjoon is a little more pessimistic and maybe realistic, while Yoongi looks at the possibilities and enjoys imagining the possibilities.

He seems a little more hopeful and dreamier. It is like whatever he dreams or imagines has a high possibility of coming to fruition. He may even share his hopes and dreams with Namjoon. I just see Yoongi hyping him up and letting him know that anything is possible.

Yoongi is all about forward movement and taking chances. He is bold and courageous and is willing to face a challenge head on. He is all about that fame and money. I am not seeing much about a connection with Namjoon with these cards. This is all about him striving to reach his goals. I say he is friendly with Namjoon, but there isn't a close bond here. Like legit, the only reason he talks to him is because they are in the same group is how I feel in this energy.

I felt he would have more of a connection with him but not seeing it on his end. He seems heavily focused on himself. I can see him being a loyal and dependable person, if need be, but for practical and tangible things. Like if he needs help with money or something work related, he got him, but not so on the emotional side or communicating that much. I don't see him connecting to Namjoon too much, maybe he has his own things to deal with and his own focus.

His guidance is Moth Spirit, which means surrender now. This usually means learning to let go and be vulnerable and this may be the case for him to connect with Namjoon better. I just feel Yoongi is about himself right now and about achieving what he wants to entertain this dynamic, which is understandable, sometimes people need to focus on their needs. This could also mean for him to surrender his need to achieve, so that he could focus his energy more on his relationships with Namjoon. I say if he allows himself to be more vulnerable and get help from his friend. He may feel better and not have to deal with things alone. It seems Namjoon can be a good supportive friend if he lets him.

RM's energy: His energy is a bit more unstable here. I see Namjoon likes to talk. He may discuss things with Yoongi a lot, or just spill a lot of secrets to him, could be about him or others. I just see him in his ear a lot, maybe feeding him information who knows. I feel like when he is in distress he goes to Yoongi and talks about his problems a lot.

He may be a bit dramatic and catastrophizes things a lot. He seems a bit unstable but can also cause some problems. Maybe that is why Yoongi disconnects. It is like he can bring a bit of chaos around him. Namjoon is a carefree person and is always wanting to try new things, but maybe he steps into things he shouldn't.

I feel like sometimes he wants Yoongi to save him or help in times of need, but he doesn't so he ends up distancing himself from him. I think he realizes he has to do things on his own, because he realizes Yoongi isn't going to be there for him when he needs him. Namjoon is a pretty sensitive person and would love for Yoongi to be there for him, possibly on an emotional level, but it seems he can't provide that, so that leaves him disappointed and dejected. I feel he would want more of an emotional connection, but it isn't there.

His guidance is Crow Spirit. This may be telling him to learn to focus on himself and to rely on himself and his guides. He's got to learn not to lean on others to save or help him. All the answers to his problems are around him if he goes within and listen to his intuition and the guidance from his guides or the collective. Yoongi can't save him, only he can save and help himself. I feel this card is urging him to go within and get the answers there. Yoongi has his own issues and can't always tend to his, so he has to work on self-regulating and dealing with his issues without the support of him.

Okay, their energies weren't too confusing, like the other ones before. This wasn't too bad to tap into energetically. Overall, not surprised by what I got. It kind of makes sense. These two do relate, but kind of do their own thing, especially Yoongi, but I feel Namjoon would like more of a bond.

[grison-in-space]

Hi! Just wanted to say, re:veganism discourse: Excellent Opinions, Great Delivery, Immaculate Vibes 👍 have a great day :)

cheers, ty! it is honestly sort of surprising to me that folks are reading along--as I said to someone else in DMs, I kind of figured that response was mostly something I was putting together in my own head, so I'm pleasantly surprised it's resonating with other people.

I am also just. :| not thrilled to have to be typing up all these "and here's how caring about animal welfare can radicalize you down all these shitty pathways if you add X and Y and Z" because at the end of the day I do think all species are worthy of basic respect; at the end of the day I do think there's nothing fundamentally better about me as a human than any other species. At the end of the day it actually matters a lot to me that my research mice are kept with as much enrichment as I can give them and that their lives and bodies and effort are honored and used wisely. It matters to me that the dogs I teach and the people I teach to train their dogs are learning with minimum stress and maximal confidence. These are all really important planks of my personal code of ethics!

It sucks to feel like I need to sit down and enumerate all the reasons that I think this other perspective of people who start in the same place I do--animals are neat individuals who encompass both the alien and the familiar, which share our lives in a multitude of ways--has developed in such a way that I think it encourages a really toxic way of relating both to animals and ourselves. In general I prefer to focus on places where I can agree with other folks, even if their opinions are different from mine. Someone in the notes brought up "struggle sessions," which are kind of the epitome of toxicity within the left: good values and a desire to help one another get so channeled through perfectionism and backbiting that you wind up with people gathering to literally torture and destroy each other. (Not just in China, either; it keeps happening, cf. Synanon in the US and the dissolution of the Japanese United Red Army.) That's not the kind of way I want to interact with people I'm supposed to be working together with.

