#i think it's actively better than a lot of what ive done recently in a certain kind of way. and i didnt post ANY of it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

franciskirkland · 6 months

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Alright to start this ask off I'm just gonna say my interactions w/ you have genuenly been one of the funniest ive had in a long ass time. I've read ur recent post and I empathyse a lot. You seem incredibly funny and genuine. Idk your situation and your background and even your age, but I think you can and are pulling through. Things will get better even if you dont actively want them to. Im not saying this in a vague hope to make the situation you are in better. Im telling you, as a person who from the age of 14 went from therapist to therapist, somehow been on meds that dont fuckin exist yet in croatia, someone who feels trapped in the very /country/ she lives in with no means of escape, someone who is "waiting" for things to finally financially/academicaly/politicaly be better so that I can make something of my life. As it did for me, you will feel joy again in what you do, in what you have, and in what you can achieve. I think it's ok to be down, its ok to feel like "if a bus hit me tomorrow i wouldnt protest" but the thing about people is we adapt rather quickly. So putting yourself out there, going to places you are scared to and believe yourself to be an outcast from is exactly what gets you to meet people and see things that youll remember forever. And after a while the outcast will stop coming to these places, the person there will be someone who belongs. Apathy is a way of saying "fine whatever i dont even care anymore" but youll see how much you care.

I started getting ok after a full decade of *trying* and what I've always found is that for me the saying "don't take anything seriously" is no.1 rule. I get worked up, anxious and overwhelmed with so much so many times.

You may have problems with people at work with friends and whomever, but the main thing you gotta remember is *you cant change anyone but yourself*

And its not a change of personality, hair color, interests, its how much something will get to you, how willing are you to give something up thats not working out and how you will percieve something.

I have no doubt that you know all of this crap but i guess i wanted to say all of that just bc there is no greater pain for me than when i see someone feel like i did regardless of the reason or situation.

Keep on truckin and doing what u love even if its mpregfrance posting. I will always be here to send you to liking-france-jail, mwah <3

hello my sweaty angle <3 i'm sorry i'm just replying to this now. i had to sleep on it because your thoughtfulness deserves a sincere reply.

first of all - thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being so kind, sweet and insightful and offering your support.

the fact that you would take the precious time out of your day to write this out for me is, in a word, unbelievable. i really appreciate you checking in, it's an incredibly caring thing to do. to be honest i'm a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of this unexpected message and i wish i knew how better to express my appreciation.

i really do love to hear that i made you laugh. i live to shitpost. i've always prided myself on my sense of humor and sometimes i feel as if it's slipping away, so it's reliving to hear i've still got it.

unfortunately i still haven't had the strength to eat. i'm heading to work in a bit. things are pretty rough right now, but when have they not been? obviously my present circumstances aren't the root cause of all my problems. in fact my life has improved since moving here.

extensive bianca lore and vulnerability under the cut, apologies in advance.

basically, in so few words, my current situation is that i'm nearly 25 and have nothing to show for it. i've lived in different cities across the US, had great jobs, apartments, friends, roommates, relationships, etc. i have done a lot of living in a short amount of time. but then, in retrospect, it feels like it stopped.

about 3 years ago i was in a very bad place mentally due to the isolation of the pandemic, and i met my husband online. in early 2022 i gave up everything, saved over $10k for the visa and moving costs, and relocated from the US to australia to live with him. our relationship itself has improved from how it used to be, but since the beginning we've had seemingly endless bad luck and financial setbacks.

last year, not long after our (very disappointing) wedding, i suffered a devastating miscarriage. ruptured ectopic, massive internal bleeding, required emergency surgery etc. not only was that traumatic emotionally, but i wasn't eligible for healthcare at the time bc of my immigration status, so we're still paying off the medical bill.

we share a house with my mother in law who is a domineering, emotionally incestuous single mom and an emotionally abusive narcissist. i don't throw that term around lightly, as so many people do these days, but i honestly believe she's devoid of empathy. she's admitted that she dislikes me and thinks i'm stupid because i don't talk much, and goes out of her way to make me feel unwelcome.

so i'm stuck in an area that feels, to me, like the middle of nowhere. i'm not homesick, i love this country. it's just that i'm not used to suburbs. i feel most comfortable in a city where there's people and places and things, neon lights and background noise and stuff to do.

i'd would be happy to live anywhere as long as it's not with her. it honestly feels like a prison sometimes. that sounds dramatic but she's cultivating an unbelievably hostile environment that causes me to feel on edge whenever she's around.

needless to say we need to move, desperately. it's our #1 priority. more than anything else i want a place of our own and eventually a family. we've been actively househunting for the better part of a year, but the rental market is catastrophically bad right now. it's not even about the money, since we're both working we can afford a decent place. it's just that it's so competitive. every showing i've attended, there's been like 30 other prospective tenants. we've been turned down from every apartment we've applied for.

on top of our living situation i have complex health issues that are just getting worse. my energy is zapped. trying to balance work work and housework leaves me with almost no free time to write.

this barely scratches the surface of why I Am The Way That I Am™. i'm not saying any of this to evoke sympathy or brag about 'having it hard'. simply trying to explain. my upbringing was abusive and dysfunctional in a number of ways. i just barely graduated high school. i never had traditional opportunities, i was raised in a way where there's basically no assumption/expectation that you'll ever be successful or fulfilled. i'm diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD and bipolar 2 - haven't been able to get my proper meds in australia. i've been addicted to hard drugs and alcohol. i'm not pleasant to be around. i will probably always look like and act like the lower class, white trash girl that i am. i have spent my entire life in survival mode.

i'm always in the midst of some identity crisis or running away from something. so yeah, i've been hurt and downtrodden. i've also experienced the beautiful side of life from time to time. i've gained a breadth of knowledge and met incredible individuals who introduced me to new perspectives and i'm forever grateful for them. with the way i've lived, i'm very lucky to not be dead or incarcerated right now.

ok, pity party's over. for real this time.

you're pretty much describing exactly how i feel. you know the struggle. the part about waiting to live my life; that's precisely where i'm at. i don't necessarily have a desire to fit in, i just want to get away into somewhere that i can adjust better to.

my isolation is partially due to a lack of energy but also i don't seek out interaction because i'm afraid no one else can understand me. not because i believe i'm too 'complex' or 'damaged' to be understood. that's a load of self-pitying bullshit. it's just scary to be truly seen. or vulnerable. or genuine. bc the results of such openness are unpredictable and uncomfortable.

it's hard, but i know i have to find it within myself to take that push. what's holding me back right now is mainly my material conditions, circumstances out of my direct control. i have no doubt i'll feel at least 50% better when i stop living with this woman.

i certainly have no problem with starting over if something doesn't work for me. contrary to what i might've described, i believe i'm pretty well adjusted, self aware and rational. as is obvious i don't take many things that seriously lmao. i went from caring wayyy too much about everything, being overly emotional and sensitive, to going entirely with the flow and accepting what i can't control or predict.

also i am well aware that you can't change people, that's never been my goal lmao i've never needed someone to tell me that <3

tl;dr, thank you. so much. this really uplifted and inspired me meli, thank you so much for being so thoughtful and compassionate.

it sounds like you're also stuck between a rock and a hard place in your own environment, and i'm sorry to hear that. it's a wretched feeling but i believe you you will thrive no matter the setting, because in all seriousness, you're incredibly talented. i hope you know you should follow your dreams. hell, it looks like you already are and you're giving us the privilege of witnessing it. your art is stunning, the passion and care you put into your work is obvious. your matthew is absolutely beautiful - like his maman.

from a rabidly devoted france woobifier to the designated france hater, i'm only going to say this once but you are validated in your distaste. i understand. you gotta admit though, he is a MILF.

if one thing is certain i will never stop frussyposting. in fact right now i am thinking about france hetalia big fat juicy boobies mmmm milky squishy. i'm giving her a teensy tiny little slut waist and childbearing hips. i would give him a brazilian butt lift but he doesn't even need it!!!

if that is a crime then lock me up. please. strap on the handcuffs and throw me in the crate for naughty little freaks teeheehee >:3

be careful tho. if you keep sending me gay ass love letters like this they're gonna start shipping toxic yuri melianca even harder <3

#this made my day #this ask gave me bottom emoji eyes!!!#DM me if you want babe #ask and ye shall receive #tw vent

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pipecleaneradventures · 6 months

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thank you for such a in depth reply! this is my puppet, shes made out of wire and is needle felted. she has some problems like a poorly attached head and currently has no hands, but her body is decently poseable

im defaintly wondering what to use to make them stand up, I wasnt sure if most of your videos were top down or not. it looks like your using some sort of pipe cleaner arm attatched to the wall?

i also saw you had a video where one of the characters was blinking, ive always wondered how stuff like that was done. are the eyelids attatched or just sat ontop of the eyes? they dont look detatchable in the video

its rare i see any stop motion artists active online on sites i use, (though maybe i just dont know where to look) so its very nice to be able to talk to someone about it. im very new to it besides dabbling in it a bit as a kid so any advice or tips is helpful, so thanks so much for sharing your setup

sorry if this is incoherant, its kinda late here

Sorry for the late response. I could have answered earlier, but my anxiety is always getting in the way of things.

That's so cool that you can needle felt and that you put wirres inside it. So it's the same as pipe cleaners material wise. :D Are you going to add hands to your puppet? You probably should do something to atttch the head better so itdoesn't fall off, but things can be fixed after a figure is made, though heads can be tricky to attatch better. I need to know how it's held together. The wires in my pipe cleaner heads go all through the body, I usually make the head first even if it doesn't have all the details at first.

I've made my videos with so many different camera setups and ways of holding my figures up. The first year of videos I made were "filmed" top down. (it's wierd to call it that because this is reeeeeeeaaaaaalllly slow filming:D) My figures were just lying on a fleece blanket with minimal backgrounds often consisting of another color blanket supposrting my figures because they wouldn't look natural lying flat, and the second material was also the ground.

For about the next year I had my figures on an easel instead because the wifi was bad in the new place I lived and as I discovered later, my tablet was just getting old, so I couldn't use two separate devices, one as a camera and one from which to edit. Besides the fact my figures were at a slant instead of top down, I made my animations in much the same way as before. (There were lots of other small changes and improvements amongst using these methods and before I did top down I expereimented with all sorts of different ways, some of them pretty silly and not used for long.)

Taking pictures with the easel was often a fight with gravity and I also wanted to start adding more background pieces, but I didn't want them to be bumped by my crittersmoving, so I had to change my method. So again I went through lots of trial and error like I did before I'd settled on doing the top down picture taking. I tried out all the different methods and ways of holding my critters and backgrounds in place I could think about. I experimented with usign materals that hadn't worked for earlier setups, but that I still had lying around so, why not try them?

Finally I landed upon the setup you saw in my recent video where there are magnets on my easel, I also have ground in my animations. (I didn't have that for most of my earlier animations so yay!) As of about a week I've been using a doll stand stuck to the magnets of the "background wall". (The magnets also help hold background pieces in place.) But the doll stand botem is stuck to the wall so the tall part is facing the back of the critter and I have a pipe cleaner attatched to the part that is supposed to be around the figure's waist. (In the video I replaced the wire part with a pipe cleaner, but the wirre is thicker so now the pipe cleaner is just there becaus it is thinner than the end of the holding thing and is the same color as the figure.)

So, now my figures can move freely in the air attatched by the waist to a stand attatched to the wall. The magnet background is covered with my fleece blanket, and the magnets are strong enough to be able to grab the pipe clenaers through the blanket fluff. The blanket hides them. I also hide the botem of the stand by either it going through a background piece like the leaves of a tree covering it, like in my Shadow and Flicky animation. Or the ground color is pulled up over the stand, like in the one with the little chicken, Cucky. Or it is hidden behind an energy aura like in the one with Shadow floating with the blue energy. I proably shouldn't have shared my secret of how I make these, now people will be looking for where the stand base must be hiding. :D I still have to try out my new idea of how to easily move the stans about with the critters on them. (When you pull the tall part they follow along with that so that has to be the leading part when you move them because it is atatched to one side.)

(I think that description was longer than it needed to be. Oh well)

As for the eyelids. The figure in my animation yesterday has atatched eyelids that can pulled from above the eyes like real eyelids. That is difficult to work with and takes longer. I haven't even animated with the eyelids like that. My critters you see blinking have eyelids that I just set on top of the eyes. At first they were made out of felt, but the felt wasn't always the same color, so they are pipe clenaers, (thin pipe clenaers, not fluffy ones). I have separate pieces for the amount the eyesareopen. I alsohave simular ones for making the eyesopen wider or the pupils dialating. I'vealso used ones for the different mouth shapes, even though that gets trickier for animals who's mouths stick out from their faces. But yeah, it's a thing other stop motion animaters also use. At first the felt pieces I used were sticky, but they don't have to be sticky because the fuzzy felt and gravity hold them in place. It was so cool the first time I saw one of my characters blink in my animation. I first had them blinking too often actually.

When I started making these videos, (I wanted to animate them shortly after I started making things with pipe cleaners, but I had no idea how I'ddo it and itseemed like such a big, imposible progject.) When I finally got good at pipe cleaners and started experimenting with animating with them, it was amazing how many other stop motion animators I found out there. Like, this is an old way of animating, so it's interesting that people still use it. There are lots of Lego animaors, they call their animations Brick Films. After I'd started figuring things out on my own and with advice from others' videos I even discovered other pipe clenaer animators because pipe cleaner creators are also rare unless you are one, and then you start finding them all. :D I had to come up with my own techniques to animate with pipe cleaners because no onehad instructions about that. There are clay animations and lego ones, and I even found a page that's pretty big that does needle felted animations and even made a needle felted videogame.

Stop motion used to be used in movies all the time before computers took over. It's like I was born in the wrong time period. Anyway, there are occasionally Stop Motion movies still. It's nice to be able to talk to somebody about it. I wonder if people I know are starting to get dirven crazy by how I keep talking about a new way of animating my figures. This most recent one has a lot of promise I think. (Though I think that about all of them.:D) So teaching someone about how to make these videos is maybe not the best thing for me to do because I keep changing how I make them every day.

As for actually animating. I think it's just practice and observing what you see and usuaing that useful feature on youtube where you can see individual frames and stuff like that. But mainly it's practice. That's why you wnat to have your figures in a way that you can easily move them. Having a wire frame is great because then they stay where you moved them. That's why my figures also have pipe cleaner hair, so it stays in place. I've been posting videos consitently for over two years, so I've had lots of practice and I hope I'm improving.

Anyway, you can ask me any other questions you like, maybe you can even message me to ask them. I hope you are able tomake some animations and have fun making them. Initial setup is big and scary. I remember making much bigger backgrounds than I eeded to make when you just need what you see on screen. Anyway, so just make what you need for your first animation, maybe even jsut have a blank background for practince. Too many times I've made a big setup jsut to try out one little thing that doesn't work, so just have it so you can practice that one little thing. Even try to move your figures through the motions before taking the pictures to see if they will even move like you like.

Anyway, I hope that helps and makes maybe a little sense, I'm super scatter brained. I hope you will enjoy animating, but it's ok if you don't. The figure you made looks really cute. I'd lketo see other things you've made. Anyway, happy creating!

#pipecleaners #stopmotion #stopmotionanimation #chenillestems #animation

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kidmachinate · 1 year

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Force Your Way

Taking longer than expected to do things can be a huge letdown, especially if you end up being your own worst critic in this regard. Too long to get to some select point in your life to succeed at this game called life. My last post came from a place or hope with the odds stacked against you. This one has much more hope. I’ve been carving a new path for the year.

