I'm a huge fan of your fic Canary and something I think about A LOT is the conversation Marinette and Tim had in the vents about her not being able to "turn off" her manipulativeness. Because you're so fucking right. I literally cried about it to my therapist because it's the first time I've actually felt so understood? I'm definitely not saying being manipulative is good, and I've been working on that part of myself for a while now (since my mother figure called me a manipulative sociopath in middle school), but you're so right that when you know how to act/what to say to get what you want its... difficult to interact with people without fear of being disingenuous. And then I make the wrong decisions because I don't want people to think I'm trying to manipulate them. I've come a long way from the worst of it though, I highly recommend my therapists to Marinette 😂 Now that I think about it, I think that's one of the reasons my love language is touch.

ANYWAY thank you for your amazing fic ❤❤❤❤️❤️ I love it so much, rogue!Marinette is a queen and girlboss, and you've gotten me to leave Daminette in favor of Timinette/Timari ☕️

What's this? An excuse to talk about one of my favorite scenes I've ever written? Ohoho~

A little more seriously, I actually have a lot of manipulative tendencies of my own (thanks dad) and, though, I've been working on it for quite a while, I still slip up. Writing that scene was very cathartic, especially since I've hardly ever seen manipulativeness treated as a(n adaptive) trait and not something to be demonized inherently. It's not a good thing, but I don't think it's fair to tell people that are genuinely working on it to simply "get better". When someone is overly jealous you give them time and resources to recover, why is manipulativeness seen as somehow different?

I also really like how I described it. Usually when you get a character like Canary (think Sophie from Leverage) they'll describe getting better as "taking off masks until, eventually, you're left only with the real me"... which is pretty accurate overall to the experience of letting go of personas, but, at least in my experience, manipulativeness kind of becomes you. It becomes hard to separate out and get rid of. It's not really as simple as an on-off switch, because if you choose to actively "turn it off" you're still suppressing a part of yourself in order to seem more palatable, which is also manipulative.

Basically, getting better is a process and it takes a lot of time to unlearn things. Manipulative tendencies are often developed in response to your home environment growing up. The day we start treating manipulativeness as a trauma response is still pretty far away, but I hope one day it'll be easier.

.................

On a lighter note, Marinette is indeed girlbossing and Timari is the ship.

suggestion do you have... any wants? like obviously you do but like? suggestion my guy my ourple boy. both the easiest and hardest to write. you need a skill to say something to move conversation along but it doesn't fit any skill in particular? about 80% of the time you can have suggestion say it and it will make sense. but like actually characterizing him... how do i define you dude... what makes your character tick... urgh. i dont get you yet. im trying to understand but you are difficult.

This is how this went right?

Parallax!Hal: I miss being a hero... wish I had my ring back

Kyle: oh well you can have mine then! That way you can have a second chance : )

Parallax!Hal: YES!!! A SECOND CHANCE TO PLAY GOD AND RESHAPE THE WORLD AS I WILL IT MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Kyle, now ringless: .................huh. im gonna be honest here I really didn't see that coming

putting myslef on blast for no reason but i've only had one major relationship and it was for like 3 years from high school into the first semester of college and then in like a 2 month window they cheated on me with like 3 ppl simultaneously and then tried to spin it as forming a poly relationship, as if that's something you can just Do without any kind of input from your Current Long term partner and the sting of that betrayal is never gonna heal imo, like in my more forgetful moments i'll be like "Oh if I'd done X maybe they'd still be in my life and they could see how good I'm doing rn" and i have to remind myself that actually everything i've achieved has been directly in spite of them and the 2 year crushing depression they left me in right at the start of my college education, this concludes the Erika secret lore dump <3

complaints like "my character wouldn't do this" about key elements of an optional narrative are always so weird to me like what do you mean not everyone treats their first playthrough of an RPG as a rough draft to use to figure out what kinda character would best suit their preferred storyline and love interest?

anyone remember when we were promised 3 c!ranboo lore streams, the first one revealed some of his suppressed enderwalk memories that hinted at his cooperation with c!dream and then we never got any info about that stuff ever again?

deeply unproductive therapy visit today lads

for me… FOR ME..!!! and for shri’iia specifically the lock in for astarion’s romance is his graveyard scene in act 3.

i think it is too quick for shri’iia to be moving on to another relationship considering her previous one was with her mistress who essentially groomed and isolated her for like … more than hundred years. learning to chase her own desires and not moulding herself to what anyone wants her to be is something so new to her…!!! and something that she’s still learning how to be comfortable with….

and what I like abt romancing astarion with her is that I usually go for the dialogue path in his act 2 confession scene where you can ask him:

- what do YOU want to do?

and he goes like honestly idk what we’re doing but /this/ is nice. it just feels like two people exploring the option to love for the first time and taking things in their own pace rather than jumping straight into the relationship. they’re going at a snails pace… they don’t know what they’re doing but they like this feeling and the vibe and they want to more of it but they’re not ready to commit to anything yet and it’s fine for them …!! and they’re only committing by the end in the graveyard scene where significant time has passed and they’ve learnt a little more about themselves and they’re both more confident about their own desires and also how they want to be loved.

like it is so fitting I think… and sweet… not to mention astarion being a high elf & a vampire and shri’iia being a drow, they have all the time of the world for themselves so I def think they would want to take their time. except if shri’iia turns into a mindflayer or drider by the end then that plan is out the window lol

no one asked, but fic updates and falloutober are postponed indefinitely while i deal with being dragged into my parents' shitshow

thing from last night. yeah val is being edgy again sorry about that

.

one of my favorite cryptid/monster creation theories is that something, even if it was entirely made up, becomes real purely because people believe it enough, and I keep thinking about that in relation to henry's powers/the way he wanted to change the world

like, rather than it being actual timeline splitting or time travel in order to change things (thinking specifically of that shot of him rewinding the grandfather clock, literally manipulating time), it's just like... he wills these things to happen because he believed hard enough in it? if that makes sense?

like he still has powers, that's all real, but rather than it being actual time manipulation, it's closer to like... faulty or changed memories that then retroactively become real. as a tiny example, like brenner's hair inexplicably changing style or graying too fast is just bc henry remembered it wrong, but that doesn't mean it's not real

i just feel like it's an interesting thought since henry leaned so heavily into making false memories or interactions with his victims (chrissy's mom in the bathroom, the cop saying he recognized fred, max seeing her mom after leaving the letters for her family) but they all stemmed from the truth, and perhaps could have become real if the victims believed it hard enough and gave in to their pain and fear

idk! like... i feel like it would be a cool twist to have it be a manipulation of memories that retroactively changes stuff, but the old version still leaks through, rather than it directly being like time travel and stuff

the way the passing of time and circumstances changing can simultaneously feel deeply painful and utterly healing

having marital problems in a long term friendship can be so thorny

feelings are so complex

god it honestly pisses me off to no end that my work acts like I'm crazy for speaking out about how stupid it is that we have to check our rosters on a shitty tablet after every single client. they will say that with a straight face as if I'm some kind of idiot. I should blow up our headquarters 🤨