So I try not to do that shit too much. I think about the places where people who have values just like mine go down rabbit holes and wind up in bad places, and I try and build barriers so I don't get burned out and angry and dissolve in a puff of flame. (I'm not directly engaging further with this anon for that reason, actually.) But just--aaaaaaaaauuuughhh, ARAs really irritate me because I can see where the roots are, and yet the entire ideology means that there essentially can't be listening. You can see that in the way I'm sitting here going "No, I know what your ideas are, here's why I have rejected them," and still I am getting exhortations to just listen and understand about ARA ideology. No. I did that, the last time there were protests about it in my workplace I went ahead and read the actual detailed IACUC reports released by FOIA that the protestors were shouting about, and bluntly it was a) not convincing and b) exactly the same appeals to emotional knee-jerk reactions and emotional flooding that I decried yesterday. Twenty years I have been checking my responses to these people, and it's never anything different.

I don't think that removing emotion totally from ethics and morals is wise or even possible--we use emotion for decisionmaking and encoding our values, after all, a person without emotion literally cannot decide things--but I do not like or tolerate subcultures that won't leave space to sit, think, and let the first knee-jerk rush of gut response die down. Sometimes, often, I do decide that my gut reaction is right! But I need the space to sit the fuck down and think about it, and if you take that to an ARA space you will mostly get flooded with more emotionally reactive imagery until you agree or leave. And that is coercive.

[faramirsonofgondor]

Reasons why I think Buck might have OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder) as someone with OCPD and ADHD

He seems very preoccupied with his work, lists, systems, and order. Especially when he’s in “clipboard Buck” mode

OCPD usually starts in your teens to early 20s, and can be caused by trauma and feeling like you need to be “perfect”

Perfectionism and extreme focus on working (the way he was incredibly determined to get back to work during the Lawsuit Era)

Inability to let things go even when they lose their worth

Inability to share or delegate work to others for fear it won’t be done right (while Buck very often chooses to be the one to take risks on the job because he doesn’t want others to get hurt, this could be a part of a moral/methodical obsession. To him, Buck wouldn’t be doing his job correctly if he let one of his coworkers get injured when he could be the one injured instead)

Being obsessive, judgemental, and inflexible in matters of morals and judgement (this literally reminds me of S1 ep1 when Buck didn’t want that teen mom to ride in the ambulance)

Difficulty forming and maintaining close relationships with others (again S1 Buck and lawsuit era)

Excessive doubt and conscientiousness

Rigidity and stubbornness

Compelled to do things a certain way

Low threshold for humiliation, criticism, and emotional hurt

Bye why did I find a med journal that says “loved ones on the receiving end of the relationship will experience exhaustion, unhappiness, and frustration” like Lawsuit era who???? (ok but this journal is lowkey so critical of people with OCPD wtf 😭)

Obviously not all of these things are stuff that Buck does throughout the entire show but I think S1 and a bit of early S2 era Buck was more obsessed and preoccupied with his own morals and as he matured he bent his behavior more towards following the rules at the 118 and he became obsessed with his work and doing his job as best as he can. I think part of this duality stems from the fact that in his teens he would’ve felt pressured to adhere to the standards his parents set, with the only times he really went against them being when he would injure himself for their attention because in his mind the right method to get someone’s attention is through injury (which we see come up multiple times throughout the show). However, as he entered his early 20s he got stuck into a routine of traveling from place to place and learning new skills, which probably would’ve impacted his ability to be preoccupied over his works rules/systems and would’ve probably caused him to obsess more over morals, as we see when he quits the marines because they don’t align with his approach to morals and emotion.

**Also I know some people might be confused when I say early S1 Buck had an obsession with morals considering he slept around, stole the fire truck, etc. but I want to point out that with OCPD your own rules surrounding morals and judgment might not be completely logical, and more “Black and white” so Buck might not have seen casual sex as morally wrong (which it’s not, but I digress) and he probably didn’t see an issue with stealing the fire truck at the moment. People with OCPD can still mature and have changing moral values over time and that’s part of Buck’s development. He probably took Bobby firing him as a very harsh judgment on his own behavior and we see that even in S2 he was obsessing over that when Eddie was hired.

Sorry this is kind of a messy post where I just word vomited all over the place I hope this makes sense even though I probably ended up contradicting myself at some point.

[penumbramewtwos]

What's good way to consistently draw arms and legs at the same length for a character?

I'll do my best to give resources for you m8, because I'm honestly not the best person to be asking this, as for lot of art aspects I'm still flying by the seat of my pants 3 years on: Constantly looking up tutorials, utilising 3d pose dolls, measuring head lengths as proportions for limbs and body, and constantly perfectionating things to a point where a 30 minute artwork an take up to 6+ hours. There are many art tutorials that can help with these things, and no one way is the right or wrong way to make art, always have fun! (I'm making the assumption you're referring to humans and humanoid critters)

References references references. Practice practice practice: Pinterest is your friend as much as google images for finding references, and never be ashamed to eyeball-copy things for your private/personal practice.