While core values haven’t changed a whole lot, learning safe boundaries is becoming a key factor. Mental peace is priority. True progress will never come without it and sometimes, like my last post mentioned, that means losing someone or something close to you. You pray this isn’t the case but what can you do? We can pretend we aren’t selfish but everyone has to look out for themselves out there to some extent. Unless you’re covered for money through parents or financially free on your own terms, you have bill to pay like the next person. How else after all am I going to afford both Final Fantasy XVI and Diablo IV in the same month? In fairness, one of these is already paid for.

In today’s age of the internet, many of us care more about being right than actual facts. Why? Because when the facts roll in, said people may not like it, and then suddenly get quiet, and we can’t have any sort of accountability or admittance of fault now can we? This is something else I’m not having time for. I’ve made snide comments towards something I don’t believe in or think it morally wrong, but I also can’t claim to be a saint either. Many of us are likely supporting one company or another with shit values. Such is life.

While I have a consistent thought that we are never alone, we can definitely feel that way at times. There’s value in friends for both company as well as the handful you can trust. There is no value in words that don’t match actions. Apologies that just come out for them to do the same things over and over again. That, there is no value in. I’m referencing each of these things here and none are truly new. I’ve just changed how I approach it. In many cases, I simply don’t. It isn’t worth it.

I’ve recently found peace in revisiting both Final Fantasy VII: Remake, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion. That and slowly but surely plowing through a gaming backlog in preparation for smaller games coming as well as the big ones listed above mid-year. I’m a gamer at heart and while I may “waste my life away” at times in this, I’ve got plenty going on in between errands wise and have been very pleased with progress in this thus far. I also recently started new work that seems like a fulfilling role and challenge right up there with recent gaming challenges I’ve been taking due to the nature of the games default difficulty or choosing to up the difficulty to a hard mode equivalent. I like being challenged. It keeps me on my toes. Even when doing errands, going to new places, it’s a challenge. Can’t let the game win right? Life isn’t a game? Convince me otherwise. Or ask a politician.

I came from a pretty low place to a much better one over the last couple of months and only recently landed a new work opportunity to really help with this. Something just snapped and it was time to turn the sad stories into a happier one. It was bleeding into my day to day and I didn’t like it. I’m sure the household didn’t like it either. Sometimes we need to start a new chapter or a whole new book. Make ourselves into a brand new character. What if your current character is fine? Sometimes you just need a respec. Balance out your traits and decide what gets more time an energy vs other people, activities, and even thing you buy and eat.

Ultimately, I choose to not Have a Nice Death, unless it is the fun (still in early access) roguelite game. I’m not done here. Far from it. Furthermore, for the first time in a while, I am also looking forward to the future and where this new opportunity leads. Knowing your worth goes a long way too. Don't be afraid to embrace this. I'm reminded of dialogue from my recent revisit to VII Remake.

**after doing a side quest for money for an old man and then Cloud asking for more to do a simple favor for them after**

Aerith: It feels good to help people out, doesn’t it?

Cloud: Eh.

Aerith: You having fun yet?

Cloud: Heaps.

Aerith: Then you can’t be afraid to show it more. Don’t forget, it’s all about service and salesmanship.

Cloud: I’ll leave that to you.

Aerith: All right, but don't think you can rely on me forever, mister.

Cloud: Wasn't planning to.

Aerith: That's good. 'Cause I command a very good salary.

#force your way #final fantasy vii remake #progression #gaming #final fantasy viii #growth

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deanscherrypie69 · 2 years

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hi, check this post to try and solve the problem with your tags. i’m sorry tumblr is being shitty. now i hope you don’t take offense, bc i’m gonna give a few tips and constructive criticism to help you out, from a writer to another.

there’s a lot of us writers here, a hundred is not a stretch. it only makes sense that there are many well-known and favorite writers, so sometimes readers don’t check tags everyday. not to mention that tumblr’s tagging system is shit. since you’ve only started writing recently, it will take some time for your notes and activity to grow. i know it’s discouraging, but everyone goes through this phase, so all we can really do is persevere and wait.

sometimes it also depends on the trends/fan favorites, on which character is being talked about/thirsted on the most right now. in our case it’s currently Ari (due to the recent photos) and Lloyd (because of TGM). you don’t have to follow the trends of course, you can write for anyone you want, but it’s a factor that affects the notes. Andy is still one of the fan favorites though, so don’t worry, readers will come around.

as for writing, it’s better to post when you have the fic finished. oneshot sneak peeks don’t get good notes in general, and readers are likely to forget them. i also suggest having someone beta for you, or if you don’t want to (which is okay), you can use grammar checkers. make sure to not skip over scenes no matter how long they take to write so the fic won’t seem rushed. you can try being more descriptive of what they’re doing, what they’re feeling, the atmosphere and environment, expound more on the background story… sometimes they’re more important than dialogue and character thoughts. don’t just tell readers what your characters are doing, show them. you know the kinds of stories that you can see and imagine so clearly in your head? that’s our goal. it’s not easy, it’s tiring and writing makes you double-think especially when you’re not getting the feedback you want, but it will come, and it will be worth it.

i hope i did not offend you, i just wanted to help you out because i was like you when i started writing too. above all, you have potential, so believe in yourself :)

Ty sm much for this. I’ll try to figure it out, I’m not entirely. New to tumblr and writing. I’ve been doing it a while so I know how tumblr works. (Wow that sounds mean, it’s not tho I promise)

BUT! I’ve never had this problem AS many times as I have. It’s so discouraging. And I hate it. Idk what else to do. I’ve done tags. I’ve looked at tags that no ones has used, Ive did all that… a lot of ppl use the tags. So I don’t know honestly. Which ones to use and not to use…

As for the sneak peeks. I’ve seen a lot of writers do it before and get 200+ notes… so I thought it would be cool because I was Proud of what I wrote.

And as for a beta reader. I don’t have anyone. I’ve always read my own work. It sucks yea. Because I feel like no one ever wants to proof read my work… so I just post it without a beta reader.

As for fan favorites. I’ve always written for lloyd. Andy and, Ari. I have two new Andy series in the works and a hundred oneshots in drafts in multiple apps.

Imma vent really quick:

I’ve been writing for YEARS and I’ve never ever gotten the feedback I wanted. So having this void of where ppl cannot see my work. Suck. I mean I should be used to it now? You know what I mean?

So. It doesn’t entirely suck. Maybe it’s for a reason. Idk

I’m just really hurt buy all of this..

So if this whole message is scrambled. It’s 3am.

But Ty for the sweet message. Ily🫶🏽

#anon #roise responds #asks

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dr3amofagame · 3 years

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uhhhh ,, , hi ??

i feel bad bc i havent been here in. LITERALLY forever lmao - hope you guys r all doing good!! ive been working on some stuff but it’s been pretty slow going, and school is also A Thing, so i definitely havent been writing as much as i’d like.

as an apology, have this? really self-indulgent feel-good syndicate + c!dream centric oneshot bc i felt like writing this so u know. why not.

tws: implied torture, abuse, self-harm, disordered eating, starvation mentions, prison arc themes - overall everything’s just blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mentions, not too much angst here for once! c!sam and c!quackity critical, sorry guys but we r still in the prison arc and they still r on their “fuck human rights” arcs.

Dream leaves.

It’s a surprise - or maybe it isn’t one, Niki isn’t quite sure. She’d never grown to quite trust the man, she knows, and she can’t really tell if the bitter twist of emotion that swells up her chest when Phil comes to her city with the news is betrayal or resignation - what can she say. She’s gotten more than her fair share of broken promises. They don’t exactly faze her anymore.

None of them seem all that surprised, save Techno, who entirely fails to hide the worry that flickers over his face when he calls the Syndicate meeting to officially inform them of what’s going on. She shares quick, careful glances with the other members when his back is turned - despite how many times he’s been burned, Techno still seems so adamant at holding onto every thread, trusting all too easily those who would use and leave him behind without a second glance. He can handle himself, she knows. Still, that’s not going to stop her from slapping Dream upside the head for being yet another worthless person to betray her friend’s forgiving nature.

Nothing much changes in the next few weeks. Niki has to admit, it’s strange without Dream around - he’d not been an ally, much less a friend before dipping completely, but he had been some sort of constant - and Niki is self aware enough to know that she misses him, a little, the same sort of way you might miss an old routine once it’s gone, if only for the familiarity. She still visits Techno and Phil with various baked goods, knowing that Phil would have his hands full just keeping Techno from running himself ragged - makes sure to check on Ranboo, whose nerves have inevitably returned with Dream’s disappearance. To be honest, she doesn’t worry as much as he does - ally or not, she’s spent enough time with the Dream that had left prison to expect that he won’t exactly be able to get himself very far should he come for the four of them, and doesn’t particularly care about he might pull with the rest of the server - if things get bad, she’s sure Phil and Techno will have it handled. She asks Phil, once, what happened, and he shrugs.

“I don’t know, mate,” he heaves a chest to the side, pulling out a stack of stone blocks that Niki gladly holds for him. “One day we woke up and he was just- gone. Everything. Was like he wasn’t ever there at all.”

Niki hums. “Why’d you think he’d do something like that?”

“If I could understand half of why Dream does what he does, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?” He smiles at her from behind a crate. “Shall we bring these things upstairs and start on dinner?”

Niki laughs, knowing that the conversation about Dream is over. “Of course, Phil.”

Dinner is a welcome distraction; all of them have gotten better at cooking in recent months, between her baking and the veritable library of recipes Phil knows that she’s never even heard of, but Phil is still the only one she really trusts to hold his own behind the stove - Ranboo is still a little too nervous around water, and fire, and much of everything, and though Techno can be a perfectly capable cook, he’s been distracted as of late. She has a strong feeling that left to his own devices, he’d just grab a stack of steak and disappear for another few weeks, searching the server for information.

Honestly, she’s a little thrown off by his behavior - he’d not done anything like this with Tommy, if she remembers right, and had hardly seemed affected by Wilbur’s betrayal on the Sixteenth at all (then again, she was a little too lost in her own head to notice if he was.) She tosses her head over to ask Phil, who’s leaning over a few carrots he’s slicing to throw into the stew he’s making, and the man pauses, frowns.

“From what I know,” he starts, words slow, careful, “they’d spent three months in there together, and the conditions weren’t exactly- stellar. According to what Techno said, I’d assumed they had come to some sort of understanding.” He goes back to the carrots, expression dipping into shadow and out of sight. “Guess I was wrong.”

Niki hums. She can see it, sort of - spending months together with someone, no matter how insufferable, probably would end with some degree of attachment - she thinks back to plotting through sleepless nights with Jack, anger and grief leaving them simmering, crabs in the same pot of boiling water, remembers looking into his dead-eyed gaze and seeing her own stare back - and feels a brief pang of guilt. Besides, Techno is Techno. She’d never met someone so willing to forgive, understand, reach out despite everything that’s happened - for Dream to take advantage of that feels almost too obvious. Of course he would - what were they all thinking?

“He’s Dream,” she says as if that explains everything, flipping open the oven door and feeling a wave of heat blast her face. Phil hums lowly, understanding. “I hope Techno will be alright.”

“He’s tough,” Phil cracks a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “And he has us on his side. He’ll get through.”

Niki opens her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the front door slamming open. Outside their quaint little cottage, the wind howls - it sounds like the beginning of a blizzard out there, flurries painting the world in a thick blanket of white. In the door, Techno strides into the entrance with loud, decisive movements, shutting the door loud enough to make the walls shake. Inadvertently, Niki finds her eyes drawn to the small pile of snow that he’s tracked into the house - Techno’s usually so careful to kick it all off on the porch, never liked it much when there was a pile of melting ice and snow dampening the floorboards and soaking into his shoes. He huffs harshly, stripping off a snow-dusted scarf from his face - a long, multicolored abomination that had been the product of her attempting to teach Ranboo how to knit. Phil has reached his side, hands splayed over his upper arms, eyes soft in the corners from concern.

“Techno, mate-” his tone is chiding but his movements gentle as he brushes snow off of Techno’s signature cloak, “you’ve gotten snow everywhere. What were you doing, dueling a blizzard?”

Techno shakes his head, not meeting Phil’s banter as usual, fur sticking up from the snow melted into it. His voice is gruff and holds little humor - unconsciously, Niki feels her shoulders tense.

“Phil, call a Syndicate meeting.”

---

Phil, per usual, is unrelenting, so it’s not until a quick dinner and some hurried messages to their final member later that the Syndicate is gathered in their meeting room, Techno pacing the length of the room as they wait in their respective seats. He looks less frazzled than he did when he first entered the house, in part due to Phil’s sitting him down to eat and picking through his fur to smooth it out of its windblown spikes and tangles - Techno had grumbled at him to stop preening him, but looked a lot more relaxed by the time they were all finished with their food. Still, his ear flicks periodically, twitching toward ssome sound that Niki can’t hear, movements tighter and jerkier than she is used to. He’d always been a little flightier after the prison, but not quite like this - everything here feels like that but dialed up to eleven. Inexplicably, it reminds her of Dream.

“Techno?” Phil gestures towards his seat, prompting, and he settles into it with an obliging huff.

“Y’know, Phil, the code names are kinda pointless if we never use ‘em,” he says, words carrying no real heat - he looks back at the rest of them, lips thinning into a line. “Anyway. I called this meeting because I found a couple leads on Dream.”

“O-oh,” Ranboo stutters, tail lashing behind him.

“You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, mate,” Phil reminds him gently, a sentiment that Niki affirms with a determined nod.

“There’ve been some reports- rumors, really,” Techno says, calling their attention again, and they all turn towards him, “of increased activity around the prison again. The Warden spending more time on its grounds, movement seen around the walls and around the portal- so I decided to go check it out for myself.”

Niki frowns, and watches as Phil does the same beside her - Techno had seemed to avoid the prison if he could help it, save for when he went on the initial mission to break Dream out. It was no secret to them that he didn’t exactly like the place.

“We could’ve helped if you asked,” Phil reminds him, and Techno shakes his head.

“I know, Phil. It’s just- that place is bad news. I’d rather keep you guys away from there if I can-” his hand goes to his head with a poorly hidden wince. “Sorry, Chat’s a little- worked up, at the minute.”

“Sorry, we’ll stop interrupting you,” Niki says, cutting off Phil before he says anything else. “So you went to the prison?”

Techno takes a second to gather his thoughts, mumbling quietly in the way that usually means he’s telling off Chat. “Right- I decided to stake out the portal. The rumors were right- Sam has been hanging around there, entered and left the prison four times yesterday. And today-” he hesitates, expression visibly darkening. “This morning, about an hour after the Warden arrived, Quackity came to the prison and went through the portal. He left the grounds about six hours later.”

“Quackity?” Niki frowns, eyes flicking over to how Phil has stilled in his seat. “What is Quackity doing at the prison?”

Phil ignores her question, reaching towards Techno, something indiscernible in his gaze. “Mate…”

“He smelled of blood when he left,” Techno says, words sharp, and Niki feels her heart skip a beat. “Warden left about half an hour after, and I came back here.”

Ranboo clears his throat, sounding tentative. “Okay,” he drums his hand on the table when they turn towards him, eyebrows drawn, “but what, exactly, does this have to do with, uh, Dream?”

Techno and Phil trade glances, one of their bouts of unspoken conversation that Niki’s grown extremely used to. They seem strangely hesitant, she notes internally, Phil looking towards Techno with a question written clearly in the planes of his face. Techno sighs, a long puff of air through his lips as he closes his eyes and turns his face towards the table.

