#sorry I keep getting distracted

[milesworld96]

Candy fans how we feeling tonight

[hazzybat]

I just wrote a whole fucking fairytale for a backstory to the music box that's showing up in the next chapter of monster hearts. The music box doesn't need a backstory to the figurines but damn i guess i wrote one.

I think that's a new level of getting distracted/ world building lol

[thatoneluckybee]

🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

- 🍋

snekeq

[magefeathers]

everyone else: haha The Summoning sexy

me: The Summoning's "raise me up again" is in direct contrast to Drag Me Under's "drag me under again" and shows an immense amount of growth between the two points in the narrative, for him to go from singing "drag me [...] deep into your love" to "take me past the edge / I want to see the other side" shows that he no longer wishes to drown and wallow in the toxicity of this situation and now wants to move past it and see what lies beyond and in this essay I will-

[thresholdbb]

January 29th? It was all there. I don't know how else to explain it. It was like. Well, no, it wasn't like anything.

[ex0rin]

Talk Shit, Get Hit | The Boys S03E07:

[lemonsweet]

Thoughts on Lillie of pokemon sun and moon fame ?

LILLIE MY FRIEND... I loved pokemon su/mo when it first came out and the characters from it are very dear 2 me... I love lillie because she reminded me a lot of certain people I grew up knowing.

[misty-metropolis]

People with complex dissociative disorders often have difficulty processing or expressing emotions. This can look like any number of things. For example:

Emotions being dramatically dissociated into individual parts, such that a host part feels limited to no emotion, but there exists another part who does nothing but cry, and a part who feels such incandescent rage that they are unable to function properly

Emotions being muted and difficult to parse from each other; alexithymia stemming from trauma / abuse

Emotions being largely dissociated, with random bursts of emotion that are scary and overwhelming

Emotions being very sharp and present, but jumbled and often in combination with each other. This may create an impression of being flaky, fickle, or difficult to please

Emotions cycling too rapidly to properly identify them or process how they are affecting individual parts or the system at large

This is a non-exhaustive list. Feel free to add on your own experiences.

For those who are interested, I also have some resources for emotion regulation, as well as some free strategies shared by my therapist, under the cut.

First, I know this has been said before but it really does work wonders, you need to pay attention to your vulnerability factors. Vulnerability factors are elements of your environment or internal experience that make it more difficult to self-regulate. A somewhat common community term for these is forks (in relation to the spoon theory). Common vulnerability factors include lack of sleep, hunger, and needing to use the restroom. Adequately caring for your body's physical needs allows for more complete emotion regulation and more energy to go toward emotion processing when it's needed. If you are sleep deprived, for example, and then become triggered, you're already expending so much energy just to maintain functionality that you're less likely to be able to prevent yourself from doing something you'll regret, like snapping at a partner.

I'm also happy to provide an overview of a few emotion regulation tools from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.

Positive Psychology has a set of three emotional intelligence worksheets (link) that are a good jumping-off point for exploring where you're at in that regard and strengthening your emotional intelligence skills. The emotion regulation questionnaire (link) is a clinical tool that can also provide some insight.

First, there's the STOP skill. STOP stands for Stop, Take a Step Back, Observe, and Proceed Mindfully.

When you feel overwhelmed by your emotions, or think they may be at risk of controlling you, force yourself to freeze in place. This prevents you from acting impulsively and doing something you'll regret. Try to name the emotion(s) you're feeling as descriptively as possible.

Then take a step back and give yourself some time to contemplate the situation with a little space from it. It's not often that you have to make a split-second decision based on limited information, so don't try to force yourself to do so.

Take in as much information as you can about the events taking place around you. Ask questions of other people in the situation with you. Try not to jump to conclusions, or listen to your automatic negative thoughts, which are based on an outdated belief system.

Use questions like "what are my goals in this situation?" and "how can my decisions impact the outcome?" to guide your decision-making process as you proceed.

Then there's the Opposite Action skill. This is the one that I use the most in my daily life, as a person with Borderline Personality Disorder. Opposite Action encourages you to reject the impulses you feel when you experience a strong emotion, and to instead do something that is the opposite of that. A few examples (mostly dealing with anger, because that's where I use this skill the most):

When I feel frustrated or angry with a console video game, I want to throw the controller, so the opposite action I choose is to press the buttons very gently and deliberately, without force. (Consequently, I also notice more success when I do this!)

When I feel angry with my partner's behavior, I want to yell at xem or say something that will hurt xem, so the opposite action that I choose is to gently explain my feelings and ask them to explain what happened from their perspective.

When I feel ashamed of something that has happened to me, I want to isolate and hide from the world, so the opposite action I choose is to share my feelings (and the event, if I feel capable) with someone I trust and love.

The last skill I want to overview is Cope Ahead. This is a skill in which you practice ahead of time to figure out how you'll deal with a situation when it arises.