Pose models: Pose models can help you visualise proportions in real-time right in front of you, and can also help with troubling angles. I utilise human and mewtwo pose dolls to help draw my adult and elderly mewtwos proportions, especially on angles I'm less familiar with. Over time I've gained a muscle memory and now barely even use them for basic poses/angles. I use Clip Studio, but you can use websites and programmes like posemyart and blender, where you can take screencaps and import them onto your canvas to help give a direct comparison to your character. Hope this helps!

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

feasting on all the fantastic au/oc discussion that happens to share several commonalities with my own Scar As A Major Protagonist AU (that i swear im working on very slowly. i just have the curse of perfectionism and i keep going back and reworking things when i should be WRITING,) and its making me want to share my ideas too....

the general starting premise is that instead of getting abducted by bradley, greed manages to escape the raid on the devils nest with bido, and then via a series of dominos the two of them wind up teaming up with mei and then scar shortly thereafter

the entire idea kind of spun out of thinking about how scar would react to actually getting to know a human chimera. his pity for nina– similar to how he seems to view al– is such a goldmine for character exploration to me, because hes gotta be projecting right

like despite the obvious differences in their respective situations, from scars pov he might as well be just as inhuman as nina is, except HE isnt Allowed to die yet because he has a Duty to fulfill. which is both the last thread of self preservation hes grasping at and also a thing he hates himself for doing. its this big tangled up knot of religious guilt and survivors guilt and internalized ableism and the fact that he cant blame his brother for saving him so instead he makes a monster out of himself. and i think if he had the chance to come to terms with a chimera as still being human in all the ways that matter, and talking about those complicated body-humanity-autonomy feelings with someone who gets it on some level, maybe it could help him start to rebuild his sense of personhood

and. just generally. i think if he had more people to hang out with on the regular than Snitchy McLandlord, Self-Flagellant Genocide Collaborator, and One Literal Child. He might maybe perhaps have had better self esteem by the time the moral-superiority-in-incrementalism lecture hall power hour rolled around.

i too am killing kimblee early. scar unfortunately doesnt get to him, but he does get shot, impaled, and finally fall down a big hole and die, which i think is almost as good

scar DOES get to kill envy though. because roy "im mad you killed this one guy i liked. genocide what genocide" mustang doing it was just not as deep a plot point as people think it was. the fight with wrath was good, but i think itd be interesting to end his vengeance quest more somberly- not facing an equally-matched opponent, but putting down a pathetic, weak, spiteful thing that refuses to grow or change

uhhh what else. oh right. mei also takes the throne here, since ling never gets the stone (despite his continued efforts. his character arc is shaped like that of a pendulum. im making him worse) and i think with her at the helm, amestris would have way less leverage in any post-canon negotiations with ishval

Sure of course your super huge and powerful neighbor will help reestablish the cross-desert railroad and enrich your failing economy..... IF and ONLY IF you adhere to ALL the stipulations put forth by the ishvalan leadership council ^_^ the gun im holding? dont worry about it

im giving him so many cats when everythings said and done, however to his consternation hes doomed to wind up a beloved pillar of the community instead of just some guy who gets to hang out with cats. theres a renewed independence movement to organize & also a burgeoning faction of people who argue that because scar uses alchemy and hes cool, maybe god is cool with alchemy some of the time, like as long as youre responsible, to which scar is at the forefront of every debate desperately telling them I Am An Outlier Adn Should Not Have Been Counted

Hell yeah, more AU goodness! 🤩 Trust me, not only do I understand your pain in being caught in a perfectionism loop, but you'll get no judgment from me about taking your time with it too.

Super ecstatic that you decided to share what you've got cooking, so let's go:

Starting off with Greed and Bido is very on brand 😌 Glad he escapes getting liquified and drunken by his core self. I assume that some other members of the Devil's Nest crew survive as well? Or are they all slaughtered, same as in canon? If it's just the two of them left, then man, that's gonna hurt (and the angst~). Maybe we get a revelation that some survived later on?

I dig that Bido and Greed bump into Mei first. I wonder how fresh her arrival in Amestris must be before bumbling into an entire wayward homunculus and human-chimera. Meeting Scar after that would seem so normal in comparison lol

Oh- Oh! Omg wait, that's a fantastic angle to explore. That really taps into his self-hatred in such a unique way that I never thought about before! Alchemy is already a heresy for him that which he cannot separate from himself due to his brother's arm being the sacrifice that saved his life. Yet why wouldn't he see the sanctity of his own body as having been marred by this grave taboo to the point that he hardly sees it as truly human? If he can use this tainted gift to exact vengeance against everyone who tore Ishval to shreds, than even his unholy, "desecrated" body can be put to use. But the way this lashes out against both himself and others who don't want to die simply because someone/the state forcibly transmuted them with other living beings- damn, that's juicy

No seriously, this fuckin' rules! Using the chimera angle to really crack open the darkest pit inside of him, and how Scar's one vestige of purpose is what keeps him from succumbing to his self-flagellating dehumanization. I love that you're looking at this via survivor's guilt, the conundrums of his piety, and even the ableism imbedded in the assumptions on what constitutes a "worthy" body.