“You know how Dream was- injured,” he starts slowly, looking back up at them. Niki shifts uncomfortably - of course she noticed, it was impossible not to - if not the bandages that peeked under his sleeves and the cuffs of his pants, then how skinny he’d been, all skin and bones curled up uncomfortably in a pile at the corner of Techno’s couch. She’d not know the extent, by any means, and had always assumed that they’d been self-inflicted - she’d been in a bad enough place on her own before to know how your head can make you want to hurt, sometimes, how eating food can feel like choking on sawdust and the world could feel so much smaller when focused into delicate pricks of pain. Phil’s eyes are trained on Techno - on his face, then on the pinkish raised skin of a still-healing scar along his forearm, and she feels understanding settle like a rock in her gut.

“The Warden had apparently been lettin’ Quackity into the cell to torture Dream for the revive book,” Techno trails off, eyes narrowed and seemingly fixed on a random point of the opposite wall. “By the time I go there, it’d been goin’ on for months.”

“But wait,” Ranboo’s tail moves even more erratically behind him, “You mean you think he’s back- there? How?”

“He has to be back in the prison,” Techno points out. “I can’t imagine anyone besides him that the two of them are goin’ to just start torturin’- Sam had been iffy about the whole thing when Quackity started in on me. It has to be Dream in there again.”

“But how did he get in there, then?” Ranboo asks, visibly confused. “Last time it took the entire server to lock him up!”

“There were no signs of a struggle,” Niki points out, matter of fact. “I believe you, Techno, but I don’t really know how they managed to drag him back so easily. I can’t imagine he was jumping at the chance to go back in there.”

Techno shakes his head with an uneasy sigh.

“I have a feelin’ of what might’ve happened,” he says quietly. “And I really hope that I’m wrong and he’s less of an idiot than I think he is.”

---

They set out to investigate - and maybe attack - the next day, Techno and Phil taking on the bulk of preparations as Ranboo stays behind. He’d been understandably uneasy about the whole mission, so they’d left him back by the Syndicate room to set off their pearls in case anything went wrong. (“By the end of the day,” Techno had said, giving Phil a look with the corner of his lip quirked upwards, “don’t be like Phil here and think I meant the end of the month, alright?”) They’d all be supplied with armor and weapons, thanks to Phil, but she’d been handed the bulk of their potions, arranged neatly in her inventory by type in case they’d be needed. She lingers in the back of the room as Phil and Techno chat amiably over the sound of making last minute repairs on their armor, listens to Techno’s ceaseless reminders for Phil to be careful, watches as they make sure that their stasis chambers are properly prepared should they need them.

(She watches as Phil nudges Techno’s shoulder when he lingers behind a certain chair, empty as long as she’s been part of the Syndicate, the fountain behind it bubbling quietly without a pearl inside. Techno sighs, expression strange.

“Should’ve set him up with one,” he says, quiet, and Phil pats him on the back.

“You couldn’t have known, mate. We wanted to wait a little before telling him about the Syndicate, remember?”

Techno hums, noncommittal. “Still.”)

They Nether travel to the site of Techno’s lookout, which ends up being a little shambling thing with dirt walls dug into a small hill looking towards the prison portal, having hardly enough space to fit the three of them. Phil looks at it with no small amount of apprehension, and Techno shrugs lightly, wearing an expression that makes Phil turn to him with a look that makes Niki break into giggles. Techno crosses his arms- “in my defense-” and Phil looks up at the dirt ceiling with a long-suffering sigh.

“You couldn’t have made this a little roomier, mate?” Phil asks, voice dry as kindling, and Techno raises his hands by his head.

“Hey hey, it’s discreet, it gets the job done, it’s perfectly structurally sound-” the sound of the leftmost wall crumbling, along with the cloud of dust that puffs from it and fills their tiny space, undermines the tail end of his statement and leaves him sputtering, Niki falling into another fit of quiet giggles. Underneath it all, Phil sighs again, raising his wings behind him.

“...these are going to take so long to clean out.”

To his credit, Techno looks sheepish. “Sorry, Phil.”

They sober up quickly; Techno turns around to the opposite side of the hill, where he’s hidden some peepholes inside the dirt - Niki settles herself by one, leaning forwards to put her eye to it and catch a glimpse of the prison looming over the water. It’s been repaired since the breakout, she notes, the gaping hole in the roof completely gone and replaced with obsidian, as intimidating and undamaged as it had been before, if not more so. Phil makes a considering sound from behind her.

“Same plan as last time?” He asks, and Techno shakes his head.

“They’ve probably reinforced it, and Dream’s blueprints won’t include anything new the Warden’s added. I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved Dream to a different location completely. We don’t want to draw too much attention, either, we were cutting it pretty close during the breakout.” He narrows his eyes. “I was thinking we’d try something a little stealthier, this time. “

He gestures at Niki, who blinks back at him with wide eyes.

“You got a couple of invis potions for us?”

She distributes the potions among them all, one regular and two splash potions of invisibility each, and Techno points towards the prison once she’s done.

“The most important thing is to get through the portal,” he says with a grim expression. “Worst comes to worst, once we’re inside we can always blast our way through - but gettin’ through that portal is our first priority.”

Phil narrows his eyes at him. “The portal is locked, though. We’ll need to follow someone else inside- and I’m pretty sure Sam uses pearls, so he’s out.”

Techno nods. “Which is why I’m bankin’ on the prison gettin’ another visitor today. We’ll just have to wait.”

Niki swallows. “Do you mean-”

“Quackity?” Techno turns away, not quite meeting her eyes. “I’m not totally sure, but he’s not exactly the type to just give up on his goals. He’s pretty predictable- an empire needs an emperor, always needs something new to rule- you know the type,” he says, tipping his head towards Phil. “He’ll be mad at Dream for disappearin’ on him and won’t miss the opportunity to prove he has the upper hand again. I’m not sure that he’s going to come today-”

“-but you wouldn’t really be surprised, either,” Phil finishes for him, eyes steely with cold determination. “I trust your judgement, mate. Just stay safe- from what I’ve heard, Quackity has been...erratic.”

“When is he not,” Techno huffs a short laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll be fine, Phil. Just be careful, both of you. Don’t get too close. And if things get messy- which is what we’re tryin’ to avoid, by the way- then don’t do anything too risky. Our priority is gettin’ in and out alive.”

“We can handle ourselves, Techno,” Niki reminds him with a small smile. “And Ranboo is there in case anything goes wrong.”

“Alright, then. Here’s the plan.”

---

It takes quite a long time for Quackity to arrive, long minutes that Niki spends fidgeting in the corner of the room, brushing her hands over seams of the netherite plates that Phil had shoved into her hands, back at the Syndicate room. The set is inexplicably light - not weightless, by any means, as it is still netherite, but not nearly as bulky as any set of netherite armor she’s owned or seen in the past. The runes are precise, lines thin and exact, written with graceful strokes of lapis.

“Phil’s the best metalworker I’ve ever met,” Techno tells her with a small grin, catching her in the middle of tracing what she can make out as an Unbreaking rune along the metal strapped to her forearm. “But then again, he’s had the time to practice.”

“Are you calling me old again?” Phil huffs, and Techno flashes a smile her direction before looking at Phil with a slight grin.

“Well, Chat is,” he says, lips twitching when Phil glares back.

“You can’t just blame Chat every time you insult me, you little shit,” Phil groans, and Techno only grins wider.

“Phil, my ad revenue,” he complains, a dramatic lilt to his voice that has Niki stifling a snort, and Phil’s glare only grows deadlier.

“You’ll have more than your ad revenue to worry about if you keep this up,” he mumbles, going back to keep watch at one of the peepholes and stilling as he does. “Shit- Techno, Quackity’s here.”

Techno straightens up, hindered slightly by the low ceiling of their room. “Alright- we all know the plan, right?”

Niki nods in the affirmative, pulling out a splash invis and letting it settle in her hand, the glass cool beneath her fingertips. She reaches into her inventory and lets her armor fade into it, takes a deep breath and watches as the two across from her do the same. She doesn’t wear armor often, but so close to the prison, feeling mining fatigue settling deep into her bones - she’s never missed the security it offers more. Techno keeps watch, waiting- drops his arm in a signal. Now.

Niki throws the potion at their feet, flinching back at the sound of shattering glass and feeling its effects seep into her skin. When she opens her eyes, she can’t see anything but the inside of the room that they’d holed themselves in and the faintest of wisps rising from where their feet must be, curling around the grass.

(Please let this work, she begs to no one in particular as they walk towards the prison. And if you can hear me- please keep us all safe.)

She hardly breathes as they follow Quackity across the path, holding someone’s hand in her own - Phil’s, by the feel of it - careful to muffle her footsteps in the grass and stand still whenever Quackity’s eyes come a little too close. Thankfully for them, he seems focused, hardly stopping or looking around at all as he walks towards the prison’s portal, movements stiff as he walks forward. He punches the button on the wall particularly harshly, and Sam’s voice comes crackling through a speaker a second later.

“I’m here for my visit,” Quackity says, punctuating the sentence with a snort of laughter that doesn’t sound particularly sincere. Niki hasn’t seen him in a long while, not after everything that happened in Pogtopia, and she feels a chill worm down her spine - this man looks nothing like the one that had laughed and danced and sung at her birthday party what feels like an eternity ago. What happened?

Sam sighs, the sound turning into a sharp burst of static through the speakers. “Hello Quackity,” he says, voice deep and tired. “Please step into the portal after I tell you to and then wait on the other side.”

“I know the drill, Sam,” Quackity rolls his eyes. “Just because the bastard was gone for a few weeks doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how this damn place works.”

“Just going through protocol, Quackity,” Sam replies, and something about this response has Quackity exploding into a brief fit of laughter, the sound grating against Niki’s ears. She feels her grip tighten on Phil’s hand, air caught in her throat.

“Protocol- ha. Whatever you wanna tell yourself, pal.” Quackity smiles, cold and cruel, and Niki tries not to think about how she’d seen that same grin on Wilbur, eyes sparkling from the light of the lanterns hung from the bridges and walls of their ravine, remember how she’d looked into them and realized her old friend wasn’t there, anymore. Quackity disappears into the portal, and after a second, the hand around her own pulls her inside of it too.

On the other side, Quackity taps his foot impatiently, crossing his arms and waiting- Sam’s voice comes through the speakers again, words clipped.

“Go through the portal,” he says, and Quackity does- once again, they wait for a second for his body to disappear, then go within it themselves, pressed close enough together within its frame for Niki to feel the warmth of a wing wrap around her shoulders for a quick second before they’re out of the hot, stifling air of the Nether and into a large, neatly made lobby of blackstone and quartz. They duck into a corner, watching as Quackity moves towards the front counter, the Warden waiting there with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks- tired. His movements are slow, footsteps loud against the floor, shoulders tense and back hunched. He walks around the counter, sword strapped to his belt, and Niki feels her breath hitch at the sight of dried blood still stuck to the blade in patches and splatters.

“He ready?” Quackity asks, holding his hands out - Niki catches a flash of metal as Sam drops something into them, watches as Quackity raises what ends up being a pair of shears, dangerous-looking and gleaming with enchants, to the light.

“Yes,” Sam says, side-eyeing Quackity with a small glare. “You know, it’s supposed to be your job to clean those things off when you’re done with them.”

“I told you, busy day back in Las Nevadas yesterday,” Quackity waves a hand- “I’ll do it, alright? Don’t get all pissy now. What happened to being partners?”

“You said we’d be done with this months ago, Quackity,” Sam sighs, and Niki feels a light tug on her arm as Quackity and Sam begin to walk towards the wall to the right of them, breathes in slow and deep as she follows Techno and Phil towards the others. The wall yawns open with the hiss of redstone firing and pistons pulling blocks upwards, opening into a dark hallway that feels like entering the maw of some sort of giant, insatiable beast. They step inside as one, and the door shuts behind them.

“We’ll be done soon enough,” Quackity says, and Niki feels hairs rising on the back of her neck. “Trust me.”

They stalk forwards through a labyrinth of blackstone, Niki brushing the palms of her hand against her clothes when it goes clammy from adrenaline. Halfway through, she pauses to tip back a second potion of invisibility, careful to keep her movements slow and steady as not to make a sound - the liquid is silvery, cool and light on her tongue, and she lets the effects wash over her with her breath caught in her lungs before moving forward. The tunnels are simpler than she’d expected, bearing little obstacles or checkpoints - Quackity makes a wry comment a second after (“Guard tunnels today, huh? Appreciate the hustle, pal-”) that confirms her suspicions. Despite the potion particles still whirling around their bodies and the sounds of their footsteps, too loud in her own ears, they manage to make it forwards without much trouble, entering a large room with a doorway filled completely with a curtain of lava.

“Set your spawn,” Sam says, still stoic, and Quackity rolls his eyes again before doing as told. Niki keeps looking back at the lava flowing past the wall, its heat filling the room and making her already slick palms even worse, and Sam moves to the side to flick a lever, eyes trained on the lava slowly bubbling in front of him.

“Give me your tools?” Quackity asks, and Sam sighs before doing so - Niki watches as he hands over a netherite axe, then potions, then a few raw potatoes that Quackity accepts and puts into his inventory. Sam raises an eyebrow once he’s done, hand tight around the handle of his trident.

“You bring your own sword, today?” He asks, seeming irritated, and Quackity shrugs.

“Sorry pal, I need to make a new one. Guess I’m borrowing yours again.”

Sam sighs again, louder, and hands over his sword as well, watching as Quackity swings it a few times experimentally. The blade skims a little too close to her on one swing and she can’t quite help the squeak that escapes her lips as she throws herself out of the way, feels her heart hammer in her ears as she backs up against the wall. Please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that-

“Quackity, wait.” Sam raises a hand, ear twitching as he looks over in her direction with narrowed eyes. “I think I heard something.”

Oh fuck.

“Well, guess show’s up then,” Techno drawls, and both of them whirl towards his voice, giving Niki enough time to pull her armor back on, scrambling to get her sword and shield in her hands as Phil does the same besides her. Pieces of armor appear where Techno is standing, then a bucket of milk- oh, why must her friends be so dramatic- and Techno’s standing there, smiling sharply, with Orphan Obliterator held loosely at his side. “Let’s get this done, then.”

As one, Techno and Phil blur into action - Techno moves forward to catch the prongs of Sam’s trident on his blade as Phil parries Quackity’s blows with his own sword- they move fluidly, easily covering each other’s backs as the room devolves into chaos. Niki remembers their guidance as she flits in and out of the fight, scoring quick hits to keep the Warden and Quackity off balance while remaining out of range from their weapons, and it’s not long before both of them have fallen with a spray of items and experience orbs scattered all over the floor.

Techno moves over to block off the exposed face of the bed with a block, looking over at the two of them with an uncharacteristically severe expression. “They’ll be back soon- we have to move fast. Niki, you have those fire res, right?”

She nods as she reaches into her inventory, finding the potion’s orange-pink glow and smashing it at their feet. They dive into the lava together, Niki scrambling to keep up, her arms struggling to move through the thick lava, loses sight of both until she flails into something directly in front of her and hands are pulling her up out of the lava.

“There you go, mate,” Phil smiles down at her as hauls herself to her feet, making a face at the feeling of the lava clinging to her clothes. “Yeah, swimming through lava isn’t exactly fun. You good?” She flashes him a thumbs up, and he laughs- “Niki, you’re still invisible.” She flushes pink- right.