Step 1: Identify a situation that may cause you discomfort or strong emotions. I generally prefer to be more on the vague side, because details will vary and that allows me to get more mileage out of my cope ahead, but you should do it however is most helpful for you. Make sure you check the facts and carefully identify the emotions that might arise and interfere with your skills.

Step 2: Pick out your coping and problem-solving skills ahead of time. This is where Cope Ahead gets its name. You identify a situation and then decide in advance how you're going to react to it, allowing yourself to rehearse the possibilities and decrease the chances of acting impulsively*.

Step 3: Imagine yourself in the situation. Picture yourself going through it in the first person, not as though you're watching a film about yourself.

Step 4: Rehearse your reactions to the situation and any strong emotions it may bring up. Rehearse your thoughts and behaviors. Practice coping effectively until you feel like you can ace it. Do this in as many sessions as you need.

Step 5: REST! Do something that brings you peace to care for yourself after each session.

*Impulsive behavior is something with which many people with BPD struggle, and DBT was originally developed to treat BPD, despite its applications in other fields.

Sources:

DBT Tools (link)

Positive Psychology (linked above)

My therapist (can't link that one, sorry)

Also, I've taken DBT twice through and am licensed to teach it.

[kirkwallguy]

im going to wait how i feel after seeing taash's storyline but i think the reason im finding the trans stuff mildly uncomfortable is because it's so positive. that sounds bad. but as much as i get some people feel they need positive stories right now to counteract the current climate i find it MORE alienating when a significant part of the trans experience is stripped away. we have top surgery scars but no indication of who top surgery is accessible to, how tf is an elf in minrathous getting gender affirming care? mae tells us this heartwarming story about how great her coming out was and if you respond "well my coming out didn't go great!" there's still no room for negativity, it's straight onto "well if you need to talk about it i will always be here for you :)" girl i dont know you? why can't we just sit with the fact that it would suck to be trans in thedas and do something interesting with it

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

I was gonna make a post about how we don't have enough situationally funny wlw aa ships à la langwright and wrightdot, but I think fradrian is kind of funny actually. not only in the "i'm gonna start thinking for myself, and to begin that journey, i will latch on to the most domineering woman i've ever met" sense that the game presents but also in the "ah yes. the sister of the man who told me i should go ahead and kill myself in court is my perfect match for sure" sense.

[desultory-novice]

Apologies AU - Good Ending Drop

Hey, everyone. It was my goal to finish Apologies in tandem with the Tournament, but for health reasons, I won't be able to as I planned. Because I tied the story to the tournament and don't feel like untangling it again and making everyone wait more, I'm going to give you all the ending spoilers, as I promised I would if I became unable to finish the story.

What I'm about to describe is THE Good Ending. The True Ending I had planned out almost from the beginning!

-

In the main-verse...

Susie, who sees too much of herself in Adeleine, decides to take matters into her own hands to bring the girl's older brother back.

She takes the vial of Dark Matter Swordsman DNA that was harvested from King Dedede. Meta Knight catches up with her and argues against it. It's foolish, dangerous, and liable to be nothing but painful to all parties involved. But Susie anticipated interference and asked Zan to bodyguard her. When Zan arrives (late) to the lab, the argument has caused the vial to begin to react to all the negativity in the room. Zan recognizes its contents as Dark Matter and insists on calling Lord Hyness, who in his own quirky way, analyzes their problem and suggests that while the contents are too weak to survive on their own, a resurrection could be possible, using Void's powers to mimic a hive queen, supplying whatever creature emerges the power to survive on Popstar without burning up into ash...

-

In the tourney-verse...

White-Haired Noir is at peace with his life and has come to accept the death of his precious little sister many years ago, but...a part of him still wishes to make Adeleine happy.

Using his fairy-born dimension sight, he discovers an Alternate Noir who is 98% percent compatible with main-verse Noir. This is the Purgatory!Noir from the Re_Birthday post. And he drags this unstable, utterly clueless Noir out of this peaceful void without his permission and secretly "volunteers"  the massively confused, un-alive but un-dead teen boy for the Kirby OC Tournament.

It is White-Haired Noir that is the "good" voice on phone and in Noir's head, encouraging rationality. His goal? Get Noir some friends. Get him to face up to/open up to people about his past. And get him caring about his life enough that he wants to live...! 

White-Haired Noir has seen what the main-verse Star Allies are attempting and knows that the odds of them actually bringing "Noir" back instead of just an emotionless monster are low without a compatible "Noir Soul" (haha) to inhabit the new vessel.

Over the course of many in-tourney events, including Noir learning to have faith in the sibling bonds he built with Gooey despite being Dark Matter at the time, learning to separate himself and Adeleine as individuals instead of clinging to her to his own neglect, privately opening up to King Dedede, who put the pieces together post-possession, about some awful stuff Noir put up with for years in secret from Raquelle's father (who privately loathed Neichel AND her kids and took it out on Noir) to "pay" for Adeleine's good life...