On the latter point: I'm curious to see if I understand the every facet of the ableism angle. Is it that chimerification can be seen as a disability brought on by alchemical experimentation (which I can definitely see) in contrast to Scar seeing it as an irrevocable perversion and assault on the human form, thus (in his mind) dooming the victim to be fully inhuman and in need of euthanization? Because again, I can see this as a loaded assumption on a "proper human body" vs a "destroyed, unworthy body", but I feel like I could be missing other potential readings here 🤔 It feels like it's that plus more. Hmmm

Yes, Bido (and maybe some other chimeras?) gets to help Scar navigate the messy bodily-autonomy-humanity Gordian Knot. Surely that has to unravel slowly (it's less Gordian than it may seem lol), since I imagine Scar's initial reaction to Bido must be a... heightened, perhaps pejorative one. To me I would imagine it to be quite dehumanizing (if not outright threatening) towards the poor lizard chimera man. :( Not that Greed would let anything happen to him, but then again Greed revealing himself to be a homunculus would also have to throw Scar for a loop too. We all know Greed can't shut his yap about being one, if he thinks he'll get a rise from someone who can even grasp what that is. Shame he maybe doesn't have Roa around to sledgehammer his entire cranium to smithereens. Unless? (Either that or I imagine that, given potential misgivings, Scar attempts to disintegrate Greed's head and gets the revelation of his homunculus nature right there and then.)

Wait, now I'm just recalling how cold Scar had been upon first meeting Mei when she was chilling with Yoki in canon. (I don't blame him, I'd also ask that bumbling mustachioed twat why the hell there's a random kid hiding out with them.) But now this tween shows up with a homunculus AND a chimera? Dude must have wanted to walk into the ocean lol

LMFAOOOOO STOPPP the way you described the canon party Scar had to travel with 😭😭😭 And the fucking "moral-superiority-in-incrementalism lecture hall power hour" PLEASE

Though tbh yeah, he needed some other folks to bounce off of who weren't former state actors, and, much as Mei is an absolute treasure, some adult company who also don't see him as a monster or a threat (to the extent Yoki and Marcoh do) would be very good for him. This is assuming that he and Bido are on solid terms sooner rather than later, but if Scar still struggles with being around chimeras for some time than maybe it would only be Greed who doesn't shrink in Scar's presence (besides the best kid ever, Mei, who never feared or distrusted him 😌).

Oh man, Mei might not realize that she's become travel buddies with a walking philosopher's stone. :0 Or does she immediately grasp that homunculi hold a stone within their bodies?

A standing ovation is needed for the death you're serving that pompous fascist Kimblee, and then an encore for good measure too. Stupendous, magnificent, and fully deserved. 10/10 The big hole at the end really cements his fate as comedic poetry, really. Scar may not get that personal catharsis, but he should get a front row seat to enjoy the carnage all the same. (Not suggesting that Scar has to be in the scene, just imagining him getting a theatre all to himself with the murder playing on loop while he snacks on some popcorn.)

Scar killing Envy is an intriguing change. Fully agreed that Mustang setting Envy ablaze wasn't that deep, and frankly a pretty lousy scene too. And yeah, Scar getting to fight and kill Wrath in canon was surprisingly good, but given Envy's hand in exploiting the tension of the occupied Ishvalans to jumpstart their genocide, it feels far more relevant to have Scar put them down than fucking Mustang. Envy's writhing pathetic self contrasted to Scar's typically quiet, self-contained demeanour- of course this is coming off of the canon again. However that fight or scene shakes out in your AU may or may not have Scar in that same emotional state.

Ling being denied the stone and what that does to his character isn't explored enough (bless these AUs). "im making him worse" ough that's enticing. Does Ling spiral? Does the worst in him begin to claw through the surface as he more desperately vies for whatever stone is in reach? His position as a moral paragon crumbling as he flails for the seat of power he desires, with his greed looking less and less admirable would be *chef's kiss*

Which makes me realize that the stone that propels Mei into the head of the Xingese empire wouldn't be Greed's stone, right? Perhaps it's Envy's?

But yesssss, Mei leveraging her new power to force Amestris to adhere to the Ishvalan council's demands! No need to worry about the gun, since it's symbolic of the sheer economic devastation that would sweep Amestris if they refuse Ishval whatsoever. :3c

The last bullet point-!!!

Scar gets to have his DOZENS of cats, and and he gets to be LOVED and RESPECTED, he's a- *sniffs* he's a PILLAR of his COMMUNITY- *breaks down into a sobbing fit*

But yes! The Ishvalan Independence Movement is underway and it needs him! He wouldn't let his people down at such an integral point in Ishval's history and future. And I'm goin nuts over the fact that some people are beginning to see alchemy with some renewed nuance, much to the chagrin of Scar, as he sits central to this shift in perspective. Despite what he's seen of Ishvalan alchemy and Xingese alkehestry (fuck Amestrian alchemy, no I don't care that all alchemic practices stem from Hohenheim and Xerxes stfu it's cultural drift goddammit) Scar still being adamant in the teachings he's followed all his life is very in-character. But I can see that slowly eroding and making way for some greater peace with his own brandishing of alchemy alongside his greater acceptance of his body and where his soul sits in Ishvala's eyes. 🥹 And all the cats. All the damn cats he could ever nurture and cuddle!