A few sips of milk later, she gives him a proper thumbs up, and he laughs, loud and bright. She looks past him to where Techno’s crouched over something- someone, she realizes with a start, in the corner. Dream’s back in prison clothes, ragged and ill-fitting, and he’s curled up with his back towards the front of the cell, shaking enough to be obvious even from where she’s standing. Techno speaks lowly, voice barely more than a deep rumble in the air, almost inaudible.

“You there, Dream?”

She watches as Dream turns his head, looking up with wide, bleary eyes. His hair flops in front of his face, and something within her itches to brush it out of the way. “T-Techno?”

“Yeah nerd, who else?” Techno smiles, and Dream seems to blink awake, drawing himself up with a shuddery breath.

“Techno- it’s a trap- what are you doing here?” he hisses, and Techno gives him a look, deadpan.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s a trap- come on, Dream, we’ve been over this by now, bro. You have to know that their traps aren’t goin’ to do anything to me by now,” Techno rolls his eyes, reaching forward to steady his hands on Dream’s shoulders when the other man sputters and struggles to breathe. “Easy, now. Geez, you wanted to prove me wrong about being homeless bad enough that you came back here? We could’ve just made you a house, you know. You didn’t have to go this far.”

“I- they were gonna kill you,” Dream breathes, face twisted up uncomfortably, and his eyes flick past Techno’s face to where Phil and Niki are standing at the opposite wall of the cell. “All of you- they said-”

“And that’s what I thought you’d say,” Techno groans. “Come on, you idiot, I thought you were smarter than this-”

“They were right there, Techno!” Dream fires back, eyes alight. “You- they were right there, what were you thinking, they could’ve-!”

“And my best friend is a necromancer, remember?” Techno shakes his head. “Come on, Dream- Sam and Quackity? You know we can handle them in a fight, especially when you can just revive us if anything goes wrong. You don’t have to do this whole self-sacrifice thing, bro- there’s only so many times I can break into the same prison, y’know.”

“You’re so stupid,” Dream huffs, but he leans in anyway, head just barely settling against Techno’s shoulder. “I- I can’t believe. You’re so dumb.”

“Hey, don’t be sayin’ that to the guy that’s breakin’ you out of prison,” Techno laughs, slinging Dream over his shoulder with an easy motion and laughing harder when it makes him yelp. “That’s just bein’ ungrateful. You’re making Chat sad, man, and when they’re sad they don’t subscribe-”

“I regret this entirely,” Dream says, voice muffled against Techno’s shirt, tone completely flat. “Put me down- you idiot- I’m staying here. You’re worse than Quackity.”

“Rude. Now you’ve really made Chat mad. I demand an apology-”

“Boys, boys.” Niki can’t help giggling, watching the way their gazes snap towards her, rolling her eyes as she moves forward with a few potions held loosely in her hand. “Dream, do you want a health pot?”

Dream seems to deliberate for a second, before nodding at her, expression slightly strained. “...sure.”

“You two can finish your argument after we’ve broken out of the biggest maximum security prison on the server,” Phil drawls from behind her, arms crossed at his chest. “Come on, now, before Sam gets back.”

“Isn’t this the only maximum security prison on the server?” Techno asks aloud, an amused expression on his face - one that only gets worse when Phil glares at him with one ice-blue eye.

“Shut-” he sighs, shaking his head. “You two are chaotic little shits, you know that?”

“Don’t compare me to him, Phil,” Techno complains, Dream mirroring his words with muffled protests of his own, and Phil breathes another drawn-out, long-suffering sigh as he rubs at the bridge of his nose.

“Niki, give us some fire res please?”

She finds the potion bottle between giggles, throwing it to the ground as she tries to choke down the laughter rapidly bubbling up her throat. “Of course, Phil.”

She looks back at Techno and Dream before jumping into the lava, the two of them once again lost in some sort of argument, Dream draped over Techno’s shoulder. He’s breathing easier now, she notes, and Techno looks looser too - a little less tense, leaning back with a perpetual quirk to the corner of his lip as they fire insults back and forth. This is familiar, she recognizes with a soft twist in her chest, the same way that Phil and Techno can finish each other’s sentences and look at each other with laughing eyes sharing the same memories of the past, the same way Ranboo watches Techno’s every step as he adjusts his stance and lifts his sword and Techno laughs and calls him a main character in turn, the same way she and Phil will settle together on the porch over cups of tea and sit at each other’s sides for hours. The rhythm between them is one well-established, the road well-worn - she imagines them, huddled in this dingy cell for months together, and breathes in slow and deep.

“Come on,” she smiles, making sure to keep it on her face when Dream meets her eyes with wide, startled ones of his own. Dream still isn’t an ally, and isn’t a friend.

But - she watches as he smiles back, something inexplicably warm in her chest - maybe, one day, he could be.

#tw torture #tw abuse #tw self harm #tw disordered eating #tw ed #tw sh #prison arc #pandora's vault #tw starvation #c!sam critical #c!quackity critical #my writing :D #> my writing

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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Anonymous asked: I love your long posts which make for great reading and I wish you could do more because you’ve got such a range of astonishing interests. I’m hoping because you’ve served in the military you would have studied military thinkers. Do you think the Art of War by Sun Tzu is way overrated by everyone? I studied him a bit for my masters but I still couldn’t get my head around him. Interested to know your thoughts. Thanks!

“To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear." - Sun Tzu's Art of War, Chapter IV - Tactical Disposition, Clause 10.

Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

But what the hell does this quote really mean? Do you know what it means? Can anyone else tell me?

Look, I enjoy a good Sun Tzu quote as the next person. Only recently I was exchanging thoughts with a fellow blogger whose studying Thucydides, Clausewitz, and Kissinger for an advanced course at the US Naval War College. Even he prefers Sun Tzu over Clausewitz. I can see why too. If you can make sense of chapter one of Clausewitz’s tome On War you deserve a Nobel Prize.

Unlike my very learned fellow blogger, there are lot of folk who don’t know Sun Tzu at all. They can quote him, but almost certainly out of context. As someone who partly grew up in the Far East and even learned Chinese and Japanese (a pitiful but functional degree of fluency) I’m embarrassed (not hard since I’m English) when I hear other Western compatriots romanticise and elevate Eastern icons to mythic status that the Chinese themselves have never done.

I am even more bemused than embarrassed after having hung up my military uniform for ‘civvy’ corporate clothing at how badly abused Sun Tzu’s book is in the corporate world. In my workplace I grit my teeth at corporate high flyers who mistake a balance sheet for a real battlefield by quoting Sun Tzu out of their arse, and then as self-styled ‘corporate warriors’ work themselves up in a lather of testosterone induced self-importance to crush their corporate enemies into the dust.

This is why the The Art of War by Sun Tzu has invited a jaundiced eye roll. And rightly so. I can see why many view Sun Tzu as over-rated because many easily impressed people go all woo woo over anything ancient and Eastern.

It’s become a familiar trope to say the art of ‘strategy’ as a science began 2,500 years ago with the writing of The Art of War. I would dispute this. Not that the writing of Art of War was the earliest written but whether I would call it a manual of strategy per se - more on this below in my answer. However you rate or overrate the Art of War it’s important to have perspective and remember this book is written in 512 BC. Other than the bible and some religious books, there are not many books that can survived thousands of years and still remains a steady bestseller and enjoys a wide influence in military academies and army staff colleges today and even as far into board rooms.

The question behind your question is just as interesting to me: why did Sun Tzu and his Art of War gain such traction in the West?

Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) wrote the original text of The Art of War shortly before 510 BC. During most of the past two thousand years, the common people in China were forbidden to read Sun Tzu's text. However, the text was preserved by China's nobility for over 2,500 years. The Chinese nobility preserved the text of The Art of War, known in Chinese as Bing-fa, even despite the famous book-burning by the first Emperor of Chi around 200 BC. The text was treasured and passed down by the Empire’s various rulers. Unfortunately, it was preserved in a variety of forms. A "complete" Chinese language version of the text wasn't available until the 1970s. Before that, there were a number of conflicting, fragmentary versions in different parts of China, passed down through 125 generations of duplication.

Indeed at the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two main textual traditions in circulation, known as the (Complete Specialist Focus) and (Military Bible) versions. There were also perhaps a dozen minor versions and both derived and unrelated works also entitled Bing-fa. Of course, every group considered (and still considers) its version the only accurate one.

When I last visited China before the Covid pandemic for work reason, I had time off to go to a couple of museums that housed the fruits of a number of archeological digs uncovering the tombs of the ancient rulers of China in which sections of Sun Tzu’s works were found. These finds have verified the historical existence of the text and the historical accuracy of various sections. I understand new finds are still being made.

The first complete, consistent Chinese version was created in Taipei in the 1970s. It was titled The Complete Version of Sun Tzu’s Art of War." It was created by the National Defence Research Investigation Office, which was a branch of Taiwan's defence department. This version compared the main textual traditions to each other and to archeological finds and compiled the most complete version possible.

This work was completed in Taiwan rather than mainland China for a number of reasons. Mainland China was still in the throws of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, which actively suppressed the study of traditional works such as Sun Tzu. The mainland had also moved to a reformed character set, while Taiwan still used the traditional character set in which the text was written. Only today is the study of Sun Tzu in mainland China growing, interestingly enough, through the translation of Sun Tzu into contemporary Mandarin. Based on the archeological sources we have today, we are reasonably certain of the historical accuracy of this compiled version that is the basis of what most people use today.

Surprisingly, the Art of War only came to light in the West around the 18th Century.

Historians believe it was first formally introduced in Europe in 1772 by the French Jesuit Joseph-Marie Amiot. It was translated at the time by the title “The thirteen articles of Sun-Tse”. Joseph-Marie Amiot (1718-1793) was not just a Jesuit priest but also an astronomer and French historian, as well as fervent missionary in China. He was one of the last survivors of the Jesuit Mission in China (he died in Beijing).

Many of the historical problems with understanding Sun Tzu's work can be trace back to its first Western translation in French. A Jesuit missionary, Father Amiot, first brought The Art of War to the West, translating it into French in 1782. Unfortunately, this translation started the tradition of mistranslating Sun Tzu's work, starting with the title, The Art of War (Art de la guerre).

This title, copied the title of a popular work by Machiavelli (a criminally underrated writer on military strategy), but it didn't reflect Sun Tzu's Bing-fa, which would be better translated as "competitive methods."

We cannot say what effect being translated by a Jesuit priest had upon the text. It was unavoidable that the work's translation reflected the military prejudices of the time era when war was both popular and Christian. It was also unavoidable that most future translations would reflect some of the first translation's prejudices. However, war was on the verge of becoming much less Christian in the West since this time was the era of the French Revolution (1789).

The work might well of slipped into obscurity after its initial publication, but it was discovered by a minor French military officer. After studying it, this officer rose to the head of the revolutionary French army in a surprising series of victories. The legend is that Napoleon used the work as the key to his victories in conquering all of Europe. It is said that he carried the little work with him everywhere but kept its contents secret (which would be very much in keeping with Sun Tzu's theories).

However, Napoleon must have started believing his own reviews instead of sticking with his study of Sun Tzu. His defeat at Waterloo was clearly a case of fighting on a battleground that the enemy, Wellington, knew best. Wellington’s trick at Waterloo was hiding his forces by having them lie down in the slight hollows of this hilly land. This is exactly the type of tactic Sun Tzu warns against in his discussion of terrain tactics.

After Napolean, Sun Tzu's theories made their way into western military philosophy. Many of his ideas are reflected in the ideas of work of Carl von Clausewitz. who defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war."

The first English translation of The Art of War is less than a hundred years old. Captain E. F. Calthrop published the first English translation in 1905. Lionel Giles, an assistant curator at the British Museum and a well-known sinologist and translator, attacked this early translation, and he published his own version in 1910. It soon began to be read alongside Clausewitz’s 8 volumes of turgid German military prose.

It wasn’t long before military thinkers were ditching Clausewitz for Sun Tzu because no one could get past Chapter One of Clausewitz’s On War. The “Clausewitz is dead, long live Sun Tzu” school was first championed by the influential British military theorist B.H. Liddell Hart in the 1920s. Basil Henry Liddell Hart (1895-1970) was a captain in the British Army. He was a very influential military theorist and historian, and author of several books such as The Future of War (1925) and Strategy (1954). Having witnessed first-hand the mechanised onslaught of the Great War, Liddell Hart sought a philosophy of warfare based in the prudent use of technology, psychology and deception - and the avoidance of the 'total war' catastrophes of preceding decades.

The main idea of Liddell Hart is to bring the set of principles of warfare in a so-called ‘indirect approach’ to the enemy. His advocacy in his scholarly work of an ‘indirect strategy’ over direct, frontal operations, was a reaction to the high casualties of the Western Front in the First World War. But his ideas were not simply about physically outmanoeuvring an opponent. Instead he pushed for a psychological scheme: to strike from unexpected directions, to generate strategic dissonance, and to induce paralysis. Hart’s well-known thoughts are “Only short-sighted soldiers underestimate the importance of psychological factors in time of war”, “Originality is the most important from all military virtues”, and “The principles of war could shortly be condensed in a single word: concentration”.

Liddell Hart believed that distilling historical insights of strategy and operations would offer the chance to avoid the costly disasters of modern war and ensure a more cost-effective route to success. He imagined technological solutions in the form of air power and mechanised land forces outflanking and shocking an enemy at the tactical level. This would be complemented by taking indirect strategic ‘ways’. Like his contemporary J.F.C. Fuller, Liddell Hart considered concentrations of air and armoured forces driving deep into enemy territory to destroy their ‘nervous system’. The psychological aspects of this were central, since acquiring an advantage demanded moves that were unexpected, with precise attacks at the most vulnerable points. As the most influential military writer of the modern age, revered and reviled by three generations of strategists, armchair and armipotent, his controversial theories of armed attack laid the foundation of the famed German Blitzkrieg.

Hart’s championing of Sun Tzu’s work as articulated through his own works got a new lease of life as the world gingerly settled into the ice bath of the Cold War. The rise of Communist China, against all the odds having defeated the well disciplined nationalist armies of Chian kai-Shek, was a wake up call for the West. There was a general befuddlement among western military analysts to explain the secret of Maoist success. There was an intellectual inquest in the 1950s and 1960s for some way to explain (and, it was hoped, learn to counter) Maoist military doctrine. Sun Tzu was seen as one of the historical and cultural sources of some particularly Chinese or Asian way of war, and his work made its way into Western discussions of counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare.

Into the breach - and with fortuitous timing - appeared a new translation of The Art of War that was to become the defining translation right down to our day. Liddel Hart provided the foreword to Samuel Griffth’s 1963 translated copy of the Art of War. It was to quickly become a key text in US war colleges and this version is still to this day favoured by most of these institutions. We also studied Griffith’s translation at Sandhurst alongside Liddell Hart’s ideas.

There is no question that Griffith’s translation has become the standard go to translation to this day in military circles - that is until James Clavell’s more populist and looser translation came along in the 1980s. One can see why. Griffith’s translation provided a number of historical Chinese commentaries on the text. It should also be noted that Griffith’s strengths was his immense experience in the military and knowledge of military history as a brigadier general in the U.S. Marine Corps.

However, this was also his version's greatest flaw. Like many other critics I have the impression that Griffith did not really believe or understand all of Sun Tzu. Indeed he would often explain away Sun Tzu's direct statements without making it clear that this was his commentary and not what Sun Tzu wrote. The other main criticism and this one is stylistic and therefore just my opinion, Griffith was also not much of a writer. By our standards today, much of Griffith’s language can seem awkward and dated.