And lastly, using the power of wishes to interrogate if THIS Noir's true wish is to die and be free, to have never been born, to have had a normal "perfect" life, or if he simply wishes for a second chance to be with those he cares about... White-Haired Noir determines that Tourney!Noir is ready and reveals his plan to him. Noir confesses to him that he really does want to live and be with his family again and offers up his stronger soul for Susie and the gang's vessel.

-

Back in the main-verse...

The experiment is a success! They have brought, well, something back. It is not quite like Dark Matter Swordsman in form, nor is it exactly a human boy. It looks a little bit like a spiky haired-Gooey.

After some tense questioning of the emotionless, memoryless, unresponsive goo, it...suddenly seems to awaken. With the voice of a deeply shaken and scared young boy, the violet-eyed blob questions the mad scientist, cultists, and masked man surrounding him... Where the hell is he? And where are his little brother and sister?

Meta Knight welcomes Noir back to the world of the living.

Later, after Noir has time to dress himself in an appropriate scarf, Adeleine and Gooey are brought in and it is a happy and tear-filled reunion all around as Noir confirms that, while this form is strange, it's not dangerous and he's not in pain. He is then re-introduced to King Dedede, whereupon it's revealed that even though Noir likes him, he's still a snarky teen punk at heart, as he sasses the king horribly. (Dedede has gained another kid, but at what cost? XD)

...And that's it.

That's the ending to Apologies I've held onto for nearly a year.

For reading through all that, here is a short comic I drew a while back of the reunited family having a snowball fight in White Wafers.

-

(Not to unnecessarily over-explain the story but because the comic is a little vague, I have to tell you that no, Noir does not ever return to human after his revival. I meant it when I wrote in several places that their parting on Shiver Star was the last time they'd see each other "...in this form." This is merely meant to depict a moment in which Adeleine, seeing her brother alive and smiling and laughing and having real fun for the first time in so long, is able to imagine his old self smiling and is at peace that her brother is finally free from the hurt and misery he bore up with for so long.)

(...And yes, he has a long, silly tongue just like Gooey. Which is why he hides all but his eyes behind the scarf. Gotta keep up that cool older brother look even as a little goo creature! While Noir can't become human - frankly, he doesn't miss having a human body, given the stuff in his adolescence and being over-stressed, underfed, under-slept and just overall sick all the time in his later teens - he does eventually acquire the ability to shift into his old "Swordsman" form for short bursts of time.)

-

(Lastly, you might wonder how I could have had this exact ending in mind from almost the beginning when so much of it is tied up in recent posts like the tourney? ...Well, originally what was going to happen to allow Noir to be properly resurrected into the Dark Matter Goo body is that the Dream Rod from Star Allies was going to appear in response to a grieving Adeleine's wishes to see her brother again, bringing Noir-as-Swordsman back. At least for a LITTLE while, as it would be revealed that with Zero dead, Noir, who was entirely composed of Dark Matter at this point, couldn't survive on Popstar. Every moment he was there, his body was burning.)

(Still, he lasts long enough to have one final talk with Adeleine that helps heal him from the torturous events of DL 3 - in which we learn a highly disappointed Zero drove Noir to the absolute breaking point, shattering his mind and his newly regained soul. Adeleine also tells Noir she has finally realized everything he did for her during their childhood and apologizes to him for not seeing it before. With dawn on the horizon, Noir asks to look over Adeleine's sketchbooks with her before the end... He dies one last time, peacefully, while Adeleine finally gets to properly mourn him.)

(Then, all the "main-verse" sections proceed to happen as stated above!)

-

(...Okay, okay. One last thing. There was also an alternate ending planned where Magolor, taking advantage of the fact that Merry Magoland was built on a nexus point, finds a way to reunite Adeleine and White-Haired Noir - still a teen in this version - using his theme park as a union point, as special birthday gift for Adeleine.)

(I was kinda fond of this one for reuniting the timelines, but it opened up a lot of questions such as, if Magolor made it so that Noir and Adeleine from two different dimensions can see each other as long as they're both in Magoland, could others from the WH Noir-verse see the main-verse this way? It invited too many questions, so that's why I scrapped that one and just let White-Haired Noir grow up instead.)

[astrolotte]

I haven't drawn a cat since like 6th or 7th grade but this thang being haunted by the twin she absorbed in the womb intrigues me. Please don't let the twin be evil just let her be annoyed by Moonpaw until they work something out 🙏🙏🙏

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[pangyham]

mm tried to draw xingqiu and chongyun the way i described them in my other post and unfortunately xingqiu isnt Long enough here. hes also not as pretty as my vision 🫣

chongyun on the other is soft and cloudy and round :-) wanted to contrast xq by making his hair pointy

[charmykidd]

Guhhhh human ttcc manager designs because I am normal. Hrrgggff brain hurts too many ideas stay tuned for more every1

P.S. thank you @ballpitbee for making such a pretty Ben design you’ve inspired me :D

[spyres]

speaking of isabeau's cock emma just sent me this song and simply said "isabeau." she's never even played isat