Ugh I love this AU too! I know you wanted to give me the Scar-centric details, but I'm big time curious about Greed and Bido's side of things. Where this journey takes them, what they have to contend with and what they lose and gain in the process, and what becomes of them. Does Greed get to live on even with the decimation of Father and the other homunculi? Do they rebuild the Devil's Nest? Can Bido live comfortably and openly as a chimera the way the four chimera-men do, or is he destined to continue living in society's underbelly due to not having been 'designed' (so to speak) to shift between a fully human morphology and his animal-infused morphology?

Many many apologies for the time it took to reply. U_U I loved going over the details you've layed out and I can't wait to one day read it 👀 The day this fic starts getting posted I'll be there!

[natalyarose]

𝑅𝑒𝒻𝓁𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝒶𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓂𝓎 𝒶𝓇𝓉… (𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜, 𝒮𝓊𝓃 𝒾𝓃 𝐵𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝓃𝒾!)

~ This is a bit of a personal one lol, maybe I'm getting a little too comfy on tumblr- but hey, I like it here and I'm very grateful for everyone who's taken an interest in whatever I have to say :)

~ tagging this on Nakshatra tumblr because I feel like this reflection perfectly encapsulates Venus Nakshatras and is very aligned with the Sun moving into Bharani, the birth of Venus among the Nakshatras

// warning, cringe and angsty lmao

I have such an odd relationship with my artistic process. Unconventional? Stubborn. Sometimes just straight up bad lol.

I want to create beautiful, meaningful things, yet I have this sort of extreme resistance to being perfect or professionalism (however, somehow perfectionism and such a ruthless self-antagonism for not being 'enough' at the same time..).

It's almost like I purposely sabotage my art by intentionally leaving in mistakes, or leaving it somewhat dishevelled in protest of perfection. In hopes that the beauty and artistry still manages to shine through to the right people.

I guess it's also this thing where I feel like the imperfection makes art more unique, more exclusive- more personal & dearly held to the people who do find the beauty in it that I initially wanted to communicate. But, there is a difference between artsy, grungy, rawness and... just being crap, lazy, unrefined, undisciplined. (I'd never refer to someone else's work in this way but myself... mann).

Knowing full well that my artistic creation likely 'needs work', is not a finished product and will very likely be criticised for its' imperfection, I still have the overwhelming urge to go ahead and share it with the world/post it. In all of its' messy (again, maybe just straight up bad lol) glory. Then I wonder why I'm not gaining the traction I want haha. When I inevitably receive criticism, I get so hurt by it, I beat myself up and it eats at me to the point that I can't sleep at night, I'm up reciting the criticisms in my head and weaving them into my very own nightmare!

I don't understand why I do this to myself lmao. Later on after posting & putting myself out there, I hear that imperfection in the song, I hear those vocal parts I stubbornly left in and didn't want to redo, I see the dodgy brush strokes I refused to fix up in the name of authenticity, and I cringe. In fact, I feel such a deep shame for it all that I take everything down out of embarrassment. Even though it was fully my decision to put up something amateur sounding and imperfect.

Maybe it's something like the weight of desire for perfection is too much, so I just go 'to hell with it!'.

It's like an endless cycle for me, and I realise that over the years, if I'd just left things up online and was more patient with myself, I'd probably have cultivated a following of some sort by now, or maybe used peoples' criticisms to improve the art to a greater extent. I mean, there are people who have mentioned to me when they notice the art is imperfect and needs work, but there are just as many lovely people who have gone totally out of their way to express deep appreciation for the music/art I've put out and enjoyed it.

Here's my 'theory' as to why I do this to myself: when I create art, I don't just want to make pretty things, though I want that too. I want to be loved, and FELT. I want to bring people to this raw, vulnerable place in my heart where my ideas emerge from. I want to be loved not in spite of the imperfections, but alongside them, all encompassing.

I don't want to have to be perfect, have $1000 worth of equipment, hours and hours of recording time trying to 'get it right' in order to be understood and deemed beautiful. I don't want to show off how perfect or skilled I am either, I want to make people feel something. I want it natural.

r a w.

I kinda enjoy for art to be unfinished and slightly unpalatable on purpose.

Maybe it's a bit of entitlement on my part, expecting that even if I do a mediocre job, people will still enjoy it and see my 'talents'/message.

Truth be told though, that's how I love other people, how I enjoy others' art as well, it's not just something with me.

When I listen to artists I love, I adore seeing something beautiful, yet somehow messy and jarring. A sort of underground-esque, 'wild feminine' creation. It evokes that much more feeling and passion that something designed to be perfect just lacks to me.

I can't get into a lot of bands that are considered 'objectively good' by many people because they just sound too perfect to me- There's a lot of times I come across artists that sound technically good, very clean but my heart just can't get into it. I find myself listening and thinking 'I wish this was recorded on a toaster', or 'I wish there was a more rough sound to the vocals' lol, I crave the rawness & intimacy that imperfection and roughness lends.