Looking back it feels ironic of the US military were wrapping their heads around Sun Tzu as way to get inside the Chinese communist mind (of Mao the military strategist especially). Unknown to them Mao had desperately tried everything to get hold of a copy of the Art of War from the Chinese Nationalists. Cambridge historian and doyenne of intelligence history, Christopher Andrew in his book The Secret World: A History of Intelligence, wrote that the theory that Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was critical to mastering contemporary warfare is propagated through the use of a tantalising anecdote: “During the civil war between Communists and the Kuomintang regime [Mao Zedong] sent aides into enemy territory to find a copy of it.” The ancient text, ostensibly, was of such vital importance that Mao was willing to risk men’s lives to obtain it, while Chiang Kai-shek vowed to protect it all costs. It’s a questionable anecdote at best as there are no historical evidence of it.

We can say that the notion that Sun Tzu’s slim treatise is considered both potent and slightly dangerous - providing the master key to unlocking victory in war through the ages - is a compelling myth that refuses to die. Mao most likely never ordered a clandestine operation to pilfer the text, nor did Chiang Kai-shek give any thought to shielding its contents from prying eyes. Both men certainly read it long before the start of their civil war, both most likely had ready access to it during the conflict, and neither man won or lost based on adherence or divergence from its teachings. But undoubtedly it set the hearts of Western military theorists aflutter in trying to unlock the secrets of Eastern military thought.

Sun Tzu and his ideas in a reincarnated form took hold of the wider public imagination in the 1980s. The 1980s was synonymous with Japan. With the perceived rise of Japan as a global economic power and the changes in post-Mao China, there was a Western (meaning American) search for more explanations. What was the secret of Asia’s rise? How were Japan and China ‘doing’ this?

In Western business circles it was for a time trendy to read it because of the perception that it was part of what made Japanese businesses so successful during the 70s and 80s. Management gurus and other corporate consultants certainly latched on to it and touted it as a way for Western businesses to re-orient their entire management and business philosophy. I don’t know if that ever actually was the case in Japan - my father who worked in both China and Japan in the corporate world at a very senior level said it wasn’t - but what is true is that in the West as the Japanese economy languished into the lost decade of the 90s so too did interest in Japanese business practices, and thus Sun Tzu.

The idea that The Art of War was a kind of how-to guide to ‘strategy’ was made especially popular by Hollywood in the 1980s. Oliver Stone’s iconic film ‘Wall Street’ seemed to typify the ‘greed is good’ New York capitalist scene of the 80s and 90s. Hollywood mirror imaged the rise of the corporate raiders and junk bond kings like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. Hollywood sent thousands of American businessmen off to read Sun Tzu to look for ‘leadership secrets’. This is part of a general Western fascination with ‘timeless Asian wisdom’, the American idea that ‘the mysterious East’ is possessed of secret knowledge. American and European businessmen were enamoured of the idea that “a battle is won or lost before it ever begins”, a saying that reinforced traditional American business attitudes about a winning mentality and a ‘can-do’ spirit being two keys to success.

Because Japan and China were trendy in the 1980s and 1990s it also influenced Western popular culture, not just fashion (think Kenzo) but also comic books (manga) and anime. In this Eastern friendly climate it led a number of popular fiction authors to release their ‘own’ versions of the work to capitalise on its newfound popularity. These versions were more about the pop culture of the era than Sun Tzu. Unfortunately, though popular, none of these versions took advantage of the work completed in Taiwan creating a definitive version of Sun Tzu's text by this time. These versions were based either on old English translations (the Calthorp and Giles versions) or incomplete Chinese sources. However, all of these versions remain popular today, despite their questionable sources and poor quality of translation.

In 1983, James Clavell updated The Art of War translation of Lionel Giles and published it in a very popular version. This started a very common practice in English translation: creating a ‘new’ version from other English translations instead of going back to the original source. Authors today continue to follow this practice, which only perpetuates and exaggerates the problems with early translations.

Thomas Cleary, another well-known author, did his own The Art of War translation with historical commentary in 1988. Again, his name recognition did much to increase awareness of Sun Tzu, even if his work did nothing to improve the general quality of the translation.

Looking back the whole Sun Tzu as a business model fetish in the 1980-90s was really pretty silly, rather like 80s shoulder pads. Of course, there are some similarities in leadership regardless of profession, but the basic goals and working environments of war and of business are so wildly different that applying Sun Tzu to business is superficial at best.

So to me the problem is not that Sun Tzu is ‘overrated’ per se, the problem is that every half baked author out there try to apply its principles to every problems that mankind have. The Art of War, as the title suggest, is not The Art of Managing your Business, the Art of Winning in Competition against your classmates, The Art of picking up Women, The Art of Living Life to the fullest. It is, and only is, The Art of War. It is ‘overrated’ only if you expect it to answer every problems in your life.

The Art of War is not the word of God. It is a war manual advocating common sense with pithy aphorisms - and a very good one.

It’s not that I think the Art of War is over-rated it’s that the more common problem is that many people vastly under-rate Sun Tzu. By misreading Sun Tzu thoughts and ideas, I believe many are in effect under-rating the problems which Sun Tzu is addressing, namely war, or the continuum of conflict resolution where divergence in interests of multiple parties extends to the possible use of lethal force on a massive scale. A lot of people trivialise this problem with idiocies like “what if someone threw a war and nobody came” (clue, they would win, then hunt down and enslave or kill everyone too foolish to contest the issue, as has happened countless times in human history) or “ban war” (said ban apparently enforced by throwing flowers at soldiers).

Understanding that war is a very real and intractable problem is necessary to fully appreciate the genius of Sun Tzu’s work, especially where it avoids fixed and easily definable tactics specific to the Warring States period and instead illustrates timeless concepts of out-thinking the enemy at every level of conflict. That the text is still mostly readily applicable or at least reasonably insightful after thousands of years is a testament to the inability of humans to push warfare beyond the fundamental aspects of conflicting interests and continuum of forcible resolution Sun Tzu addresses.

Still, the particular translation matters far less than having an appreciation that, in war, you have an active opponent who is trying to out-think and counter any moves you make, and having an appreciation of non-dualistic philosophical reasoning more characteristic of Chinese classics generally. The classic symbol of Yin-Yang (and a number of derivative versions) illustrates apparent dualism as being a part of a deeper structural unity which does not permit a fixed division into separate parts.

Hence the difficulty of applying the principles of the Art of War to artificial ideas of “winning/losing” (or war/peace, right/wrong, us/them) as categorical absolutes rather than negotiated possibilities in a continuum of desirability/costs. And it is very difficult, no one should sugar coat that. Humans sort and construct their perceptions of reality by appeal to such gross simplifications. Binary logic is an immensely powerful tool in many areas because it leverages the ability to simplify complexity and then build valid inferences based on fixed premises. But at some point you have to go beyond that to have a more fluid response to reality as it is. Which Sun Tzu does for the reality of war.

I would recommend anyone to read it. At the end of the day it’s a book of highly general aphorisms that effectively synopsise the essential insights that apply to all kinds of human conflicts. Turning an enemy's flank has the exact same effect in 2500 B.C. and in 2000 C.E. and it has the same effect in the boardroom, or public market as it does on the battlefield. Deception and intelligence are still used in exactly the same way, whether conquering foreign lands, or stealing market share from a competitor. It's a book about common sense; but common sense must seem profound to those who have none.

Overall, I think Sun Tzu’s Art of War is a worthy read and not overrated because in our society of over educated achievers, common sense is in as short of supply as it has ever been; if this book can provide the meaningful framework for educating very bright people in down to earth common sense, that can only be a good thing.

The value of the book then is to drive home the fact that, in human conflict, there really is Nothing New Under the Sun (Tzu).

Pardon the pun and thanks for your question.

#question #ask #sun tzu #military history #book #philosophy #china #culture #the art of war #war #military #warfare #strategy #society #literature #america #britain #japan

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subsystems · 3 years

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On the guy who “changed MPD to DID”

Recently I’ve begun to see things like this surfacing...

AND IT NEEDS TO STOP!!!

An article that was written in 2014 has been resurfacing lately in the plural community, especially among people without DID/OSDD. This is the article in question. In this article, the author is expressing some less than validating feelings about what he calls MPD. He didn’t believe in it. He seems to personally adhere to the unsubstantiated iatrogenic (it’s created by therapists) & sociocognitive (it’s a fad) models. He talks about how he wanted to remove MPD from the DSM-IV, but couldn’t do so.

Why is this such a big deal...?

Well, the guy who wrote this article is Allen J Frances, the man who chaired the DSM-IV taskforce. People have recently started spreading around these scary rumors that because he personally didn’t believe in MPD, he came up with “DID” to replace it.

This is NOT true.

Each edition of the DSM is run by a taskforce of many people. You can learn about how the taskforce for the DSM-IV worked here. Basically, the diagnoses were divided across different work groups who would receive input and data from researchers that specifically researched those disorders. They’d then analyze what might need changes, conduct field trials, and propose their suggestions, etc.

Frances just oversaw this process. He wasn’t a member of any of the work groups who were actually down in there coming up with & suggesting the changes. (Source: The DSM-IV pp.851-873 lists out everyone who contributed & what they did.) He wasn’t a researcher, either. He wasn’t giving any input or data.

He did not "coin” DID. The name change was recommended by researchers.

Look, I’m not a fan of Frances either. He doesn’t believe in the disability that I have. As the chair of the DSM-IV, he was strongly against ‘diagnostic inflation.’ His intention with the DSM-IV was to make sure that diagnostic criteria were as limited as possible so less people could get diagnosed. Because of this, many diagnoses ended up with minimal information and vague, limited criteria.

He's not on the taskforce anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. If he’s the chair of anything now that would be campaigning against the DSM-5. This guy actively condemns the most recent DSM because it undid a lot of the (frankly, harmful) changes. The DSM-5 lowered the threshold of many diagnoses, undoing the more restricted nature Frances pushed for.

That doesn’t mean that the DSM-5 is perfect; I certainly don’t think so. But it’s a lot better than the old manual, in my opinion.

Back to the whole “He coined DID!!!” thing...

So this whole thing that Allen Frances “coined DID” and “DID is his ableist replacement of MPD” is so fucking ridiculous. Don’t you guys think that if this were true, people would have been talking about it more? The earliest thing I could find mentioning something like this was this blog post from 2019.

I keep seeing threads practically repeating what is in this blog post. They keep bringing up that article I shared at the beginning of the post, but if you read through that article...he never mentions that he changed MPD to DID for some ulterior motive. He never even mentions changing MPD to DID at all. He just talks about his shitty opinions and whines about how he couldn’t delete MPD even if he wanted to. The best he could do to harm the diagnosis was injecting some controversy into the manual (which has been removed in the DSM-5).

Here’s that controversy. (The highlighted bits)

(^ Fuck that ableist shit. Why is everyone focusing on the disorder name and not THIS?)

I just have to wonder... If someone who was literally not a researcher coined DID and did so in order to harm people with it, over 20 years ago, WHY WOULD NO ONE WHO ACTUALLY RESEARCHES AND CARES ABOUT DID/OSDD TALK ABOUT THAT? Because there’s quite a lot of professionals who have talked about the controversy & restrictions he put into the manual! And, unsurprisingly, the name is not something that has come up! Nearly all professional sources I have found that talk about the change from MPD to DID says that it was done in order to make the disorder more understandable.

And do you guys wanna know some of the other disorders that were renamed in the DSM-IV? Literally all of the dissociative disorders (other than DPDR). They were all renamed to have “dissociation” in the name. To make them more understandable. Yeah.

DSM-III:

DSM-IV:

So, to all those people out there shitting on the DID diagnosis because they think that this asshole coined it...why are just shitting on DID when you should be shitting on ALL of the dissociative disorders that got name changes? Seriously, though. Saying that he coined DID is just straight up misinformation. My concern is that all this “DID is ableist” talk is going to end up getting dissociative people attacked or push them away from getting help. Reframe the hate lens!!! You can dislike Frances without spreading misinformation that can end up harming the people with the disability that he does not believe in.

That’s all I have to say on this.

- Sunflower

#long post #syscourse #ableism tw #invalidation tw #anti-DID tw

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mysticetus · 2 years

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if ur cool with it id like to know more abt ur thoughts on the walten files, ive never been a fan of it since it feels kinda lame

i tried watching it awhile ago to see why everyone was talking about it and its simply not my thing. it feels tonally dissonant and far too derivative of preexisting works to feel genuine. to put it bluntly it feels dead.

im not going to complain about its unpolished nature because i genuinely like works that allow themselves to be a little rough and i typically love when artists set out to create their own series like this independently. in the context of that i never expect it to look completely cohesive, and in some instances it can lend itself to whatever tone the series is going for. however in the case of the walten files it starts to get distracting, especially with the amateur nature of the voice acting and script writing. it makes it hard for me to take the series seriously.

the creator has a sort of ugly attitude as far as ive seen, in that the series’ success has made them act big headed. they give entire plot points and character summaries on twitter.com rather than integrate it into the series. they act condescendingly toward their critics and lean very hard into the fandom part of their audience. the fact it has a merch page just makes me feel a little yucky about the earnestness of the art. i understand artists need to make money (in fact i encourage buying from artists, and i am artists) but plushies and t shirts feel sort of evil to me, at least in the context of this kind of series.

and maybe thats another reason i feel yucky about it, because it feels so specifically engineered to generate a fandom culture around itself. it has all the tropes to the point it feels baity. this “retro” “analog” horror stuff has become very popular in recent years and im not going to say it inherently fails but its rarely effective when it’s overly reliant on the fact that it looks “old” to have any sort of character, and this results in it feeling very lifeless. this combined with the (forgive me for using this term) prominence of “sexyman” type characters that are glitchy cursed haunted robots or tall guys in suits who drink and murder children, and the dialogue trying and failing to be funny/snarky and really destroying the 70’s/80’s immersion by using modern slang and internet jokes, it just gets very grating. i dont know why but (embarrassingly) i actively start feeling pissed when i watch it.

i dunno. maybe some of my anger toward it is unwarranted, because in my head it’s the face of a lot of phenomena that i really hate on the internet. i was trying really really hard not to compare it to petscop because its rarely fair to compare works to that series, but in episode 3 it very clearly wants you to compare it to petscop. so im gonna compare it to petscop. sophie walten is paul leskowitz for women and also done embarrassingly poorly, because this series tried to create a paul type character while unaware of what makes paul work. the pills thing is kind of hilarious. it writes these things from a perspective devoid of empathy, imo.

it also very clearly takes after fnaf and specifically other fan works like squimpus’ fnaf vhs series, which i personally think does everything the walten files tries to do but better. and i sincerely think this is because its elements are included with specific purpose. the walten files feels like it includes things because it thinks it would be cool rather than because it would genuinely serve what the series is setting out to do, which is clearly some sort of arg-adjacent mystery. thats how i feel about a lot of “analog horror” stuff actually … it just would “look cool” and it’s relatively easy to pull off on a superficial level. this is rarely executed well, however, because the substance of the series itself has to also be designed around that era, otherwise the immersion falls apart.

those are my exhaustive and blunt feelings about it. but im just some guy. ultimately it doesnt much matter its just annoying and my only worry is how it sets a standard for this kind of art going forward.

id love to open this for discussion though like. i think its a very interesting case study and i like talking about it with others

#ask

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mediocrevideopodcast · 3 years

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Boundaries

Request: Hi!! I was wondering if i could get some headcanons for the boys with a s/o who like,,, is trying to stay no contact with an abusive/toxic parent,,, and thinking about going back to them? Just generally doubting whatever they went through/that they have a right to feel the way they do? Ive been struggling a lot and rly need some comfort :( but if its not something you’re comfy with or anything, thats cool too!!!