Ugh, it all creates such an internal conflict- like I want my art to be seen, to be loved yet I somewhat reject things it takes for the art to be considered objectively good & well rounded.

The harsh reality might just be that just because I see the beauty in imperfection, just because I know I've got this personal, very niche vision of what 'good' sounds like/looks like in my mind, that doesn't mean other people are going to find value in the same things.

Of course, maybe all of this is just pretentious excuses & my own self-hatred manifested (I don't actively hate myself, I try to be much kinder to myself these days but yknow)

Anyway, I realised that it's the start of Bharani season in galactic centre mid-mula Ayanamsa today & I think this write up really aligns with that.

Thankyou for reading lol.. again, a bit of an angsty personal thing but maybe it could be relevant to someone, if y'all wanna know what Venusian artistic angst looks like in real time lmao 🖤🥀

[batsplat]

welcome back casey stoner !

https://www.tumblr.com/verdemint/761549873456775168/same-interview-they-asked-him-how-does-he-deal

(link)

asjddkh SEE this is what I'm talking about!! something about those incredibly neurotic ducati champions, eh. in the post linked above, pecco's talking about how he deals with media pressure... which, yeah, pecco and casey really do share a fair bit of competitive dna there - from the insistence that it doesn't affect them whatsoever to how they do in fact get extremely pissy whenever they feel misrepresented by the media. very sensitive to that kind of thing, those two are... but at the same time they're also both their own harshest critics. from casey's autobiography (all quickly nabbed from this post, which ofc expands on casey's perfectionism):

I got a lot of criticism over the years for being honest because I always felt I could do better. Even if I won the race, if I had made mistakes it was important for me to admit them and address them for next time instead of congratulating myself for being the best on that particular day.

and:

Whatever challenges I take on now I am still driven by the same quest to improve - I can’t change who I am. As a personality trait this is both a good thing and a bad thing. I like that part of me but it would be nice to not be like that sometimes, to enjoy something without being obsessed with getting better at it. I am sure you can go through life a lot happier if you don’t analyse everything.

versus pecco:

The strength that I've proved in various situations comes from the fact that I am extremely critical of myself, and so it only takes a little bit for me to put myself down even more.

like yeah I suppose that's one way of looking at it - nobody else can get to you if you're already tearing into yourself. it's a motivational process that's very much built on negativity, right, on the need to live up to their own exacting standards. both pride themselves for their ability to put failures behind them quickly - to be able to immediately bounce back because they tell themselves they only care about doing better in the next race. plus, there's that interesting dynamic where both are like... pretty big on this idea they're not making excuses for themselves, committed to honestly assessing themselves and all that,, BUT also have reputations for being whiny to the press... because people for whatever reason end up thinking they're constantly blaming everything but themselves for their shortcomings. again, very prone to feeling misunderstood!! neither of them are necessarily terrible communicators - but there's a certain reluctance there (obviously more so from casey) to even play that game at all. mix in a learned wariness because they feel like they've been burned before.... that whole pecco episode last year where he said one reason for the increased injury rate is probably because the field is tighter now (which, yes! seems logical!) ,,, and then some unholy combination of clumsy phrasing, media framing and an ungenerous fan response ended up translating that to pecco saying he wanted satellite bikes to be slower again... gave me real casey vibes lol. casey had a fair few of those episodes himself - though at least the news cycle and social media fandom weren't quite as bad back then. in a lot of ways he'd struggle even more nowadays

also,, you do have to mention - they both end up defining themselves against valentino specifically when it comes to their public personas. casey might be the rival and pecco the mentee, but both of them have been clear that they do not desire to be the next valentino rossi. kinda what I said here, right

idk, obviously pecco had a heads-up a little earlier than casey did that sensibly communicating to the media WAS going to be a big part of the job. but there's still a wariness there, an unwillingness to be something they're not, knowing that they'd be miserable trying to match valentino's particular brand of flamboyance... it is key that it is a choice they're making. they just don't want that for themselves, never have. there's only ever so much outreach they're willing to do

also this

“Stoner and Bagnaia are two different riders, but they have the same mental attitude,” Tardozzi told AS. “I think Pecco is still growing. He already took a big leap by winning the championship, but the biggest jump in his head has been done this year, after the two falls in Argentina and Austin. “He is an intelligent boy and has spoken a lot with the team, and what happened has made him take another step to make him even more of a champion. Now he has the right mentality. Pecco will become one of the greats. Right now it is showing that he is growing, as I told you before."

'resilience' is I think a word I associate quite strongly with both of them. they take their fair share of punches, do tend to get called mentally fragile a lot - but in truth there's a steel there that serves them well. did talk a little bit about the similarities of their motivational processes here too:

and

and one other thing I've been thinking about is that this... y'know, use of spite, of self-criticism, of how annoyed they get at others' criticisms - for both of them, it is also paired with a determined refusal to countenance they could be mentally affected by anything. with casey in particular, it's a bit of an overcorrection in response to how often he was described as mentally weak; it's understandable you might get extremely sensitive about the whole thing, if you weren't already. a lot of it is also stubbornness... a bone-deep contrarianism that immediately makes them push back if somebody suggests they might struggle for any reason related to psychology. where this really jumps out is how they talk about their rivals. obviously, nobody is going to say that their opponent's mind games work on them because that'd be deeply stupid to admit - but there is something about pecco's firm insistence marc's mind games don't have a hope of working on him that is really reminiscent of how casey has talked about valentino. it's that dynamic of ,, well, they're not wrong in that they're stronger than people give them credit for, but obviously they are also. like. extremely defensive, past the point of necessarily being reasonable. sometimes, what your rival does will affect you. that's kinda how rivalries work lol. but both of them are very committed to this narrative that their working process is super self-directed. casey's whole thing about how he's never gotten obsessed with rivals, pecco's 'we work in silence' schtick... it comes back round to the relationship with the media, right, where they have a natural inclination towards framing that as an oppositional dynamic - and automatically chafe against any narratives that might be externally imposed on them. actually, you see, rivals don't affect their performance at all, they don't need to constantly slobber to the press to hype up their performances, they'll do their talking on-track... but the unspoken truth there is that all of those things do matter, they are paying a lot of attention - and in the end, 'proving a point' to someone becomes a central part of the motivational process. they hear all the criticisms, they seethe in 'silence' (often involves a fair bit of public complaining but let's allow it), and then they determinedly show how all their critics were fools and losers. rinse and repeat

anyway yeah apparently that's part of the ducati magic - a dash of neuroticism, a heavy dose of self-flagellation, inject a desire for authenticity that might at times read as whiny, stir in the makings of a persecution complex and top it off with a sprinkling of spite. probably not the easiest type of guy to handle, but clearly there's something to the formula. a compelling approach to be sure

[lilacxquartz]

hey,can u plz share ur personal thought on gojo, Kenny,yuki and Megumi?

hahaah, personal thoughts. let’s see, let’s see. i’m so sorry for the upcoming yapping but. 😮‍💨 spoilers up ahead—HOWEVER BE WARNED IT IS A NOVEL OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY.

at the risk of having my gojo card revoked, i actually started off not really liking him too much because of the initial personality he let on. honestly props to gege for fleshing out his personality over the manga, because he quickly became one of my favourites.

i loved him as the concept of expected perfectionism from circumstances you can’t control. the idea of having to grow up perfect because you were had for a purpose is something i think unfortunately a lot of us can relate to even if we aren’t destined to be the strongest. (at the risk of doxxing myself, one of my parents is from a ‘we expect great things from you or else’ type culture/country that isn’t so common in the west) so seeing a character that actually does crumble in the representation is rare, to say the least.

the fact that he still tries to ensure that his students can have a semblance of a childhood despite their youth being fleeting to perhaps heal his inner child is something i won’t forget about his character and for that, despite his debut, will make him an eternal favourite among many in my heart.

ah kenjakuuuu. now that’s a difficult one because of the complexity of their character as well as the sheer depth due to how old they are. like because of them, the entire jjk plot line was able to take place and yet they’re not talked about as often. i feel like in some ways, gege made the perfect villain. i loved how unsettling they were when they talked and how it was always just like a slip away from being nonsensical. their unsettling smile that is built from centuries of just… existing, the things that they have to likely know. god. i dunno, it’s kind of attractive? even if they are a brain be damned, the cruelty and methodical aspect of their character just draws me in so bad.

i can’t help but want to always know more about them and i feel like i can forever explore their character for that reason because there’s so much potential to go with. i do understand why people hate on their character though because they are so evil lmao but that’s just evidence of them being the perfect villain, y know?

yuki, hmm. admittedly, i don’t really know a lot of her character because she was never a focus with writing for me. i have a very much later on upcoming yandere piece with her that i’ll study, but i think she’s honestly kind of realistic of a character, all things considered. she haunts the narrative by being a memory with the words she said to geto and for reminding choso that it’s okay to choose humanity which i liked about her involvement which is a pretty interesting scope of how the right words at the wrong time can be perceived to be harmful (what with her being blamed for geto’s dark side/decisions).

like, i don’t have a very in depth opinion of her but i like the way she was involved in the story. if there was more to her background, then it might have been different.

and finally megumi, poor megumi. :( i do feeeeeel like the general fanon conspiracy that claims that megumi shares a parallel with geto is at least true, because he does. my opinion of him is that i think to the younger fan base, that he’s relatable in a tragic way which makes him a well written character as well. i like him because he reminds me of being closed off and refusing to acknowledge vulnerability back when i was a teenager and while i thankfully didn’t have a cursed spirit inhabiting me and pushing my soul down, i think a lot watching/reading can relate to the limbo state his character was in. i think he deserved better from the start, which hopefully with how the ending goes, will never be challenged again.

SO SORRY FOR THIS NOVEL OH MY GOD

[pomplalamoose]

headcanons: Luke Skywalker and a mentally ill reader🫂🩵

A/N: I received several requests for Luke with a reader that struggles with their psychological health and decided to do one big post instead of three small ones.