[A/N: To the person who requested this... I love you! You're doing great, and I hope you know that you are Loved. It's incredible that you were able to cut them out of your life: that takes a lot of courage and strength! I've been dealing with something similar on my end, so I certainly know how you feel. Much love, anon. You don't need them: don't let them drag you back in. You’re perfect without them: there’s no need to feel guilty over what THEY did. Muah!]

Pairing: Raphael/Reader (Established), Leonardo/Reader (Established), Donatello/Reader (Established), Michelangelo/Reader (Established) (ALL SEPARATE - NONPOLY)

Content Warnings: Mentions of abusive parents, although nothing is graphically described. Comfort headcanons, for the most part.

Word Count: 1546

Raphael

He notices that you aren’t feeling well super quickly. He’s a great listener, and he’ll let you vent for as long as you need; however, he’s not going to let you overthink the situation too much. If you’re really genuinely doubting how abusive they were to begin with, he’ll probably cut you off in the kindest way possible. It’s good to talk about your feelings, but you can’t let yourself drown in them, you know?

You did so, so good setting your boundaries last time! And he’s really proud of you for that. But unfortunately, toxic people will always try and weasel their way back in. You have to stay strong. He’ll be there for you every step of the way, too. They hurt you deeply, and you don’t need to apologize for their actions.

If they’re starting to harass you, he’ll offer to respond in your place if you don’t feel like you’re able to at the moment. There’s no shame in blocking their number or email, either.

He’ll offer to take you out somewhere to get your mind off of the situation for a little while. When he’s feeling stressed he likes to work out, but that might not be for everyone. But if you wanna kick the shit out of a punching bag… I’m just saying, it’s very stress relieving. He’s also down to get some pizza too. Anything to take your mind off of it!

Oxymoronic. If you had to describe how you feel right now, inside your body, that would be the perfect word to describe the sensation. You feel weightless, almost outside of your body; yet, that sinking pit in your stomach tethers you to the earth. You feel like you’re going to vomit, replaying the words from your parent’s most recent voicemail in your head. It’s been… a while, hasn’t it? You glance nervously as your phone, checking the time before switching it on. You stare at your lock screen for a moment, trying to find the courage to unlock it, before setting it down with a gentle thud against the hardwood table. You don’t know what to do anymore.

“Hey,” Raph whispers. You jump, startled by the sudden noise before forcing a smile.

“Are you okay?” he asks. You nod.

“Are you sure? It looks like something’s really bothering you.”

“Yeah,” you mutter, “I’m okay. Just life, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that,” he sits down next to you slowly, smiling gently, “But life is hard sometimes. Do you wanna talk about it?”

You smile gently, if not a little sadly, and shake your head a little. He always knows what to say. “Well, it’s just…” you pause, “I don’t know. It’s my parents again. They’re trying to get back in contact with me again, and I just… it’s hard. Like, what if they changed, you know? I thought I set my boundary really well, so if they’re trying to talk to me, it kind of makes me think that they changed. Or maybe I overreacted, or-”

“Honey, I love you, but I’m gonna have to stop you right there,” he interjects, “You were super clear that you didn’t want contact anymore the first time, so the fact that they’re still trying to weasel their way back in? It shows that they haven’t changed… at all. They’re abusive now, and they were back then too. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t have cut them off in the first place, right?”

You hum and lean into his side. He pulls you towards him gently, cocooning you in his strong arms. You close your eyes and sigh. “Yeah,” you whisper, “that makes sense. I just… I don’t know why they keep doing this, I hate it. I don’t wanna have to deal with this anymore. It’s like every few months they pull this. I don’t know why they just can’t let go.” You wrap your arms as far as you can around his middle, leaning into his embrace as deeply as you can.

“I know, hun. But you know what?”

“Hm?”

“The fact that you don’t understand why they do what they do… it just shows that you’ll never be like them. You’re strong, you’re sweet, and you’re kind. You don’t want to hurt others, and you’ll go to any lengths to help people,” He runs his hand along your back soothingly before trailing up your arm and squeezing it gently, “I wish that they weren’t doing this to you, because you deserve so, so much better than that. But I love you, okay? You’re gonna get through this.”

Leonardo

He’s super observant, and he picks up on your distress quickly. He’s a good listener, and he’ll let you talk for as long as you need. He’s more of the ‘get it all’ out type when it comes to venting. He’ll hold you close and let you cry, if that’s what you need.

Setting boundaries is hard, and he’s really happy that you managed to cut them off in the first place! Assessing your own needs and coming to terms with the abuse that they put you through is really important, and he’s really impressed that you were able to do that. But people never talk about what comes after: keeping those people out of your life. If you’re ever doubting your decision, he’ll be right by your side to back you up. Toxic people will try their best to manipulate you, and he’s not gonna stand by idly and let them guilt you into a relationship with them. They’re the only ones who can control their actions. You have a right to feel the way you do!

He’ll offer to respond to them via email or phone call, if you feel like you need to respond to them. He’ll also offer to beta read your emails if you need to restate your boundaries to them. Sometimes just reading them outloud helps you feel a little bit better, a little bit more secure in your choice.

He definitely ups the self-care and fun outings in your daily life. Dealing with abusive parents is so stressful, and honestly? The LEAST you could do for yourself is kick back with some ice cream.

Donatello

He notices that you’re a little off, but he can’t quite figure out why. Headache? Didn’t sleep well? He’s the most likely to wait for you to bring it up. He’ll ask if you’re feeling okay, but for the most part, the ball is in your court. If your distress persists for more than a day or two, though, he’s not above cornering you and asking what’s up.

He’s really ticked that they’re trying to get back into your life after you clearly cut them out. Like, seriously? You were so clear about it the first time, and this just goes to show that they haven’t changed at all. You’re in the right here: They don’t deserve you. He’ll 100% back you up regarding your experiences, and he’s not gonna let you feel guilty over what THEY put you through. He’s a great person to vent to, honestly. All feelings of doubt, that maybe things weren’t as bad as you thought, practically disappear when you talk to him. He’s so supportive of you and your recovery.

Look it might not be the smartest choice, but if you wanna let him email them or something, he totally will. You think he’d make some incredible, eloquent, heartfelt speech that tricks them out of ever trying to talk to you again but… he doesn’t do that. He’s not above snapping at them. But he just loves you a lot, and he really fucking hates all of the shit that your parent put you through. You’re such a good person, and you’ve done such an incredible job recovering! He just wants you to be happy.

It’s self care time. He takes more time out of the day to do little things for you. He knows that this isn’t an issue that can be solved in a day, so he just wants to do all that he can to make every day a little more bearable. If he can get you to smile, he’s succeeded.

Michelangelo

He’s observant, although not as much as Leo. Luckily, he’s not above just straight-up asking what’s bothering you. Communication is key, after all. He’s an awesome listener, and he’ll throw in his own comments here and there. Like yeah, no, babe they were really shitty to you, you totally have the right to feel the way that you do!

He’s really proud of you for setting your boundaries the first time! Cutting toxic people out of your life is really, really difficult. But unfortunately, manipulators will always try and come back into your life. That’s what they do, and it hurts so much, but that’s just… what they do. You don’t have to take that laying down though! Every time they try and push you to let them back in… you have to push them away twice as hard. Like, you’re so strong! And you deserve the absolute best things that this world has to offer.

Probably the only one who won’t offer to write to them for you. This is something that you have to do yourself, if you really want to be content with the situation. Although if they start harassing you, he’ll 100% call them/answer the phone to tell them to stop fucking calling.

Ever try making Uum Ali? He hasn’t! Let’s try it! He’s gonna go all out with fun activities and sweet self care ideas. Anything to see that smile again.

#rottmnt x reader #rottmnt imagine #tmnt imagine #TMNT x reader #rottmnt raphael x reader #rottmnt michelangelo x reader #rottmnt Donatello x reader #rottmnt leonardo x reader #tmnt leonardo x reader #tmnt michelangelo x reader #tmnt raphael x reader #tmnt donatello x reader

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plounce · 3 years

Photo

what if gay CATS........... were gay PERSONS

(info on this au under the cut)

theyre all shitty young adults just kind of. getting through their early 20s as best they can. or as much as they can. maybe things will get better someday, but right now they’re kind of spinning their wheels

magic exists but like eh it’s not a big thing don’t worry about it. it’s around but like whatever. not many people have it and it’s mostly just like. a curiosity or a party trick

demeter and bombularina are together, tugger and mistoffelees are together, bombularina and tugger occasionally fwb, it’s cool and aboveboard and it’s all fine

demeter:

bisexual with a preference for women. 24 years old

semi-psychic (not as powerful as tantomile or coricopat). tends to have vague and confusing prophetic dreams

dropped out of grad school for sociology due to trauma and ensuing intensified mental illness. kind of bitter about it, but tries to get through every day. general anxiety disorder even before all that

very nervous around most men she doesn’t know & trust

currently working at a barnes & noble starbucks, which sucks. she recently became the assistant manager, which turbo sucks because now she has more work for only like a buck raise, but at least she’s getting reliable shifts

her go-to therapy is cutting her hair with scissors. her hair is fried to all hell from regular bleaching

she’s learning how to crochet because she’s decided she needs to do something physically productively creative with her hands to distract herself from Stuff

bombalurina:

bisexual. 24 years old

got her bachelor’s in english two years ago and hasn’t found a job in her field and has kind of given up on it for now

she’s been bartending for like four years, does freelance editing work on the side. will occasionally write listicles for clickbait sites if she needs extra cash

literally any extra money she can save goes to tattoos. her right sleeve’s almost done

has natural red hair but dyes it cherry red

a hedonist to cope but is also just a natural hedonist. likes a good bath

i know that like the typical thing fandoms say about female characters is “doesn’t take shit” for the girlboss points but she truly does not take shit anymore. she used to take people’s shit sometimes but at this point in her life she’s tired and she has a girlfriend to be protective of. she has a couple people whose shit she will take (mostly just tugger) but besides them (and having to practice basic customer service to keep her job) she’s tired of other people’s shit! enough!

my personal take on bombalurina is a mix between the riot grrrls of the 90s and 80s punk girls, and then a dash of the greaser chicks from grease. i saw that spiked collar and my brain went OH okay i can run with this somewhere fun. same for demeter, but less so - she just has the piercings.

demelurina:

bombalurina met demeter in college at a women’s activism club, noticed her because of her dimple piercings and was like “oh someone else with a lot of metal in her face, i’ll sit next to her”

they were each other’s first off-campus roommates and were close friends. made out a couple times, but it was mostly a lot of sexual tension. there was a lot of bombalurina staring at demeter while she or demeter made out with someone else

demeter was on and off with her high school boyfriend munkustrap and bombalurina was like “oh he’s so much more stable/calm than me and she needs that, i party a bit too much for her, i shouldn’t try anything” so she just sort of. lets their almost-there peter off

(this is all bombalurina’s internal thoughts - demeter always was interested in her, but thought she was too boring for bombalurina. so neither of them thought they could pursue it)

bombalurina graduated and moved somewhere cheaper further away from campus. they kind of drift apart

munkustrap and demeter peter off and he moves away for a job (they’re still good friends, it was a very amicable breakup) and then demeter gets with macavity, which is a deeply toxic situation for her and sucks hugely and throws her whole life really off track. won’t go into further details

she finally manages to break up with him and calls bombalurina at like 2 am asking if she can pick her up, and also if she can sleep on her couch, it’s okay if that’s not okay, she just. really needs a place she feels safe, and her gut is telling her to. and of course bombalurina says yes

bombalurina also knew macavity and had also made out a couple times with him at like parties and stuff (see: staring at demeter as she makes out with people). something about transference of feelings - bombalurina was into him for a couple moments because he and demeter had a thing.

this is due to me interpreting the song “macavity” as actually about bombalurina wanting to fuck demeter and her singing as a half-repressed expression of that. i use my really good wlw brain to reach that conclusion. it’s kind of a non-competitive version of eve sedgwick’s take on the love triangle. (<-- normal thing to say)

but anyway demeter stays on bombalurina’s couch and she tries so hard to stay on track but eventually she just has to drop out. bombalurina helps her with that too. she’s just really supportive even as demeter’s life is at its lowest point. when she gets home from bartending she gets demeter to go to sleep

she just Stays with her and makes her smile and reminds her that her life isn’t over, there’s still things in her day to enjoy, to keep her trudging forward

bombalurina is roommates with tugger at this point - he also recently dropped out and demeter knows him because he’s munkustrap’s brother, so he’s Trusted and also is like “hey it’s okay that you dropped out, im here and im chilling and you like me and respect me at least a little, and you have a bachelor’s degree at least!” (more on him later)

demeter is like “oh god ive been crashing at their place for so long not paying rent, theyre gonna ask me to leave, im such a freeloader, they wont take my attempts at paying rent” but then bombalurina and tugger are like “hey! the lease is almost up! we found a pretty good 3 bedroom, do you wanna have your own room for real?” and she nearly cries because 1. the RELIEF 2. oh my god you want me around???

cut to bombalurina helping demeter put together an ikea dresser (tugger got banished to the kitchen to make crystal light lemonade for them because he’s useless with a screwdriver) and demeter has two epiphanies:

1. i thought i was ready to d*e four months ago and here i am making a dresser to put clothes into in my new apartment where i live and feel safe and loved. im still not happy but im still alive and im making a dresser

2. holy fuck im back in love with my best friend, and ten times more than i was back then.

so she like kind of freaks out because she’s already imposed so much on bombalurina, how could she impose her FEELINGS on her like this, oh no oh no oh no

meanwhile bombalurina’s back in love with her even MORE and she’s also like no... she’s already dealing with so much... i don’t want to make her uncomfortable or feel unsafe in her own home especially after her recent relationship trauma... i just want her to feel safe around me...

you might think tugger as their roommate would be like “JUST KISS” but he is in fact pretty oblivious because he is self-absorbed. mistoffelees on the other hand..

eventually they do have a big confession of feelings after demeter has a bad day and it’s very dramatic and they make out in the rain. and it’s like. well this is a movie scene. but also im cold and damp. let’s head inside our home and get warm and dry :)

and then they go inside and and talk through everything, all their feelings (not just their romantic feelings but like ALL their feelings) and their shared histories and bombalurina is like “do you think you’re... ready for a relationship right now? like that would be a good thing for you?”

and demeter considers it. she does stop and think. and then she says, “with anyone else... probably not. but it’s you. and i feel so safe around you, and we’re already so close. you make the future feel more worth it. you make more days alive feel not just tolerable, but something to look forward to. and knowing you’ve loved me all this time... it’s nice. it’s good. i’m - i’m understating it so much, it’s more than nice, it’s just - it’s a lot. i wish i had noticed back then.” “hey, hey, don’t blame yourself. i’m the one who never said anything.”

anyway. everything works out, and they start dating for real :)

tugger:

bisexual. 22 years old

dishwasher at the same bar bombalurina works at. she got him the job. he keeps bugging her to teach him bartending tricks and on slow nights she will agree to

he dropped out of their four year, but he managed to secure an associate’s in communications before he dipped

trying to be an ig influencer hotboy and hopefully get modeling jobs from that but his phone’s camera sucks shit so his account isn’t really going anywhere. but he continues to post his low resolution shirtless selfies

trying to cope with being the failure son who does not have a fancy nonprofit job with a salary and healthcare by being self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing

it works about 60% of the time and 60% of the times that it doesn’t he’s able to hide it

he dropped out right around when bombalurina graduated and he was like HEY! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A ROOMMATE WHO DOESN’T CARE IF WE LIVE TEN MILES AWAY FROM CAMPUS? WELL HAVE I GOT A SOLUTION FOR YOU: ME!

to which bombalurina (who has fooled around with him here and there and thinks he is funny little man and genuinely goodhearted, and also he has rockin abs as a plus) says munkustrap already asked me if i need a roommate and if i do to consider you, because you don’t want to move back home. in other words: yes, you little idiot

they do fool around with each other but they are both very understanding that it is strictly platonic and for fun, especially once they become roommates. they both do not desire each other for anything serious

he did have a bit of a crush on each other when they met (hot punk older girl who’s friends with his brother) but 1. it dissipated pretty quick after they fooled around for the first time because it was not a very serious crush 2. she was in the middle of being in love with demeter so she was focused on that, emotionally

he got his ears pierced a couple times in high school but bombalurina inspired him to get a couple more. she went with him when he got his nose pierced

demeter has always understood that him and bombalurina are strictly fwb, has never been an issue.

she and him like to bleach their hair together when their hair schedules line up (he bleaches his way less often then she does), but she refuses to use his fancy conditioner that keeps his hair unfried because it’s expensive, even though he tells her to go ahead and use it, please, the health of her hair is giving HIM anxiety, demeter please. please demeter

mistoffelees:

gay. 20 years old

has magic. it’s pretty good magic but again: magic is not a big deal in this concept

a bit spooky. skulks around. a bit of a bitch but also very very nice. chooses when to speak

he has postings on craigslist and fiverr about finding lost objects and people with magic. like a gig economy private detective

side job is a waiter at a fancy restaurant

sometimes he gets paid VERY well from the private detecting, depending on the client. he does ask his psychic friends (tantomile & coricopat) to give a quick glance over on some of the more suspicious clients just to make sure he isn’t finding someone who should not be found by that person.

doesn’t go to college. is roommates with his sister victoria, who’s a freshman and studying dance. moved into town with her so she wouldn’t have to live in the dorms by having a guaranteed roommate.

tuggoffelees:

the general vibe i want for these two is mistoffelees walking around town or driving around in his shitty toyota camry while tugger tags along because he’s bored and thinks this is cool as shit

the general tone of the au is “magic isn’t a big deal” except for tugger, who thinks mistoffelees’ magic and his magic freelancing is the coolest shit ever. this is mostly because he just likes mistoffelees. “there are people who can do cooler shit than me, tug” “yeah but i don’t KNOW them also theyre not as COOL as you” “you had to explain to me how instagram reels work”

idk how they met i just think tugger shows up at his and bombalurina’s apartment one day (this is when demeter has moved in but they havent moved to the 3br yet) with this dude to dash in and pick something up and bombalurina is like “uh. who’s this” “oh this is mistoffelees he’s SO GOOD AT MAGIC” [mistoffelees nods hello] “okay bye bombalurina see you at work!!!” “uh. later”

after that he just shows up a lot. sort of ambiguous if theyre dating or what for a while before bombalurina straight up asks like “hey does the dude you’re dating know we fool around” “the dude im - what?” “... the little magic guy who keeps using our hot cocoa mix. misty.” “oh. uh. we aren’t dating.” “... do you want to? because you’re kind of all over him constantly” “um. well! haha, if i wanted to, i could! haha!” “yeah get back to me on that”

tugger trying to use his ig clout to get mistoffelees more work even though 1. he has no clout 2. mistoffelees has a very stable client base. but mistoffelees appreciates the effort. the self-promo guy promoing someone other than himself... the highest expression of love...

mistoffelees is A Nonthreatening Man plus he’s pretty obviously gay so demeter is chill around him pretty quickly. when mistoffelees is over they’ll sit on the couch where demeter sleeps and watch documentaries quietly while she crochets

they both occasionally say spooky shit at the same time because magic stuff. bombalurina and tugger are both torn between “that was cool as fuck” and “god that’s unnerving”

just a lot of tugger following mistoffelees around on his jobs and mistoffelees letting him because he’s fond of him and them occasionally getting into minor peril and interesting shenanigans, but it is 90% fetch quests

i think the first time they met tugger was taking selfies in front of a hydrangea in a public park and he saw mistoffelees walk up with a shovel and start digging in one of the flower beds and he thought he was hot so he went over and offered to take over on the shoveling to look strong and masculine and he ended up digging up a skull, which mistoffelees picked up and said “thanks” and then walked away

mildly terrifying but also very interesting and tugger’s days are kind of boring and dishwashing kind of sucks as a job to do like every night and he is a person who thrives on novelty so. moth to a porchlight

i think they do start making out for fun here and there and then a while later theyre out on one of mistoffelees’ jobs and someone asks “who’s the guy with you” and mistoffelees replies “oh that’s my boyfriend, don’t worry about him” and then it’s like. “HUH? I’M YOUR BOYFRIEND?” “uh. yeah? i assumed. is that okay?” “i mean yeah of course i think you’re great! how long have we–” “oh like a while.” “oh. uh. cool!!”

they just hang out a lot. mistoffelees enjoys teasing him and enjoys his warmth and bombasticity and tugger likes watching and helping him solve little mysteries around the county because it’s always something new. they’re kind of a comedy duo. they just enjoy spending their time together and following mistoffelee’s internal magic gps to find lost dogs and lost necklaces

yeah right now this au is just vibes and just sort of. continuing forward with your days and your weeks and your months. just young adults hanging out

#cats the musical #mr mistoffelees #rum tum tugger #demeter cats #bombalurina #tuggoffelees #demelurina #chirps #bird in the hand

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silvermoonflowers · 3 years

Text

Moonflower Act V

Priestess!Reader x Demon!Bucky

Summary: A morning conversation stirs up doubt.

Warnings: Angst

Act IV

James continued to visit you. But that was only if your family was not at home. And that wasn’t so easy considering there would be at least one member of your family who would stay home with you. Those days when you couldn’t see James, you would sit glumly in your room, staring out the window, wondering if he was alright.

“James,” You said on one sunny afternoon. You and James were in the parlor, sitting on an armrest together. Much to your embarrassment, James was once again wearing tight dark clothing, but this time without his torso exposed. Since you were sitting so close to him, you would occasionally feel his muscles brush against you. As if to rile you even further, whenever that happened, James would purposely give you a teasing smirk. You tried to ignore his constant teasing by looking at the sparkling moonflower ring instead. “What is the name of the inn that you reside at?”

“Fontaine Inn. Such a nice place.”

You perked up immediately. Fontaine Inn? That was the most famous inn in all of Larissa and like James had said, was quite close to the residence. A bubble of excitement began to rise within you.

“Well then, how about I visit you over there instead? I think it’s better that way since I’m not sure when my family would stay or go out.” But your excitement faded away when James quickly shook his head.

“I appreciate that Priestess, but it’s better not to get anyone’s attention over there. There has been more demonic activity recently and I don't want you to get in harm’s way or raise suspicion from humans,” He said.

You frowned. “Okay...how about we meet at a secret place instead - “

Before you could finish, James held up a hand. “That wouldn’t work either. For we all know, that secret place that you want to go to could be occupied by demons. And if people saw you frequently at that place, they would see it as a suspicious act even though you are the Priestess. I know you’re already stressed out with your duties, so I don’t want to put you in that situation.”

Well, James did have a point. However you weren’t done arguing yet.

“But I can wear a cloak to hide my identity as the Priestess! I don’t think anybody would care if I go out like that.”

A cold finger was gently pressed to your lips. “No. It’s better this way. Please?”

As he withdrew his hand from your lips, you stared at him. He gave you a small sheepish grin, but you didn’t return it. You didn’t know why, but something in the back of your mind was telling you that there was more than what James had told you. But you weren’t sure. And you weren’t ready to confront him about it...yet.

With a huff, you reluctantly nodded and instead laid your head on his shoulder. James, in turn, wrapped his arm around you and kissed your cheek. One of his hands began to gently thread through your hair. You couldn’t help but give out a little moan at the sensation.

“My sweet Priestess,” He whispered as you closed your eyes in relaxation.

~*~*~

The scent of freshly baked bread woke you up. You winced when you tried to move around. Last evening was just extremely tiring for you and your family. It was supposed to be a pleasant walk. But then so many demons suddenly appeared and tried to ambush you. The ones who were much bigger than the average demon gave you a much harder time to defeat. They were able to withstand so many hits from you and your family that you nearly had to retreat. In the end however, with a combination of yours and Nicole’s spiritual power and the help of a certain demon (who was hiding in the darkness), you and your family were able to wipe them all out.

But because you and Nicole used up so much spiritual power, the two of you were very exhausted. Nicole had passed out in Steve’s arms while you leaned onto Sam.

“Let’s go home,” Steve said quietly as he brushed a strand of hair out of Nicole’s face before gently lifting her up.

“Yeah, let’s,” Sam said in agreement as you quietly thanked him before gathering your strength again. “Hopefully there’ll be no more demons tonight.”

While your family walked on ahead, you stayed behind for a bit. When your family was a foot away, you looked back. Standing in between two trees was a familiar tall shadow with blue eyes staring at you kindly.

“Thank you,” you whispered.

You could’ve sworn you heard him say “Your welcome” as you walked away.

Oh James…

The blankets were thrown back as you finally got up, though your limbs were screaming from the effort. Perhaps some ointment and stretching will ease the pain. Last night’s fight also made you hungry, evidenced when your tummy grumbled as you inhaled the wonderful bread scent. It seems like Wanda made her delicious bread again.

You ran a hand through your hair as you stepped into the corridor. Voices could be heard from downstairs, presumably in the kitchen, but you were too tired to hear what your family was talking about. All you wanted was some bread and maybe some spread to go along with it...

“Is it me or is the Priestess being distant to us recently?” Pietro had asked.

You froze.

“Well, it could be because of her stressful duties,” Clint said as he took a bite of bread. “Dealing with so many monstrous demons can do that to you, you know.”

Biting your lip, you stayed hidden in the darkness of the corridor and tuned into the conversation.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Wanda added. “Nicole, has your sister told you anything as of lately?”

“Not really,” Nicole replied. “She just checks up on me occasionally. I assume it’s because of her duties and Mother trying to set her and I up in arranged marriages.”

There were collective groans and you had to stifle a giggle. “Oh man, your Mother is still onto that?” Sam shook his head in disbelief while Nicole sighed.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t like it, at all. But it’s tradition, of course. I’m thinking of speaking to Mother about it though.”

“...That could be it. However I think there is more to that.” Your eyes widened. That was Steve. “Do you guys remember that night when a demon somehow infiltrated our residence?”

Oh Steve. His big brother instincts really were so irritating at times.

“Yeah, I do,” Clint replied. “...Come to think of it, the Priestess never told us what happened on that night. Where did she even get the moonflower?”

“That’s what I keep asking her,” Steve said, his voice taking on a serious tone. “But every time I ask her, she either hesitates or tries to change the subject. Which makes me think the moonflower came from that demon after all. I just hope that that demon didn’t do anything to her.”

“Oh...this isn’t good. He could’ve tainted that flower with demonic energy,” Natasha muttered. “Nicole, are you okay? You don’t feel different do you?”

“I feel fine, Natasha,” Nicole said. “I also feel like my spiritual power was rejuvenated.”

You could hear the relief in Steve’s voice as he responded, “Oh thank goodness you’re alright, Nicole.”

“But still...for all we know that demon probably did it just so he can get close to the Priestess before he kills her. Wanda, do you think you can set up a strong barrier around the residence for tonight?”

“Of course,” Wanda replied. “Anything to protect our family and if that demon tries to come in, I’ll kill him.”

Your heart sank.

“It’s settled then.”

“Wait, there’s something else that I need to tell you guys,” Natasha said, her voice becoming serious just as Steve’s. “I also discovered something.”

There was silence before Steve spoke up, “Go ahead?”

“I saw the Priestess in the parlor one time. I tried to ask her if she wanted some tea. But it didn’t seem like she heard me. I assumed there was something on her mind. But when I came closer to her, I saw that she was holding a ring...”

Aughhhh Natasha?! Really??!!

You wanted to disappear into the darkness of your room and never come out. You had tried your best to hide the ring from your family, and yet in the end, it was discovered. Were you really so lost in your thoughts about James that Natasha just happened to see you with the ring on that day?

“Well, she could’ve just bought the ring,” Pietro had said. “After all we do go to those markets often - “

“No,” Natasha interrupted. “From what I could see, that ring is really expensive. There’s no way she could afford that. I want to believe that it came from someone within the royal family or someone from a noble family…and yet my instincts tell me that it came from the demon...”

More silence.

“I...I, oh gosh…” You had never heard Steve sound that nervous before. Even when facing the scariest of demons, he managed to stay calm. “First the moonflower, then the ring? You don’t think that demon bargained with her, do you???”

“Guys, guys,” Sam said hurriedly. “Why don’t we go outside, maybe talk a little walk so we can cool off? We’re all stressed out from last night and this certainly is a lot to take in. For now, it doesn’t seem like the Priestess is in any danger. But we’ll find out the truth later, okay?”

“Good idea. Some fresh air would be nice.” You pressed yourself further in the darkness as everyone got up and gathered at the front door.

“Nicole, wait, please.”

“Hmm, yes, Steve?”

Hoping that no one notices you, you peeked out from behind the corner. Nicole and Steve were the only ones at the entrance now. Steve’s cheeks seemed to glow as he looked at Nicole with fondness.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Nicole?” Steve said softly as he gently laid his hand on her shoulder. “I just want to make sure…”

Nicole smiled up at him as she took his hand into her own. “Of course, I’m fine, Steve. My sister definitely wouldn’t give me something that is dangerous. Please don’t doubt her. And even if she did have a secret, maybe she did it to protect us. Sometimes there are things that we aren’t ready to tell. But I will talk to her after our walk.”

“I know...I’m just worried about you and her since we live in a dangerous time...but I’m so glad that you’re alright.”

Steve ruffled Nicole’s wavy hair and she let out a laugh. Your heart swelled at the touching moment between them. “Hey, don’t mess up my hair! Now I have to mess up yours!”

“Not if you catch me first ~ !” Steve stuck out his tongue teasingly at her before racing outside. The door closed as Nicole quickly followed suit. You stared out at that same spot for a few more minutes before letting out a frustrated sigh. Then you put your hands over your face.

All of a sudden, you weren’t hungry anymore. The soreness in your limbs had seemingly faded away. Even the cute scene that you had witnessed just a few minutes wasn’t enough to erase the troubled thoughts building up inside of your mind.

You knew that someday your family was going to discover your secret. Trying to keep it to yourself wasn’t so easy with your duties and all. And all that delaying wasn’t going to last forever either. But how were they going to react when you tell them the truth? Whatever the outcome was, you knew it wouldn’t turn out so well.

“Priestess, are you alright?”

Oh no.

“J-James…” Your hands slid down your face in horror. “W-why are you...?”

He was dressed handsomely again. However, his long dark hair was rather wild, as if he forgot to comb it. If it weren’t for the situation you were in, you would’ve laughed at how silly James looked with all that messy hair.

“I’ve...felt your distress from Fontaine Inn. I couldn’t help it. I just wanted to see if you’re alright…” There was a sympathetic expression on his face as he approached you.

Pushing aside all doubts, you let out a sob and threw yourself into James’ arms. Tears stained James’ shirt, but it didn’t bother him as he whispered comforting words to you. One of his hands began stroking your hair while the other hand wrapped your waist. You didn’t care that his hands were cold, because these were the same hands that soothed you when times seem tough.

“Oh James...I think my family is finally finding out what’s going on between us…what do we do?”