Since I'm heavily affected myself I have a hard time talking about it, meaning this will be shorter than what I usually do; thank you for understanding <3

Nevertheless it's an important topic that shouldn't be ignored so here we goooo

Luke comforting you when you're afraid of being a bad Jedi due to your mental illness

• like I often mention, Luke always has an open ear for you

• I think he's especially understanding when you tell him you struggle with your personal image as a Jedi

• because in a similar way Luke often worries about this as well

• is he doing the right thing? Did he make the right choices? He doesn't know

• more often than not he wishes for Obi-Wan or Yoda to be with him still, to guide him

• his insecurities might stem from a different place than yours but in many ways you are able to draw parallels

• just like you he's afraid of not being good enough

• I think he'd let himself be really vulnerable in sharing this with you, hoping that it makes you feel less alone

• he doesn't want you to think you are in any way failing him or yourself

• most importantly though he wants to prevent you from thinking he's without faults

• he wants to give you an opening to relax, to show you that it's going to be okay as long as you're genuinely trying your best

• he does his best and is he not doing a good job?

• he wants to relieve you of the burden of perfectionism

• both of you are human and that is very much okay

• additionally the both of you don't have much information about what a Jedi should or should not be and while that certainly makes things harder, it can also mean a new beginning

• Luke spends a lot of time thinking about the principles and teachings he wants to pass along to a new generation of Jedi

• and I think a big part of that would be to embrace one's nature and being as they are

• some things can't be changed, it's the will of the Force

• in this regard he is big on following his senses and his heart and how could you ever be a bad Jedi if he sees so much goodness in you?

• while it may be hard to see for yourself, Luke will do his best to show you that your personal struggles don't equal being a failure

• mental illness isn't a flaw that makes you less capable or less intelligent

• you are not your mental illness

• it doesn't define you as a person even though it often times feels like it

• he will list many wonderful character traits of yours, trying to convey how others may see you

• he retells situations where you were able to overcome or even use your struggles in order to help another person

• you are allowed to be yourself and he's glad to have you by his side

• he values your opinions and insights

• in many ways you are able to view certain aspects from a totally different point

• with your unique experiences you are able to offer comfort to those in similar situations better than Luke ever could

Not wanting to burden Luke with your trauma

• Luke is familiar with the notion of keeping ones struggles to oneself

• especially when it's done out of consideration for others

• I don't think you'd manage to hide your mental state from him though, not post ROTJ and not when you're force sensitive as well

• he might have been rather blind to his surroundings earlier on, but has long grown past it

• of course he respects if and when you want to open up at all and will put no pressure on you to tell him anything whatsoever

• however I think he prefers his family and friends to be outspoken about how they're feeling

• not only does he want to help but is also aware that it's only going to get worse over time otherwise

• he knows what can happen when one gets lost in an endless maze of the same recurring thoughts

• to be able to realease something into the Force, to let it go, one has to confront it

• how this is done varies for each person though

• you know best where your trauma stems from and only you know what you are able to take on in order to leave it behind

• as much as Luke would love to be able to simply tell you what to do, he can't

• it's a journey everyone has to go on for themselves

• he'll want to be your company though

• Luke is happy to let you take your time

• if the possibility to retreat is important to you, it's what you get

• he wants your healing to come from a place of security and with the knowledge that he's there to catch you when you're not able to do so on your own

• still he remains firm in his believes and will tell you so

• nobody said it was easy, he knows for a fact it isn't and he is ready to be by your side when you are

• depending on your relationship he might give you gentle nudge in the right direction or, alternatively, a kick in the butt if that's what you need

• he won't stand by and watch you destroy yourself

Dilf!Luke realizing you're not doing well mentally

• since he always has his eyes on you, he can tell when something is just a little bit different

• depending on how well you're able to hide your mental condition though, it possibly takes him a while

• unlike is child he can't be around you all the time and during your car rides home the both of you don't talk

• maybe he realizes how tense you grow when a member of your family contacts you

• maybe he overhears parts of a conversation either when you have to take their calls or when you talk with your friend

• I think he'd ask his child if everything's okay with you

• he doesn't want to seem overbearing or like he's invading your privacy

• since they are your best friend they wouldn't tell him any details but maybe mention you're struggling

• again it depends on you as a person

• are you open about your mental health or not?

• if not they will lie for you

• otherwise they know what they can share without revealing too much

• after all it's your decision what you want others to know

• either way he's worried

• he will offer his help right away

• if you need someone to talk to, he's there

• he's not a professional of course but he'll listen! A second perspective can change a lot!

• the house is easily big enough for one more person, he doesn't mind you staying for the night or a few more

• you can always come over when you need space or a place to rest

• he'll look after you

• have you thought about moving out?

• are you making enough money to be independent?

• are you seeing a therapist?

• "Dad please calm down, I can't tell them you said any of this!"

• your friend will give you a watered down version of what happened because they're kinda afraid that you'll be creeped out by Luke's behavior

• you aren't

• in fact there's nothing you want more than for Mr. Skywalker to take care of you

• he may ask you about it himself once you are better acquainted

• if you're comfortable enough to drop a comment or two he definitely catches on to them

• you are welcome to celebrate the holidays with him and his child, you know?

• he's sure they would be more than okay with it too

• it's your choice of course but he'd be happy to have you