James didn’t respond at first. In fact, his hand had stopped moving after you said all that. All you could hear was the sound of his heartbeat. When you looked up, you saw that James’ expression was a mixture of worry and terror.

“Oh my dear Priestess,” James murmured after a while. He leaned forward and kissed your tears away. Oh, his lips felt so nice. “I’m so sorry for letting this happen. I only wanted to help. I would never do anything harm to you and your family. However...I think the only way to fix this is to...perhaps run away with me?”

“What!”

You couldn’t believe what he had just said. Run away? To where? And in a world filled with demons and vengeful spirits that would never stop haunting their targets? You tried to see if James was joking in his mischievous way, but he was looking at you very seriously.

“James...you can’t be real! That means I have to abandon my family, my kingdom, and my duties! I can’t do that! That wouldn’t be…!”

“Fair.” James’ blue eyes softened. He gently pushed your head to his chest. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just being selfish. I really like you, you know?”

Fair. Now that you thought about it, you realized that what you had said to James in return wouldn’t be fair to him either. You didn’t want to leave everyone and your duties behind, but you didn’t want James to be gone from your life either. Just why was life so complicated?!

You sniffled. “I know. I like you just as much. You’ve done so much for my family and I. You should come here and live with us. You’ve done so much for us. It’s the least I can do...”

“I would love to live with you and your family.” James led you to the parlor and set you down on an armrest. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around you. You muttered a “Thank you” to him as he sat beside you and laid his head on your shoulder.

“I actually feel like I’m the selfish one,” You said as you brushed James’ long locks. But you said it in such a hushed voice that you presumed James didn’t hear you. However, he looked at you and his widened eyes told you otherwise.

“Why do you say that, my dear?”

“Because I’ve been keeping quiet about the moonflower and about you as I know they’re going to get upset with me!” You were this close to pulling your hair out.

“I don’t think you’re being selfish.” As if he knew what you were going to do, James slid his hand over to yours. His cool thumb rubbed circles over your soft skin, which sent tingles down your spine. “Things are already tough for you. I...made it even worse for you…I apologize.”

“Oh James, don’t say that. It’s not your fault!”

“It is…” James murmured. “But if you do not want to run away with me, then the only other option...is to tell them the truth.”

You lowered your head in defeat. Right. That was the only other option and one you had been avoiding so much.

“Do not worry, my dear.” James soothed you as he pressed a kiss to your cheek. “I am right here with you. I will even give them my explanation. It’ll be alright.”

Will it???

You have learned in the past that things never turned out to be alright in the end. Life was wonderful and yet at the same time, it was painful. It seemed like an endless cycle. You would’ve preferred where life didn’t have so much suffering, where everything could be so easy. Would a wish like that be granted?

“Priestess! Get away from him!”

Your blood ran cold while James flinched. Your family was back already?! How did you not even notice?!

But...this was it. The inevitable had come. Yet, you couldn’t face them first. But slowly, oh so slowly, you looked up. Your family was standing at the entrance of the parlor. Their weapons were drawn while they all fiercely glared at James. Before you or James could protect protest, Wanda stepped forward, her hands clenched and her eyes starting to glow red. “No need to hide your presence from me, demon.”

#demon!bucky x reader #bucky x fem reader #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x fem reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #writings

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tsundere-mitsuhide · 3 years

Text

Hogwarts Students HCs

Also posted on AO3. I once had this planned as an AU, but I recently realized the worldbuilding works a lot better as headcanons. Ive sat on these for a long, long time because of the discourse with She Who Shall Not Be Named. I do not mean to bring up painful memories for anyone, I just wanted to have some fun in a world Ive enjoyed over the years.

Nobunaga - Ravenclaw

Nobunaga is always interested in learning of technology, information, and ways of life beyond the island of Japan. He wants to know as much as he can from the Potuguese traders. While Nobunaga could also be a Slytherin for his desire to dominate Japan, in a world where magic exists and he is not fighting the wars of the Sengoku, I think he would be more interested in learning than in fighting. Therefore, I have put him in Ravenclaw.

Hideyoshi - Gryffindor

Gryffindor is a simple choice for Hideyoshi. Always upright, just, loyal, and self-sacrificing, he is a classic fit. And he’s the most likely to have a grudge against Slytherin's methods.

Masamune - Gryffindor

I put Masamune in Gryffindor because of his headstrong, charge-first-ask-questions-later attitude. I think it's a very Gryffindor trait. Out of the warlords in Gryffindor, I think he’d be the most likely to have a bunch of Slytherin friends; he doesn’t judge on house but on ability, and Slytherin are certainly a capable lot. He often ends up the victim of Hideyoshi’s chastisement over his choice of friends.

Ieyasu - Slytherin

Ieyasu’s motivations in his own route focus on power. He has been powerless in the past, as a hostage of the Imagawa. And he never wants to be in that place again. He wants to prove his ability, and be stronger than those who have oppressed him; never again to be the victim. For this reason, I think he’s a Slytherin, as opposed to a Hufflepuff. Who's to say you have to be a Hufflepuff to like plants and healing?

Mitsunari - Ravenclaw

This one was easy, as we all know Mitsunari’s propensity to get lost in a sea of books. I like to think that he reads so often that he entirely forgets to attend class. The professors have tried to have him reprimanded for this but as he always knows so much more than the other students, Mitsunari manages to get away with his behavior.

Mitsuhide - Slytherin

Sneaky. Slippery. Secretive. These are all things that describe Mitsuhide and Slytherins. He respects the order of Slytherins, but also fights it. He occupies the darkness, the space behind everyone’s backs, never admitting what he is really up to. He embraces this dismal role to protect those outside of its clutches, much like other well-known Slytherins have done--or more appropriately, have been forced to choose. I think Mitsuhide would be mighty good at potions, as well as a skilled duelist.

Kenshin - Gryffindor

Kenshin is noble, honorable, and will stand by what he believes is right regardless of what other people try to convince him to do. Both Slytherin and Gryffindor like a good fight, but because of Kenshin’s upstanding values in a fair fight, he wouldn’t play dirty the way a Slytherin would. Thus I think he’d be one of the few Gryffindor’s who actually followed the rules, haha.

Shingen - Gryffindor / Ravenclaw

Shingen… this one is one of the hardest to pin down for me. I think he has traits of a Gryffindor in the loyalty to his land and to his people. But also traits of Ravenclaw in his tangled web of information which he manipulates like a well-trained puppetmaster. I guess that gives him a little bit of Slytherin aspects too. Though I don't think Slytherin would be a good fit for him though, as he desires power not for himself but for the people. Therefore I’m going to say he leans a bit more Gryffindor than Ravenclaw, but he could really be either.

Yukimura - Gryffindor

I imagine Yukimura is the Quidditch captain of Gryffindor. He already wears red, so its not that much of a change for him. He’s active and sporty, but yet respects the rules and the right thing to do. Most of the time. We won't talk about that one time out in the woods, he’s not proud of it either. Overall, like Hideyoshi, I think Yukimura is a pretty classic Gryffindor.

Sasuke -Ravenclaw

How could our astrophysicist ninja be anything but a Ravenclaw? The amount of learning, innovation, creativity, and tenacity it takes to track wormholes without the equipment and technology of the modern day is astounding. Let alone the sheer amount of math.

Kennyo - Hufflepuff

Kennyo is a big, softie and you can't change my mind. He loves all the things Hufflepuff stands for: hard work, nature, animals, kindness, etc. Kennyo won't hurt a fly if given a chance, and nor would a proper Hufflepuff. He embraces the common man, and rejects the racism of Slytherin, the elitism of Ravenclaw, as well as the arrogance of Gryffindor. Kennyo is the epitome of a Hufflepuff.

Ranmaru - Hufflepuff / Slytherin

Ranmaru is a strange one to place because he is a ninja of many secrets, loyal to opposing sides and stuck in the middle. I think he wants to be free of the tight-rope he walks daily, and if he is, he would likely embrace the philosophy of Hufflepuff in order to keep other people from being stuck in the same painful position he had been in. I also think he would make a damn good Slytherin.

Yoshimoto - Ravenclaw

Yoshimoto is interesting because his love of the aesthetic and art would seem to place him in Ravenclaw. And yet his desire to do nothing, to live out the remainder of his days in quiet obsolescence, can also be very Hufflepuff. They’ve cornered the market on cottage-core, after all. He desires to be left alone to admire the things he finds beautiful. I picture him kinda like the curator of a small, private museum. Ths collection of things are the beauties that give his life meaning, and it doesn’t matter if it's just a strange mushroom. He doesn't want to be bothered by anything else. He’s a rather eccentric Ravenclaw, who can be found admiring unnoticed artifacts in the castle instead of attending class. He’d get more detentions, but too many people are so entranced by his own beauty that they forget what they were upset with him about. He’s quite proud of how proficient he is with that charm.

Motonari - Slytherin

Motonari was almost a Gryffindor for his utter disregard for the rules. But I think his “watch the world burn” mentality fits into Slytherin more. Slytherin likes order to Motonari’s chaos, but I think it's the place that is most conducive to his out-for-no-one-but-myself attitude. I imagine that he’d be on good terms with the Bloody Baron, and there are stories after he graduates akin to the horror stories told at teenage sleepovers created about Motonari’s school years.

#taz writes #ikesen headcanons #my writing

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the-kipsabian · 3 years

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wrestling asks: 1, 2, 5, 13, 14, 16, 19, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 37, 39 ~

1. favorite current male wrestler im trying to think who ive been flipping my shit over the most recently, but yeah i think we have to go with trent. youve heard me literally cry over him the past few days and while yeah theres a lot of names up there with him, currently i think i can name him my number one. greg just makes me very weak fucking fight me

(rest is under a read more cause man there ended up being a lot of things lol)

2. favorite current female wrestler god this one is. so much harder tbh. i love so many girls but i also dont know if ive really ever picked any faves from the current rosters. tho now that i think about it, i might just have to give it to deonna purrazzo? shes amazing and watching her recently has been an absolute treat, god what a queen

5. favorite tag team why would you do this to me. how am i supposed to choose. my brain is fighting over so many rn but i think. it has to go to breezango? theyve been so entertaining since the very beginning and i still very dearly love these bois, they are talented as hell and deserved so much better than what they were given tbh

13. the best looking diva female superstar i can answer this one again since theres a many lol (i say and immediately my brain locks up as i cant think of anyone LOL)

buuuut lets do zelina. cause she makes me gay and shes tiny and just. helluva cute. fight me. also a literal queen so hell yes we stan

14. the best looking superstar uuuUUUH. fuck do i need to pick another one LOL

lets go to the other end of the spectrum, kip sabian! hes cute, i love his hair, his smile could destroy me for days, CROP TOPS and. i dont mean to objectify but dat ass tho

16. the best gimmick i already talked about seth so lemme bounce around a bit and mention mjf

not only is he better than you (and you know it). but he takes that to such extremes its amazing and hilarious at the same time. hes so over the top it works perfectly for him, and how he keeps the kayfabe going outside the ring too is fucking fantastic. hell he literally puts his own parents on blast on social media sometimes its fucking wonderful. he absolutely owns that shit, despite not being like the top guy of the company or even having held any titles recently, but there he just goes - being better than anyone else cause fuck you thats why. its fucking amazing i tell you lol

19. the best mic worker god theres. probably like ten million people i could mention in this one lol. im just trying to think who i love listen to speak honestly, but im trying not to be biased to my. other tastes lol (looking at you jay, i love your accent but my god it gets hot in here when you get angy and that doesnt work for this one LOL)

..you know what i think i gotta give this to cm punk. thats kinda outside the box for me but its also a very obvious answer, cause this man is very good tho. the way he speaks speaks volume and the way he talks is high key just mesmerizing. you just gotta listen to every word he says whether you like it or not. and im not even talking about the legendary promos rn, but just in general. this man is a god on the mic honestly

24. which wrestler would you like to see make a return? oh my god.. well i mean. define a return tbh. if we're talking about ppl that have retired officially, im heavily leaning towards aj lee tbh cause man i miss her in the ring.

if we're talking about just someone that hasnt been in the ring for a while due to, well you know, company bullshit releases. definitely breezango. i know dango is active but i havent seen him in anything cause im too lazy to try to look for stuff, but breeze hasnt done anything and im like. pls my boi come back i miss you and your precious face and in-ring abilities :(

(..also do kip and trent count for this like they are both out with injuries and i miss them both dearly i need my dumb bois back on screen pls)

26. one unpopular opinion of yours. ..impact is the best wrestling there is on television right now. dont even fucking @ me you know im right LOL

27. who do you consider underrated? ..how much can i repeat myself if i say kip sabian? man is hella talented, absolutely unrecognized about it, and he deserves the world. also a huge ass sweetheart and im just ugh. pls return soon kip ive seen your 'underrated and over it' stuff i need you back to kick ass soon plEASE

28. what about an over-rated wrestler? how many toes am i ready to step on is the question LOL. im gonna take the easy way out on this and just say charlotte, i never really got behind her hype and while im not denying her talent or anything, i just think theres more deserving girls in the roster that could easily take her place and at least slow down her title reigns cause man. i get it live up to the dad hype cause you brother couldnt but holy shit creative calm the fuck down okay

30. you get to make your own stable. who would it consist of? what is their name? listen i think we already know im bad at names so im just completely gonna sidestep that one LOL. also im taking this question as like. who would i put in a stable together, and not as who i would be in a stable together with, so lets roll with that lol

..tho ive been sitting on this for fucking ten minutes now and my brain is completely empty. get back to me about this at some point maybe i'll eventually have an answer for you lol

37. if you were on the original nxt who would you choose as your pro? are we only including ppl in that timeframe or can i pick whoever i want? cause if its whoever, its sami zayn. he has a style i adore, i feel like that would include some really fun on-camera chemistry, and he would either just enjoy being there or make it into a very dramatic "reality tv" which would also be fucking hilarious. also its sami, its a really good chance to actually learn something really valuable even tho this isnt like. probably actually couching and shit but you know. i'd never miss that chance tho

39. what is your best wrestling related memory? can i name three? cause i think i have three lol 1. when i introduced this interest to my wife like last year. im very selfconcious when it comes to telling ppl about my interests that are kinda out there, cause ive been dealing with a lot of shit that comes with it for a loooong time tbh, but its a huge part of me and shes my best irl friend and i was like. im gonna do it she can judge me all she wants. and she got SO into it and was super excited that i shared this with her and we watched a whole lot of stuff that weekend and everything was super great. god i love her

2. my first ever live show. so wwe took like a ten year break between coming to finland, and then they decided to show up again in 2019. now me and my brother are both adults compared to the last time they were here, we were both making our own income and were like FUCK IT LETS GO. and thus we ended up in our first ever live show. i still fucking tear up thinking that oh my god i saw all these peeps live. i was one of the few people (there was like. four of us, me and my brother and some kiddos across the arena) chanting 'sami zayn sucks' which is still one of my fondest memories ngl LOL. such an emotional and amazing night, would do again in a heartbeat and i dont even watch this company anymore lol

and 3. those two nights we watched battle in the valley with @ss-trashboat (feels high key weird to tag you in this since you asked this LOL). the first night the whole karl thing happened and i fucking lost my mind, you literally heard me cry on voice. and the second night just. as a whole. seeing buddy again after months since his release, you freaking out over will, just juice, both of us losing it over jay. and being sleep deprived to hell and back on both nights cause lol timezones and just man. i love wrestling and i love you so much this whole thing honestly meant so much to me im ah <33

wrestling asks ~

#ss-trashboat #thank you for asking! <3 #have i rambled enough am i now free lol #also putting this under read more cause theres. a lot. sorry not sorry woo

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